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/