This is the latest in a long line of rather outrageous TV ads. One has even been bad for being a bad influence on children. A fairly complete archive can be found at http://www.tango.tv/tango/area02/adhome.asp.

A much more reliable paper is the Guardain. They too covered the release of the book, but instead of cribbing from the press release they actually wrote an article.

They wired up two of thier own correspondants to count the number of words they uttered in a day. They even picked a loquatious woman and a terse man. The final figures were the man talked less than 900 words fewer than the woman. And even on a very chatty day they woman only managed about 14 000 words. As always there are much larger variations between members of the same gender then between the genders themselves.

Read for yourself at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1957827,00.html

The challenge with "alternative" therapies is not that there are inherent problems with relying on the Placebo effect but what it may take to induce it. With evidence based medicine there is indeed some placebo effect but there is also substantial chemical effect that does not rely on belief.

For "alternative" therapies there is an absolute reliance on placebo, which is induced by the practitioner either deluding themselves or deluding the patient. Either the practitioner believes that something works when it does not or they know it does not work but they tell the patient that is does. So there can be no placebo effect without dishonesty which in my mind make for bad medicine

It just goes to show you can't be too careful!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/15/online-feedback-public-sector