Long time no see

Hello,

It’s been a while hasn’t it?  And a lot happens in a while.  Interestingly, we somewhat average 40-45 confused clickers on this site every month, probably wondering what the hell they had just wasted a few seconds on.  Even I only remembered it in the boredom of revision.  However, there’s always a way back from a second chance right?   So here we go!

To sum up the last 11 months:

We passed 2nd year.

Me and Ben did Immunology BSc, Myles did Philosophy of Science.  Exams start next week.  Dissertations = Done.

Another year, another UCL opera : http://www.ucopera.co.uk/

Anything more in depth about the period would be immensely boring, given the mundanity that passed for most of it (wake up, labs, lecture, more labs, home, sleep).

Summing up done, now…to convince  the other two to start blogging again.  Also a non-’here we still are’ post coming soon, depending on how boring cell signalling pathways become.

Ang

Music Catch

Hey,

Again just a quick update/review of a free flash game I have found on the internet and have consequently wasted a fair bit of time on.

The game in question is called “Music Catch” and it involved you moving the cursor around the screen catching bits of “music” that the game throws at you. You pick up the occasional yellow bits that increase the score multiplier (and makes your “paddle” larger and harder to control) and avoid the red bits that will decrease your score multiplier.

Sounds easy right? Well that’s all there is to it, and it would be like any other free flash game but for the disarmingly “charming” soundtrack that creates the “music” that you catch. Coupled with the really old school game of giving you huge scores (I got 2,496,741 on my first play) it’s definitely one I’d reccomend.

And done…managed to fob off a review of a flash game as “acceptable” blog posting.

Pictures will come.

Ang

The game can be found here

The best final line of a conclusion ever?

“Collectively, the studies suggest that migraine patients benefit from acupuncture, although the correct placement of needles seems to be less relevant than is usually thought by acupuncturists.”

That’s my emphasis. Hah.

Reference: Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Manheimer E, Vickers A, White AR. Acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001218. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001218.pub2.

http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001218/frame.html

Fancy packaged medicine is the same as generic medicine – do something else with your change

Hey,
Just a quick one. It’s always annoyed me that people go out and buy branded “common” drugs such as paracetamol, aspirin or pheylephrine (and so on…) If you look at what the pill contains : it’ll read something like “Paracetamol – 500mg” etc…it’s easy to check if you don’t believe me.

You’ll also perhaps notice that close to the expensive medicine, there is most of the time a chemists/supermarket “own brand” paracetamol. Usually, they’ll match the expensive pills in strength (the most likely difference is possibly changing how the body responds to the drug “pharmacokinetics” – affecting uptake/metabolism into active form) but for the most part, and for reasons that people generally take such medicine the difference is moot.  Of course you’ll get a bit of placebo effect, cos you’ve paid top dollar for the medicine and whilst the pill is not exactly glam rock standards, there is usually enough embossed shiny  stuff on the packaging to outdo a disco ball.

Last I checked, cheap ass paracetamol is around 16p-30p for 16 tablets, whilst expensive stuff goes up to £2 for the essentially the same thing. Think of what could be done with the change!

You could a) save it up, and spend it on yourself. Or if you don’t want big pharma to lose some of that profit margin, b) Next time you go buy medicine, go for generics rather than propietaries – work out how much you’ve saved and donate it to a charity that tries to secure and supply essential medication to those in need.

One such as http://www.msf.org.uk/

Ang

CONDOMS ARE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS TEA STRAINERS

My sarcasm sense maybe be misfiring today, but i can’t quite detect whether this is parody or not.

I’m going to say yes, and hope yes…

If it is parody is it even funny? THIS DOESN’T WORK ON SO MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS.

GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE GOOD NEWS

As reported earlier by David Colquhoun, you can no longer embark upon a BSc degree in Homeopathy starting in the year 2009, which will hopefully preemptively destroy a few people’s hopes of becoming a professional quack. The last one offered prior to this was at Westminster university, and when questioned on the removal they replied that they had done it due to ‘poor recruitment’ and that it was a strictly financial decision. To be entirely honest, whatever the reasoning, this is pretty good news.

For those of you out of the CAM loop, which is just where everyone should be:

“Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine that treats a disease with heavily diluted preparations created from substances that would ordinarily cause effects similar to the disease’s symptoms.”

In a lot of cases this means that NO MOLECULES OF ACTIVE ANYTHING ARE PRESENT. Sounds ludicrous right? The kind of thing used as a plot device in a shit sci-fi film, well did you know there are at least 4 Homeopathic hospitals still open in the UK? It’s reasonably lucrative madness, i think i should start peddling it:

I’ve been pretty lazy recently.
Sloths are famed for their lazyness.
Therefore: if i purée sloth cortex, and dilute it until it’s water, ALL OF MY PROBLEMS WILL BE SOLVED.

Simple. I think this sums it up really, (stolen from Ben’s FB page):

YOU’VE GOT GREY’S ANATOMY IN MY TRAUMA CENTER RIP-OFF

I have no idea how this managed to pass under my radar, but it did. Apparently earlier this year Ubisoft realeased a Grey’s Anatomy game for wii, sounds potentially quite good right? Especially since games like Trauma Center are very okay.

I’ve never seen the appeal of Grey’s Anatomy anyway, especially when House is so good. Oh well there’s only been two reviews so far, so i’m gonna reserve any opinion just yet.

It does look pretty shitty though: