Bhopal Gas leak disaster
An awareness project as we approach the anniversary of a terrible disaster which has killed more people than Chernobyl. It seems that the company at fault managed to dodge liability. Please have a read and support if you can. This message from the appeal:
Wednesday 3 December is the 25th Anniversary of The Union Carbide Bhopal Gas leak disaster which has, to date, killed 25,000 in Bhopal, India. Today the site remains contaminated, and the people of Bhopal are still dying, poisoned by a contaminated water supply:
The story is growing worldwide, with protests next week planned in 25 countries.
We, The Bhopal Medical Appeal, are a UK charity that offers free health care and hope to the survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak disaster and those suffering from the present day water poisoning.
You could help support our work:
If you use Twitter
Follow us on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/BhopalMedAppeal and you could either tweet about us or re tweet anything of ours you like!
We will be running a re-tweet campaign on the day of the anniversary to try and get as many people re-tweeting as possible, so be great if you and your friends could use the #bhopal25 tag.Add a Bhopal/Amnesty 25 Twibbon to your twitter profile
http:/twibbon.com/Search?searchQuery=bhopalJoin us on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Bhopal-Medical-Appeal/176365402876
Link to any of the above or the Bhopal Medical Appeal website if you mention Bhopal in your blogs etc at www.bhopal.org
Predatory Coral Eats Jellyfish
A coral is recorded eating a jellyfish for the first time, in intriguing photographs taken by scientists.
Coral usually feed on tiny plankton as well as products provided by photosynthetic algae.
Yet the photos reveal a stationary mushroom coral sucking in a large moon jellyfish.
Researchers believe the ability to feed on a variety of food sources like jellyfish may give the coral an advantage in a changing world.
The researchers publish their findings in the journal Coral Reefs.
BBC (thanks, Eliza)
Epileptic Actress Attempts To Induce Fit On Stage
An actress, Rita Marcalo, who has suffered epileptic seizures in private for 20 years is attempting to induce one for a public performance.
Ms Marcalo has stopped taking medication ahead of next month’s production entitled Involuntary Dances which she claims is to raise awareness of the condition.
But she is facing criticism for putting herself at risk and the voyeuristic nature of the 24-hour event which is being funded by a 13,889 Arts Council grant.
People will be invited to film her at Bradford Playhouse, West Yorkshire, where she will use strobe lighting, fasting and raising her body temperature to try and bring about a seizure.
Telegraph (thanks, Eliza)
Poor Leadership Poses A Health Risk At Work
Perceived poor managerial leadership increases not only the amount of sick leave taken at a workplace, but also the risk of sickness amongst employees later on in life. The longer a person has had a “poorer” manager, the higher his or her risk of for example suffering a heart attack within a ten-year period, according to a new thesis from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.
The recently submitted thesis is based on data from almost 20,000 employees in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Poland and Italy, working in a range of fields, such as the forest or hotel industries. Some of the studies also included a representative selection of Sweden’s entire working population and industries in the Stockholm region. The researchers compared levels of self-rated stress, health, sick leave and emotional exhaustion with how subjects perceived their managers’ leadership in terms of certain positive and negative criteria, such as inspirational, supportive and good at delegating or authoritarian, dishonest and distant.
Science Daily (Thanks ReliegiousMarie)
Clever Swedish viral TV ad
Can’t believe they nicked Derren’s image like that though 
Thanks to BlueBottle (@isihac)
Leeds University advertises for lap dance research officer
The advertised position, in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, is for: “Research Officer – The rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy”.
The advertisement further stipulates that “prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry” is essential.
Having got the post, the successful applicant would work with the school’s team on a research project to examine the “rise, tolerance and integration of sexual consumption and sexual labour displayed through the erotic dance industry”, and the commercialisation of female sexuality and the female body.
Pub fined 8000GBP because customer downloaded material illegally
A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined £8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.
Graham Cove told CNET sister site ZDNet UK on Friday he believes the case to be the first of its kind in the U.K. However, he would not identify the pub concerned, because its owner–a pub that is a client of The Cloud’s–had not yet given their permission for the case to be publicized.
The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz
When millions would have done anything to get out, one remarkable British soldier smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the horror so he could tell others the truth.
Denis Avey is a remarkable man by any measure. A courageous and determined soldier in World War II, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a camp connected to the Germans’ largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.
But his actions while in the camp – which he has never spoken about until now – are truly extraordinary. When millions would have done anything to get out, Mr Avey repeatedly smuggled himself into the camp.
You can watch clips from this incredible story and listen to the broadcasts over at the BBC Magazine.
All bow before the mighty power of the nocebo effect
This week the parliamentary science and technology select committee looked into the evidence behind the MHRA’s decision to allow homeopathy sugar pill labels to make medical claims without evidence of efficacy, and the funding of homeopathy on the NHS. There were some comedy highlights, as you might expect from any serious enquiry into an industry where sugar pills have healing powers conferred upon them by being shaken with one drop of the ingredient which has been diluted, so extremely, that it equates to one molecule of the substance in a sphere of water whose diameter is roughly the distance from the earth to the sun.
The man from Boots said he had no evidence that homeopathy pills worked, but he sold them because people wanted to buy them. The man from the pill manufacturers association said negative trials about homeopathy were often small, with an average of 65 people in them, and “all statisticians” agree that you need 500 people for a proper trial. Not only is this untrue (it depends on the effect size, if you claimed your pill cured an incurable condition in every single case, then a dozen patients would be too many): he then joyfully careered on to cite, in his favour, a positive homeopathy trial with just 25 patients in it.
Full article at Bad Science
