Category: Idle
Shift the concept lightly, but things went more or less like this:
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060713.html
Which incidentally betokens that, in spite of such examples of amazing stupidity as
the Johnny Hart one Pharyngula unearthed, the comics world can still produce something to please scientists and other brain users. Amen to that.
Posted by Dr. X at 04:52 PM •
Category: Meta
A few guidelines for those who wish to see their comments published on this blog; silent readers need not bother with the following.
Read on »
Posted by Dr. X at 04:00 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Inpharmy
Being in Copenhagen a while ago, I happened to read an interview to Reninhardt Møbjerg Kristensen, one of the most brilliant zoologists of the 20th century; as is the case with most zoologists, brilliant or not, very few people have heard his name. The piece dealt mostly with marine invertebrates, a subject I personally find fascinating (as you might have inferred from my previous post), but which I imagine would knock most of my readers down within two-three lines. Anyhow, something that illustrious scientist said struck me, and not in a good way. Here it is:
[the disappearance of rainforests]
is destroying many forms of life, including plants that could be useful to the pharmaceutical industry.
This is a very sad statement; not so much because of its subject, but because it betokens the humiliation of science in front of the selfish morons which constitute the common public. It seems that the only way people can understand why biodiversity oughtn't to be massacred is the possibility that it will give pharmaceutical companies a chance to find a better cure for haemorrhoids. Well, as you will see many times in this blog in the future, counting on pharmaceutical companies for anything good, including saving rainforests, is a truly foolish idea. Here are a couple of reasons why:
Read on »
Posted by Dr. X at 10:21 AM • 4 Comments
Category: Idle
Namely:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
There is little doubt in my mind I'd pursue biology–the multicellular kind, possibly specialising in entomology (an idea that I actually considered before enrolling in my chem. eng. masters program). There are two main reasons for this:
- Thanks to DNA analysis, zoology (as well as botany and so forth) is finally distancing itself from its semi-artistic descriptive nature, something that still in 1990, when I had to choose the course of my studies, weighed on it like a pall for the more mathematically oriented among us.
- Within one generation, the rainforests will be reduced to a handful of square kilometres of tourist attractions; this means perhaps a 90% loss in terrestrial biodiversity--possibly much more. It is a last opportunity to study a world doomed by cheap hardwood and Brazilian beef; all other fields of science will still be there for the next generation. Assuming scientist won't be burnt at the stake by then, of course.
Posted by Dr. X at 05:00 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Meta
My honourable colleagues, my possibly cantankerous readers, hello to you. I am at this point trying to figure out the system, so bear with the somewhat minimalistic style of this page; in a couple of days, I count on being able to spoon out a sensible layout, sensible content or, possibly, both.
For the time being, bear with me; my archives are at
www.chemblog.hotserv.dk, and you can refer to that site for the next couple of days.
Posted by ScienceBlogs Admin at 05:47 PM • 1 Comments