Technology
terrasig | December 10, 2007Yes! "A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology."
Imagine a presidential debate focused solely on issues of science and technology as they relate to medicine, international competitiveness, terrorism, public health, embryonic stem cell research, bioethics of genotyping and other molecular diagnostics, research policy/funding and job creation, or minimization of health disparities, among others.
Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens. The signatories to our "Call for a Presidential Debate on…
pharyngula | December 9, 2007Then you might want to read this—it looks like it was a trojan horse for a spammer. I notice that some of the more web-savvy bloggers edited out the sneaky code when posting it, but the rest of you might want to look back at the code.
(hat tip to Coturnix)
nisbetmc | November 27, 2007This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For college students who grew up online, it's easy to take for granted the virtual society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes…
cmooney | November 26, 2007In the past three months, I have done three separate events on university campuses that have involved, in some way, panel commentaries upon books. Two of the books were my own; one was Mike Tidwell's (see here and here).
As a result, I have gotten some sense of what I think works in these contexts, and what doesn't. So I have designed this post--which I'd planned to publish much earlier, before Cyclone Sidr and Thanksgiving, but have kept on hold until now--in the hope that it might help professors and administrators across the country who are trying to put together these types of fora.…
scientificactivist | November 21, 2007That could easily have been the shared title of a pair of articles in today's New York Times discussing the science and political implications of two very significant stem cell papers published online yesterday. The biggest offender was Sheryl Stolberg:
It has been more than six years since President Bush, in the first major televised address of his presidency, drew a stark moral line against the destruction of human embryos in medical research.
Since then, he has steadfastly maintained that scientists would come up with an alternative method of developing embryonic stem cells, one that did…
drorzel | November 21, 2007I generally like Gregg Easterbrook's writing about football (though he's kind of gone off the deep end regarding the Patriots this year), but everything else he turns his hand to is a disaster. In particular, he tends to pad his columns out with references to science and technology issues. I'm not quite sure what the point of these is supposed to be, other than to demonstrate that he, Gregg Easterbrook, is so much smarter than the average football fan that he knows, like, rocket science and stuff. The problem with that is that his knowledge of rocket science seems to owe more to Star Trek…
nisbetmc | November 21, 2007Conservatives are promoting Bush as the biomedical Atticus Finch. Shown here posing with a "snowflake" baby, adopted and born from left over in vitro clinic embryos.
Some collected thoughts on what the stem cell discovery means for the framing of the debate, trends in news coverage and public opinion:
---->As I wrote yesterday, perhaps the biggest impact on the framing of the stem cell debate is to inject a booster shot of resonance to conservative claims that pursuing embryonic stem cell research is not necessary and that we can gain everything we need from morally unproblematic adult…
nisbetmc | November 20, 2007James Thomson w/ Ian Wilmut (seated)
What happens politically when the two scientists most widely associated with therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research appear to abandon cloning and embryo extraction for a procedure that involves non-controversial sources of pluripotent cells? It signals perhaps the end of a grand Congressional coalition that has put aside partisan differences to work in support of expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research. It also likely marks the end to the hyper-competitive race among states to fund their own research.
Today, the journals Science…
mementomori | November 19, 2007Here's a bit of encouraging news for patients afflicted with the brain tumor known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM):
U.S. biotechnology company Genentech, Inc. said on Sunday its blockbuster cancer drug, Avastin, showed encouraging results for patients with the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
A pilot study from Duke University Medical Center, published in the Journal of Clincial Oncology, showed that the combination of irinotecan, a chemotherapy drug, plus the monoclonal antibody bevacizumab produced a significant improvement in the response rate and 6 month survival of patients with…
gregladen | November 15, 2007
I like to report advanced technology that runs open source systems, like LInux.
From Manufactum of Germany, we have a two pound PC, running Linux, of course, just over seven inches maximum dimension. It runs at 500 MHz, can handle a gig of RAM (default 512 MB) and an 80 gig hard drive. It is pre-loaded with Debian with KDE as your desktop. That part is totally configurable, of course.
Imagine replacing all the computers in your lab with something the size of a Tom Clancy novel. That would leave piles of room for, say, a bigger fridge in which you can store samples. And beer.
oracknows | November 9, 2007Now this is unexpected.
Normally, I find my victims/targets/subjects for my usual end-of-the-workweek bit of fun and skepticism from one of two sources. Either a reader sends a link to some woo or other that desperately deserves a little bit of Orac's loving attention, or in my wanderings across blogosphere I find some little (or huge) bit of woo that catches my attention and holds it long enough to make the case for a spot on my weekly feature. This time around it was different. While applying a sorely needed bit of skepticism to a story that's been going around the more credulous parts of…
nisbetmc | November 9, 2007Each Monday evening in November, AAAS is sponsoring a series of panel discussions on major issues in science and technology policy. The panels are hosted by NPR reporters Joe Palca and Richard Harris. See details below:
AAAS Invites You to a New Discussion Series
Science & Society: Grand Challenges
No powerpoint. No notes.
Just candid conversations with leading scientists,
economists, and politicians hosted by award-winning NPR reporters
Joe Palca and Richard Harris.
Monday, November 12th topic: Meeting Global Energy Demands
AAAS Auditorium, 1200 New York Ave, NW, Washington, D.C.
About…
clock | November 8, 2007
Just right. Easier than Chris R, apparently. But just you wait for the next time I use the BPR3 icon and NOT put anything under the fold!
BTW, copy the image - do not use the embed code provided by the site....
sheril | November 2, 2007I'm publicly responding to a particular reader's provocative comments because women-in-science is a topic that needs to be settled. Finally. After which, I'll be moving away from the great gender divide for a while and back to science and policy next week. Here goes.
November 2, 2007
Hello there Gabe,
You may be wondering why I'm addressing you in this forum. Well, since you visited both blogs and stirred up quite a response, I figured you deserve to be in the spotlight.
To begin, I'm glad you read our blog and take enough of an interest to participate. My favorite aspect of The…
razib | October 27, 2007Just listened to an interview on NPR with the author of Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy. She mentions how she had a reflexive prejudice against nuclear energy and generally opposed its use because of her environmentalist impulses. That's not surprising of course, people are terrified of nuclear energy because of its associations.
For me an easy way to dispel this sort of terror in most of my friends is simply to point out that the two nations with the highest per capita consumption of nuclear energy (by far) are France and Sweden (Finland is #3, though there is a…
j7uy5 | October 25, 2007Dr. Gerberding's congressional testimony was heavily edited
by the Administration. Fortunately, that fact was picked up
by the MSM. As of now, there are 711 mentions on Google News.
In the interest of completeness, however, I noted that Dr. Gerberding
herself denies that there was censorship. As
href="http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2007/10/24/cdcgerberding_1024.html">reported
in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Gerberding said Wednesday she was happy
with her testimony and that the review process was normal. In a
lunch-hour speech before the Atlanta Press Club,…
moleculeoftheday | October 25, 2007The term "rare earth metal" is a misnomer that's just stuck around. They haven't been rare for years - take this ad material from about 50 years ago at Theodore Gray's excellent Periodic Table Table site.
Didymium is a mixture of rare earth metals, which, when compounded with glass, imparts some color. Metals used to be pretty much our only way of imparting color. For quantum mechanical reasons, the enormous middle swath of the periodic table can impart some brilliant colors.
Modern organic dye technology has advanced like crazy, but metals are alive and well. Your green and brown glass have…
chaoticutopia | October 24, 2007Last week, I discussed the difficulty of creating a perfect model of our environment. Once, I toyed around with the idea of a perfect simulation... wouldn’t it be indistinguishable from reality? What if we created the perfect model--and it turned out to actually be reality? As advanced as our technology is, we obviously won’t have to worry about this any time soon. But in a science fiction story, where plausibility is a little plastic, we can explore such questions. So, that’s what I did last year--I wrote a story. And here it is:
Ω
By Karmen Lee Franklin
The General swept his fingers…
j7uy5 | October 24, 2007The Medicare
Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee
currently is in the process of examining the question of whether to pay
for in-home testing for the diagnosis of
href="http://www.sleepapnea.org/" rel="tag">sleep
apnea. If approved, this could lead to a
significant loss of income for sleep specialists.
Pulmonologists can't get a break, can they? In the 1980's
many lung specialists faced declining income, because of the reduction
in the number of cases of tuberculosis. Then the number of
smokers began to decline, leading to reduction in smoking-related
illness. Many…
mementomori | October 24, 2007As many ScienceBlogs readers know by now, last month Popular Mechanics published a list on their website of "25 Skills Every Man Should Know," which included such esoteric talents as "frame a wall" and "extend your wireless network." How these two made the list over such accomplishments as "find tickets to a Hannah Montana concert," or "pass gas anonymously on an airplane flight" is beyond me, but then again I'm a doctor, not a popular mechanic.
Just for fun I'd like to share my version of this meme, so without further ado here is a list of 25 skills every doctor worth his or her salt should…