Let’s see. We love the Center for Science in the Public Interest (or CSPI) for their Integrity in Science Database, where you can cross-reference scientists and universities with their corporate cash. It’s one of the best resources on the web for Gonzo Scientists concerned about corporate bias in science and that’s why we link to it in our sidebar under “Critical Thinking”.

But CSPI ain’t perfect. For instance they are still bashing coconut oil for being heart-stopping “artery-clogging” saturated fat, even while a consensus appears to be building that coconut oil has been the vicitm of a US industry-led smear campaign, and is actually crazy healthy.

CSPI also sucks when it comes to genetic engineering of food - while not embracing GE food full-heartedly, they provide an awful lot of cover for this out-of-control industry, in their zeal to be “balanced”. For instance, in their Biotechnology FAQ page, they spout this excrement about the safety of GE food:

GE food companies and others have conducted a number of tests to determine food safety and that testing has not uncovered any evidence of harm. Those tests have included short-term high-dose animal feeding studies of the GE protein, determining whether and how quickly the GE protein is broken down in the stomach (which prevents exposure to the rest of the body), and testing the levels of a number of naturally occurring plant components to make sure they have not been changed in the GE crop. While some of the tests have not always used the best available methods, together the results indicate that current GE crops are safe.

That is demonstrably total crap, and if that’s their idea of the public interest, they can keep it - not a word in there about the health hazards continually popping up in independent research. Why would the Center for Science in the Public Interest throw these independent researchers an anchor? There’s also this entirely outdated, sanitized version of the GE contamination of Mexican landrace corn:

Further tests are being conducted to determine whether the original results about the presence of GE genes in Mexican corn are correct.

The results have been in for a while now: they found ‘em! supporting the original study! - but not a peep from CSPI, who act like the GE controversy somehow can’t be decided one way or the other. Choose a side already - the truly scientific side is against GE.

Verdict: good watchdogs, but could be great, if they can stop being overly influenced by industry.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out:

“We are advocating very large-scale shifts in land use,” said co-author Jeffrey Opperman, a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Global Freshwater Team.

…but it may take a political genius to get these ideas implemented - they make too much sense. Working WITH nature is apparently a radical concept, see: agriculture, organic.

Saw this Wired article referenced on Kos:

When analyzing these quakes, she and her colleagues found that the mini-temblors were much more likely to occur at times when tidal stresses tended to shear the fault in the direction that it normally breaks — that is, when the Pacific tectonic plate is being pulled to the north-northwest relative to the North American tectonic plate, which lies to the east of the fault. In a sense, the added stress on a fault poised to slip acts like the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

When tidal stresses act in the other direction and therefore tend to relieve stress on the fault, the frequency of small quakes drops substantially.

That’s a new wrinkle.

More tool use found among chimps:

This is the first account of chimpanzees using a pounding tool technology to break down large food items into bite-sized chunks rather than just extract it from other unobtainable sources such as baobab nuts, Ms Koops told the BBC.

Wasn’t that long ago the very idea of face-eaters using tools was laughable. But not only are new tools constantly discovered in use, but new kinds of tools as well. Chimps are clearly in the stone age and have been for many thousands of years. Those early scientific assessments were, how you say, talking out their ass.

 Implications abound if this pans out.

The Voyager space probes, at the outer limits of the solar system, revealed that the wispy, 30 light years wide, interstellar cloud surrounding the solar system is held together by a strong magnetic field.

In this episode of dark matter skeptic, we cast scorn upon a BBC article. Look, this whole dark matter flap boils down to this:

“While this result is consistent with dark matter, it is also consistent with backgrounds,” said Fermilab’s director, Pier Oddone. … Commenting on why he felt the scientists had made the announcement before they could confirm their findings to be dark matter, (Professor Carlos Frenk) said that there was a competition among scientists to be the first to make the discovery.

In other words, they got bubkiss, and every time somebody farts, they all yell “Dark Matter!!!”

…that trick you into feeling full:

Their analysis found that aroma release during chewing does contribute to the feeling of fullness and possibly to consumers’ decisions to stop eating. The report cites several possible applications, including developing foods that release more aroma during chewing or developing aromas that have a more powerful effect in triggering feelings of fullness.

I’m sure food companies will really embrace this emerging food technology that, if properly working, makes people consume less product. Could work for a specialty diet line of food products I suppose - but here at Gonzo Science we really don’t think the best scientific approach is to assume there’s something wrong with food that needs to be fixed. There’s plenty of good food around, people just have to eat it.

Subglacial mountain range mapped, yields surprises:

The group has told a major conference in the US that the hidden mountains are more jagged than previously thought.

They are also more linear in shape than the sparse data collected in the past had suggested.

This latter finding hints at a possible origin for the mountains whose existence has perplexed scientists for 50 years.

“If you have a linear structure it makes them more like the Alps or the Appalachians,” explained Dr Michael Studinger from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University, New York.

“These are mountain ranges that formed by the collision of tectonic plates.”

The alternative to the plate tectonics theory (the expanding earth or expansion tectonics theory) says the origin of mountain ranges is from from the expanding earth increasing in circumference, and this process buckles and folds the continents as the planegt expands beneath them, which results in mountains (from Neal Adams’ site):

On the upper surface of the continental plates compression results in folding and mountaining.

Fun stuff. Be sure to check out his animations if you haven’t already.

Also should mention that as far as the hidden features of Antactica goes, remember Graham Hancock said there’s Atlantean pyramids under the ice … we tried to find out more from our man in Antarctica the Noble Hobo, but he never found any leads…

Wacking barred owls to see if spotted owls benefit, Fish and Wildlife personnel need to have the right tools.

“If we are going to remove them, a shotgun will probably be the method of choice, because it is most reliable,” she said. “There will be very strict conditions to have close to a 100 percent kill rate.”

Got an upgrade I see: the Ady Gil. It’s only the world’s fastest boat:

The Ady Gil, a 78-foot-long, carbon-fiber, wave-piercing trimaran that runs on low-emission, renewable fuels, is the latest addition to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s protest fleet against Japan’s yearly whale hunt near Antarctica, which is set to begin soon. … Bethune said the materials, and the paint, on the ship made it more difficult for radars to detect, enabling it to sneak up on the whaling vessels speedily. … the Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace … holds the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by a motorized boat.

Here’s more over at seashepherd.org including more photos.

UPDATE: The Ady Gil has been rammed and disabled…

But since we already know - without research - that GMOs are harmless, this new research showing health risks is de facto poorly designed! Right, New Scientist magazine? God those guys are scientific!!

In addition to having to overcome the sickening biotech-boosterism of much of the science world and the scientific press (cough cough New Scientist cough cough),  it is also an uphill battle for researchers to obtain sufficient data to do science - observe, from the research:

In order to scientifically address this issue, it is necessary to have access to toxicological tests, preferably on mammals, performed over the longest time-scales involving detailed blood and organ system analyses. Furthermore, these tests should, if possible, be in accordance with OECD guidelines. Unfortunately, this has been a challenge since usually these are regulatory tests performed confidentially by industry prior to commercialization of their GM crops, pesticides, drugs or chemicals. As a result, it is more instructive to investigate the available data that allows comparisons of several GMOs consumptions on health effects. … The raw data have been obtained by European governments and made publically available for scrutiny and counter-evaluation. … The raw biochemical data, necessary to allow a statistical re-evaluation, should be made publically available according to European Union Directive CE/2001/18 but unfortunately this is not always the case in practice. On this occasion, the data we required for this analysis were obtained either through court actions (lost by Monsanto) to obtain the MON 863 feeding study material (June 2005), or by courtesy of governments or Greenpeace lawyers.

Oh and about those health risks?

These are the longest in vivo tests performed with mammals consuming these GMOs. … in the three GM maize varieties that formed the basis of this investigation, new side effects linked to the consumption of these cereals were revealed, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others [4]. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity. This can be due to the new pesticides (herbicide or insecticide) present specifically in each type of GM maize, although unintended metabolic effects due to the mutagenic properties of the GM transformation process cannot be excluded [42].

But New Scientist said there was no rational basis for distinguishing GM from non-GM!!

(hat tip to Organic Consumers Association)

That coffin is getting all nailed up. The discovery of a real ”Jesus-era” burial shroud is just the tip of the iceberg in this fruitful discovery:

Assuming the new shroud typifies those used in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, the researchers maintain that the Shroud of Turin could not have originated in the city.

…. “There have now been only two cases of textiles discovered in Jewish burials from this period,” said archaeologist Amos Kloner of Bar Ilan University. And both appear to contradict the idea that the Shroud of Turin is from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

The human remains in this new shroud have also provided the earliest known case of leprosy, and so this post gets the coveted “Revised Timelines” tag.

Superpollster and numbers whiz Nate Silver with a handy chart of data to soothe the chicken littles out there:

For any “progressive” who is concerned about the inequality of wealth, income and opportunity in America, this bill would be an absolutely monumental achievement.

…I myself am a progressive and a Kossack, and this is comforting to me - Obama too is saying it’s all good. Not all good as in all good, but all good as in pretty darn good for now. Fingers crossed…

I cannot contain my joy that Al Franken is in the US Senate.

Marijuana chemical helps stimulate new cell growth in brain

Hey! What do ya know? Another Cannabis myth, dare I say proved, false with actual scientific testing. No wonder the DEA is so resistant actually letting us study this plant.

Geez, these adverse findings are racking up. Can pro-GMO scientists bat them all away in time to save Monsanto?? Priorities…

Researchers manage to rule out one of the lamest ideas for the origin of methane on Mars I have ever heard (delivered by meteors LOL). Heckuva job, y’all.

The Gonzo Science position: microbes. Place yer bets!

TPM’s Josh Marshall considers the limits of skepticism in the context of global warming. Some good stuff in here, like:

to maintain a skepticism which is rooted in the inherently tentative nature of all scientific knowledge is quite different from assuming that the science is wrong and that what’s right is what I’d prefer to be true even though I don’t know anything about the science at all — which is where a lot of the public discussion of climate change seems to occur.

What I’ve been thinking about for a while is how it is that very few people doubt physicists or oncologists when it comes to their areas of specialty even though theories come and go in those fields as well. There’s little doubt, for instance, that physicists at the end of this century will know a lot of things today’s scientists got wrong or don’t know. And they’ll know how many things today’s physicists believe that are just wrong. Still, I’m pretty confident nuclear warheads will go off, even if, as far as I know, one’s never been tested on the tip of an ICBM. Perhaps more to the point, medical science today clearly has only a very limited understanding of cancer. But how many oncology skeptics do you know who choose to take a pass on chemo or radiation if they get sick?

His follow-up post here.

This all has bearing on the finer points of the Gonzo Science method, where we regularly exhibit skepticism of mainstream science positions. When we do that, it’s because (in our judgement) there is a.) room to doubt the mainstream position b.) a well-developed alternative or c.) both. None of that appears to be in play with regards to climate change.

We’re not skeptical of the scientific method. It isn’t practiced super well all the time, and that’s where we focus a lot of our science criticism and commentary. But your average climate change denier has little room to doubt the mainstream position (there are good reasons to regulate emissions even assuming global heating is no big deal!), and no well-developed alternative (cherry-picked data and wacky conspiracy theories instead).

As I explained to a religious anti-evolutionist once, the alternative to bad science is not the Bible, it’s better science. And as per issues in science like GMO crops, better science would include adoption of the precautionary principle - a principle the climate change deniers should consider adopting. 

Some guy in a suit called.

Loren Coleman has more, but hey, he’s only America’s Greatest Living Cyptozoologist.

As I am sure you have heard by now, there was a strange swirling blue light over a town in northern Norway. A bluish light moves up from behind a mountain, stops, being spinning and emitting a perfect moving swirl pattern, emits a blue spiral beam towards the ground, and then dissipates.

Explanation: A failed Russian Navy rocket test. Yeah, okay. Prove it. I am skeptical of how a rocket spiraling out of control could produce such a perfect spiral pattern against the force of gravity like that, unless it was outside of earth’s atmosphere when it happened, that is if there was even a rocket.

A Moscow news outlet quoted the Russian Navy as denying any rocket launches from the White Sea area.

Decent video here.

Whatever it is, pretty remarkable to say the least.

interactive musical shopping cart/projector

(from Wooster)

I saw this headline at New Scientist’s blog: “Rumors that first dark matter particle found“.

I thought, “I predict they didn’t.”

I click through and find:

The gossip mill went into overdrive after a rumour leaked out that the CDMS collaboration has had a paper accepted by the journal Nature. Word is that the paper will appear in the 18 December issue.

Nature is an unusual place for particle physicists to publish their papers and this has prompted speculation that the news must be big.

….

Update: in an email to the blog Resonaances, Nature’s senior physical science editor Leslie Sage has squashed the rumours that a paper is about to appear in the journal

Sofa King predictable.

Dark matter would have to exist for them to find it:

The Big Bang requires sprinkling galaxies, clusters, superclusters, and the universe with ever-increasing amounts of this invisible, not-yet-detected “dark matter” to keep the theory viable. Overall, over 90% of the universe must be made of something we have never detected. By contrast, Milgrom’s model (the alternative to “dark matter”) provides a one-parameter explanation that works at all scales and requires no “dark matter” to exist at any scale. (I exclude the additional 50%-100% of invisible ordinary matter inferred to exist by, e.g., MACHO studies.) Some physicists don’t like modifying the law of gravity in this way, but a finite range for natural forces is a logical necessity (not just theory) spoken of since the 17^th century.

Milgrom’s model requires nothing more than that. Milgrom’s is an operational model rather than one based on fundamentals. But it is consistent with more complete models invoking a finite range for gravity. So Milgrom’s model provides a basis to eliminate the need for “dark matter” in the universe at any scale. This represents one more Big Bang “fudge factor” no longer needed.

QED

Ancient white folks not very nice.

via the Organic Consumers Association:

-Transgenic material from GM corn found in soil organisms

Next stop: your genome. Just remember, we have to destabilize the environment to save it!
Also:

-Bayer admits “best practices” to control its GMO contamination are total shit

Paraphrasing there. Best bit:

$2 million US dollar verdict against Bayer confirms company’s liability for an uncontrollable technology

….This verdict confirms that the responsibility for the consequences of GE (genetic engineering) contamination rests with the company that releases GE crops.

Sweet Georgia sunshine!!

I am all for Democracy. The United States Senate is not democracy. Point and case:

Wyoming population: 522,000

California population: 36,000,000

Both enjoy two Senators. That’s unrepresentative by a factor of around 70 in favor of the smaller state.

Here is an article from 2004 that further exposes the folly of the US Senate.

In America today, U.S. senators from the twenty-six smallest states, representing a mere 18 percent of the nation’s population, hold a majority in the United States Senate, and, therefore, under the Constitution, regardless of what the President, the House of Representatives, or even an overwhelming majority of the American people wants, nothing becomes law if those senators object. The result has been what one would expect: The less populous states have extracted benefits from the rest of the nation quite out of proportion to their populations. As Frances E. Lee and Bruce I. Oppenheimer have demonstrated in their Sizing Up the Senate, the citizens of less populous states receive more federal funds per capita than the citizens of the more populous states.And what happens if the larger states, with a majority of the people, object? Not much. Today, the nine largest states, containing a majority of the American people, are represented by only 18 of the 100 senators in the United States Senate.

Either flip the power status of the House and Senate, putting the much more representative House above the Senate, evolve the Senate to reflect the house in number of members, or my favorite, just say the hell with it and abolish it.

This is without a doubt one of the most dubious and strange pieces I have ever read from them.

It starts out by mentioning the ESA’s Planck Mission and the hoards of data it is supposed to return after studying the Cosmic Background Radiation.

…aka the “echo” of the big bang, and in 2013 will release a feast of data that promises to deliver profound new insights into the origin of the universe.

I like profound new insights! Go on!

It gets wierd in the next paragraph:

A trio of astronomers have warned that, unless we use the information sparingly, we risk squandering a once-in-eternity opportunity. If the whole data set is released at once, as is planned, any new ideas that cosmologists come up with may have to remain untested because they will have no further data to test them with.

Yes, we wouldn’t want any new ideas in the field of cosmology, now would we?

But imagine if cosmologists find another, similar, mystery buried in the data. What will they use to test that one?

The answer, according to Roberto Trotta of Imperial College London, is to be frugal with what you let the cosmologists see. Instead of giving out all the data at once, the supply should be rationed.

There is obviously more article to read here, but since it is such a short one, I don’t want to reprint too much here at GS. Not to sure about copyright laws.

They go on about how there is only a finite amout of information we can gather about the universe, so therefore we shouldn’t see it all at once, because we might be lured into new and exciting discoveries. Better to limit that info so as you don’t possibly upset the status quo.

Plus, the whole notion of “finite information”, to me, is a diseased notion that has befuddled science.

…once we gather all there is to know about one aspect of it - in this case the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background - the well runs dry.

Really, guys….really?
The whole article stinks. The comments below rightfully tear them a new a**hole.

Who wouldn’t sign up to chow down on forbidden synthetic human meat out of a futuristic food tube?

The baffling and esoteric text known as the Voynich Manuscript may have been decoded. Here’s a link to the late Terence McKenna giving his take.

I deem this fun.