13 Things That Do Not Make Sense

Pinched from noiseinmyhead but with a little more explanation. In case you missed it, this appeared at New Scientist last month. Tons of fun, if you haven't contemplated the things driving scientists--especially astronomers, but also MDs and pharmacy folk--absolutely nuts.

13 things that do not make sense

1 The placebo effect

DON'T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on?

And now, I need a nap, having helped the great S with the storage shed for three hours.

Dick Vitale's Popapalooza 2005

A touch of whimsy for us all:

http://www.drewmarlowe.com/pictures/brackets.jpg

I must join with the masses

Thanks to many who have shown me the light, including kinzel, who shares this reasoning for his decision to join:

"After an extended period of serious self-examination and willful meditation
I have joined with the Unitarian Jihad as an independently motivated force for the suppression of anti-librarianism."

My Unitarian
Jihad Name is: Sister Garrote of Enlightened Compassion.

Get yours.