Category: Medicine
Does Nathan Lents, author of a “bad design” book really teach biology? A doctor looks at his claims about the human sinuses
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Human evolution, Medicine |
From Nathan H. Lents at Skeptic: From neurosurgeon Michael Egnor at ENST: Lents writes: One of the important drainage-collection pipes is installed near the top of the largest pair of cavities, the maxillary sinuses, located underneath the upper cheeks… Putting the drainage-collection point high within these sinuses is not a good idea because of this […]
We acquire trillions of new mutations every day, so why are we still alive?
| May 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
From Sarah Zhang at the Atlantic: As you read this article, the cells in your body are dividing and the DNA in them is being copied, letter by letter. So long is the human genome—more than 3 billion letters—that even an astonishingly low error rate of one in many million letters could amount to 10 […]
Darwinian medicine: Nothing in cancer makes sense except in the light of [evolution]? Wow.
| March 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
From Mel Greaves et al. at BNC Biology: Paraphrasing Dobzhansky’s famous dictum, I discuss how interrogating cancer through the lens of evolution has transformed our understanding of its development, causality and treatment resistance. The emerging picture of cancer captures its extensive diversity and therapeutic resilience, highlighting the need for more innovative approaches to control. Abstract: […]
“Core principles of evolutionary medicine” still clinically useless
| March 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
New paper: Abstract Background and objectives Evolutionary medicine is a rapidly growing field that uses the principles of evolutionary biology to better understand, prevent and treat disease, and that uses studies of disease to advance basic knowledge in evolutionary biology. Over-arching principles of evolutionary medicine have been described in publications, but our study is the […]
Robo-Doctor? In China, it seems Robot Xiao-Yi has passed the written medical licensing exams
| February 10, 2018 | Posted by kairosfocus under brains and computation vs contemplation, Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics, Humor, knowledge, language, Medicine, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society, UD's Sci-Tech watch |
Robo-Doc will see you? Maybe, but not just now. This item popped up from the usual suspect tabloid paper sites while searching on AI and memristors. I have tracked down a couple of more reputable sources so, here goes from China Daily (which is also on the spot): >>A robot has passed the written test […]
New Scientist also embraces the love drug
| February 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Media, Medicine, Philosophy, Religion, Science |
Further to “New Scientist embraces politics,” we also learn, from Alice Klein at New Scientist, The love drug that could draw people away from any addiction: The “cuddle chemical” oxytocin boosts social bonds. Soon a version of it will be tested in pill form to see if it can reset the brain wiring that gets […]
Among the real reasons many people “hate science”: Prozac as cause, not cure, of mental illness
| December 23, 2017 | Posted by News under Medicine, Peer review, Philosophy, Science |
From Jeanne Lenzer at Undark: In another case of cure as cause, a landmark study of Prozac to treat adolescent depression found that it increased overall suicidality — the very outcome it is intended to prevent. In the study, 15 percent of depressed adolescents treated with Prozac became suicidal, versus 6 percent treated with psychotherapy, […]
Austin Ruse: Post-modern science hits the streets
| December 12, 2017 | Posted by News under Culture, Ethics, Medicine, Science |
Running and throwing projectiles. From O’Leary for News at Salvo: Family values activist Austin Ruse’s new book, Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data (Regnery, 2017), offers a look at a world growing increasingly hostile to evidence-based reasoning. We have not discovered better reasoning methods; rather, many people seem to […]
Epigenetic researchers: Touching infants frequently affects their genetic expression
| November 29, 2017 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Epigenetics, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
This sort of finding, assuming it holds up, is killing Darwinism. From ScienceDaily: The amount of close and comforting contact between infants and their caregivers can affect children at the molecular level, an effect detectable four years later, according to new research from the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. The […]
From LiveScience: Consciousness after death
| October 5, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Medicine, Mind, Naturalism |
From Mindy Weisberger at LiveScience: Driven by ambition and curiosity to learn what lies on the other side of death, five medical students deliberately stop their hearts in order to experience “the afterlife” in the new thriller “Flatliners” (Sony Pictures), which opened in U.S. theaters on Sept. 29. They quickly discover that there are unexpected […]
Darwinism vs science: Even flu bugs are complex
| September 23, 2017 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
Further to why flu vaccines so often fail, from Jon Cohen at Science, on efforts to find out wy the flu vaccine is so “lackluster”(10% to 60& protection): They’re questioning what was once received wisdom: that the vaccine fails when manufacturers, working months ahead of flu season, incorrectly guess which strains will end up spreading. […]
At last: Amount of “spin” in biomedical papers calculated
| September 13, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Medicine, Peer review, Science |
And the type catalogued. From ScienceDaily: More than a quarter of biomedical scientific papers may utilize practices that distort the interpretation of results or mislead readers so that results are viewed more favorably, a new study suggests. Their findings, published in PLOS Biology, found more than 26 percent of papers identified as systematic reviews or […]
Can epigenetics be used to thwart viruses?
| September 4, 2017 | Posted by News under Epigenetics, Medicine |
From Shawna Williams at the Scientist: There’s potentially more than one way to deal with stuborn viruses like HSV using epigenetic drugs. While no epigenetics-based antivirals are yet on the market, clinical trials are underway to test the use of chromatin-opening cancer drugs in combination with conventional antiretroviral therapies for HIV, and researchers such as […]
Mouse model not suitable for studying human immune response to stem cells
| August 24, 2017 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
From ScienceDaily: A type of mouse widely used to assess how the human immune system responds to transplanted stem cells does not reflect what is likely to occur in patients, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The researchers urge further optimization of this animal model before making decisions […]
Another immune system link that “didn’t exist” found
| April 19, 2017 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Medicine, News |
From ScienceDaily: The University of Virginia School of Medicine has again shown that a part of the body thought to be disconnected from the immune system actually interacts with it, and that discovery helps explain cases of male infertility, certain autoimmune diseases and even the failure of cancer vaccines. Scientists developing such vaccines may need […]
Can medical research be brought back from rigor mortis?
| April 7, 2017 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Medicine, News, Peer review, Science |
A review of Richard F. Harris Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Marcus Munafò at Nature: Harris introduces us to the growing field of metascience — the scientific study of science itself — and some of those working in it. These reproducibility firefighters are providing answers to […]
Research group: Up to 85% of medical research funds may be wasted
| March 10, 2017 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Medicine, News, Peer review |
From University of Plymouth at Eurekalert: Funders need to take more responsibility for the efficiency of the research they fund It has been estimated that up to 85% of medical research is wasted because it asks the wrong question, is badly designed, not published or poorly reported. Health research around the world depends heavily on […]
What exactly does “evolutionary medicine” do that requires this expensive outlay?
| December 20, 2016 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Medicine, News |
12 PhD positions in the Research Training Group “Evolutionary Processes in Adaptation and Disease” (EvoPAD): PhD projects in Biology, Medicine, and Philosophy Start: 1st April 2017. 3-year positions (TV-L E13 65 %) The new DFG-funded Research Training Group “Evolutionary Processes in Adaptation and Disease” (EvoPAD, GRK 2220) unites biological, medical, and philosophical research at the […]
Peer review: Study suggests misconduct in bone health studies
| November 14, 2016 | Posted by News under Medicine, News, Peer review |
From ScienceDaily: A new study suggests probable scientific misconduct in at least some of 33 bone health trials published in various medical journals. The study used statistical methods to detect scientific misconduct or research fraud and calls into question the validity of a body of research work led mainly by one researcher in Japan. The […]
GMO lab mice are poor models for human diseases
| November 1, 2016 | Posted by News under Genetics, Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Medicine, News |
From comparative medicine specialist Joseph Garner, interviewed by Aviva Garner at New Scientist: Of the drugs that get past the animal testing phase and into human trials, only about 1 in 9 actually make it to the market, and that’s dropping all the time. It costs about $2 billion to bring a single drug to […]
