Saturday, September 21, 2013
Diatoms From Outerspace? How Not to Find Life on Comets
By now most of you will have seen the breathless reports that claim alien life has been found in cometary debris collected by a high altitude balloon during the Perseid meteor shower. The facts however are far more mundane.
A fragment of diatom caught in the upper atmosphere by the sampling ballooon. Image Credit University of Sheffield.
You can see the actual research the news paper reports are based on here. The summary in the conclusion of the paper is a bit less triumphal than the news reports
Despite all the images of weird looking blobs in the newspapers they have one, count it, one, fragment of a diatom (a kind of algae with hard shells, they found a bit of the shell). No alien DNA, no other evidence except this one fragment (most of the pictures in the press reports aren't even of the actual diatom fragment, but random dust particles). The authors even admit it looks like a terrestrial diatom fragment.
The authors entire argument rests on it being unlikely that chunks of diatom can last in the stratosphere for a long time.
Cometary dust, almost certain to not contain diatoms.
Except it is not that unlikely. We know that diatoms are ubiquitous in atmospheric dusts, indeed the worlds largest source of atmospheric dust is diatomaceous earth, let alone marine and other surface water droplets. Contamination of forensic and other materials with extraneous diatoms is a perennial problem. So extreme caution is need when interpreting these sorts of results.
Diatomaceous dusts can travel long distances, from the Sahara to Great Britain, and diatom containing droplets can travel far and be wafted high up.
So high that Diatoms are thought to play important roles in forming nucleation centres for rain clouds. While the authors claim there is no known mechanism for getting big dust particles that high, the very ubiquity of diatomaceous dusts, their presence at high altitude in cloud formation, and the ability of cloud air currents to loft material high into the sky make it plausible that diatom fragments could be lofted high but turbulent air currents.
Another mechanism for getting diatoms high in the air is volcanic eruptions. Despite authors claim that there were no volcanic eruptions before the balloon flight, the volcano Bata Tara in Indonesia has been exploding continuously since March, producing huge ash plumes).
Another issue relating to the contamination question is appropriate controls. While the authors had a good control for the ground based contamination of the sample cabinet, they did not do a control flight when there was no meteor shower, so we do not know if they would have picked up any diatom fragements in the absence of meteor dust.
Also, there is the question of WHY an algae that has evolved to live in marine or fresh water environments is on a comet in the first place, a frozen ball that spends most of its time far from the light of the sun is hardly the best place for things that photosynthesise in liquid water. Algae live in some very extreme environments, but spending your life frozen in a vacuum in the dark just doesn't make any sense algae wise.
The authors claims that comets have a "watery environment" is cause for head shaking, Comets are mixtures of ices (water, carbon dioxide, Carbon monoxide amongst others) which is normally frozen at the temperature below that of dry ice (frozen CO2), when the ices heat up during the comets fleeting visit to the Sun they don't go liquid, but sublimate. Hardly the best environment for a marine or river organism.
The Journal of Cosmology has form for publishing articles on life from outer space with very weak evidence. You can see my discussion of a previous paper from a different group claiming bacterial fossils in a meteorite here http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/03/life-from-beyon.html
Comets may have bought the building blocks of life to a primitive Earth billions of years ago, but modern diatoms living on current comets? No.
You can see the Bad Astronomers sceptical take here, and the Conversation commentary here.
You can see the actual research the news paper reports are based on here. The summary in the conclusion of the paper is a bit less triumphal than the news reports
"To conclude we note that the results presented here provide unequivocal evidence that a diatom fragment has been found in the lower stratosphere."Yes. That's the whole paper basically. "We found a diatom fragment, it's unlikely that diatom fragments can last that long in the high atmosphere, therefore it came from outer space"
Despite all the images of weird looking blobs in the newspapers they have one, count it, one, fragment of a diatom (a kind of algae with hard shells, they found a bit of the shell). No alien DNA, no other evidence except this one fragment (most of the pictures in the press reports aren't even of the actual diatom fragment, but random dust particles). The authors even admit it looks like a terrestrial diatom fragment.
The authors entire argument rests on it being unlikely that chunks of diatom can last in the stratosphere for a long time.
Except it is not that unlikely. We know that diatoms are ubiquitous in atmospheric dusts, indeed the worlds largest source of atmospheric dust is diatomaceous earth, let alone marine and other surface water droplets. Contamination of forensic and other materials with extraneous diatoms is a perennial problem. So extreme caution is need when interpreting these sorts of results.
Diatomaceous dusts can travel long distances, from the Sahara to Great Britain, and diatom containing droplets can travel far and be wafted high up.
So high that Diatoms are thought to play important roles in forming nucleation centres for rain clouds. While the authors claim there is no known mechanism for getting big dust particles that high, the very ubiquity of diatomaceous dusts, their presence at high altitude in cloud formation, and the ability of cloud air currents to loft material high into the sky make it plausible that diatom fragments could be lofted high but turbulent air currents.
Another mechanism for getting diatoms high in the air is volcanic eruptions. Despite authors claim that there were no volcanic eruptions before the balloon flight, the volcano Bata Tara in Indonesia has been exploding continuously since March, producing huge ash plumes).
Another issue relating to the contamination question is appropriate controls. While the authors had a good control for the ground based contamination of the sample cabinet, they did not do a control flight when there was no meteor shower, so we do not know if they would have picked up any diatom fragements in the absence of meteor dust.
Also, there is the question of WHY an algae that has evolved to live in marine or fresh water environments is on a comet in the first place, a frozen ball that spends most of its time far from the light of the sun is hardly the best place for things that photosynthesise in liquid water. Algae live in some very extreme environments, but spending your life frozen in a vacuum in the dark just doesn't make any sense algae wise.
The authors claims that comets have a "watery environment" is cause for head shaking, Comets are mixtures of ices (water, carbon dioxide, Carbon monoxide amongst others) which is normally frozen at the temperature below that of dry ice (frozen CO2), when the ices heat up during the comets fleeting visit to the Sun they don't go liquid, but sublimate. Hardly the best environment for a marine or river organism.
The Journal of Cosmology has form for publishing articles on life from outer space with very weak evidence. You can see my discussion of a previous paper from a different group claiming bacterial fossils in a meteorite here http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/03/life-from-beyon.html
Comets may have bought the building blocks of life to a primitive Earth billions of years ago, but modern diatoms living on current comets? No.
You can see the Bad Astronomers sceptical take here, and the Conversation commentary here.
Labels: comet, origin of life, scepticism
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
In Which I am a Media Star (yet) Again
I'm virtually saturating the media at the moment.
This Sunday (19 February) I will be on Ashley Walsh's program on 891 ABC Adelaide at 11:40 am ACDST (UTC +10:30) talking about the upcoming year in astronomy.
If you are not in Adelaide the LiveStream will be here.
Monday evening also saw a Today Tonight program screen on the homoeopath Monika Milka, which features an interview with me and a demonstration of what homoeopathic dilutions look like (see image above). It's on the web at Today Tonight Adelaide (currently it's the first video "homoeopath", it will scroll down as the days go on). If you scroll down further, the current second last video (Chemical Cans) has an interview with me as well, in which I get the last word. These will eventually scroll into the archive section but look for homoeopath and Chemical Cans will find them.
I also have an article coming up in The Conversation, so keep your eyes peeled. My previous articles are here and here.
Labels: scepticism, science communicators
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
A Re-analysis of My Comet 103P Images (and the original FITS files)
UPDATE: Fixed munged file links, now you can download all files, not just the third one (rolls eyes).As you may know, one of my comet images has been taken and modified to give the appearance that there is an unknown planet in it (see here and here for details and a bunch of free resources to play with).
It's been 2 years since I first processed this image, and I've learnt a few tricks since then. S0 I went back and re-analysed them.
This time I stretched the images in FITS Liberator (Arcsin stretch), saved as TIFF, stacked the TIF's in ImageJ, registered the images, then used a Z project to SUM the stack. After this I used a square root transform to bring out the fainter details.
Click to embiggen the image (comet 103P Hartley2, and PGC 7154, taken on 18-09-2010), and compare it with my original stack.
I've been able to bring out the comets tail without over exposing the head, like last time. The galaxy PGC 71451 is more disappointing, but I haven't fiddled with the contrast to really bring it out.
One thing that is definitely NOT there is a crescent planet. You can even see the enhanced star diffraction spike running right through where the planet was later pasted in.
If anyone else wants to play with the raw FITS files, you can access them here (warning each file 3.5 Mb zip archives)
File 1
File 2
File 3
File 4
Process away, but do acknowledge where you got them from.
Oh and here is the header file, which you can extract from the original FITS files with any suitable image processing program:
SIMPLE = T
BITPIX = 16 /8 unsigned int, 16 & 32 int, -32 & -64 real
NAXIS = 2 /number of axes
NAXIS1 = 2184 /fastest changing axis
NAXIS2 = 1472 /next to fastest changing axis
BSCALE = 1.0000000000000000 /physical = BZERO + BSCALE*array_value
BZERO = 32768.000000000000 /physical = BZERO + BSCALE*array_value
OBJECT = '103P_18-09-0' / Target object name
TELESCOP= 'ACP->GRAS-005 TAK E250' / Telescope name
INSTRUME= 'SBIG ST-10 3 CCD Camera' / Detector instrument name
OBSERVER= 'Ian Musgrave' / Observer name
NOTES = ' '
DATE-OBS= '2010-09-18T08:04:03' / [ISO 8601] UTC date/time of exposure start
[snip lines if guff]
HISTORY File was processed by PinPoint 5.0.14 at 2010-09-18T08:05:56
DATE = '18/09/10' / [old format] UTC date of exposure start
TIME-OBS= '08:04:03' / [old format] UTC time of exposure start
UT = '08:04:03' / [old format] UTC time of exposure start
TIMESYS = 'UTC ' / Default time system
RADECSYS= 'FK5 ' / Equatorial coordinate system
AIRMASS = 1.07641649772E+000 / Airmass (multiple of zenithal airmass)
ST = '00 52 23.96' / Local apparent sidereal time of exp. start
LAT-OBS = 3.29035555556E+001 / [deg +N WGS84] Geodetic latitude
LONG-OBS= -1.05528305556E+002 / [deg +E WGS84] Geodetic longitude
ALT-OBS = 2.25000000000E+003 / [metres] Altitude above mean sea level
OBSERVAT= 'G5 - The Stefano Padovan Wide-Field Observatory' / Observatory name
RA = '23 25 01.19' / [hms J2000] Target right ascension
OBJCTRA = '23 25 01.19' / [hms J2000] Target right ascension
DEC = '+47 29 19.8' / [dms +N J2000] Target declination
OBJCTDEC= '+47 29 19.8' / [dms +N J2000] Target declination
CLRBAND = 'R ' / [J-C std] Std. color band of image or C=Color
END
Labels: comet, Pseudoscience, scepticism
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Alternative Medicine in the Adelaide Advertiser
One of the fundamental principles of medical therapy in Australia and most other western nations is that an adult of sound mind should be able to chose their own therapy, or choose to forgo therapy completely. To make these choices, people need access to the best available information. However, when it comes to complementary/alternative medicine this information often gives a false sense of the effectiveness of CAM therapies.
Nowhere is this more true than in cancer therapy. Cancer and it's treatment is a very emotive issue. Having lost several family members to cancer, including my greatly loved mother-in-law, I've experienced some of this first hand. Unfortunately, an article in this Saturdays Advertiser, "Why a brave mum said no to chemotherapy", gives a very misleading idea of the effectiveness of alternative cancer therapies, which could potentially endanger lives.
I don't want to denigrate the experience of the author and her mother, but in trying to explain why her mother chose alternative medicine, a lot of factually incorrect or misleading information is presented by the author.
It starts early on with this piece:
On the other hand the success of alternative medicine in treating cancer is the same as if you had been treating cancer with sugar pills. This is why alternative medicine practitioners are called charlatans, because they provide treatments that have either been shown not to work, or have no good evidence that they work.
An example is the Gerson Therapy, lauded in this article. A punishing regime of strict diet, vitamin supplementation and coffee enemas, it doesn't work, and has significant risks of side effects (some more information on how shonky it is here). The Gonzalez protocol, based on the Gerson therapy doesn't work either. Oh, you can certainly get testimonials, but these are subject to selection bias, recall bias and without adequate controls on diagnosis and follow up, you have no idea what is happening. And of course the alternative medicine people never publish testimonials like this.
Coffee enemas are part of the protocol:
Then there is the vitamin C infusions: .
So the author's mum is taking potentially dangerous treatment with no proven benefit. Wait, you are saying, surely vitamins aren't harmful. At that level they are, with the potential to cause renal disease. Supplemental vitamins, above what is necessary to prevent vitamin defficenacy, have been linked to adverse our comes (see here and here).
Oh yes, and Black Salve is not a cancer specific curing agent, it's a generalised corrosive agent.
The author reminds us that cancer treatment is big business for pharmaceutical companies, giving the impression that alternative medicine is all warm and fuzzy. Make no mistake, alternative medicine itself is big business, in 2004 Australians spent 4 times the public expenditure on the PBS on alternative therapies.
The author has claimed to have used her journalistic experience to study cancer therapy, but it doesn't take much to discover that the therapies portrayed in the article are not only useless, but potentially harmful. As such this is grave disservice to those cancer sufferers and their families considering treatment options.
Nowhere is this more true than in cancer therapy. Cancer and it's treatment is a very emotive issue. Having lost several family members to cancer, including my greatly loved mother-in-law, I've experienced some of this first hand. Unfortunately, an article in this Saturdays Advertiser, "Why a brave mum said no to chemotherapy", gives a very misleading idea of the effectiveness of alternative cancer therapies, which could potentially endanger lives.
I don't want to denigrate the experience of the author and her mother, but in trying to explain why her mother chose alternative medicine, a lot of factually incorrect or misleading information is presented by the author.
It starts early on with this piece:
It's interesting to note that when an alternative cancer treatment fails, the practitioner is denounced as a charlatan. But when conventional treatment fails and research shows it fails 75 per cent of the time, we assume "it was their time" and that the doctors "did their best".What research is this that shows conventional treatment fails 75 percent of the time? For which cancers? For uterine cancer, 81% of patients will survive 5 or more years, for ovarian cancer it's a more sobering 40% survival. As the authors mother had ovarian/uterine cancer presumably she was talking about ovarian cancer (which as a much better survival rate than the 25% stated), but the way this piece is written it suggests that this is true for all cancers. For cervical cancer the survival rate is 65%, for breast cancer the survival rates on average are around 88%, you can get a good overview of cancer survival in Australia here.
On the other hand the success of alternative medicine in treating cancer is the same as if you had been treating cancer with sugar pills. This is why alternative medicine practitioners are called charlatans, because they provide treatments that have either been shown not to work, or have no good evidence that they work.
An example is the Gerson Therapy, lauded in this article. A punishing regime of strict diet, vitamin supplementation and coffee enemas, it doesn't work, and has significant risks of side effects (some more information on how shonky it is here). The Gonzalez protocol, based on the Gerson therapy doesn't work either. Oh, you can certainly get testimonials, but these are subject to selection bias, recall bias and without adequate controls on diagnosis and follow up, you have no idea what is happening. And of course the alternative medicine people never publish testimonials like this.
Coffee enemas are part of the protocol:
There were plenty of jokes about Mum going upstairs to have a "crappuccino", but the aim of the coffee enema is to detoxify the liver, which many believe is the most important organ for cancer recovery.Except this is absolute rubbish, the enemas do nothing what so ever to the liver (which contrary to alt-med belief are not massive stores of toxins). Pumping coffee into your intestine might stimulate the intestine to contact a bit more, but this will do nothing to affect the mutant, out-of-control rapidly growing cells that are cancer (or "cleanse" the blood). The bowel seems to be a fixation for alt-med, but the whole idea that the colon needs to be "cleansed" is a myth.
Then there is the vitamin C infusions: .
..up to 75,000mg intravenously every week. To give you some idea of how much vitamin C we're talking, the RDA is 80mg. The treatment may sound crazy, but it's hard to argue with the evidence.And the evidence is that it doesn't work. Proper controlled trials of vitamin C therapy have shown no benefit (as opposed to Linus Paulings shambolic attempts which didn't include proper controls). Sure if you put enormous quantities of vitamin C on cancer cells in culture dishes you will kill them, so will extract of old boots (in my day job I do experiments with cancer cells, so I am aware of the pitfalls of this kind of experiment). These tissue culture experiments don't reflect what would happen in a real clinical situation.
So the author's mum is taking potentially dangerous treatment with no proven benefit. Wait, you are saying, surely vitamins aren't harmful. At that level they are, with the potential to cause renal disease. Supplemental vitamins, above what is necessary to prevent vitamin defficenacy, have been linked to adverse our comes (see here and here).
Oh yes, and Black Salve is not a cancer specific curing agent, it's a generalised corrosive agent.
The author reminds us that cancer treatment is big business for pharmaceutical companies, giving the impression that alternative medicine is all warm and fuzzy. Make no mistake, alternative medicine itself is big business, in 2004 Australians spent 4 times the public expenditure on the PBS on alternative therapies.
"Why poison yourself with something you don't believe in?" was Mum's answer to the inevitable chemo question. But some people really do believe in the power of chemotherapy, and for those people having chemo is the right thing to do.This, I think cuts to the heart of everything, it's all about belief. So instead of poisoning themselves with things they don't believe in they will poison themselves with things they do believe in. Yet cancer doesn't care what you believe in, and neither does chemotherapy, it works or it doesn't regardless of your belief in it.
The author has claimed to have used her journalistic experience to study cancer therapy, but it doesn't take much to discover that the therapies portrayed in the article are not only useless, but potentially harmful. As such this is grave disservice to those cancer sufferers and their families considering treatment options.
Labels: media, Pseudoscience, scepticism, science communicators
Saturday, October 29, 2011
When an Eminent Historian Writes on the History of Science it Would be Nice ....
.. If he got it right. Yet in an article in The Australian today (Inquirer, Oct 29-30, page 18) Geoffrey Blainey is quoted as saying
If he had bothered to do any research, rather than buying into denialist myths, he would have found that most research was pointing to warming, and that warming was a long-standing prediction of physics (see also this article).
Blainey goes on to say:
Well, if it were true, that would because science has runs on the board in way that religion hasn't. From the eradication of small pox to landing people on the Moon, science has proved its credentials. Whenever you use your mobile phone, you are using the practical application of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. Religion ascribed epilepsy to demonic possession, a few Christian sects still do, with tragic consequences. But science is unravelling the causes of epilepsy and has developed effective treatments. So science has earned the benefit of doubt.
But in fact, science rarely is given the benefit of the doubt. From global warming, to tobacco and cancer, to acid rain, to heart transplants, to IVF, to the ozone hole, to collapse of fish stocks from overfishing politicians, entrenched interests and often religious leaders have fought tooth and nail against the scientific consensus, only relenting (sometimes) when scientists have been shown incontrovertibly, sometimes tragically, right. Between The Australians War on Science and members of the Catholic Church spreading misinformation on condoms and AIDS, it's obvious that science isn't being given the benefit of the doubt and is being actively opposed.
Blainey has written some wonderful history, his "Tyranny of Distance" was a seminal work of Australian history, it's a pity his comments on science are fantasy.
"In 1970 the overwhelming majority of scientists believed that there was not going to be going to be global warming over the next 40 years..."
If he had bothered to do any research, rather than buying into denialist myths, he would have found that most research was pointing to warming, and that warming was a long-standing prediction of physics (see also this article).
Blainey goes on to say:
"The interesting thing to me about science is that it's given the benefit of of the doubt in ways that Christianity used to be given the benefit of the doubt."
Well, if it were true, that would because science has runs on the board in way that religion hasn't. From the eradication of small pox to landing people on the Moon, science has proved its credentials. Whenever you use your mobile phone, you are using the practical application of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. Religion ascribed epilepsy to demonic possession, a few Christian sects still do, with tragic consequences. But science is unravelling the causes of epilepsy and has developed effective treatments. So science has earned the benefit of doubt.
But in fact, science rarely is given the benefit of the doubt. From global warming, to tobacco and cancer, to acid rain, to heart transplants, to IVF, to the ozone hole, to collapse of fish stocks from overfishing politicians, entrenched interests and often religious leaders have fought tooth and nail against the scientific consensus, only relenting (sometimes) when scientists have been shown incontrovertibly, sometimes tragically, right. Between The Australians War on Science and members of the Catholic Church spreading misinformation on condoms and AIDS, it's obvious that science isn't being given the benefit of the doubt and is being actively opposed.
Blainey has written some wonderful history, his "Tyranny of Distance" was a seminal work of Australian history, it's a pity his comments on science are fantasy.
UPDATE: Interesting discussion in the comments thread on Deltoid's article mentioning this one.
Labels: global warming sillyness, history, scepticism, science communicators
Friday, July 22, 2011
Now THAT'S the Way to Test a Theory (Yes, Elenin Really is Small)
There has been a lot of angst about the size of comet C/2010 X1 Elenin on the internet, with some people worried it is either a Brown Dwarf Star or the Satellite of a Brown Dwarf. Both Leonid Elenin and I have used maths and simulations to show that the comet must be small, but people continue to be anxious, and are discussing the matter endlessly on various discussion groups.
Except a commenter called Astronut, who did something unthinkable, rather than endlessly nattering he actually tested the hypothesis that Elenin was big.
He bought time on a remote telescope (one of the Slooh scopes) in the Canary Islands, and measured the position of asteroid (74732) 1999 RQ176 twenty -four hours after it's close encounter with comet Elenein on May 20.
And it was exactly where it was predicted to be (see also Leonid Elenins images of the asteroid post encounter).
Now, this pass was very close, at it's closest 1999 RQ176 was 225,830 km from Elenin (around 0.002 AU), which is 0.59 of the average distance between the Earth and Moon. If Elenin was as massive as Jupiter, it would have substantially altered the asteroids location. And I mean substantially, not just a few arc minutes off, more like being degrees off, the asteroid sling-shotted off into deep space.
Actually, if Elenin was a Brown Dwarf, with a radius of 4 times that of Jupiter (285 968 Km), at closest approach the asteroid would have been deep inside the Brown Dwarfs photosphere, and wouldn't have come out again.
The very fact that we could see 1999 RQ176 at all, means that Elenin is not a Brown Dwarf.
Science is at its heart a practical enterprise, we test things, and Astronut has shown that citizen scientists can make significant contributions, all props to you Astronut.
UPDATE: Astronut follows up the observations here.
PS, if Astronut or one of Astronut's friends reads this, could he/she get in contact with me, Global Rent-a-Scope has an offer for you.
Except a commenter called Astronut, who did something unthinkable, rather than endlessly nattering he actually tested the hypothesis that Elenin was big.
He bought time on a remote telescope (one of the Slooh scopes) in the Canary Islands, and measured the position of asteroid (74732) 1999 RQ176 twenty -four hours after it's close encounter with comet Elenein on May 20.
And it was exactly where it was predicted to be (see also Leonid Elenins images of the asteroid post encounter).
Now, this pass was very close, at it's closest 1999 RQ176 was 225,830 km from Elenin (around 0.002 AU), which is 0.59 of the average distance between the Earth and Moon. If Elenin was as massive as Jupiter, it would have substantially altered the asteroids location. And I mean substantially, not just a few arc minutes off, more like being degrees off, the asteroid sling-shotted off into deep space.
Actually, if Elenin was a Brown Dwarf, with a radius of 4 times that of Jupiter (285 968 Km), at closest approach the asteroid would have been deep inside the Brown Dwarfs photosphere, and wouldn't have come out again.
The very fact that we could see 1999 RQ176 at all, means that Elenin is not a Brown Dwarf.
Science is at its heart a practical enterprise, we test things, and Astronut has shown that citizen scientists can make significant contributions, all props to you Astronut.
UPDATE: Astronut follows up the observations here.
PS, if Astronut or one of Astronut's friends reads this, could he/she get in contact with me, Global Rent-a-Scope has an offer for you.
Labels: comet, Pseudoscience, scepticism, science matters
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
And We Are Back ....
Blogger has reinstated "Comet Elenin, a FAQ for the Worried" and the following posts:
http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2011/05/comet-2010-x1-elenin-earthquakes.html
http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2011/03/from-super-moons-to-comet-elenin-we.html
http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/comet-elenin-faq-for-worried.html
Many thanks to the Blogger team for their rapid and timely attention to this matter. Given that 24 hours later no actual Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint turned up on the Chilling Effects website, I conclude that this was a frivolous complaint and Blogger has agreed with this assessment.
I was not the only one targeted, RationalWiki also got a frivolous DCMA suit over their comet Elenin article, which was dismissed (Thanks for the heads up to T Tolouse can someone tell the RationalWiki guys I'm back).
And of course may thanks to the folks who gave me support and offered to host the FAQ's, you were terrific. I will of course continue to speak out for rationality, reason and good science.
Mensur Omerbashich has updated his ArXiv paper on Elenin and Earthquakes. My major criticisms still stand, but I will revisit the paper in the near future.
http://astroblogger.blogspot.
http://astroblogger.blogspot.
http://astroblogger.blogspot.
Many thanks to the Blogger team for their rapid and timely attention to this matter. Given that 24 hours later no actual Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint turned up on the Chilling Effects website, I conclude that this was a frivolous complaint and Blogger has agreed with this assessment.
I was not the only one targeted, RationalWiki also got a frivolous DCMA suit over their comet Elenin article, which was dismissed (Thanks for the heads up to T Tolouse can someone tell the RationalWiki guys I'm back).
And of course may thanks to the folks who gave me support and offered to host the FAQ's, you were terrific. I will of course continue to speak out for rationality, reason and good science.
Mensur Omerbashich has updated his ArXiv paper on Elenin and Earthquakes. My major criticisms still stand, but I will revisit the paper in the near future.
Labels: comets, Pseudoscience, scepticism, science communicators
Friday, April 08, 2011
Will C/2010 X1 Elenin, the Comet of Doom, Evaporate?
Elenin as seen from the southern hemisphere at closest approach in October. As I’ve written before, I am not sure why comet C/2010 X1 Elenin is attracting so much attention from the Doom and Gloom brigade, when C/2009 P1 was predicted to be about as bright (it’s been downgraded now). But ironically there has been a new spate of videos (and here) claiming Elenin is a Bad Thing ™ at the same time as there has been lots of discussion in the comet observers lists as to whether the comet will survive its passage of the Sun.
The various claims about Elenin include a) it will hit us, b) it will cause earthquakes c) we will pass through the tail and unspecified Bad Things ™ will happen.
The Earth as seen from Elenin at closest approach on 16 October (in this Celestia simulation)Elenin will not hit us. The closest it will come is around 0.24 AU (where an AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun). That’s only a little closer than the closest approach of Venus to Earth, and roughly 100 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. That’s really, really far away (you think it’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll, but that’s nothing compared to space*).
As the comet passes through the asteroid belt as it is doing now, and is exposed to the small gravitational tugs its orbit will change very slightly. This is important to us guys with big telescopes who need to point them really, really accurately, but even if the orbit changes by the distance of the Earth the to Moon (which would be a pretty big shift), then Elenin is still nowhere near the Earth. Nor is the debris in the comets orbit going to hit. We might get a decent meteor shower, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. As it is, the comet has passed it closest encounters, and its orbit hasn’t changed appreciably.
Eleinin will not cause earthquakes, as I’ve written before, even at closest approach Elenin has less than a billionth of the tidal force of the Moon. It will do nothing. Passing through Elenin’s tail will do nothing, its tail will be doing a very good approximation of a vacuum (and its not even clear its tail will reach Earth). We’ve been through cometary tails before of bigger and brighter comets (eg Halley), and nothing has happened.
How big is comet Elenin, then. Lots of people are claiming it is “big” for example “..when i look at the size of the orbit that this thing is huge, heavy…”. Well, orbital radius has nothing to do with the size of a comet, lots of long period comets are quite small. In the case of Elenin, it’s around 3-4 km in size, a bit smaller than Halley (6x 16 Km). We have a reasonable idea of its size from its brightness. Roughly speaking, at a given distance from the sun, the bigger an object is, the brighter its is. Of course, this also depends on how dark it is as well. Comets mess things up a bit as they are brighter than you expect from their size alone, as they are surrounded by a coma of gas and dust reflecting the light of the Sun. Now, comet Elenin is currently roughly magnitude 14, if it were the size of say, the asteroid Vesta, with a diameter of 530 Km, it would be at least magnitude 7 at its current distance. So Elenin has to be fairly small.
We’ve seen all this panic before. In 2006 Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann came within 0.08 AU of Earth, 3 times closer than Elenin. The comet disintegrated spectacularly, and Earth passed through its tail. There were cries of doom, destruction and catastrophic earthquakes …. and nothing happened. Just as no disaster struck in 1996, 1983 (two very close comets), 1961 and so on when other, more impressive comets came closer to Earth than comet Elenin will.
Now I mentioned that comet Elenin might evaporate. The cometary community has been keeping a close watch on Elenin. It’s not spectacular but still interesting and should be a nice binocular comet. If it survives perihelion. It is an intrinsically faint comet, and its light curve is developing in a manner similar to other comets that have vaporized on perihelion approach. After all, they are just dirty snowballs, or icy dirt balls, often barely hanging together. The gas pressure that develops as the comet comes close to the Sun can tear it apart into small icy chunks which rapidly evaporate.
Currently opinion on the comets list is that Elenin has a 50% chance of surviving. But as with all comet predictions we will need to keep a close eye on Elenin as enters the inner solar system. I hope it makes it; I’m looking forward to imaging the comet. Still, it would be interesting to see the conspiracy theorists reactions if Elenin evaporated when it got close to the Sun.
* Obligatory Hitch-Hikers guide to the Galaxy reference.
Labels: comets, Pseudoscience, scepticism, science
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Solar Activity vs Earthquakes
For the benefit of those claiming that solar flares and solar activity affect earthquakes, I have create these two graphs. The first is a graph of earthquake frequency and magnitude for all earthquakes of magnitude 6 and above (otherwise we would drowning in noise from magnitude 5 quakes) plotted against sunspot number from 1979 to 2010. Click on the image to embiggen.I’ve use a 4 point smoothing to make the data more legible (which is why some Mag 8 earthquakes don’t appear). Data for earthquakes is from here, and sunspot data is from here.
As you can immediately see, earthquake number and intensity is basically random. There is no correlation with sunspot number, which is a proxy for solar activity and flare numbers. You can play around with the raw data and plot it in a variety of ways (binning earthquakes by month etc.) but the answer is the same. No relationship.
To get a better handle on this, I’ve also plotted all earthquakes for 2010 magnitude 5 and greater against all solar flares magnitude C1 and greater (C is weakest, M more intense and X very intense). Flare data is from the Australian IPS. Coronal mass ejections (when Earth directed) tend to hit 48 hours after the solar flare (click image to embiggen).Again, as you can see there is no correlation between solar flares and earthquake number or magnitude.
Labels: scepticism, Solar flare, Sun
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tyche, it's not Nibiru (and probably not even real)
It was inevitable, after the British newspaper The Independent overhyped some researchers claims about the possible existence of a jovian (or larger) mass planet out in the Oort belt, some Nibiru folks have jumped on this.The Bad Astronomer has already dealt with the likelihood of there actually being a planet out there, so I won't go into any detail. Just to briefly recap though, statistical analysis of long term comets suggested (with marginal statistical significance), more comets were bring ejected from the Oort cloud in the plane of the ecliptic than elsewhere, and the researchers hypothesised that there was a Jovian (1-4 Mjup) mass planet disturbing the Oort cloud. You can read their latest paper here.
The take home message from this paper is that, should Tyche exist (the proposed name for the planet should it in fact exist), is that it is, at its closest 2,000 au from the Sun. Depending on the mass of course, the bigger the planet is, the further it is from the Sun to produce the effects seen. A 5 MJup planet would have to be 6,000 au away (roughly 1/10 of a light year). To give a feel for this scale of this distance, Pluto is roughly 40 au away, Eris (Xena) at its most distant is roughly 98 au away and Sedna at its most distant is 960 au away (currently it is a mere 90 au away).That's a loooonnnng, long way way (nearly a light month at 2,000 au, over a light month at 6,000 au). Very simply, if Tyche does exist it's not going to turn up in the inner solar system in 2012 (and it is not Nibiru).
Of course, it is not clear that the Nibiru folks are conflating Tyche and Nibiru, they might just be claiming that the possible existence of Tyche justifies the possible existence of Nibiru, but when you have people getting all flustered about a 22 ° halo, it's hard to know what they think.
But then again, the paper helps out there, the authors have searched the IRAS archives extensively, and they conclude there is no 1-4MJup planets out to 2,000 au, so Nibiru is not out there.
Of course, instead of jumping at and down at the latest press release, or images of haloes, the Nibiru folks could have been actually looking for themselves. The IRAS archives are publicly available, there are heaps of remote telescopes that you can buy time on to serach with and of course, most decent amateur scopes would be able to pick out a Mjup planet at Pluto's distance, so there are many avenues for searching. And if Nibiru is going to be in the inner solar system in 2012, then they have a good idea where to look.
So why aren't they looking for real?
Labels: Pseudoscience, scepticism, weirdness
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A Horoscope I'd like to see
A horoscope I’d like to see:
(This follows on from my article on the recent Astrology kerfuffle and was written (but not used) in 2005 for Australian Sky and Space. The positions are correct for 2005, but Mars has obviously moved by now)
Even though the Sun passes through the classical constellation Ophiuchus, it is not included in the astrological zodiac. Also Cetus, where several planets can spend some time, is excluded (most recently Mars was briefly in Cetus). As well, Pluto wanders a bit further from the Zodiac than the others due to its high eccentricity, but the constellations it wanders into are excluded from the astrological zodiac. And what about asteroids, Kuiper belt objects and Plutinos? Astrologers are divided over whether to include them in charts, and although you can find astrological predictions on the internet that do include these objects, your average horoscopes exclude them. And what about space probes? Size and mass is no obstacle to astrological relevance, surely these messengers of human curiosity and hope should be included? Sadly, they are not.
I think it is a great shame that these constellations and objects are excluded from western horoscopes, they would be far more colourful than the wishy-washy current versions that suggest that Mars may be making you a little more aggressive. So I have written the kind of horoscope I would like to see.
Camoleopardis, the Giraffe
You may have to stick you neck out on this occasion. With Voyager 1 in your sign, you have a restless urge to go boldly where no hominid has gone before, but you only get as far as the video store before the bow shock hits. On the 12th of September 2013, a piece of shuttle booster will fall in the garden of all maiden aunts of Camoleopardians.
Ophiuchus, the Serpent bearer
You will find yourself tied up in knots today. The influence of Quaoar would normally help you find a creative way out of the loop, but Varuna will rain on your parade. You may, or may not, have a life changing decision to make on an odd numbered bus. Flipping a coin may, or may not, assist you to come to a decision of some kind.
Serpens: The serpent
You may be feeling a little bit snaky today, if not positively Stygian, and the influence of Pluto in this constellation will make you feel colder and glummer than before. At 12:15 am on Tuesday the hot water heater of all Serpians will explode, making cold showers inevitable.
Cetus: The Whale
With Mars in conjunction with Sedna, International Whaling Commission Members should beware of angry Inuit trying to sell blubber sandwiches. On Friday all Cetians will find a harpoon embedded in their fishpond, even if they didn’t have a fishpond to start with.
Some explanation:
Sedna is the Innuit goddess of the sea, and protector of seals and whales. Quaoar is a North American creation deity and Varuna a water deity. The Kuiper Belt objects named after them really were in the constellations named in 2005 when I wrote this, as was Voyager and Pluto. Mars was in Cetus at the same time as Sedna .
(This follows on from my article on the recent Astrology kerfuffle and was written (but not used) in 2005 for Australian Sky and Space. The positions are correct for 2005, but Mars has obviously moved by now)
Even though the Sun passes through the classical constellation Ophiuchus, it is not included in the astrological zodiac. Also Cetus, where several planets can spend some time, is excluded (most recently Mars was briefly in Cetus). As well, Pluto wanders a bit further from the Zodiac than the others due to its high eccentricity, but the constellations it wanders into are excluded from the astrological zodiac. And what about asteroids, Kuiper belt objects and Plutinos? Astrologers are divided over whether to include them in charts, and although you can find astrological predictions on the internet that do include these objects, your average horoscopes exclude them. And what about space probes? Size and mass is no obstacle to astrological relevance, surely these messengers of human curiosity and hope should be included? Sadly, they are not.
I think it is a great shame that these constellations and objects are excluded from western horoscopes, they would be far more colourful than the wishy-washy current versions that suggest that Mars may be making you a little more aggressive. So I have written the kind of horoscope I would like to see.
Camoleopardis, the Giraffe
You may have to stick you neck out on this occasion. With Voyager 1 in your sign, you have a restless urge to go boldly where no hominid has gone before, but you only get as far as the video store before the bow shock hits. On the 12th of September 2013, a piece of shuttle booster will fall in the garden of all maiden aunts of Camoleopardians.
Ophiuchus, the Serpent bearer
You will find yourself tied up in knots today. The influence of Quaoar would normally help you find a creative way out of the loop, but Varuna will rain on your parade. You may, or may not, have a life changing decision to make on an odd numbered bus. Flipping a coin may, or may not, assist you to come to a decision of some kind.
Serpens: The serpent
You may be feeling a little bit snaky today, if not positively Stygian, and the influence of Pluto in this constellation will make you feel colder and glummer than before. At 12:15 am on Tuesday the hot water heater of all Serpians will explode, making cold showers inevitable.
Cetus: The Whale
With Mars in conjunction with Sedna, International Whaling Commission Members should beware of angry Inuit trying to sell blubber sandwiches. On Friday all Cetians will find a harpoon embedded in their fishpond, even if they didn’t have a fishpond to start with.
Some explanation:
Sedna is the Innuit goddess of the sea, and protector of seals and whales. Quaoar is a North American creation deity and Varuna a water deity. The Kuiper Belt objects named after them really were in the constellations named in 2005 when I wrote this, as was Voyager and Pluto. Mars was in Cetus at the same time as Sedna .
Labels: astrology, scepticism, science, zodiac
A Storm in a Zodiacal Teacup
The Sun in the constellation Ophiuchus on December 12.A recent article by astronomer Parke Kunkle has had the twitterverse and astrologers in an uproar by pointing out that Sun no longer enters the constellations associated with the zodiac due to precession of the equinoxes.
Tropical Astrologers are boasting that Kunkle is wrong, and their system is better than that of Sidereal Astrologers, because their constellations are defined by the Vernal Equinox, and yar-boo-sucks to those silly astronomers.
However, in Tropical Astrology the zodiacal sign Aries (the Ram) actually points to the constellation we call Pisces. Now, most people couldn't find their own constellation in the sky, but I'm sure they would be perplexed to know that Astrological Aries is the constellation known to and ourselves and the ancient Greeks as Pisces (also, the vast majority of horoscopes that people are familiar with are Sun Sign horoscopes which Tropical Astrologers look down on in the first place). So Parke Kunkle is correct, the Zodiacal signs most westerners are familiar with are not associated with the constellations they are named after.
Yes, zodiacal constellations and actual constellations are two entirely different things. The astrological signs of the zodiac may bear the same names as modern constellations but have little correspondence to either modern constellations or constellations as ancients such as Ptolemy knew them. Both Astrological Tropical and Sidereal zodiacal signs are sections of the sky 30 degrees long and 14 degrees wide, centred on the Suns path. No matter how big or small the actual constellation, the sign associated with that constellation is one twelfth of the length of the Suns yearly journey. Again, we will pass silently over the fact that the tropical zodiac signs are named for constellations that no longer reside in their 30 degree swath due to precession of the equinoxes.
The other thing exercising the astrologers is whether Ophiuchus should be part of the zodiac. Now, boundaries for the astronomical constellations have varied quite a bit since the time of Ptolemy (whose astronomical constellations had very different boundaries to the zodiacal constellations) , but both the modern constellation of Ophiuchus and the ancient Greek one defined by Ptolemy had Ophiuchus crossing the ecliptic, as do all the other constellations of the Zodiac. Now we have an astrologer fulminating:
"This is an old hoax. Historically, Ophiuchus has never been listed as a constellation in the sidereal zodiac. It is a constellation out there, but it’s off the ecliptic (that is, it’s not along the path of the Sun through the sky). I’ve read that Ptolemy mentions it in his literature as an off-zodiac constellation, meaning that the Sun never travels through it...."Sorry mate, the Sun does travel through it (and has done so since Ptolemy described it back around 100 AD, and probably even earlier based on the Farnese Atlas see the image above), as does the Moon and planets, in fact the Sun spends more time in Ophiuchus than it does in Scorpius. It's good that astrologers are so familiar with the sky they get their predictions from.
What's more, several astrologers have suggested that Ophiuchus should be incorporated into the zodiac (see here, here and here). So I wouldn't call the proposal for Ophiuchus to be a Zodiacal constellation a "hoax", Mr. Astrologer.
Labels: astrology, scepticism, science, zodiac
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Sorry to Dissapoint the Nibiru Folks, It's Just a Sun Halo
This image is doing the rounds of a news aggregator site at the moment.The text breathlessly exclaims:Is this "halo" magnetic, does it interfere with biological processes on Earth? Could it be the source of a magnetic disruption which destroyed or altered the navigational abilities of the now dead birds, bats, and fish?
Sorry guys, but this is a plain old 22° halo. It occurs when sunlight is refracted through hexagonal ice crystal high in the atmosphere. It is one of the commonest sky phenomena there is. Here is a few images I've made of halos around the Moon.
It's nice and all the speculate, but couldn't have someone asked a meteorologist before getting all Stargate on us.
The Nibiru crowd are getting excited about the bright blob near the sun, claiming it's a winged disk.
Well, one thing it's not is Venus, on January 4, when this image was taken in Indonesia, Venus was 47° away from the Sun, well outside the 22° radius of the halo (as was Mercury, but usually Venus and occasionally Jupiter are bright enough to to photograph in daylight).
Most likely (in no particular order) are, a parhelion from a parhelic circle crossing a dimmer, internal halo that doesn't show up on the photo (see here for a complex halo, and other images here and here), a random flare off high atmospheric ice crystals or internal camera lens flare.
But a planet it is not.
And why the author of the piece thought that a halo in Indonesia was responsible for bird kills in the US is beyond me. I did like the idea that sonic booms from the "intense seasonal meteors" could be responsible for bird kills, the Quadrantids are quite modest (nice picture here), and we don't see more die off's during the Geminids for example.
There's a really simple explanation for the bird die off's, it's just normal seasonal die-off's, blown out of proportion by media attention.
Labels: Halo, scepticism
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Anti-Science Bullies at it Again
You may remember how the British Chiropractic Association sued Simon Singh because he had the audacity to sepak the truth about Chiropractic. Now a medical testing firm, Doctors data, is suing Dr. Steve Barrett of Quackwatch, for criticising it. Well warranted and scientifically supported criticism. You can read more detail at Respectful Insolence. As with the Simon Singh case, pass the news on so we can raise awarness of this latest round of anti-science bullying, and you can contribute to Dr. Barrett's legal defense fund by donating to Quackwatch here.
Labels: miscelaneous, scepticism, Science Blogging, science matters
Saturday, April 10, 2010
It's World Homeopathy Awaness Week!
It's World Homoeopathy Awareness Week from 10-16 April. You could go to the homoepaths site and be told that distilled water will cure what ails you, or you could visit Science-Based Pharmacy, the Australian Skeptics, Orac, White Coat Underground, or Science-Based Medicine for the real lowdown on these over-priced placebos.
Labels: education, Pseudoscience, scepticism
Sunday, March 21, 2010
HowlerFest 2010
Way back in prehistory, when the world was young and the TalkOrigins archives were less than a megabyte, Ted Holden dubbed the denizens of the USENET forum TalkOrigins “Howler Monkeys”, this was taken as a badge of pride, and any meeting of TO contributors was dubbed a HowlerFest.This weekend some of the old TO regulars, myself, John Wilkins, Chris (“how can he be trusted”) Nedin, Jim (Hominid FAQ) Foley and Chis Ho-Stuart met with PZ Myers in Canberra for an antipodean Howler Fest. We don’t contribute much to TO these days, but we are all still active in appreciation of science, and combating pseudoscience and have our own blogs, or blog at the Panda’s Thumb collective (which grew out of TO).
There was much eating, drinking of caffeinated beverages and some beer called Venom, appreciation of Dickensonia Rex and talking. Lots of talking about a diverse range of subjects (science, pseudoscience, global warming, religion, whose politicians were most insane). Chris and Jim had us take over their living rooms and bedrooms without complaint as we all talked late into the night (and let me say Chris’s couch is very, very comfortable). I won’t talk too much about this, as Professor SteveSteve will blog the meeting over that the Panda’s Thumb, apart from saying we single handeledy increased coffee sales in Canberra that weekend.However, I do want to recount one incident. People forget that Prof Myers is a developmental biologist, and does experiments with Zebra fish. I work on Alzheimer’s disease, and work with some colleagues on Zebra fish looking at toxicity models. PZ had discovered that a certain free radical scavenger had an interesting and unexpected effect on development; we had found a structurally different free radical scavenger had a similar and unexpected effect on development. We blinked at each other for a moment. Now I’m going to use his scavenger in my experiments next week, and he’s going to use my scavenger in his experiments.
Science is fantastic! Cross seeding of ideas can come from almost anywhere!
Labels: miscelaneous, scepticism, science
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Homeopathy and the Quality of Evidence
The news is abuzz with the report of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Evidence Check 2: Homoeopathy (read it here). Isn't it amazing, decades of scientific and clinical research showing homoeopathy doesn't work fail to hit the headlines, but let a parliamentary committee even hint that maybe, just maybe as homoeopathy doesn't work the government should pay for it and the story is all over the airwaves. The non-controversial finding that homeopathy is a fancy kind of placebo even made in onto the ABC news.
Naturally, a spokesperson for the homoepaths was a little annoyed; "they dismissed all kinds of evidence" she said. No, that's wrong. They looked at all forms of evidence, put put more weight on strong evidence rather than weak evidence. But this is typical of homoeopaths ability to ignore evidence they don't like. I'll use an example from the evidence presented to the committee itself.
The report is humongous, and I have not read the main submissions in depth, but one thing caught my eye.
testimony of a homoeopath
Okay... Now, the actual trial is here. Complement Ther Med. 2006 Dec;14(4):237-46. Epub 2006 Oct 13. Homeopathic arnica therapy in patients receiving knee surgery: results of three randomised double-blind trials. They investigated the effectiveness of homeopathic Arnica montana on postoperative swelling and pain after arthroscopy (ART), artificial knee joint implantation (AKJ), and cruciate ligament reconstruction (CLR).
Here is the actual description
Note the patient numbers, not 3,700 (and the final results were with fewer subjects 57 in CLR 30 test, 27 control). There were numerous tests, and no evidence of correction for multiple statistical analysis (which means the statistics are very likely to give false positives). In only one operation (the cruciate ligament CLR one) was there any indication of a benefit. This should be a red flag, if Arnica is doing something, it should work on all of these operations (and certainly be picked up in the trial with the largest number of patients), this fact screams "false positive".
The benefit in CLR, far from strong, was a marginal reduction in knee
diameter, but not pain, fluid exudate and number of punctures. The only value
they got marginally significant was neither their primary endpoint (relative knee diameter reduction) or their secondary endpoint (absolute knee diameter reduction), but a value obtained by doing an interesting data manipulation which I can't reproduce (ratio of mean difference and pooled pretreatment SD's, in theory not bad, I can't get their values, but its not clear what actual
values they were using). Worse, this effect was significant only for day 1 after surgery, by day 2 (when knee diameters were still increasing), the effect went away. Again, this is consistent with "false positive".
So, all in all NOT a strong benefit shown as claimed by the pro-homoeopathy person. A marginal result in a small trial where the result could easily be due to chance (and has all the red falgs indication it was just a chance result). Hmm, homoeopathy still wildly exaggerating after all these years. Sorry folks, it's not the parliamentary committee ignoring evidence, it's the homoeopaths.
See also Orac and Ben Goldacre for more info.
Naturally, a spokesperson for the homoepaths was a little annoyed; "they dismissed all kinds of evidence" she said. No, that's wrong. They looked at all forms of evidence, put put more weight on strong evidence rather than weak evidence. But this is typical of homoeopaths ability to ignore evidence they don't like. I'll use an example from the evidence presented to the committee itself.
The report is humongous, and I have not read the main submissions in depth, but one thing caught my eye.
testimony of a homoeopath
Mr Wilson: Arnica, which is for bruising, and is
extremely useful in post-operative care. There was a
major trial done on arnica and, indeed, there is one
that has just been published, the Witt Trial, which
was done by the Charite´ Hospital in Berlin. It was a
large trial—3,700 patients involved—and that has
shown clearly that there is a strong benefit in
homeopathic use to these patients with long-term
chronic conditions. One of the subjects of that trial
was arnica."
Okay... Now, the actual trial is here. Complement Ther Med. 2006 Dec;14(4):237-46. Epub 2006 Oct 13. Homeopathic arnica therapy in patients receiving knee surgery: results of three randomised double-blind trials. They investigated the effectiveness of homeopathic Arnica montana on postoperative swelling and pain after arthroscopy (ART), artificial knee joint implantation (AKJ), and cruciate ligament reconstruction (CLR).
Here is the actual description
From November 1996 to December 1997, a total of 343 patients were included in the three trials: 237 in ART, 35 in AKJ, and 71 in CLR
Note the patient numbers, not 3,700 (and the final results were with fewer subjects 57 in CLR 30 test, 27 control). There were numerous tests, and no evidence of correction for multiple statistical analysis (which means the statistics are very likely to give false positives). In only one operation (the cruciate ligament CLR one) was there any indication of a benefit. This should be a red flag, if Arnica is doing something, it should work on all of these operations (and certainly be picked up in the trial with the largest number of patients), this fact screams "false positive".
The benefit in CLR, far from strong, was a marginal reduction in knee
diameter, but not pain, fluid exudate and number of punctures. The only value
they got marginally significant was neither their primary endpoint (relative knee diameter reduction) or their secondary endpoint (absolute knee diameter reduction), but a value obtained by doing an interesting data manipulation which I can't reproduce (ratio of mean difference and pooled pretreatment SD's, in theory not bad, I can't get their values, but its not clear what actual
values they were using). Worse, this effect was significant only for day 1 after surgery, by day 2 (when knee diameters were still increasing), the effect went away. Again, this is consistent with "false positive".
So, all in all NOT a strong benefit shown as claimed by the pro-homoeopathy person. A marginal result in a small trial where the result could easily be due to chance (and has all the red falgs indication it was just a chance result). Hmm, homoeopathy still wildly exaggerating after all these years. Sorry folks, it's not the parliamentary committee ignoring evidence, it's the homoeopaths.
See also Orac and Ben Goldacre for more info.
Labels: scepticism, Science Blogging
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Semi-Liveblogging the Festival of Ideas
10:15 am: I'm currently having coffee in the booksellers tent at the entrance to Elder hall, while waiting for Simon Singh's talk to begin. As typical, there are lots of things I want to see that are all on at the same time. Climate change and Drug Prohibition for instance (hey, I'm a Pharmacologist), then Life: It's Origin and Evolution is on at the same time as New Directions in Astronomy and Darwin's Armada (sobs).
1:15 pm: I suck at this. But I got to talk personally to Antonio Lazcano and Alex Wodak, that was brilliant. If you want to listen to these talks Radio Adelaide will be streaming audio from the sessions, and podcasts will be eventually available here.
First off, my (very brief) talk with Antionio Lacanzo. I was waiting to get into the session on drug prohibition with Alex Wodak (see this youtube Video) when I notice that the tall (at least to me) figure standing next to me was awfully familiar form varuious book covers, I introduced myself and established that he was indeed Antonio, and then I went all fanboy. Look, this man is one of the top origin of life researchers in the world, and I've been following his work for years. He said that Australia was one of the leading places for Astrobiology, and we had an advantage that the US didn't, our secular society and low level of creationism. I had to point out that we export our creationists to the US.
Yikes, it's almost time to go into the session on Origin of life, I have no idea how PZ Myers can liveblog conferences. Gotta rush.
2:52 pm: Antonio Lacanzo's session was brilliant. Did you know the first letters in ribose stand for Rockerfeller Institute of Biology? I didn't. Seesh, by the time the computer boots up it's time for the next session, "Beyond Evolution". I'll have to wait until I get home to write propper descriptions of these talks.
1:15 pm: I suck at this. But I got to talk personally to Antonio Lazcano and Alex Wodak, that was brilliant. If you want to listen to these talks Radio Adelaide will be streaming audio from the sessions, and podcasts will be eventually available here.
First off, my (very brief) talk with Antionio Lacanzo. I was waiting to get into the session on drug prohibition with Alex Wodak (see this youtube Video) when I notice that the tall (at least to me) figure standing next to me was awfully familiar form varuious book covers, I introduced myself and established that he was indeed Antonio, and then I went all fanboy. Look, this man is one of the top origin of life researchers in the world, and I've been following his work for years. He said that Australia was one of the leading places for Astrobiology, and we had an advantage that the US didn't, our secular society and low level of creationism. I had to point out that we export our creationists to the US.
Yikes, it's almost time to go into the session on Origin of life, I have no idea how PZ Myers can liveblog conferences. Gotta rush.
2:52 pm: Antonio Lacanzo's session was brilliant. Did you know the first letters in ribose stand for Rockerfeller Institute of Biology? I didn't. Seesh, by the time the computer boots up it's time for the next session, "Beyond Evolution". I'll have to wait until I get home to write propper descriptions of these talks.
Labels: scepticism, science, Science Blogging, science matters
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Best Takedown of the 2102 2012 nonsense ever ...
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
