I saw an episode of Good Eats (Alton Brown, food nerd extrordinaire!! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />), in which he scientifically 'proved' that searing has absolutely no effect on the amount of juices in meat. I still do it though, as I think it looks a lot better when you do..