Ars: Birds turn their beaks up at organic food

Soo... What do birds instinctively understand about organic that we don't?

Okay repeat after me: Organic doesn't automatically = good, or better, and non-organic, conventional or even GM doesn't automatically = bad.

Better living through chemistry!

Birds turn their beaks up at organic food: "

Is organic food everything its advocates claim to be? A new study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
describes an experiment in which the subjects were free from human biases.
The authors found that wild birds preferred 'normal' bird food to the organic
option.

To study this burning issue, the researchers set up pairs of identical
bird feeders in over 30 locations around northern England. The feeders
contained two types of the same variety of wheat seeds, one organic and
one conventional. The researchers then monitored the rate at which each
seed was eaten over the course of a few weeks.

It was found that the birds preferentially ate the conventional
seeds. To make
sure that there wasn't something about the relative placement of the
feeders, the researchers switched each pair, and found that the birds
learned the new location of the conventional seeds and continued to
prefer eating from that feeder.

The experiment was repeated over a subsequent winter with a
different type of seed, but produced the same results. More controlled
laboratory trials with canaries found similar preferences for
conventional over organic. In an attempt to explain this disparity, the
researchers analyzed the seeds and found that the conventional seed
contained upwards of 10 percent more protein per seed, most likely due
to the use of inorganic nitrogen fertilizers used in conventional
farming techniques.

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2010. DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.4025 (About
DOIs).

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"

From the Rest of the Story: GlaxoSmithKline lie about smokeless tobacco

Dr. Siegel is on top of 'em again. His words say it all--not much I can really add.

GlaxoSmithKline lie about smokeless tobacco: "

From the Nicorette website:

A lot of people believe that taking smokeless tobacco is safer than smoking cigarettes. This is not true.

This is an outright lie. Smokeless tobacco is far safer than smoking cigarettes. Perhaps Glaxo's justification for this statement is that there are still health risks associated with smokeless tobacco. And so there are, just as there is a risk involved with most things in life, but they are tiny compared to the risks associated with smoking cigarettes. Glaxo might just as well say:

A lot of people believe that eating chocolate is safer than smoking cigarettes. This is not true.

Or, indeed:

A lot of people believe that using Nicorette is safer than smoking cigarettes. This is not true.

We have seen this kind of fabrication before from the US Surgeon General (amongst others). Under the Data Quality Act, his office finally had to retract the lie that smokeless is not safer. I covered this in an article entitled The Untouchables back in 2008.

In 2004, the National Legal and Policy Center complained about a statement in a booklet produced by the National Institute on Aging which read: 'Some people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safer than cigarettes. They are not.' This was, of course, false. Smokeless tobacco is known to be around 98% safer than cigarettes. The complaint was upheld and as a result, the US Government is no longer allowed to pretend that the health risks associated with smokeless tobacco are as great as those associated with cigarettes*.

The upshot is that the National Institute on Aging now says: 'Some people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safe. They are not.' And former Surgeon General Richard Carmona - whose 2006 report into passive smoking is one big DQA complaint waiting to happen - had to subtly change his tune from 'smokeless tobacco is not a safer substitute for cigarette smoking' to 'smokeless tobacco is not a safe substitute for cigarette smoking' (my italics).

A slender difference indeed, but an important one, because at least now these statements are not outright lies. What has replaced them may still be misleading - they do not hint at how much safer smokeless tobacco is - but, as Jacob Sullum asked sardonically in Reason magazine, 'Why lie about smokeless tobacco when a misleading half-truth will do?' Demanding half-truths rather than outright lies from the anti-smoking lobby might be the most that can be hoped for in this day and age. The Data Quality Act may be the only way to get them.

* Anti-smoking groups, websites and charities who are not publicly owned remain be free to lie about smokeless tobacco and frequently do. For example: 'The fact is, chewing tobacco is every bit as dangerous as smoking it.' or 'There's a widely held myth that smokeless tobacco is a safe alternative to cigarettes, when actually it's just as dangerous as smoking.'

Thanks to Bill Godshall for the tip.

"

Dr. Siegel scores another bullseye

Over at "The Rest of the Story" Dr. Siegel devastatingly analyzes American Lung's inexplicable attitude toward ecig's. Of course such a fine organization would never allow itself to become beholden to corporate interests, or have anything other than the bests interests of the public at heart. Of course not... Another fine example of science compromised "in the public interest."

Bastards.

http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/05/american-lung-association-says-there-is.html

Reason: Another Science Fail

And they wonder why, given the horrible politicization of science in all kinds of areas, why we're not all that eager to jump on the IPCC bandwagon. Think AGW is probably true? Yep. Think there's a bunch of things we should be doing anyway that would mitigate AGW? Yep. Trust the IPCC, Science (the magazine), the AGW/IPCC apologists all and their photoshopped polar-bears-of-horror and whatever their attendant hidden agenda(s) are? Not. A. Chance.

When the American Cancer Society Calls You Out ...: "

...It's
pretty good evidence that you're a scaremongering regulatory shill.
As I noted
yesterday, the President's Cancer Panel released a alarmist
report asserting that the burden of cancers caused by environmental
exposures to carcinogens was 'grossly underestimated.' By
environmental, the panel focused chiefly on exposures to man-made
chemicals. As I also noted, the new claims being made by the report
seemed grossly overestimated based on the science. In response to
the new report, the American Cancer Society has issued a
press release that is highly critical of the panel's report.
The release states:

Unfortunately, the perspective of the report is unbalanced by
its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer, and by
its dismissal of cancer prevention efforts aimed at the major known
causes of cancer (tobacco, obesity, alcohol, infections, hormones,
sunlight) as “focussed narrowly.”

The report is most provocative when it restates hypotheses as if
they were established facts. For example, its conclusion that
“the true burden of environmentally (i.e. pollution) induced cancer
has been grossly underestimated” does not represent scientific
consensus. Rather, it reflects one side of a scientific
debate that has continued for almost 30 years.

In other words, the President's Cancer Panel report is an
advocacy document masquerading as science. For more scientifically
based information on the burden of cancer caused by environmental
exposures, please take a look at the article, 'American
Cancer Society Perspectives on Enviromental Factors and
Cancer,' published in the Cancer Journal for
Clinicians last October.

"

Fake But Funny NASA Press Release | Universe Today

Way to go, NASA. The S.T.E.W.A.R.T. Beautiful.

Fake But Funny NASA Press Release | Universe Today

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Calorie Counting

For those of us that have spent our lives fighting the "battle of the bulge," I find this fascinating. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but...hmmmm.

H/t -- The Daily Dish

Calorie Counting: "

Early Risers Are Mutants -- Willyard 2009 (813): 2 -- ScienceNOW

Okay, I'll buy this, but it leaves me with one question: What about those of us that have learned to be early risers? I was pretty much a standard-issue night owl until I joined the Navy. After 20 years of that, I find it's near impossible to sleep much past 0700 or so. And that feels late.

Early Risers Are Mutants -- Willyard 2009 (813): 2 -- ScienceNOW

H/t -- The Daily Dish

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