Over on Code for Life, Grant's recently put up some posts concerning homeopathy (here & here, for example). He's also suggested that homeopathic (& other) remedies should carry disclaimers to do with their active ingredients (or lack thereof) and what they can & can't do.

Anyway, one of the common responses to articles critical of homeopathy & other 'complementary & alternative medicines'** is that, even if they 'work' only via the placebo effect, at least they do no harm. I would argue that if the placebo effect masks an ongoing problem, then it is doing harm. And the same is true if patients are led to stop taking necessary medication. But - & I think more seriously - here's an example where following a homeopathic prescription may do considerable damage: homeopathic vaccinations.

I found this XKCD cartoon whlie clearing out my mailbox - I found it via PZ quite a while ago now (so it's probably circumnavigated the world net 3.5 times by now!), but thought it was worth sharing. (Keep an eye out for cuttlefish, Marcus!)

(Many of the XKCD cartoons are hilarious; some I just find quite strange... Must say something about my sense of humour!)

I was at the gym yesterday when I read something in a women's mag that quite put me off my stride on the cross-trainer. (In my defence, I'd forgotten to take a book & the only other reading material on offer was car magazines.) The offending article contained the following factoids: you need to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, if you don't drink it your cells will be sloshing in dirty recycled water, tea & the like won't do - but 'lemon water' will & is especially good because it will alkalise your blood & help you metabolise fats (which your cells store to protect them against acids...).

Hmmm. Let's look at all this through the lens of science - or to put it another way

'Risk intelligence quotient' (RQ) - something I'd heard about but never really thought about until I read one of PZ's posts today. (Where on earth does he find the time to write so much???) Turns out that RQ is the subject of a private research project that hopes to assess levels of risk intelligence in the general population.

Risk intelligence quotient is described by the project's authors as a measure of a person's ability to estimate probabilities accurately - those with a high RQ are better at this task. (They comment that high RQ seems to have been low or missing in action in many lenders & borrowers on the world financial stage in recent times - how true!)

Anyway, they offer a test that you can take to get an estimate of your own RQ. It doesn't matter if you don't know the answer to some of the questions (I will confess that I didn't know many of them, myself). What you're asked to do is give an indication of how certain you are that a given statement is true or false. Takes about 5 minutes to complete & you can then decide whether you want your answers to become part of the larger data set.

I can be fairly sure that my RQ is 73... what's yours?

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PS yes, there are some ambiguous questions there & it's definitely US-centric - but those were the ones where I was most likely to pick 50% & cover all my bases that way!

Those of you who've followed my blog for a while (thanks, guys!) will know that in mid-2009 I farewelled my lovely old labrador Bella - & that after 9 weeks I'd had enough of being dogless & Ben joined our family.

Having Ben hasn't made me forget Bella, of course (I'm as soppy as the next person!). So I rather liked the contents of an e-mail one of my friends sent today & thought I'd share it. (Yes, I know it's been all round the interwebs by now & no, it's not science and not scientific at all, but 'dog people' will know why it clicked.)

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.
I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.
As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.
The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.
The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, 'I know why.'
Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation.
He said, 'People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?' The six-year-old continued, 'Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.'

Today's Herald carried a story from the UK's Telegraph, which looked at some research into the social behaviour of chimpanzees & bonobos ('pigmy' chimanzees). And - as usual - extrapolated from this to people... Grumpiness, it told is, was a sign of a more 'advanced' nature, whereas the happier, more peaceable bonobos were 'less evolved'.

Yesterday we went across to Tauranga to see my in-laws. It was a terrible day for driving; the forecast was for periods of heavy rain & it was pouring down when we arrived. My father-in-law had emptied the rain gauge that morning (23mm, he said), & by 1pm it was back up to 80mm & rising. There was a lot of surface flooding on the road coming home, the roadside drains had turned to foaming brown torrents, and many paddocks were more like pools, with cattle standing close to hedges to avoid at least some of the driving rain.

And seeing those pools my thoughts turned (as they do) - to rotifers.

The family finally got its act together & went to see Avatar. In 3D :-) (Actually our act was arranged by friends, who also organised us into an al fresco meal of fish'n'chips beforehand.) I carefully didn't read anything much about the movie before I went, so I'm aware that what I've got to say has probably been said before - but here goes, anyway.  

Frm PHD Comics (via Pharyngula):

I couldn't agree more :-)

A while ago I wrote a post on the so-called 'miracle mineral supplement', aka MMS. I thought I'd re-post it following an article debunking this nostrum in the Sunday Star-Times. My original post attracted a couple of comments from people claiming that MMS will cure a multitude of ills; I've reproduced them, & my responses, after the re-post.

After reading & commenting on that letter, which attributed health benefits to sodium chlorite, I found my interest had been piqued. Just what has been claimed for this chemical? So I went looking...