SGU Episode 57

Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

Water Tree mystery solved

 * www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060817-022000-8116r

Mystery animal in Maine

 * www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208683,00.html

Creationism Update

 * Creationists Attempt to Link Darwin to Hitler www.rawstory.com/news/2006/New_TV_special_featuring_Coulter_ties_0819.html Evolution Strangely Missing from Government Science Grants chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=v6pywllczrz22q3ybkb4b94qrx35ckr7

Pluto Blues IAU votes on definition of Planet

 * www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/NEWS.55.0.html www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn9818-astronomers-lean-towards-eight-planets.html

Follow up on Acupuncture
"Hello, First I wanted to thank you guys for such an excellent job with the podcast. I discovered it a few month ago and I'm in love (I think my husband is getting jealous - I'm spending a lot more time listening to my MP3 player catching up on the episodes I've missed) Your podcast is such a breath of fresh air. I am an MD/PhD student, and as medical students we are taught not to challenge patients ideas about their heath, but to work with them and incorporate their believes into the 'standard' medical care. The idea is to make sure they do not abandon you as their doctor all together for an alternative practitioner. As much as it hurts my skeptical sensibilities, I can't entirely disagree with this approach, nor can I come up with a better alternative. So, health professionals are left to perpetuate all kinds of unscientific nonsense or to loose your patient, thus jeopardizing their health. Today I run across an article about acupuncture: www.infopoems.com/infopoems/dailyInfoPOEM.cfm?view=93825 (this is the InfoPOEMs summary with a link to an actual article) I have a number of concerns about the subject. Most of all I am worried about health professionals (rather than patients or acupuncturist who don't give science much credit anyway) walking away form reading such articles with 'acupuncture works' message and going on to tell their patients about it. On a different note, it is not wise to ignore the evidence if it is there. Assuming the study design is valid (at least I could not see anything glaringly wrong with it), I am trying to think of why it would show the results it did show. Fibromyalgia is an unusual disease, and as far as I know one of the theories about its etiology is diminished blood flow the areas of pain (which is somehow psychologically mediated). The supporting evidence for that would be the fact that both antidepressants and exercise help. Do you think it is possible that putting a needle in would increase the blood flo"

Interview with Larry Sarner

 * Larry Sarner is dedicated to fighting anti-scientific medical practices. His efforts have focused on Therapeutic Touch, Attachment Therapy, Naturopathy, and the anti-flouridation movement. He is a member of the National Council Against Health Fraud and is an official with the Advocates for Children in Therapy. Author of Attachment Therapy On Trial: The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7675.aspx  Pro-fluoridation website www.healthysmiles.org/home.shtml  Articles by Sarner: www.phact.org/e/tt/sarner.htm

Science or Fiction
Question #1: South American Indians were able to smelt platinum long before the technology was available to reach platinum's melting point of 1768.9 C - a temperature unattainable until the nineteenth century. Question #2: Although corn was cultivated in the Americas, it was developed from a grass known only to exist in Asia. Question #3: The sides of the Giza pyramids deviate from a N-S alignment by 3/60 of a degree (3 minutes of arc).

Skeptical Puzzle
"New Puzzle: A man, a chemist, a pastor by trade In search of a cure he thought he had made For the prevention and cure of scurvy, he wrote His newest discovery he had hoped to gloat  The public's belief in this product was fast Dermatitis and rheumatism would be things of the past.  As time passed on, and the ills still remained The product itself would garnish new fame  Still the pharmacies sold it, it would become a tradition People bought it by the hundreds, the thousands, and millions  For that man long ago we must give our thanks, While he tinkered with elements, currents, and plants  And though he did not rid the world of rickets or piles To billions of people, we attribute their smiles.   Who was he and what was his discovery?"