This method, if it pans out, could not only be clean, it could make the environment even cleaner. Jonathan Trent, the lead research scientist on the Spaceship Earth project at NASA Ames Research Center, has been working on a method to produce oil from algae.  Their Algal Biofuels Team appears to be making progress. style="display: inline;"> href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/features/2009/clean_energy_042209.html">NASA Envisions "Clean Energy" From Algae Grown in Waste Water NASA scientists have proposed an ingenious and remarkably resourceful process to produce "clean…
When I first heard about the American Medical Association (AMA) opposing Obama's health care reform, I was troubled.  I almost wrote a post about it, but by the time I got home, I found that others had beaten me to it.   href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/06/revolutionary_medicine.php">Revere, for example, appears to have written before work, posting at 6:46AM.  That's dedication. But it the interim, I've come up with a different angle.  Part of it comes from an article on Medpage Today (free registration): href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AMA/14691">…
This is one of those "interesting, wonder if it'll ever pan out" studies.  So far it has been presented at a meeting, but not published.   The study was summarized in an article on Medpage Today (free registration): href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/APSS/14689#ayk">APSS: Depression and Insomnia May Be Genetically Linked SEATTLE, June 12 -- Insomnia and mood disorders may share a common genetic pathway, which could explain both depression and wakefulness observed in teens, researchers here said. In a study of more than 1,400 twin pairs, about a third of those who were…
Market Folly writes of a new hedge fund strategy, and asks if there are any more ideas href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/141982-hedge-funds-latest-idea-investing-in-lawsuits">like this: We came across this interesting piece in Dealbook the other day and thought it was very intriguing. Simply put: hedge funds are now investing in lawsuits. The premise is pretty simple: they invest in one side of the lawsuit and get a share of the winnings (if, of course, they win the case)... ...If you think about it, it makes sense. These investors essentially 'bankroll' a litigation team, thus giving…
In 2008, we href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7574684.stm">were informed that a kind of cloud formation had been named: the mammatus formation, so-called because it resembles a breast.  Sort of.  Whatever. href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7574684.stm"> A new development is more serious.  The href="http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/">Cloud Appreciation Society has suggested that the name asperatus be given to clouds that portray a particular kind of turbulence. Flickr photo by Vince Perritano, Creative Commons license Other, more dramatic…
Business Matters has posted interviews about the financial crisis.   these interviews provide a good overview of the origin of the crisis, plus some clues as to where we are headed.  The first interview is with href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts">Paul Craig Roberts.  Roberts was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.  The second interview is with Ilargi, one of the pseudonymous authors of the blog, href="http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/">The Automatic Earth.  They have different perspectives, but similar conclusions. Basically, we…
Some may recall Brodmann Area 25 (a part of the brain also known as the subgenual area or area subgenualis).  It was mentioned by Orli Van Mourik ( id="a028464" href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurontic/2006/08/much_ado_about_area_25.php">Much Ado About Area 25) in 2006, and by me in 2008 ( href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/09/update_on_deep_brain_stimulati.php">Update on Deep Brain Stimulation).  David Dobbs profiled one of the key researchers, Helen Mayberg, ( href="http://scienceblogs.com/smoothpebbles/2006/08/neurologist_helen_mayberg_in_s.php">Neurologist Helen…
It has come to my attention that Kalamazoo is on the map, again.  The last time was is 1942, when the Glen Miller Orchestra played href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28I%27ve_Got_a_Gal_In%29_Kalamazoo">I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo (lyrics). Now, Ratebeer.com has included TWO Kalamazoo beers on their href="http://www.ratebeer.com/Ratings/Ratings-Top50.asp">"top rated" list: Westvleteren Abt 12 Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter Three Floyds Oak Aged Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout AleSmith Speedway Stout AleSmith Barrel Aged Speedway Stout…
Last night I heard a snippet of an interview with some Senator, who expressed fear that the Supreme Court candidate, Sonia Sotomayor, would let her feelings interfere with her judgment.  Evidently, this was based upon Obama's characterization of Ms. Sotomayor as "emphatic."  Although I can't recall who the Senator was, these sentiments are captured in href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/politics/29memo.html"> the following: Mr. Hatch, a longtime Judiciary Committee member, said he would focus on whether the judge is committed to deciding cases based on the law, not "personal…
Courtesy of Chart of the Day... href="http://www.chartoftheday.com/20090522.htm?T"> Click on the graphs to see the Chart of the Day explanations for the data. The top chart shows the aggregate earnings, over time, of the companies in the S&P 500 Index.  The second chart shows the ratio between the aggreagte price of the stock, and the earnings of the companies. Oversimplified view: A low price-to-earnings ratio means that you are not paying much, to get a share of a company that is earning a lot.  A high P:E ratio means that you are paying a lot for companies that aren't earning so…
Traumatic Brain Injury href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/08/traumatic_brain_injury_on_the.php">has been called the "signature injury" of the Iraq War, due to the reported high prevalence of the injury there.  This is in contrast to previous wars.  It's not that head injury is necessarily more common; what is more common is for soldiers to sustain such injuries and survive.  The Pentagon has recognized this, and ( href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007/05/signing_a_check_for_iraqs_sign.php">reportedly) is addressing it.  But now, a paper published in NEJM…
This is a continuation from href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2009/05/peak_oil_imminent_public_healt.php">last time.  Sort of.  Last time I wrote about some things from a recent program at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  I took the material from one of the many presentations.  since then, I have looked thought the slides from the other presentations.  It turns out that the majority of the material relates more to Peak Oil than to Public Health.  Perhaps that is because most of…
A post at Energy Bulletin recaps a recent presentation at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  href="http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48895">The post is U.S. public health community begins discussing peak oil. The presentation was: href="http://www.jhsph.edu/preparedness/events/eventscalendar.html">Peak Oil: Implications for Disaster Preparedness & Response (the link goes to the event calendar, so it probably won't be valid after a while.  The archives are href="http://www.jhsph.edu/…
Revere has an alarming post about one potential problem.  This could occur if there is a serious influenza pandemic: href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/05/swine_flu_breaking_the_acute_c.php">Swine flu: breaking the acute care system [H]hospitals and emergency departments have been shrinking, while their patient populations have been growing. The Institute of Medicine calculated in 2006 that ER visits rose by 26% between 1992 and 2003, from 89.8 million to 114 million in a year, while 425 emergency departments and 703 hospitals closed and the number of hospital beds in use…
Patti Smith reads the Declaration of Independence, in a rousing performance.  She follows it with an indictment of George W. Bush.  She speaks in English, but with German subtitles. In a way, I'm hesitant to dignify Bush by mentioning him on my site.  But the performance is worth watching.  Lest we forget. This is from pattismith.net, which apparently does not have direct links to individual tems.  You have to scroll down to find this item. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE From Steven Sebring: In honor of the upcoming election we invite you to check out this indictment clip from the film href="…
I've been trying to figure this out.  I don't think I need to include any links to the evidence, because it's all over the place.  Some people think there is a ridiculous amount of hysteria about H1N1/2009, others think people aren't worried enough.   It is abundantly clear that nobody can predict the future; nobody knows if there will be a pandemic, and if so, how lethal it would be.  It is not even possible to make a meaningful guess. What perplexes me are these two questions:  Why do people get so emotionally invested in their assessment of the risk? Why do they feel a need to criticize…
Not sure what to make of this, as the prediction appears to be based entirely upon the intuition of an experienced pediatric infectious disease specialist. It is reported on Medscape (open access, free registration required). PAS 2009: H1N1 Flu Predicted to Wane and Reemerge in Fall Martha Kerr May 4, 2009 (Baltimore, Maryland) -- Pediatric infectious diseases specialists and public health experts used the stage of the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting to update their colleagues on the latest statistics and projections on the H1N1 "swine flu" outbreak. "I believe that we will see…
The Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a press release: href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ucs-gives-obama-high-marks-on-0229.html">UCS Gives Obama High Marks on Scientific Integrity for First 100 Days.  Granted, after suffering through eight years of the Bush II Administation, they'd probably give high marks to Pee Wee Herman.  They believe that Obama has taken a personal interest in restoring integrity to the interface between science and politics.  While acknowledging that he hasn't and couldn't take a lot of action in his first 100 days in office, they express the…
Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy,  has a nice, terse, thought-provoking post on his blog: The Big Picture: href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/05/us-vs-europe-who-is-the-welfare-state/">US vs Europe: Who is the Welfare State? By Barry Ritholtz - May 1st, 2009, 10:25AM Today is May Day, and while International Workers' Day (Labour Day in the UK), means little in the USA, its a big holiday in Europe. Banks and markets are closed on the continent, (England celebrates on Monday). Speaking with Mike Panzner…
If you encounter a web site that contains malware (virus, trojan, etc.), how do you report it?  I had a devil of a time finding out.  A friend had forwarded a suspicious email to me.  The email contained a link.  The link indicated that it would take you to a text file that explained a finding about a chance of an asteroid hitting the Earth next year.  the file ended with .txt.exe, obviously a bad thing.  So I downloaded it, using Linux, of course (the .exe would not be able to do anything without me affirming that the file was to be opened with WINE, which I did not plan on doing).  I…