Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 12.21

  • Steamed va-jay-jay! Get your fresh steamed  va-jay-jay! – “Pungent steam rises from a boiling pot of a mugwort tea blended with wormwood and a variety of other herbs. Above it sits a nude woman on an open-seated stool, partaking in a centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West.”
  • Girl chimps may use sticks as dolls – “The findings, reported in the Dec. 21 Current Biology, are the first documented evidence of boy and girl primates in the wild playing differently with their toys.” From Luciano and cerberus40.
  • So much biology fail – According to what this guy wrote to PZ, the definition of species means that scientists don’t think children are humans. From Gabriel.
  • The human incubator – “Aspects of kangaroo care are now in use even in wealthy countries — most hospitals in the United States, for example, have adopted some kangaroo care practices. But its real impact has been felt in poor countries, where it has saved countless preemies’ lives and helped others to survive with fewer problems.”

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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21 Comments

  1. The biology fail one.

    Wow!

    I just…

    Wow!

    Someone who follows Kent Hovind asking that we, “destroy the false teachings which make such a store thrive.”

    Thats not exactly irony, but could someone get Alanis Morissette on the phone?

  2. …the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

    Until I got to the Korean remedy part, I assumed this was an installation in some gallery at the center of some NEA funding scandal.

    *sigh* I miss Jesse Helms.

  3. I and my liver continue to be offended at the notion that my (or any) body is somehow “toxic”, and that the only way it can be “detoxified” is through some external magic.

  4. As to the vaginal steam baths, this does come from same place where my parents learned to tie off my fingertips and prick them with a needle when I had a bad headache as a kid. I imagine that a regular steam bath would similarly produce “fewer body aches and more energy”.

    Not much is sketchier than a folk remedy health claim from Korea…except maybe Alex Chiu’s immortality magnets.

  5. The vaginal steam bath has to be a joke. This has to be like the thing that was making the rounds years back about the translation of Hollywood film titles to other languages. Wasn’t Batman and Robin supposed to be somthing like Come up to my cave for good fun young man? This just can’t be real. It is way to perposterous.

  6. @scribe999: Yeah, I had that finger prick thing done to me a few times when I lived there. Mostly for stomach aches though.

    For me the regular flood of “eat this food, it cleans the blood,” or “eat this food, it’s good for stamina,” or “eat this, it’s good for ______” was pretty amusing. It never stopped.

  7. @Zapski: Strangely, blood cleanliness rarely extended to quitting cigarettes or cutting off the alcohol in my family. And people wonder why I’m skeptical of “Eastern Medicine”.

  8. Chai-yok (roughly translated) means “Stupid trendy shit rich bitches pay for with big bucks.”

    Is there no end to what crazy useless crap some people will decide is necessary? We should come up with something equally as stupid and charge exorbitant amounts as a fundraiser for something worthwhile.

  9. @scribe999: Yeah, I noticed that kind of thing too. It’s an interesting place to live, and I kind of miss it. Great food, beautiful mountains… I had a good two years there.

    @spellwight: I do own theraphren.com, for the “Therapeutic Phrenology” clinic I’d love to open. Hit people on the head with little hammers so they get the personality traits they want.

    What could be better than hitting people on the head for money?

  10. @BeardofPants: Yeah, I noticed that too. Out of all the failed analogies I came up with for that argument I like this one best: It’s like saying colonic irrigation is better than regularly eating bottle brushes, neither is a necessary activity.

  11. I know a restaurant in Michigan that offered “Hot steaming fajitas” on their menu, which seems relevant to one of these stories, especially the way my friends and I pronounced the name of that dish.

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