purepedantry
Posts by this author
February 3, 2009
This beat poem is too funny. It is by Tim Minchin in which he describes a dinner party where he confronts a hippie -- recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in December 08.
Sadly NSFW and audio only. Check it out beneath the fold:
My favorite quotes:
"You know what they call…
January 29, 2009
Radley Balko over at Reason summarizes the collateral damage that has been incurred in our nation's drug war. These casualties include police militarization, repeated foreign policy travesties (read: the entirety of Latin America has good reasons to hate us), the incarceration of hundred of…
January 29, 2009
Here's an idea I had never heard about. The government could use an alternative currency that loses value over time to encourage spending. You would spend it like it was burning a hole in your pocket. Apparently there is historical precedent:
Based on the theories of Silvio Gesell, a German "…
January 29, 2009
I was struck by this post over at the Well blog. In spite of media attention, teens are not engaging in more sex:
The news is troubling, but it's also misleading. While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today…
January 28, 2009
I am not usually the type to put pictures of cute animals up. I leave that to Cute Overload. I don't really even like animals. (I know...shameful coming from a biologist.)
But this otter is so cute it...it just defies description.
It was rescued from abandonment in Scotland. Frankly, it makes…
January 28, 2009
Doing behavioral experiments with rats, I can totally understand how this may have happened. This abstract speaks for itself:
A single Norway rat released on to a rat-free island was not caught for more than four months, despite intensive efforts to trap it. The rat first explored the 9.5-hectare…
January 28, 2009
Dennis Overbye at the NYTimes somewhat unintentionally answers the "what is science's rightful place?" question in his column. He emphasizes the similarity and symbiosis between science and democracy:
And indeed there is no leader, no grand plan, for this hive. It is in many ways utopian anarchy,…
January 28, 2009
Researchers at Boston University have done an autopsy on another former football player and found evidence of severe neurological damage that would likely lead to dementia later in life:
Leading medical experts at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) at Boston University…
January 27, 2009
Apparently there are still people in the world who have not seen Star Wars. I do not know know what these people have been up to for the past 25 years. My only explanation is that they have been living in caves or are Amish or hate joy...something like that.
But there are actually people like…
January 23, 2009
In President Obama's inaugural speech, he announced his intention to "restore science to its rightful place." In response to Seed Magazine has initiated to The Rightful Place Project whose goal is to recruit scientists and engineers to answer the question: What is science's rightful place?…
January 22, 2009
Health-infrastructure, information technology, and science research spending are clearly related to the success of our economy. They represent investments into intellectual property and human capital that increase productivity and create long-term growth. For this reason, I don't object to the…
January 21, 2009
Really? This is just a little creepy. A non-for-profit will help you tell your one-night-stand that you may have exposed him or her with an STI via an e-card:
Steve, a health care worker in his 30s, had been told more than once that he had been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection. So when…
January 21, 2009
This post over at Neuroskeptic reignites a debate -- if it ever really stopped -- as to the role of impaired adult neurogenesis in causing depression and the function of anti-depressants in stimulating neurogenesis to treat the disease.
This is one of those hot topics in neuroscience. If you…
January 21, 2009
This is fun. You can make a word cloud from a bit of text or a url.
Here is one for this site (click to enlarge):
Presumably the words are sized by frequency. I finding it quite amusing that "drinking" and "research" are the same size. Shows you what I have on the brain.
Hat-tip: Cosmic…
January 20, 2009
Radley Balko over at Reason has an interview with John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College, who initiated the Amethyst Initiative -- a "collective of college presidents urging a public discussion about the drinking age." Here is what he had to say:
Q: Do you favor setting the…
January 20, 2009
I am the type of person who is pretty skeptical of broad claims made by anyone. I am a scientist after all.
But I am especially skeptical of all statements made by politicians. If there is anything the past 8 years has taught me is that whenever everyone is rapt in enthusiasm, that is the time…
January 18, 2009
I have two new favorite websites: The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks and Say What?. Both have been cracking me up all weekend.
I think that this one is my favorite at "Blog".
I am just confused. I mean I think that a "No Sex Policy" reflects a more realistic understanding of "Teens"…
January 18, 2009
The NYTimes has a fascinating article about MIT professors -- developmental psychologists mostly -- who use their own children's development as data in their research. Though in nearly all cases, they are studying normal child development and not doing any of potentially harmful intervention, this…
January 16, 2009
Scientists by have found evidence for the holographic principle in the search for gravity waves:
According to Hogan, the holographic principle radically changes our
picture of space-time. Theoretical physicists have long believed that
quantum effects will cause space-time to convulse wildly on the…
January 16, 2009
People expressed a healthy skepticism to my assertion that money for science in the economic stimulus package is not the best way to fund science and may do more harm than good. One of my assumptions in that argument was that this funding would be short-term and not followed through with further…
January 16, 2009
Orac and PZ are popularizing a post at Change.gov to defund the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM):
Biomedical research funding is falling because of the nation's budget problems, but biomedical research itself has never been more promising, with rapid progress being…
January 15, 2009
So I have been reading over the details of the stimulus bill that is working its way through Congress. Now I grant that this is a rough draft and may be substantially modified in the process of passage, but one particular sentence got me thinking:
Transform our Economy with Science and Technology…
January 14, 2009
I caught this article in O magazine by fellow ScienceBlogger, Rebecca Skloot of Culture Dish. The article isn't bad. It is about why people have trouble overcoming unproductive habits like trouble exercising. But I want to correct something she says that is inaccurate.
Dopamine has a primary…
January 14, 2009
The NYTimes profiles Paul Offit, author of Autism's False Prophets. Offit has been taking the anti-vaccine lobby to task over pseudoscience, and he hasn't been winning many friends in the process:
Those backing Dr. Offit say he was forced into the role. Opponents of vaccines have held rallies,…
January 12, 2009
There is a very good article in the NYTimes about whether doctors should inform patients about disparities in care between hospitals:
An article published online in October
in the journal PLoS Medicine really hit home with me. Noting that the
quality of cancer care is uneven, its authors argued…
January 9, 2009
I caught this neuroscience question over at a new blog I like, Think Markets. Sandy Ikeda comments on a section of Daniel Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness:
I've been thinking about the following from Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness:
Experiments have demonstrated that the moment we…
January 6, 2009
Obama's transition team has approached CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta for the position of Surgeon General:
The Obama transition team approached Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, about becoming U.S. surgeon general, according to sources inside the transition and at CNN.
Gupta was in…
January 5, 2009
Seriously, when I read the headlines to this article, I wanted to wretch retch. (Ed. I need to learn how to spell.)
Scientists discover true love
Scientists: True love can last a lifetime
I can feel it welling up now...eh...OK, I feel better.
Just to be clear, I didn't want to wretch retch because…
January 2, 2009
In an article reviewing the success of the Euro, the WSJ attributes at least some of the finiancial instability of recent months to currency volatility between the US and Europe.
The Euro has had numerous benefits:
Travel was made easier, as was trade and investment. Interest rates fell. Prices…