Ficks Cocktail Fortifier

An Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign has raised over $40,000 for a bunch of charlatans to make what they call a ‘cocktail fortifier’: a tonic containing a handful of herbs and vitamins, which they strongly imply (although carefully avoid stating explicitly) will prevent hangovers if added to alcoholic drinks.

The product is called Ficks Cocktail Fortifier, comes in three flavours (ginger, lime and lemon) and costs $15 (about £9) for an 8 oz (240 ml) bottle. That’s almost £38 per litre, significantly more expensive than alcoholic spirits (Bombay Sapphire gin is about £25 per litre), and that’s for a non-alcoholic product, basically a mixture of ginger and vitamin B, which is probably less nutritious than a fruit smoothie and a multivitamin tablet (Tesco Red Berries smoothie, £1.20 per litre).

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The Evolution of a Science News Story

Scientists: ‘Our study showed a weak correlation between the presence of two particular sections of chromosome, and self-identification of homosexuality.’

Science journalists: ‘Scientists have proven a link between genes and homosexuality.’

Non-science journalists: ‘Scientists have found the gay gene.’

Non-science editorial writers: ‘This raises the possibility of “fixing” the gay gene.’

News website comment sections: ‘We should fix the gay gene.’

Response to Creationist 7

7. “WHAT ABOUT NOETICS?”

Yeah, what about noetics!?

No really, what is noetics? I had to look it up to find out. Then I was embarrassed, because apparently it’s a branch of philosophy, and I studied philosophy at university, and I’d never heard of it. Then I was relieved, because I discovered it’s utter bullshit.

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Nutrition blogging nonsense

I’ve just been sent a link to an article by third-rate Australian Gillian McKeith clone, Jess Ainscough. She runs an absurd ‘health’ blog called “The Wellness Warrior”, and the article in question is 8 Foods People Think Are Healthy … But Aren’t.

I started reading the article before I had a look at the author, her blog and other posts. I didn’t take long to realise something was wrong. The third food on the list was fish. In her reasons for avoiding fish, she states that wild fish are full of mercury, “the second most toxic element on Earth next to radiation.” Now, without doing extensive further research, I don’t know whether wild fish contains significant amounts of mercury or not. However, at this point I can safely say that Jess Ainscough is a fucking idiot.

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