Interesting Articles: Oct 25th-31st 2005

* Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up (New York Times). A neat story about the difference between (parents') perceptions about how technology effects social behavior versus the reality of it.
* For Some College Graduates, a Fanciful Detour (or Two) Before Their Careers Begin (New York Times). What can I say? A detour seems like fun; maybe I should've done one. (I don't know what I would've done at that time, though...)
* Some Uncomfortable Findings for Wal-Mart (Business Week). A brief synopsis of the results of an academic conference devoted simply to studying the effects of Wal-Mart.
* Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News (New York Times). A nice review of The Daily Show's spin-off, The Colbert Report. It's a decent show, much of it a parody of Fox News and the O'Reilly Factor. I really enjoy the feature "The Word" and the textual commentary that accompanies it. And although Colbert gets good guests, the interviews seem forced, as if he's simultaneously trying to do a good interview while staying in character.
* Benched Science (Science News). The article summarizes a fact I hadn't realized, that judges in the last decade have gained increasing discretion on what types of scientific evidence (expert testimony) to admit into court.
* Vitamin C may treat cancer after all (Science News). Vitamin C has a storied history. First people proclaim it helps fight colds and other diseases. Then people show it doesn't, at least with some diseases or some ways of taking it or in some dosages. Then more people proclaim it does. And so on. This Science News article describes some fairly solid evidence that taking Vitamin C intravenously may help fight cancer. If you can't read the article, glance at the abstract of the original report, Pharmacologic ascorbic acid concentrations selectively kill cancer cells (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Note that one cannot achieve this blood level of Vitamin C simply by oral supplements.
* EFF reveals codes in Xerox printers (Associated Press via Information Week). Troubling. (Actually, I'm more bothered by the lack of disclosure that they do this than the fact that they do it.)