antiprobiotics.

Probiotics are stupid. The premise, ostensibly, is that eating a bunch of bacteria might help the digestion of people with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). This is awfully convenient, because IBS cannot be assessed quantifiably (the readout is generally based on patient symptoms) making this type of "therapy" succeptible to a whopping placebo effect. Who says that these bacteria can out-compete your endogenous flora? And even if it did, how do we know that is a good thing? Commensal bacteria constitute a vital presence in your gut, serving many functions other than digestion. They help prevent infection by more dangerous bacteria. They make sure your immune system doesn't respond inappropriately to harmless bacteria. In fact, one of the more popular models for inflammatory bowel disease involves a damaged immune response to your gut flora. Plus, as Lauren Sandler points out, the marketing techniques essentially imply that you can use 'probiotic' therapy to lose weight. Its even more egregious overseas. So, don't pay a premium for something that is in no way scientifically validated to be helpful.

On the other hand, using worms to treat allergies - that may actually work, and interestingly, in a way that commensals might also act - by serving to dampen your immune response so it doesn't respond to inappropriate things, like pollen. This is summed up in the hygiene hypothesis.

Other Science thoughts, courtesy of Nature News:
1. SIDS - Excellent work from Cornelius Gross's group. They engineered a mouse with excess levels of the serotonin 1A receptor, which acts as a negative regulator of serotonin levels, based on prior associations of serotonin with SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). The resulting mice experienced sudden drops in heart rates and sudden death at early ages, mimicking SIDS phenotypes. Nature News article here, Science paper here.

2. Schroedinger's Cat, alive! - Someone explain this to the nerd in me who owns A Cartoon History of Time and wants to understand shit like the Copenhagen Interpretation!

The notion is exemplified by the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, a thought experiment in which a cat is locked in a box with a vial of poisonous gas that would be broken if a quantum particle was in one state, and remain intact if the particle was in another. While the box is closed, the particle exists in a superposition of both states simultaneously, so the poison must also simultaneously be both released and contained, and, in turn, the cat must be both alive and dead. When the box is opened, the quantum superposition collapses, and the cat is either killed or saved, in an instant.

Now, Nadav Katz at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his colleagues have performed an experiment in which they pull a quantum state back from the brink of collapse, 'uncollapsing' it and returning it to its unobserved state. Effectively, they have peeked at Schrodinger's cat in its box, but saved it from near-certain death (N. Katz et al. http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3547).

To physicists raised on the textbook Copenhagen interpretation, any notion of uncollapsing a quantum state seems “astonishing”, says Markus Büttiker, a quantum physicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “On opening the box, Schrödinger's cat is either dead or alive — there is no in between.”

Help!!!!

Other, Other Thoughts:
1. Nadal triumphs at Wimbledon - Now, I'm a huge Federer fan. I think he's a true surgeon on the court, hitting impossible angles and exhibiting that 'sixth sense' where he sees 5 shots ahead. But Nadal bested him honestly this time, and he did so with an almost inhuman defensive consistency, hitting precision groundstrokes, forcing Federer to come to the net, and then hitting passing shot after passing shot. It was pretty phenomenal. I'll just say 2 things. First, I really hope this inspires Federer to raise his game. He's got about 4-5 years left, so hopefully he's still got some great tennis in him. I think he's been stagnant for lack of a true challenger in the past few years, so this is exciting. And 2) I didn't really appreciate the Nadal homerism by the commentators. It goes back to the desire to see a champion torn down, to see him (or her) exposed as mortal. Why not appreciate the dominant run that we've seen for the last 4 years (12 of the last 13 grand slam finals, 13 grand slam titles including 5 wimbeldon, 4 us open, 4 australian open titles) instead of being so eager to anoint a successor? It's kind of a shame.

2. Destruction of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan - The attack clearly appears to be a response to the growing threat of Indian influence in Afghanistan. To quote:

Pakistani intelligence has long supported militant groups fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan as a means to influence regions on its borders and, according to some Western diplomats and military officials, it maintains those links today, including with some elements of the Taliban.
Pakistani intelligence, which regards Afghanistan as its backyard, fiercely resents India’s growing influence here, Afghan officials said. The Afghan Interior Ministry said it believed that the attack was carried out in collaboration with “an active intelligence service in the region.”

The US has for a long time been allied with Pakistan, which included use of Pakistani airspace for attacks on Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. One would assume, however, that the recent pattern of behavior would demand a shift in policy.

3. This American Life: By Proxy: This week's This American Life is fantastic. It speaks of people who have had to act as proxies for others in many facets. The most interesting, and gut-wrenching, is the story of an Iraqi translator who gets caught in the crossfire between American soldiers, for whom he works and considers noble until the events of Abu Ghraib, and Iraqi civilians growing increasingly resentful of American occupation. By the way, on the Wikipedia page for the events of Abu Ghraib (which everyone should flip through just to be fully aware of what happened), I just want to highlight a couple of responses.

Rush Limbaugh: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of emotional release?"

Senator James Inhofe: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment [...] [They] are not there for traffic violations. [...] If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners — they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. [...] Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals." (It's been estimated that at least 90% of detainees were innocent)

Yes, I know this was a million years ago. But please. Don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or any program on which he appears. And please, for the love of God, don't ever vote for James Inhofe.

4. Should abortion procedures be taught in medical school? (Obviously, yes). E.J. Graff at Slate had an interesting perspective on this, as he noted that in a recent poll, 80% of people believe that abortion should be allowed in at least some cases. Isn't this enough that ob-gyns should be formally trained in this procedure? Thoughts?