The Outsider

Failure is my success

How bacteria in our bodies protect our health

Biologists once thought that human beings were phys­iological islands, entirely capable of regulating their own internal workings. Our bodies made all the enzymes needed for breaking down food and using its nutrients to power and repair our tissues and organs. Signals from our own tissues dictated body states such as hunger or satiety. The specialized cells of our immune system taught themselves how to recognize and attack dangerous microbes—pathogens—while at the same time sparing our own tissues.

Over the past 10 years or so, however, researchers have demonstrated that the human body is not such a neatly self-sufficient island after all. It is more like a complex ecosystem—a social network—containing trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that inhabit our skin, genital areas, mouth and especially intestines. In fact, most of the cells in the human body are not human at all. Bacterial cells in the human body outnumber human cells 10 to one. Moreover, this mixed community of microbial cells and the genes they contain, collectively known as the microbiome, does not threaten us but offers vital help with basic physiological processes—from digestion to growth to self-defense.

Eoabelisaurus - almost complete abelisaurid from the Jurassic of Patagonia

Rekonstruktion des Sekelttes von eoabelisaurus (Grafik: Oliver Rauhut) 
Eoabelisaurus mefi

When Tyrannosaurus and its relatives roamed North America and Asia, the abelisaurids occupied a similar niche in Patagonia and other areas ofGondwanaland[sic]. They were the dominant predators in the Southern hemisphere and resembled the tyrannosaurids in their general appearance, but their unusually short and high skulls were unique.

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"Abelisaurids were a highly diverse and widely distributed group during the Cretaceous," says Rauhut, "but their origins have so far remained enigmatic." Fossil material from Patagonia representing a new abelisaurid species has now thrown light on their early evolution. The specimen is of Jurassic age and 40 million years older than any other known abelisaurid - and it reveals that arm reduction must have begun at an early stage in the group's evolutionary history.

Nature: Fukushima’s doses tallied, minimal health risks from radiation

"Studies indicate minimal health risks from radiation in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disaster." 

From a retweet of this tweet from George Monbiot:

I'm in the very unusual position of having just considered retweeting Monbiot myself. Not sure how I feel about that.

Why I think professors of public health are mostly little more than witchdoctors

Justice for Ronald McDonald. ABC Radio National's Background Briefing on Sunday:

A GROUP of residents in Adelaide have opened a new front against the fast food giant. They're trying to stop a McDonald's restaurant opening opposite a school, arguing it will raise childhood obesity rates in the area.

Professor of Public Health John Coveney on website The Conversation with the evidence, May 18:

THERE'S a study from California showing that there's a relationship between schools that are quite close to fast-food outlets and the rates of obesity in those schools.

The research. The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity, Currie et al, 2009:

THIS research leaves several questions unanswered. The overall quantitative contribution of the expansion of the fast-food industry to the increase in obesity rate remains unclear. Relatively few schools are located within 0.1 miles of a fast food restaurant, so the impact identified by our paper applies to a relatively small population. We cannot speculate about the generalisability of our research to other samples.

Never mind. Coveney explains on The Conversation:

QUESTION: What would you say, in your personal opinion, are the chances of success in stopping the establishment of this fast-food outlet?

Coveney: Well I think they're good. Now that we have a public health act (SA Public Health Act 2011), it allows us to use what's called the "precautionary principle". That is, even though we don't have all of the evidence, when there's a suggestion a course of action could be injurious to health, we should question whether we should pursue that activity.

From the Oz's Cut & Paste section.

So there you have it, that's the quality of "evidence" that is sadly typical in this area.

Basically, they have no idea whether or not so-called "junk food" outlets close to schools has anything to do with current rates of obesity, but let's ban them anyway, just in case.

Dr David Evans: The Skeptic’s Case

"We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. Fortunately the climate models got all their major predictions wrong. Why? Every serious skeptical scientist has been consistently saying essentially the same thing for over 20 years, yet most people have never heard the message — here it is, put simply enough for any lay reader willing to pay attention."

And just to repeat, climate change is real. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. The real debate however is about how much any additional CO2 will raise the average global temperature.

Richard Lindzen: Response to the critique of my House Of Commons lecture #auspol

On February 22, 2012, I gave a lecture at the House of Commons explaining the nature of the arguments for climate alarm, and offering my reasons for regarding the concern as being unjustifiably exaggerated. The slides of this lecture were widely circulated. Not surprisingly, the lecture led to a variety of complaints from those supporting alarm. The most thoughtful of these (by Hoskins, Mitchell, Palmer, Shine and Wolff) was a detailed critique posted at the website of the Grantham Institute that Hoskins heads. While there was a considerable amount of agreement between the critics and myself, the overall tenor of the critique suggested that I was presenting a misleading position. The following is my response to this critique. Since both the critique and my lecture focused on the science, the discussion is, of necessity, technical. Moreover, there are distinct limits to what can be covered in a one hour lecture. The following provides more detail than could be included in the lecture.
The critique by Hoskins et al. of a lecture that I recently gave seems to be primarily a statement of subjective disagreement, though it has important errors, and is highly misleading. The critics are, for the most part, scientists for whom I have considerable respect. The following response to their critique will, I hope, be considered to be part of a constructive exchange. Such constructive exchanges are new in the field of global warming, and, perhaps, represent a return to the normal process of scientific discourse.