links for 2009-12-15
On 15 December 02009 with 19 comments
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The Yellowstone supervolcano turns out to be a lot bigger than anything thought—410 miles deep—with a chamber just under ground that's 20% bigger than had been thought. That seems bad.
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Somebody did the math and figured out that the 30X level of dilution ostensibly required by homeopathy is impossible—there is no water sufficiently pure to even get close, nor there is there enough water, period. To dilute 15 drops of a substance, you'd need a container fifty times Earth's volume to fit enough water to dilute it to that level. And to reach the 30C level—the "best" homeopathic substances—you'd need a container thirty billion times Earth's volume.
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A new study has found that high levels of fructose cause fat cells to develop around organs, creating difficulties processing food that are found in diabetes and heart disease. A group of people fed fructose had that problem, while another group fed the same diet but with glucose substituted for fructose did not experience that problem. This is the first meaningful research that has found a link between health problems and high fructose corn syrup. I've long been suspicious of HFCS (perhaps irrationally), convinced that it's bad for us in some way that we can't yet define. Maybe this is it.
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Here's a fun new theory: the meteor that hit the the Yucatan 65M was just a flesh wound compared to the one that left a 300 mile wide crater in India about 300,000 years later. Dinosaurs had lousy luck, apparently.
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Kids want shoes, glasses, or jobs for their dads. Man, that's a rough gig these days.
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