mikethemadbiologist

I've been meaning to follow up on some more thoughts about Unscientific America. I suppose what bothers me about the book is that there is no distinction between positive statements--the way things are or will be--and normative statements--the way things ought to be. As an example, consider…

The question is inspired by a Washington Post op-ed by a former teacher who is leaving teaching. It's a very depressing piece, and, if nothing else, reinforces my suspicion that, to the extent charter schools have demonstrated better results, those results are largely due to unsustainable demands…

Over at the Great Orange Satan, I came across a post by a father of a type I diabetic (type I diabetes is an auto-immune disorder wherein a person can not produce insulin, and needs regular injections). To anyone who is familiar with type I diabetes, it's terrifying: maintaining blood glucose '…

Or perhaps, health insurance deductions--of mice and men. In response to McCain's healthcare proposal, during the 2008 election, I laid out why tax deductions (or even credits) are a stupid healthcare policy. While I think it's foolish, at least, it attempts to be serious. But this is why I can'…

Yesterday, I raised the possible specter of violent intimidation breaking out at a health care townhall meeting. Turns out I was off by about twelve hours: Tampa, Florida-- Fireworks were expected, but organizers of a town hall meeting on health care reform were caught off guard Thursday night by…

'Her America' is disappearing. Supposedly, this is a bad thing. (Doug Mills/New York Times) TPM reports the following from a town meeting about healthcare in Arkansas: The attendees' overall theme was that their way of life was being destroyed... "At this point in my life, I have never seen my…

Here are some Thursday links for you. Science: World's fisheries at risk of collapse, but recovery is possible, study finds Complacency Bolsters A Pandemic She Blinded Me With Science Luke Jostins on the twice-sequenced genome Other: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream GE's silencing of Olbermann…

...assembly and analysis. The Wellcome Trust has a very good (and mostly accurate) article about the 'next-gen' sequencing technologies. I'm going to focus on bacterial genomics because humans are boring (seriously, compared to two bacteria in the same species, once you've seen one human genome,…

...falling out of the stupid tree and smacking into every branch on the way down would be another. By now, you might have heard about the corporate lobbyist-organized healthcare offensive, which is designed to 'confront' officials at public meetings about healthcare--that is, heckle, intimidate,…

Recently, I described polls that described how half of Southerners did not believe that President Obama was born in the U.S. David Weigel examines how many Southern whites believe Obama was born outside of the U.S.: In the South, like everywhere else, the vast majority of non-white voters said…

So Arthur Laffer, the creator of the Laffer Curve, which was used to justify lower taxes on the grounds that the increase in economic activity would actually increase the amount of tax revenue despite the lower rates, just crapped out on national television this pearl of wisdom: If you like the…

Heritability: I do not think it means what you think it means. There's been a spate of posts about obesity, started by a post by Megan McArdle. In these posts, a high heritability for obesity is bandied about (0.9!!! ZOMG!! TEH GENEZ R MAKIN U FAT!). But this demonstrates a lack of…

You mean it might have to do with something substantive, like clinical trial issues? Go figure: Not long ago, at a meeting of an advisory group established by Congress to monitor the war on cancer, participants were asked how to speed progress. "Everyone was talking about expanding the cancer work…

The CDC's expert committee has released its recommendations for who should receive the swine flu vaccination (TEH SWINEY FLOO!): 1. Pregnant women; household contacts and caretakers of children under 6 months old; health-care workers and emergency medical services workers; children and young adults…

Because fiscal responsibility is a conservative frame: In its healthcare messaging, the White House has taken an issue more intimate and immediate than perhaps any other in a voter's life and transformed it into an abstract, technical argument about long-term actuarial projections. It's a peculiar…

You'll never guess. From Amanda Marcotte: It's the most common outpatient procedure in the country, and yet we write it off as fringe. There's only 694,000 open heart surgeries a year on average, 600,000 hysterectomies, and 193,000 hip replacements a year---but there's 1.2 million abortions…

Last week, Glenn Greenwald annotated a campaign speech by Obama about civil liberties and the rule of law (boldface mine): We know it's time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd's candidacy, and I share his passion for…

Research 2000 conducted a poll where they asked the question, "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" It's probably not too surprising that only four percent of Democrats and eight percent of independents thought so--there will always be fucking morons…

Happy Weekend! (in a few hours, anyway). Here are some links for you. Irresponsible punditry Evil Syndicated Save us all from portrayals of responsible alcohol use 'The Cause of My Life': Inside the fight for universal health care. Health-care Reform and Congress Other: Irresponsible punditry…

There's been a recent spate of articles describing how a minor uptick in the Case-Shiller housing price index means that the recession is nearing a close. Leaving aside some outstanding issues such as the looming ARM recasts (which might roll on for five years), it's remarkable that a slight…

...for pedestrians? The Boston Globe reports that Boston is trying to implement a citywide bike sharing program: They intend to roll out what would be the nation's first citywide bike-sharing system next spring, making hundreds of bicycles at dozens of stations across Boston available to anyone…

Because ScienceBlogs borked this post yesterday, I'm reposting it here. 'Upgrade' is a four-letter word as far as I'm concerned. Anyway... Retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich lashed out recently at the Southern influence on the GOP. As Steve Benen noted, while Voinovich didn't make the…

I just finished reading Methland by Nick Reding. While the book focuses on the relationship between methamphetamines and the socioeconomic disintegration of rural areas*, this section about the interplay between lobbying and the failure to develop and produce an amphetamine that has decongestant…

Retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich lashed out recently at the Southern influence on the GOP. As Steve Benen noted, while Voinovich didn't make the point very tactfully, the GOP has become a regional party. Where I think Benen goes wrong is this (italics mine): Voinovich will no doubt…

Happy Tuesday! Here are some links for you. Science: Transmission, pathogenicity, virulence and vaccines, I. Transmission, pathogenicity, virulence and vaccines, part II. An Iconoclastic Endosymbiont Other: Obama, Don't Feed Me to the Insurance Companies. I Want Medicare. Liberal Bloc Rebels…

One of the things that I've long suspected about charter schools is that they're an unsustainable model: they rely on incredibly motivated teachers (who I think are a pretty motivated lot to begin with) who are willing to work even longer hours for essentially the same pay (or sometimes less). I'…

It never ceases to amaze me just how little some people actually understand about taxes, given how het up we get about taxes. We saw this before, when Obama unveiled his tax plan. Now, Mitch Albom gets into the act, incorrectly calling the increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans a 5.4%…

Dr. Mom raises an interesting point about the amount of time she spends working as a scientist: I work about 40 hours a week every week. I rarely work at home. It seems like most of my colleagues (women and men) work crazy 10, 12+ hour days. Often you hear people comparing the academic version of…

Merry Sunday! Here are some links. Science: This is why I blog: gratitude from stellar student, recovering addict seeking grad school advice Amyloid plaques, bacteria trigger immune response How would you like some posturing Congress Critter to de-fund your grant? Swine flu: not down for the…

Katrina vanden Heuvel makes a good point about some bad framing in the healthcare debate--the 'centrists' aren't in the center at all: Even a good regional paper like Louisville's Courier-Journal-- in rightly blasting the Blue Dogs as "deplorable" for being "unable to muster the spine to pay for…