Category Archives: Boston

Vaccinations: Scarification the way to go (study)

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Photo: Peter/Flickr CC

Jabs and mists are less effective at sparking immune system reactions, according to these findings:

New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that giving a vaccine through a scratch on the skin, a technique called scarification, results in a better immune response when compared to injecting the vaccine into the body, and that the amount of vaccine needed to generate the immune response through scarification is 100 times less. Nearly two centuries ago, the first vaccinations against smallpox were given via scarification. Today, virtually all modern vaccines are delivered by hypodermic needle and syringe.

via Vaccine Delivered Through Older Methods May Provide Better Immunity – Brigham And Women’s Hospital – Press Releases.

Heretic on 2012: Fear people, not God (news video feature)

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The young Boston investigative journo Dan Rowinski recently produced this news feature about 2012 (below), as part of his graduate studies at BU.

Dan interviews me (I’m cited as an “apocalyptic expert”), along with Mayan and millennial experts from BU, and end-timers on the street.

I enjoyed watching the piece. The point I make in it is that the risk of chaos in 2012 is very real: not from above, mind you, but from crazy people getting amp’d up with anticipation.

Apocalyptic – 2012 News Feature from Dan Rowinski on Vimeo.

The Heretic's "10 New England Esotericists to Watch in 2010"

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New England is home to some of the biggest brains in the businesses of esoterica and mad science.

But you knew that already.

Here then, is my list of the busiest folks we know in the worlds of offbeat science publishing, UFOlogy, cryptozoology and the occult — even comics. Ghost-hunting? That is sooo last decade. But keep these peeps on your radar in 2010. They make for an eclectic mix, alright, but I think the list somehow works:

Marc Abrahams announcing "The Penguin Prize" at the annual Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, at Harvard U. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ig Nobel Prizes.)

1. Marc Abrahams. Few can match the wit, charm and energy of this singular Cambridge, Mass. personality. Abrahams is the publisher of the uproarious Annals of Improbable Research, and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes awards ceremony, which honors  “research that makes people laugh and then think.” He also writes a weekly column about wacky science (think bras that double as gas masks, and astrology charts for bacteria), for the UK Guardian.

Tim Binnall. (Photo: Courtesy of BoA)

2. Tim Binnall. Did you know that one of the planet’s fastest-growing podcasters to the “Coast-to-Coast AM” crowd is based right here, in the Hub? The young genius behind the whole thing, Tim Binnall, is relaunching his website, Binnall of America, with another season of podcast interviews with big-name UFOlogists and conspiracy researchers, from Texas to Sweden.

Binnall also organizes a successful paranormal confab in the Hub.

3. Loren Coleman. This legend in the world of cryptozoology (2010 marks his 50th year in the business) will be surprising us again with new insights, and new guests and events at his Portland, Maine-based International Museum of Cryptozoology.

A regular contributor to Coast to Coast AM, Boing Boing, and The Anomalist, Coleman is also the keeper of the world’s most popular cryptozoology blog, Cryptomundo.

Loren Coleman and friend. Photo: Loren Coleman (via Thomas Roche/Flickr CC

Coleman this year will be speaking at Bigfoot and “big cats” conferences — both at home and across the pond, in Glasgow, Scotland. This spring, he will also be lending his expertise to the ongoing search for the Loch Ness Monster.

In addition to his ongoing consulting work for History’s “MonsterQuest,” and Animal Planet’s “Lost Tapes,” Coleman will also be working on (we kid you not) five new books.

4. Stanton Friedman. I met Stanton Friedman at a UFO conference in Washington, D.C. a few years ago, and I’ve been trying to keep up his research ever since. But I only learned (after listening to Mr. Binnall’s interviews with this UFO luminary) that Friedman resides in the Northeast. Friedman jokes in his BoA interviews that he is one of the few surviving members of UFOlogy’s “old guard.” But I expect he’ll have a lot more to say at his conferences appearances this year.

5. Greg Kaminsky. If you like your occult podcasts served-up hot, and packaged with vintage Black Sabbath tracks, Beverly, Mass.-based Greg Kaminsky is your guy. Kaminsky is the host of the fantastic website and podcast, “Occult of Personality,” which — like BOA — is poised for big changes (including a subscriber section, with extended interviews) and breakout success in 2010. Kaminsky has landed interviews with leading occult scholars on both sides of the Atlantic since making his quiet start, just a couple of years ago. To taste some of that OoP magic I am talking about, check out this fascinating interview with Penguin’s occult books editor, Mitch Horowitz.

John Rozum and son, at the International Museum of Cryptozoology, in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Loren Coleman)

6. John Rozum. Scooby-Doo. The X-Files comics. The supernaturally-talented writer may be in the business of inventing things that go bump in the night, be he is also said to be living quietly on Cape Cod. One of Rozum’s latest creations, The Hangman, is fighting human trafficking in DC Comics’ just-released The Web #4.

7. Joe Moore. Commended to this list by OoP’s Kaminsky, Moore is a New Hampshire-based podcaster, a breathwork facilitator, and onetime Evolver spore group leader. (Click the links if you are as mystified by these terms as I was.) Not sure if magic is for you? Try the “Mr. Spock” ritual that Moore discusses in his latest podcast with chaos magic expert Andrieh Vitimus. (Skip to the 17-minute mark, if you can’t wait.) Next: Moore and Kaminsky in 2010 are collaborating on a documentary film.

8. Joseph Citro is sick of ghosts. Yeah, that’s right. Ghost-busting, the bane of Binnall and other esotericists — driven half-mad by hacks seeking quick paranormal fame — is tired. Citro made his break from the past last fall, with one of his latest titles, The Vermont Monster Guide, a roundup of the land, air and sea creatures haunting the North.

9. The guys behind NE FOR (the New England UFO Research Organization). When Tim Binnall hints at the political infighting within the New England UFO community, he might be referring in part to the guys who last year formed this New England MUFON splinter group. But more UFO researchers might mean more eyes on the sky, and more thorough documentation of sightings

10. Mr. Crowley. Just be sure you pronounce the first syllable of his name correctly, like the bird, while in Salem, Mass. (Not the way Ozzy Osbourne does in his classic song about the Beast.)

And yeah, I know the guy’s dead. But when the Heretic placed its call for nominees last weekend, a bunch of folks, from Salem and beyond, tapped their peers in magical orders that derive their inspiration from Crowley. Crowley-inspired authors and booksellers, too, all got a good talking-up.

So, stay tuned on this one, because I’m going to need a week-or-two to share with the rest of you, what our magician friends have been sharing with me.

Retribution Body shares his Rare Frequencies

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Interesting cat, this Retribution Body. He’s Boston-area Buddhist with a synthesizer. (The fotos, above are from Susanna Bolle, who hosts the WZBC radio program, Rare Frequency.)

Bolle has published a great interview with the artist (link, below). Check-out one of the artist’s biggest influences:

IRON MAIDEN! Seriously. It was the first concert I saw, my dad took me and my two best friends when I was 12 or 13. It was a life-changing experience.

via Rare Frequency › Retribution Body.

Report: Acela's got a track-rager behind the wheel

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Image: Bruce Tuten/Flickr CC

Universal Hub picks up on Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center chief Paul Levy’s post that the Acela — that laughingstock of the of the high speed train industry — is moving dangerously fast, on a section of its Boston-bound route.

I know, I know, sounds silly for a train that, at best, only gets to top speed on small sections of track in Rhode Island. But that’s exactly the problem, Paul Levy recently reported the driver of the 4 p.m. Boston-bound train always seems to go too fast on that stretch:

via Could Acela possibly be too fast? | Universal Hub.

Photo: SignalPAD/Flickr CC

I have experienced similar frightening moments on the lurching, loud-as-frak, 80-year old High Speed Trolley out of Mattapan.

At least the Mattapan Trolley is free. I can’t say I’ve ever come close to getting my money’s worth on the Acela.

High marks for Hub water, but…

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Think clean thoughts. Photo: Chad Miller/Flickr CC

Think clean thoughts. Photo: Chad Miller/Flickr CC

I still drink more bottled water then makes sense anymore.

But this new report (link, excerpt, below) is not at all heartening, as it comes in the wake of many embarrassing stories about Massachusetts’ crappy municipal supplies.

See, the trouble is that even if MWRA is doing a good job providing clean water, Massachusetts’ towns have a knack for fouling-up the end product.

NOTE: MWRA reservoirs are well-protected and very few contaminants are ever found. During 2004 and early 2005, there were short-term high TTHM levels during a changeover in treatment. Since the change to ozone in July 2005, TTHM levels are now at all-time lows with averages of about 5-15 ppb.

via EWG Tap Water Database 2009.

Refuse to take your meds? I don't blame you

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Image: dreamglow. Flickr/CC

Image: dreamglow. Flickr/CC

Globe columnist Scott Kirsner asks if a pill reminder gadget for geezers will prompt them to take their meds, in this nice piece (excerpt, and link, below.

Gods help me, I only take one prescription pill  a day at 42, and I frequently forget to take that one. If I am depending on even pills at 82, I am in big trouble.

Pharmaceutical companies say they are losing billions of dollars annually to noncompliance: that’s when patients take less, or none, of what their doctors order.

But the problem for patients isn’t only  that they are forgetting their meds–they also hate the side effects of the drugs, and being reminded that they are getting old.

For example, former president Bill Clinton nearly bought the farm after discontinuing the pill regimen that was controlling his cholesterol. (He said he felt healthy enough, and reckoned the meds were unnecessary.)

There are other good reasons for noncompliance. The editor of a peer-reviewed journal focusing on metabolic disorders–who exercises his ass off, two hours per day, by the way–told me that high blood pressure meds cause diabetes, and diabetes drugs cause high blood pressure.

SSRI’s, said to be the safest antidepressants on the market, may also contribute to diabetes, several studies suggest. SSRI’s have also been found to cause bone loss, GI disorders, and bleeding disorders–because they keep serotonin in the central nervous system–at the expense of the rest of the body.

Your goal, the metabolic syndrome expert told me, should be to stay healthy, so that you will not need these drugs in middle age.

Here’s that excerpt, and a link, to Scott’s piece in the Globe, today:

A study released this month by the New England Healthcare Institute, a Cambridge think tank, found that anywhere from a third to a half of all Americans don’t take their meds, or don’t take them at the right time or at the right dosage. The institute estimated that the result – which can include extra doctors visits and even hospitalization – costs $290 billion annually.

via New gadgets prod people to remember their meds – The Boston Globe.

Nuke it: Boston

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2009-08-05_2018A suitcase bomb (other choices are available), flattens Boston in this fairly macabre Google Maps doodad.

Not that it’s particularly likely, but as long as nuclear bombs exist, there’s the chance – however slim – that one might go off somewhere near you. This little Google Maps overlay might be a bit morbid, but it’s also pretty fascinating. It shows you the heat, pressure and fallout spread of a range of different nuclear bombs detonating anywhere in the world. It’s particularly sobering to get a sense of the scale of the devastation caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in World War 2 – and then see how tiny those bombs are compared to the USSR’s enormous Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuke ever detonated.

via What would happen if your town got nuked?.

iPhone app adds tweets, audio to camera view – The Boston Globe

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And from my column this week, “a new iPhone app can give each of our ephemeral tweets a toehold in the real world.”

The app, TwittARound, peppers your iPhone’s camera view with the icons of Twitter users who may be tweeting nearby, and whose tweets are somehow connected to your current location.

The Twitter icons you’ll see show who is closest to you, but placing those on top of other icons.

via iPhone app adds tweets, audio to camera view – The Boston Globe.

It ain't skin. It's "skin-like"

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Tufts bioengineers grow mucosal cells:

BOSTON (July 21, 2009) — Dental and tissue engineering researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts have harnessed the pluripotency of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to generate complex, multilayer tissues that mimic human skin and the oral mucosa (the moist tissue that lines the inside of the mouth). The proof-of-concept study is published online in advance of print in Tissue Engineering Part A.

via Skin-like tissue developed from human embryonic stem cells | h+ Magazine.