Oh that this too, too solid liquidâŠ
IF YOU want to buy some âliquidâ zeolite, the place to look, David Compton discovered, is , where bottles of the stuff can be bought for as little as âŹ20 each.
Zeolite, the website tells us, is ânatureâs detoxifier [which] protects you by actively removing the heavy metals and toxins from your body!â And itâs â100 per cent organic and naturalâ.
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This all sounds a bit unlikely to us, and sure enough the word âquantumâ â one of our surefire indicators of fruitloopery â pops up in the âWhat is Zeolite?â section: âThrough a natural, proprietary process, concentrated quantum humic acid molecules have ânaturally digestedâ the zeolite, holding it in permanent suspension⊠Because the humic acid in liquid zeolite is in quantum, interdimensional form, and because the zeolite is actually suspended in the humic molecules, 100 per cent of liquid zeolite is carried into the cellsâŠâ And so on â thereâs lots more. Hands up anyone who can tell us what âquantum, interdimensional formâ is.
David is unimpressed. He points out that none of the many zeolite minerals known are organic and that they are all solids, not liquids â and will remain so even if they are held in suspension. âHow they could remove heavy metals from the body when consumed is a mystery,â he says. âThe zeolite will stay in the gut and be excreted, so will have no contact with the bloodstream.â
To which we canât help but add: if, by some route hitherto unknown to science, the zeolite does get âinto the cellsâ, it will release toxic aluminium ions there. This can hardly be described as detoxifying.
FEEDBACKâs reference to the kiloSteve, a proposed unit in the sociology of science prompted by the news that 1000 scientists called Steve, or variations thereof, had declared their support for evolution (28 February 2009) led Hal Kouns to recall an earlier unit of belief.
Apparently, colleagues of the physicist Robert Millikan â he of the classic oil-drop experiment to measure the charge on the electron â were inspired to create a unit to measure self-belief. Observing Millikanâs robust sense of his own worth, they concluded that the fundamental unit should be called the Kan. But since this is too large for computations involving more modest mortals, the practical unit we would measure our sense of our importance with would be the milliKan.
One of the worldâs biggest eco-mistakes
ESCAPING from an electronics show in Las Vegas recently, a colleague of ours was able to explore one of the worldâs biggest eco-mistakes. The Salton Sea is 1000 square kilometres of inland lake, created when the Colorado river flooded a southern Californian desert valley in 1905. In the 1950s, the âseaâ was promoted as a Riviera-type resort, close to the luxurious golf courses of Palm Springs and an ideal weekend escape from Hollywood. In addition, thanks to lobbying by the late pop star-turned-politician Sonny Bono, the sea was made a nature reserve for huge flocks of migrating ducks and geese.
Unfortunately, evaporation and fertiliser run-off from the surrounding farmland have made the Salton Sea far more salty than the Pacific Ocean. On top of that, algal blooms periodically cause oxygen levels in the lake to plummet, leading to the mass deaths of huge numbers of tilapia fish that breed there. Soon after, the shore stinks to high heaven, which drives people out of the decaying holiday towns built by âRivieraâ speculators.
Politicians are now engaged in fierce debate over whether the federal government should spend a fortune on freshwater irrigation to save the sea and its ghost towns, or cut its losses and let the desert reclaim the valley.
Linda York, who runs a local wildfowl rescue centre, has an uncomfortable thought about the latter option. She told our colleague that it would cause the birds to fly on to Palm Springs, where they would spot the lovely green golf courses there and bury them under a mountain of droppings after eating all the grass. âAnd because most of the birds are protected species, no one will be able to do a darn thing to stop the destruction.â
A LIFE insurance advertisement that Elizabeth Cox came across in the UK magazine Radio Times extolled the policy it was promoting thus: âThe full death benefit is payable after just one year. If you pass away within the first 12 months you may only get back the premiums you paid.â
âThe scissors Richard Briggs bought from Amazon came in a pack carrying the message: âTo remove scissors from pack, carefully cut cable tie using scissorsâ
âAnd there was I thinking my relatives would get it,â says Elizabeth sadly.
What is an amateur fatalist centre?
HOLIDAYING in Sarawak, Borneo, Jenny Narraway was puzzled by a sign announcing: âAmateur fatalist centreâ. Her mental picture of a group of gloomy people sitting around sighing in an unprofessional manner was only partly dispelled when enquiries among Chinese acquaintances produced the information that it was âsomething to do with feng shui and fortune-tellingâ.
