terrasig
Posts by this author
May 10, 2008
Effective science communication and science advocacy in the public arena has been much discussed in the science blogosphere. But is ranting on science and medical blogs the most effective way to promote science, especially in the United States?
I've had some discussions with other scientists,…
May 8, 2008
Alison McCook has a lengthy article now up on The Scientist website that illustrates how NIH grant funding shortfalls are coming home to roost, with soft money faculty first to be jettisoned.
In 2007, more than 4,000 NIH-funded researchers were denied grant renewals. For some, that means they have…
When medical experimental therapeutics gets co-opted as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
May 8, 2008
Sorry to get to this so late but I wanted to weigh on an excellent post from my cancer blogging colleague, Orac, the other day on the investigation of CAM therapies in cancer. The post covers a lot of ground, as expected from any of Orac's exhaustive missives, but I wanted to focus on the…
May 7, 2008
We're not a political blog here but I certainly care about politics as it relates to national science policy and social justice.
Last night, North Carolina's Jim Neal lost in his bid to fight against Sen Elizabeth Dole for her seat in the US Senate. Pam Spaulding at Pam's House Blend has all the…
May 5, 2008
I did not know this:
In the spirit of our recent hosting of the Tar Heel Tavern blog carnival and our general posts on debunking alternative medicine, I learned today about the source of these two words with ties to the homeland.
Miss Cellania's always informative posts at mental_floss blog linked…
May 4, 2008
Well, we kept the polls open as long as possible and some bloggers voted early and often while others waited 'til the last minute. We've had some locals and some out-of-staters with recollections of North Carolina. So, without further adieu, the NC primary edition of the Tar Heel Tavern:
NC…
May 3, 2008
I was unaware the DrugMonkey and PhysioProf were on the payroll of The Onion.
I'm not a behaviorial pharmacologist but I know quite a few and it didn't keep me from howling out loud at yet another gem from one of my favorite satirical pubs.
May 2, 2008
Awhile back, I was given a PLoS T-shirt by Bora Zivkovic, science blogger extraordinaire and online community manager for PLoS-ONE, the flagship journal of the Public Library of Science. Every time I wear the dang thing, someone says something to me about the Open Access journal movement. Of…
May 1, 2008
I've been away from the computer the last few days and have had to rely on my morning newspaper reading as my sole source of information. So please be sure to let me know if I've been missing anything important.
Yesterday, I came across a very insightful column by Bob Herbert at the New York Times…
April 29, 2008
Offer extended through Friday! Friday! Friday! 2 May!!!!
Submit entries to tarheeltavern.abel at gmail.
For the first time since I've lived here, the NC primary will actually matter especially given that Clinton and Obama appear to now be running neck-and-neck in PA.
The Tar Heel Tavern was an…
April 28, 2008
Well, not only am I weaseling out of posting original content today but I'm going to direct you to an excellent repost by Bora Zivkovic at A Blog Around the Clock.
I am often asked why plants expend the bioenergetic capital to synthesize secondary metabolites. In his post, Bora notes that the…
April 26, 2008
Here's a Saturday morning open question to the readership:
I'm experiencing some changes in my life that may affect my blogging frequency in the negative direction (but not the quality, of course). I've always blogged intermittently - this has always been a labor of love, intellectual stimulation…
April 25, 2008
Okay, some people are smoking some bad dope.
Whilst helping the PharmKid get down to the car for school this morning, I came upon PharmGirl, MD, in a rage while sitting in front of her laptop. The object of her vitriol was a 17 April article in BusinessWeek entitled, "Are There Too Many Women…
April 25, 2008
MD/PhD student Jake Young at Pure Pedantry came up with a great idea and is collecting recipes for cheap, grad student/med student meals. (We of Eastern European heritage love a kid who suggests an inventive application of kielbasa.).
The submissions in the comment thread remind me that our food…
April 24, 2008
Doctor Anonymous has a killer web radio show scheduled for tonight at 9 pm EDT with Kevin, M.D., and Dr Val Jones of Dr Val and The Voice of Reason blog at Revolution Health. (Got your name right this time, Val.)
Here's how to listen and participate in the accompanying chat.
According to the Good…
April 23, 2008
Just a little blurb in my local paper this morning that is making a big splash in the stock market: international pharma giant GSK is purchasing Cambridge, MA-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. for an estimated US$720 million.
Glaxo plans to bolster its pipeline with Sirtris's experimental…
April 22, 2008
So says Dr Val Jones at Dr Val's Revolution Health Blog, host of this week's Grand Rounds medical blog carnival. The good doctor classified the posts as follows:
[:-)] = A post that demonstrates literary excellence
[{] = Early bird - an author who got his/her submission in early, which is really…
April 21, 2008
Once the US Democratic presidential primary is over tomorrow in Pennsylvania, all eyes will be on North Carolina. For the first time since I've lived here, the NC primary will actually matter especially given that Clinton and Obama appear to now be running neck-and-neck in PA.
The Tar Heel Tavern…
April 20, 2008
I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President,
Tell him to call off his National Guard,
But the National Guard belonged to the…
April 18, 2008
A group e-mail showed up today from some of my boyhood friends and fellow Springsteen worshipers on the sad passing of Danny Federici yesterday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC from melanoma. He was only 58.
Here's my open letter and response to the thread:
Hey-a Boyce,
Not too…
April 17, 2008
Dr Kimball Atwood IV at Science-Based Medicine and my long-time blogging colleague Orac have spilled oceans of e-ink on the institutionalization of alternative or integrative medicine in North America's top academic medical centers. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is now often called…
April 14, 2008
Apologies in advance for just this quick link, but the topic is very timely given our highly-read post last week suggesting the repeal/modification of DSHEA, the primary US legislation directing the weak oversight of the dietary supplement industry.
Herbal Science International, Inc. and FDA…
April 12, 2008
". . .you got marijuana in my lead."
Two great tastes that do not go great together (with apologies).
[Welcome Fark.com readers on 12 Oct 2008 - I comment on the recent story here and you can read our other posts on drugs of abuse here. Thanks for stopping by - APB]
A concise but fascinating…
April 11, 2008
Another Wine Experience: North American Meritage
by Erleichda
The wine-dinner group met recently at a local unpretentious BYOB restaurant. We are surely fortunate to have so many of these restaurants in the vicinity for they curtail greatly our costs for dining out.
The theme for this evening's…
April 10, 2008
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) allows herbal and non-herbal supplements to be sold in the US without demonstration of effectiveness or safety. Despite recent improvements in Good Manufacturing Practices required of supplement manufacturers, these products still…
April 9, 2008
Neat-o.
The ScienceBlogs conglomerate came up with a great idea that is now being implemented: a RSS feed of the most interesting Sb posts as selected by so-called SuperReaders.
http://feeds.delicious.com/rss/SbReaderClub
Each blog submitted for approval two representative readers who would…
April 6, 2008
Alamosa is a town of 8,500 residents on the west side of the Rockies in southern Colorado, equidistant to Denver and Albuquerque. You may sometimes hear of Alamosa described by Al Roker or other morning weather reporters as the "nation's icebox" in setting the low temperature of the lower 48 US…
April 5, 2008
I had only been blogging for four-and-a-half months when I got an e-mail two years ago today from someone named Katherine Sharpe at Seed Media Group in New York City. Seems they had started this ScienceBlogs.com thing a couple months earlier with 14 blogs, many of which I had already read…
April 4, 2008
Actinomycin D was the first antitumor antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces parvallus cultures by the lab of 1952 Nobel laureate, Dr Selman Waksman, at Rutgers University. However, it took a young Chinese physician and the confidence in her by a future US Surgeon General for this natural product…
April 2, 2008
An open letter to the Framing Wars:
Can we start by just considering Chris Mooney as a person distinct from Matt Nisbet?
The problem I see is that Chris is suffering blogospheric vitriol far beyond his own comments because of his association with Matt Nisbet. To the best of my knowledge, Matt…