The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, now closed, contained over 250 items. Some of these are now on display at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul.

Here are three devices from the collection.

The Battle Creek Vibratory Chair:


http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/k-chair.htm




This is from around 1900, and was created at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, directed by Dr. John Kellogg, of Corn Flakes fame. It was designed to stimulate intestinal peristalsis, and cure back pain and headaches. it looks about as comfortable as an electric chair.

The Radium Ore Revigitator:


http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/revig.htm


From 1925, the idea behind this was many health problems stemmed from "denatured' water lacking an essential ingredient : radioactivity! A little radium was the ingredient needed to keep you healthy. Um, not exactly.


Here is another painful looking device, the Prostate Gland Warmer, "designed to stimulate the abdominal brain".




http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/images/1918lg.jpg


Here is Bob McCoy, curator of the museum, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1998)



Many more videos can be found at the museum's You Tube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MuseumofQuackery

A tribute to William Safire

William Safire, the political columnist, presidential speechwriter, novelist, and arbiter of language died today. I thought I would do a brief tribute here.

Although I strongly disagreed with his politics, I always saw him as a charming , interesting ,and decent guy. I loved his "On Language' Column for the New York Times. How could you not like someone who managed to come up with the phrase "nattering nabobs of negativism", albeit for Spiro Agnew.

I talked briefly on the phone with him several years ago, pretty much by mistake. I ran across something I thought he might be interested in for his language column. I called the New York Times re where to send it. They put me through directly to Safire. I apologized, and said I didn't mean to bother him. He laughed and told me where to send my information.

Here is the obituary from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/us/28safire.html


A column discussing the origin of my favorite term from the financial crisis: "zombie banks".

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17wwln-safire-t.html

One of the most interesting speeches Safire wrote,which fortunately never had to be delivered, was a "what-if" speech for President Nixon, , in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to be abandoned on the moon after the first lunar landing.

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2007/11/10/in-event-of-moon-disaster/

Pet cats in Neolithic Cyprus

All house cats are descended from one of five females of the wild species Felis silvesteris lybica, which originated in the Middle East. cats likely first became domesticated as they moved into human settlements, and were efficient at rodent control in homes, and in fields of wheat. and barley. There's no indication that a "Tweety" bird accompanied Felis Sylvesteris:).


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/science/29cat.html

The origin of the domestication of cats goes back far beyond ancient Egypt. A grave where a human and cat were buried together that dates back 9500 years was discovered on Cyprus in 2001 in the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos. Cats are not native to Cyprus but appear to have been brought to the island about this time, as were pigs, goats , deer and cattle. Cats likely served a dual function; as pets and as a means of rodent control. It's clear that cats did have a special meaning, due to the proximity of cat and human in the grave. The grave also contained a number of ceremonial offerings, such as ochre and seashells.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0408_040408_oldestpetcat.html


Here is the grave.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3611453.stm

Here is a recent video of cats in Cyprus.

Some 1950's film trailers

This post was inspired by Steven Hill's great"Movie Screens Title Page".He has asked that images not be directly linked to, but I would encourage everyone to check the images for the film title pages in this post, and other images on his site.

http://shillpages.com/movies/index2.shtml

Here are trailers for three 1950's Technicolor films.











Be sure to check out the great title page for the 1954 black and white version of "Them".

Bhutan and unusual stamps

I was working on this post when I heard news about today's strong earthquake in the beautiful, remote country of Bhutan, located in the Himalayas.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/21/bhutan.quake/

Bhutan, as many very small countries do, derives significant income from the sale of postage stamps. Many of these stamps are highly unusual, and intended for collectors rather then for use.

Here are some record stamps from Bhutan, at the Internet Museum of Flexi/Cardboard/Oddity records:

You can listen to a couple record stamps here:

http://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/onebhut.html

Last year Bhutan began a series of CD-ROM stamps:


http://shitalphilately.blogspot.com/2008/02/worlds-first-cd-rom-postage-stamp.html


Here are two interesting and unusual stamps from the "Stamps of Distinction" blog.


This stamp actually has finely pulverized pieces of the Rock of Gibraltar in it.



This Austrian stamp contains .003 grams of meteorite dust.

http://www.stampsofdistinction.com/2008/06/8-of-worlds-most-unusual-postage-stamps.html

Quantum computers

This is the first of at least two posts relating to quantum mechanics.

Although quantum mechanics, is weird , extremely abstract, and difficult, it does relate to the everyday world in some ways. One of these concerns the development of quantum computers. Practical quantum computers are still a couple of decades away however.

Standard computers are limited in the amount of data they can hold and transmit. Each binary bit is either a zero or one. In quantum mechanics, the principle of superposition holds that for very small particles under certain conditions, multiple states or positions coexist. Therefore a quantum bit or "qbit" can have the states zero and one at the same time. This allows for an exponential increase in computing power. The technology has developed to the point where a 16 qbit computer has been developed.

Here's a good introductory article on quantum computers:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer1.htm

An introductory video on quantum computers from Scientific American:



Another interesting video on quantum computers:



Quantum computers will be useful for solving problems that are well beyond the reach of standard computers. This has advantages and disadvantages, one disadvantage being is that current encryption systems, which cannot be broken by standard computers, could potentially be broken by quantum computers.

One function that quantum computers will be very helpful with is searching through large, complex, databases. Here is a demonstration of a 16 qbit computer searching for complex molecular information in a database.

Some great images from Flickr

One of my favorite websites is PCL Link Dump.

http://easydreamer.blogspot.com/

There are great new links there every time I check it out. It's where I found a link to Steve Chasmar's Flickr page>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opiummuseum/

Here are a few great images from his photostream:

An anti-opium illustration from China, circa 1930

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opiummuseum/3653674430/in/set-72157601035562361/




RSROA is the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/opiummuseum/3524130545/in/set-72157601032697276/


From Burma:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opiummuseum/1413743652/in/set-72157606864662128/


and my favorite:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opiummuseum/3703499622/