Monthly Archive for May, 2010

Nine Questions, Nine Answers.

Science-Based Medicine is a great resource. Mark Crislip provides a good example with his rebuttal for the anti-vaccine clowns:

(…) What brings on this particular bit of angst is a bit of whimsy on the Internet called “9 Questions That Stump Every Pro-Vaccine Advocate and Their Claims.” by David Mihalovic, ND. Mr. Mihalovic identifies himself as “a naturopathic medical doctor who specializes in vaccine research.” However, just where the research is published is uncertain as his name yields no publications on Pubmed. BTW. I specialize in beer research. Same credentials.

The nine questions show up frequently on the interwebs, similar to questions on what to ask when you want to stump an evolutionist. Similar to the supposed stumpers for evolution, the vaccine questions are grounded in misinformation, ignorance or laziness. Let’s go through them one at a time.

1. Could you please provide one double-blind, placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of vaccines?

One trial? It took me 55 seconds to find ”Efficacy of 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine in preventing pneumonia and improving survival in nursing home residents: double blind, randomised and placebo controlled trial” and that included time to boot the browser and mis-spell the search terms. ’Vaccine’, ‘efficacy’, ’randomized’ and ’placebo control trial’ results in 416 Pubmed references; add ’safety’ to the search terms, you get 126 returns. 416 is easily more than one. Of course, to find them you have to look.

Of course, I am a highly educated adult who constantly searches the web for medical information. For hoots and giggles, I asked my 12 year old son, whose passions are basketball and filming comedy videos, to find me a reference that met the same criteria and I timed him.

Twenty two seconds, not including boot time, to find “Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine in Cuba” from the NEJM. Can anyone beat my son?

12 yo one, Mihalovic 0. Served.

As long as we are on the topic, since he evidently place great store in science, could Mihalovic please provide one double-blind, placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of naturopathy? I would be happy at this point to know just to know he was able to do a pubmed search correctly just to make me look the fool.

There are eight more smackdowns to enjoy.

34th America’s Cup: encouraging signals…

“Diktat has been replaced by discussion, confrontation by consultation,” said Coutts…

I think this could actually happen. Coutts and Ellison are media saavy, and are sending consistent messaging that the “bad old days” of the America’s Cup are over:

(…) Coutts and Onorato described a vision to “transform the America’s Cup into a viable, exciting platform which teams and commercial partners will find irresistible.”

In part, this will be accomplished by creating fair rules and a neutral, independent event organising body, which will run an annual series of regattas, leading up to the 34th America’s Cup Match.

But importantly, it will also be done through technology. Coutts vowed to give media coverage of the sport a complete, ‘bow to stern rethink’ so that “fans will able to turn-on and tune-in, anytime, and will feel as if they are on-board themselves right at the heart of the action, shoulder to shoulder with the best sailors in the world.”

Part of that pledge was demonstrated on Thursday, with the press conference being streamed live on the internet. Journalists were encouraged to send in questions for Coutts and Onorato via Twitter. And within in minutes of its conclusion, the press conference was online for on-demand viewing at www.americascup.com and beyond.

So what will the new A/C boats be? The design rule is to be published 30th September. From our perspective, a key requirement is the boats must be able to race in any venue in winds from 5-35 knots.

The new design rule will be a critical element of building a spectacular event.

Renowned but neutral designers – Bruce Nelson and Peter Melvin – have created two different concepts – a multihull and a monohull.

Teams will sit down this month and discuss which concept to adopt and begin the process to create a design rule.

Presenting the teams with draft mono/multi design concepts is brilliant. It will make it much more efficient for the teams to evaluate the unfamiliar-to-most multihull option. Of course, we are very proud that Pete Melvin of Morrelli and Melvin is a key member of our ADAGIO design team.

I just added the A/C RSS feed to my NetNewsWire feeds. There are prominent icons for Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — where they host the 34th A/C Channel. I just downloaded the first press conference from YouTube via Tooble. It is encouraging that right out of the gate, they offer an embedded Livestream customizable video player:


Watch live streaming video from 34thac at livestream.com

and video and chat widgets. Here’s the video widget:


34thac on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Regional Oceanography: an Introduction

Figure 19.7: The ITCZ and the SPCZ.

We discovered this textbook whilst researching the SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone).

Regional Oceanography: an Introduction is a textbook suitable for an advanced undergraduate course or for a course to introduce graduate students to the essentials of oceanography.

(…) Tomczak, Matthias & J Stuart Godfrey: Regional Oceanography: an Introduction 2nd edn (2003), xi+390p., figs., tabls., ind., 25 cm ISBN: 8170353068 (hardcover, US$89.95), 8170353076 (paperback, US$29.95).

You can download each of the chapters [PDF] here.

Celebrating Cruising Mothers

The cruising mothers here in the marina and those passing through are calm, happy, patient and beautiful. Living on a small boat poses many challenges for a woman, bring aboard a bunch of children and it becomes a miracle in living. The children, however, love the closeness of their parents and thrive in small spaces where there are cubby holes, places to snuggle, and no apparent awareness that their material possessions are few.  

The deck of the boat is a vast jungle gym, with steps to climb, a boom to ride like a horse, lines to swing on and multiple levels for going up and down. Prowling the docks with a net in hand, the children spend hours catching tiny fish, shrimp, and the occasional squirmy eel. There are groups of kittens hiding in the gardens near the Marina Office. One little girl told me she was catching small fish with her net to feed to the kittens. Protected from falling overboard by netting that is stretched on the inside of their boat’s lifelines, toddlers squeal with delight as they throw bread crumbs from their boats to flocks of sea gulls and ducks.   

Each morning the older children raise the flags over the entrance to the Marina Office, and on weekdays lead the younger children off to school. The youngest children are accompanied on their walk to school by their mums and dads with coffee mugs in hand. The children who will not be staying in the marina over the winter are being home schooled. After breakfast, little ones are secured into their strollers and enjoy with their mums promenading through the parks and along the waterfront. Several of the moms live aboard boats which are not secured to the dock, and travel back and forth in their dinghies, sometimes driven by one of their small children.

Simpler and more complex lives at the same time, creating responsible, smart and happy children. I hope you enjoyed this Mother’s Day story. I failed to mention that the dads are amazing, too.

New Orleans seafood gumbo

Click the thumbnail for photo gallery

We prepared New Orleans seafood gumbo for our Brazilian friends Marcello and Moira from SARAVA, Isabelle and Bob from BICHO and Paula from PAJE’. We were all missing Mario from PAJE’.


RECIPE FOR NEW ORLEANS SEAFOOD GUMBO — Dorothy Darden, s/v ADAGIO Serves 6 people

Ingredients:

20 ounces Okra — frozen or fresh, sliced thin. (We prefer fresh)

5 medium brown onions, diced

Canola oil

1 Ham hock, medium to large

Bay leaf

3 cloves fresh Garlic, peeled and smashed

4-6 whole Cloves

4 T Crab boil in cloth bag

Creole seasoning

Tabasco sauce

Salt

Ground black Pepper

1 small can tomato sauce or 1/2 can tomato paste

2 pounds frozen raw peeled Shrimp/Prawns

1/2 pound fresh or frozen Scallops (optional)

1/2 pound fresh picked Crab meat (If you can get it, otherwise it is optional)

Boiled white rice (We like Basmati rice with this)

Instructions:

Day 1 – Cut Okra into very small slices. Saute’ the okra and diced onions in a few tablespoons of Canola Oil in a large Teflon frying pan or Wok. Cook at very low heat, stirring frequently to prevent sticking until very brown, and well-cooked. This takes about 5 or 6 hours. Cool, then put the Okra and onions through a sieve or into a Blender or Food processor to puree’. Put into the refrigerator.

Day 2 – Put 8 cups of water into a large pot. Add to pot: Ham hock, garlic cloves, whole cloves and bay leaf . Simmer for about 6 to 8 hours on very low heat. Cool, then pour everything else into a colander, letting the broth strain into a large bowl. Take the meat off of the bone and discard everything else. Cut the meat into small pieces, and set aside 1 cup for the Gumbo. Put the broth and meat into the refrigerator over night. In the morning scrape the fat off of the top of the broth and discard the fat.

Day 3 – Put the ham broth and the okra/onion mixture into a large pot and simmer for 6 to 8 hours, on low heat, stirring frequently to keep from sticking and adding small amounts of water from time to time to keep the mixture from becoming too thick. At this point you have made the Gumbo Base. You can proceed to the Final Preparations step below, or you can store the Gumbo Base in the refrigerator for a few days, or in the freezer for a few weeks or months.

Final Preparations – Add to the Gumbo Base: tomato sauce or paste, the small pieces of cooked ham meat, 4 T crab boil secured in a gauze or fabric pouch so that only the flavors get into the broth. Be sure you don’t let the bits of crab boil get into the mixture. Simmer. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Season with a few sprinkles of creole seasoning and a few drops of Tabasco sauce, until it tastes the way you like it. About 15 minutes before serving, add prawns and scallops and cook until just done. Serve in flat bowls over freshly boiled Basmati rice, and sprinkled with fresh crab meat. Enjoy with a large green tossed salad.