Sunday 26 August 2012

Round-Up w/e 26th August 2012

Hello and welcome to the latest Round-Up.

First up, a reminder that our next is event is our first Open Mic Night on Wednesday 12th September, 7.30pm at The Victoria. with 6 speakers (well, 5 speakers and a singer) encompassing mystery, conspiracy, cancer quackery, music and more.
You can even tell us you're coming on our Facebook Page.

Few people will have missed the sad news announced on Saturday that Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot on the moon, had died aged 82. Rather than point to a broadsheet obituary here's Peter Harrison on the man rather than the hero.

His passing drove Martin Robbins to pen a wake-up call for the world while Alok Jha details the possible contenders in the new Space Race.


In happier news Voyager 2 is 35 years old and has just become the most long-lived active mission in space history and only two weeks after Curiosity landed on Mars NASA have announced a new mission, InSight, which will investigate the interior of the Red PlanetSpeaking of Curiosity, here's a nice piece detailing why all of the “Why don't they just do that?” questions regarding the mission don't “just get done”.

Finally in our little space round-up I hope you have seen very few of the pictures like the one that heads this Round-Up. There are two reasons: firstly it's not Armstrong (as he had the camera most of the time) and secondly it's doctored. Charles Apple at the American Copy Editors Society tells us why there are no usable photos of Armstrong while he was on the moon's surface.


In religion news Todd Bentley, the supposed healer, who assaults people in the name of the lord has been refused entry to the UK. That must be a kick in the teeth.

After Cardinal Keith O'Brien pledged to stop repeating his bigotry to the Scottish government he has written a letter criticising it for its support of gay marriage. At least this time the only people who are forced to listen are the poor parishioners.  

And one last piece of religious news is that a man in Bali was forced to marry the cow he was besotted with.

A nice piece on Christopher Hitchens here. A pity it's in the Daily Mail.

On to health now and it is encouraging to see that ebay have banned Tarot readings, spells, curses and blessings from being sold on its site however there is no news yet of crosses or rosaries. After the US banned the import of Nelson's homeopathic products due to their dire production methods Andy Lewis reveals that big names on the British high street seem unconcerned.

The problems facing homeopathy in India rumble on as privately run homeopathic colleges are almost empty leading some to accuse proponents of the recent idea to allow alt-med practitioners to do a one year course to qualify to prescribe real medicine as an economic move. It is not explained why alt-med practitioners would need to prescribe real medicine though after all, it all works doesn't it? Unfortunately this fracas doesn't stop them from attempting to treat malnourishment with their little sugar pills.  

While we're on the subject it's worth revisiting Zeno's blog on that “neutral” Swiss homeopathic report.

Worrying news closer to home as Jennifer Keane reports that the Irish Times felt the need to tell it's readers the “Truth”
about avoiding cancer and Keir Liddle reports at the 21st Floor on a Guardian article on unproven cancer trials that led to almost universal howls of derision on publication.

Also reported this week is that cases of measles has doubled in a year in England and Wales and that North Tyneside Trading Standards is being farmed out to the private sector, Capita no less. Time will tell whether they will be happy to clamp down on public relations heavy, entrepreneurial incompetents in the alt-med industry.

The only light relief I've spotted in health this week is that you will now be able to find out what exactly your Doctor writes on your prescriptions.


Three little visual science bits to finish with. As it's gone viral I presume many will have seen the story of the Spanish octogenarian who in a stunning exemplification of the Dunning Kruger effect took it upon herself to retouch a fresco of Jeezy Chreezy donated to her church. If not it's well worth a look.  

Also we have a stunning TED video on technology which enables photographs to be reconstructed at 1,000,000,000,000 frames a second and lets you take photos round corners.

Finally I'll leave you with a nerdy a capella Adele parody about the Higgs Boson. Enjoy:-



This week's Round-Up was put together by @christheneck.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for knowledge share, I will be waiting for more in future

Regards
Marcus White Lisdoonvarna