Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Science headlines

Did the Ozone treaty lead to global cooling?

or was it all the pollution coming out of Asia?

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Who needs a compass when you have cows?

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The technical problems of claiming Arafat was poisoned.

I figure his wife already went through the billion dollars she "inherited" from her late husband and needs more.

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Google maps helping first responders to the Philippine typhoon areas?

actually, the first responders are technically the local cops etc. who know the place, but it will help the second responders and outsiders to find their way around.

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The saying goes: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Ah, but the real problem may be people are lousy at math and get the statistics wrong.

Remember this the next time you read that experts change their mind.

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The latest laugh is the banning of transfats;

Time to go back to frying in "healthy, natural lard?

 years ago, restaurants were encouraged to stop using lard or beef tallow to fry things, and switch to the healthier "transfats".

Don't ask us. We "eat locally" and fry in coconut oil.

This is full of "saturated fats", so much that there was a push a couple years ago to get rid of using it to make popcorn in theatres.
Its bad reputation caused a panic at the concession stands back in 1994, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest put out a study claiming that a large movie-theater popcorn, hold the butter, delivered as much saturated fat as six Big Macs. “Theater popcorn ought to be the Snow White of snack foods, but it’s been turned into Godzilla by being popped in highly saturated coconut oil,” Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the center, a consumer group that focuses on food and nutrition, said at the time. 

Nowadays, however, someone decided the experts were wrong: Heh: in the Philippines, they even push "virgin coconut oil" as a health food.

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Beware the giant toothed platypus.

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Pollution causes drug resistant germs?

The comments follow a report showing that resistance to anti-parasite drugs can develop in mice exposed to arsenic in their drinking water.


Uh, fellahs, most of that arsenic in the water is from naturally occuring aresenic in the ground water, especially in India/Bengladesh


however, if you live near a copper mine, you can blame pollution...

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