Environment
sb admin | February 15, 2008Those hoping to fix the U.S.âs current healthcare system have plenty to chew on this week.
Sara Robinson at Campaign for Americaâs Future debunks several myths about U.S. vs. Canadian healthcare (Part I here). Keep this handy for the next time someone whines that single-payer healthcare will mean rationed care.
Jacob Goldstein at Health Blog reports on CVS Caremarkâs payment to end a probe into whether the company was keeping for itself the rebates that accrued from switching patients to generic drugs, and on Blue Cross of Californiaâs decision to stop asking doctors to report patients whoâd…
clock | February 14, 2008I found two articles interesting to me in today's issue of PLoS Computational Biology - the first one about becoming a good scientist, the other on circadian rhythms:
On the Process of Becoming a Great Scientist:
In the vein of promoting further debate and discussion, I provide here a different and perhaps deeper look at what makes a successful scientist. While I can't claim to have the reputation of Hamming, I grew up in a family of well-known scientists, and have had plenty of chances to observe the trajectories of scientific careers over my lifetime. Based on that experience, I propose the…
sb admin | February 14, 2008Reporters and bloggers are using the occasion of Valentineâs Day to explore the health and environmental aspects of typical gifts and recommend worker- and Earth-friendly alternatives.
â¢Â Jennifer Sass at NRDCâs Switchboard blog describes how typical greenhouse practices harm flower workers, and offers some healthier Valentineâs Day suggestions.
â¢Â The Green Guide at Grist suggests some green options for flowers and chocolate.
â¢Â Terra Sigillata alerts us to a romantic tune that can be downloaded to benefit the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
â¢Â The LA Timesâ Margot Roosevelt reports on…
razib | February 13, 2008Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Chapter 6 of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory was short. Yes, you read that right, this was a short chapter! It was only 38 pages, but it was also one of the most readable and fast paced. Additionally, Stephen Jay Gould told me things I didn't know beforehand. Partly this has to be a function of the fact that because he focused on geology I was just ignorant, though his revisionism of 19th century Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism seemed well done to me. But, as I said, this is the chapter where my own knowledge has been the thinnest so far,…
clock | February 13, 2008Thousands Of Humans Inhabited New World's Doorstep For 20,000 Years:
The human journey from Asia to the New World was interrupted by a 20,000 -year layover in Beringia, a once-habitable region that today lies submerged under the icy waters of the Bering Strait. Furthermore, the New World was colonized by approximately 1,000 to 5,000 people - a substantially higher number than the 100 or fewer individuals of previous estimates.
New Technique Makes Tissues Transparent:
If humans had see-through skin like a jellyfish, spotting disease like cancer would be a snap: Just look, and see a tumor form…
tlambert | February 12, 2008Kim Larsen has an extensive story on DDT and malaria in onEarth. An extract:
DDT proponents are generally reluctant to acknowledge the complicating and protean factor of mosquito resistance. Entomologist May Berenbaum finds this galling. An expert on insecticide metabolism, Berenbaum is director of the entomology department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Read the entomological literature of the 1950s," she said in a telephone interview. "Way before Silent Spring, scientists were already trying to understand resistance. That's what insecticide toxicology was all about back…
worldsfair | February 11, 2008Just noticed an article in our local newspaper today that highlighted the irony of sustainability researchers inadvertently having a larger than average eco-footprint. This makes logical sense though, since folks doing research tend to need to publish their findings and this tends always to be a work intensive venture , which also requires the need to present data (at meetings, conferences, etc). They may have labs, so their workspace footprint is larger than most, and such space needs the usual amenities that require the use of energy (heating, air conditioning, lighting, etc).
A Montreal…
illconsidered | February 11, 2008 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
(skip to bottom) Top Stories:Biofuels, Tipping Points, Gwynne Dyer The Carbon Principles, LEZ, Atlantic Winds, IPCC GCMs, Earth Hour, Chinese Snow, Anthropocene Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites, Solar Cycle Impacts, Forests, Corals, Wacky Weather, Floods & Droughts, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Mitigation, Transportation, Sequestration, Adaptation Journals, Misc. Science Kyoto…
clock | February 10, 2008As I promised the other day, I went to Carrboro Century Center this afternoon (right after meeting with Anton around the corner) to see the Island Projects designed by the Chapel Hill High School students of Rob Greenberg.
I did not see all of them - they were doing this in "shifts" throughout the afternoon and I could only stay for an hour - but I saw several of the projects and talked to a number of students (and to Rob himself). I have to say I was really, truly impressed with their work, as well as with their enthusiasm as they explained the details of their projects to me and other…
bcohen | February 10, 2008Clearly there is now a growing need for a special section at the bookstore on Mountaintop Removal (MTR). We made a section at this blog for MTR posts when we started, since it is an issue of local immediacy (I'm close to the Appalachian mountains being blown up, at least regionally speaking), a clear case in need of more attention from environmental ethicists, one that has to be understood as part of a far deeper historical context, one that brings up the issue of energy consumption and use patterns, and one (because of all of those) that isn't as easily resolvable as we might like it to be…
gregladen | February 10, 2008A very important and truly wonderful paper in Nature described a tour-de-force analysis of the Mammalian Evolutionary Record, and draws the following two important conclusions:
The diversification of the major groups of mammals occurred millions of years prior to the KT boundary event; and
The further diversification of these groups into the modern pattern of mammalian diversity occurred millions of years later than the KT boundary event.
[This is a repost from gregladen.com]
The KT boundary event is the moment in time when a ca. 10 km. diameter object going very fast hit the earth in the…
awild | February 9, 2008
In 1934, a diminutive book by an unknown author seeded the largest conservation movement in history. The book, Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds, pioneered the modern field guide format with crisp illustrations of diagnostic characters, all in a pocket-sized read. The Guide sold out in a week, but the book's effects are ongoing.
To understand the magnitude of Peterson's impact, consider how naturalists traditionally identified birds. They'd take a shotgun into the field, and if they saw something of interest they'd kill it. Birding was necessarily limited to the landed-…
sb admin | February 8, 2008Bloggers react to Bush's proposed budget:
Science Progress has the totals for science-based agencies
Heather Taylor at Switchboard thinks it's lame
Gerald Epstein at SEAÂ probes a mystery $2 billion for Homeland Security R&D
Climate Progress bemoans its anti-efficiency stanceÂ
Amie Newman at RH Reality Check looks at its treatment of women's health
Elsewhere:
Sonya at Enviroblog applauds a CPSC move toward safer furniture.
Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth explains the findings about dust from Africa and Asia.
Jeffrey Ball at Environmental Capital reports on Wall Street's new…
gregladen | February 8, 2008From the Wildlife Conservation Society:
Unless major conservation measure are enacted, Madagascar's turtles and tortoises will continue to crawl steadily toward extinction, according to a recent assessment by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups. With their habitat shrinking and illegal hunting worsening, these reptiles now rank among the most endangered on Earth.
The groups, which met for four days in Madagascar's capital city Antananarivo, said there is still hope to save these ancient animals, but time is running out. Five of the nine assessed species have been…
clock | February 8, 2008I mentioned before that Carrboro Citizen is my favourite newspaper, the only one I read in hardcopy. Perhaps I like it because it is hyperlocal. Perhaps that is why I have this mindset that those who live in Carrboro already read it and those who don't will have no interest. So, I rarely blog about their articles. But sometimes something jumps at me as worthy of mention as interesting to anyone anywhere. This week's edition has one such article - School project an atypical lesson in problem solving - which describes a science project led by Chapel Hill High School Earth and environmental…
illconsidered | February 4, 2008 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
(skip to bottom) Top Stories:China, Major Economies Conference, FutureGen Killed Baffin Island, Antarctica, $20 Trillion?, AGU, Bali, Anthropocene Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Sea Levels, ENSO, DSCOVR Impacts, Forests, Corals, Desertification, Wacky Weather Floods & Droughts, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Mitigation, Transportation, Geoengineering Journals, Misc. Science Carbon Trade, Optimal Carbon…
drorzel | February 3, 2008
Locus Online: Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading: 2007
A few books and stories to pass those quiet moments.
(tags: books stories SF)
Science in the 21st Century
Conference participants include a bunch of really smart people with innovative ideas about the future of science and the interplay between science, information technology, and society. And they invited me, too.
(tags: academia science computing society publishing internet)
...My heart's in Accra » Searching for common ground with Andrew Keen
"Keen [author of _Cult of the Amateur_] has some very important points. But he's also…
tfk | February 1, 2008A few days ago I wrote a long post about the importance of ideas, which included this observation:
Let us pause, as slacktivist does, to marvel that "Here is a man who speaks off the cuff in complete sentences and complete paragraphs. The contrast with our current president couldn't be more stark." Indeed, the contrast with much of the field of candidates couldn't be more stark. Obama is someone you could have a conversation with, and that discussion would be grounded not only in his experience living around the world and around the country, editing the Harvard Law Review and organizing…
clock | January 30, 2008Talking Science is a new non-profit that's dedicated to bringing the latest discoveries, innovations, controversies and cures out of the lab and to the public. It was founded by Ira Flatow, host of NPR's Science Friday. As a part of this effort, Talia Page is one of the bloggers for Science Friday and Talking Science Abroad. Talia came to the Science Blogging Conference as a part of the Science Friday delegation.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your scientific background? What is your Real Life job?…
sb admin | January 29, 2008In San Francisco, large grocery stores are no longer allowed to give out the disposable, non-biodegradable plastic bags that have formed a giant patch of plastic (twice the size of Texas) in the Pacific Ocean and caused a host of other problems. The Whole Foods supermarket chain will halt plastic-bag distribution on Earth Day this year, and China's ban on plastic bags will take effect on June 1.
In light of China's actions, the Guardian looked at other countries that have taken steps to ban or limit the distribution of plastic bags:
At least 40 countries, states and major cities have imposed…