Posted by admin on May 24, 2011 in
SCIENCE I’d trust a guy like this on this subject. Placebo is pretty effective and may account for much of the beneficial effects commonly attributed to plants.
Dr Henry Oakeley (above) at the New Medicinal Garden, TCD, marking 300 years of Botany at the college. Below (from left): St Johns Wort, deadly nightshade and liverwort. Photographs: Cyril Byrne, Thinkstock
Unearthing deeply rooted plant ‘myths’
JOANNE HUNT | The Irish Times | April 19, 2011
While a few plants can be used to cure disease, most are only effective as placebos, according to an expert
‘PLANTS HAVE been trying to kill us, not cure us,” says Dr Henry Oakeley, the garden fellow at London’s Royal College of Physicians.
Not a comment you might expect from a man who oversees a garden of 600 plants used in medicine for 3,000 years, a man you’d expect to extol medicine’s indebtedness to the plant kingdom.
In Dublin to open a medicinal garden at Trinity College to mark 300 years of botany at the college, he’s well aware that his “very anti-herbal medicine” stance and will jar with some.
“I [nearly] got lynched when I gave this lecture at a herbal medicine conference,” says the former physician and psychiatrist, who is passionate about botany.
But if plants are, for the most part, as medicinally useless as he believes, how does he explain their centrality to the beliefs and practices of medical practitioners for centuries?
“Because they believed in the tooth fairy,” he says matter of factly. “They had no concept of illness or of chemistry or biochemistry. They believed all plants had been put on the earth by the creator for mankind’s use. So if the plant had a particular shape, it indicated that the creator had put it on the planet for a particular use.”
Citing as an example the use of blue liverwort, Hepatica nobilis , once cultivated as a liver tonic because its three-lobed leaf form mirrored the shape of the liver, he says, “It was absolute rubbish. They had no idea how the body worked.”
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Tags: SCIENCE
Posted by on Mar 1, 2009 in
fatu·ous·ness,
Forteana Really??
Loneliness as harmful as smoking and obesity, say scientists
Loneliness can be as harmful to your health as smoking and obesity, claim psychologists.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent in Chicago | 16 Feb 2009
Lack of connection with others not only makes us unhappy but it is also bad for the wellbeing of the body and mind, research finds.
A sense of rejection or isolation increases blood pressure, stress levels and general wear and tear as well as increases your chances of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.
It also reduces will power and perseverance, thus affecting the ability to follow a healthy lifestyle, according to scientists.
The findings were outlined by Professor John Cacioppo, of the University of Chicago, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference.
Loneliness not only alters behaviour, but loneliness is related to greater resistance to blood flow through your cardiovascular system, Professor Cacioppo said.
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Tags: SCIENCE
Posted by on Feb 19, 2009 in
Forteana 
Flu Mystery Solved? Why It Flourishes in Winter
Matt Kaplan for National Geographic News | February 9, 2009 | news.nationalgeographic.com
Why the flu strikes hard during the winter but nearly vanishes in the summer has baffled epidemiologists for decades.
Now a new study may have the answer: Influenza germs last longer and pass from person to person more effectively in lower absolute humidity—i.e., when it’s cold outside and the air is dryer.
Absolute humidity is a measurement of the total amount of water vapor in the air at a given temperature. Relative humidity, a percentage, is the ratio between the water vapor present and the air’s saturation point, a figure that changes with the temperature.
Earlier studies of humidity and the flu had focused on relative humidity and found no link, said lead author Jeffrey Shaman at Oregon State University, whose findings appear tomorrow in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Tags: SCIENCE
Posted by on Feb 7, 2009 in
Forteana A new excuse for tardiness-quantum retrocausality. Tired of spending money on your collection of Hummels or overpriced bottles of French Reds, send this guy money-it’s tax deductible!
Weird Science: Can Time Move Backwards?
June 14, 2007 | www.dailygalaxy.com
John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington, believes that light particles can act in reverse time, and he has compelling evidence behind his theory. Cramer is a well-respected experimental physicist with an impressive particle physics background.
The reality is that two subatomic particles split from a single particle do seem to somehow instantaneously communicate, regardless of how far apart they get in space and time. The bizarre phenomenon is described as “entanglement” and “non-local communication.” Cramer believes he may be able to solve the mystery of how these particles react thousands of miles apart. His theory rests on a sort of time travel called quantum retrocausality.
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Tags: SCIENCE
Posted by on Jan 30, 2009 in
Fashion,
Forteana Doesn’t this explain soo much?
Random MM pic.
The beautiful women who are programmed to be unfaithful… by the ‘Marilyn’ hormone
www.dailymail.co.uk | By Fiona Macrae | Last updated at 1:30 PM on 14th January 2009
With her drop-dead curves, Marilyn Monroe’s voluptuous figure has long been regarded as the absolute essence of what it means to be an attractive woman.
But the hourglass shape that made her so desirable is linked to a hormone that, scientists claim, lay behind her inability to hold down a steady relationship.
They believe the hormone they have identified is a major factor in establishing why beautiful women are more likely to be unfaithful.
Those with the most oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, are usually more physically attractive and find it easier to snare a man.
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Tags: SCIENCE, sex
Posted by on Jan 28, 2009 in
Forteana Not a new article, not the most authoritative source, but still very interesting.
The Big ‘O’ Isn’t Orgasm
www.reuniting.info | 2005-06-23
The Dreamer AwakensResearchers are always seeking answers to fundamental questions about illness: “What is the cause of cancer?” “How does stress damage your cells and organs?” “What causes plaque to build up inside your arteries?”
The flip side of such questions is “what is the mechanism by which love and affection positively affect health?” The answer to this question is oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter. Once believed to confine its effects to inducing labor and milk ejection, oxytocin actually has far-reaching effects on both sexes. You could not fall in love without it. These days it goes by nicknames such as “the bonding hormone,” “the cuddle hormone,” and even “the love hormone.”
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Tags: SCIENCE, sex
