Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

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Indian shaman ‘poisons women in witchcraft test’

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

An Indian shaman who allegedly forced women to drink a potion to prove they were not witches has been arrested.

Nearly 30 women fell ill after they were rounded up in Shivni village in central Chhattisgarh state on Sunday and made to drink the herbal brew.

A senior police officer told the BBC that six villagers had also been arrested.

Witch hunts targeting women are common in east and central India, and a number of accused are killed every year.

Most of the cases take place in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

Police spokesman Rajesh Joshi told the BBC that an 18-year-old villager was accused of witchcraft because she had been unwell.

“Her father Sitaram Rathod and other villagers suspected that it [her illness] could be due to an evil spell cast by a witch,” Mr Joshi said.

“They [the villagers] called for an ojha [witch doctor] to ward off the spell.”

Authorities said the shaman, named as Bhagwan Deen, had been helped by a few other residents as he rounded up nearly all the adult women in the centre of the village.

He concocted the potion test after conducting rituals which failed to expose the alleged witch.

“The shaman then forced the women to consume a drink that he had made out of a local poisonous herb,” Mr Joshi said. “He said that after drinking the brew, the real witch would voluntarily confess.”

Of the nearly 30 women taken to hospital after the incident, around 25 women have since been discharged.

But police said five remained in hospital, including a 70-year-old woman who was in a serious condition.

– To the original… ➡

Posted in Culture - How not to do it, Mental Irrationality | No Comments »

Somalia’s al-Shabab bans mixed-sex handshake

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Men and women have been banned from shaking hands in a district of Somalia controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab.

Under the ban imposed in the southern town of Jowhar, men and women who are not related are also barred from walking together or chatting in public.

It is the first time such social restrictions have been introduced.

The al-Shabab administration said those who disobeyed the new rules would be punished according to Sharia law.

The BBC’s Mohamed Moalimuu in Mogadishu says the penalty would probably be a public flogging.

The militant group has already banned music in areas that it controls, which include most of central and southern Somalia.

Somalia has not had a stable government since 1991.

The UN-backed government only controls parts of Mogadishu and a few other areas.

– To the original… ➡

Posted in CrashBlogging, Culture - How not to do it, Fundamentalism, Human Rights, Mental Irrationality, Politics - The Wrong Way, Religion - The Wrong Way, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Wonder drug

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

Aspirin continues to amaze

FOR thousands of years aspirin has been humanity’s wonder drug. Extracts from the willow tree have been used for pain relief in folk medicine since the time of the ancient Greeks. By 1897 a synthetic derivative (acetyl salicylic acid) of the plant’s active ingredient (salicin) was created. This allowed aspirin to become the most widely used medicine in the world.

In recent years its benefits as a blood-thinning drug have led to it being prescribed in low doses of around 50mg to reduce deaths from stroke and heart attack. There were also hints that aspirin may help prevent some cancers. But these were mostly based on observational studies, which can be misleading.

The gold standard of scientific evidence is the randomised controlled trial, preferably one with a lot of people and held over a long time. The results of just such a trial, published in the Lancet, suggest that aspirin is indeed an astonishing drug. Peter Rothwell at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and his colleagues looked at deaths due to cancers during and after randomised trials of daily aspirin. The trials had actually been started to look at how useful aspirin was for preventing heart attacks and strokes. Nevertheless, the data from the 25,570 patients enrolled in eight trials was also revealing about cancer.

In trials lasting between four and eight years, the patients who had been given aspirin were 21% less likely to die from cancer than those who had been given a placebo. These results were based on 674 cancer deaths, so are unlikely to represent the kind of statistical oddity that can beset studies on cancer risks that sometimes create headlines.

The benefits of aspirin were also apparent many years after the trials had ended. After five years, death rates for all cancers fell by 35% and for gastrointestinal cancers by 54%. A long-term follow-up of patients showed that the 20-year risk of cancer death remained 20% lower in those who had taken aspirin.

– more… ➡

– research thanks to Tony H.

Posted in Science | No Comments »

NZ women doing well but could do better – report

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

– I love my new country, New Zealand, but it isn’t perfect.   Here and there, the are bits one might wish were better.

– For example: the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the OECD and the fact that binge drinking is out of control here – these are a couple.

– I like their socialized medical system but it at times, it seems to lack the attention to quality and follow though that one comes to expect in places where the threat of law suits drive compliance to protocols and attention to detail.

– New Zealand was the first to give women the vote in the world but, in spite of this liberal reputation, the idea of equal pay for equal work hasn’t caught up here.   Witness the following story:

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New Zealand is doing well in gender equality but women still struggle to gain leadership roles and suffer from high levels of domestic violence, a new report says.

The New Zealand Government reports to the United Nations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) every four years on how well New Zealand women were doing.

Women’s Affairs Minister Hekia Parata released the latest report today.

“We have a high rate of women in paid work – ninth in the OECD – but women are still under-represented in senior positions,” Ms Parata said.

“This is not just a fairness issue, it’s a productivity issue. New Zealand can’t reach its full potential if we’re not making the best use of all the skills we have available to us.”

Women make up 41.5 percent on state sector boards and committees. However the figure is crashingly worse for the 100 companies listed on the New Zealand Stock Market – less than 9 percent of directors as at 2007.

The gender pay gap was proving tough to improve. “(It) has stubbornly sat at around 12 percent for the last decade and there is evidence that gains in relevant areas – such as women’s success in tertiary education – are not automatically leading to women and men being rewarded more equally,” the report said.

Sexual violence and family violence continued to be serious problems, it said.

“There are some signs that we are beginning to change attitudes towards family violence, but there’s a long way to go before we significantly reduce violence against women and children,” Ms Parata said.

– More… ➡

– See also: The Global Gender Gap Report

Posted in Mental Irrationality, The Perfect Storm, Women's Rights | No Comments »

UN climate talks in China end without breakthrough

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

UN climate talks in China have ended without a major breakthrough and with angry words about the US from Beijing.

At the talks in Tianjin, China blamed the US for failing to meet its responsibilities to cut emissions and for trying to overturn UN principles.

The US accused China of refusing to have its voluntary energy savings verified internationally.

But there was some progress toward the next round of climate talks in Mexico in November.

There are hopes that the meeting in Cancun could agree details of a fund to transfer $100bn (£63bn) a year from rich countries to help poor nations cope with the projected consequences of climate change.

That sum is described by developing nations as substantial but inadequate.

‘Preening pig’

It has been the old deadlock in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin during the week-long talks.

China feels unfairly criticised by the US.

On Saturday, one of the Chinese climate negotiators reportedly accused the US of behaving like a preening pig, complaining about Beijing when Washington had done so little itself.

The head of the US delegation, Jonathan Pershing, was more diplomatic.

But he said that there could be no US signature on any binding deal that did not also bind China – America’s superpower rival.

– More… ➡

Posted in Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Mental Irrationality, Rising Ocean Levels, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Canada senate kills climate bill ahead of UN summit

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has defeated a climate change bill calling for cuts in CO2 emissions.

Conservatives killed the motion backed by opposition parties 13 days before a UN climate change summit is held in Cancun.

The bill called for a reduction of greenhouse gases in the country by 25% from 1990 levels.

Canada’s House of Commons originally passed the legislation last year.

It was then reintroduced in May and passed again, before being struck down by the Conservative-led Senate late on Tuesday.

“This is a very sad day for Canada, for the environment, and for the role of Canada in the international stage on dealing with the crisis of climate change,” said New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, adding that he was appalled by the Senate’s decision.

– More… ➡

Posted in Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Mental Irrationality, Rising Ocean Levels, The Perfect Storm, Weather deterioration | No Comments »

For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

HERAT, Afghanistan — Even the poorest families in Afghanistanhave matches and cooking fuel. The combination usually sustains life. But it also can be the makings of a horrifying escape: from poverty, from forced marriages, from the abuse and despondency that can be the fate of Afghan women.

The night before she burned herself, Gul Zada took her children to her sister’s for a family party. All seemed well. Later it emerged that she had not brought a present, and a relative had chided her for it, said her son Juma Gul.

This small thing apparently broke her. Ms. Zada, who was 45, the mother of six children and who earned pitiably little cleaning houses, ended up with burns on nearly 60 percent of her body at the Herat burn hospital. Survival is difficult even at 40 percent.

“She was burned from head to toe,” her son remembers.

The hospital here is the only medical center in Afghanistan that specifically treats victims of burning, a common form of suicide in this region, partly because the tools to do it are so readily available. Through early October, 75 women arrived with burns — most self-inflicted, others only made to look that way. That is up nearly 30 percent from last year.

But the numbers say less than the stories of the patients.

It is shameful here to admit to troubles at home, and mental illness often goes undiagnosed or untreated. Ms. Zada, the hospital staff said, probably suffered from depression. The choices for Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted: Their family is their fate. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom a woman marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her primary job is to serve her husband’s family. Outside that world, she is an outcast.

“If you run away from home, you may be raped or put in jail and then sent home and then what will happen to you?” asked Rachel Reid, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who tracks violence against women.

– More… ➡

Posted in CrashBlogging, Culture - How not to do it, Mental Irrationality, Religion - The Wrong Way, The Perfect Storm, Women's Rights | No Comments »

Alcohol ‘more harmful than heroin’ says Prof David Nutt

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack when the overall dangers to the individual and society are considered, according to a study in the Lancet.

The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former government chief drugs adviser who was sacked in 2009.

It ranked 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society.

Heroin, crack and crystal meth were deemed worst for individuals, with alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine worst for society, and alcohol worst overall.

The study by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs also said tobacco and cocaine were judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD were among the least damaging.

Harm score

Professor Nutt refused to leave the drugs debate when he was sacked from his official post by the former Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson.

He went on to form the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, which says it aims to investigate the drug issue without any political interference.

One of its other members is Dr Les King, another former government adviser who quit over Prof Nutt’s treatment.

Members of the group, joined by two other experts, scored each drug for harms including mental and physical damage, addiction, crime and costs to the economy and communities.

– More… ➡

Posted in Culture - How not to do it, Science | No Comments »

Cosmic Dioramas…

Monday, October 11th, 2010

– Sorry I haven’t been posting.   I’ve been busy of late and just haven’t felt the urge.   But, that’ll change – it always does.  And I mean, it’s not like there’s nothing of interest going on out there, right?

– Here’s one of the more interesting things I’ve read in a science publication lately.

– It provoked an interesting  side conversation with a friend of mine in which he pointed out that he thought that this new concept would prove ephemeral and frustrating in the same way that Cold Fusion and the search to find the physical laws that underpin Emergence have.   I added Memes to that list and wondered if perhaps the reasons we cannot integrate these ideas into the edifice of science as per E. O. Wilson’s notion of Consilience is because we’ve parsed them out of reality the wrong way and are therefore asking non-sense questions.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical questions—are like that.   – C. S. Lewis

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Metamaterials may offer windows into other world

Move over Harry Potter, and take your invisibility cloak with you. Alice’s looking glass may be the latest bit of literary magic worthy of physics laboratories.

Rather than using substances known as metamaterials to hide objects in plain sight, some scientists instead want to use the strange materials to build windows into worlds with fundamentally different physics. Peering in may reveal how other universes operate and how this universe — the one that avid J.K. Rowling and Lewis Carroll readers reside in — could have begun.

Metamaterials can be engineered to have features very different from those of everyday matter. By altering electric and magnetic properties, scientists can make metamaterials that bend, twist or otherwise manipulate light. The power to turn light in unusual ways brought about a cloaking craze and introduced the possibility of superlenses with unprecedented focusing power.

Last year, a group of physicists at the University of California, Berkeley proposed a type of metamaterial that, if built, could trap light the way a black hole does (SN: 10/10/09, p. 10). The math describing processes in that material resembles the equations governing black holes.

Now Igor Smolyaninov of the University of Maryland in College Park has developed additional “strange schemes,” as he calls them. Metamaterials, it turns out, can serve as broader cosmic dio­ramas, manipulating light to replicate the shape of spacetime.

“In metamaterials, we have a situation in which we have optical spacetime,” Smolyaninov says. “And we can engineer the properties of spacetime.”

– More… ➡

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different, Science | 1 Comment »

A New View of Gravity

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Entropy and information may be crucial concepts for explaining roots of familiar force

Explaining gravity to a small child is simple: All you have to say is, what goes up must come down.

Until the kid asks why.

What can you say? It’s just the way things work. All masses attract each other. Maybe to bright middle schoolers you could explain that spacetime is warped by mass. Or, to high schoolers, you could say that without gravity, the laws of physics would differ for people moving at changing velocities. Yet all those increasingly sophisticated answers merely invite another “Why.” As Sir Isaac Newton himself replied in response to similar questions, “hypotheses non fingo.” Which roughly translates as “I don’t have a clue.”

That such a simple question, about so common a phenomenon, has defied a direct answer for centuries might explain why the physics world has been atwitter lately over a novel attempt to resolve the riddle. A flurry of recent papers have examined this new idea, which mixes principles from string theory and black hole physics with basic old-fashioned thermo­dynamics. If this notion is right, gravity turns out to be a special sort of entropy, a result of the same physics that drives matter to give up its organization and order as it succumbs to the laws of probability. Toss in a dash of quantum mechanics and a pinch of information theory, and the universe emerges, governed on a grand scale by pretty much the same principles underlying the elastic pull of a rubber band.

While similar ideas have been suggested before, nobody has expressed the gravity-as-entropy story as intriguingly as theorist Erik Verlinde of the University of Amsterdam in an online paper (arXiv.org/abs/1001.0785v1) that appeared in January. Titled simply “On the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton,” Verlinde’s paper cooks up a mathematical pièce de résistance connecting gravity to thermodynamics. His ingredients include the law of entropy, the physics of black holes and some speculative conjectures on how space stores information about the matter and energy within it. His recipe replicates Newton’s law of gravitational attraction, and then with some additional mathematical seasoning he arrives at Einstein’s general relativity, the modern and undefeated champion of gravity theories. Verlinde’s analysis indicates that gravity emerges from physical dynamics analogous to basic thermodynamic processes. “Using only … concepts like energy, entropy and temperature,” he writes, “Newton’s laws appear naturally and practically unavoidably.”

– More… ➡

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different, Humility, Science | No Comments »

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