Raymond Tallis trashtalks some "Neurotrash"
Category: Culture of science
Ray Tallis takes to those who paint all things neuro.
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:03 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neuron Culture
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
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I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.)
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years. Oliver Sacks found Reef Madness "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." Check it out.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
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Recent Posts
- Best blog post title of the day: "I will suck your gruyere"
- Roz Chast's "finite filing cabinet model" of memory confirmed
- The Neurocritic: Genomarketing!
- Senator Asks Pentagon To Review Antidepressants
- Raymond Tallis trashtalks some "Neurotrash"
- I'm not vulnerable, just especially plastic. Risk genes, environment, and evolution, in the Atlantic
- Fallows on the Fort Hood shootings: "Don't mean nothing."
- Gorgeous thing of the day: Sky's-eye view of the Maldives & other islands
- "The male approaches with his thumbs (like the Fonz) and mounts the female (like the Fonz.)"
- Quick dip: Healthcare reform, conflicted profs, and the vaccine shortage
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- Tsutsugamushi on Roz Chast's "finite filing cabinet model" of memory confirmed
- Polonius on Roz Chast's "finite filing cabinet model" of memory confirmed
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Culture of science:
Gorgeous thing of the day: Sky's-eye view of the Maldives & other islands
Category: Culture of science
It was in this unique archipelago that Alexander Agassiz found the evidence he felt proved beyond doubt that Darwin's theory of coral reef formation was wrong, dead wrong.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Still hope for writers everywhere: Robots take over sports desk - but need writer to write lede.
Category: Brains and minds
A robot writes a sports story -- but misses the lede. Still working on the forest/trees thing
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:20 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The importance of stupidity in scientific research (and in writing), by Randy Burgess
Category: Brains and minds
"Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time." This goes for writing too.
Posted by David Dobbs at 5:44 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The flu, Donald Fagan, Dana Blankenhorn, and the fellow in the brite nightgown
Category: Medicine
W.C. Fields (above) famously called death the “fellow in the brite nightgown.” A few years ago Donald Fagan turned this into a catchy song. To those unconcerned about H1N1 feel free to hum it on your way out the door, when said fellow gives you the victory hug.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Charlie Houston, mountaineer, doctor, scientist, ends a great life at 96
Category: Culture of science
He walked away from it cold, and went on to live a rich, fulfilling life. He and Moyers talk about something else for a bit. And then Moyers returns to the climb, "I know you did so much else, but I want want to return to that K2 climb again...," says Moyer. And Houston says, "The best thing I ever did."
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:20 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neuron Culture's Top Ten from September
Category: Brains and minds
That post reported the news (via FiercePharma) that Pfizer had tucked away in its financial disclosure forms a $2.3 billion charge to end the federal investigation into allegations of off-label promotions of its Cox-2 painkillers, including Bextra. ... Because my post was was one of the few things already on the interwebz before Justice held its news conference, the Google rush shot it toward the top of the search results.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Weird History of Vaccine Adjuvants
Category: Culture of science
There were a myriad of choices (for animals; in the US and Canada there's only one adjuvant, alum, that's licensed for humans), and they all mostly worked, and sometimes one worked better and sometimes another worked better, or differently; but there was no understanding of how, or why. ... While a few new adjuvants are coming online (most notably MF59 , the adjuvant used in seasonal flu vaccines in the EU, as well as in many of the swine-flu vaccines now being made), the most common adjuvant for human vaccines remains alum, and alum is, at this point, the only adjuvant approved for use in the U.S.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:17 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Embargo? Embargo? The case of the missing swine flu paper
Category: Culture of science
This shouldn't be something that flu experts feel compelled to discuss sotto voce. If the journal has good reasons to sit on the paper for now, it should declare them. If not, it should get the paper out in the open so the data and findings can be examined and vetted openly.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:58 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Misdiagnosing the live and the dead
Category: Culture of science
Hard to accept that doctors miss things. They always will. The shame is that they so often miss things and then bury the mistakes -- as they do now about 10-15% of the time.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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