On locations

An interesting article in the New Scientist last week on being in more than one place at the same time...

Genuine oil, from real snakes

Sense About Science are collecting signatures against new UK regulations that allow homeopathic products to make medical claims without any evidence of their efficacy.

You may want to sign up if you agree with the following:

Evidence-based medicine has been a major public gain of the twentieth century

Homeopathy is not evidence-based medicine

The new regulations on homeopathic products compromise standards of evidence and clear labelling

The policy change is damaging to patients' best interests

Evidence-based medicine is essential to public health; the growth of the homeopathic industry does not contribute to public health

Rules for the regulation of medicines should not allow homeopathic products to make unsubstantiated health claims

The full statement of support for evidence-based medicine is available here (pdf).

Smash lits

Disgrace, watercolour and ink on paper by Patter Hellstrom (patterhellstrom.com)

Today's Observer includes a slightly silly Best Novels of the Past 25 Years list, having gathered nominations and votes from 120 'literary luminaries'.

In response to a New York Times exercise in May that determined Toni Morrison's Beloved to be the best work of American fiction from the last quarter century, the Observer poll allowed for the inclusion of British, Irish and Commonwealth books.

I was a bit perturbed by the realisation that I hadn't read any of those voted to the top ten - perhaps an indication that I need to move on from my ongoing fixation with formulaic murder mysteries?

For the record, Disgrace by JM Coetzee came first and Money by Martin Amis second, while Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers and Ian McEwan's Atonement took joint third.

Intriguingly, one of the authors polled actually voted for himself, though the anonymity they were all assured of prevents the newspaper divulging who... Salman Rushdie, anyone?