Archive for the 'Science' Category

“And here is your government issued statin with your double Whopper combo”

Published by steve on August 29, 2010 in Progressives, Science and news. 1 Comment

Since we now have government run health care and they are making it their business what we eat, you know this idea will be discussed in Washington:

Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralise the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London suggest in a new study published this week.

Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy “LDL” cholesterol in the blood. A wealth of trial data has proven them to be highly effective at lowering a person’s heart attack risk.

In a paper published in the Sunday 15 August issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

Dr Francis, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, who is the senior author of the study, said: “Statins don’t cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It’s better to avoid fatty food altogether. But we’ve worked out that in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it.”

One statin, simvastatin, is already available in low doses (10mg) over the counter at pharmacies without a prescription. Other statins are so far only prescribed by doctors, and limited by cost to patients at particular risk of heart attack or stroke. However, the cost of the tablets has fallen sharply in recent years (from ~£40/month to ~£1.50/month), such that the cost to the NHS of seeing a doctor is much greater than the cost of the tablet. (emphasis added)

It is only a small risk, and you know, it is for your own good.

Statins have among the best safety profiles of any medication. A very small proportion of regular statin users experience significant side effects, with problems in the liver and kidneys reported in between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people.

“Everybody knows that fast food is bad for you, but people continue to eat it because it tastes good. We’re genetically programmed to prefer high-calorie foods, and sadly fast food chains will continue to sell unhealthy foods because it earns them a living.

“It makes sense to make risk-reducing supplements available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are provided free of charge. It would cost less than 5p per customer – not much different to a sachet of ketchup.

“When people engage in risky behaviours like driving or smoking, they’re encouraged to take measures that minimise their risk, like wearing a seatbelt or choosing cigarettes with filters. Taking a statin is a rational way of lowering some of the risks of eating a fatty meal.” (emphasis added)

Technology Reveals The Original Colors Of Ancient Greek Statues

Published by steve on August 27, 2010 in History and Science. 6 Comments

Remember the awful ‘colorized’ black and white movies? Science is doing one better.

Archaeologists using UV, IR & X-ray spectroscopy have revealed how ancient Greek statues looked with their original painted finishes. And it’s not pretty.

I would stick with the white marble look.

Linux and Windows and Gmail

Published by steve on August 25, 2010 in Science, news and site update. 8 Comments

If you are a frequent visitor to motorcitytimes, you have probably noticed that posting has been light around these parts lately. Real life has encroached on me a bit.

A few days ago, my main PC starts running r e a l l y slow. It was an old installation of Windows XP on a old PC, so I decided it would be a good idea to back the system up and start planning for a clean install of Windows.

After the back up of the the main PC was finished, my wife hands me my three month old laptop running Windows 7 with a ridiculous virus rendering the computer unusable. I have that sorted out now.

The laptop virus combined with the need to do a clean install on my main PC convinced me to give Linux a try. I’ve played with Linux in the past and thought this would be a good time to ‘make the switch.’ I decided to pick up a new hard drive and store the old XP drive (in case I really didn’t back EVERYTHING up). Hard drives are cheap. Right?

My PC is old and the shiny new 1TB drive is a SATA model that wasn’t compatible with my old power supply (7 pin edge card style power connection). I picked up a new power supply and installed it. Now my old motherboard isn’t playing nice with the SATA drive. I’m running a Linux live CD for an operating system until I can get to Micro Center to pick up a new motherboard. I’ll need a new CPU as well, because I know the old one won’t be compatible.

Oh, by the way did you see that you can make VoIP calls for free (for the time being) on Gmail?

Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—for as little as $0.02 per minute.

Dialing a phone number works just like a normal phone. Just click “Call phone” at the top of your chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name.

Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

EPA Is Combating Global Warming Through Clean Water Act

Published by steve on August 21, 2010 in Green Energy, Progressives, Science, global warming and news. 6 Comments

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

Richard M. Nixon

The EPA has always been a powerful agency in the Executive branch. They have deployed a myriad of draconian regulations which have eroded property rights and have adversely impacted our economy.

We need clean air and water, this is not in dispute. The issue is the EPA, as presently constructed and operating, is exactly the wrong way to achieve a healthy and clean environment.

One example of the EPA’s draconian overreach is its recent draft of the Clean Water Strategy (CWS). The CWS includes plans for community initiatives and inter-agency coordination within the Federal Government that flow nicely into its Environmental Justice Plan “EJ 2014″. The CWS also includes provisions that expand its reach using the global warming fraud.

Build for the Future – Enhance Watershed Resiliency and Revitalize Communities

In order to maximize clean water protection under current authorities, EPA is making a substantial shift in our programmatic approaches to identify and implement multi-benefit solutions that will help communities plan and be more responsive to changing factors such as population growth, increased urbanization and climate change. A more holistic and systemic approach will facilitate capitalizing on existing programs, tools, policies and available funding to achieve measurable results. A collaborative approach to community-based programs – within as well as beyond EPA – will achieve multiple objectives, break down traditionally stovepipe divisions, and broadly engage local communities in decisions that impact local and state waters. For example, capitalizing on green infrastructure, water/energy synergies and integrated water management are key features in this new approach.

The global warming (or climate change, you know, if it cooler than normal outside) theory can trace its roots to the political and social philosophy of the radical environmentalism. The movement was in search of a scientific theory to aid it its implementation of their agenda and found it in global warming.

Continue reading ‘EPA Is Combating Global Warming Through Clean Water Act’

Twenty Is The New Fifteen

Published by steve on August 20, 2010 in History, Progressives, Science and news. 5 Comments

It seems more and more adults in their 20′s (a.k.a. 20 somethings) don’t want to grow up. Via the NYT:

The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.

We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

It’s like the 60′s all over again.

I Write Like…

Published by steve on August 1, 2010 in History, Science and site update. 0 Comments

H.P. Lovecraft…

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

Geeky Video: Balloons and Dyson Blade-less Fans

Published by steve on July 30, 2010 in Science and video. 5 Comments

This is geeky:

Government Out Of Control: EPA Rejects Climate Change Challenge

Published by steve on July 30, 2010 in Green Energy, Progressives and Science. 3 Comments

“It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle-class … involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and ‘convenience’ foods, ownership of motor-, numerous electric household appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning … expansive suburban housing … are not sustainable.”

Maurice Strong- 1989

The global warming scam began in earnest amongst globalists such as Maurice Strong back in the mid 1980′s. Strongs’s political movement was in search of a scientific theory to validate their claim that modern lifestyles are somehow ‘harming the environment.’ He found it in Global Warming.

In keeping with the Progressive globalist dream, the EPA is making a major power grab to control all economic activity in America through the regulation of CO2. The same CO2 that all of us exhale and is necessary for all plant life due to its necessity for photosynthesis (CO2 is plant food).

Continue reading ‘Government Out Of Control: EPA Rejects Climate Change Challenge’

More People Realize That The Electric Vehicle Is Not The Wave Of The Future As Advertised

Published by steve on July 11, 2010 in Green Energy, Progressives, Science and global warming. 4 Comments

It’s like the THE AUTOEXTREMIST is reading my mind:

The blind embracing of Tesla – again, that glorified kit car company that hasn’t produced even a whiff of profit or even demonstrated even the remotest suggestion of being able to bring a mainstream electric sedan to market – is Egregious Example No. 1 and proof-positive that the Green Horde will suspend all vestiges of reality in order to shove their view of a transportation future down the rest of this nation’s throat, even if the infrastructure doesn’t exist to support it now, not to mention the funds to even begin paying for it are nowhere to be found on the horizon.

Blind faith in the “new” or the “next” is one thing – I can embrace and encourage blue sky thinking and innovation as much as the next person – but abject stupidity in the face of a burgeoning reality borders on the criminal.

The hype surrounding the Electric Vehicle is the same today as it was in 1911. Furthermore, we are going to trade imported oil (mostly from Canada and Mexico) to imported lithium (for the Li-Ion batteries) from places like Boliva and lithium mining is not exactly a ‘green endeavor.’

Lastly, imagine how expensive it would be if you and hundreds of your neighbors start hooking up their EV’s for re-charging. In August, when your AC is running full tilt. After you are forced to purchase very expensive ‘renewable electricity.’

Going ‘Green’ Without Thinking Things Through: Reusable Shopping Bags Found Contaminated With E. Coli

Published by steve on July 10, 2010 in Green Energy, Progressives, Science and news. 4 Comments

The law of unintended consequences creeps up again. Via Discovery News:

Over the past few decades fewer supermarkets have begun offering traditional brown paper shopping bags, and most have turned to lightweight, strong plastic bags. This convenience comes at a price when the bags end up in landfills, strewn along highways, or in the ocean where they can choke and kill marine life.

In the age of “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” re-using sturdy shopping bags makes good sense and is a logical solution. If you’re going shopping anyway, just bring along your own bag. You’ll save the environment (and, in many stores, save a nickel).

I never knew those little bags could be so dangerous. I mean they choke and kill marine life and you can literally save the entire environment by banning those nasty little bags.

But, there always is a trade off. If you spend a few bucks for a single bag to save a nickel, you could wind up with a nasty problem:

Most folks don’t give the hygiene of their reusable bags any thought, but according to a new study from researchers at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University, they should.

The study, “Assessment of the Potential for Cross Contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags,” found that nearly all (97%) of shoppers who use reusable bags do not regularly (if ever) clean them. Furthermore, most of us freely mix meats, vegetables, and other foods in the same bag, and don’t think twice about it.

According to the study, “Reusable bags, if not properly washed between uses, create the potential for cross-contamination of foods. This potential exists when raw meat products and foods traditionally eaten uncooked (fruits and vegetables) are carried in the same bags, either together or between uses. This risk can be increased by the growth of bacteria in the bags.”

Indeed, half of the bags that researchers examined tested positive for coliform bacteria, and 12 percent had E. coli bacteria. These bacteria, and others, contribute to the 76 million cases of food poisoning each year. (emphasis added)

Not only do you have to spend $2.99 for a single bag (less the nickel you save at check out) and you need to store the bags in your car or urban folding bicycle that converts to a shopping cart so they are with you when you get to the store. Now you have to wash the things regularly as well.

I ‘m sure the energy, water and detergent needed to wash my reusable is not a good trade off. Plus, you would probably want to dry them as well because you wouldn’t want the damp canvas bags laying around the house. You never know what could grow in the damp canvass after a couple of days.