nullmouse

I totally adore this poster.

They're great live - Caught both their sets at End of The Road this year and the second one (on the mainstage) was enhanced by a problem with the electric guitar, meaning we got a huge set of quiet songs which everyone was eerly attentive all through.

Wahey! Awesome. Looking forward to seeing them again.

Blimey! That was a car journey and a half - Torrential rain, floods and gales but Psydoll have made it to Aberdeen after a great start to the tour yesterday

Details on all their Scottish dates can be found here: Psydoll UK Tour 2009 | ELIZIUM

I'm sure it's not the way you intended this to read, but part of what you've said here is potentially very misleading. First, I'll agree that the current methods for treating cancer are fairly nasty, but it's a nasty disease that has a nasty pathology that can, in most tumours, recurr and spread with ease - It's also a disease that carries a substantial risk of death. Part of my research interests include ways to prevent people from developing cancer to reduce the number of people that have to face the unpleasant reality of chemotherapy/radiotherapy/surgery. However, and you'll understand why I need to be clear on this, these therapies are used because they are effective and proven to be so. Just having a happy disposition will not cure someone of cancer and, although I'm sure it's not what you meant to say, the suggestion that someone can dispense with proven medical treatments and survive could be fatal advice. I'm not familiar with the literature on this drug with regards to its effectiveness, but irregardless there's nothing to say that a medical cure can't be found from nature and used as an effective treatment: The difference between the drug ibogaine and the shaman's ayahausca would be the purity and regulated potency of the drug. Many modern medicines (including some of the vinca alkaloids used in cancer chemotherapy) are based on naturally occurring compounds that have been purified and often chemically modified to make them more effective. Like any medicine, the claims that ibogaine can help people recover from addiction can be tested - But in this case there would be many, many confounding factors and limitations to do so. For example, how could you design a placebo control for a study using a psychoactive agent? Or how could you prove you weren't subtituting one person's addiction for another? How could you prove that any benefits were due to a self-awareness trip and not some other pharmacological effect of the drug? The idea of using a potent hallucinogen as a therapy for addiction seems counter-intuitive, and would probably create another set of problems such as drug-drug interactions, dependency, mental health concerns and so forth. Maybe there is call for drastic measures in drastic situations (a psychological analogy to the butchery of cancer therapy, perhaps?), but I would personally expect to see a large volume of realiable, well-performed research to back that up. How feasible that is given some of the factors above is a matter for debate.

Yeah, I've missed Nick Cave a couple of times recently - Got offered tickets to go see his book reading in London yesterday, but had to be back to work this morning so had to turn it down

You'll be fine paying at the door, but I'll take a note of your username and make sure if it does sell out on the door that you'll have a space reserved! (I agree with Lucky Rathen, and Nick Cave fan status buys you privileges too!)

Saw this, thought of you all: KN | Kitsune Noir Here Comes The Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized

Aberdeen gig now with added Beats Of Rage - Chip-driven digital hardcore from 1992!

Scratch that, it seems to have shown up after several days lag - Unless some helpful mod's sorted something (if so, thanks!)

I've added a gig to the calendar, which is showing so it's obviously been approved (Psydoll at Drummonds on the 2nd of November), but a thread's not been created. Any chance this could be sorted, as I'd really like to spread the word

Japanese psyborgs PSYDOLL return from the workshop, having spent the last couple of years since their last UK tour perfecting and recording the new album "10 Spyglasses". Digital percussionist Uenoyama and guitar-robot Ucchi join forces with keytar-wielding vocalist Nekoi to create punked-up industrial rock wizzed through a manga blender. Post-apocalyptic calls-to-arms and cautionary fairytales, all through the eyes of a confused, half-organic/half-robotic bunch of crazies. Magic stuff. Like Bladerunner gone a bit 'wrong'. Welcome to PSYDOLL Official WebSite Psydoll on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads Edinburgh-based trio METALTECH speedball industrial and dance, dressing it all up in slick grease-paint, dayglo gasmasks and inflatable femme fatales. Plenty here for fans of The Prodigy, KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, Rob Zombie and the ilk. MetalTech on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads Monday the 2nd of November Drummonds, Aberdeen. 8pm / 5 Support from Metaltech + TBC They're also playing Edinburgh and Glasgow: Thursday the 5th of November Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh. 9pm / 4 or 3 with NUS ID. Support from Metaltech Friday the 6th of November 13th Note, Glasgow 9pm / 4 Support from The Paraffins plus TBC

Last Harbour - Dead fires and the lonely spark (worth a listen if you like My Latest Novel or The Bookhouse Boys) The Twilight Sad - Forget the night ahead (so far so good, on the first listen!) Daniel Johnston - Is and always was (alright, needs another listen or two I think) Ulrich Schnauss - A strangely isolated place (awesome) Venetian Snares - Filth (nae too sure about the song titles, but solidly crazy)

Apparently the current live set is the entirety of Hazards of Love followed by a 'greatest hits' stylee hour-odd encore. Pity they're only playing London.

I do so love The Decemberists. The new album, The Hazards of Love, is a veritable rock opera - something I'd normally balk at - but it's marvellous and I'm unashamedly addicted to it. For my money, they'll have to go a long way to beat The Mariner's Revenge Song from Picaresque ( - not the original video), but most stuff they release is gold.

There are alternative theories for how acupuncture may work, that don't rely on the antiquated view of meridians and qi flow. One of which is known as the "gate control" theory of pain, which suggests that acupuncture may overload the body's ability to deal with pain and shuts the 'gate' that controls it. It's similar to your suggestion, in that it could be a physiological mechanism of action, but it's not proven. Again, we could test this hypothesis by using needles that don't penetrate the skin: Fake needles that apply pressure that feels like being pierced, but actually just retract into a sheath that sticks to the surface of the skin have been developed. If penetration (fnar) is required, then these fake needles should have no effect or the real needles should do substantially better. (Except, of course, there'd be no way of preventing the acupunturist from knowing if they had real of fake needles - it would be obvious they had fake needles, so they could consciously or subconsciously effect the results. Gah, these things are called "confounding factors" and they're a pain to control for.)

I've had a brief look through the last few pages, and I think there's a few issues floating around (hurrah for comedic understatement). There seems to be some misconceptions about the nature of scientific evidence (absence of proof does not mean absence of research, for example) and some discussion on whether a treatment being a placebo or not really matters. Luckily, Sense About Science have produced a really, really nice little brochure precisely about these issues and it's applicable to not just alternative therapies but any treatment. You can read it here: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/pdf/I've%20got%20nothing%20to%20lose%20by%20trying%20it%20FINAL.pdf It explains in nice detail how we gather data for evidence based medicine, addresses the issue of whether doing something is better than nothing and also provides some really good links for those of you passionate about the direction this thread has taken.

TCM isn't just about acupuncture, true - But it's a good example that fits in with the rest of the thread. Irregardless, any TCM should be subject to the same scrutiny as any medical treatment in order to ascertain its effectiveness. The NHS stance on acupunture is a controversial one, and is based on evidence that doesn't necessarily show that acupuncture is any better than a fake needling session. What the evidence does show is that doing acupuncture is better than doing nothing for some conditions. The key question is if acupuncture actually does anything that random needle placing wouldn't. For the treatments that the NHS prescribe acupuncture for, that it is not yet known. I can't really comment on your practitioner, from what you say he sounds like a nice guy though.

A lot of these trials do fall short of having the same numbers as you'd expect from a properly controlled trial, which is why organisations like the Cochrane Library give them less weight when reviewing the available evidence. The more robustly designed trials (of which numerous do exist), are given more weight. Given the breadth of conditions acupuncture is suggested to treat it's not surprising that some of the evidence may get spread a little thin, but it's certainly not non-existent. I'm all for big, carefully controlled experiments for every treatment whatever the outcome, but they're not always practical to perform for a wide range of reasons (cost often being the major one, to be honest). With regards ME, there's currently a report being compiled by the Cochrane library (the font of all evidence-based medicine fun) on the effectiveness of acupuncture for the alleviation of chronic fatigue syndrome. Unfortunately, that means there's no conclusion to share just now, but here's something I did find from a recent journal review: Note that this review only looks at studies from China (who may have a national pride stake in acupuncture working) and none adhered to an RCT design (meaning patients were neither randomly assigned into groups or controlled appropriately). The authors reflect this in their conclusions. Note though, that the reported success rate in these studies is "78.95% to 100%". The old rule of thumb about "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is" springs to mind - But keeping an objective mind, this would appear superficially promising. To be 100% sure, proper studies would need to be performed that both randomised the patients in to groups and made sure half of them received fake treatment. If, under those conditions, they still got such high success then everyone would be on to a winner. At the moment, all the studies they review are just comparing doing something to doing nothing, which can't tell us if the treatment is anything more than placebo...

Luckily not the kind that gets let loose anywhere near patients

I'd disagree, as many, many studies have been done upon a wide range of alternative therapies. As an example, here's the summary of the Cochrane report on the use of acupuncture as a means of helping people quit smoking (Spoiler: It doesn't): For that particular, specialised application of acupuncture they found 24 studies that have attempted to answer this particular question. Note, not all of the studies found were performed properly (which is a big problem), but this illustrates that studies are prevelent, are being performed by researchers and are also being analysed in some detail: It's not just a case of dismissively waving it away with a hand, and nor should it be. Again, these claims can and are being evaluated.

I think the important thing is that every treatment (alternative or not) is properly evaluated for how effective it is, otherwise anyone could claim anything and no-one would be able to refute it. The availability of acupuncture on the NHS is limited to specific treatments and is part based on successful political lobbying (hello, Prince Charles), part based on the available data suggesting it may be more effective than simply doing nothing. The jury is still out whether acupuncture works as claimed, or is just a special version of the placebo effect: In either case, doing something is better than doing nothing, but the latter calls in to question the method by which acupuncture supposedly works. One argument would be that as long as it's better doing something rather than nothing, then it doesn't matter if acupuncture works due to meridians and qi flow or if it works as nothing but a placebo. A counter-argument to this would be that if acupuncture is just a placebo, then it is not a treatment with any efficacy and to claim it is would be deceitful.

I agree with The TickingTime-Bomb as the more recent the evidence the more likely it is to be carried out to the highest scientific standards. For example, our understanding of the placebo effect and how it can impact poorly controlled trials is relatively recent to medicine - Older trials will most likely be subject to inappropriate controls that make it hard to work out what is a true effect and what is placebo. Just to be clear, I don't think we should recommend any treatment without evidence. That evidence should be gathered in the strongest, most robust way - But the ways in which we gather this evidence does not rely on the need to know the mechanism why a treatment works. For example, acupuncture is claimed to work due to insertion of needles into certain regions (meridians) that are specific to the ailments presented. We don't need to know how (or indeed, if) meridians work to understand that a good control would be to insert needles in to regions that weren't specific. We could then compare how well the two groups did, and make some observation on how effective the treatment was.

Well, you have to look at the quality of the evidence: When I talk about evidence-based medicine I'm pretty much referring to the way in which current clinical data is gathered via carefully controlled trials. The thousands of years evidence for TCM is pretty much all anecdotal evidence, testimonials and such. This isn't to say that there can't be truth in these testimonials, but they're not scientific evidence. If any TCM treatments work, then they can be tested used the principles of evidence-based medicine (proper controls, randomised groups, 'blinding' so patients and doctors don't know what treatment they're giving etc) and solid evidence gained without needing to understand the mechanism behind the effect.