And the '09 Deadpool winner is ......

Mel.

I would be surprised if any deadpool competition had someone who had a 60% strike rate. Unbelievable! I don't think that we will ever see this type of "success" again, whether it be points wise (126) or number of hits. And I wouldn't get her mad, 'cause if she puts you on the list, your time may be nigh.

Should you be remembered for an invention that never actually worked?

Reading a review on the book Firepower: The most spectacular fraud in Australian History, I came across the story of engineer Ralph Sarich and his orbital engine.

I first heard of the Sarich Orbital Engine back in the 1970's from our neighbour who talked about it enthusiastically and, I believe, was an investor. Since I had an interest in mechanical/electrical inventions even back then, I kept my eyes and ears open for news on this engine which made some impressive claims. It claimed to have more power and have less emissions. Sarich won numerous awards because of this engine. The company created to make the engine raised millions of dollars on the stock exchange.

You may ask in which cars is the engine being used right now and why haven't you heard about this great Australian invention. During the research and development of the engine, it was found that it was difficult to lubricate and it suffered from overheating. These technical problems were so limiting that no production model could ever be successfully developed. But there was some good news. In the research process, the company did invent a new fuel injection method which is currently used in motor boat engines.

Now, Sarich ain't no fool and must have seen the writing on the wall, and by 1992 had sold all his shares and intellectual property in the engine for about $200 million. By 2004 the company had accumulated losses of around $480 million.

So what did Sarich do with all this cash. Invest in research and development of other technologies? No. He bought real estate and is now one of the richest in Australia. In this article about his real estate investments, he says that retiring and playing golf is a "waste of the brain". What, and real estate investing during a boom is rocket science????????

It's interesting to note that in the above mentioned article it makes even more claims about the engine saying it "was 40 per cent lighter, 60per cent smaller and 35 per cent more efficient than standard car engines. Why it never took off in cars remains in dispute". Why it never took off in cars remains in dispute????? It's only in dispute from conspiracy theorists. It didn't take off because it was not feasible. Even Sarich knew that and got out back in 1992. Why else would he get out? Why didn't you ask him in the interview?

Anyhoo, he now plans to get into green technologies. As he said, "At the moment we haven't done much (but) it's an area that I really like. I think there's great potential in it". Why has it taken him 15 or so years from 1992 to be interested in green tech? Wasn't one of the reasons for inventing the orbital engine back in 1972 to decrease fossil fuel use because of the environmental concerns back then? If he was really keen on green issues surely when he got his $200 million he would have put some of the into that area. Call me cynical, but I doubt this guy has got any environmental concerns. It's cash, cash, cash, and more cash. Which really means me, me, me, and more me. It seems that he is only interested in something if it can make him a crap load of money. The environment is just a means to achieve that goal.

But, you may say, he just donated $20 million to build a neuroscience wing in WA. Doesn't that show he's not just thinking about himself? Hmmm, as a young man he was involved in a car accident and severely injured his back. Maybe he's thinking that those injuries may come back to haunt him later in life and he needs appropriate facilities to deal with that.

High Brow Time

I've been watching a bunch of talks given by Nobel Prize winners on the history of particle physics, both experimental and theoretical. They are fairly technical but I did like the talks by Glashow, Veltman, t'Hooft, Cronin and Myers.

Myers talked about some of the problems of LEP which were caused by some strange situations. If you thought that a baguette was a strange thing to shut down a machine, what about two deers shagging!

ABO - no, I'm not being racist, it's about blood

Back in the mid 90’s a book was written by Peter D’Adamo advocating that your diet should be different depending on your blood type. It also claimed that if you ate the wrong food for your blood type, you would not be well. An interesting premise. The question arises, is there any evidence for this claim?

This interest by D’Adamo came about through his father’s work. His father James noticed that different diets affected people differently at the European health spas he was working at. So with his “keen powers of deduction and insight” he asked himself the question what nourishes the body, and his answer was blood (whether this is true or not shall be looked at later). So his conclusion was that people with different blood types should eat differently. He based his work initially by only looking at the ABO grouping. Eventually he published a book about diet named after himself and set up an institute. As a side note, it’s interesting that this institute also practices cranial manipulation, spinal manipulation, and structural alignment. He claims that some of these practices can solve emotional and mental problems, but that can wait for another post.

So Peter jumps on his fathers idea about blood type and diet, and begins to search for evidence. He finds two studies which he thinks vindicate his father. The first one is a study about peptic ulcers and the second about stomach cancers. Now from the text it is hard to pinpoint exactly the studies he is refering to, but looking in the index it looks like these studies are both by
E. Aird et al., both published in 1954. One is called "The Blood Groups in Relation to Peptic Ulceration and Carcinoma of Colon, Rectum, Breast, and Bronchus". You can read the paper here. This is enough to convince him his father is correct.

Now, this in the 1980's. Why doesn't he search for more recent data? Why rely on only two studies? I shall ignore those crucial questions and look at the above study. Its results say that in the British hospitals where they gathered their data, blood type A was more common in patients suffering from cancer of the stomach, and O-type was more common in patients suffering from peptic ulcers. Notice that there is no mention of diet in the study. Nowhere is there a claim that diet is causing the stomach cancer or ulcer. That is a huge leap to make. But that's not all. I hope he kept reading the paper because here is an interesting extract from the comment section:

"The simplest, though not necessarily the most acceptable, explanation of ouir findings would be the assumption that A substance is carcinogenic with respect to the stomach while both A substance and B substance protect against peptic ulcer."

So there is another possibility about why the difference. Maybe it's inherent in your genes. There is no way diet can affect that.

Now firstly we should really do other studies to see if this finding holds true for other groups of patients. You should never rely on just one study. So has any other studies been done? How about this one by Akumabor, "The ABO blood groups in relation to carcinoma of the stomach and duodenal ulcer in a Nigerian community" published in, wait for it, 1986. Why didn't he use this one? It was while he was researching his book. It was published way before his book was released. Maybe because of this conclusion:

"Contrary to expectations, carcinoma of the stomach in this community predominates in group O persons, occurring in 64·2%, whereas blood group O occurs in only 55·6% of the population. This is in contrast with previous studies in which carcinoma of the stomach was commonest in blood group A patients."

So in this study, it O types are more common with stomach cancers. This negates the data his beliefs are founded on. Maybe if lots of data from all around the world was taken, all these blood type differences would cancel each other out and there would be no relationship between blood type and stomach cancers. There goes one of his main reasons for believing what he does.

But what about peptic ulcers? Could there be reasons other than blood type and diet? Stress and stomach acid were common reasons people thought why ulcers may be induced. And there was this Australian named Robin Warren who claimed that is was a bacteria that caused ulcers of the stomach. Initial people thought he was ga-ga, but as the evidence mounted up and mounted up and mounted up, the doubters changed thier minds and agreed that he was right. His reward, the 2005 Nobel Prize. It is now know that bacteria is the main cause of ulcers.

So where does this leave D'Adamo? Firstly, he should have based his ideas on more than a couple of studies. He should have looked for evidence that contradicted his theory. Good research involves trying to find holes in your own theory. Your theory and the evidence supporting it has to be watertight if you wish it to be accepted.

That's quite a long post and it's just about the introduction. He's not off to a good start. But let's ignore all of this as I'll look into why he thinks blood type and diet are interlinked in my next post.

Is this irony?

Poster on a church in North Fitzroy.

A close up