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Fool born every minute? Lesley Stahl's shameful piece on Kanzius.

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Of the Lesley Stahl interview of John Kanzius on "60 Minutes" on 13 April, a poster at Free Republic wrote:

For John Kanzius it began with a simple idea, some pots and pans and even a hot dog! Now, the Kanzius machine, which generates radio waves, has developed into a possible breakthrough in cancer research. Clinical trials on humans are still years away, but as Lesley Stahl reports, the results thus far have caught the attention of cancer researchers across the country.

Another wrote:

This fascinating segment was on last night. It shows what great things can result when man's creativity and entreprenurial spirit is allowed to flourish. Although it is now receiving research funding, Mr. Kanzius came up with the idea for his machine on his own and used his own funds to develop it because he believed in it and saw it as a means to fill a need in his own life.

Of the "60 Minutes" segment on Kanzius injecting "metallic" copper sulfate into the hot dog otherwise stuck with a thermocouple, these folks, and Lesley Stahl, need to go back to high school to learn

#1. copper sulfate is NOT a metal; it is a salt.
#2. a thermocouple is a metal
#3. hot dogs contain salts

See earlier IPBiz post which included:

One IPBiz commenter wrote of the IPBiz post, and CBS videoclip-->

A) they openly say "radio waves heat metal" I agree
B) They inject copper sulfate (NOT A METAL, but a salt solution,
which
MAY heat up a tad).
C) They then stick in a thermocouple (two METAL wires) into the area
with copper sulfate...hit it with radiowaves, and Voila, heat! (ie,
they heated up the thermocouple!!! Not the copper sulfate.)

D) He then takes the thermocouple, and sticks it into another part of

hot dog (cold), and sure enough, the temperature drops!!!

The real test was to heat the copper sulfate region in radiowaves, AND
THEN INSERT THE THERMOCOUPLE to see if the temperature went up. But
no,
he put the thermocouple in the hot dog in the first place!

Full post as published by IPBiz on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).