The Bacterias Are Stockpiling Uranium!

During today's daily perusal of the sciencey blogs on the sciencey topics, of science, I came across an intriguing piece about how the Geobacter sulfurreducens uses protein wires to zap uranium out of groundwater. This is a finding with immense practical applications, as these bacteria can be used to clean up contamination around old uranium mines and former weapons factories.

Study authors Dena Cologgi et al forgot to mention one key detail in their study, however.

What are all those bacteriums doing with all that uranium?

I can think of a number of things, none of them good.

They might be ingesting the uranium atoms in hopes that the radioactivity will give them super powers, such as flight, invisibility, or extreme antibiotic resistance. That's not good. They might be bundling them to sell to a rogue nation and/or prions. Also not good. They might even be attempting to build their own functioning nuclear warhead, one atom at a time.

That is catastrophic.

When the bacteria have the bomb, there's no telling what these germs of mass destruction will do with it. Perhaps they'll use it tactically, wiping out pharmaceutical plants around the country. Perhaps they'll use it as a bargaining tool, forcing doctors to stop prescribing antibiotics or they'll turn our major cities to rubble. Perhaps they'll just use them for terrorist revenge attacks on genetic engineering labs that experiment on E. coli.

The possibilities are endless. And they're all terrifying. Run!

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The War on Placebo-Based Medicine Continues

The pro-medicine advocates are all riding on their high-horses over a new study or something in the New England Journal of Medicine that makes the ridiculously unfounded claim that placebos don't work.

Which is, of course, complete hogwash. Hogwash! Placebos DO work, and they're getting stronger at curing diseases.

Well, maybe not curing diseases, per se, but making people feel like their diseases are cured, which for all intents and purposes is the same thing.

The pro-mediciners like notorious anti-quack David Gorski want you to believe that self-delusion is ineffective at curing disease, and are waving around this new "study" as "proof". However, they literally shoot themselves in the foot (gunshot wounds to the foot, by the by, are a malady one can easily treat at home with a mixture of witch hazel and hubris) with the results of the study.

Observe! The graph on the right shows the results of the study, which pitted an albuterol inhaler against a placebo inhaler, fake acupuncture, and no treatment at all for patients with moderate asthma. Now it's true that the albuterol increased lung volume by more than (forgive me, but I have to use an evil number here) 20%.

But! The graph also shows that the placebo inhaler, fake acupuncture, and nothing at all also improved lung volume by more than 7%! Not as effective as albuterol, sure, but still effectivish!

This is nothing less than a revolution in curology!!

If placebos and no treatment can cure asthma by 7%, imagine all the other diseases we could make 7% better by pretending to poke people with needles or telling them to just get over it! Cancer, AIDS, lumbago, bromhidrosis, the list is endless! But I doubt you'll hear that from the evidence-based medicinists!

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The Numbers Are Angry With Greece

By now, you have probably heard about the financial turmoil in Greece, and the violent protests prompted by the Grecian Parliament's austerity vote today. Many explanations are being offered for the source of Greece's financial difficulties, ranging from poor policy decisions by the Greco-socialist government to interference by the IMF and multinational banks.

And, of course, these explanations are all completely and utterly wrong.

The true explanation is also the most obvious. Greece has simply fallen out of favor with the numbers.

It was bound to happen sometime. Theirs is a relationship that goes back more than 2,500 years. During their golden age, the numbers were kind to the Greeks, giving them gifts like the Pythagorean theorem and Euclidean geometry. Over time, however, relationships can sour.

What caused the Greeks to fall into disfavor with the numbers? Only the gods and/or numbers can say for sure. I'd guess that it was one of the usual culprits that lead to the downfall of tragic heroes - hubris, defying oracles, structural adjustment, and general disobedience.

Unfortunately, there is no redemption once you have angered the numbers. In time, Greece - I'm sorry to say - will be brutally killed and wheeled onto the world stage on an ekkyklêma.

May they rest in peace, while teaching the rest of us a valuable, if ironic, life lesson.

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