Tomorrow night, the 29th of August, the show “Bad Universe” will premier on the Discovery Channel at 10 o’clock eastern time.  If you don’t live in the eastern US, check your local listings.   The show looks pretty cool, and it stars my friend Phil Plait, (AKA The Bad Astronomer) who is a very active member of the skeptic community and has been debunking bad science for years.   It’s really huge that Phil would get a show like this on a major television network, and it’s definitely a great way for him to help spread skepticism and good science.

One nitpick: Phil can’t actually shoot rays of energy out of his eyes. If he could, I’m pretty sure I would have been zapped by now.

What can you do with a huge array of mirrors mounted on a precise optical-tracking platform?    You could make a telescope for one thing.   That would sure be useful.

This, however, is not…

Moonlight, by the way, is almost entirely composed of sunlight that is reflected from the moon, with negligible amounts coming from starlight or lights from the earth.   It’s not a perfect reflection like a mirror, but rather it’s a diffuse reflection, like you get when you illuminate something that is opaque but not shiny.   Because the moon is basically devoid of color, the light it reflects back is also basically white.   The fact that the moon sometimes appears red or orange is entirely due to the earth’s atmosphere.

It has no health benefits.  Sorry.   In fact, your body can’t tell the difference between moonlight, sunlight and the light from a good full-spectrum source of artificial light. Moonlight does not in any way dictate your body’s rhythms. Your daily cycle is largely governed by light, but what tells your body it’s time to sleep is not the presence of moonlight but rather the lack of sunlight. Of course, artificial light can interfere with this. If this is the case, the best advice is to stop staying up late and keeping large electric lights on late at night. Moonlight will do nothing to help.

Moonlight has long been given mystical powers by various folk tales and religions.  This includes such things as stories of werewolves or claims that the moon has some kind of astrological significance.  The fact is moonlight is just like any other light.   There’s nothing special about it.

Saunas are very hot rooms where people go to induce sweating and relaxation.  They have a long tradition of use in Nordic countries, especially Finland.  It has been claimed that sauna use helps to rid the body of toxins.  While this claim is fairly dubious, there’s no disputing that saunas can be relaxing and do seem to help relax tense muscles and may offer some relief to the symptoms of certain conditions, such as reducing nasal congestion.

However, under no circumstances should a person attempt to stay in a sauna for an extended period of time.  If the heat reaches the point of discomfort, one should leave the sauna immediately.  Spending more than about fifteen minutes (depending on the temperature) should be avoided.   The temperatures reached by saunas (as much as 170  F or 80 C) can easily cause hyperthermia, dehydration and possibly fatal conditions.  Also, under no circumstances should a sauna be modified to operate at extremely high temperatures.   Operating  sauna at an ambient temperature above the boiling point of water is insanity, as it can cause immediate scalding of the body to anyone who enters.

And trying to stay in a sauna as long as you can stand it?   That’s just idiotic!

Well, that message was apparently lost on some in Finland, who decided to hold a “world sauna championship.”  Now one competitor is dead and another is being treated for full body scalding. (OUCH)

Via NPR:

Russian Man Dies In Searing Heat At Sauna Contest
A Russian man trying to win the Sauna World Championships died after collapsing with severe burns in the final stage of an event that required contestants to sit in a 230-degree (110 Celsius) room as water was tossed onto a searing stove, officials and witnesses said.

Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy, an amateur wrestler who was in his 60s, was pronounced dead late Saturday after he collapsed alongside reigning champion Timo Kaukonen of Finland roughly six minutes into the final round.

Nearly 1,000 spectators had gathered in the southern Finnish town of Heinola to watch 130 competitors from 15 countries, waving flags and cheering on the contestants before medical workers pulled the shaking and bleeding men out of the sauna.

Video footage shows workers pouring cold water over the two men and administering first aid as organizers tried to cover up the scene and calm spectators.

The men were bleeding from what appeared to be severe burns, said Hakon Eikesdal, a photographer with the Norwegian daily Dagbladet.

Ladyzhenskiy headed a charity fund in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The fund’s spokesman Konstantin Kruglyansky told the LifeNews daily that his family has demanded an investigation into his death.

Kaukonen, about 40, was hospitalized in stable condition Sunday, contest spokesman Ossi Arvela said.

The annual contest had been held since 1999. It will never be held again, Arvela said.

Half a liter (a pint) of water is added to the stove every 30 seconds and the last person to remain in the sauna is the winner.

There was no prize other than “some small things” Arvela said. He declined to provide details.

Eikesdal said Kaukonen — the defending world champion — had refused to leave the sauna despite getting sick and that organizers had to force the men out.

Sauna bathing is a popular pastime in the Nordic countries and Russia, but especially in Finland, which has an estimated 1.6 million saunas for a population of 5 million people. Temperatures are normally kept around 158 to 176 degrees (70-80 degrees Celsius).

What are these people thinking?!?!!
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In the past I’ve made a number of posts and videos mentioning the fact that uranium is a rather common mineral and that it’s been used in a number of consumer products.   Indeed, thousands of kitchen cabinets contain uranium-glazed dinnerware, some of which was mass produced as recently as the 1980’s.

This has been met with a curious response on numerous occasions.   Many concede that uranium is not all that harmful when touched or even ingested but then say “but what about the nano-particles.”   The dust, or “nanoparticles” resulting from uranium combustion are one thing that seems to come up again and again.  They are often credited with nearly magical properties, like the ability to stay suspended in the air indefinitely or to cause horrible health problems even in those far from the location where the uranium projectile was fired.

Indeed uranium tends to be more hazardous when inhaled than when exposure is by other routes, but that’s the extent of the truth to these statements.  Uranium is hardly unique in this respect.  Exposure to dust in general can cause respiratory problems, and certain metallic particles, such as beryllium, are well known to be especially hazardous if inhaled.   By comparison, uranium less dangerous, though it can be a hazard in high concentrations.

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If we only had such fervor for actual science and debunking unfounded claims:

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So the guy had brain cancer.  That’s too bad, really it is, and I don’t mean to say that sarcastically.  Luckily he lived through it, no doubt thanks to modern medicine and cancer treatment.    The fact that he survived cancer makes him a sympathetic character, but it doesn’t actually make him an expert on anything.

So why is this couple “convinced” that cell phones caused his brain cancer or cancer in general?   It may come down to seeking an explanation for what caused his cancer.   The vast majority of cancers have no attributable cause and cancer can strike anyone, healthy or not without warning.   It’s comforting to think have some kind of control, and for someone who suffered through brain cancer, blaming it on cell phones is a way to make sense of the events and feel like there is something to fight back against.   Given the attention it gets in the media, it also is the most obvious scapegoat.
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In 1979 Three Mile Island experienced a partial meltdown of one of its reactor cores due to a coolant system failure and operator error.   The actual reactor vessel, though internally damaged, held, and the additional layers of protection offered by the containment structure also held, but were not even needed.   Nobody died, nobody was injured, no property outside the plant was damaged.   To this day, many hold it up as an example of the horrors of nuclear energy.

Meanwhile, a form of “renewable” energy around the country has been destroying homes and snuffing out lives from the very beginning with little fanfare.

The Lake Delhi dam was built in the 1920’s as a hydroelectric generating facility.   In the late 1960’s, the facility began to show its age and the operator didn’t have the capital to replace or refurbish the turbines, leading to most of the electrical generating capacity going offline in 1973.   Had the Delhi dam been a nuclear facility, the owners would have been required to have a fund set aside for its decommissioning, thus assuring that it would not be left a derelict hulk that endangers the community.

But it wasn’t nuclear, so there it sat, turbines rusting and no power being produced.   Instead, operations of the dam were turned over to the “Lake Delhi Recreational Association,” who apparently had no interest in generating electricity  and was not at all equipped to maintain or repair the dam.  The former hydroelectric dam, which held back a ten mile long lake seems to have sat under the control of the equivalent of a neighborhood association, and received little if any maintenance or inspection.

Although hydropower is a good economic and renewable source of energy, no government subsidies jumped in to repair the dam and thus several private attempts to repair the dam and put it back into service generating power went bust over the years.

Finally in 2008, it seemed that the plant would be brought back online.   It had the potential to generate electricity, but since it was not wind or solar, it took a while to get regulatory approval to even begin the refurbishment for power generation.   Yes, that’s right, the process to just get approval to begin refurbishment takes years!

By 2010, it looked like the plant was about ready to come back online.   Unfortunately, as it was being refurbished it was discovered that the years of neglect had not been kind to the Delhi dam and was in worse shape than anyone could have imagined.   Sediment had built up against the dam, at least one gate was severely damaged by a past flood and the integrity of the dam was called into question.  In 2009, the Federal Government allocated 2.5 million for critical repairs on the dam, in part because of the safety issue it presented.   The state of Iowa came up with another one hundred thousand dollars to begin a dredging and improvement plan last April.

But apparently, it wasn’t enough, because this morning, this happened:

Right now, how much damage this dam failure has caused remains unknown.   Details are sketchy, but officials are already calling it “catastrophic.”    At least a few homes are already reported destroyed and upwards of 700 could be in danger.    At least fifty homes have already reported some level of damage and the flood has also been blamed for extensive power outages.  Due to evacuations, it is hoped that deaths will be avoided.

The dam was not a nuclear facility, however, so don’t expect to read about this on the front page of the newspaper.  In fact, don’t expect to read about it on the second page either.   It may not even make the first section of your newspaper and if you don’t live in the US, it likely won’t make it to your newspaper at all.    After all, it’s just a dam and those fail all the time.   Small consolation to those whose lives have been washed away.

At least it was only water and not coal ash.

What can I say?   This is absolutely sickening.  Granted that those who oppose vaccination and spread lies in an attempt to stop vaccination of children takes a very perverted and unethical kind of person.   Still, the very idea that they could be so committed to trying to further their own agenda that they would actually confront and harass the parents of a child who had just died of an infectious disease takes things to a new level of cruelty.

Perhaps the leadership of the AVN really is insane enough to believe what they are saying.   However, even if that is so, it in no way justifies attacking people who have just gone through the kind of loss and pain most of us could never even imagine.   Their motive is clear and could not be more callous or self-serving – to try to preserve any credibility they think they still have by going after their opponents, regardless of who they are or how much they have suffered already.

This kind of behavior transcended the issue of bad science and incorrect medical advice.  It shocks and offends the conscious of any person with a sense of decency.  It offends the values of humanity and sympathy.   This is intolerable and just plain wrong. No person who engages in such actions should ever be seem as anything other than a sociopath and a self-serving, callous fraud.

There can be no doubt that this is simply a very dishonest operation run by a very dishonest woman who does not care what she says or does to promote herself. And all this comes from a group which touts itself as being a sympathetic, pro-family and pro-health organization.

It’s revolting.   It does, however, remind me of another post on here a while ago.

Lets face it, the world of conspiracy theories is pretty male dominated.   Perhaps it’s time that some hip young ladies get out there and show they can be every bit as crazy as men.

Well that’s what truthergirls is all about!   You might think from the look of this young lady that she’s a smart, well connected, cultured and educated woman.   After all, she lives in the hip and happening city of Montreal, she speaks at least two languages fluently, drinks boutique-quality coffee, posts on youtube and she’s fairly attractive.   These would all seem to indicate a hip young woman of the world.

However, looks can be deceiving and stereotypes are often wrong.   It turns out, she’s a complete nutball and has about as much going on upstairs as any overweight 40 year old guy who lives in his mother’s basement and wears an aluminum foil hat.

I really wish I could encounter someone like this on the street.  My god, it’s just so lame! Sure, I’ve seen my share of “end is near” guys and religious fanatics handing out signs in Times Square, but never someone quite like this…

First it was Montel Williams, now another major media promoter of psychics fraud is leaving the airwaves.   Larry King has announced that he will be leaving his show on CNN.   Of course,  his mind left the show some time in the mid 1990’s.   Larry King, for those who live outside the US, is a TV show host who does a lot of interviews and generally doesn’t contribute much to them, but yet has managed to be a major force on television for many years.

Decidedly non-skeptical, Larry King has allowed his show to be used by everyone from Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccine movement to Sylvia Browne and other self-proclaimed psychics.   His interviews tend to pander to them, even kissing their collective asses.   Whether it be UFO’s or claims of powers to find missing persons, Larry King can’t seem to see reality from lies and lets his television show become the platform for all kinds of bull.   To skeptics… well, we’re lucky we ever get represented on his show.

In this clip you’ll notice James Randi pauses for a moment after Larry King states that Sylvia Browne “described the accused villain pretty well.”   In fact, she had not described him well at all and had said Shawn Hornesbeck was dead, despite his being found alive years later.   This interview was actually done during The Amazing Meeting 5 and as such, I was able to speak to Randi afterward.   He paused because he was waiting for the punchline, so to speak, expecting Larry King to say something more, since his statement was so absurd.   Had I been in that situating, I’m not even sure I would have known how to react.

I can offer another personal story to shed some light on what kind of pandering Larry King is prone to:
Shortly after this, Larry again hosted a “psychic” to defend Sylvia Browne. His guest stated that psychic visions are not always clear and that is why sometimes things like these errors happen.

The show took phone calls and I called in. Actually, I put the number on my speed dial and dialed repeatedly. It took more than 50 calls but I finally got through and talked to one of the producers who screened the calls.
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A story out of Australia that is both tragic and revealing has recently been making the rounds in the media, involving the death of Penelope Dingle, a woman who died of cancer in 2005.   Penelope had been married to Dr. Peter Dingle, a small time celebrity in Western Australia.

Peter Dingle is an Australian media personality and alternative medicine advocate. For those not familiar with him, his style is a little bit like that of Andrew Weil. Although Dingle does have a bonafied Ph.D., his books and lectures have been generally quite fringe and focus heavily on inflated claims of dangers from environmental toxins and modern society.   Some media outlets have stated that Dr. dingle is a “Toxicologist,” but he is not one in the medical sense.  His degree is in “environmental sciences,” and he describes his expertise as being “indoor air quality.”

Dingle is best known for his books, lecture tours and as a frequent guest on Australian daytime talk shows.  He is a regular on the breakfast television show “Wake Up! WA.” He has also endorsed a number of health products such as nutrition supplements and various “natural” remedies.

Recently it has come to light that Penelope Dingle’s death occurred after nearly two years of treatment with homeopathic remedies for rectal cancer that was first diagnosed in 2003.   When the cancer was first found it was likely that it could have been successfully treated by removing the cancerous tumor by surgery.  However, by the time Dingle finally began using mainstream medicine, it was far too late.

Now the local coroner is looking at whether her death is a criminal matter.
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