mikethemadbiologist

From the archives comes this post about movie critic Roger Ebert and the email he sent me. A little while back, Roger Ebert wrote a column assailing Imax theaters for pulling movies that were about the origin of life, the origin of the universe, and evolution. I suggested that we should send him…

A merry Christmas to all. (Gut yontif is Yiddish for Happy Holiday).

It's my birthday. No blogging for me--however I do have a make sexy time photo for you.

By way of Dave Neiwert comes this hysterical mash up of the movie 300 and the anti-immigrant right:

It's a couple years old, but good science never goes bad. Here's the abstract: Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four…

Driftglass is organizing a letter writing campaign to the advertisers on Chicago's hate radio station WIND. If you live in the area, help him out. Here's why: Remember, if you choose to contact any or all of the organizations on the list; 1. Polite but firm works best to accomplish what you are…

From the archives comes this comment on a question raised by microbiologist Paul Orwin--"What is science?": The only problem with Paul Orwin is that he doesn't post as often as I would like. He makes a great observation (italics mine): You've set yourself up a nice little system for examining the…

By way of Amanda, I came across this NY Times op-ed by Michael Pollan that discusses the role of agribusiness' misuse of antibiotics in the rise community-acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA). I've talked about the MRSA 'pig epidemic' before, and, Intelligent Designer…

...the Chikungunya virus might have something to say about that (if it could speak). From PLoS Pathogens: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an emerging arbovirus associated with several recent large-scale epidemics of arthritic disease, including one on Reunion island, where there were approximately…

Since torture seems to be under discussion by the A-list bloggers, I want to follow up on a point Helmut made in his Congressional testimony about torture. Simply, it is this: if torture is truly used as an interrogation technique, and not to fulfill a psychological need or as terrorism, it can…

John Aravosis, in a burst of rage, demonstrates why I can't stand 'progressives' (italics mine): I don't claim to be an expert on health care policy, and admit that my eyes gloss over when trying to understand the differences between Hillary's, Obama's, and Edwards' health care plan. But I have a…

ScienceBloging Greg Laden reports that the Texas Board of Higher Education is considering accrediting The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research so it could offer an online course in Science Education. ScienceBlogling PZ offers one solution to stop the inanity (or at least limit the damage if…

We're having a nor'easter. That's a great excuse for some links. Science first: I'm on the fence regarding ScienceDebate 2008. My thoughts about The Bell Curve and IQ. Speaking of IQ, Malcolm Gladwell and Amanda discuss the plasticity of IQ. ScienceBlogling Chris Mooney discusses the supposed…

...not 9/11. The Bush Administration spied on American citizens without court orders before Sept. 11, 2001. And it didn't stop the attacks (italics mine): In a separate program, N.S.A. officials met with the Qwest executives in February 2001 and asked for more access to their phone system for…

Jonathan Schell has recently written a superb book about the history of the nuclear age, The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. What Schell does is expose a lot of the hidden assumption underlying the discussion surrounding nuclear disarmament and nuclear proliferation (which as he…

At least, that's what the latest CBO data suggest. Paul Krugman summarizes the change in after-tax income between 2003-2005: Here's what the numbers say about percentage gains in after-tax income from 2003 to 2005: Bottom quintile: 2% Next quintile: 2.4% Middle quintile: 3.9% Fourth quintile: 3.7…

Helmut is one of those bloggers who doesn't get the credit he deserves. Well, helmut spoke to Congress about torture which hopefully makes up for that (bold original; italics mine): More likely than the time bomb case of torturing one person in order to save many is the case of torturing many…

Driftglass describes the racist horror that is the Republican base and which is becoming repellent to some conservatives: The Base is pro-torture for the simple reason that they are sadists and imbeciles; because unless somewhere some Scary Brown Person is being beaten to death with a pipe wrench…

If you visit ScienceBlogs regularly, you've probably read about ScienceBloglings Sheril Kirshenbaum's and Chris Mooney's proposal for a presidential debate about science. There's a lot I like about this proposal, but the reality of what could happen bothers me. First, what I like about the idea…

...never fear, Jon Swift is on the case: Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report, Curt at Flopping Aces and former humor blogger Ace of Spades (who recently won the Weblog Award for Best Conservative blogger) are three of the most respected conservative bloggers in the blogosphere. They will stop at…

Earlier this week, I attended the International Human Microbiome Consortium Meeting (the human microbiome consists of the organisms that live on and in us). I'm not sure to make of the whole microbiome initiative, but one thing is clear to me: this is being driven by the wrong group of scientists…

And I blame the demise of my rocket-propelled toilet for this. As the hackneyed phrase goes, let's start at the beginning. In my apartment, my toilet used to have a gizmo in the tank that looked like one of those rocket backpacks from the 1930s comic books--there was no water, just this rocket…

Since I'm attending a human microbiome meeting today, I'll repost this question about the utility of metagenomics: NIH, in about six months, will release a huge sum of money to fund the study of the human 'microbiome': those microorganisms that live on or in us. One of the things that will be done…

A while back, I came across two great posts, one about merit pay (something I've discussed before) and the other about teacher training. First, one teacher's take on merit pay: Were I compensated on the basis of test scores, I would have received a huge increase this year, because of the much…

Republicans are upset that, at the most recent CNN-hosted Republican presidential debate, a member of the audience who turned out to be a Democrat asked a question: "My name is Keith Kerr, from Santa Rosa, California. I'm retired brigadier general with 43 years of service, and I'm a graduate of the…

There are two recent and very disheartening stories about energy technology. The first has to do with the new standards for automobile gas mileage in the U.S.: The proposal, which would require automakers to achieve 35 miles per gallon on average, is similar to a measure that was passed in the…

I've described how the Iowa caucus voting procedure is a ridiculous way to decide how might be the next president, but Iowa's and New Hampshire's insistence on being the first states might have cost the Democrats Florida. Here's what the Democrats did: Fearing likely attempts by big states like…

No, it doesn't eat brains: that would be a fossil zombie dinosaur. From The Washington Post: A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue…

Between my original post about how to punish creationist politicians and ScienceBlogling Greg's discussion, several readers commented that I was making this a political issue. Quite simply, I am not the only doing that: the Republican theopolitical conservative base is. The issue is, do we fight…

It's the first night of Chanukah. What are you getting? One bit of disconcerting news. A while back I heard that Mel Gibson was going to make a movie about the Macabees. If this is true, I can't wait... (and I wonder if, like in Passion of the Christ, all of the 'good Jews' won't look very '…