Magnets and wine revisited

I've just had a couple of news pieces on the magnets and wine story published: a short one in Decanter and a longer one in Harpers (you'll need to be a subscriber to access this one).

I've also tried the BevWizard (pictured) at home, and I'm ashamed to say that my palate must be pretty bad because I couldn't spot any difference between the treated and untreated wines. David Bird MW and I have been discussing arranging a controlled, blind tasting of the device. I'll keep you posted. Some time next week I'll also be publishing a longer article on the subject on this site.

Some further reading: Ben Goldacre's take on another wine magnet device is here. There's a copy of the very funny Rubin et at study here.

Bad science

I encourage you to read Ben Oldacre's Bad science column in The Guardian today. It discusses the fact that TV diet guru Gillian McKeith has been forced to stop using the title 'Dr', which she obtained on the basis of a qualification gained by correspondence course from a non-accredited American college. 'Is it petty to take pleasure in this?' asks Oldacre. 'No. McKeith is a menace to the public understanding of science.' Diet is an area where good science is rare and bad science often goes unchallenged.

Talking of bad science, I've now taken delivery of my Bev Wizard Wine Enhancer! More on this later.