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June 30, 2006
The Daily Telegraph today reported that "Scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who pass laws permitting the practice will be excommunicated." Does this policy make rational sense, even on religion's own terms? Here's more from the article: Scientists who carry out…
June 9, 2006
No surprise here: a highly-regarded climatologist declares that the Bush administration is "muzzling government scientists" and covering up the facts about global warming. Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, said that Bush appointees are…
June 9, 2006
With a click of your mouse, you find yourself in a chaotic utopia. That click sent an electrical signal inside your computer, passing through circuits, joined by a contact made of gold. The gold, you may find, was mined from a mafic vein, deep within the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by Precambrian…
May 26, 2006
Welcome to your new blog. You can post to and manage your weblog by selecting an option from the menu located to the left of this message. If you need assistance, email your local ScienceBlogs representative, who can assist you. Important Blog authors have been given the ability to edit their own…
May 22, 2006
In the April-May issue of Seed, Josh Braun wrote that the Center for Biological Diversity was moving to get two species of coral & the polar bear listed under the Endangered Species Act. The NY Times article on the news makes no mention that the strategy behind this was to get the US to do…
April 20, 2006
The New York Times reported yesterday that many of the authors of the DSM-IV, the sine qua non diagnostic manual (I'm 300.00, thanks for asking) for mental health professionals had ties, either before or after their involvement in creating the manual, with the pharmaceutical industry. The…
April 20, 2006
Has anybody been following the Letters page of The New Yorker recently? Quick recap: TNY writes something about Capote, which film includes a character named William Shawn, who was in fact the editor of TNY for a great many years, and who enjoys a tremendous reputation for excellence among the…
January 10, 2006
So what do you see? A groove and some lines? Truth be told, this is possibly the oldest recorded chordate fossil (or, should I say, one of a number of seventeen specimens of same). It dates from the pre-Cambrian - i.e. before 543 million years ago - during a period known as the Ediacarian. Found by…
January 6, 2006
My son Jim loved his bottle when he was a baby. By about 15 months of age, he loved baby formula so much that he was going through over a hundred dollars' worth a week -- more than the rest of the food budget for the entire family! (Yes, we were buying the powdered stuff, not pre-made formula.)…