Why sugar pills work?

by visualpanic

Genes determine whether sugar pills work:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

It is a well-known fact in drug trials that individuals can respond just as well to placebos, sugar pills, as to the active drug. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain why only certain people get better from placebos. A team of researchers from Uppsala University and Gothenburg University have now found gene variants that can impact the placebo effect and a mechanism in the brain that characterizes those who respond to placebos.

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Although a small study, this has some interesting implications. 40% of those getting placebo responded as though they were given the drug. The researchers found that this response correlated with a specific alleles of certain genes. In particular, the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 gene could be predictive for who would respond to placebo.

The biology behind this is fascinating and could have a huge impact on clinical trials, particularly if only a subset of people actually demonstrate a placebo effect due to the particular gene allele they possess.

Technorati Tags: Health, Science

No such thing as A ‘common cold’

From Wikipedia
Another human disease virus that’s (also) for the birds:
[Via Effect Measure]

The common cold is probably common because a lot of different viruses cause similar symptoms. We usually treat it symptomatically or just endure it. We rarely expend much time, effort or money identifying which virus caused it. As as a result we undoubtedly haven’t identified all the viruses that can make us miserable in the inimitable way we identify as a “head cold.” When we entered the 21st century, some 8 years ago, there were a lot of stories about what the future might bring and I was interviewed by a well known medical TV reporter (Dr. Timothy Johnson) about what I thought would happen in the medical world. His first question: do you think we’ll ever find a cure for the common cold? I said I thought so. Truthfully, I’m not so sure, and a recent paper illustrates one of the reasons. We just don’t know that much about the viruses that cause head colds.

Read the rest of this post…

While Rhinoviruses may be the most prevalent of cold viruses (and there are over 120 different types of those), the metapneumoviruses discussed in the post were only discovered in 2001. Because there are so many different ways that the common cold can be generated, the chances of developing a single vaccine is unlikely.

Especially, as this virus demonstrates, we are still discovering new viruses.

Technorati Tags: Health, Science

Bad pundits still work

The Last Laugh:
[Via Booman Tribune]

You have to watch this video. It’s a compilation of Fox News economic experts (including that eponymous intelligent design movie maven, Ben Stein) laughing and dismissing the claims of Peter Schiff, head of EuroPacific Capital, who predicted the economic crisis we’re in now as long ago as 2006. All the other FoX investment experts mock him and his claims repeatedly. And then, led by Ben Stein they recommend in late 2007 that you should invest in Financial stocks like Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns! Watch the whole video. It really gives you a flavor for the fantasy world that our conservative business elites were living in not so long ago:

You know what the sad thing about this video is? All these bozos who were spectacularly wrong about the housing bubble, the debt crisis and the effects of years of Republican economic policy are still employed as pundits, talking head economic experts, well compensated “event speakers” and investment advisers. I’m amazed FOX had Peter Schiff on its business programs at all, but I guess they saw him as comic relief for fat cat CEOs and investors, and as a cats-paw for their other “business analysts.” Too bad he was 100% right and the rest of these ideologues and greedy scam artists and stock touts were 100% dead wrong.

Wow. These idiots were laughing at him when he said that the housing bubble was going to burst. They ridiculed him. Yet he was describing almost 2 years ago what was going to happen. How come the guys who got it so wrong still have a job? YouTube makes it awfully hard to hide.

Ben Stein saying buy Merrill Lynch at $76 because it is an extremely well run company. (Not anymore, I guess). Someone else likes Bears, Stearn (where are they now?)The stock market was at 13,000 and they are saying it is a buying opportunity. Goldman Sachs is a buy at $175. It is the creme de la creme. It hit $53 in November.

Only Schiff is actually describing what would happen in 2008 and they just ignore him as inconsequential. They recommend Washington Mutual ($13.07 on NASDAQ then, $0.0365 over the counter now). Schiff recommends gold (GLD at $83 then, $76.95 now). Dow to 16,000!!! What a bunch of idiots.

And he accurately describes the fallout in auto loans, credit card debt, etc.

I frankly hope everyone one of those guys laughing lost everything and are penniless. They deserve that for their complete and utter lack of foresight. Unfortunately, i figure they got out. They were getting paid to make the rest of us think things were rosy but they had to know what was going to happen. They can’t be complete fools. Only Schiff was actually allowed to tell the truth so they could laugh at him.

Don’t you just love the media?

Technorati Tags: Economy, General

Odetta’s voice is still here (Updated)

taken in Oct. 2008 by Andreas Duess
Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77:
[Via NYT > NYTimes.com Home]

The singer, whose voice wove together American folk music and the civil rights movement, died Tuesday.

[More]

One of the great voices of our age. My parents saw her in the early 50s in San Francisco. They played her songs while I grew up. Her album with Larry, ‘The Tin Angel‘, has always been one of my favorites. I think my parents had the original red vinyl album (I’ll have to check.)

Besides old favorites such a John Henry and Cotton Fields, the song I remember in my earliest memories is the duet with Larry Mohr, “I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago/The Biggest Thing”.
I searched for years before finding first a vinyl copy and then a CD.

Although frail in body at the end, she still had that awesome voice and a unique way of interpreting songs. At one of her last performances, a tribute to Bruce Springsteen in 2007, she took one of his songs “57 Channels”, and added her own twist to it. When Bruce came out, he called it the greatest version of that song he had ever heard.

Youtube has a couple of nice performances: House of the Rising Sun, What a Friend We have in Jesus, Water Boy, Careless Love, Midnight Special, There’s a Hole in the Bucket (with Harry Belafonte), Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, God’s Gonna Cut You Down, The Fox, and, from Feb. 2008, Keep On Movin’ It On.

I’ll have an Odetta Playlist going on all day today. And my Genius sidebar on iTunes is showing me all sorts of songs I don’t have.

UPDATE: This video from this year is amazing. Just her, a mike and a resonating cathedral. Amazing. She still had that voice up to the end.

UPDATE 2: Although a political site, there are some wonderful tributes and personal stories at this diary at Daily Kos. This led me to these videos, where she describes her life in an oral history.

Technorati Tags: Entertainment, General