Random Thoughts

Health Care Costs: Apparently It's Our Fault.

A recent LiveScience article argues that part of the problem in health care costs is the poor dietary and health habits those in the U.S. have.   "Americans get sick more. Why? Some argue that rather than an effective healthcare system, the United Sta ...

Blog Post - Gerhard Adam - Sep 22 2009 - 2:20pm

The Say of the Week

" I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteins' brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops ". Stephen Jay Gould ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 24 2009 - 11:19am

Happy Punctuation Day!

Happy. punctuation day; everyone! 1 1 Technically the 6th National Punctuation Day was yesterday, but I was still recovering from tuberculosis/black plague, so I'm a day late. ...

Blog Post - Becky Jungbauer - Sep 25 2009 - 10:47pm

If Airlines were armies...

If  Airlines were armies, United and Lufthansa would be invincible. Their meals betray it-you know, the stronger an army, the worse the food it distributes. I am just out of a flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, and not only all my bones are complaining, but ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 25 2009 - 11:17pm

BlackBerry apps that rock

I have been a CrackBerry user for several years, and am rarely seen without it in my hand or on my belt. Last week I traded my 8700 for the Bold (9000)-- wow, what a good move! The Bold is faster, sleeker, and has 3G capabilities for functions that I would ...

Blog Post - T. Ryan Gregory - Sep 30 2009 - 8:03pm

Late Morning Science Quote

The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific "truth." But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come fr ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Sep 28 2009 - 11:00am

Nature Authors Going For Eloquence

Not a bad way to end a paper: The past is difficult to recover because it was built on the foundation of its own history, one irrevocably different from that of the present and its many possible futures. From "An epistatic ratchet constrains the direc ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Sep 29 2009 - 3:00pm

"Life Energy" Isn't Real

Polly Toynbee has written a great article titled Quackery and superstition- available soon on the NHS "A sharp line has to be drawn between fact and fiction when it comes to spending public funds on alternative therapies". The full article is av ...

Blog Post - Ben Morrish - Oct 3 2009 - 7:27am

In The Beginning- A Rough Guide To A Physicalist View Of Everything

Following on from a debate I had some time ago, in relation to alternative medicine (see my " Life Energy " rant) I tried to summarise the materialist view of the universe, to try and explain the reasoning behind my objection to use of the term ...

Article - Ben Morrish - Oct 3 2009 - 9:19am

A Gym For The Brain?

I was reading Charlie Brooker's excellent column in The Guardian and was disappointed to learn that our educational system, underfunded though it is, seems to have bought into the wave of pseudo-scientific nonsense that is washing over us and is payin ...

Article - Ben Morrish - Oct 3 2009 - 9:57am