One year on, cheap but untested vaccines to be deployed against cholera in Haiti

October 25, 2011

The UN introduced cholera to Haiti and is now embarking on a vaccination program with a vaccine which has been hurriedly approved just in September this year.

Last October the claims that the UN had introduced the disease into Haiti were initially denied but in May this year the United Nations released a long-awaited report indicating that human waste from Nepalese peacekeepers along with dirty drinking water likely triggered the spread of the cholera epidemic that has gripped Haiti since October 2010.

As of last week the cholera outbreak in Haiti has caused 473,649 cases 251,885 hospitalizations and 6,631 deaths. The number of deaths is thought to be an underestimate.

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Posted in Medicine, Natural Disasters, UN | 2 Comments »

Ryanair redefines “low cost” with a sticky tape fix

October 25, 2011

Ryanair apparently considers that the use of sticky tape to fix cracks in aircraft is a routine technical issue. It begs the question as to how often Ryanair fixes its mechanical problems on aircraft with string and sticky tape.

Ryanair flight forced to land after crew fixed pilot’s window with sticky tape 

A Ryanair flight carrying 200 people was forced to turn back to Stansted after sticky tape used to ‘patch up’ the pilot’s window came loose. 
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said the tape was being used merely as an extra precaution to secure a new window seal. 
But the pilot made the decision to terminate the flight after the tape became loose and started making flapping noises. One passenger, Anthony Neal from Kent, told The Sun: ‘We were kept in the dark, and were terrified. I could see guys taping in the windscreen with what looked like duct tape or gaffer tape. ‘We were in the sky, then the pilot said due to damage on the windscreen, we were going to have to turn back.’ 
Ryanair has insisted that normal procedures had been followed and that there was no danger to passengers or crew. A spokesman said: ‘We do not comment on routine technical issues. All Ryanair flights operate in accordance with approved safety standards.’

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More dodgy papers for National University of Singapore to investigate

October 24, 2011

Update: 31st October 2011: Further dodgy papers are given in the next instalment from Abnormal Science.

Japanese Retraction Watch has also been on the case.

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Abnormal Science ( Joerg Zwirner) has 3 more examples of papers with some questionable images. This time the papers are from the Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore with 2 papers published in Blood and one in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The three papers tagged are:

1. Pervaiz S, Seyed MA, Hirpara JL, Clément MV, Loh KW.
Purified photoproducts of merocyanine 540 trigger cytochrome C release and caspase 8-dependent apoptosis in human leukemia and melanoma cells.
Blood. 1999 Jun 15;93(12):4096-108.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore; and the Oncology Research Institute, NUMI, Singapore

2. Hirpara JL, Seyed MA, Loh KW, Dong H, Kini RM, Pervaiz S.
Induction of mitochondrial permeability transition and cytochrome C release in the absence of caspase activation is insufficient for effective apoptosis in human leukemia cells.
Blood. 2000 Mar 1;95(5):1773-80.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

3. Hirpara JL, Clément MV, Pervaiz S.
Intracellular acidification triggered by mitochondrial-derived hydrogen peroxide is an effector mechanism for drug-induced apoptosis in tumor cells.
J Biol Chem. 2001 Jan 5;276(1):514-21.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore, Singapore

The two names common to all 3 papers are JL Hirpara and research supervisor Professor Shazib Pervaiz.

The NUS investigation committee has its work cut out with all the questionable papers they need to check out (See here and here).

As Abnormal Science puts it:

Their inquiry commissions might soon run out of unbiased members. NUS should consider to accept assistance from abroad to clean up the mess.

And it seems to be truly a mess covering a number of departments which indicates a prevailing culture and not just some isolated incident of wrongdoing.

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, scientific misconduct, Singapore | 2 Comments »

Sarkozy attacks Cameron – much to Cameron’s delight

October 24, 2011

While European leaders are struggling to put together a rescue package for Greece which will not have a domino effect for Italy and Spain or drown too many European banks, David Cameron is facing renewed opposition to membership in the EU from within his own party. But it is not only in the UK that opposition to the growing exercise of powers by Brussels is increasing. Almost every EU member which has not adopted the Euro (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK along with some of the newer members) has rising voices calling for the limitation of European power and a return of powers to the country parliaments. Voices against the Euro can even be heard in Germany where there is a widespread feeling ( not entirely wrong) that German taxpayers are paying twice for the spendthrift ways of Southern Europe; first directly by subsiding these countries and secondly by the devaluation of their savings in Euro. The Swiss are just thankful that they were never a part of this experiment.

In hindsight, what has become obvious is that the Euro-zone has few built in sanctions to prevent the profligacy of some countries which has to be paid for by others. What is also becoming clear is that without a fiscal uniformity – which would seem like being taxed from Brussels – the possibility of  “bad” members being spendthrift will always remain.

France has always seen the Euro as part of a long-term move towards a European political and fiscal uniformity in which France would be the centre of political power. A return to the glory days of the Holy Roman Empire which lasted over 800 years, except of course that the centre would be in France rather than in what today is Germany. Sarkozy could certainly see himself as the first Emperor.

Yesterday, as the Telegraph reports:

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Famous scientists were children once

October 23, 2011

I recognised only one person from the image itself but managed to recognize 6 more from the brief bios.

How many do you recognise?

A site well worth visiting – Kuriositas

Mae West said you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. As such the scientists below left an indelible mark on the world and lived adult lives which will be remembered forever. Yet they were once children. Here are pictures of famous scientists when they were very young. See how many you can recognize if not from their photograph (or painting) but from the short bio included. If you can’t guess, there is a link at the end of the post to the answers.

Visit Kuriositas 

Self Soving Rubik’s Cube

And another fascinating video (h/t Kuriositas) by Carlos Dyonisio which brings memories of many frustrating hours for me some 35 years ago!

Stop motion: Self-solving Rubik’s Cube from Carlos Dyonisio on Vimeo.

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Visa Scam at Rayat London College lays low the University of Wales

October 22, 2011

Once upon a time I was a post-doc at University College Cardiff which has a Royal Charter dating from 1883 and which was part of the University of Wales, Cardiff until 2004 when it became Cardiff University. I have fond memories of Cardiff since it was with Cardiff as a base that my colleagues ensured my education on the finer points of rugby and Welsh pubs and Dylan Thomas and rugby songs. So it was a matter of some regret for me to hear that the current University of Wales was to be abolished because of wrong-doings at one of its accredited colleges.

The University of Wales  was a federal university founded in 1893 with accredited institutions throughout Wales, including the universities of Glyndŵr, Newport, Swansea Metropolitan and Trinity Saint David. It accredited courses in Britain and abroad, with over 100,000 students but following a visa fraud at one of its accredited colleges, Rayat London College,  it no longer exists. At the time of its closure, the Chancellor of the University of Wales was HRH the Prince of Wales and the Pro-Chancellor was the Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Barry Morgan. Professor Marc Clement was President and the Vice-Chancellor was Professor Medwin Hughes.

It is not the first time that the techniques of academic cheating and fake degrees have been found to have been exported from India to colleges around the world.

THES:The Rayat London College which offered courses validated by the University of Wales has been linked to an alleged scam that helped foreign students to cheat their way to qualifications. The BBC found a lecturer from Rayat College London explaining to students how to cheat in exams and how to deceive the UK Border Agency. …. The scam would have allowed students to complete a 15-month course in under a week by cheating in exams. …. The college has suspended a lecturer, registrar and admissions officer, and said it dissociated itself from any wrongdoing and had referred the matter to the police.

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Murdoch swats aside shareholder calls for change

October 22, 2011

As expected the shareholder opposition to Rupert Murdoch and the Board of News Corp proved to be little more than noise and was just brushed aside at News Corp’s AGM held in Los Angeles yesterday. Some of the loudest “opposition” seems to be little more than public relations to justify a continued investment in News Corp and not really intended to effect any change.

Rupert Murdoch and kids

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Marc Hauser now accused of “theft of ideas”

October 21, 2011

The Hausergate affair seemed to have reached a sort of resolution with Marc Hauser’s resignation from Harvard – but it has come back to life with accusations from Gilbert Harman, a philosophy Professor at Princeton that Hauser’s book Moral Minds may have “stolen ideas” without sufficient attribution from the 2000 doctoral thesis of John Mikhail, a graduate student at Cornell University who is now a law professor at Georgetown University.

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The need to communicate leads to the development of language

October 21, 2011

The origin of language was once a forbidden subject and in 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris went so far as to ban debates on the subject – because it was considered too speculative to be a matter for serious people! But I find the question fascinating. When and how language developed remains a mystery. But with communication and language being such a clear measure of the distinction between humans and other primates, it seems obvious that there must be some genetic basis for this difference.

The “Language Gene” Turns Ten

Ten years ago this month, a team of University of Oxford scientists published a description of a family who struggled with words. By comparing their DNA, the scientists zeroed in for the first time on a gene associated with language, dubbed FOXP2.

Genetic evidence suggests that the basis of language appeared among hominids prior to the evolutionary split that gave rise to Homo neanderthalensis.  Having the genetic wherewithal for having language does not of course prove that hominids had language 400,000 years ago. But I would suggest that the need for a particular characteristic (whether for survival or merely for coping better with the prevailing environment) itself predisposes for those factors which enable the correct expression of the relevant genes to enhance the characteristic. And this leads to the role that epigenetics and the inheritance of factors controlling gene expression – rather than mutations of the genome – may have had in the development of language.

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Posted in Environment, Evolution, Language | 1 Comment »

A cartography of the anthropocene

October 20, 2011

Stunning images by Felix Pharand–Deschenes at Globaia : A Cartography of the Anthropocene 

Global Transportation System

Cities are yellow ; roads are green ; ships are blue ; airlines are white: image globaia

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Posted in Art, Science, Technology | 3 Comments »

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