(Photo: Blogger)

Homeopathy, an alternative form of medicine employed by free-spirited aunts everywhere, has just made a very potent enemy. On his newly-minted Quora blog, Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales voiced his disapproval for the method, which has been systematically proven to be an ineffective pseudoscience.

While suffering from a cold, Mr. Wales asked a pharmacist in London to suggest a remedy. The pharmacist suggested Oscillococcinum, a French homeopathic remedy that he claimed would "disrupt the DNA of the virus before it could make [him] ill." Unfortunately for this poor pharmacist, he had no idea who he was talking to.

Mr. Wales politely declined the recommendation and instead purchased some cough drops. But his hatred for homeopathy was reignited.

The flu, Mr. Wales argues, is a dangerous virus that kills people every year, and yet some people may eschew a life-saving vaccine in order to take homeopathic remedies that are falsely marketed as being effective. "What I want to know is this: why is this legal?" Mr. Wales wondered. "Or, if it is not legal, then what can be done about it?"

Since the Wikipedia cofounder is a little busy at the moment, he asked who he should contact to help fight the good fight against homeopathy. "This is not my primary area of interest and so I am not the right person to lead it myself," he wrote. "But I would like to help."

Mr. Wales is not alone: Many technologists, scientists, Singulatarians and skeptics have also voiced their anti-homeopathy stance. Last year, Singularity University's VP of academics Vivek Wadha came under fire for allegedly spreading the dark art of "pseudoscience" when he let a homeopath speak to students.

(h/t Carl Franzen)

He's having a nightmare about letting the gazelle get away. Again. (Photo: flickr.com/wwarby

Dreams are serious business. That's the contention of this Forbes article, which attributes almost Jungian importance to our nightly mental wanderings.

The piece cites Layne Dalfen, who runs Montreal's Dream Interpretation Center, who says that “Recurring dreams and nightmares happen because your subconscious is trying to get your attention." Those messages, however, might require a little decoding:

Dalfen says there are five entry points to interpreting a dream, which can in turn help you understand and resolve the real-world issue: feelings, symbols, word play, plot and actions. If you feel panicked in a dream, ask yourself what’s making you anxious in your life. If there’s a distinct item, character or color that stands out, consider what significance it holds to you symbolically.

So, for example, if you dream that you've decided to take a three-day weekend to compete in a Hunger Games-style survivalist competition: A) Throttle back on the all-night programming and B) quit volunteering for office juice fasts. If you're having nightmares about being trapped in an office that also looks like an orchard of animate orange trees, pelting you with fruit: Stop getting involved in Hacker News flamewars.

However, we're a little skeptical of some of these interpretations. For example, does a dream about sleeping with a coworker really mean this:

If it’s a coworker that you’re not attracted to, Loewenberg believes it represents knowing that you need to unite with them on a project or goal, or that you want to take on a skill or personality trait they possess. Alternately, if it’s a boss, Ian Wallace, a psychologist and author of The Top 100 Dreams, says it may symbolize a subconscious recognition that you have a big idea, and you’re trying to give yourself the power to act on it.

Or it could just mean you want to sleep with your coworker.