PDA

View Full Version : Somatids - what are they?

icerat
27th May 2009, 01:48 PM
There's a theory around that's been around for years that some diseases like cancer may be caused by small living organisms, significantly smaller than a cell and dubbed "somatids (http://www.cam.org/~rsilver/somatid.htm)".

As far as I know there's no research at all to back this up, but while trying to find out more about the theory I came across the following video on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py-hutc5ZNM

It seems theyr'e suggesting the little dots jiggling around the cells are these "somatids". I was just wondering if some of the brilliant folk here could tell me what it is they actually are? Dust on the microscope? Proteins? Viruses? Mycoplasma?

Illumination would be appreciated ....

PS Can a moderator fix the typo in the thread title please? No apostrophe of course ...
Goshawk
27th May 2009, 02:05 PM
Dunno what the thingies are, but here's Quackwatch on 714X. (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/714x.html)
icerat
27th May 2009, 02:13 PM
Yeah, read most of that already. Just curious what the thingies were :)
CapelDodger
27th May 2009, 04:26 PM
Yeah, read most of that already. Just curious what the thingies were :)

A prop in a scam :).
jasonpatterson
27th May 2009, 08:36 PM
As you've noted, the idea is pretty badly messed up.

Assuming the somatoscope is actually poorly done darkfield imaging (it most certainly is not 30,000x imaging, or we would see an RBC that was apparently 24 cm across through it,) and not a cartoon, some narrowing of the scope of what the dots are can be made.

From their size relative to red blood cells (at about 3:00) it seems likely that they are either sperm that are out of the plane of focus or, more likely, motile bacteria. The heads of sperm are a little too big for this, but it would totally fit the M.O. of the fraud they are trying to pull off.

It's not too hard to imagine that those white specks are these guys swimming...
7kM_kRPrcrk
icerat
28th May 2009, 03:15 AM
A motile bacteria clip looks remarkably familiar .... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzoow-v8CM

btw, how do you insert youtube clips here on jref?
jasonpatterson
28th May 2009, 05:48 AM
Bah, I liked the sperm idea, but you're right, it probably is bacteria. They were a better bet just due to their size, if nothing else.

I just learned the other day how to insert youtube videos, you use the YT tag
{YT}Py-hutc5ZNM{/YT} for your original clip. The {} brackets are replaced with the [ brackets (Braces, brackets??? It's a mystery.)