The Schiensh of Bond: Licence to Kill

In the latest installment of The Incredible Suit’s monthly exercise in self-harm, Bond – like so many spies before him – Goes Rogue. Here at Schiensh, we try to find some Schiensh in Licence to Kill in a post subtitled Revenge is a dish best served dissolved in petrol and covered in shark.

He disagreed with something that ate him

When Felix Leiter is partially fed to a shark, Bond goes out to seek revenge. Revenge by feeding someone else to a shark. Overall, unprovoked shark attacks and fatalities from shark attacks are pretty low. There are some lovely squishy statistics over here. As an example, worldwide between 2000 and 2011 there were 807 recorded shark attacks worldwide, of which 66 were fatal. The shark that people keep getting fed to is identified by Bond as being a Great White Shark. The Great White is a notorious maneater, thanks –  in part – to post-Jaws paranoia. Film depictions of Great whites are somewhat unfair; as apex predators they are used to being able to eat pretty much anything. But some divers have successfully filmed Great Whites and not suffered attacks. Filmmakers Ron and Valerie Taylor, diver/photographer George Askew, and Piet van der Walt found that the sharks tend to be scared of the divers, even though they had been exposed to blood and exposed flesh. Great Whites mostly bite people out of nosiness. They don’t actively seek out human (unlike the evil revenge-mad shark from the Jaws movies). ”Sharks don’t eat humans,” says shark expert Peter Kimley of the University of California, ”They spit out humans. Humans aren’t nutritious enough to be worth the effort.” However, there doesn’t seem to be much scientific consensus on what actually causes a shark to attack. If there is food about, the shark is probably going to try and eat whatever is put in front of it like Leiter or Killifer. Although blood doesn’t necessarily cause the legendary feeding frenzies that the films have us believe.

What we do know about sharks is that they have colour vision, have a really good sense of smell, taste and exceptionally good hearing. More interesting though is there ability to sense electric fields. They have a special sense organ. All animals possess electric fields in the form of muscle contractions and heart beats, although this is only useful over very short distances (this totes refers back to my day job ) In addition they have an exquisitely sensitive sense of touch and pressure sensors. This information is from the fabulous Shark Foundation website. Go there, they know LOTS.

Shocking encounter with an electric eel

Some hapless henchman get electrocuted to death by an electric eel sitting around in a tank. The electric eel isn’t actually an eel at all, it is actually a species of knifefish. Amongst all the crazy facts, they are air breathers. As to whether an eel can kill anyone, the answer is yes. Using their electrical organs, the eel can generate 600 volts of electricity and 1 amp of current, which is sufficient to kill a human.

The eels produce electricity using electrocysts located at two sites: Hunter’s organ and Sach’s organ. These electrocysts are a lot like batteries. The eel can control the intensity of the shock.

Death by explosive decompression

When Sanchez find the money planted by Bond in the hyperbaric chamber , he throws Krest – whom he suspects of treachery – into the hyperbaric chamber. First, Sanchez turns up the air pressure, and then forces it to drop rapidly by having one of his heavies break one of the tubes, letting the air escape. As a result, Krest’s head explodes.

Would Krest’s head have really exploded? Well, the most similar real life incident was on board the Byford Dolphin. There was a repid decompression from nine atmospheres to one in less than a second. Here’s how wikipedia describes it

Diver D3 was shot out through the small jammed hatch door opening and was torn to pieces. Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, violently exploded due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominalorgans, and even his thoracic spine were ejected, as were all of his limbs. Simultaneously, his remains were expelled through the narrow trunk opening left by the jammed chamber door, less than 60 centimetres (24 in) in diameter. Fragments of his body were found scattered about the rig. One part was even found lying on the rig’s derrick, 10 metres (30 ft) directly above the chambers. His death was most likely instantaneous and painless.

Not in any way pleasant.

Cocaine smuggling.

Sanchez plan for distributing cocaine involves dissolving it in petrol (gasoline), transporting it, and then having the recipient reconstitute the cocaine. I very carefully watched it to see if I could figure out what was going on with the cocaine, given how bad my knowledge of chemistry is. Is this possible and would it work.

On the internet, I stumbled across a method for extracting and cocaine from coco leaves. It just so happens that petrol is used as one of the agents to extract the cocaine from the leaves. Cocaine is insoluble in water (its hydrochloride salt however is soluble in water). Adding baking soda to this solution makes a putty, not unlike the putty we see in the laboratory in the film. This putty is mixed with hydrochloric acid in order to make the salt – addition of ammonia precipitates out the cocaine hydrochloride salt – so this method could actually work.

Licence to Kill has been a bizarre viewing experience – it being one of the more scientifically accurate Bond films.

Let’s see if it lasts when we continue. The Schiensh of Bond continues next month in GoldenEye.

I for one welcome our new dinosaur overlords

I have just stumbled across the most astonishingly brilliant “science” story.

Scientist Dr Richard Breslow claims that advanced dinosaurs may rule other worlds in a article published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Having been raised on a diet of Doctor Who and Star Trek, I got rather excited by all of this.

It turned out to be a discussion on the chemical structures of sugars and amino acids. Something rather odd (or particularly dull, depending on your view of chemistry) is that some molecules are asymmetric and therefore they can exist in two froms, as mirror images of each other: just like our hands. (As always, Wikipedia covers it quite well.) Because of the way biology works, only one form – one mirror image – of a molecule occurs in nature. The enzymes responsible for controlling the biochemical reactions that keep us alive only deal with one form of the chemical.

In his paper, Dr Breslow discusses why only one form predominates in nature; all amino acids have a left-handed orientation, most sugars (including DNA) have a right-handed orientation. He suggests that life on other planets could evolve to use either form, but meteorites that crashed to Earth 4 million years ago carried the left-handed isoform of amino acids may be the origin of the dominance of the left-handed forms of amino acids, and right-handed sugars in the present.

I fail to see how he managed to segue into explaining that with alternative forms of these molecules being dominant on other planets leads to the rise of the dinosaurs as the superior species “An implication from this work is that elsewhere in the universe there could be life forms based on D-amino acids and L-sugars. Such life forms could well be advanced versions of dinosaurs, if mammals did not have the good fortune to have the dinosaurs wiped out by an asteroidal collision, as on Earth. We would be better off not meeting them.”

Yeeees…

 

Post script: I heard this week that the paper has been withdrawn from the journal because of accusations of self-plagiarism.

The Schiensh of Bond: The Living Daylights

Finally, BlogalongaBond has at last seen the end of Roger Moore. And we welcome our new Daltonian overlord. This month, again, I struggled to find the science in Bond, and failed. I did however get distracted by the companion accompanying James and Kara around their foreign climes: Kara’s unnamed Stradivarius cello.

Interestingly, Ian Fleming’s half-sister, Amaryllis, was named in her
Obituary as one of Britain’s foremost cellists owned a Stradivarius cello that now bears her name. The part of The Living Daylights pertaining to the Stradivarius cello is based on the Fleming story of the same name.

Antonio Stradivari – what’s in a name?

Stradivari was a Cremonese luthier during the 17th and 18th centuries, known more for his violins, although he did make violas, cellos and guitars. He was one of the earliest luthiers to make cellos as we now know them

Stradivari’s instruments, along with those of other contemporaneous luthiers from northern Italy, are highly sought after by players, and are venerated for their apparently superior tone. Given the age and value of Kara’s cello, I winced at Bond and Milovy dragging it across the snow, and even more when it got a bullet hole through it.

Cellos – how do they work?

Like all stringed instruments, when a string is bowed or plucked, the vibration of the string causes a sound, but because the string – and the vibration – is so small, it isn’t very loud. This quiet vibration is transferred to the body of the instrument, which, because it is larger, moves more air when it vibrates (and sound is just vibration in air), therefore the sound is louder. The pitch of a note can be altered by the characteristics of the string: its stiffness and it’s length. Changes in the density of the wood in the body of the instrument change the way it vibrates and produces sound. Things like bullet holes are not going to make your cello sound good. And anyone who owns wooden instruments will know that you’re not supposed to let it get too hot, too cold, too dry or too damp, as the wood is prone to cracking.

What makes a Stradivarius so special?

The Stradivari name is legendary in music circles – the fact that many of Antonio Stradivari’s instruments that survive are still playable. Because of their age and prestige, they are worth millions – the Lady Blunt recently sold at auction for £9.8 million.

Some theories have been put forward to explain their apparent superiority. Stoel and Borman theorised that the growing conditions for the trees used to make cellos and violin in 18th century Cremona that resulted in different densities of wood. Using x-ray scanning of old violins and violas and comparing them to new instruments found no differences in the median densities of the wood, however there was a much smaller variation in the individual old Cremonese instruments (including some Stradivari instruments). Whether this is what causes the distinctive sound properties of old violins remains to be seen.

Nagyvary et al suggested that treatment of the wood is responsible for the superior sound of Stradivarius instruments – they examined the chemical composition of several instruments that had been repaired and found that chemical composition of Stradivarius instruments differed significantly from both other old instruments and new instruments. As the sample size was quite small, the results are difficult to draw actual conclusions from.

The entire case is completely moot though given that, under most cases of blind testing – where either the listener was blinded to whether they were listening to a Strad – or double blind test – where both the player and the listener are unaware of the identity of the instrument – listeners are unable to tell the difference. In additional tests where expert violin players were asked to play a selection of new and old instruments, there was no overall preference for old Strads over new, very well made instruments.

I’m currently on holiday in Europe, and last week I actually saw a full Stradivarius quartet in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Infuriatingly, they will not allow you to take photos inside the palace, so this is from Merriam-Webster.

Don’t kill yourself at the gym – Horizon: The Truth About Exercise

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a fondness for educational TV. BBC’s Horizon is a great bit of television. Having watched last week’s episode, I thought I’d stop being quite so lazy about posting and blog about it.

Firstly, Michael Mosley is a first class science presenter. Horizon has benefitted in the past from great guest presenters; Alan Davies on maths and measurement for How Long is a Piece of String? Ben Miller going back to his physics roots for What is One Degree? as well as regular TV scientists Alice Roberts, Jim Al-Khalili, Adam Rutherford and Brian Cox. Mosley is no exception.

If you are a gym user or have any interest in improving your health and fitness, it is well worth a watch. If you can’t be bothered to watch an hour’s worth of educational TV, there were two very interesting take home points. While the government recommends two and a half hours of moderate to vigorous exercise a week for adults, some scientists suggest that this one size fits all approach to exercise is not helpful. Mosley takes advice from researchers on the cutting edge of exercise physiology, and while they all concede that many people get a lot out of the gym or running, there are more efficient ways of obtaining the benefits of exercise.

Consider that it would take 55 minutes of running at 6 miles per hour to burn off the calories in a banana (stats shamelessly stolen from the programme), the health benefits of improving fitness, increasing insulin sensitivity (reducing the risks of developing diabetes) and burning calories are not necessarily best acheived by everyone by endless hours in the gym.

The two most interesting findings in the programme were the results of High Intensity Training (HIT) and Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).

For HIT, you do short bursts of very intense exercise for 20 seconds. You do this 3 times (so that’s 1 minute of exercise) and you do this 3 times a week. This is still being trialled, but Mosley’s insulin sensitivity improved dramatically over just one month.

NEAT is any movement in everyday life that isn’t sleeping or sitting – so walking, cycling using the stairs and so on. Using high-tech fidget pants containing sensors, scientist James Levine monitored movement in Mosley and two other volunteers over the course of a day. Sitting at your desk doing naff-all burns no calories. However, making a conscious effort to walk around frequently, use stairs etc increased Mosley’s energy expenditure by around 500 calories in one day. Levine argues that this is far more beneficial than just going to the gym.

Rather interesting findings, I thought.

Link to the programme.

The Schiensh of Bond: A View to a Kill

This month in BlogalongaBond, under the leadership of The Incredible Suit, we say goodbye to someone who has been a constant throughout the last half year. This individual hasn’t been much loved by many of the BlogalongaBondoliers, I have been especially vocal in my distain, but it would seem he is to leave us. That’s right, in A View to a Kill Roger Moore’s mole is absent. Whether the removal was for aesthetic reasons, concerns about skin cancer or the result of a Circus Mole Hunt led by Le Carre’s finest – the Moore is now moleless.

Which is how we will begin with A View to a Kill - Wrong, wrong, wrong, on so many levels.

I’m not quite sure how they managed to get from cheating racehorses to earthquakes via microchips. However…

My Lovely Horse

Bond and Tibbett go to Ascot in order to investigate why Zorin’s horses are running so fast. After some ill-advised laboratory exploration, they discover that Zorin is having microchips implanted into the horses. These microchips are used to dose the horses with “horse steroids” during races and can be activated remotely, potentially by the jockey. This, Bond states, overcomes fatigue in the horse.

However, the rationale here is flawed. Normally, training (whether equine or human) depending on the type of training, results in increased muscle mass. The individual muscle cells get bigger because the amount of protein they contain increases. Using anabolic steroids (like what the cheating athletes do) increases the size of muscles even more than training alone. Steroids do this by increasing protein synthesis and by inhibiting muscle breakdown by the hormone cortisol, this results in stronger muscle which is more resistant to fatigue. You can see why this would be beneficial for a racehorse. Curiously, although it’s been illegal to use steroids in racehorses in the UK, their use was only banned in the US in 2009.

So far so shiny. Steroids act by changing protein synthesis. Protein synthesis isn’t the instantaneous process one would require when desperately tired during a race. It would involve a lot  of protein synthesis, something that would take hours to days. Therefore, injections of steroids during a race is not the most appropriate way of cheating. You should either give Dobbin steroids during training, this would actually increase muscle mass and reduce muscle fatigue or give a proper stimulant during the race making him faster in the short term. On the plus side for Zorin, really good tests for horse steroids weren’t available in 1985, so cheat away!

Earth Movers

Zorin wants a microchip monopoly,  but those pesky clever clogs over in silicon valley are too good at doing their job. Zorin’s plan is to flood the Hayward and San Andreas faults by blowing up some lakes. The water in the faults then supposedly causes earthquakes, which, according to our young attractive geologist Stacey Sutton, will flood silicon valley, wiping out Zorin’s competition.

Hang on a minute, would that actually work? And what is a “Geological Lock”? Google was unable to find any references outside of A View to a Kill and the tinfoil hatwearers’ society. You get similar results if you ask your preferred search engine if you can cause an earthquake by flooding geological faults.

First off, a geological fault is a gap formed by the meeting of 2 or more tectonic plates. In the context of geology, earthquakes are caused by adjacent plates moving past each other, making epic crunching noises. I can find no references to flooding faults causing earthquakes, and also bear in mind that some geological faults are underwater. For instance, sections of the San Andreas fault are under water.  However, there are numerous ways in which humans can cause earthquakes. There is quite a nice description here. Wired pretty much ruled out using nuclear bombs along fault lines causing earthquakes – this is Lex Luthor tries to do in Superman.

The two most relevant activities by which humans can cause earthquakes are building dams and by injecting liquid into the ground.

There are some suggestions that the building of the Three Gorges Dam in Sichuan in China precipitated or exacerbated the 2008 earthquake in the area, although this is disputed. The idea being that a massive amount of water increases the stress in the rocks beneath it. This stress can cause fluctuations in seismic readings and potentially cause earthquakes if they are near a fault.

The US Army were  injecting fluid into the ground as a disposal method of waste material. However, they ceased when apparent seismic activity of the the surrounding area increased . Their conclusions are rather interesting:

…as fluid pressure increases, the apparent strength of the fault decreases… as a result, the potential for induced earthquakes also increases

Nicholson and Wesson, 1987

However, this is different from Zorin’s explosives driven fault-flooding method. The water would flow into the fault in an undirected manner so the water pressure is unlikely to be great enough to stress the rocks around the fault. The method here seems very flawed, if he had done his research, he’d be injecting liquid into the ground.

And so endeth Roger Moore. I’m looking forward to Timothy Dalton…

The Schiensh of Bond: Octopussy

A Bond film a month until Skyfall next October. BlogalongaBond. I continue through the Roger Moores like wading through so much treacle. I was enjoying Octopussy until all that mucking about on the circus train, then I got bored. And while I was musing on potentially perverse definitions of the word “octopussy” I realised that, in fact, the octopus is the most interesting thing about this film. Incidentally, I was not brave enough to put “octopussy” into google without the SafeSearch on.

What’s in a name?

My first stumbling block in Octopussy is the pluralisation of octopus: octopuses or octopi. Well, the origin of the name “octopus” stems from the greek for eight footed. Okto- : eight, pous-: feet. The use of the suffix -us is common in latin and the standard pluralisation of latin words ending in -us is to replace it with -i. Hence cactus -> cacti. There are common exceptions, for example the commonly used plural of campus is campuses, rather than campi. Octopus however has its etymological origins in greek rather than latin, so many object to the pluralisation octopi on these grounds.

There are three plural forms of octopus: octopuses [ˈɒktəpəsɪz], octopi [ˈɒktəpaɪ], and octopodes [ˌɒkˈtəʊpədiːz]. Currently, octopuses is the most common form in the UK as well as the US; octopodes is rare, and octopi is often objectionable.

Wikipedia

Many sources agree that while “octopodes” is technically correct, it is pedantic and there is the general impression that the sort of people using the word “octopodes” don’t get out enough. Furthermore, although many argue that octopus is a greek word, some bright spark has pointed out that octopus is actually a latinised-greek word. The word octopus wasn’t used to refer to the animal it describes until 1758, long after the Greeks and Romans were conjugating language.

Therefore, octopuses is generally accepted.

It does, however, bring the following exchange to mind.

Biology

Octopuses are cephalopod molluscs with no form of skeleton (like other molluscs) so they are able to squeeze through very small gaps. When it comes to dealing with predators, they have numerous defence mechanisms: they produce ink, have the ability to change colour and they are venomous.

Their physiology is, frankly, bizarre by our standards – an octopus has 3 hearts. Two brachial hearts pump blood through the gills and the third pumps blood around the body.

I have borrowed this pictograph to show you the inner workings of an octopus:

The blood contains coppers rather than iron to carry oxygen around the body. Also, the haemocyanin protein that carries the oxygen is dissolved in the blood rather than being contained within red blood cells as is in mammals. This give their blood a bluish colour.

The blue-ringed octopuses – as featured in Octopussy - are a group of 3 (possibly 4) species of octopus. They are quite small in size and they have numerous chromophores in their skin which are normally brown to aid camouflage. If the octopus is threatened, these patches turn blue. Octopuses produce ink which is contained in their ink sacs (located just below their gills), the ink contains the pigment melanin and mucous and is squirted out with the help of a jet of water from the funnel. In the blue-ringed octopus species, the ink sac has shrunk during evolution. Young blue-ringed octopuses can still effectively squirt ink, however the adults of two of the species do not produce ink at all, a third species can but is pretty crap at it.

Toxic bite

Blue-ringed octopuses are the only group of octopus with venom that can kill humans. The list of chemicals in the venom are:  tetrodotoxin, 5-hydroxytripamine, hyaluronidase, tyramine, histamine, tryptamine, taurine, acetylcholine and dopamine. The most important of these is tetrodotoxin, known to a bunch of lazy pharmacologists and neuroscientists as TTX. TTX is the same toxin found in pufferfish and is around 100 times more toxic than cyanide. It’s produced by bacteria that live in the octopus’ salivary glands. TTX blocks nerve transmission, so once someone is bitten, paralysis ensues. The patient is unable to breathe, so unless they are ventilated they will quickly die. Treatment is by artificial ventilation; the body is able to break down the toxin so after about 24 hours of ventilation, the patient will most likely make a full recovery.

A clever little bastard

Experiments have shown that octopuses are highly intelligent, far more so than other invertebrates. They are adept problem-solvers, showing both short- and long-term memory, although they learn next-to-nothing from their parents as they have little or no contact. In science laboratories, octopuses have show fear directed a specific individuals. This gives them the same level of protection under the law as vertebrates with respect to scientific experiments.

Their intelligence makes them problematic as pets as they have a tendency to escape from aquariums.

I wouldn’t want to encounter one of these guys on the run…

Barring encounters with poisonous octopodes, Schiensh will return for Roger Moore’s penultimate outing as Bond in A View to a Kill.

The Schiensh of Bond: For Your Eyes Only

On film 12 of BlogalongaBond, there is less than a year to go until Skyfall and everyone is upset with The Incredible Suit right now. Roger Moore is still about, but we’re past Moonraker, I thought it would be downhill from there. However, For Your Eyes Only turned out to be a bit of a dull slog. And with its back-to-basics attempt to reinvigorate the franchise after Moonraker, they managed to remove all the bad science. This left me a little bemused and reaching for the mulled wine.

An hour into the film something struck me as rather odd. Despite the numerous offers, Bond – who would consider lying with a feminine goat – has failed to make it with a woman. Bibi the seventeen-year-old ice skater propositions him while naked in his bed and Bond still says no. Granted Bibi is a little annoying, but that has never stopped him before. It’s not like 007 to be picky. But perhaps he is starting to feel his age. When For Your Eyes Only was made, Roger Moore was in his early 50s – he does a pretty good job as an action hero for his age, but he is much more like your loveable uncle than your sexy cousin. Your loveable uncle that you do not want to picture having sex. [Passes the mind bleach]

Some wary Googling (other search engines are available, but who the hell uses Bing) has brought me to the NHS pages. (I think I am safe here):

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the inability to get and maintain an erection that is sufficient for satisfactory sexual intercourse. ED is also known as impotence.

The NHS comment on its frequency in the general population:

ED is a very common condition, particularly in older men. It is estimated that half of all men between the ages of 40 to 70 will have some degree of ED.

Under risk factors, the NHS suggests that erectile dysfunction can be an indication of underlying health issues that cause thickening of blood vessels and concommitant reduction in blood flow, not just in the penis, but elsewhere in the body. It can be an indication of cardiovascular disease – high levels of circulating cholesterol – which can lead to heart attack or stroke.

Other things that can affect *ahem* Little Roger standing to attention, include malfunction or damage to the nerves, drugs – including alcohol – and diseases such as diabetes. In a healthy man, arousal causes the blood vessels in the penis to expand and fill with blood, anything that affects the signalling to increase the size of the blood vessels can lead to erectile dysfunction.

While Commander Bond leads an active life in his fifties, he is still very much at risk of cardiovascular disease. Although not overweight, Bond’s smoking and drinking increase his risk of heart disease. Also, being male and over the age of 50 are contributory factors. His is also a high risk and stressful job, and dicing with death is highly likely to raise his blood pressure. All in all, it’s no wonder he’s having problems with little Roger.

But help is at hand! Viagra, or sildenafil, is a drug that opens up blood vessels. It does this by preventing the breakdown of one of the signalling molecules that tells the penile arteries to open up. Sadly, this came too late for For Your Eyes Only, Viagra wasn’t available until 1998.

In the treatment section of the NHS website, they offer the following advice:

Vacuum pumps that encourage blood to flow to the penis and cause an erection are also successful in 90% of cases.

He does, after all, get it on with Countess Lisl at 1:09 – probably with the help of the vacuum pump.

Good luck Roger Moore!

Risks of Accidental Death in Ambridge

As an avid avoider of Radio 4′s iconic farming-oriented soap, the following story tickled me greatly.

From the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. http://www.bmj.com/press-releases/2011/12/15/series-unfortunate-events-morbidity-and-mortality-borsetshire-village

Inhabitants of the fictional Borsetshire village are at higher risk of death by accident than the country as a whole according to Rob Stepney. Although if Ambridge residents avoid accidents, they can look forward to a long life. Stepney followed the lives of the Ambridgites for 20 years, during which there were 15 deaths,

According to the BMJ

Of the 15 deaths recorded in Ambridge over the 20 years, nine were of male characters and six of female characters. This equates to a mortality rate of 7.8 per 1,000 population per year for men compared with 8.5 per 1,000 in England and Wales mid-way through the study period. For women in Ambridge, the mortality rate was 5.2 deaths per 1,000 compared with 5.8 per 1,000 nationally.

The disturbingly high number of accidental deaths were the result of traffic accidents, someone was killed by a tractor turning over, some poor bugger fell off a roof and there was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. This takes the death rate from accident to 27% in Ambridge compared to 4% in the country as a whole. Conversely, the birth rate in Ambridge between 1991 and 2011 was lower than the country as a whole: 5.6 per 1,000 compared with 11.4 per 1,000 in England and Wales.

It has previously been found that characters in TV soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders have a higher risk of death than bomb disposal experts and racing drivers.

 

Of course we’re going to throw faeces at him…

Arthur Eddington theorised that an infinite number of monkeys tapping away on typewriters would eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare. A practical demonstration of this using a computer keyboard and six Celebes Crested Macaques in a Devon zoo merely resulted in 5 pages of the letter ‘S’ and a keyboard smeared in poo. Not necessarily the actions of an intelligent life form.

Or maybe not. Bill Hopkins and his team at Emory University have conducted behavioural experiments in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Chimps are one of the few species, aside from humans, that throw things at specific targets. Invariably, this includes faeces. According to the authors one of the aims if the study was to test whether chimps that have learned to throw are socially more sophisticated or more intelligent than those that have not. Because the chimps are aware that their actions can influence those around them (throwing poo at people does tend to make them more sweary), it is thought that they are better able to adapt socially and are more able to manipulate situations. Apes went thought a series of cognitive tests to measure communication, spatial cognition, memory, causality and theory of mind. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to compare the brain activity of apes that could throw well with those who could not.

What the authors found was that chimps who threw more stuff and with better aim showed more activity in the brain areas associated with movement and movement planning during cognitive testing. The scientists suggest that this is a result of better connectivity in the brains of throwing-chimps. Theses chimps were also better communicators, not only with other chimps, but with humans as well – bear in mind how strongly ape and monkeys depend on gestural communication.

Here’s an example of some smart monkeys:

Curiously, the same conclusions cannot be extrapolated to humans; by and large human premiership footballers, while very skilled at kicking a ball (and presumably throwing faeces), tend to lack verbal communication skills (as evidenced by anyone who has tried to watch post-match interviews). Although their gestural communication on the pitch is probably pretty good.

Full paper here: Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 12 January 2012 vol. 367 no. 1585 37-47, doi: 10.1098/rstb.2011.0195

Rhys Morgan vs Burzynski Clinic

This will be a brief post, it’s a few days overdue.

On Monday 28th November, 17-year-old sceptical blogger Rhys Morgan posted some correspondence he’s had with Marc Stephens, a man claiming to represent Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, Burzynski Clinic, and Burzynski Research Institute – read his post here. It was threatening and vindictive: it contains threats of libel and a nasty google images view of Morgan’s house.

The Burzynski clinic has received some attention as it is “treating” some high profile cancer cases as this story from the Observer illustrates. Some of those being treated at the clinic have received donations from celebrities as a result of the prohibitively expensive cost of the treatment (here is an example). However, there is currently limited evidence that the antineoplaston treatment pedalled by the Burzynski clinic actually works. The treatment has yet to be FDA approved, having failed to finish phase II clinical trials due to some sort of falling out between the NCI and Burzynski from 1991-1995.

I’ll make no bones about it, cancer is a sucky disease to put it lightly (I’ve lost 2 grandparents to it and my Mum had a tumour removed 4 years ago – she’s been lucky, I’ve been lucky). Tragically, some cancers are untreatable with current medical therapies, what treatments there are available are unpleasant. No wonder people are driven to alternative and complementary medicine, it’s what happens when we view conventional medicine has failed us. What I find galling is the number of people ready to profit from people’s misery. With this in mind I shall continue.

I think it is a wonderful and beautiful thing that the generosity of people has enabled vast quantities of money to be raised (sometimes with the help of celebrities) to try and help people get the treatment they need. However, what I do take issue with is that people’s goodwill being used to pay charlatans.

According to experts and sceptics have been voicing their concerns – Andy Lewis over at Quackometer has listed them, chief amongst them being that the clinic charges patients. Because the antineoplaston therapy is yet to be FDA approved, it cannot be described as a treatment – the clinic describes what it does as “trials”. It is highly unusual for clinical trials to be paid for by the patient. Something else which is rather worrying is that Burzynski has been to court previously for ‘violating court orders not to distribute his unapproved “Antineoplastons” in interstate commerce‘ – the case fell through (hung jury) but I feel the concern is still valid.

There have now been two pieces in The Observer from people very much emotionally involved with cancer patients who are potentially in line for antineoplaston treatment. Neither have been balanced, though to be fair they have been from the point of view of people who are deeply grateful for all the support they have received. Neither has noted the controversy regarding Burzynski’s treatment. Those on the internet, specifically Rhys Morgan and Andy Lewis, who have questioned the effectiveness of the treatment (a fair thing to do under the circumstances) have been targeted by people claiming to represent the Burzynski clinic and threatened with libel action.

My two take home messages:

1. It’s galling that people’s goodwill and generosity may be used to pay some snake-oil salesman who preys on people’s desparation.

2. Libel laws must not be allowed to stifle scientific debate, especially when people’s lives are at stake.

This has been covered better and in much more detail elsewhere, I urge to to take a look at it.

If you really want to help, donate to Cancer Research UK (I have been for years).

Post script, 5th December – Interesting info regarding Burzynski pushing conventional chemo http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/stanislaw-burzynskis-personalized-gene-targeted-cancer-therapy/