Skeptical reporter @ 2013-04-26

Skeptical Reporter for April 26th, 2013 Jim McCormick has been found guilty of a multi-million-pound fraud involving the sale of fake bomb detectors to Iraq and around the world. A jury found McCormick guilty on three counts of fraud over a scam that included the sale of £55 million of devices based on a novelty golf ball finder to Iraq. They were installed at checkpoints in Baghdad through which car bombs and suicide bombers passed, killing hundreds of civilians. Last month they remained in use at checkpoints across the Iraqi capital. McCormick, who faces up to eight years in jail when he is sentenced next month, also sold the detectors to Niger, Syria, Mexico and other countries including Lebanon where a United Nations agency was a client. He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golf ball finder with a different sticker on it. "Both civilians and armed forces personnel were put at significant risk in relying upon this equipment," said Detective Inspector Ed Heath, who led Avon and Somerset police's three-year investigation. In a recently published study, Korean researchers evaluated whether CAM-use influenced the survival and health-related quality of life of terminal cancer patients. From July 2005 to October 2006, they prospectively studied a cohort study of 481 cancer patients. Their multivariate analyses of these data showed that, compared with non-users, CAM-users did not have better survival. Using mind-body interventions or prayer was even associated with significantly worse survival. CAM users reported significantly worse cognitive functioning and more fatigue than nonusers. In sub-group analyses, users of alternative medical treatments, prayer, vitamin supplements, mushrooms, or rice and cereal reported significantly worse health related quality of life. The authors conclude that “CAM did not provide any definite survival benefit, CAM users reported clinically significant worse health related quality of lives.” Similar data have been reported before. For instance, a Norwegian study from 2003 examined the association between CAM-use and cancer survival. Death rates were higher in CAM-users (79%) than in those who did not use CAM (65%). The 'cinnamon challenge' went viral online and still has takers, but can result in choking, aspiration and lung damage. The decades-old stunt in which thrill-seeking teens swallow a tablespoon of dry cinnamon with no water, gag and spew out a cloud of orange dust went viral in 2012, resulting in more than 50,000 YouTube video clips of young people attempting the so-called "cinnamon challenge." Although the immediate physical effects -- coughing, choking and burning of the mouth, nose, and throat -- are temporary in most cases, attempts to swallow a large quantity of the dry spice may result in "long-lasting lesions, scarring and inflammation of the airway" or even lung damage, says a new research paper examining the dare. Nationwide in the US, at least 30 cases last year stemming from the challenge required medical attention, including ventilator support for some teens who suffered collapsed lungs, says the paper. The American Association of Poison Control Centers, which issued a March 2012 alert about the dare, reported 222 cinnamon-related exposures in 2012, up from 51 in 2011. So far this year, 20 exposures were reported from between Jan. 1 and Mar. 31. During the armed confrontations following the Boston bombings, a post on Twitter from ”The Astrology Show” announced that astrology had predicted the death of a campus officer at MIT. The response from other users was not a welcoming one and the ”Heresy Club” blog commented on the statement: ”Sometime around...