Dear reader,
today I want to tell you about a film that plays is situated in Los Angeles of the 1920's in a hospital. The film industry back then is still in its infancy. Hardly anybody knows, what a stuntman is or does. One of them however is just in that hospital for treatment after having an unfortunate fall during a shooting and is now unable to walk with an injured leg. Also in the hospital is a bright girl with a broken arm. The stuntman begins telling her a story of five heroes. (One of them is himself, another goes by the name of Charles Darwin.) At first it's all totally harmless, but behind all that is the idea that the stuntman might get the girl to steal morphine for him. She does eventually and for that she has to climb a cupboard. Unfortunately she falls very unluckily and has to get head surgery. The stuntman recognises how egoistic his behaviour has been. She wants to break the contact with the girl. That means he's got to bring the story to an end. And what an end it is! I read on the internet that some men, who usually barely shed a tear could hardly hold them back then. I won't tell you anything more about the ending of that story. Watch the film and make up your own mind.
The girl is played by Catinca Untaru, a rumanian, who at the time of filming, in 2006, was only 9 years old. I saw the film in english and was quite impressed how good that little girl was speaking english for her age. The stuntman is played by Lee Pace. In the film he writes down the name of the drug he wants: "Morphine". However he writes the "e" in such an angular shape, that Catinca Untaru actually read it as "3", which worked into the film. I especially thought that the visuals of the film were particularly inspired. Of course the girl has a vivid imagination. Cinematically this is underlined by the fact that quite soon we don't see the two of them in the hospital, but the story is also shown in images with especially sceneries, costumes and over all colours that just really impressed me a lot. The word surrealistic comes to my mind, although that probably isn't quite correct. Quite amusing for the viewer also is the fact how the girl works people she meets and sees in the hospital into the story. For example back in those days it was common for doctors taking x-rays in metal suits, complete with helmet in metal, which also covered the face. Once the girl sees some of those people covered all in metal walking down the halls. These people look like knights! No surprise then that when the stuntman tells her about evil knights, that those look like the x-ray knight doctors in her head. Who can blame her.. A wonderful movie!
Until next blog,
sarah
Wednesday 30 April 2014
Long live placebo!
Dear reader,
the word placebo comes from the latin and means "I please", certainly does please scientists. Because often when medicine or the effect of something has to be tested, the so called control group gets a placebo, which seemingly looks alike, but doesn't contain anything effectual at all. If there is still a positive change that can be measured objectively on the test person, that's called the placebo effect. Then there's "something" about the way the treatment was given that made the positive change, added to the ingredient, which with a placebo is nothing at all. As far as I know, there is no study so far on placebos as such. They're only used to compare to the "real" ingredient.
In his two part program "Fear and Faith" from 2012, the magician Derren Brown made a fascinating experiment. It was based on the following story: a company had created a drug that was talked about as the new wonder weapon in the military. The soldiers would stop being afraid and be totally fearless. Now the drug was to be tested on a group of civilians and Derren Brown, the well known skeptic wanted to run a documentary on that. In reality the drug was a placebo and the company wasn't real either. What Derren Brown really tested was the placebo effect.
Towards the end of the program he explains to the people, what it was really about. In the meantime however the placebo effect had kicked in with many of them and with very positive effect and I thought sometimes quite surprisingly, indeed. You can watch the whole program on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDlfhHVvTY (about 47 minutes)
Capsules are more effective than pills and injections more effective than capsules according to Derren Brown. I decided to test that for myself. I couldn't think of something of the shape of a pil, but found that tic tac do look quite like capsules. I bought myself a pack. Since I was for real quite anxcious at that time, I told myself that they would calm me. I sucked them, which took about 10 to 15 minutes and after that I really was calmer. Up until then I thought that the placebo effect could only work, when the test person doesn't know that there is no actual ingredient in. Apparently that's not the case. I was very well aware that tic tac are no tranquilliser capsules, especially since I kept them in their original box. Now there are always different kinds. At least orange and mint. What might be worth testing would be if orange are tranquilliser capsules, whether mint could have another effect and if both would only create reactions according to their ascribed effect. At the moment I don't have an idea or the need for mint capsules. Should I do test that some time, you'll know where you can read about it...
The second part of "Fear and Faith" deals with Derren Brown testing whether he could turn an atheist woman in a believer in about an hour. With indirect hypnosis. I won't tell you how it ends. Only this much: like with all the other programs in which he does bigger experiments with and on people, he tells her at the end of the show what really happened and why.
Here is the link to the second prt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksVbHxLRvY (about 47 minutes)
Until next blog,
sarah
the word placebo comes from the latin and means "I please", certainly does please scientists. Because often when medicine or the effect of something has to be tested, the so called control group gets a placebo, which seemingly looks alike, but doesn't contain anything effectual at all. If there is still a positive change that can be measured objectively on the test person, that's called the placebo effect. Then there's "something" about the way the treatment was given that made the positive change, added to the ingredient, which with a placebo is nothing at all. As far as I know, there is no study so far on placebos as such. They're only used to compare to the "real" ingredient.
In his two part program "Fear and Faith" from 2012, the magician Derren Brown made a fascinating experiment. It was based on the following story: a company had created a drug that was talked about as the new wonder weapon in the military. The soldiers would stop being afraid and be totally fearless. Now the drug was to be tested on a group of civilians and Derren Brown, the well known skeptic wanted to run a documentary on that. In reality the drug was a placebo and the company wasn't real either. What Derren Brown really tested was the placebo effect.
Towards the end of the program he explains to the people, what it was really about. In the meantime however the placebo effect had kicked in with many of them and with very positive effect and I thought sometimes quite surprisingly, indeed. You can watch the whole program on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDlfhHVvTY (about 47 minutes)
Capsules are more effective than pills and injections more effective than capsules according to Derren Brown. I decided to test that for myself. I couldn't think of something of the shape of a pil, but found that tic tac do look quite like capsules. I bought myself a pack. Since I was for real quite anxcious at that time, I told myself that they would calm me. I sucked them, which took about 10 to 15 minutes and after that I really was calmer. Up until then I thought that the placebo effect could only work, when the test person doesn't know that there is no actual ingredient in. Apparently that's not the case. I was very well aware that tic tac are no tranquilliser capsules, especially since I kept them in their original box. Now there are always different kinds. At least orange and mint. What might be worth testing would be if orange are tranquilliser capsules, whether mint could have another effect and if both would only create reactions according to their ascribed effect. At the moment I don't have an idea or the need for mint capsules. Should I do test that some time, you'll know where you can read about it...
The second part of "Fear and Faith" deals with Derren Brown testing whether he could turn an atheist woman in a believer in about an hour. With indirect hypnosis. I won't tell you how it ends. Only this much: like with all the other programs in which he does bigger experiments with and on people, he tells her at the end of the show what really happened and why.
Here is the link to the second prt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksVbHxLRvY (about 47 minutes)
Until next blog,
sarah
Saturday 26 April 2014
WWSHS
Dear reader,
The comprehensive school I went to was a christian one with more or less believing students. One of my class mates had a bracelet bearing the letters WWJD. One of our teachers explained to us eventually that it wasn't half of an internet address or a sort of “broken” one, but the abbreviation for: What would Jesus do?
A while ago I was in the garden and got dandelions and grass for the guinea pigs. It wasn't the first time that I cut myself with the grass. A couple of weeks ago I also cut myself twice with the knifes my father has when I didn't watch out enough cleaning them. Because of that my hands show several marks more or less healed for several weeks now. Thinking about Easter I also made my first ever marmelade (or jam as some of you may call it): daisies-dandelion and the second time only dandelions, but twice the amount. The dandelion flowers have to be pulled for that. The juice of the peduncle is rather bitter and therefore has to be pulled. You want exactly the bitter taste for the dandelion tea, which is supposed to be very healthy. Because of all the cutting and pulling my hands for a while looked rather yellow and brown, even after washing them.
I wonder what Sherlock Holmes would see? The hands of a person would be important to him and insightful. A person for whom well-groomed appearance is important would at least not use their bare hands to work in the dirt or do the gardening without gloves. Depending on their job, women probably would have longer fingernails and maybe have beautifully varnished nails. Someone playing for example the violin or guitar needs rather short fingernails and certain fingers would have calluses from the strings. Kids usually are not that careful eating something. The hands show that quite well. And if a child secretly ate something sweet and forgot to wash their hands after that... The hands of a person are very revealing. If we care to look.
It should be WWSHO – What would Sherlock Holmes observe (or deduce?) not see. Because as he told his friend Dr. John Watson and others so many times: he doesn't see, he observes. Indeed he would not just notice my cut and dirty hands, but deduce that I have been outside having something to do with earth. What else would he specifically be able to tell and correctly deduce?
Until next blog,
sarah
when I was in school there was a time when students
used many abbreviations. Widely known were HDL (Hab dich lieb –
Love you) and HDGDL (Hab dich ganz doll lieb – Love you very much).
I don't know how up to date those abbreviations are today. It has
been many years since I've seen them used. Now chat abbreviations are
more common.
The comprehensive school I went to was a christian one with more or less believing students. One of my class mates had a bracelet bearing the letters WWJD. One of our teachers explained to us eventually that it wasn't half of an internet address or a sort of “broken” one, but the abbreviation for: What would Jesus do?
A while ago I was in the garden and got dandelions and grass for the guinea pigs. It wasn't the first time that I cut myself with the grass. A couple of weeks ago I also cut myself twice with the knifes my father has when I didn't watch out enough cleaning them. Because of that my hands show several marks more or less healed for several weeks now. Thinking about Easter I also made my first ever marmelade (or jam as some of you may call it): daisies-dandelion and the second time only dandelions, but twice the amount. The dandelion flowers have to be pulled for that. The juice of the peduncle is rather bitter and therefore has to be pulled. You want exactly the bitter taste for the dandelion tea, which is supposed to be very healthy. Because of all the cutting and pulling my hands for a while looked rather yellow and brown, even after washing them.
I wonder what Sherlock Holmes would see? The hands of a person would be important to him and insightful. A person for whom well-groomed appearance is important would at least not use their bare hands to work in the dirt or do the gardening without gloves. Depending on their job, women probably would have longer fingernails and maybe have beautifully varnished nails. Someone playing for example the violin or guitar needs rather short fingernails and certain fingers would have calluses from the strings. Kids usually are not that careful eating something. The hands show that quite well. And if a child secretly ate something sweet and forgot to wash their hands after that... The hands of a person are very revealing. If we care to look.
It should be WWSHO – What would Sherlock Holmes observe (or deduce?) not see. Because as he told his friend Dr. John Watson and others so many times: he doesn't see, he observes. Indeed he would not just notice my cut and dirty hands, but deduce that I have been outside having something to do with earth. What else would he specifically be able to tell and correctly deduce?
Until next blog,
sarah
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