Maintained by Seed's editors, web editors, and the other people who make Seed tick, Page 3.14 points you in the direction of some of ScienceBlogs' finest offerings, plus the tastiest tidbits of science news and opinion from around the web.
In this post: the large versions of the Education & Careers and Politics channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week.
Reader comments of the week:
On the Education & Careers channel, DrugMonkey shares his thoughts on a subject that's drawn a lot of recent controversy, in Animals in Research: IACUC Oversight. While the IACUC as a body has the legal responsibility of overseeing animal welfare in research institutions, DrugMonkey insists that each and every person who works with animals is also ethically obligated to report incidents of negligent or cruel animal treatment.
Reader Isis the Scientist appreciated his message:
rugMonkey, I have been humbled a bit this week. A few weeks ago I posted about what a pain it was to have to go through all of thee animal welfare classes. I have always considered myself to be a careful animal user and felt like I was being hassled.Then this past week I spent some time with some graduate student who are not my own and found myself stepping in on a number of occasions to correct them in their handling and euthanasia technique. These kids weren't bad folks...they just didn't know better. It really reminded me that what I take for granted in my own practice is not necessarily standard and the only way we can guarantee the ethical treatment of animals is to keep educating everyone. At at that point I told myself, "Dr. Isis, stop complianing about IACUC school." I think I will be a more eager advocate...and perhaps this warrants a blog post.
On the Politics channel, Ed Brayton takes issue with John McCain's Political Chutzpah. The presidential nominee's negative campaign ads criticize Barack Obama for his supposed "celebrity" and try to paint McCain as the humbler candidate, but Ed points out the ads' hyprocrisy:
Put out by a man whose net worth is more than $20 million and who owns 8 homes, which is about 20 times that of the opponent he is attacking. Gee, times are sure tough for McCain.
Reader Michael is more concerned as to why Obama's popularity is depicted as a negative in the first place:
Well, since popularity is now a very bad thing, I think that means that our current President is currently the GREATEST EVER due to his historic unpopularity. What a guy!
Some other Education & Careers posts we thought were cool this week were:
Incentives for future science teachers?
PBS: The Most Trusted Source in Science?
Disharmonic convergences: Home Chemistry Hobbyist Shut Down in Massachusetts.
And from the Politics channel:
So bad only he can change a lifelong political orientation
The Need For Scientific Study of Doping
Things we're apparently tired of
Should This Blog Boycott the Olympics?
Look for highlights from other channels coming up!
Education & Careers
Politics
Comments
"DrugMonkey insists that each and every person who works with animals is also ethically obligated to report incidents of negligent or cruel animal treatment"
Well, duh. Everyone, in or out of a lab, is ethically *and legally* obligated to report such, for exactly the same reson that you are also obligated to report it if you watch a mugging or a carjacking: not doing so makes you an accessory after the fact.
In general, every person in a civilised society is obliged to uphold the law as far as they are able, and that ceratinly means - at the very least - reporting it when you see something illegal take place.
There's nothing about this that's specific to animal research.
Posted by: Paul Murray | August 13, 2008 11:28 PM