mikethemadbiologist

You might remember the recent assault on Planned Parenthood by the rightwing. Well, I forgot that former congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave also got in on the act: Former Congresswoman and anti-abortion rights advocate Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) suggested Planned Parenthood covers up sexual assaults…

I guess I'm so inured to wealthy conservatives complaining about how financially hard they have it that Republican Congressman Sean Duffy's complaint about money wasn't what bothered me about this utterance: At a town hall meeting in Polk County, Wisconsin earlier this year, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI)…

Links for you, and that's no April Fool's. Science: Beauty Watch Out Below: Wasps Battle Ants by Dropping Them Is Bigger Really Better? It's a pretty sweet gig, if you can stomach it (on creationist 'science') Other: Review of Closing the Racial Achievement Gap Is progress in Florida schools…

...hopefully, they won't murder anyone. Speaking of Research has documented the anti-medical research threats by an organization known as Negotiation Is Over (italics mine; no direct link to terrorist organizations on this blog): Students also need to understand that making the wrong choice will…

So my post about why biomedical scientists suffer more than others in STEM fields seems to have received some attention. ScienceBlogling Chad Orzel writes: That's true, but here's the thing: it's not unique to biomedical science. The same problem afflicts physics-- every time I post something…

Links for you. Science: Livestock-associated Staphylococcus aureus in Childcare Worker New paper: Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in a childcare worker "Castrated" Spiders Are Better Fighters, Study Says The spread of superbugs Other: Greg Mankiw: Budget Arsonist Screaming for a Firehose...…

I've written before about the effect poverty has on educational performance. From the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, PA, we read this heartbreaking account of the violence many poor kids face in the classroom: A yearlong Inquirer investigation found that young children - from kindergartners…

One of the issues I've discussed repeatedly is how resources--money--need to be shifted from data generation to data processing and analysis. This report about the Earth Microbiome Project, which will characterize 10,000 environmental (e.g., soil, water) samples is encouraging. Someone must have…

Merry Wednesday! Links for you. Science: The Real Reason Women Quit Engineering Antarctic lake hints at a world of virus-attacking viruses The flat and the fit Other: A reason to cheat Beyond Erase to the Top: The Myth of Michelle Rhee Continues Illustrating How Infrastructure Deals Result in…

In a very interesting post about political power and economic equality, William Hogeland recounts some uncivil exchanges between Thomas Paine and John Adams: Here's John Adams on Thomas Paine's famous 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense": "What a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass."…

Science Professor makes what I think is an entirely accurate assessment of the misery of many in the biomed academic world (emphasis original): However, much of what I have learned, although fascinating, has been second-order compared to this: People in the biomedical sciences seem to suffer a lot…

Links for you. Science: The High Water Mark of American Science Ancient America: The Mammoth Hunters A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students Other: Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom Public Pensions and Arithmetic Problems at…

I'm a big fan of Brad DeLong's blog even when I don't agree with him. But one of the things that's bothered me is when he reprints posts in full. For bloggers, professional or amateur, links are currency. Reprinting the post in full means people won't be inclined to click through to your site.…

Whenever a new discipline, especially one using a 'sexy' technology, is brought to bear on human disease, it seems to be oversold in what it will actually accomplish. In addition, every problem is suddenly viewed through that lens, that if we understand how phenomenon X influences something, then…

Links for you. Science: We need to work together to save the Statistical Abstract of the United States China pig crisis: Drug residues in pork Elizabeth Taylor: Beautiful Mutant Other: The trouble with fund management Nonprofits Must Stand Up and Fight for Themselves, or Perish It's Tracking Your…

Matthew Yglesias makes a good point about budget negotiations--their intransigence on tax increases means that, at least in the House, the budget is entirely up to the Republicans: Under these circumstances, there's nothing to negotiate about and nothing presidential leadership can achieve. If…

Because that's not been his MO so far. A long-time reader emailed and asked me why I haven't commented on Libya. Well, it's simple: as far as I can tell, the U.S. government has a long-standing policy of doing the opposite of what I want when it comes to matters of war and peace. Nonetheless, I…

Links for you. Science: Big dust-up about kin selection Writing Popular Science Books Doesn't Make You a Scientist Why are these trees completely wrapped in spider webs? Other: Humanitarians of the Year The Gang That Couldn't Lobby Straight Bachman For President (the Tea Party is the theopolitical…

Republican Massachusetts senator Scott Brown is such a disgrace, he can't even beg for money correctly: At the public dedication of MIT's David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute last Friday, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) effusively thanked conservative billionaire David Koch for supporting his…

The whole CDO binge (aka Big Shitpile) led to a whole slew of perverse incentives to not help a borrower who is having difficultly paying the mortgage, even though, in the era before mortgages were treated as commodities to be sold, banks routinely went out of their way to avoid foreclosure--…

Links for you. Science: Congress and Science Education: Wolf Berates NSF on Overdue Report Inclusive Fitness: Return to the Wrestling Ring Researchers Challenge E. O. Wilson Over Evolutionary Theory Robert Trivers and colleagues on Nowak, Tarnita, and Wilson's "The evolution of eusociality" Re:…

It sounds like the Boston Public Library will be closed year round on Sundays : Boston Public Library trustees have signed off on a $39.3 million budget that does not include branch closures or layoffs, but that does call for shuttering the Copley branch on Sundays.... The proposed library budget…

A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald gave a speech where he discussed the climate of government intimidation in the U.S.: I received a lot of comments from people via email, from people in person telling me at my attended events, from people in my comment section, American citizens who said the…

Happy Friday! Links for you. Science: We need to work together to save the Statistical Abstract of the United States At odds with disease risk estimates The other weaver ants Unauthorized medicine: Leave important clinical testing to the professionals Other: What the Baby Joseph cases tells us…

Because that's just good speaking. Chris Mooney has a very good post about the civic obligation scientists have to explain their work and its implications to the public. I recommend it highly. But one small part of the post rubbed me the wrong way (italics original; boldtype mine): When it comes…

Links for you. Science: Study finds reports of domestic violence rise 10 percent after NFL upsets: NIH researchers suggest unexpected disappointment may underlie loss of control and violent behavior A Guide to Smarter, Safer Antibiotic Use Rat Race Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love…

By way of Roy Edroso, we unfortunately come across this Washington Times gay-hating screed that masquerades as religious-based love. So ordinarily I would give it a pass, except for this idiotic doosy: And what about the Creator of the Universe? It is God's moral code that has undergirded Western…

Because we are human after all. Jason Collins at Evolving Economics, in response to my post about one economist's misunderstanding of biology, asks a very good question: On the flip side, did Dawkins or Gould (or their respective supporters) ever concede to the other side that they were wrong and…

More, um, snow expected. Sigh. Links for you. Science: Virophage, the virus eater (this is really cool) On Baby Harp Seals, Coal Plants and Nuclear Power Let's do the numbers. Again. (every three Tomahaw cruise missiles equal two NIH R01 grants) Bacterial Burglary Other: It's not structural…

A recent change by Harper Collins Publishing regarding library-owned eBook has met with a lot of criticism: The value of this magically convenient library book -- otherwise known as an e-book -- is the subject of a fresh and furious debate in the publishing world. For years, public libraries…