I’m trying a new method of addressing the lunacy of chemtrails by showing that dumping chemicals at altitude wouldn’t generally do very much or be a very effective way of exposing populations to the chemicals that some claim are being sprayed.  It’s worth noting that the chemtrail loonies can’t even seem to agree on what is being sprayed, so here are some of the more common chemicals claimed.

If chemtrail conspiracy theorists are to believed, then large jet aircraft, possibly the same aircraft that carry passengers are being used to spray unknown quantities of chemicals of some type at high altitude.  While it’s rather difficult to judge the altitude of an aircraft by sight alone, based on what has been claimed to be chemtrails it’s fairly clear that the aircraft were flying at normal jet altitudes, well above tropospheric weather.   If they were indeed passenger aircraft then the altitude is generally above thirty thousand feet.

Some commonly claimed materials:

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In 1946, Hermann Muller won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating the ability to x-rays (and therefore other forms of ionizing radiation) to cause mutations in living cells. There is no doubt that Muller’s discovery was profound and vital to understanding radiation’s effects on living things and to establishing the field of health physics and radiation protection. The fact that radiation could cause mutations also had important implications to the understanding of cell biology and genetics.

Muller was also an early proponent in the establishment of the linear non-threshold hypothesis for radiation exposure. Despite a lack of conclusive supporting evidence, LNT has become the mainstay for radiation policy and is accepted as fact by many government agencies. The simplistic model basically states that radiation always causes damage with the potential for cancer and that the increase in risk is directly proportional to the exposure level. Thus, there is no “safe” level and all radiation should be avoided when possible, though the danger is small if the exposure is small.

Despite the fact that, even by LNT predictions, the level of exposure from living near a nuclear power plant presents a miniscule increase in risk (less than living next to a coal burner), the model has been used very effectively to argue that nuclear energy is always unacceptable, because the tiny amounts of radiation involved still present a risk. (Don’t ask me how they can make the case that nuclear is worse than coal or gas, or for that matter, having a granite counter top which involve more exposure. I still can’t figure that out.) The model has also resulted in extreme fear of medical radiation, resulting in calls for limiting of potentially life saving imaging and cancer treatment procedures.

While it has always been known that Muller did not have conclusive evidence to prove his claims of an LNT dose-risk relationship, evidence now indicates he may have had evidence that actually refuted it.

Via UMass Amherst News and Information:

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Every once in a while I read a story about some technology or discovery that the writer seems to think is new or some kind of breakthrough. This is one of those cases.

Here’s the video that started this all:

And in this case, the same story has gotten a huge amount of coverage, up to 174 articles on Google News as of this posting.

Via News.com.au:

Back up: The future’s close – and it’s really cool
WE could be hooning on Marty McFly-like hoverboards sooner than we thought.

It’s called “quantum trapping” or “quantum levitation” – and it’s real.

This footage shows a magnet, cooled with liquid nitrogen and locked into space.

The display was made by scientist from Tel Aviv at a conference in the US.

Watch as the magnet hovers in place – giving hope to fans of the hit Back to the Future films.

Okay, stepping back for a second. Yes, this is really cool, both figuratively and literally. But it’s not anything new. It’s a great science demonstration that would put any middleschooler in the running for first place at the local science fair, but it’s not new and it’s not groundbreaking.

What is shown here is a superconductor. Superconductors have been around since 1911. They have electrical resistance of zero and this results in some other interesting properties. The first superconductors discovered only displayed the property of superconductivity at extremely low temperatures, requiring liquid helium to get down close to absolute zero.

Type II superconductors, the type which manifest this effect, were discovered in 1954. The effect directly was observed shortly thereafter.

In the 1980’s, “high temperature superconductors” were developed. These still require cooling well bellow normal ambient temperatures, but they can be cooled with liquid nitrogen, rather than liquid helium. The temperatures are much more manageable and some of these materials can even be briefly touched without injury, as shown in the video, although the superconductor itself is probably surrounded by insulation, thus making the surface less warmer than the actual superconducting material.

What is actually being shown is known as the Meisner effect, combined with flux pinning, which it found in Type-II superconductors. Without getting too deeply into it, placing it in the field sets up currents in the superconductor which oppose the field. At the same time, flux pinning causes the magnetic field to become entrapped in the superconductor due to tiny defects in the material. The net result is the superconductor physically resisting reorientation in the field and thus levitating. Flux pinning was the subject of much study involving superconductors in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

More info here. and here.

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A cautionary tale of how medicine can become far too accepting of a procedure of limited value and great potential for harm…

First, some background on the lobotomy:

The lobotomy may well be the most notorious and misunderstood medical procedure ever to have been developed.   It’s the butt of many jokes and is portrayed widely in the media as a savage operation preformed on those who were unruly as a means of turning them into dribbling vegetables, incapable of resisting and placid in all respects.  This is partially true, but is an overly simplistic portrayal of what the lobotomy really was and how it was used.

To understand the use of the lobotomy one must first realize the environment it was developed in.  Prior to the mid 20th century, there was very little that could be done for the severely mentally ill. Psychotherapy existed and was useful in helping those with problems like anxiety, phobias and depression better manage their symptoms, but this could do little for the truly insane. For those who suffered from severe delusions, violent episodes, severe depression with suicidal tendencies, extreme bipolarism, there was no effective therapy.

Such individuals were placed in mental institutions, where they were often forced to live the entirety of their lives.   Often miserable places, institutions provided little more than warehousing for many individuals.   Mental institutions were enormous, becoming huge communities onto themselves.  Attempts were made to make life more pleasant by providing  classes and recreation, but the enormous expense of caring for the populations made that difficult to do on a large scale.   The worst cases were often left restrained or locked in padded cells.  With so many completely crippled by mental disease, conditions could easily degrade to the point where wards became filthy and filled with the screams of insane patients.

The origins of psycosurgury can be traced back to the 1880’s, when Gottlieb Burckhardt, a Swiss neurosurgeon began to experiment with operations on the brains of the most severely insane. Small sections of brain were removed in the hope that it might calm the continual mania of the patients operated on. The results were not encouraging, but research continued into the 20th century. It was known that traumatic brain injury, brain tumors or their removal could alter a person’s personality, but only the most basic understanding of the regions of the brain associated with various aspects of thought and emotion existed.

The lobotomy was developed in 1935 by Portuguese doctor António Egas Moniz, who intitially called the procedure the leukotomy. Moniz had become aware of experiments carried out on apes in which portions of the brain were intentionally removed or disconnected. Operations that removed the frontal lobes had a major effect on the learning capacity of the animals, but also made them more placid and less prone to expressions of frustration and emotional outbursts. He believed that doing so on humans might allow those with the most violent psychiatric episodes to lead more normal lives, or at least be more manageable. Early experiments involved injecting alcohol into the nerves that connected the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain. This was later replaced by simply cutting the connections.

The belief at the time was that mental illness was caused by areas of the brain becoming too active or the brain being overstimulated and going haywire with out of control signals. It was thought that there was simply too much emotional activity that that cutting away the overly active portions of the brain would relieve this. While this belief is not always entirely false, it’s overly simplistic and does not apply to most cases of mental illness.  While there are portions of the brain that are associated with certain functions or aspects of personality, it is far too complex for a single region to be defined as the source of something like delusions, violent episodes or depression.

Still, the procedure did appear to have some validity. Many of those who received the operation did indeed become calmer and more easy to manage. Contrary to popular belief, it did not necessarily render the individual incapable of speech or basic function, although this did sometimes happen. It seems that overall, the results were highly variable. This is likely attributable to the simplicity and crudeness of the surgery. It involved drilling holes in the head of patients and cutting the pathways by inserting instruments. Exactly what kind of effects this had on the brain could vary quite a bit, especially since the individuals it was preformed on had all manner of conditions to begin with.

Early observations considered the outcome of the procedure to be result in a 33% to 33% to 33% success rate. In other words, roughly one third of patients could be considered to have improved from the operation. One third could be considered to be worse than before the operation and one third were roughly the same. This is hardly a stellar success rate, but given the lack of options for the worst cases of mental disease, it may have seemed worth the risk. There certainly were a few cases of individuals who seemed to gain extensive relief with few complications, but these were relatively rare.

A few individuals died during the procedure.  Others were left completely incapacitated and severely disabled.  Many, however, did retain their basic abilities to communicate and do simple tasks.   Some lost the ability to walk or talk but subsequently relearned it.   A number of reports indicated that the patients became very child-like and lost the ability to comprehend complex concepts.  Lack of emotional responses or social capacity was also reported.   Another effect was the loss of inhibitions.  Many seemed to have no fear or anxiety, even in circumstances where it would be appropriate.  Apathy and social disconnection were common.  Many patients began to overeat and put on large amounts of weight.  Some developed complications ranging from incontinence to lack of balance to sleep disorders.

The psychiatric community accepted the procedure with varying levels of enthusiasm. It gained rapid acceptance across the world, but many remained uneasy about the implications and ethical considerations. It was used primarily on the worst of the worst cases, at least initially. Directors of mental hospitals welcomed anything that could make it easier to manage their overcrowded wards, resulting in an expansion of use that raised questions about whether it was really being used as a last resort. Overall, the procedure was never without controversy, but given the lack of alternatives, it often was considered about the only thing that could be done to at least try to relieve severe mental illness.

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I started thinking about this topic after the discussion on an other post regarding loss of electricity turned to railroad crossings (grade crossings), where railways intersect roadways.   Understandably, loss of power for warning signals can result in some safety problems.

Unfortunately, adding entirely redundant backup power to railroad crossing warning systems wouldn’t actually address the real safety problem with railroad crossings:  idiots.    It’s really not hard to avoid being killed at a railroad crossing.   If there’s a train coming, don’t enter the crossing.   If there isn’t a train coming, it’s safe to cross.    It’s not hard to tell if a train is approaching either.   Most crossings have signals, such as flashing lights and gates to make it obvious, but even if the crossing lacks signals or the signals don’t work, it’s still fairly obvious.   Trains are generally required to blow their horn when approaching a railroad crossing, so if you’re about to go over a railroad crossing and hear a train horn, look both ways, because it’s possible that the signals are not functioning.

Seems simple, right?  After all, stopping at a railroad crossing to let a train pass is only going to cost you, at worst, a few minutes, and cutting in front of a train is not a good way to keep yourself alive.    It’s impossible for the train to stop in time to avoid a collision, and it certainly can’t swerve out of the way.  Estimating the speed and distance of  something like an approaching locomotive can be surprisingly difficult, especially when you’re also moving.   If you’re wrong and that train hits, it’s not going to do just superficial damage.

Despite these seemingly obvious facts, grade crossings claim a surprising number of lives.   In the US alone, hundreds die in grade crossing accidents every year – 247 in the year 2009 and 338 in 2007.  The problem is not confined to the US, of course.   Everywhere that grade crossings exist, there are deaths on a fairly regular basis.

Supporters of Social Darwinism might suggest that this is not such a bad thing, since it’s generally the fault of the idiot driver who gets killed, but the problem is more broad than that.  Despite the fact that locomotives tend to be a lot larger and sturdier than road vehicles, they can and do get badly damaged by striking cars and trucks.   Debris can fly up and injure train crew.  On occasion, trains have even derailed due to grade-crossing accidents.   Even if the accident does not cause any significant damage to the train, it still means that it has to come to a stop, the crossing ends up being blocked for some time and emergency services need to respond to clean up the mess.   And the idiots who try to beat the train are actually more likely to survive with injuries than die outright.   Add to this the fact that there may be other passengers in the vehicle who had no control over the situation and it’s easy to see why this is a major social problem.

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It’s often argued that alternative medicine is safe because most of the remedies considered to be “alternative” are in and of themselves harmless.   This is certainly true of things like homeopathy, which, if prepared properly, contains absolutely nothing other than the solvent the preparation was based on, which is usually water.    However, it does kill by another means: it displaces real, useful and scientifically valid medicine and leads to people harboring the belief that something will cure them when it won’t, directing them down the wrong road for treatment.    It does not need to completely stop someone from getting real treatment to kill; just delaying real treatment can be enough.

Such would appear to be the case with Steve Jobs.   I do not mean to make light of his death.   While I do think his legacy has become extremely inflated, especially in light of his death, he was, by all accounts a nice guy and certainly a good manager.   He was a great motivator, he had a pretty good sense of industrial design and he helped provide direction for Apple in the mid to late 1990’s when the company was faltering.

Without diminishing the grief his family and friends are surely feeling, we can still look at this death as an example of why alternative medicine is dangerous.   Hopefully it can even save lives.

In 2003, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.   Pancreatic cancer happens to be one of the most deadly forms of cancer, because it tends to be asymptomatic until it reaches very late stages of development.  By the time most pancreatic cancers are discovered, the prognosis is very very poor.   Once the cancer has metastasize, it becomes very difficult to treat.   Pancreatic cancer is often aggressive and will quickly invade the liver and other organs.  Once this happens, simply removing the tumor does little to stop the spread of the cancer and even the most aggressive treatment with chemotherapy and radiation only results in a long term survival rate of a few percent.

Steve Jobs, however, was lucky.   His form of cancer was slower in progression and less aggressive than most forms of pancreatic cancer.  Even more importantly, it was caught relatively early on in the progression of the disease.  The cancer was discovered entirely by chance.   Steve Jobs had a history of gastric problems and therefore had been receiving periodic abdominal scans. In October 2003, doctors noticed a growth that was confirmed to be pancreatic cancer.

It’s impossible to know with absolute certainty whether the cancer had begun to spread when it was detected, but based on the early stage it was in and the type of cancer, it probably had not. With any form of cancer, delaying treatment can be deadly, but with a form of cancer like pancreatic cancer, it’s all the more vital. As long as the cancer is confined to the pancreas, it can be operated on and the survival rates are very good. Yet the longer the cancer remains, the greater the odds that it has begun to spread to other organs. In 2003, the time bomb had probably not yet gone off, but it was definitely ticking.

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I’d like to make something clear:  No posts or opinions expressed here are bought.   In fact, you can’t buy them because they’re not for sale.   I’m willing to post guest content from time to time, but only if I consider it to be something I can stand behind.  Furthermore, it’s always labeled as such and attributed to the proper creator.

That is why I am so downright offended by this e-mail:

Subject: Guest editorial on depletedcranium.com

Hi,

Could we purchase advertising on depletedcranium.com?

We could pay you $195 for a guest editorial about my client’s site (http://www.NAME OF A MEDICAL PRODUCT SITE.com/) and payment can be made by PayPal (or check delivered via FedEx US/Canada only).

I know time is valuable these days and I appreciate yours.

Sincerely,
NAME REMOVED
Marketing Assistant

Yep, that’s what I got. Of course, it had the actual name of the site and the name of the marketing assistant.

Obviously I did not actually accept this offer, but when I declined I was then responded to with another e-mail explaining that they understood that I was declining but then offering me $315 if I should happen to change my mind. Well, honestly, I could use $315, but not bad enough to take a blatant advertisement and pass it off as an editorial.

As for the site, it was not a blatantly quack-related site. It was basically a site about cosmetic surgery which would be used to find cosmetic surgeons in an area for those looking for cosmetic procedures. I suppose it could have been worked into this site and looked believable, perhaps by starting off by saying how some surgeons are quacks and then stating that people should go to this site for referrals to qualified ones.

However, if I did that, I’m not sure I could ever feel clean no matter how many showers I took.

So I must pose the question to any others who have blogs: Has anyone else ever gotten this kind of solicitation? Is this a common way of advertising?

Finally, I should add that while I’ve never actually published anything here for money and have no intention of it, I have to admit that it’s not impossible that I could be bought off – but it’s going to take a real real real lot of money.   So I’ll give this warning: if ever you see an article posted here that seems questionable and the next article posted is about my personal experiences in shopping for a private jet, moving to a private island or becoming a space tourist, you may assume that I have sold out

If you happen to live in the Northeastern United States and are involved in skepticism and science advocacy, you probably know the name Julia Galef.   In fact, even if you don’t live in the Northeastern United States and are involved in skepticism and science advocacy, you may know the name.

Julia is a writer, blogger, speaker and skeptic who has managed to become an important figure in public engagement in just a couple of years of involvement.   She’s been heavily involved in the establishment of the New York City Skeptics and contributed enormously to events like NECSS.   She also regularly hosts their podcast and has an excellent blog which she shares with her brother Jesse.

I’ve always liked Julia’s writing and addresses a lot.  She provides excellent intellectual analysis, but her style is light and entertaining, which is very important in making it accessible and maintaining broad appeal.  She has a great sense of humor which she manages to weave into her commentary very cleverly and subtly, making it all the more entertaining to read.

Julia is also exactly the kind of person who skepticism needs the most.   The stereotype of the skeptic is generally a rather stuck-up, old bitter white male, and Julia is none of those (well, except she is Caucasian, but none of the others.)  Rather, she’s the kind of engaging, youthful face of an ever expanding and inclusive movement.   Julia is also not prone to limiting things to the more traditional venues for skepticism.   Recently she wrote of her trip to Burningman, the kind of event one typically does not associate with skeptic types.

But unfortunately, this post is not simply about gushing over how great Julia is and how much everyone appreciates her seemingly limitless enthusiasm for empirical skepticism and science in popular culture.

I recently found out that Julia had been badly injured in a household accident.   She received some very serious burns after knocking over a pot of deep-frying oil, and has second and third degree burns over most of her legs.  Julia has been in the hospital for more than a week and is expected to be there for at least another week to ten days.  She stated that she will be “regrowing my skin and relearning to walk.”

(Note: I feel okay saying this because she has posted it on her public Facebook account and the topic has been discussed on forums and boards, so I’m pretty sure she’s not keeping it a secret.)

Like everyone else who heard this news, I was shocked and saddened that such a horrific accident had happened to such an admirable person.   In fact, I figured that my best wishes for her recovery deserved, at the very least, a blog post.

As for everyone else:

Since I know Julia is passionate about her contributions to skepticism, why don’t you go check out her blog and podcast.  Not only is the content great, but like any other author, I’m sure she loves having her stuff read.   Also, be sure to leave her some love in the comments, because she really needs it right now.

Keep on getting better, Julia, and if your moral starts to wane, remember how many of us appreciate what you do and are enthusiastically waiting to see you again, once you are fully recovered!

If you have been watching the news or seen any news sites today you have likely heard about the reports of an explosion at a French nuclear facility.   The explosion has repeatedly been reported to have happened at a “nuclear power station” or “nuclear plant.”   This is false.   Reports of fears of radiation releases are also not accurate since the explosion did not actually occurs anywhere near high level waste material or any nuclear reactor.

Background of the Marcoule Site:

The Marcoule site is a large industrial site that conducts activities related to nuclear technology and nuclear energy. It was first setup to produce and process materials for the French nuclear weapons program in the 1950’s. The last French reactors dedicated to plutonium production for weapons were shut down in the 1980’s and activities related to refining and processing weapons materials at Marcoule ceased in 1997.

Beginning in the 1970’s, the Marcoule site has shifted from weapons-related activities to nuclear energy and nuclear materials-related activities in support of the French nuclear energy program. This includes research and development of nuclear energy systems, fuel fabrication and materials processing, remediation and disposal. In 1995, a MOX fuel fabrication plant opened at Marcoule, making the site an integral part of France’s nuclear fuel reprocessing program.

Activities at the site also include such things as the remediation and recycling of low level materials from nuclear reactors, processing of medical radiological waste and the fabrication of components and materials for nuclear systems.   Marcoule is the primary site in France for receiving materials from decommissioned nuclear reactors.

There are currently no active nuclear reactors on the site, although it has hosted some nuclear reactors in years past.   The site has three inactive UNGG reactors, which were built starting in 1955.   The last of these reactors was shut down in 1984.   These reactors are gas cooled, graphite moderated reactors, similar in principle to the British Magnox reactors, though developed entirely separately.  Like early Magnox reactors, the UNGG reactors did produce electricity, but were primarily built to breed weapons-grade plutonium.  The site is also the home of the Phénix reactor, an experimental fast-spectrum sodium cooled reactor which was operated from 1968 until 2009. Phénix is now in cold shutdown and is expected to be fully decommissioned in the near future.

As an industrial nuclear site which now functions largely for civilian purposes, but which was originally built for weapons material, the Marcoule site may be considered analogous to the Savannah River or Hanford Site in the United States or to the Sellafield site in the UK.

Information On the Explosion:

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For those of you who do not know, I live In Connecticut. Recently my area was hit by Hurricane Irene, which caused the most extensive power outages in the regions history. Much has been made about how forecasters allegedly over-hyped Irene, because, as it turns out, it didn’t cause much flooding in New York City. While that may be true, it still decimated much of the East Coast and caused massive flooding elsewhere and damage to infrastructure to a massive extent.

In Connecticut, every single city and town experienced some power outages with the Shoreline being hit hardest. In Guilford CT, the town my parents live in and where I am employed, 100% of customers were without power by morning of Sunday, August 28. The damage to the power grid was extremely extensive. I drove down one major street and in a single mile I counted five locations where either power lines were down or trees had fallen and come into contact with power lines. In all, over one hundred of line breaks were reported in the town of Guildford. Many of them were more than simple line breaks. In at least a few circumstances, large trees came down and took down major distribution polls, crushing transformers and ripping wires down from several poles on each side. This is only one town! In the neighboring towns of Branford, North Branford, Madison, Clinton, Old Saybrook and all throughout Southern Connecticut things were just as bad.

Restoration of power was painfully slow, though this is understandable given the circumstances. The day after the storm, power was only beginning to be restored to a handful of customers, mostly in cities. By Wednesday, August 31, power began to be restored to a few of the central areas of the Southern Connecticut suburbs. On Tuesday the 30st of September, power was restored to my employer, which is located on a major road in the downtown area of Guildford CT. Residential areas began to flicker on this same day.  Also on Wensday, power came back at my apartment in Hamden Connecticut, a somewhat more urban and commercial area than Guildford. By the end of the week power was restored to the majority of Guildford and the surrounding area, but certainly not all of it. When I went to the bank on Friday the 2nd, they were running off a generator.

My parents home was unfortunate in being one of the last to have power restored in the area. The primary through street that feeds their street power had service by Friday, but a fault was detected in an underground cable on their street. I’m told by a utility worker that water from the saturated ground had found its way into the cable conduit and into a cable splice. The cable ended up needing to be dug up. It was not until Monday the 5th that power was restored to their home.

As of this posting, power has finally been restored to approximately 100% of the state.

Here are a few of my observations from what was the longest outage I’ve yet experienced:

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