Zixar

Here's a good collection of water-quackery debunking: http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html#PENTA

And another relevant, cautionary example...

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The following excerpt is from On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, 2nd edition, a report by the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, part of the National Research Council. Published by National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.,in 1995.

POLYWATER AND THE ROLE OF SKEPTICISM

The case of polywater demonstrates how the desire to believe in a new phenomenon can sometimes overpower the demand for solid, well-controlled evidence. In 1966 the Soviet scientist Boris Valdimirovich Derjaguin lectured in England on a new form of water that he claimed had been discovered by another Soviet scientist, N. N. Fedyakin. Formed by heating water and letting it condense in quartz capillaries, this "anomalous water," as it was originally called, had a density higher than normal water, a viscosity 15 times that of normal water, a boiling point higher than 100 degrees Centigrade, and a freezing point lower than zero degrees.

Over the next several years, hundreds of papers appeared in the scientific literature describing the properties of what soon came to be known as polywater. Theorists developed models, supported by some experimental measurements, in which strong hydrogen bonds were causing water to polymerize. Some even warned that if polywater escaped from the laboratory, it could autocatalytically polymerize all of the world's water.

Then the case for polywater began to crumble. Because polywater could only be formed in minuscule capillaries, very little was available for analysis. When small samples were analyzed, polywater proved to be contaminated with a variety of other substances, from silicon to phospholipids. Electron microscopy revealed that polywater actually consisted of finely divided particulate matter suspended in ordinary water.

Gradually, the scientists who had described the properties of polywater admitted that it did not exist. They had been misled by poorly controlled experiments and problems with experimental procedures. As the problems were resolved and experiments gained better controls, evidence for the existence of polywater disappeared.

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Sound familiar?

That's an old letter, and it's doubtful that Cleese actually wrote it. The original was attributed to his character "Basil Fawlty".

Found this reader review of Michael Crichton's new novel State of Fear on amazon.com and thought it might shed a little ancillary light on the whole science vs. pseudo-science issue. The reviewer is a scientist working at the Pasteur Institute, and the novel deals with the environmentalist hysteria/bunk surrounding "global warming".

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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

At last, a realistic perspective on global warming!, January 24, 2005

Reviewer: Mosquito man "Aedes" (Pasteur Institute, Paris, France) - See all my reviews

As a scientist, this was a joy to read!

I am a specialist in mosquito-borne diseases. I worked for the CDC in the US for 22 years. Now I work for the Pasteur Institute in France.

For more than 12 years I have been battling the mis-information on my speciality that is doled out by global warming alarmists. I believe I am winning: predictions of the "spread" of malaria, dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases were once top of the list of dangers predicted by these ignorant, uninformed people.

Sadly, the alarmists have now switched to sea-level rise and other dangers, despite the protests of professional scientists. Crighton's book reveals the disgraceful way that this mis-information is peddled. Let me summarize in my own words:

More than a million articles are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals every year. The lay-public is unaware of this colossal output; popular information on research findings is limited to "newsworthy" articles, selected, described and interpreted by the media.

Professional scientists rarely draw firm conclusions from a single article, but consider its contribution in the context of other publications and their own experience, knowledge, and speculations. The complexity of this process, and the uncertainties involved, are a major obstacle to meaningful understanding of scientific issues by non-scientists.

In the age of information, popular knowledge of scientific issues-particularly on issues of health and the environment-is awash in a tide of misinformation, much of it presented in the 'big talk' of professional scientists. Alarmist activists operating in well-funded advocacy groups have a lead role in creating and promoting this misinformation. In many cases, they blatantly manipulate public perceptions with emotive and fiercely judgmental 'scientific' pronouncements, adding a tone of danger and urgency to attract media coverage. Their skill in promoting notions of scientific 'fact' sidesteps the complexities of the issues involved, and is a potent influence in education, public opinion and the political process. These notions are often re-enforced by attention to peer-reviewed scientific articles that appear to support their pronouncements, regardless of whether these articles are widely endorsed by the relevant scientific community. Scientists who challenge these alarmists are rarely given priority by the media, and are often presented as 'skeptics'.

The democratic process requires elected representatives to respond to the concerns and fears generated in this process. Denial is rarely an effective strategy, even in the face of preposterous claims. The pragmatic option is to express concern, create new regulations, and increase funding for research. Lawmakers may also endorse the advocacy groups, giving positive feedback to their cause. Whatever the response, political activists-not scientists-are often the most influential cohort in science-based political issues, including the public funding of scientific research.

In reality, a genuine concern for mankind and the environment demands the inquiry, accuracy and skepticism that are intrinsic to authentic science. A public that is unaware of this is vulnerable to abuse.

In a totally unexpected manner, Crichton has succeeded where we scientists have failed: he has communicated with the lay-public.

He deserves a medal for his service to humanity.

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You need special discs in order to use LightScribe.

Seconded. I'm running a little Linux server on a Pentium 1 at 133MHz with 80MB of RAM. Works like a charm.

Spoke with my doctor today, and it turns out I was right about the lymphatic system after all. He, too, said that the notion was ludicrous, since there's no way for anything in the lymph to affect other tissues until it's cycled back into the bloodstream. Of course, he's only a medical doctor....not an engineer or anything smart like that... -->

Krys: Please check your Private Topics.

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Originally posted by David Anderson:

From Zixar:

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And, let's see...it isn't oxygen in the bloodstream, it's oxygen in lymph, right? Oh, okay. Except for the fact that the lymphatic system drains directly into the bloodstream via the subclavian veins. Oops. Think I learned that in 9th grade biology. Pity all of us didn't, apparently.

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Obviously they didn't teach you in 9th grade that the lymph begins as Chyle in the small intestine and ENDS being dumped off into the blood stream at the lymph nodes. In other words, it's the sewer water that gets dumpted into the circulatory system, not the fresh water we drink, which bathes every cell of the body to dump off oxygen and neutrants and pick up the trash on it's way to the lymph nodes.

Can't have it both ways, genius. You were saying that your Oxygenated water went straight into the lymph via the small intestine, it wasn't absorbed into the bloodstream. The lymph is nothing more than interstitial cellular fluid that has leaked out of the other tissues via capillary loss and whatnot. All that precious oxygen has nowhere to go in the lymphatic system until it's dumped as "sewer water" back into the bloodstream.

From your last post it sounds to me like you're the Tin Man in need of a drop of oil to stop the squeeking instead of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Krys has given me good reason for her not reavealing her true identity here. You have given nothing and your latest scurrilous attacks require an attorney to defend against- at least a good trial lawyer will tell you that eye witness testimony beats double blind, placebo studies all to hell.

Utter ..... If eyewitness testimony were so vastly superior to scientific studies, George Aar and Sudo would hang up their atheism in a second and be falling all over each other trying to get into my prayer group.

And your latest attack on medical grade oxygen (with the implication that the folks that make, distribute and sell welding grade oxygen are far inferior to those that handle medical grade) has only caused those that may need medical grade oxygen to breathe to wonder if they will get poisoned in the process.

No, it has only triggered your massive paranoia complex. Anyone who actually read the report would realize that Evil FEDGOV™ is doing all it can to insure that doesn't happen. Nice try at changing the subject, but, no.

Perhaps you do not know that all oxygen made these days comes from the cooling of air down to around minus 200 degrees C and then boiling off the oxygen (b.p. -182.962 C) after boiling off the nitrogen (b.p. -195.8 C). In the process, all the other gasses are seperated and sold, but these consist of less than 1% of the total weight of air.

I will tell you that when I visited the plant on the Ohio River, I didn't examine all the design details of the plant to insure purity, but the plant manager did say to let him know when any horses running at Mountaineer were given oxygneated water because he wanted to bet on them. But that was a real, live, engineeer talking to a real, live, engineer, not an engineer talking to a cyberspace fiction.

Yes, Dave, I'm just an imaginary cyberspace fiction, and your eyewitness testimony is oh, so wonderful. Of course, as usual, it misses the point entirely, because the contamination comes mostly from mishandling the welding cylinders, not at the point of manufacture. (Which was in the report, but of course, Evil FEDGOV™ rays would shoot out of your monitor and tax all your oxygen if you bothered to read it. Wise move.)

If you have anything further to say to me, use your real name instead of being a coward and a fear-monger!

I almost wish you'd use a pseudonym and stop being a complete ....tard in public, but wishes are tightly monitored and controlled by Secret FEDGOV Conspiracy Organizations™ and I've used up my quota for the month. Pity, that.

As for your early defamation attempts, please be advised that I am a Christian, and am not in the least embarrassed or regretful about promomting PFAL. I'd still recommend it as VPW was an excellent bible teacher and lots of folks learned a great deal of bible knowledge from him. What they did or didn't do with the information is their business. I just don't rcommend the outfit he set up, especially The Way Corps and it's "leadership" training. To me it was the blind leading the blind and they both fell into the ditch. Perhaps you were one of those trainees and that's what makes you so obnoxous now. Or maybe you're just an imposter here, intent on spreading hatred, misinformation, and discontent.

The only reason I even bother with your smug, self-righteous, pompous idiocy is that these people are my friends, and I'm not about to let some half-wit with an unread copy of "Chemistry for Dummies" possibly endanger their health with a bunch of snake-oil hucksterism that anyone with a working knowledge of chemistry and fifteen minutes worth of searching can prove is a bald-faced lie. Now, you can take your acrimonious bluster, fold it until it's all sharp corners and angles, and test your own chyle with it.

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David: As Goey said, not all bleach is chlorine bleach, and oxygen most certainly is a bleaching agent.

As for your petulant scoffing at my claims of possible contamination of industrial-grade oxygen, perhaps the FDA's own warning might persuade you. (Probably not, since it's part of the Evil FEDGOV™ who has been beaming mind-control microwaves at your tinfoil hat again...)

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Medical gases not filled in accordance with the current good manufacturing practice regulations can and have resulted in medical gases that are contaminated which can cause serious injury and/or death to patients who were administered the gas. In fact, injury and death of patients has occurred in the past due to CGMP problems. (emphasis mine)

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And that's a warning against medical-grade oxygen cylinders, which are supposed to be filled under much more scrutinized conditions than your local welding-supply shop! For those interested, here's the whole FDA article: FDA Medical Gas Requirements

David, you are an ignorant poser who needs to shut the hell up before your stupidity kills an innocent victim before it kills you.

Garth: You're probably right about drinking a lot of water--the kidneys and liver do function best when there is ample water in the system.

On a side note, are Grif & Donut as huge as Scooter is now? Scoot's already bigger than his mother...and his little brother Stormy isn't far behind him! :)-->

More chemical puffery:

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About all I know about the subject to date is that the yellow in urine is caused by the chromium ion (but forget now if it is chrome +3 or chrome +6). Anyway, one of the states is yellow the other is not and so I rather expect that drinking highly oxygenated water moves the pH from the acid side to the basic side of the pH scale.

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Chromium is not the reason urine is yellow. The color comes from a by-product of hemoglobin breakdown called bilirubin and is the same waste product responsible for the yellow appearance of jaundice sufferers. It contains no chromium of any valence.

So where did this chromium crap come from? Slipshod research, most likely. Urinary bilirubin, or urobilin, used to be called "urochrome", with "-chrome" referring to its properties to tint the urine--it comes from the Greek word for "color". (see chromatic, chromosome, etc.) Urinary chromium levels are completely independent of urinary bilirubin levels. But, if someone reads "urochrome" without understanding what it's talking about, claiming it to be a chromium compound sure sounds scientific, doesn't it?

Dave, ever heard of www.google.com? Wonderful fact-checking tool... :P

As far as welding-grade oxygen contaminants go, welding-grade is generally required to be only 99.5% pure, instead of the 99.9% and up of the higher grades. Where the remainder of the contaminants can come in is in backflush into the cylinders from other contaminant gases in the system as the cylinder pressure drops, typically carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, acetylene, etc. If the welding supply company does not routinely exhaust the cylinders they refill, there is a real possibility that the next cylinder you get can be highly contaminated. In welding, that doesn't mean a whole lot, although fuel efficiency will suffer in a contaminated-oxygen environment.

If you're trying to put it into your body, though, you're rolling the dice.

This is what I mean by "quack chemistry". Not all bleach is sodium hypochlorite, but even a cursory examination of the formula would be a big giveaway to most people:

sodium hypochlorite: NaOCl

table salt: NaCl

While chlorine is a bleaching agent, as anyone with a pool-faded swimsuit can attest, the oxygenated chloride ion (OCl-) is far more effective at bleaching than chlorine alone. In fact, chlorine is not even necessary, as the percarbonate bleaches (OxiClean, etc.) work without any at all.

Here's a business-level explanation of what the word "bleaching" really means. http://www.bccresearch.com/editors/RC-196R.html

Exactly what do flagrant self-aggrandizement, along with fallacious appeals to irrelevant authority, cum hoc ergo propter hoc arguments, and ad hominem attacks have to do with quack chemistry?

Let me guess, you could tell me, but then the Evil FEDGOV™ would have you eliminated because you failed to pay their cruel and oppressive credential maintenance tax?

I've already seen this movie, though. It was called The Abyss, in which Michael Biehn goes crazy due to high-pressure oxygen toxicity and tries to blow up aliens with a nuclear warhead. Perhaps too much oxygen makes you hallucinate that somehow a lapsed mechanical engineering credential makes you more competent to speak about biochemistry. Not quite as exciting as blowing up aliens with nukes, but reality rarely lives up to the fantasy anyway.

And, let's see...it isn't oxygen in the bloodstream, it's oxygen in lymph, right? Oh, okay. Except for the fact that the lymphatic system drains directly into the bloodstream via the subclavian veins. Oops. Think I learned that in 9th grade biology. Pity all of us didn't, apparently.

As for the rest, it's little more than a new variation on the Chewbacca Defense. -->

Oh, and remember--just because it's an "alternative" product doesn't mean Big Business won't be interested because they can't patent it or whatever. You know how regular bottled water is all the rage nowadays, when 30 years ago it was almost unheard of? Now every soft drink manufacturer sells bottled water, usually for the same price as their soda pop--and a lot of it comes right out of the tap at the factory. It's true--read the labels on bottled water at the grocery. Many will come right out and admit the source is something like "San Antonio Municipal Water"--pure tap water.

And people buy it by the case...

Krys: I never said that the oxygen wasn't there. At any rate, even if your perceived improvement is completely due to the placebo effect it doesn't mean it isn't helping you. Mind over matter, and all that. Please don't feel like I'm attacking you or discounting your experience, because I'm not. You know I have the greatest of respect for you and would not contradict you out of malice or spite in any circumstance.

There are a couple of points I'd like to make, though.

1) The athletes in the study who showed no improvement? Okay, what about a thoroughbred race horse specifically bred for peak physical performance? David claims that extra oxygen works miracles for these animals, so it stands to reason that human athletes should get a proportionate boost to performance, same as his horses. They didn't.

2) If dissolved oxygen in water is such a wondrously beneficial delivery system, then the reverse, dissolving carbon dioxide in water, should suffocate the body, no? You don't see people dropping like flies from drinking Coke and Pepsi. (Beer, maybe, but they're keeling over from a different chemical, obviously. :)--> )

3) If water is such an efficient transport mechanism for metabolic oxygen, why do fish need gills to extract it?

I'm glad the stuff is helping you, but whatever's going on, I highly doubt that it's for any of the reasons David has gone on about. It's the same kind of anecdotal "science" that keeps the UFO people happy with their governmental-suppression conspiracy theories and wishful thinking passed off as expert testimony in reams of scientific-sounding doublespeak.

You know science. You know good and well that this could be properly tested and verified or falsified in short order. The negative studies can't just be pooh-poohed away. If the experiment were repeatable and valid, the oxy-water folks wouldn't have to do such a snake-oil sales job in order to get people to buy into it, because the results would be plastered over every paper in the free world and Big Business would be pumping O2 into everything they could get their mitts on and charging you twice the price to eat and drink your daily air.

It just doesn't pass the reality check. That's no reflection on you, just on the product.

Most sincerely,

Zix

If the benefits are really as scientific and tangible as you say they are, David, then why don't you go to James Randi and offer up your wunderwasser for a double-blind experiment? If you manage to prove your claims, you'll be one rich man very quickly. (Look at Dr. Atkins...or Dr. Phil, for that matter. Doesn't matter if you can't patent it, no one's stopping you from writing the next Big Fad Book™ and making a mint.)

After all, true science has nothing to fear from testing and verification, because the answers will always be the same, if it's real science. Yet, you get quite defensive when anyone questions your home-grown oxy-gospel. Why? If you have hard facts to back up what you say, then they'll speak much louder than any irrelevant ad hominem arguments. Goey made a good point--if you were suckered into selling PFAL with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, it stands to reason that it could happen again with a different product.

At any rate, you have made a few glaring chemical gaffes that I feel it's my duty to point out to anyone considering fooling around with oxygen in their home.

1) Welder's oxygen is frequently contaminated with carbon monoxide, sometimes up to 3%, which is why it should never be used for breathing apparatus. Presumably, it's even nastier when concentrated and bypasses the obviously-horribly-inefficient respiratory system. (that God designed, right?)

2) Nearly every single thing in your house will ignite, given sufficient heat, and the ignition point lowers in the presence of elevated O2 levels in the atmosphere. (Even the solid aluminum metal armor plate of the HMS Sheffield ignited when hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile, but I digress.) Unless there is a bona fide medical requirement for supplemental oxygen, the heightened risk of fire far outweighs the benefits. The astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 tragedy owe their deaths to the capsules 100% pure oxygen atmosphere at 15psi. One spark, one piece of Velcro insulation in the wrong place, and BOOM--three dead.

3) For all your supposed chemical expertise, you honestly don't know why your urine turned clear? Good grief. You bleached it! How do you think Clorox and OxiClean get stains out?

Look, if you're really onto something, get busy PROVING the science instead of DEFENDING the concept. You'll save a lot of hassle down the road if you spend your time more productively.

Abigail's right. Find the program you really want to use, then pick the computer accordingly.

Personally, I have several friends with Macs and while all of them praise it to the sky, every one of them has run into a program they really wanted to run, but it was PC-only, and the emulators aren't good enough.

I've never had a friend with a PC wish he had a Mac for a program.

In short, if you don't really know why you'd want a Mac, get a PC. The things that the Mac does really well, you really have to be a professional in order to exploit it past the PC's capabilities. (movie editing, music, perhaps desktop publishing, but that's about it.)

Keep your anti-virus software up to date, and leave the Macs to the fanatics and the music/graphics professionals. For the usefulness you'll get, you'll have less cost and less hassle with a PC in the long run, despite Windows' foibles.

I don't know about The Man In The Iron Mask--Leo's performance as the king was absolutely atrocious, but his performance as the brother in the mask was quite good.

I think he was more in his element in Catch Me If You Can.

Sudo: I didn't say it was the best movie ever, merely the best superhero movie. In my 25-year comic-collecting history, no other movie has come as close to the mark. While the first two Superman, Spider-Man, and X-Men movies were all excellent comic book flicks, The Incredibles still beats them all for characters, plot, humor, and action.

In my opinion, of course.

Well, given that the Moon only has 1/6th of the gravity of Earth, skiing would be kind of boring, since you'd be doing it in extreme slow-motion. Plus, the ice is intermixed with dirt and rock, so you'd sand your skis down to nothing fairly quickly.

Now, golf, on the other hand... :)-->

The ending was probably altered because the first one does not absolutely follow from the argument. If she told him she'd only sleep with him when Hell froze over, and he hadn't slept with her yet, that does not mean that Hell is definitely one way or the other, because it may not have reached it's final state--it could be on the way to freezing over tomorrow.

The altered ending forces Hell to be in the state "frozen over", which only sleeping with the girl would support.

(Okay, so logic takes all the fun out of it, but there you go...)

Krys: Think of a USB hub as an extension cord with multiple outlets. You unplug whatever's connected to the computer's port, plug the hub into there instead, then plug your device into one of the hub's 4 (or 7) ports instead. The computer won't care because USB is a plug-and-play system.

I'd say it's fine for most kids 5 and up, or if they can handle a bit of scary stuff like the plane crash sequence. Kids may not get some of the more adult jokes, like at Bob's insurance job, but there's enough action to satisfy them.