More interesting topics I didn't mention here this week.
Over at Effect Measure is an excellent post discussing a topic I've touched on here mainly just in the comments section: diagnostic testing (and the pitfalls thereof).
Alex depresses me regarding NIH funding stats, but unlike many of us who just grouse about it, he has some interesting suggestions about ways to actually deal with it in the long-term.
DarkSyde interviews physicist Sean Carroll (of Cosmic Variance, discussing the "Big Bang," dark matter, dark energy, and string theory.
Forensics for jr. high and high-schoolers as a way to teach various scientific concepts. Interesting idea.
Since I'm on a spider kick anyway this week, afarensis mentions the new report of an ancientspiderweb trapped in amber from about 110 million years ago. He also has a freakin' adorable lemur picture.
Carl Zimmer's new article on Toxoplasma in the New York Times.
More Ann Coulter bashing--one problem with biology, according to Coulter, is that there's just so many of them silly wimmin in biology!
Gah.
Orac has a bit more history on Mark Geier, the father part of the father-son team who've worked to push the thimerosal-autism link (with dubious science).
And as you've probably read somewhere by now, Harriet died. 176 years ain't a bad haul, I suppose.
Finally, don't forget that Seed is always looking for more Ask a Scienceblogger questions. If you have something you'd like to see kicked around here by the various bloggers, drop the editors a line: askablogger AT seedmediagroup.com.
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Thank you. You are not the only one on the spider kick this week, though. Search SB for "spider"....
A couple of anecdotes about Harriet the tortoise, who spent her final years under the care of Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin:
It wasn't until she was over 150 years old (in the mid-80's) that it was determined that she was a "she". Until then, "he" was not Harriet, but "Harry".
Last year, when she was 175, there were a number of articles about her. They were raving about how great her health was and that she may well live to be 200. Guess they jinxed her.
She was supposedly brought back to England by Charles Darwin and the age would make the story believable but modern science disproved the story. She was genetically traced to one of the islands Darwin never visited.