Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
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Posts by this author
May 19, 2009
This morning was cool, overcast, and very dry. There was no discernible dew on the grass.
In other words, not conditions in which the gastropods come out to play.
Having some experience of this kind of weather earlier in the snail eradication campaign, I went right for the well-insulated hiding…
May 19, 2009
Yesterday, I posted the first part of my interview with Sean Cutler, a biology professor on a mission to get the tribe of science to understand that good scientific competition is not antithetical to cooperation. Cutler argues that the problem scientists (and journal editors, and granting agencies…
May 18, 2009
Sean Cutler is an assistant professor of plant cell biology at the University of California, Riverside and the corresponding author of a paper in Science published online at the end of April. Beyond its scientific content, this paper is interesting because of the long list of authors, and the way…
May 18, 2009
This was another cool, dewy morning following on the heels of a blazing hot day.
In other words, good snailing weather.
I got started a little earlier than usual, because I had to empty yesterday's Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance onto the compost pile and prepare a fresh Soapy Bucket of…
May 17, 2009
About half of the Free-Ride silkworms (who you know from pictures and videos) have decided that it's time to pupate.
Of course, we immediately broke out the video camera. But, then the truth started to dawn on us.
It takes a good while for a silkworm to make a cocoon. The ones that seem ready…
May 17, 2009
Yesterday was a super-hot day, and this morning was cool and dewy. Later, though, we're expecting temperatures higher than yesterday's.
So the gastropods were out enjoying the break in the heat while it lasted.
On the plus side, many of them will not have to suffer through today's heat. I brought…
May 16, 2009
Dear Natural Selection,
Can we have a chat about weeds?
Don't get me wrong, I am duly impressed with the variety of plants that have evolved under your pressure. I'm all about the plants, and I try to be respectful of the growing conditions you impose in our zone.
But would it kill you to make…
May 16, 2009
Well, I think it's safe to say that the slim pickings on days six and seven were related to the low level of dewiness.
This morning: much dewier.
The gastropod population in evidence in the back yard: back in the triple digits.
Still, things seem not as infested as a week ago, when we launched the…
May 15, 2009
Earlier this week, I found out about a pair of new case studies being released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides. These cases examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of microbicides antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were…
May 15, 2009
This morning I overslept, so I didn't get out into the yard until 6:15 AM to commence the gastropod picking.
Either someone got to them before me, or there just aren't many left in the parts of the yard I am actively patrolling.
Seriously, there weren't even any slugs on the side of the watering…
May 15, 2009
We offer a couple more video sprog segments with the much enlarged silkworms. It won't be long before they're spinning cocoons (we're guessing -- and the mulberry trees are hoping), so these may be the last of their baby videos:
Silkworm breeding:
A perfect opportunity for a little child labor:…
May 15, 2009
Those wee little silkworms which you saw in videos last week are growing at an impressive rate.
Here, see for yourself:
They're bigger!
Owing to their voracious appetites, the silkworms have sent us ransacking neighborhood mulberry trees (we've identified three so far)and bringing back a gallon of…
May 14, 2009
This morning's garden foray was weird.
Where were all the gastropods?
In 30 minutes of serious hunting, in past hiding places and what looked like reasonable candidates as auxiliary hiding places, I mostly came up empty. Some possible explanations for this:
I've put a serious dent in the snail and…
May 13, 2009
One of the things we'd like to be able to do with our powers of ethical reasoning is tackle situations where we're not immediately certain of the right thing to do (or, for that matter, of the reason why the plan someone else is advocating strikes us as wrong).
A common strategy (at least in an…
May 13, 2009
Today, I may have picked slightly more slugs than snails. And, in the process of acquainting myself with the ways of the slug, I discovered a very good reason to perform early-morning gastropod removal as a solo activity:
The tall grass slug trebuchet.
Seriously, if either of the sprogs had been…
May 12, 2009
In the comments of one of my snail eradication posts, Emily asks some important questions:
I'm curious about how exactly you reason the snail-killing out ethically alongside the vegetarianism. Does the fact that there's simply no other workable way to deal with the pests mean the benefits of…
May 12, 2009
This morning, it seems like the pickings were somewhat slimmer.
Part of this may have to do with the weekday morning time constraints (30 minute time limit). However, it seems like some regions of the yard that were swarming with gastropods over the weekend had only a few wee snails this morning…
May 11, 2009
In light of our recent snail eradication project:
Why does salt "melt" snails and slugs? (And how do people manage to prepare escargot without ending up with a big pot of goo?)
To answer this question, let us consider the snail as seen by the chemist:
The snail is an animal whose sliding-along-…
May 11, 2009
Today was the first school day of our snail eradication project. This meant I had to get out to the yard a bit earlier (just after 6 AM), and that I had a fairly limited time to pick slugs and snails before I needed to get inside to propel the sprogs school-ward.
Last night, when I was buying more…
May 10, 2009
Every now and then, I have a look at the logs of incoming traffic to see how people are getting here. A bunch of people arrive via search engines, and here's some of what they've been searching for in the last couple days:
swine flu and air travel
math limerick
ethics, jokes
why would i want to…
May 10, 2009
Dr. Isis asked me to write a letter for her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project, which she describes as follows:
When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the assignment to recreate my scientific family tree. When I did, I found that my family tree…
May 10, 2009
This was another early morning out in the garden picking snails. It was, however, markedly yuckier than yesterday's foray.
First, to those who have recommended alternate strategies for dissuading the gastropods, I've done the copper tape before. It seemed to help a little, but it was far from…
May 9, 2009
At least, if you're a member of a philosophy department:
Spending the day with them is enough to get your mind working on interesting problems and productive ways to approach solving them -- and this is true even if while you're together you aren't really discussing philosophy per se. Just being…
May 9, 2009
The most troublesome invasive species in my backyard garden is the snail.
Yesterday morning, when I took out the buckets of shower-warning-up and vegetable-rinsing water to feed to my plants, I was horrified to find snails on my carrots, snails on my chard, snails on my potatoes, snails on my…
May 8, 2009
From time to time, when we've talked about people who object to research with animals on ethical grounds, the claim has been made that it is hypocritical for people with these objections to avail themselves of modern medicine. Our drugs and surgical interventions, after all, are typically the…
May 8, 2009
We have just stopped for lunch.
Out of ten agenda items, we have covered three.
I blame this, in part, on the fact that our faculty gets along so well and cares a lot about our shared work. Everyone has a great deal to say, and adds footnotes and friendly amendments to everyone else's points.
But…
May 8, 2009
Here's some more video footage of the Free-Ride silkworms, with color commentary from the Free-Ride offspring.
Let me note here that as "pets" acquired as the elementary science classroom winds down for summer, silkworms are pretty agreeable. As long as you have a stable source of mulberry leaves…
May 8, 2009
This week, our first-ever video sprog blog. (Yeah, I know, I'm going to have to turn in my Luddite card now.) Because it's hard to do silkworms justice unless you can watch them squirm!
Recall that these silkworms (who you've already seen in pictures) hatched from eggs that came home last June…
May 7, 2009
It is not easy to be a tremendous Luddite parenting 21st century kids.
Currently, the Free-Ride offspring are learning the intricacies of Photoshop.
The elder offspring so far has focused on creating new Pokemon using parts from existing ones, while the younger offspring has taken to adorning…
May 7, 2009
At White Coat Underground, PalMD considers an article from the Journal of Medical Ethics. The article (L. Johnson, R. B. Stricker, "Attorney General forces Infectious Diseases Society of America to redo Lyme guidelines due to flawed development process," Journal of Medical Ethics 2009; 35: 283-288…