The Best of the Blogosphere this week

A weekly round-up of things we liked that we think you'd like also.

Some people sit in the front of the computer all day and all night in a ceaseless and hopeless attempt to read the whole internet; Allah forbid they miss something.  Others have things to do.  This post is by the former for the latter.  We’ve waded though the slurry to find you this week’s gems you probably missed while out enjoying your lives.

 

• Dr Dean Burnett (@garwboy) talks about Skeptics in the Pub in The Hiss of Piss on the Bonfire responding to an article by Alom Shaha in the Guardian suggesting that SITPs preach to the choir.

• Very interesting blog post by Kash Farooq (@kashfarooq) about tracing his ancestors through National Geographic’s Geneographic Project, and his findings so far.

• For the activists amongst you, the mysterious sounding Nightingale Collaboration has officially launched.  Read their launch statement here: http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org/

• If your partner is Google literate, make sure you treat them correctly, you could be Google-bombed.  How I learned to Love the Google Bomb in the New Scientist.  If only this was related to Twitter, I could then use the line Revenge is Tweet.

• In Addiction: a life long illness not lifestyle choice, former chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) Professor David Nutt (@ProfDavidNutt), takes an evidence based look at addiction on his Evidence not Exaggeration blog.  Unfortunately, as pointed out by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (@TransformDrugs), he opts for the narrow disease model, ignoring social determinants and 'addiction' as social construct.

• Yeo Valley cows are treated with homeopathic treatments because the health of their cows is their top priority.  See Crispian Jago’s response on his Science, Reason and Critical Thinking blog.

• If you’re worried about asteroids, don’t read this: http://news.discovery.com/space/if-youre-worried-about-asteroids-dont-read-this-110301.html

• Tim McGregor has another attempt to make the soil association see sense with regards to their recommendation of the use of homeopathy to treat farm animals.

• “If you’re not religious, tell the census so” says Andrew Copson in the Guardian.

• Newsthump report that census organisers are bracing themselves for millions pretending to be Christians despite never setting foot in a church.

• Get yourself down to The Victoria in Birmingham on Wednesday (9th March) at 1930 for the next Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub.  Dr Matt Lodder (@mattlodder) will be there taking a sceptical look at media perceptions of tattoos in the West as well as music from Dr Adam Kay (@amateuradam) of the Amateur Transplants.

There’ll be another round-up next Friday, meanwhile, if you find anything interesting hidden in the recesses of the web that you deem worthy of featuring then please drop us a mail at birminghamskeptics@gmail.com or tweet us at @brum_skeptics.  Do you fancy writing a blog post?  Get in touch using the same methods, we’re always looking for bloggers.  We’ve got some great blog posts coming up next week and another Birmingham Skeptics Podcast by Patrick (@paddyrex) so keep checking back.


This was put together by Paul Bryant (@thebigyeti) with lots of help from Chris Richardson (@ChristHeneck).