mikethemadbiologist

Over at What's New in Life Science Research, I discuss different ways of being a bioterrorist. Comments are off here, go comment over there.

It's nice to see Carl Bergstrom, the driving force behind the Eigenfactor metric for measuring publication use, get written up in Seed magazine. Sez Bergstrom: ...Bergstrom has bigger plans than merely analyzing the importance of various journals. He wants to see how scientists have made science…

It's truly odd to hear a creationist make a population genetics argument--an idiotic one no less. Rick Warren, evangelist and who will be leading the invocation at Obama's inauguration, says the following about homosexuality: Warren, a creationist, believes that homosexuality disproves evolution;…

I really wasn't going to say much about the decision to have Rick Warren, civil rights opponent and evolution denialist, until Pam Spaulding bravely put on her slime guard and went to see what the rightwing denizens of Free Republic had to say. Warning--not safe for workdecent human beings: LOL…

By way of Scienceblogling PZ, I stumbled across a very interesting article by Max Blumenthal about the origins of the 'War on Christmas.' This passage stood out (italics mine): Following the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush's re-election, and the Republican sweep of Congress, Brimelow said…

I finally can get around to writing about Jan Kemp, the University of Georgia professor, who, even as Georgia was winning football championships, had the courage to point out that the football players were graduating utterly unprepared for post-collegiate life. Kemp herself put it best: "All over…

Last Friday, the NY Times published the actual obituary for Sunny von Bulow: All the hoopla and tabloid celebrity (of which she was unaware), and it ends in this. At least now, the poor woman will be left alone.

By way of Atrios, we discover that Google has moved away from its pro-net neutrality position: Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal…

...never mind believe in. Obama can do much better than former Clinton official and current corporate lobbyist David Hayes for Secretary of Interior. As a lobbyist for Ford, Hayes chose to side with Ford over a poor Native American community: Trying to stick the cost of the clean-up of a toxic…

I recently finished Dolores Hayden's Building Suburbia, and I recommend it highly. Hayden describes how all of the arguments we have today about land use and transportation have been with us in one form or another for over 150 years. But what struck me was this section--and keep in mind, this book…

Over at What's New in Life Science Research, I have a post about how screwed up it is to be worrying about bioterrorism when we can't even handle annual influenza. I've turned off comments here, so go comment over there.

I think this description by a former ambassador of hiring practices in the State Department during the reign of Little Lord Pontchartrain explains so much about the last eight years (italics mine): "YOU know you have arrived when you get interviewed by the 29-year-old instead of the 22-year-old,"…

I think NASA director Mike Griffin wants to lose his job (not a good idea these days...): NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is "not qualified" to…

This couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of assholes: The collapse of the sale of publisher Reed Elsevier's business information unit was inevitable. It's what happens next that's crucial. Reed was planning to use the sale proceeds to pay down debt from its $4.1 billion acquisition of U.S.…

David Leonhardt does a good job of explaining the lies surrounding the bogus $73 per hour compensation that the Big Three autoworkers supposedly receive--even if he does so rather elliptically. Here's how that $73 figure is reached: You'll notice that past compensation is a big part of the…

At the risk of channeling my inner Bob Somerby, I still don't get how many progressives (call me a liberal) approach education (granted, the phrase 'education reform' usually foreshadows bashing teachers unions). Hendrik Hertzberg, in the New Yorker, makes a really important observation about…

The Surgeon General urges that creationist dumbitude only be viewed through the StupidVu 9000 or other approved viewing device Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson is a very ignorant man. Sorry, he might get offended by that. Allow me to be more accurate: he's a…

It would seem to me that if Obama is serious about reaching out to Republicans, keeping Sheila Bair on as head of FDIC is a no-brainer. Yet Treasury nominee Geithner does not support her. I can't figure out what Bair did wrong (and I'm not being snarky). Consider: Geithner became increasingly…

Now, I realize with this title, lots of people are thinking that I'm trying to do away with scientific articles. Far from it. But the use of published articles as 'scientific currency' can retard the adoption of new breakthroughs. A recent personal experience is in order. I recently heard an…

One of the things that I don't write about much on the blog, but that I do follow with great interest is urban planning and transportation (yes, I need new hobbies). Among the glitterati of blogtopia (and, yes, skippy invented that phrase), there's a lot of discussion of how to develop better…

Where's axolotl? (Credit: Jan-Peter Kasper/EPA/CORBIS) Often, biologists talk about model systems: organisms that are particularly useful for research. One such organism is the axotol, Ambystoma mexicanum, a cool, but weird salamander: Because of their large egg and embryo size, susceptibility…

Because this cracks me up, here's the goofiest dog-in-snow footage I've ever seen:

Over at What's New in Life Science Research, I have some thoughts about the misperceptions surrounding cloning. Head on over, and keep Our Benevolent Seed Overlords happy.

When I read that film critic Roger Ebert was going back to work despite a bout with cancer, I wrote about my hope that he would turn his sights on the creationist screed Expelled. Many people may not know that he has been a long time, vocal opponent of the idiocy that is creationism. So I was…

While I'm waiting for our next What's New in Life Science Research topic, here's something about 'school reform' by Bob Somerby (who does great work on this topic): When it comes to Obama's education secretary, the Post favors "reform"--it wants someone who's "willing to experiment." Meanwhile,…

In case you missed it, there's a fascinating, albeit horrifying, article about the intersection of the business interests of retired military officers with their depiction in the mainstream media as unbiased commentators who are putting country first. Here's a sample: The company, Defense…

Over at What's New in Life Science, I have a post about embryonic stem cell research. Stop by and make Our Benevolent Seed Overlords happy.

One of the key biological questions about antibiotic resistance is to what extent is the spread of resistance due to the evolution of new resistant strains versus the spread of existing resistant strains. With MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it's been thought that epidemic…

Apparently, humanism is selfish. That would have been news to Albert Camus, Nobel Laureate and resistance fighter. This is from a military chaplain's presentation about suicide prevention that apparently is cribbed directly from evangelical preacher Rick Warren: In March 2008, this presentation,…

While this letter I found at AmericaBlog.com deals with religiously-motivated intolerance towards gays and lesbians, I think it's going to be germane (at least tangentially so) to the current stem cell discussion over at What's New in Life Science: We as a group have become tolerant of intolerance…