Friday 31 July 2009
It's all relative, innit?!!?!
Anyway, I'm in the process of writing a Book. Capitals necessary. It's all about cathode ray tubes and alternative dimensions and it's based in 1913. I'm only a short way into it but I thought I'd say this as I find it all VERRRRRRYYYY IINNNTTERRRRRRRESTING
I was on holiday and...
http://www.moolf.com/animals/one-of-the-rarest-frogs-in-the-world.html
QUICK! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
Oh, it's endangered. I'd best leave it alone. Quite cute in a way. In fact I'd quite happily take one hoALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
QUICK! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
Oh, it's endangered. I'd best leave it alone. Quite cute in a way. In fact I'd quite happily take one hoALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
Wednesday 22 July 2009
A rather funky explanation of how general relativity works
Pretty damn cool, actually.
I remember drawing lines on an orange to try to explain to someone how there were more than three dimensions in the real world and how Euclidean geometry just didn't work. I also tried to explain things using a lemon suspended in a fish tank: shake the tank but all the pips stay in one place inside the lemon, despite the movement of the lemon.
I wonder if there are any more fruit-based visual aids to relativity?
I remember drawing lines on an orange to try to explain to someone how there were more than three dimensions in the real world and how Euclidean geometry just didn't work. I also tried to explain things using a lemon suspended in a fish tank: shake the tank but all the pips stay in one place inside the lemon, despite the movement of the lemon.
I wonder if there are any more fruit-based visual aids to relativity?
Thursday 16 July 2009
Watch what you eat, folks!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327171.200-the-calorie-delusion-why-food-labels-are-wrong.html?full=true
A wonderful, wonderful article by those folk at New Scientist who seem to be bucking the trend these days: this highlights the inherent errors in food labeling and points out the need to judge the content of food based on how much processing it has undergone, or the method of cooking.
It’s a particularly enlightening piece, especially when you read about the reptile metabolism experiments: raw steak provided fewer available calories and as such increased metabolic rate… the net calorie intake is therefore lower than that of processed, cooked steak.
The flip-side of course is this: don’t go eating raw meat, it will make you sick.
Mind you, I wouldn’t do that anyway, seeing as I’m a vegetarian. On that note, I seem to remember in the dim and distant past several people criticizing the late Linda McCartney's range of vegetarian food for being overly processed and remarkably fattening.
The moral of the story is this: fresh fruit and vegetables, organic meat, cereals, pulses and nuts are probably a whole lot better for you than the alternatives, and they are even healthier if you are careful about how you cook them. I would suggest that steaming or stir-frying would be better than deep fried.
Duh…
Of course, without cooking and processing food hugely then our brains might not have evolved to the state that they are now. Ya can’t win.
A wonderful, wonderful article by those folk at New Scientist who seem to be bucking the trend these days: this highlights the inherent errors in food labeling and points out the need to judge the content of food based on how much processing it has undergone, or the method of cooking.
It’s a particularly enlightening piece, especially when you read about the reptile metabolism experiments: raw steak provided fewer available calories and as such increased metabolic rate… the net calorie intake is therefore lower than that of processed, cooked steak.
The flip-side of course is this: don’t go eating raw meat, it will make you sick.
Mind you, I wouldn’t do that anyway, seeing as I’m a vegetarian. On that note, I seem to remember in the dim and distant past several people criticizing the late Linda McCartney's range of vegetarian food for being overly processed and remarkably fattening.
The moral of the story is this: fresh fruit and vegetables, organic meat, cereals, pulses and nuts are probably a whole lot better for you than the alternatives, and they are even healthier if you are careful about how you cook them. I would suggest that steaming or stir-frying would be better than deep fried.
Duh…
Of course, without cooking and processing food hugely then our brains might not have evolved to the state that they are now. Ya can’t win.
Tuesday 14 July 2009
Is Big Pharma bad or just misunderstood?
I saw this article last week, and quite enjoyed it at the time. But then after a great deal more thinking I realised that it wasn’t such a great piece of journalism after all.
Basically it’s a fairly disparaging piece about Big Pharma, and their common practice of filing as many European patents for one drug as possible. It seems a pretty cynical ploy, designed to wring as much cash out of a single molecular entity as possible, and let’s face it Big Pharma is actually a very easy target to get stuck into when you think about it. I know, I’ve thought about it for fourteen years.
When I thought deeper about it though I must confess I actually feel some sympathy for the companies – never in my darkest days did I think that would be possible, but another recent Grauniad article brought this home. Paul McCartney still has to pay royalties to the Michael Jackson Estate if he wants to play any of the Beatles back catalogue, apparently. If one looks at it as a question of ownership and copyright then things seem a little clearer.
A drug I worked on many years ago had been developed by Bristol Myers Squibb; it had been disclosed in the literature and so they owned that little piece of metabolic pie, so to speak. But then they sold it to another company because they could not or would not pay for a phase III trial. As a consequence they lost ownership of a rather nifty drug but in return for stacks of cash, and the contract they signed basically gave away the patents for that drug. I can’t remember who picked up the tab, but on a personal note I know they’ve got a winner there, whoever they are.
Let us use a different analogy: JK Rowling writes a book, has a few characters in there who all appear rather distinctive: a boy wizard with glasses and a scar, a big hairy man, someone who cannot be named, that sort of thing. If I were to write a book with the same (or at least startlingly similar characters) and somehow it got into print I would then have to pay Ms Rowling a substantial percentage of my earnings from that book, simply because I have breached her copyright.
The European patents that drug companies are filing are essentially a way of reinforcing that copyright – it is actually all too easy for a chemist with a decent knowledge of how patents work to find a way around the filing and create a “novel” molecule. The eighties and nineties were full of “me-too” drugs, so I don’t really need to go into details. Therefore Big Pharma takes great care to detail as many synthesis steps, as many analogues and as many disease targets as is relevant and possible. They are all too afraid of someone doing a “patent-bust” and creating another me-too.
There is a humanitarian edge to this as well. The European patents are there to try and (futilely, some might say) block the production of generic drugs. Let’s say a company by the name of Astra Zeneca makes an Antimalarial drug, runs the trials and sells it to 3rd world governments. All well and good. Now supposing a factory in another country starts churning out generic copies of this drug which the governments buy at a quarter of the price? Not only would AZ be cross about the cut in income (it will have cost a lot to develop and trial the damn thing as well!) but there would be an additional worry.
Many of these generics are poor quality or low dose, which can all too frequently lead to drug resistance and the rise of “superbugs”; malaria is but one example. Big Pharma at least is required to undergo bioequivalence and quality control testing. Plus, as evil as Big Pharma is, it doesn’t want to lose patients.
Hence my sympathy with Big Pharma this time around. Unfortunately the Grauniad is guilty of shoddy journalism this time.
Basically it’s a fairly disparaging piece about Big Pharma, and their common practice of filing as many European patents for one drug as possible. It seems a pretty cynical ploy, designed to wring as much cash out of a single molecular entity as possible, and let’s face it Big Pharma is actually a very easy target to get stuck into when you think about it. I know, I’ve thought about it for fourteen years.
When I thought deeper about it though I must confess I actually feel some sympathy for the companies – never in my darkest days did I think that would be possible, but another recent Grauniad article brought this home. Paul McCartney still has to pay royalties to the Michael Jackson Estate if he wants to play any of the Beatles back catalogue, apparently. If one looks at it as a question of ownership and copyright then things seem a little clearer.
A drug I worked on many years ago had been developed by Bristol Myers Squibb; it had been disclosed in the literature and so they owned that little piece of metabolic pie, so to speak. But then they sold it to another company because they could not or would not pay for a phase III trial. As a consequence they lost ownership of a rather nifty drug but in return for stacks of cash, and the contract they signed basically gave away the patents for that drug. I can’t remember who picked up the tab, but on a personal note I know they’ve got a winner there, whoever they are.
Let us use a different analogy: JK Rowling writes a book, has a few characters in there who all appear rather distinctive: a boy wizard with glasses and a scar, a big hairy man, someone who cannot be named, that sort of thing. If I were to write a book with the same (or at least startlingly similar characters) and somehow it got into print I would then have to pay Ms Rowling a substantial percentage of my earnings from that book, simply because I have breached her copyright.
The European patents that drug companies are filing are essentially a way of reinforcing that copyright – it is actually all too easy for a chemist with a decent knowledge of how patents work to find a way around the filing and create a “novel” molecule. The eighties and nineties were full of “me-too” drugs, so I don’t really need to go into details. Therefore Big Pharma takes great care to detail as many synthesis steps, as many analogues and as many disease targets as is relevant and possible. They are all too afraid of someone doing a “patent-bust” and creating another me-too.
There is a humanitarian edge to this as well. The European patents are there to try and (futilely, some might say) block the production of generic drugs. Let’s say a company by the name of Astra Zeneca makes an Antimalarial drug, runs the trials and sells it to 3rd world governments. All well and good. Now supposing a factory in another country starts churning out generic copies of this drug which the governments buy at a quarter of the price? Not only would AZ be cross about the cut in income (it will have cost a lot to develop and trial the damn thing as well!) but there would be an additional worry.
Many of these generics are poor quality or low dose, which can all too frequently lead to drug resistance and the rise of “superbugs”; malaria is but one example. Big Pharma at least is required to undergo bioequivalence and quality control testing. Plus, as evil as Big Pharma is, it doesn’t want to lose patients.
Hence my sympathy with Big Pharma this time around. Unfortunately the Grauniad is guilty of shoddy journalism this time.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Funny old week...
Massive outpourings of grief over the death of some 50-year-old mentally ill man.
Mass hysteria over a strain of a common virus.
National panic over weather that would not be out of place in New England (see the weather back in January as well).
Human males to become extinct.
It's all going to pot. On a more serious note,
do crabs have rights? Surely it depends on how delicious they are?
Mass hysteria over a strain of a common virus.
National panic over weather that would not be out of place in New England (see the weather back in January as well).
Human males to become extinct.
It's all going to pot. On a more serious note,
do crabs have rights? Surely it depends on how delicious they are?
Thursday 9 July 2009
Blind with rage.
Got knocked off my bike last night. So I'm a bit cross at the moment. It was some bloke in a BMW I think, so I'm more than happy (despite my gender) to suggest that the artificial sperm idea might actually be a good idea. Down with men!
Tuesday 7 July 2009
One step closer to unification
A couple of years ago I was given the most excellent book, The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin.
Briefly, it outlines many of the problems that String Theorists have faced: what was once the most elegant of potential Great Unification Theories lost itself and couldn't be reconciled with many of the various theories and proofs that had gone before. Depends on how many dimensions you can fit into an atom. Probably.
I don't claim to understand any of it, but it's a cracking good read if you like this sort of thing: Brief History of Time, etc. Anyway, there's a group at Leiden University who claim that they can actually marry String theory with Quantum theory , all to do with materials becoming super-conductive at high temperatures, rather than extremely low ones. And while we haven't exactly been given the answers to the universe, these findings do actually demonstrate that String Theory may have a place in physics after all.
Oh, and if you happen to go to Amazon to look for Lee Smolin's book, have a look at this one as well for a bit of light reading and mighty amusement. Be sure to check out the reviews. And make sure you wear your 3 wolf T-shirt while you're doing so. It will make you the greatest theoretical physicist ever.
Perhaps not.
Briefly, it outlines many of the problems that String Theorists have faced: what was once the most elegant of potential Great Unification Theories lost itself and couldn't be reconciled with many of the various theories and proofs that had gone before. Depends on how many dimensions you can fit into an atom. Probably.
I don't claim to understand any of it, but it's a cracking good read if you like this sort of thing: Brief History of Time, etc. Anyway, there's a group at Leiden University who claim that they can actually marry String theory with Quantum theory , all to do with materials becoming super-conductive at high temperatures, rather than extremely low ones. And while we haven't exactly been given the answers to the universe, these findings do actually demonstrate that String Theory may have a place in physics after all.
Oh, and if you happen to go to Amazon to look for Lee Smolin's book, have a look at this one as well for a bit of light reading and mighty amusement. Be sure to check out the reviews. And make sure you wear your 3 wolf T-shirt while you're doing so. It will make you the greatest theoretical physicist ever.
Perhaps not.
The lie that is BMI
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439&sc=fb&cc=fp
Having worked for a few years in obesity / cardiovascular biology and also struggling with my own weight and health, I came to the conclusion many years ago that the Body Mass Index was a big ball of dung. For the life of me I couldn't get to a BMI of less than 27 - it became an obsession - even though I was dieting, exercising and doing everything right. But the article I've linked to points out very succinctly that the BMI does not take into account tissue content. Bone and muscle all contribute and therefore should be adjusted for.
Why, in that case, have doctors failed to dismiss the BMI in favour of something like impedance or DEXA to measure body content combined with serum cholesterol and blood pressure? Maybe this is what they're doing, but every clinic I walk into STILL has that damn BMI chart. Burn them! Burn them all!
Having worked for a few years in obesity / cardiovascular biology and also struggling with my own weight and health, I came to the conclusion many years ago that the Body Mass Index was a big ball of dung. For the life of me I couldn't get to a BMI of less than 27 - it became an obsession - even though I was dieting, exercising and doing everything right. But the article I've linked to points out very succinctly that the BMI does not take into account tissue content. Bone and muscle all contribute and therefore should be adjusted for.
Why, in that case, have doctors failed to dismiss the BMI in favour of something like impedance or DEXA to measure body content combined with serum cholesterol and blood pressure? Maybe this is what they're doing, but every clinic I walk into STILL has that damn BMI chart. Burn them! Burn them all!
Monday 6 July 2009
Some rather funky photos, including that volcano one again
The Grauniad's put some satellite photos from NASA up on its website, rather good ones, too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/03/satellite-eye-on-earth-june?picture=349739629
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/03/satellite-eye-on-earth-june?picture=349739629
Friday 3 July 2009
A quick trawl of the stories I find VERRRYY INNNTERRRESSSSTING
They’ve found more creatures that perished in Noah’s Flood in Queensland, apparently. That’ll be dinosaurs, then. We have Banjo, a carnivore, Matilda and Clancy, two herbivores, all named after Waltzing Matilda but not nearly as wonderfully named as Muttaburrasaurus.
On a slightly related note, as I was looking at the various diseases that are afflicting the nation (Ronnie Biggs has MRSA, everyone!) there was an article about an extremely ancient alternative therapy: ground up dragon bones used in Chinese medicine. Those guys!
Seriously, we’re all going to die. How many cases of Swine Flu in August? Take care, Ronnie Biggs, you’re not a healthy man. You’d have thought with all this hot weather flu wouldn’t be an issue, but now it seems even the buses are turning into incubators.
One final thing, and I honestly thought this was a joke story, but it seems the Scots are keen to recycle the oil from the deep fat fryers. First thought, very good, very ecologically sound, I thought it was a biodiesel alternative, but no. I was wrong, and so is this. I mean… as a tanning agent? Wrong on so many levels.
On a slightly related note, as I was looking at the various diseases that are afflicting the nation (Ronnie Biggs has MRSA, everyone!) there was an article about an extremely ancient alternative therapy: ground up dragon bones used in Chinese medicine. Those guys!
Seriously, we’re all going to die. How many cases of Swine Flu in August? Take care, Ronnie Biggs, you’re not a healthy man. You’d have thought with all this hot weather flu wouldn’t be an issue, but now it seems even the buses are turning into incubators.
One final thing, and I honestly thought this was a joke story, but it seems the Scots are keen to recycle the oil from the deep fat fryers. First thought, very good, very ecologically sound, I thought it was a biodiesel alternative, but no. I was wrong, and so is this. I mean… as a tanning agent? Wrong on so many levels.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Slight qualification
OK, maybe not ALL over 50's. But it's on a par with the fluoride in the drinking water thing.
Lies, damned lies and statins. Well, maybe not lies...
Oh, my eyes! There’s no cure for looking at the Daily Mail, is there? Oh, I feel so dirty.
I couldn’t help but spot this article, recommending the compulsory treatment of the over 50’s with statins, a group of compounds known to inhibit hydroxy-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase), an enzyme key to the production of cholesterol in the body. The chap responsible for this mass-dosing plea in the UK is the heart czar Roger Boyle, who has been championing the prescription of statins since… well, since he was appointed.
There is no doubt in my mind that statins can benefit people who are:
1) Male
2) Diagnosed with atherosclerosis
3) Have high (>7 mmol) serum cholesterol
4) At risk of heart failure
…but I think a general catch-all 50+ strategy might be flawed. Malcolm Kendrick makes a pretty good case against here.
Boyle does not appear to be an advocate of that old favourite, diet and exercise. Certainly he would appear to side with the drug therapy side of things. I’m almost tempted to try a bit of investigative journalism to see if he’s lobbied by any drug companies.
By the way, Simvastatin is a good example of the grapefruit juice effect. Patients on this particular statin are very clearly advised not to eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice. Ever.
I couldn’t help but spot this article, recommending the compulsory treatment of the over 50’s with statins, a group of compounds known to inhibit hydroxy-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase), an enzyme key to the production of cholesterol in the body. The chap responsible for this mass-dosing plea in the UK is the heart czar Roger Boyle, who has been championing the prescription of statins since… well, since he was appointed.
There is no doubt in my mind that statins can benefit people who are:
1) Male
2) Diagnosed with atherosclerosis
3) Have high (>7 mmol) serum cholesterol
4) At risk of heart failure
…but I think a general catch-all 50+ strategy might be flawed. Malcolm Kendrick makes a pretty good case against here.
Boyle does not appear to be an advocate of that old favourite, diet and exercise. Certainly he would appear to side with the drug therapy side of things. I’m almost tempted to try a bit of investigative journalism to see if he’s lobbied by any drug companies.
By the way, Simvastatin is a good example of the grapefruit juice effect. Patients on this particular statin are very clearly advised not to eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice. Ever.
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