A German news site got a hold of this image, and now speculation has begun as to whether this object is extraterrestrial in nature. According to the site, this debris may be part of a wing, or even a drive unit (if anyone actually knows what this is, please tell us).

Wing? Drive unit? Gigantic mouth harp? YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Now, I do not work for a major news site. I don't even know what the journalistic standards are in Germany. However, I do know that when trying to report things that seem sensational, one should have some facts that, while they may not directly support your claims, will at least mislead the readers to connect the dots in the way you desire.

The closest this article comes is with two statements:

"It is uncertain exactly what the pictures show, but it is not the first discovery suggesting the planet had a lost civilisation - what could be buildings, a hominid skull and even a strange creature have all been spotted in earlier photos beamed from Mars."

In the above, it would be helpful to have links or citations so that the reader can formulate ideas and discuss them with a little more than hearsay to back it up. A strange creature? Oh do tell! Think about it. You're at the watercooler because you are either ducking work or your pink slip, and you try to start a conversation about this debris. The person you're talking with says something like, "Really? A drive unit? Like to create a localized wormhole or a sub-light speed engine?" Or, they ask more about the "creature" and the hominid skull. What do you do? Do you have a more credible response than, "Well, I read it on-line," while you wish you had just done your work or cleaned out your desk rather than look like a complete jackass?

Pictured Above: Marsquatch

The second statement in the article really has nothing to do with the topic of the article at all:

"Expert and author Hartwig Hausdorf (53, ‘Encounters with the Incomprehensible’) said: 'I can imagine that Mars was once inhabited. The last NASA probes found water, a key requirement for life.'"

He's an expert and author! Actually, when looking up his biography, his areas of expertise seem to be all over the place, with such titles as, "Close Encounters of the 5th Type: The Darkest Side of the UFO Phenomenon," "The Return of the Dragon: The Last Living Dinosaurs," and "Not of this world: The Stargate in the Andes."

However, he can imagine that Mars was once inhabited. Hell, I can imagine that my neighbor has pieces of The Amber Room in his basement, but guess what happens when I start making those wild claims and investigate his home late at night in the name of sound Internet Journalism?

But we're deviating. You want to know what I really think it is? It's the remnants of the sound stage we used to fake the moon landing.

One small step for man. One giant leap for credulity.

If you have any ideas as to what this image is of, please let us know. We'd be more than happy to have input and theories as to what's really happened on Mars.

It's amazing to me that someone who could be so rational about religion and the (non-)existence of God, could be such a twit about the rock solid science of vaccines. Vaccines are the single greatest achievement of human medicine. Nothing has changed and improved the lives of so many. I'm not a gifted enough writer to explain with words of how amazing vaccines have been, so here is a little handy chart, based data from the US.

Note the column "Lives saved by Alternative Medicine", each row tallying up a big fat zero. Of course, I did a small little trick here. There is no such thing as "Alternative Medicine." If something works better than a placebo in double blind tests over and over again, it's just medicine. Otherwise, it's just untested, unproven folk tales. This is what Bill Maher's view on vaccinations did to kids one hundred years ago:

Horrible thing to happen to a child, and it will happen a lot more children if vaccination rates plummet. This next picture might be shocking to some. It's a picture of a child, who has been stricken with a disease that effects the mind, and so far is incurable. Symptoms include narcissism, asininity, and ignorance.

I don't want to add too much more to this post. I think the numbers speak for themselves. Vaccinate your kids, vaccinate yourself, and if you're in a risk group, get the flu vaccines. Don't waste money on homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractics, or anything claiming to be "natural" or "eastern" medicine. And remember the face of the child in this post. That's how far we've come.

I am slowly finding myself drawn to bild.de as the source for all of my international news. This site is to the (now defunct) Weekly World News what The Weekly World News was to The New York Times.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a small article circulating around the web about a still-born cryptid. I'm not talking about an alien hybrid or some sort of sasquatch. What the article reported was something of mythic proportions! It was a Pan, a satyr, or whatever you would like to call a creature that appears to be half-man and half-goat. The village of Maboleni in Zimbabwe was shaken when one of their goats gave birth to this:

Can you believe I found this image at abovetopsecret.com?

As I have discussed in previous posts, humans are very rational beings when faced with the unknown. Some study what they do not understand. Some appeal to a higher authority when confronted with notions or tangible things that challenge existing scientific axioms and social beliefs. Others give in to more primal reactions.

Instead of destroying this creature on sight, the villagers called in government officials to study the dead animal and get some sort of official ruling as to what it was. After what I am certain was a thorough autopsy, the official declaration by Governor Jason Machaya was that (to quote the article), “The head belonged to a human but the body belonged to a goat!”

The miscarriage (of both goat and science) has since been cremated, leaving those who witnessed the creature with theories and speculations ranging from witchcraft to secret government experiments. I am, admittedly, not a scientist. I do not practice sorcery. I don't even have clearance of any sort to confirm or deny what biological programs any government agency has in play. However, I am intrigued by abnormalities and the prospect of hybrids and cryptids. I did a little (VERY little) research, and looked back on things I witnessed growing up on a farm, and was able to find a couple of images. When you look at the following pictures, I want you to ask yourselves the following series of questions:

1. Is this a goat or a person?

2. Is this not a goat? Explain.

3. Is this not a person? Explain.

4. Is there a rational explanation for its existence?

Example 1

Do you have your answers? Then let's move on.

Example 2

This is fairly easy when approached with an analytical mind, isn't it?

And finally:

Example 3

Close your books and pass your responses to the front of the class.

Now that you have finished, feel free to post your answers or share your own experiences with animal oddities, cryptids, or anything else you fancy.

So what got me annoyed today? Not more than ten minutes after listening to a caller to the Dave Ramsey Show announce that he had $118K in student loan debt for going to college to learn chiropractics, I hear a commercial for "Quietus", a "natural" cure for tinnitus. When it comes to medicine commercials with the word "natural" in them, my BS detector immediately goes off. The commercial was as lame as you would expect. A bunch of "testimonials" were interspersed with claims of how "natural" the medication was. I was driving in my car at the time, so I had to wait a little bit to check out their website, and oh was it worth the wait.

First off, let's define tinnitus. Most people would instantly associate it with "ringing in the ears." That is exactly correct, but the causes are varied. Infections, side effects from medication, wax build up and loud music can all cause tinnitus. Most importantly, almost all cases of tinnitus are measured subjectively. In fact, most cases are called "subjective tinnitus". "Objective tinnitus" is pretty rare. One very important point to make, is that people who have tinnitus do hear a ringing or buzz, and are unable to focus on anything else.

I won't say that tinnitus isn't uncomfortable and a real quality of life issue. It definitely is. It's just that we can't leave out how people with tinnitus focus their attention on the noise. Imagine sitting in a room watching a TV show, focusing intently on the action on the screen (I suggest The Mentalist btw). You may not notice a beeping sound from a smoke detector with a weak battery, or in my case, my wife asking me a question. Once our attention focuses on the new sound, though, we may not be able to stop hearing it (in my case, I should). There is a distinct subjective almost psychosomatic quality to tinnitus that can't be ignored.

Now back to "Quietus". Googling "quietus" brings up a bunch of pages that have nothing to do with the homeopathic medicine. They obviously didn't do their homework on that one. "Quietus" apparently is the name of the suicide kit in the movie "Children of Men". The website is extremely hard to find from the name of the product. I did eventually find it, but I won't link to it from here.

The website is lacking any real information. No ingredients, no testimonials with names attached, nothing. You can't order from the website; the only way to order is to call as far as I can tell. Not sure if it could come off more like a scam, short of saying that a Nigerian Prince has decided to bequeath his family secret for curing tinnitus if only you would send them your bank account number. It's just ridiculous.

Conclusion? We have a subjective symptom (literally named "subjective tinnitus") that is difficult to measure. We have a "medication" made up of homeopathic ingredients (water). My strongly educated guess is that Quietus is a scam and depends on the placebo effect and subjective self reporting to have any effect. Save your dollars.

Today, cryptozoology includes a lot of cryptids that I never heard of until I started listening to Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM show about a decade ago. At this point, all it takes is one report from someone really scared to create a new cryptid. Recently on Coast to Coast AM, George Noory had a paranormal investigator named Joshua Warren on for a segment to talk about the "Five Scariest Cryptids", cryptids you would never want to meet (in real life? ). The list, taken from here, http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/09/22:

* 5) Devil Dragons-- seen in South Carolina, these huge pterodactyl-like creatures have piercing eyes and flapping wings.
* 4) Batsquatch-- with glowing yellow eyes, this flying creature reportedly caused a truck's engine to shut off near Mount Rainier.
* 3) Wendigo-- according to Native American lore, this hairy shape-shifting giant was once a human, but after performing acts of cannibalism, it turned into a shaggy monster.
* 2) Hellhounds-- Dating back hundreds of years, reports detail hulking Rottweiler-like dogs that suddenly appear and tear people to shreds.
* 1) Popobawa-- A 7 ft. tall black-winged demonic entity that is said to brutally molest men in Zanzibar.

On the show, both George and Joshua referred to photographs of a Devil Dragon that were supposedly very intriguing. If you look at these pictures, though, you should be less than impressed. Here are links to the pictures themselves:

* http://shadowboxent.brinkster.net/devildragon1.jpg
* http://shadowboxent.brinkster.net/devildragon2.jpg

Have you ever seen less convincing photographs of anything? It's pretty obvious that what's being photographed is the reflection off of some sort of mist or smoke. These are awful pictures. I can't believe anyone would believe they are "Devil Dragons". Makes you wonder what someone was smoking and why they photographed it.

In all seriousness, I believe Joshua Warren wants his work to be taken serious, but how do you when he takes pictures of smoke or mist and passes them off as "Devil Dragons." It's a symptom of what has ruined the magic of cryptozoology for me and for so many skeptics. It's too mysticall now. Cryptozoology used to be stories about people in the woods observing animals and substances animals leave behind. Sure, most of the time (if not all the time) it comes down to misidentification of known animals, but at least there is something physically there.

The other things on the list? Batsquatch? Really? Are we to take serious Wendigos, Hellhounds and Popobawas? They're just legends, that's all. It's almost certain that Sasquatch and the Yeti are too, but at least people try to find something physical that can be tested. To be accurate, Joshua Warren call these cryptids "phantimals", which means they appear and disappear from our world, but seem physical when they're in it. In other words, more new age junk.

I know it sounds silly to hear a skeptic complain about cryptozoology not being about real enough creatures, but the pursuit of previously unknown creatures is a valid science. Examining local legends to see if they have a kernel of truth is sound work. What Joshua Warren is promoting, though, is the uncritical acceptance of any and all claims that sound spooky. That's my complaint. I'm less than credulous.

With the power of Google, I decided to just do a search for "homeopathic pet medicine" and see what the first site that came up was (for the record, I try not to use the word "pet", but I had to follow popular convention. Oh, the irony, of a site calling itself "petalive.com". A graphic of kitten is in the header as well as the word "Naturally". For the record, arsenic and strychnine are "natural" as well. Just saying.

So, on the day I happened to get to this homeopathic pet companion animal medicine site there are a number of specials on "herbal" remedies, though the title of the page contains "homeopathic". I found it interesting that the site is initially presenting itself as a purveyor of "homeopathy", which is nonsense, but seems to really be selling "herbal" remedies. While most herbal remedies are just as much junk as homeopathic remedies, they contain actual substances. The question is, do these substances work?

Here is a list of various substances in various treatments:

* Dandelion
* Indian Ginseng
* Scullcap
* Belladonna
* Passion Flower
* Kelp
* Burdock

These substances are in products aimed at both cats and dogs, which are very distinct species. It would somewhat surprise me if both cats and dogs reacted the same to all these different products, so I did a little searching.

Dandelion extract has shown "moderate anti-inflammatory, cholagogic and hypoglycemic activities" in laboratory animals, however, there haven't been many studies designed to test it, and the one positive study seems to be from 1974. Not a total washout, but far from conclusive, especially compared to the modern medicines available for animals that are being studied currently. Ginseng contains substances that work well in rabbits, but I can't seem to find any dog studies. Furthermore, ginseng seems to be an inefficient source of the advantageous substances.

Scullcap seems to be completely lacking of any studies proving efficacy. It seems to be simply folk medicine. Belladonna in the context of this website seems to be the homeopathic belladonna solution. Since homeopathy is junk, I can safely move on from that. Passion Flower was shown to be more effective (in people) than a particular anti-anxiety drug in a double blind study. However, the sample size was too small to be definitive. The trial was only on 36 people, which is fine, since you have to start somewhere, but the conclusion was that more testing needed to be done.

Kelp..well, kelp is pretty good for dogs. It's a nice food for any animal, as a vegetable. Kelp, however, won't remove toxins from the body, as that is pretty much nonsense. By all means, add it to your dogs diet, don't worry if it's organic, and watch your dog benefit from better nutrition. Lastly, Burdock. I couldn't find much about burdock and animals, so it looks like to me that the purported effects on humans were simply transferred to animals. Nothing much else to go on I'm afraid.

So, to conclude this post, which I've tried to keep short, I have to say that natural companion animal medicine is probably a complete waste of time. Very few of the ingredients are actually tested on animals for the purpose of treating animals. Animal studies kind of get globbed together, so when a study says laboratory animal it could mean dog, rat, rabbit or mouse. Just because it worked in the lab doesn't mean it works on your animal (same goes for humans btw). In most cases, the evidence is very weak.

Furthermore, just because a thistle plant contains a valuable substance, doesn't mean thistle is the best source. A great example of this is salicylic acid. A great source of salicylic acid in ancient times was willow bark. A hot drink made from willow bark would be prescribed to help alleviate pain and fever. You could still do that today, or...you could just pop an aspirin and spare yourself from the crappy tasting bark tea. That's pretty much how it works for a lot of these substances. I'd rather talk to my vet about an actual medicine created to treat my animal that might expand upon what's available in thistle instead of sprinkling thistle dust on his food. It is the 21st century and all. We may not have flying cars yet, but our medicine for animals is much more amazing to me.

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11679026
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69200.cfm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10589445?dopt=Citation