Links 8/14/11

More like this

The prospect of infections spreading from animals to humans has become all too real with the onset of the current swine flu pandemic, and the threat of a bird flu still looming. But infections can jump the other way too. Decades before the world's media were gripped with panic over bird flu, humans…
If you live in Massachusetts, one of the most important votes you'll be casting is for or against proposition 1. What is proposition 1? It's the right-wing libertarian delusion that the best government is no government. Written by that societal piranha, Grover Norquist, proposition 1 would cut the…
Update: OK, a pro is in the house. Chris of Mixing Memory starts: I don't really know where to start on this. Lakoff's reply is one of the most intellectually dishonest pieces of writing I've seen from a cognitive scientist, and if anyone other than Lakoff had written it, I'd probably just ignore…
A pig flying at the Minnesota state fair. Picture by TCS. I've been involved in a few discussions of late on science-based sites around yon web on antibiotic resistance and agriculture--specifically, the campaign to get fast food giant Subway to stop using meat raised on antibiotics, and a…