Getting a burrito at Al & Bea's

Living in LA and going to Chipotle is like living in Rome and going to Pizza Hut.

Damn, Samantha was cute

Classic 1967 Commercial for 'Instant Quaker Oatmeal' with Elizabeth Montgomery

Sure it saved us twenty billion, but it sounds funny

[reposted from West Coast Stat Views -- SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012]

I was very pleased to read this report (via Mr. Salmon,) in the Washington Post:

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) believes it is time the sex life of the screwworm got its due.

 On Wednesday afternoon, Cooper rose to the defense of taxpayer-funded research into dog urine, guinea pig eardrums and, yes, the reproductive habits of the parasitic flies known as screwworms--all federally supported studies that have inspired major scientific breakthroughs. Together with two House Republicans and a coalition of major science associations, Cooper has created the first annual Golden Goose Awards to honor federally funded research “whose work may once have been viewed as unusual, odd, or obscure, but has produced important discoveries benefiting society in significant ways.” Federally-funded research of dog urine ultimately gave scientists and understanding of the effect of hormones on the human kidney, which in turn has been helpful for diabetes patients. A study called “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig” resulted in treatment of early hearing loss in infants. And that randy screwworm study? It helped researchers control the population of a deadly parasite that targets cattle--costing the government $250,000 but ultimately saving the cattle industry more than $20 billion, according to Cooper’s office.

This is a good story in the sense that it's good news -- for too many years, important research with huge economic pay-offs has been ignored and often mocked -- but it's also a good story for a guy trying to write  a post for a science and technology blog because it illustrates so nicely some of the reasons that so much science reporting is so bad:

1. Most reporters have a weak grasp of what goes into good research. For example, studying conditions in different animals often produces giggles from the press (see the dog urine study) even though changing the population of animals studied is generally an excellent idea.

2. The press corps have an urban bias accompanied with a pronounced disinterest in agriculture. As a result, even agricultural research of immense and obvious economic value is routinely mocked by publications like the New York Times.

3. The press corps also has decided ddulite tendencies and unfortunately this research doesn't sound cool. (Even though it is.)

update: Upon review, I'm thinking that I didn't out my point sufficiently. The studies described on the WP were good, solid research that paid for itself. The media's inability to recognise good science makes it all the more difficult to fund and pursue good science.

Since it's a Bob and Ray ad we're going to call beer a food

Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding 1950's beer commercial

Earmarks and Agricultural Research

[reposted from West Coast Stat Views 9/8/11]

Sometimes the press isn't good at connecting stories, particularly when those stories don't match up with the journalists' rather constrained world-view. One of the most reliable examples is the coverage of earmarks. The very fact that earmarks are reported as budget stories is troubling, showing how easily reporters can be manipulated into wasting time on trivia, but as bad as these stories are on a general level, the specifics may be even worse.

Like so many bad trends in journalism, the archetypal example comes from Maureen Dowd, this time in a McCain puff piece from 2009. Here's the complete list of offending earmarks singled out by the senator and dutifully repeated by Dowd:

Before the Senate resoundingly defeated a McCain amendment on Tuesday that would have shorn 9,000 earmarks worth $7.7 billion from the $410 billion spending bill, the Arizona senator twittered lists of offensive bipartisan pork, including:

• $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York. “quick peel me a grape,” McCain twittered.

• $1.7 million for a honey bee factory in Weslaco, Tex.

• $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.

• $1 million for Mormon cricket control in Utah. “Is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits?” McCain tweeted.

• $819,000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama.

• $650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi.

• $951,500 for Sustainable Las Vegas. (McCain, a devotee of Vegas and gambling, must really be against earmarks if he doesn’t want to “sustain” Vegas.)

• $2 million “for the promotion of astronomy” in Hawaii, as McCain twittered, “because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy.”

• $167,000 for the Autry National Center for the American West in Los Angeles. “Hopefully for a Back in the Saddle Again exhibit,” McCain tweeted sarcastically.

• $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii. “During these tough economic times with Americans out of work,” McCain twittered.

• $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program to help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past. “REALLY?” McCain twittered.

• $209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in Georgia.

Putting aside the relatively minuscule amounts of money involved here, the thing that jumps out about this list is that out of 9,000 earmarks, how few real losers McCain's staff was able to come up with. I wouldn't give the Autry top priority for federal money, but they've done some good work and I assume the same holds for the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Along the same lines, I have trouble getting that upset public monies spent on astronomical research. After that, McCain's selections become truly bizarre. Urban water usage is a huge issue, nowhere more important than in Western cities like Los Vegas and it's difficult to imagine anyone objecting to a program that actually gets kids out of gangs.

Of course, we have no way of knowing how effective these programs are, but questions of effectiveness are notably absent from McCain/Dowd's piece. Instead it functions solely on the level of mocking the stated purposes of the projects, which brings us to one of the most interesting and for me, damning, aspects of the list: the preponderance of agricultural research.

You could make a damned good case for agricultural research having had a bigger impact on the world and its economy over the past fifty years than research in any other field. That research continues to pay extraordinary dividends both in new production and in the control of pest and diseases. It also helps us address the substantial environmental issues that have come with industrial agriculture.

As I said before, this earmark coverage with an emphasis on agriculture is a recurring event. I remember Howard Kurtz getting all giggly over earmarks for research on dealing with waste from pig farms about ten years ago and I've lost count of the examples since then.

And interspaced between those stories at odd intervals were other reports, less flashy but far more substantial, describing some economic, environmental or public health crisis that reminded us of the need for just this kind of research. Sometimes the crisis is in one of the areas explicitly mocked (look up the impact of industrial pig farming on rural America* and see if you share Mr. Kurtz's sense of humor). Other times the specifics change, a different crop, a new pestilence, but still well within the type that writers like Dowd find so amusing.

Here's the most recent example:

Across North America, a tiny, invasive insect is threatening some eight billion trees. The emerald ash borer is deadly to ash trees. It first turned up in Detroit nine years ago, probably after arriving on a cargo ship from Asia. And since then, the ash borer has devastated forests in the upper Midwest and beyond.

* Credit where credit is due. Though not as influential as Dowd, the New York Times also runs Nicholas Kristof who has done some excellent work describing the human cost of these crises.

I like to stick with proven science like mega dosing vitamin C*

I was reading this TPM/Slice piece by Alice Hines, not all that enthralled by the writing (so far, I've found the Slice to be overwhelmingly underwhelming), but I'm interested in the subject (multilevel marketing of nutritional supplements) and I was generally in agreement with the skeptical tone. Then I hit this:

I try a peppermint oil myself on my last day in Utah, when I’m having allergies. Jeanne had mentioned it was great for sinus problems, so I place a few drops under my nose and wait optimistically. The spicy candy cane smell helps clear my sinuses exactly as much as the EMPowerplus Q96 helped me overcome my irrational fear of wrecking my rental car: not at all. On my way to the airport, still sniffling, I stop by a coffee shop and order a lavender Kombucha. Bubbly, sour, fragrant, tonic...the liquid does everything the oil didn’t. As I sip it and think about how in a few hours I’ll be home, rental car safely returned, the mucus in my throat washes away. Maybe it was the Zyrtec I took that morning, or maybe it was something more transcendent. To quote Denise, it just worked.

I am entirely ready to believe that a hot beverage can help clear the throat but attributing the medicinal properties to Kombucha, even the lavender variety, makes me a bit nervous:

According to the American Cancer Society, "Kombucha tea has been promoted as a cure-all for a wide range of conditions including baldness, insomnia, intestinal disorders, arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and cancer. Supporters say that Kombucha tea can boost the immune system and reverse the aging process."[1] Drinking Kombucha can cause liver damage and death.[2] Although laboratory experiments are suggestive of possible health effects, there is no evidence that kombucha consumption benefits human health.[19][20][21]

Case reports "raise doubts about the safety of kombucha",[21] since there have been incidents of central nervous system impairment, suspected liver damage, metabolic acidosis,[21] and toxicity in general.[21][22] Acute conditions caused by drinking of kombucha, such as lactic acidosis, are more likely to occur in persons with pre-existing medical conditions.[22] Other reports suggest exercising caution if regularly drinking kombucha while taking medical drugs or hormone replacement therapy.[23] Kombucha may also cause allergic reactions.[24] Some adverse health effects may be due to the acidity of the tea, cautioning preparers to avoid over-fermentation.[25]

Maybe she was better of with the peppermint oil.

* KIDDING!

Wow, the mask really comes off on this one

Watch a few minutes -- at least a few minutes -- of this video, enough to get the general idea. Then check below the fold to find out what happened to that little nutritional supplement company called Nutrilite.