ScienceSkepticism
Skepchick Quickies 6.27
- Today is National HIV Testing Day– The CDC reports, “The number of gay men diagnosed with HIV/AIDS is steadily rising, even as infection rates among heterosexuals and drug users have slowed.” If you’re looking for a place to get tested, try hivtest.org.
- Magical weather forecasting stone-Â From Nayelli.
- Uncombable hair syndrome– I wonder if this is what Harry Potter has?
- Olympic mascots causing disaster? – “The five mascots of the Beijing Oympics are each blamed for a recent natural or man-made disaster in China.”
- Accupuncture model from HIstory of Medicine Museum in Paris- I’m a fan of the Repository for Bottled Monsters blog since they focus on my favorite topics, the history of science and medicine. So I’m a bit saddened to read that one of the contributors believes in accupuncture.Â
The mascots do seem an odd choice, even if they’re probably not the towering forces of evil some are taking them for. I had thought they were just some cutesy new revamped representations of the elements, but looking at their full names, it’s all about “Incendiary Strife”, “Unfortunate Wind” (someone else can do the obvious flatulence joke), “Torrent and Flood”, and “Angry Earth”. You can kinda see why some people might not be feeling so kindly towards Jingjing the giant panda after, say, an earthquake that’s killed 69,000 people. They probably wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d just been the Lord of Pleasant Shrubberies, or something.
the accupuncture link is messed up. I believe you have an extra http, an extra .com, and two extra /s in there.
Thanks MyNameIsTim, it was just a doubled url. This is what happens when I have to use IE instead of my beloved Firefox. :)
Cubiksrube- Incendiary Strike? The name of a cute little bear-thing mascot? Can’t decide if that’s creepy or funny.
Evidently, I suffer from “uncombable hair syndrome.” No matter how many times I drag a comb or brush across my head, I remain completely bald.
I think I have uncombable hair syndrome too. I’ve spent much of my life actually looking forward to male pattern baldness. Not there yet, but one day…
Re the acupuncture link — I wonder if that final comment — “I’m a believer” — was sarcasm? Hard to tell on the ‘net.
From the tone of the rest of the paragraph, I’m inclined to say that it’s not sarcasm. Or if it is, it’s not pulled off very well.
My hair was fairly uncombable…back when I had hair that is.
I’m in Peregrine’s camp on this one. Hair thinning was a relief because it became easier to manage and hair loss was even better.
Plus, I look better with little-to-no hair even if I do say so myself…
There have been a few studies recently that have shown acupuncture to be successful in reducing pain for chronic low-back pain sufferers. You can find these in any google search, but here is one example:
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/17/1892?etoc
The kicker here with the vast majority of these studies is that they find no difference between “sham” acupuncture (i.e. someone just randomly poking you with needles, with no respect to your “Chi’ areas) and real acupuncture. Sadly, I could not find any study further exploring this. As in, could there be something like pain perception involved in the effectiveness of – I can’t really call it acupuncture – the random poking of people with needles? Since the “real” acupuncture worked as effectively as the sham acupuncture, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there is no Chi involved in this particular healing process.
hrrmmm.
“The number of gay men diagnosed with HIV/AIDS is steadily rising, even as infection rates among heterosexuals and drug users have slowed.â€
Unless infection RATES among heteros and drug users DECLINES, the NUMBERS actually RISE, just as with gay men. (A slower rate is still a rise in overall numbers, just a slower rise–get it?)
So are the CDC lying to us? Or are they just satffed by idiots?
Oh wow. My grandmother used to have a weather detecting stone on her porch. I would never have dredged up that memory if not for the link. Thanks!
I used to see them around all the time. I was thinking about it just a couple days ago. They used to be a bit of a running joke at scout camp. I seem to remember a scout leader seriously mention using a weather stone to predict the weather. I don’t know if he completely fell for it, or was just being deadpan.
A friend of mine worked in a park with a weather stone. He couldn’t believe how many people wanted to know where they could buy one.
But he always had alot more fun pointing out the indian sex rock.
I have a self-inflicted case of Uncombable Hair syndrome in the form of dreadlocks, heh.