Month: September 2017

Enlarge / The Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences will include a new building housing state-of-the-art technology and labs – forming the foundation for a national showcase for integrative health. (credit: University of California, Irvine)

University of California, Irvine—a school long known for embracing “alternative medicine”—has undergone a potent detox: the clinical arm of the institution quietly flushed homeopathy from its online list of medical services, the Los Angeles Times first reported.

The hushed cleanse comes within days of the medical school announcing a new health program dedicated to “integrative medicine,” which embraces a combination of conventional and alternative treatments, including homeopathy. The announcement was met with swift and biting criticism from health experts and medical professionals. Those critics warn that the move could help unproven, potentially dangerous, and blatantly bogus remedies continue to slink into patient care.

The homeopathic dump may ease some of that criticism. But the school still boasts a lengthy menu of other questionable therapies, such as detoxification (which is only truly useful if you have been poisoned or have liver and/or kidney failure) and cupping (which is backed by little evidence). And the removal of homeopathy may anger key donors—billionaires Susan and Henry Samueli.

Enlarge / Ars Creative Director Aurich Lawson is looking for $15k apiece to have these Ars authors' faces removed from this group mug shot. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Websites that publish mug shots and charge for their removal have defeated one lawsuit after the other, claiming First Amendment protection. But that defense to this shady industry may be about to burst. That's because a federal judge, ruling on a lawsuit by several arrestees suing Mughshots.com, just approved a novel class-action. It's one that takes legal advantage of the site's practice of displaying advertising links to paid removal services that the lawsuit claims are owned by Mugshots.com.

US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman of Chicago didn't go so far as to say this vile practice amounted to extortion, as alleged. Instead, she ruled (PDF) that this likely amounted to a violation of the arrestees' right of publicity because the site was using the mug shots as actual advertisements for the paid removal service.

As pleaded, the use of the arrest photos and records in conjunction with what appear in the complaint as buttons linking to a removal service are reasonably construed as proposing a commercial transaction. The First Amended Complaint alleges that the profiles on Mugshots.com contained links stating "Unpublish Mugshot," in bold typeface at the top of every page and additional links also in large bold red typeface stating "Click Here for Unpublishing or Call 1-800-810-3965". Visitors that click on the links are taken directly to a checkout page, offering removal services for a fee. On these facts, the arrest photos and records coupled with clear invitation to removal create the appearance that they operate in concert to sell the removal service and generate revenue. Defendants’ assertion that Mugshots.com and the removal service at Unpublisharrest.com are completely separate is belied by the structure of the Mugshots.com site and the corporate structure alleged in the complaint. As described in the complaint, the arrest profiles are designed to coerce plaintiffs to pay for removal.

And here's the kicker:

Enlarge

Today, a huge scientific team announced that humanity has added a third gravitational wave detector to its arsenal. And, only two weeks after Europe's VIRGO detector joined forces with the two LIGO detectors, the three combined to pick up a new black hole merger. While the three have worked together for less than a month so far, there are plans for a substantial observation run next autumn.

Waves in space

Gravitational waves are produced as two massive objects spiral inward toward a collision. Once they get close enough, their rapid circling distorts space itself, sending gravitational waves rippling out. Immediately after their collision, the object formed by their merger vibrates like a bell, briefly producing a different pattern of waves. These ripples in space will alternately expand and contract the distance between two objects by an infinitesimal amount—but one sufficient for our most sensitive instruments to pick up.

The new event, GW170814, is similar to the ones detected earlier. It involves stellar-mass black holes, 31 and 25 times the mass of the Sun. Those are heavier than theoretical work indicates should be possible to form through the collapse of stars. This suggests that either these were formed through earlier mergers or some alternate route of formation exists. The resulting black hole is 53 times our Sun's mass. The missing material—three solar masses' worth of black hole—was converted to energy in the form of gravitational waves. The event occurred about 1.8 billion light years away, though, so don't be surprised that you didn't notice anything.