Nikon don't believe in orbs

I bought an inexpensive Nikon digital camera a few days ago and was just perusing the user manual to see if the camera had any unexpected features.

The manual certainly had one unexpected piece of information...

Note on using the flash
When using the flash at a wide angle zoom position, reflections from dust particles in the air might appear as bright spots in pictures.

...and later in the manual, in the troubleshooting section...

Bright spots appear in pictures taken with flash : Flash is reflecting off particles in the air. Turn flash off.

Apparently, the orbs that we might see in photos on various spirit web sites are not ghosts after all - they are caused by the flash reflecting off dust. Who ever would have thought that?

So we don't need an exorcism or garlic or whatever else people recommend to get rid of ghosts, we just need to vacuum more often and turn the flash off. Damn!

I wonder if Nikon will receive a tide of complaints from spiritualists condemning them for being so closed-minded?

Ask your pharmacist

The Australian Skeptics have produced an open letter to Australian pharmacists for public release.

(Click on the small image for a larger JPG or see PDF link below for better quality)

"Australians trust Pharmacies and Chemists’ shops. As pharmacists, you play an important role in the health of the Australian public by functioning as a conduit between doctors and prescription or pharmacy drugs. You also have a respected role as a first resource for medical advice for many people in our community. We are all familiar with the slogan “Ask your Pharmacist”.

When we ask our Pharmacist, what kinds of answers do we want? Not quack products like ear candles that do nothing except pose a hazard. We now ask our Australian pharmacists: What standards do you set for yourselves?

You sell a growing number of products for which there is little or no scientific evidence of efficacy. Calling them “alternative” does not make them work. Examples include homeopathic preparations, magnetic pain relief devices, detox programmes, dodgy weight loss products and ear candles. Such products commonly appear in a “Natural Medicine” section of pharmacies but are sometimes displayed alongside real medicines whose benefits are scientifically proven."

The release continues with specific examples of alternative therapies Australian Skeptics would like to see removed from the shelves of pharmacies who we would expect to sell products based on evidence of their therapeutic worth.

If pharmacists argue that supermarkets should not sell medicinal products because they are not qualified to offer health care, then perhaps we should question the "qualifications" of those pharmacists who readily offer products that, at best, have not been shown to have any medicinal effect beyond placebo. It might be argued that alternative products are offered to meet a demand but where is the "health care" in selling the customer what they think they want rather than what you know they need?

You can download the original PDF document at: Open letter to the pharmacists of Australia


Found at the Bad Astronomer

Funding CAM Research

From Pharyngula.

Sen. Tom Harkin, the proud father of the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, told a Senate hearing on Thursday that NCCAM had disappointed him by disproving too many alternative therapies.

"One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short," Harkin said.