What's New Friday Apr 4, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday   4 Apr 08   Washington, DC

1.  LHC: A KNIGHT ERRANT TILTS AT HIGH-ENERGY WINDMILL.
Technology has changed in the 400 years since Cervantes first told the 
story of Don Quixote.   Windmills are now particle accelerators and the 
knight’s lance is a federal court injunction, but the plot is the same.  
It begins with a befuddled lawyer in Hawaii named Walter Wagner.  Having 
read far too much science fiction as a youth, Wagner fantasizes that he is 
a physicist by virtue of an undergraduate biology degree with a minor in 
physics.  Accompanied by Sancho, his loyal TA, Wagner embarks on an 
adventure to slay the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a doomsday machine that 
he believes is posed to destroy the world by creating a black hole.  He 
seems to have forgotten the last time he tried this.  In 1999 Wagner 
warned that RHIC, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven 
National Laboratory, must be slain lest it create a black hole 
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN99/wn072399.html .  The then BNL 
director, Jack Marburger, named a distinguished panel of physicists to 
investigate.  Their report noted that nature has been conducting the 
relevant safety test for billions of years by colliding heavy-ion cosmic 
rays with the moon.  It concluded that creation of a black hole 
is "effectively ruled out by the persistence of the Moon." 

2.  VOODOO MEDICINE: TREATING ACUPUNCTURE ADDICTION. 
A couple of weeks ago the Metro Section the Washington Post ran a front 
page story about a pilot program in a Washington suburb to incorporate 
acupuncture into the treatment of drug addiction.  There is something 
called the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association that certifies 
people to administer acupuncture for drug addiction.   As I read this I 
paused to watch a chiropractor on Good Morning America wrenching some poor 
women’s neck to lower her blood pressure.   It raised mine.  But back to 
acupuncture: this morning I was sent a notice from the University of 
Maryland Health Center about it’s acupuncture services.  "Originating in 
China about 5,000 years ago," it began, "acupuncture is the oldest 
continuously practiced medical system in the world."  You might prefer 
something a little more up-to-date.   If my health is involved I want to 
know what was learned yesterday.  It goes on to explain that acupuncture 
is based on the circulation of qi, "the life-giving energy that circulates 
along channels to all organs and enables them to function."  My own 
university put this out?  There is no qi.  It‘s superstitious nonsense.  
After you stop laughing, check out the health service at your 
institution.  The American health system has completely sold out to this 
crap.  

America’s addiction to acupuncture began with New York Times correspondent 
James Reston’s 1971 trip to China, during which he was operated on for 
acute appendicitis.  Contrary to widespread accounts, he was injected with 
a standard local anesthetic, not acupuncture.  It was two days later that 
he experienced indigestion with only a traditional Chinese physician on 
duty. He was treated with moxibustion, a form of acupuncture, and needles 
were used to "get the qi flowing."   An Alka-Seltzer might have been 
better.  Reston’s own words can be found on the web.  

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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