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Whatever will the boffins come up with next?

Professor Richard Wiseman is a professor of psychology at Hertfordshire University.

And he has just presented his research into how your first name will affect how people view you.

His results can be found here.

Anyway just for fun I looked up to see how our Prime minister, Helen Clark,  and her major rival, John Key fare in the christian name stakes.

                                                       

	Success	Luck	Attractiveness
Helen	7.6	1.57	2.0
John	4.8	2.31	2.2

So Helen is perceived to be more successful than John but not as lucky and marginally less attractive.

How the good professors research will factor into the general election results later this year is at this point unknown.

Whether John Key's margin in the Luck factor combined with his slight edge over Helen Clark in the Attractiveness category be enough to overcome the margin she has over him on the Success scale only time will tell.

Of course John Key could take Professor Wiseman's research and put it to good use by changing his first name to James, Which not only tops the Success scale for males (13.0) but also scores highly in the other  two categories as well (5.6 and 8.4 respectively).

James  Key, works for me.

But then again Helen Clark could respond by dropping her first name and using her middle name Elizabeth which tops the list in the success factor for females.

Sadly, it would do little to help her in the  Luck or Attractiveness  departments  though.

Those Hiv positive Africans

A few days ago I wrote of two anti social fellows, immigrants to New Zealand, who have been allowed to stay despite convictions for serious crimes.

In passing in that post I mentioned the sad story of a Romanian family  the Minister of immigration has sought to have repatriated  due to them having a child with Thalassaemia, and in the process mentioned the HIV positive African immigrants to New Zealand that nobody wants to talk about.

Well today Jenny Ling of the Dominion post has decided that we should be talking about them and has written a story about HIV amongst Zimbabwean refugees and the cost of treating them.

In truth the Statistics about HIV positive New Zealanders are quite telling.

According to the September 2007 figures released by the Department of Health's Aids study group the largest number of HIV positive people   in New Zealand are,   in their language,  MSM (Men who have  Sex with Men).  The other route that New Zealanders mainly acquire an HIV positive status is through injecting drugs although in surprisingly (or not as the case may be)  this group is quite small.

Here are the telling figures from the September 2007 MOH report

 

		HIV Infection
		1996-2000		2001-2005		2006		2007 (to end ofJune)		Total
Ethnicity	Sex	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
European / Pakeha	Male Female	303 31	51.7 5.3	385 32	45.8 3.8	76 6	37.2 2.9	38 5	36.2 4.8	802 74	46.2 4.3
Māori	Male Female	34 5	5.8 0.8	50 5	5.9 0.6	10 3	4.9 1.5	11 1	10.5 0.9	105 14	6.0 0.8
Pacific Island	Male Female	7 8	1.2 1.4	23 7	2.7 0.8	6 2	2.9 1.0	1 2	0.9 1.9	37 19	2.1 1.1
African	Male Female	63 47	10.7 8.0	93 93	11.1 11.1	27 35	13.2 17.1	8 17	7.6 16.2	191 192	11.0 11.0
Asian	Male Female	41 19	7.0 3.2	76 41	9.0 4.9	19 3	9.3 1.5	10 1	9.5 0.9	146 64	8.4 3.7
Other	Male Female	9 0	1.5 0.0	20 3	2.4 0.4	4 4	2.0 2.0	2 2	1.9 1.9	35 9	2.0 0.5
Undetermined	Male Female	18 1	3.1 0.2	10 2	1.2 0.2	6 3	2.9 1.5	5 2	4.8 1.9	39 8	2.2 0.5
TOTAL		586	100.0	840	100.0	204	100.0	105	100.0	1735	100.0

So 22% of all of those in New Zealand who are HIV positive are Africans.  And while females make up only 17 % of HIV positive people in New Zealand, of those who are  over 50% are of African origin.

What the MOH have omitted  from their September 2007 figures is that well over 70% of "heterosexual" HIV infections have been acquired overseas.

There is  a MOH February  2008 report  of HIV positive New Zealanders out, but not on-line and I suspect that Jenny Ling has used this to produce her story.

But whatever it says ,the truth remains that HIV is an extremely odd disease, it picks on Westerners with insalubrious lifestyles and Africans. And the difference in the way it manifests itself amongst the two groups is so marked that it is posited there are two varieties (at least) of the HIV virus.

And which is also why there is a large group of  scientists (including Nobel prize winners) who are skeptical about the connection between HIV and AIDS.

But the truth is hard to get at because AIDS research has been highly politicized, right from the beginning of the "epidemic" in the 1980s.

And this is also why, despite it being one of the most heavily funded areas of medical research,  no cure or vaccine  is even on the horizon.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out the so called "treatments" for those who are HIV positive are worse than the disease.

Agenda driven science reporting

Here is an Associated press headline "Study Finds 1 in 4 US Teens Has a STD"

And here is the opening paragraph of their report

At least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of-its-kind federal study that startled some adolescent-health experts.

Some doctors said the numbers might be a reflection of both abstinence-only sex education and teens' own sense of invulnerabilty. Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention.

This story in various guises has been picked up by media outlets worldwide.

So I went to find the study and found the source of the story, it is a paper given at the 2008 STD Prevention conference conducted by the CDC.  The entire abstract of which is below the fold.

So who are the "some doctors" in the AP version of the story?

In truth this survey is very limited, the methodology used is not provided, although partially indicated, and probably adds little to what is known about teenage STD rates.

But what is known and conceded in the abstract below the fold is    abstinence is the surest way to prevent getting an STD.

Even though "some doctors" think promoting this is leading to an increase in STDs. And "health officials" think the solution lies in more screening and vaccinations.

Science is all about understanding uncertainties in the interpretation of data and making public policy on the basis of very uncertain data is all too common, I fear.

There is no such thing as a "safe food"

This A1, A2 milk thing is raising its head again. The SST has an article about the lack of research into the health effects of drinking A1 milk as opposed to A2, purportedly a possibly increased risk of heart attack and diabetes.

Maybe it does carry the claimed risk, maybe not. To find out with 100% certainty would be very very hard and expensive because whatever affect on health  the difference between the  drinking A1 versus A2  milk has, it is obviously minute.

And who is to say that while drinking A2 milk may indeed slightly lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes that it doesn't  slightly increase the risk of bladder cancer for example? It  is just that nobody has made that claim yet but it could for all anyone knows.

There is only one certainty in life and that is it is finite and while there are obvious things that if eaten will have an immediate negative effect (deadly nightshade for example) the majority of the food we eat has been tried and tested by generations of people without  detrimental effect in the short term.

And while on the subject of deadly nightshade it is a member of the Solanaceae family of plants. A lot of our favorite foods are derived from plants of this family, tomatoes, capsicums and the humble potato.

Tobacco and datura are also from this family and they are considered bad things to consume, with some reasoning and experience to back this up.

And we also know that there are some people who cannot tolerate tomatoes because they are poisonous, as are potatoes. The thing is most of us can handle the toxins in tomatoes and potatoes without any obvious immediate effect other than receiving nourishment. Who knows what the long term effects of the  toxins they contain are? Nobody thats who.

The  truth is  we live in a toxic environment and we age and die, Part of the aging process is almost certainly a result of the toxins in the food we eat and another part due to other environmental hazards, ultra violet rays from the sun and cosmic rays etc.

And some of the toxic substances we consume in our food are actually vital for our good health and well being. Selenium is poisonous but we need it in our diet. We also need exposure to ultra violet light for our body chemistry to function normally even though it can harm us and cause cancer.

We could spend our entire GDP on researching the long term consequences of consuming the food we eat and take for granted and not "save a single life" because everybody is going to die of something sometime.  Nor would such research be particularly useful because everybody's biochemistry is subtly or sometimes not so subtly different, which explains why while most people can safely eat tomatoes there are a few that can't.

I'll tell you one thing,  Tomatoes⁽¹⁾ and potatoes first appeared in the diets of Europeans in the 16^th century when they were bought back from the new world. And if they had had public heath authorities with the same mindset as those we have today,  they would have probably banned them as unsafe because of the toxins they contain. 

As it is potatoes have become a staple of our diet and have kept us fed for generations.

Which is a good thing on balance.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Tomatoes were not generally eaten until much later, around about the 19^th century. Which might explain why there are not many people, if any, allergic to potatoes but there are some who are to tomatoes. 

People  with   "potato allergies" died out years ago.

How discussing science sparks a race row

It has been common knowledge for millenia that the offspring of two close relatives are more likely to suffer from birth defects and inherited disease than those conceived from parents more distantly related.

Even though  understanding of why this might be  did not  come until the foundations of the science of genetics by Gregor Mendel in the late 19^th century for centuries there have been laws and customs in place to prevent the parings of people who are closely related. In fact I believe the incest taboo is inbuilt in most of us.

My own church bans first cousin marriages I believe (I really should check but I haven't the time right now).

However first cousin marriages are common amongst Pakistani Muslims in Great Britain apparently. And these are often arranged marriages.

And it would seem that the evidence is there that amongst this group there is a far higher incidence of birth defects and inherited disease than in the general population.

Phil Woolas a Cabinet minister in the British parliament and who represents an electorate with a high population of muslims has raised this issue, igniting the inevitable charges of Islamophobia and racism.

What this illustrates to me is the way political activists, politicians and the like attempt to suppress unpalatable facts or those which stand in the way of their personal agendas by use of what are really hate words.

There are laws, some civil, some religious on who can marry whom and they have evolved for a reason, reasons maybe not fully understood even to this day but at their heart is an understanding of the necessity for humanity to produce a healthy new generation to carry on from where we leave off.

And slowly but surely the social architects are undermining these laws which is probably the greatest threat to the future of humanity we face today.

A more virulent strain of "flesh eating bacteria"?

An article from the "Annals of internal medicine: "Emergence of Multidrug-Resistant, Community-Associated, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clone USA300 in Men Who Have Sex with Men"

If this stacks up what does it really reveal?

Probably this, the communities where this has been identified have a promiscuous  lifestyle and as a result resort to antibiotic use more frequently than the general population. The rest is natural selection doing its thing.

So it is hardly  surprising to see antibiotic resistant strains of old bacteria emerging in these   communities.

This has been known for years, since it has already occurred with STI's once thought to be virtually conquered, but it is  something considered impolite to talk about too loudly.

Well only time will tell if this new strain of   Staphylococcus emerges as a significant public health threat or whether it will be contained within a few San Franciscan zip codes and places with similar demographics.

Here is the San Fransisco Chronicle's report

A brilliant Swedish ad that pulls no punches

This post is dedicated to someone I care about.

Further information here

Booze makes fruit flies gay...

For all of the oiks who laughed at suggestions that environmental estrogenic compounds may be a biological contributor to homosexuality, now scientists are worried it could be linked to how much we drink....

From the department of can this possibly be right

ACC has just released figures showing that home handy men in New Zealand injure themselves to the tune of $50 million a year.

Which is a drop in the bucket when compared with the total ACC bill of $4 billion per annum.

Unsurprisingly this is the worst time of year for DIY accidents. Obviously when you are not at work slaving over a hot keyboard all day you have time to clean the gutters and fall off the ladder in the process.

Another reason for the Christmas DIY injury increase is that Santa leaves dad a new nail gun in his stocking and in his excitement and eagerness to try it out Dad nails himself to the wall.

Not clever.

Anyway the bit that has me scratching my head is the number of spanner injuries.

According to the Herald's report on last years figures there were 12 spanner injuries last year that cost ACC $144,000 or on average $12,000  for each one they covered.

Unsurprisingly chainsaws accounted for more ACC covered injuries than spanners, 61 in fact but the total bill for these injuries was $207,000 or an average of  $3393  for each one.

To be sure I have suffered a few spanner injuries myself over the years, usually by using a crescent spanner instead of a ring spanner or socket and banging my knuckles as a result.  But how do you seriously hurt yourself with a spanner?

I'm sure there is an obvious answer that I have missed.

Anyway one proposed solution to the DIY injury problem is to run courses on ladder safety and so forth. Courses are the solution to everything in our complex world. Usually run by people who are living proof of the old adage "them that can do, them that can't teach".

So in order to save the skin on my knuckles I will be purchasing a new set of ring spanners this summer but will probably not bother with signing up for the  course     "safe use of   spanners".

Source: $50m hospital bill for our DIY disasters

The first "Expelled" trailers are out...

This looks like one very interesting movie...