Reporting on scientific topics is bad enough

[TZ]

without titling a story with a woo term.."Frankenfish" was the title of a story this morning about genetically modified salmon that will grow to adult hood in half the time of normal salmon. Pretty harmless in my opinion but they had to mention how some people think that the FISH MIGHT POISON PEOPLE. Because you know, fish are more sensitive to toxins in the environment. But it fails to mention how these GM fish would be more toxic..:grr: Me, I think a fish that grows faster will probably have lower level of toxins in its system because its time more than size that cause a build up. No wonder people think all GM is evil with shitty reporting like this...:banghead:

[onager]

1. My favorite anecdote on that...

IOW, I'm repeating myself as usual. You all know that I'm very old, right?

Anyway, a few years ago, Prince Charles wrote a doom-and-gloom article about the dangerous new trend of GM food. As I remember, he leaned heavily on the usual wooery alarmism about mad scientists and the possible revenge of the radishes, etc. etc.

Richard Dawkins responded in print, pointing out the obvious to Prince Charmless. GM is about as new as the New Atheism, i.e., not at all new. We humans have been doing it for a long time: wheat is genetically modified grass, and his Mom's yappy little Corgis are genetically modified wolves.

[Orrex]

2. I think I saw that movie on SyFy

[realisticphish]

3. Frankenfish vs. MegaHamster

Coming this summer to Syfy, instead of all the great sci-fi tv shows we could have kept from getting canceled

[onager]

4. Just yesterday on SyPhy(llis) Channel...

They had a program with a title something like: True or False? The Paranormal.

I was pretty sure which side SyFy would take. (True! True! All TWUE!) So I didn't bother.

The only consistently non-woo paranormal show I've found is NatGeo's "Is It Real?" They let the claimants make their case, then demolish their claims. Great stuff.

Their alien-cattle-mutilation episode was really good. A rural sheriff got very tired of hearing about aliens molesting cattle, so he set up his own experiment. He just put a cattle carcass in a field with a camera running. In a couple of days he had a perfect example of an alien-mutilated carcass, with proof on videotape that it was all caused by natural occurrences.

[realisticphish]

5. that's a cool experiment

and anyone who's seen a dead animal after it's been outside for a long time knows that some weird looking stuff happens to it

[salvorhardin]

6. Was I the last person to know about SWN: the SyFy Wrestling Network?

Not having cable or satellite or TV I'm way out of the loop on such things, but a couple of days ago I found out that there's a SyFy Wrestling Network. WTF!? Talk about network decay. What's next? CNG: the Cartoon Network Golf channel?

[realisticphish]

7. oh, yes

wrestling has been one of their big things for a while. It's pretty much wrestling, a few ghost shows, and made-for-tv movies

[Behind the Aegis]

8. No...that would be me. WTF?!

:crazy:

[onager]

15. Or me. Thanks for the warning!

n/t

[Deep13]

9. Frankenfish?

I think I saw that movie on The Creature Feature on UHF in the '70s.

[onager]

10. Over the weekend, I saw...(ominous pause)...

Anaconda.

I'd forgotten how bad it was. Didn't take long to remember, though.

That was the fakiest fake snake I've ever seen. Right up there with Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster, where poor ol' Bela Lugosi fights with a rubber octopus and flails around trying to make it move.

They should have chucked J-Ho overboard and choked the anaconda with her big fat butt.

[realisticphish]

11. WHOA WHOA WHOA

do NOT sully the name of Ed Wood!

[varkam]

12. That had Jon Voight in it, didn't it?

Oh my god, I think I had blocked all memory of that movie out.

[onager]

14. Oh yes. Voight and his magically changing accent.!

Did that help you remember? :evilgrin:

I think it was supposed to be a Germanish accent. But sometimes he forgot and just spoke regular English. Then other times, with a British accent.

BTW, good to see you back!

:hi:

[varkam]

16. Rofl! That's right! I was wondering what in the hell that was about...

Ahh good times....

And thanks, it's nice to see you as well :hi:

[Odin2005]

13. That thread is insane.

[laconicsax]

17. In case people haven't seen it:

I saw this posted a bit ago (on Pharyngula I think). It should be used whenever appropriate.



(Better to post it here than start a new thread I think.)

[salvorhardin]

18. Those are awesome! There's a whole set of them.

You can print your own: http://www.tomscott.com/warnings

[laconicsax]

19. Thanks! Those are great.

[LeftishBrit]

21. ROTFL - those are great!

The British press could do with a few of these.

[TZ]

20. rofl

I can't think of that without thinking about the WERE GONNA DIE article some journalist wrote about how aspartame can become benzene and cause genetic damage..with this winning phrase in it -It damages the part of the DNA known as the mitochondria....and of course this was largely ignored by the woos....