Archive for the 'Science Communication' Category

Detection of breast cancer by hair

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Bad reporting, Good Science, KKKly Mail and Science Communication
. 0 Comments

From the KKKly Mail today:

Hair test to detect breast cancer could be on sale ‘within months’
A revolutionary test that detects the first signs of breast cancer from a few strands of a woman’s hair could be on sale within months.

Having scanned the references from the website of Fermiscan there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the research. I can only assume that when they say on sale they mean to someone with a lot of money. According to there latest paper (free when I tried) they used the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Lab (US), this is a rather large synchrotron and not going to be available for the routine analysis of hair samples.

According to the Daily Hate:

When normal hair is put under a microscope, it appears as series of arcs. In people with breast cancer, a distinctive ring is superimposed on to these arcs, New Scientist magazine reports.

Yet the papers and website all take about synchrotron x-ray diffraction, a bit harder than popping under a microscope. From what I can read of the NS article there’s know mention of microscopes. If anyone can enlighten me please do. This just seems to be the Mail getting excited a little too early. At least this time the research seems to right (cf. MMR) it’s just got a way to go.

Update

I’ve been in contact with the (very nice) people at Fermiscan, once I have permission I’ll post some of their response.

BBC Misunderstands Processor Technology Again

Published
by
badchemist
on November 12, 2007
in Badscience, Media, Science Communication and Tech
. 0 Comments

I wouldn’t normally bother with this as it’s just too easy but it’s not the first time I’ve seen the BBC misunderstand the technology of processors.

…Intel has replaced the gate dielectrics, previously made from silicon dioxide, with a material based on the metal hafnium.

Hafnium is a so-called high-K material, which refers to its dielectric constant, and has a greater ability to store electrical charge than silicon dioxide.

Between these two lines they seem to change their mind what they are taking about. Intel has replaced the gate dielectrics with a hafnium based material, hafnium dioxide. If, as they claim in the second line, they had used hafnium they would have made a useless processor. They tell us themselves that hafnium is a metal - it therefore cannot be a dielectric.

Sadly even Intel seem to make this mistake on their own site.

Intel has made a significant breakthrough in solving the chip power problem, identifying a new “high-k” (Hi-k) material called hafnium to replace the transistor’s silicon dioxide gate dielectric

But at least they get it right later on

“High-k” materials, such as hafnium dioxide (HfO2), zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) inherently have a dielectric constant or “k” above 3.9, the “k” of silicon dioxide.

I know this is pedantry to the extreme but it really isn’t that hard to grasp, is it?

The Pill and Cervical Cancer

Published
by
badchemist
on November 9, 2007
in Good Science, Media, Medicine and Health, Science Communication and Statistics
. 1 Comment

In the media today there have been several reports of the increased risk of cervical cancer for women taking the contraceptive pill. All these reports relate to a Lancet article that has been published this week - unfortunately I won’t get access until next week when it hits “Pill cancer risk soars”. This seems a little strong for a headline considering the story continues thus:

The rate of cervical cancer for women up to 50 who have not used the Pill is 3.8 per thousand.

This increases to 4.0 per thousand in women on the Pill for five years and to 4.5 per thousand on the popular combined contraceptive pills for 10 years.

So, even if you want to reduce to simple percentages, women who have been on the pill for 5 years they have increased their risk from 0.38 % to 0.4 %. That’s just over a 5 % increase if you want to use the typical tabloid method of mishandling such figures. For 10 year users the increase is ~18% using the same rather dubious methodology.

What really matters is that the actual change in risk is actually rather small, 0.38 % to 0.45 % is probably not much to worry about considering the huge number of other factors that influence a persons well-being.

The other thing I want to comment about on this is an avenue that may or may not have been raised in the Lancet article - I’ll update when I know. One of the known causes of cervical cancer are certain forms of Human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. Is it not possible that, due to the use of the contraceptive pill, some women may be less meticulous with the use of barrier contraceptives thus leaving themselves open (that wasn’t supposed to be an innuendo) to infection with HPV and therefore an increased chance of cervical cancer?

Obviously this is all speculation so if anyone out there has more information on the subject please comment below or email me (address on the about page).

Observer learns about science again, sort of…

Published
by
badchemist
on October 28, 2007
in Good Science, Medicine and Health, Nutribollocks, Science Communication and homeopathy
. 0 Comments

Recently the Observer has made a few scientific faux pas. In July we had the old MMR-autism chestnut and then we had thoroughly debunked at badscience.

Despite this inability to understand basic science there is an article in today’s Observer that is remarkably sensible - The cranks who swear by citronella oil. The article is a scathing attack on homeopathy, particularly in its use for the treatment of HIV-AIDS. Read it and understand that sometimes science journalism is good.

Unfortunately not everyone at the Observer is as well accustomed with the idea of scientific evidence as Nick Cohen. Dr Deborah McManners, a naturopathic physician and GP at the Hale Clinic, suggests, as a treatment for potentially stress induced hairloss.

Homeopathy could be another option - gelsemium is good for anticipatory anxiety, and arsenicum album is ideal for tense, ambitious perfectionists. A medical homeopath would be able to advise you (www.trusthomeopathy.org).

Looking at the Hale Clinic website it’s hardly surprising, they seem to offer all many of pseudoscientific bullshit.

Stem Cells ‘Prompt cancer spread’ - Updated

Published
by
badchemist
on October 4, 2007
in Medicine and Health, Press and Science Communication
. 0 Comments

The BBC reports that “Stem Cells ‘Prompt cancer spread’”. This is a fantastically misleading headline. Although the story does concern the increased rate metastasis of tumours in the presence of stem cells the point of the research is “if stem cells increase metastasis then blocking stem cell action could reduce metastasis”.*

I’m just waiting for the pro-life/anti-stem cell brigade to jump on that head line and claim that stem cell treatments are all evil and ungodly and the direct cause of all that is bad in society.

*I can’t be overly sure of details of the research as 1) the Beeb haven’t referenced it, 2) they haven’t even given a name of one of the researchers and 3) I can’t find it on the Nature website anywhere suggesting this is all press release

Update: the paper has now been published and can be found here

North East Lecture Delights

Published
by
badchemist
on October 2, 2007
in Good Science and Science Communication
. 0 Comments

For those of you in the North East of the UK, particularly the Durham area, there is a series of lectures over the next few months that may interest some of you.

Continue reading ‘North East Lecture Delights’