mikethemadbiologist

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Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.

Posts by this author

June 15, 2011
Links for you. Science: E. coli data released under Creative Commons 0 licenseIn Pictures: Spotting weedy seadragons of AustraliaBeavers get tough defending their turfAggregative plasmid - new E. coli genome from HPAAfter David Koch Leaves NIH Board, NIH Hands Down Long-Delayed Classification Of…
June 15, 2011
...but these are green shoots merely "bumps in the road." Or something. Brad DeLong posted a graph showing just how dismal the employment numbers are: as a percentage of population, employment has cratered. That's a much more revealing number as unemployment, especially the strict version ('U3…
June 14, 2011
Regarding the German outbreak strain of E. coli, the data are fairly clear: it is an enteroaggregative E. coli ('EAEC') which has acquired antibiotic resistance genes and a Shiga-like toxin from an Shiga-toxinogenic E. coli ('STEC'). EAEC are interesting--according to the European Food Safety…
June 13, 2011
What is the sun doing in the sky? Let's celebrate with some links. Science: Charity: Save Four Million Lives With VaccinesGrape-Sized Amoeba Raises Questions About Origins of Animal LifeRisk, probability, and how our brains are easily misledAn early cure for parents' vaccine panic Other: The…
June 13, 2011
Which for those of you who don't know what the Mad Biologist's Pentultimate Political Philosophy is, it's very simple: people have to like this crap. Recently, I upgraded to Firefox 4 and I've been having 'stability issues', although they seem to have decreased in frequency somewhat. Which…
June 13, 2011
Note that I said cranky, not mad. Mad is reserved for moral degenerates who cut funding to assist people with cerebral palsy. But cranky? Yes. Recently, I've come across a couple of papers that describe interesting collections of E. coli. For example, one paper isolated a bunch of E. coli from…
June 12, 2011
Dear rest of the East Coast, please stop hogging all of the heat wave. As a gesture of good faith, I'll share some links with you. Science: Advice for Grad StudentsGould's "Unconscious Manipulation of Data"NDM-1 in a US military hospital in AfghanistanRuling Favors a 10-Inch Citizen of France…
June 12, 2011
Nope. There must be something in the water in the mens' bathroom in the House of Representatives: Congressman Bill Young (R-FL), the second ranking Republican on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is in Italy this week on a congressional delegation. A funny thing happened to the female…
June 12, 2011
Peer review, the process in which scientific publication has to pass muster with critical reviewers, has a lot of problems. But a widely-cited report by McKinsey & Company consulting which claimed that Obamacare will result in one-third of companies dropping healthcare coverage for their…
June 11, 2011
Links for you. Science: The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and BiasOnce more unto the "government waste" breachAnnouncing The Batavia Open Genomic Data LicenceNo joke: This is the biggest battery breakthrough ever Other: Making workBeyond the Drug…
June 11, 2011
A constant refrain one hears when the deficit hawks let loose their piteous cries is that we are living beyond our means. Surely, our budget deficit and national debt are signs of that. Lord, for the sins which we have committed before thee... Or not so much. As I've discussed before, public…
June 10, 2011
Links for you. Science: Waffling over E. coli cause points to 'incompetence,' US expert says (Poor title that triggers anti-U.S. rage; EU public health people think its amateur hour too)How to Teach Physics Real GoodSome NIH grants should failPCR: A Revolutionary InventionSo Much More Than Plasma…
June 10, 2011
Here are some O104:H4 links. The E.coli O104:H4 Genome Analysis Crowdsourcing wiki is also a good source of the latest scientific information. Anyway, links: TGAC helps in crowd-sourcing analysis of E. coli strainPossible T6SS in EAEC 55989 is absent from TY2482 genome?STEC/EHEC outbreak -…
June 10, 2011
Erstwhile progressive and fan of educational reform, Matthew Yglesias, sets up this strawman: It's useful to have these two points juxtaposed together, because it helps isolate what the controversy is actually about. When people look at the idea that for-profit colleges shouldn't get taxpayer…
June 9, 2011
Stormy and hot today. Stay inside with some links. Science: Why are sore throats cultured, and why are antibiotics administeredNo fixed addressNSF requests for "conflicts of interest" lists drive me batty and seem to penalize collaborative, interdisciplinary researchersNIH funding rates drop to…
June 9, 2011
The economic malpractice by the Obama administration is shameful. A while ago, I argued that one of the few moves that Obama could make politically to jump start the economy would be a temporary elimination of the payroll tax for workers. This could increase consumer demand (although not nearly…
June 9, 2011
Or maybe wild-ass speculation. As the data continue to come in about the E. coli outbreak in Germany caused by E. coli O104:H4 HUSEC041 (well, everything but the public health and epidemiological data which are a contradictory, incoherent mess), it appears that one of the things that has made this…
June 8, 2011
It's a skorcha! Cool down with some nice refreshing links. Science: Cancer's New Era Of Promise And ChaosEAEC / STEC genomesThe PhD QuestionEAEC plasmids Other: This just in! The Very Serious People in Washington aren't the least bit serious...An Open Letter from Eugene Mirman to Time Warner…
June 8, 2011
Conservative commentator Dennis Prager has a nice little bigot eruption, brought to us by Thers at Whiskey Fire: It is hard to imagine a more demeaning statement about black America than labeling demands that all voters show a photo ID anti-black. This is easily demonstrated. Imagine if some…
June 8, 2011
Mike Petrilli makes an excellent point about reasonable expectations when educating poor children: This fall, about 1 million poor children will enroll in Kindergarten in the U.S. The vast majority of them live in single-parent families headed by women in the late teens or early twenties. Most of…
June 7, 2011
Links for you. Science: BGI releases a complete de novo E. coli O104 genome assembly and is making their detection kit protocols and synthesized primers freely available to worldwide disease control and research agenciesHow many blue lobsters does it take to start a business?Australian climate…
June 7, 2011
By now, you might have heard that politicovangelist possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been burbling inanities about Paul Revere, including this doozy: He [Revere] who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells, and making sure as he's…
June 7, 2011
I'll get to creationism in a bit, but first... Last week, Yves Smith started a wee lil' ruckus among progressives with a post titled "Bribes Work: How Peterson, the Enemy of Social Security, Bought the Roosevelt Name." In that post, she argued: Bribes work. AT&T gave money to GLAAD, and now…
June 6, 2011
Links for you. Science: Breaking the hourglass for headings that hollerIt Takes a MovementThe Second Lives of Academic PostersMore MRSA, in milk: A new strain in cows and humans Other: The Return of Back-Alley AbortionsIdaho Woman Charged For "Unlawful Abortion," Turned In By Anti-Choice…
June 6, 2011
It would be nice if educational 'reformers' took a break from busting teachers unions to deal with the infiltration of pseudo-scientific falsehoods into the science curriculum: ...the most brazen example is buried in the middle of the story: a coal-industry produced propaganda film for kids selling…
June 6, 2011
After Friday's post, I've held off on writing much about the German E. coli outbreak, often referred to by its serotype, O104:H4, or as HUSEC041 (HUS stands for hemolytic uremic syndrome). Having had the weekend to digest some of the ongoing analysis and news reports, here are some additional…
June 5, 2011
...and I can't blame them. The recent and ongoing E. coli outbreak which began in Germany was originally claimed to have been traced to Spanish cucumbers. Erm, not so much: German agricultural authorities on Sunday identified locally grown bean sprouts as the likely cause of an E. coli outbreak…
June 5, 2011
Links for you. Science: Bacterial ROS to the malaria rescue!The bride of the son of the revenge of cell phones and cancer rises from the grave...againThat's the trouble with fast food: Four lions left sheepish and hungry after failing to catch antelope who legs it to safetyWhy ecologists should…
June 5, 2011
Last week, James Q. Wilson, writing in The Wall Street Journal, described several of the factors that have led to a sustained decrease in crime. One reason is increased incarceration: One obvious answer is that many more people are in prison than in the past. Experts differ on the size of the…
June 4, 2011
I heard there's some kinda E. coli outbreak. Anyway, links for you. Science: My contribution to the 'HUSEC41-strains-are-not-that-new' debateIn praise of model organismsThe importance of being medianWhen is MRSA not MRSA?Ancient cave women 'left childhood homes' Other: The Dismal Political…