A very very brief introduction to ICH's GCP,
after the 'read more' jump

I am speechless!

Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles--most of which presented data favorable to Merck products--that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship. ...

The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which was published by Exerpta Medica, a division of scientific publishing juggernaut Elsevier, is not indexed in the MEDLINE database, and has no website (not even a defunct one). The Scientist obtained two issues of the journal: Volume 2, Issues 1 and 2, both dated 2003. The issues contained little in the way of advertisements apart from ads for Fosamax, a Merck drug for osteoporosis, and Vioxx. (Click here and here to view PDFs of the two issues.) ...

In testimony provided at the trial last week, which was obtained by The Scientist, George Jelinek, an Australian physician and long-time member of the World Association of Medical Editors, reviewed four issues of the journal that were published from 2003-2004. An "average reader" (presumably a doctor) could easily mistake the publication for a "genuine" peer reviewed medical journal, he said in his testimony. "Only close inspection of the journals, along with knowledge of medical journals and publishing conventions, enabled me to determine that the Journal was not, in fact, a peer reviewed medical journal, but instead a marketing publication for MSD[A]."

He also stated that four of the 21 articles featured in the first issue he reviewed referred to Fosamax. In the second issue, nine of the 29 articles related to Vioxx, and another 12 to Fosamax. All of these articles presented positive conclusions regarding the MSDA drugs. "I can understand why a pharmaceutical company would collect a number of research papers with results favourable to their products and make these available to doctors," Jelinek said at the trial. "This is straightforward marketing."

With the advent of 3D imagery of unborn babies, the debate between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Camps just got notched up into an entirely new level of appeals to emotions and rationalism from either sides.

One can harly dismiss the powerful real time images of fetus moving, sipping amniotic fluid or even 'exhibiting emotions' with smiles... And the pro-lifers are having a difficult time convincing the public that these gestures and clear signs of life is just nothing but fasiculations of muscle bundles with no 'live human' behind it.

Well, that would apply to anybody under deep Anaesthesia as well, I should add...

Ultrasound images which show 12-week-old foetuses sucking their thumbs and walking in the womb are dangerously misleading, a group of scientists warned today.

The 3D images of unborn babies apparently behaving in a similar way to newborns raised questions over whether the upper limit for abortions should be reduced form 24 weeks.

From:

"This year's Nobel laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information,"

Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a new avenue for disease treatment.

"RNA interference" is already being widely used in basic science as a method to study the function of genes and it is being studied as a treatment for infections such as the AIDS and hepatitis viruses and for other conditions, including heart disease and cancer.

Fire, 47, of Stanford University, and Mello, 45, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, published their seminal work in 1998.

RNA interference occurs naturally in plants, animals, and humans. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which awarded the prize, said it is important for regulating the activity of genes and helps defend against viral infection.

Earth may be older than previously thought

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/76044-0

Earth took present shape approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Its original appearance has not changed ever since. The planet became suitable for conceiving and developing life forms from the very first minutes of existence. An international team of scientists has recently announced that a number of theories about the continental crust being melted out of water, which covered the earth completely at the early stages, are erroneous.

In short, the story of the discovery stems from a find in the Jack Hills mountain range in Western Australia. The range is considered the oldest on Earth, it is 4.4 billion years old. Scientists found a rare-earth metal hafnium in combination with the crystals of zirconium. A radio-isotopic analysis revealed that the continental crust had formed 4.4 billion to 4.5 billion years ago i.e. right after the birth of the planet. It was previously thought that the continental crust had melted out of the oceanic one.

“Looks like Earth assumed form in the wink of an eye,” says Dr. Steven Moizcis, one of the researchers, at the University of Colorado . “All present-day concepts concerning history of the formation of Earth will have to be revised if the supposition proves correct. Scientists will probably have to thoroughly study the civilizations of Atlanteans and other forefathers. Those civilizations looked totally fictitious in the past. Assuming that a protein life form had existed on Earth several billion years ago, those civilizations no longer look otherworldly,” says Moizcis.

A study conducted by Dr. Moizcis-led team indicates that water came into being on the earth’s surface about 4.3 billion years ago. Contrary to the previous theories, water did not condense from the atmosphere 3.8 billion years ago. According to Dr. Moizcis, oceans and atmosphere have existed from the very start and Earth was fit for living in those prehistoric times.

New Scientist has a BREAKING NEWS post about how Meditation 'builds up the brain'. Sadly, for the majority of the world, this really IS news!

Quote:

Brain builder

What effect meditating has on the structure of the brain has also been a matter of some debate. Now Sara Lazar at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues have used MRI to compare 15 meditators, with experience ranging from 1 to 30 years, and 15 non-meditators.

They found that meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula.

“You are exercising it while you meditate, and it gets bigger,” she says. The finding is in line with studies showing that accomplished musicians, athletes and linguists all have thickening in relevant areas of the cortex. It is further evidence, says Lazar, that yogis “aren’t just sitting there doing nothing".

The growth of the cortex is not due to the growth of new neurons, she points out, but results from wider blood vessels, more supporting structures such as glia and astrocytes, and increased branching and connections.

The new studies were presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in Washington DC, US.

Uriah Kriegel @ Tech Central Station has a piece on whether Intelligent Design is just a bad theory or not a scientific theory at all.

He quotes Popper to define what makes theories as 'scientific':
Quote: