[BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 29, 2005

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 29 Jul 05   Washington, DC

1. SHUTTLE: THE SPACE SHUTTLE DOESN'T WORK   IT NEVER DID WORK. 
Why is everyone afraid to say so?  The real problem isn't foam
falling off the fuel tank.  The shuttle was sold to Congress as a
way to launch things into space more cheaply.  On the contrary,
it's the most expensive way to reach space ever conceived.  The
problems we're facing now result from the refusal to acknowledge
that reality. Initially, anything that went into space, including
commercial and military satellites, was required to be launched
from the shuttle.  With the total cost of the shuttle program at
about $150B, the average cost/flight is about $1.3B.  The shuttle
was strangling space development before the Challenger disaster. 
Then it was declared to be a science laboratory, but no field of
science has been affected in any way by research that has been
conducted on the shuttle or space station.  The last scheduled
research mission was the final flight of Columbia in 2003.  The
shuttle's only mission now is to supply the ISS.

2. ECHINACEA: THE THEME THIS WEEK IS "THINGS THAT DON'T WORK." 
There is no reason why herbal remedies couldn't work.  The bark
and leaves of the angiosperms are packed with biologically active
chemicals.  Surely, among the thousands of herbals on the market,
one must work.  With a budget of over $100M, and under pressure
to show it's not biased against alternative medicine, the new
National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH
set out to find it.  Well, ephedra worked, but side effects were
fatal http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn010204.html.  Why not
ask herbalists what would be a sure thing?  Answer: "Echinacea." 
Millions of Americans use the purple cone flower to prevent or
treat colds.  Native Americans used it, and we all know that
primitive societies had wondrous cures that today's narrow-minded
scientists can't explain.  But in initial tests, it didn't seem
to work http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn052804.html.  This
week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a convincing
NCCAM funded test: Echinacea does not prevent or cure colds.

3. PRAYER: FOLLOW-UP STUDY FINDS NO BENEFIT FOR HEART PATIENTS. 
Prayers for the sick are probably the most widely practiced
healing tradition in the world.  An earlier study with the same
lead author, Mitchell Krucoff, MD, at Duke University Medical
Center, continues to be widely cited as scientific evidence for
the power of prayer.  In a much larger follow-up study, however,
748 patients who had common cardiac procedures were not helped by
intercessory prayers of groups throughout the world, drawn from
Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist denominations.  You will
not be surprised that the authors conclude that so-called
"noetic" therapies, defined as therapies that don't involve the
use of tangible drugs or devices, deserve further scientific
scrutiny.  Science assumes that all events result from natural
causes http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn120304.html.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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