futurism

The placebo effect

Don't try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don't know!!!

Childish...i know...

Dude....Where's my bike???

Multi but not Parallel...

Until any setback the smart money will remain with the multiverse and string theory. "It has the best chance of anything we know to be right," Weinberg says of string theory. "There's an old joke about a gambler playing a game of poker," he adds. "His friend says, 'Don't you know this game is crooked, and you are bound to lose?' The gambler says, 'Yes, but what can I do, it's the only game in town.' We don't know if we are bound to lose, but even if we suspect we may, it is the only game in town."

Have no doubts...

Congratulations doctor!!!

I shall reserve this space for my sister's graduation ceremony!!!

Manual de como ser estupido...

Esquema bem montado

1 Logo a começar o dia e até ao final da noite, quem vive agarrado à heroína circula no largo da Plameira de Baixo, junto ao 'Bar Fonte da Palmeira'.

2 Ocupam o tempo nas conversas uns com os outros, fumando, tomando o café ou a cerveja, até que chegue a 'mercadoria'.

3 Os carros - das mais variadas marcas, cores e condutores - estacionam perto do Bar. Os condutores trocam breves palavras com o 'chefe'/traficante, recebem o dinheiro vivo, em notas, e arrancam como se nada tivesse acontecido.

4 O traficante, também consumidor, convoca normalmente dois ou três rapazes e acompanha-os ao bêco, lado esquerdo do Bar. É aí que consomem a heroína, num espaço de dez a quinze minutos. E voltam ao largo ou ao Bar, já saciados.

5 Por vezes, consomem a droga na casa desabitada de um emigrante em França. Saltam a varanda, várias vezes ao dia, e alimentam ali o vício como se da sua casa se tratasse.

6 Estão atentos à 'bófia', embora saibam lidar muito bem com as polícias.

7 O movimento de carros que traz a mercadoria é contínuo ao longo do dia. Até cerca das 21h30, o DIÁRIO registou seis viaturas diferentesa efectuar a entrega do tão cobiçado produto. Matrículas à vista de todos.

8 Chegada a noite, e alucinados pela droga, é a vez de desfrutarem do karaoke e da bebida do Bar. A música alta, indiferente ao impacto na vizinhança, mostra a festa que provoca a droga.

9 Alguns regressam a casa, atordoados e saciados. Outros fazem a maratona até a madrugada porque o negócio é rentável.

10 Os nome dos cabecilhas desta rede são falados, mas continuam a lucrar em liberdade, com o argumento judicial da falta de provas materiais. 11 A população, atónita e atada, vê a geração de jovens do Caniçal, até educada na catequese católica, a perder-se no vício sem ter consciência de que é uma caminhada para o abismo sem retorno.

12 Face à impunidade e à indiferença geral, o tráfico e consumo de droga no Caniçal alastram a olhos vistos. É dinheiro fácil que entra e morte certa de tantos outros.

Rosário Martins

?New bread???

Follow the link please
http://www.dnoticias.pt/default.aspx?file_id=dn04010202300409

three months and ticking...
today...a new lease on life.
I love my left hand side

How dare you CUT ????

How can anyone censor this???
Show it to the world!!!
Fuckers

For every being blessed with self awareness, comes the irrevocable question:
WHO AM I???

I don't get it.

Lately, it seems to me that my old girlfriends dislike talking to me. Even the ones that never were but there was this attraction.

The curious thing is that that realization comes after Saturday when i last posted on my blog. Now i no, that seldom they drop by to see anything i might have written, and what are the odds of them all coming over on Saturday???

Or is it that decided that they really they are better off without me?

Still, that would have be after Saturday. Or is the irony of the question posted, not lost on this conclusion?

Well anyway it is their prerogative.

Speak or not at least hope they don't talk ill of me.

CARMO

I was walking around today and it was that kind of a day.You know, a spring sunny and showery breezy day!!!All of the sudden i saw this girl and she reminded me of an old girlfriend.Probably the only one that i really thought about a future with. Anyway, the image and the remembrance persisted whilst i walked and i was wondering about the chances of meeting her there and then, in Crouch End of all places in the world. Ours was an acrimonious goodbye so i was thinking if it was her, would she say anything.

You know how it goes...in a day like this you already feel melancholic and then you obviously situations arise that make you ponder about where your life would be if you had taken a different route. 

My point is this, though.There i was with all these thoughts about her and all in my head and, as if to help the party, i see a double-decker bus passing by publicizing a new movie...WAIT FOR IT...

"Ghost of girlfriend past"

These are the things you can't make up.So i wonder.We have all these names to identify and define phenomena , like "deja vu" and what not.

SO WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS?

WHO

Now it's the suine flu

MENDEL VERSUS COMANDER DATA

I am so tired that i can't even write.
It's terrible.
Still i have to say one name.
Panayiotis Zavos...
HERO OR CRAZY-MONSTER?

A bit of both i would think but he is just taking the wrong way, i believe.

It's all about nano-technology.

How can you not love life???

minstrels

talk,talk,talk...
Got to remember that is only 5 more months!!!

21st century technology

No internet for a few days...
My modem past it's sell-by-date...
Couldn't make it up.

bang bang

Barack Obama publicly admitted ,or rather affirmed that over 90% of the weapons found in Mexico are U.S. built.
Is this not war???????
Over 90%.
How can this be????
It beggars belief.

SHUT UP

I was not wrong...

ME, MYSELF AND I

So heading over to work...The day is beautiful outside, flowers allover the place, sunny to dry up the soaky land from the rain of the last few days. Woke up to some mellow music and all seems bright. Over the sudden i remember...I'm gonna work with mister "don't care attitude" and mister lethargic.
Core...it's going to be a crappy day.
I does tend to happen, when i am in a good mood.It just comes to show you how life is never on a straight line.
Can i be proved long latter on?
SO HOPE SO.