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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.

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A survey conducted this month by the Russian Center of Public Opinion Research of 1,600 Russians in different regions of that country has revealed that 32% of them believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth, four percent more than in 2007 when a similar survey was conducted. This fact was trumpeted just as President Medvedev called for national Lunar and deep space programs to be implemented, rather highlighting scientific misconceptions among Russians. That same survey also found 55% of Russians believe that radioactivity is a human invention, and 29% believe that humans lived in the era of dinosaurs. What a strange mixture between scientific ambitions and pure superstition! Right?

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warning labelPlease take one minute today to send a message to CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid, and tell them to stop keeping their customers in the dark about the homeopathic products they sell.

Consumers should be able to trust their local drug store to sell products that will help them, and not deny them the facts about products that are known to be useless. Yet millions of people every year are ripped off by so-called homeopathic products that have no active ingredients.

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The history of the Violet Ray machine goes back to an invention of one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the 20th century, Nikola Tesla. Tesla’s inventions have had wide ranging impact on our modern technological society that continues to this day. His work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power systems that are still in use today and which transmits all the power used worldwide.[3] It was Tesla's invention of the resonant transformer circuit, better known as a Tesla coil that lead to the development of the Violet Ray machine.

According to Wikipedia, "A Tesla coil is a type of resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891. It is used to produce high voltage, relatively high current, and high frequency alternating current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of different configurations and they consist of two, or sometimes three, coupled resonant electric circuits. Tesla used these coils to conduct innovative experiments in electrical lighting, phosphorescence, x-ray generation, high frequency alternating current phenomena, electrotherapy, and the transmission of electrical energy without wires.... Tesla coil circuits were used commercially in sparkgap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy until the 1920s, and in electrotherapy and pseudo medical devices such as violet ray."[10] It is with these last two usages that we are going to concern ourselves.

 

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Skeptic James Randi challenges sellers of scam medications as hundreds stage worldwide "overdose" on homeopathic pills

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.—To expose a scam industry that endangers and rips off millions of consumers a year, world-renowned conjuror, escape artist, and skeptic James Randi has put one million dollars on the line.

In a video statement released at 10:23 a.m. (ET) today, Randi joined hundreds of consumer advocates in more than 25 countries in exposing so-called homeopathic remedies—scam medications with no active ingredients that are sold by major retailers with no warning to customers. Demonstrators around the world swallowed homeopathic products by the handful, in a worldwide day of action inspired by a lecture by James Randi in which he downed an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills to show they had no effect.

  1. Is Dome of the Rock UFO Video a Hoax?
  2. Last Week at Science-Based Medicine
  3. BBC: UK government promoted useless 'bomb detectors'
  4. Certainty and the Rite