mikethemadbiologist

Having been at Genome Camp (a.k.a. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories Biology of Genomes meeting) last week, I didn't have time to blog about the latest movement conservative idiocy of getting all het up about Obama asking for Dijon mustard at a restaurant. It's clearly another instance of attempting…

While I disagree with his implications of what it means for the Left (or what passes for it), Aaron Swartz makes a very good observation about the monetizers of the conservative movement: What's striking about the rise of modern conservatism is that it was not, in large part, the creation of big…

Between around 1999-2007, I never understood how so many people appeared to have so much money. Yes, some were actually rich and earned a lot of money, but I knew many people--too many people--who just didn't make that much money, but somehow were able to afford a home, payments on two nice cars,…

I hope the swine flu outbreak focuses attention on the importance of vaccination. When you consider seasonal (annual) influenza (which kills ~36,000 per year) and how lackidaisical people are about vaccination, I can only hope that this makes people realize just how important vaccination for annual…

I've never understood how Bill Maher, who gets it so wrong on vaccination, gets it so right on evolution. Nonetheless, he hits this piece about evolution and influenza out of the park (except for referring to evolutionary biology as 'Darwinism'):

According to economist Simon Johnson, economists can learn a lot from the swine flu public health response--and, while he might not mean it, that says a great deal about economics. And you thought the Mad Biologist can be pessimistic: Experience from the past two years surely teaches us that…

Here are some links for you. Science firstest: But What If You Can't Afford To Stay Home? Pandemic Lotto H1N1: Why Do Schools Close, And When Do They Open? H1N1 flu: confirmed case counts Other: The Far Right's First 100 Days: Shifting Into Overdrive You don't need to eat a veggie burger to be…

Before I get to the substance of this post, let me state that I'm not a big fan of genetically modified food crops (GMO crops). And there are few bloggers who have spent more time blogging about antibiotic resistance (never mind spending part of his professional career addressing the problem).…

If all has gone well, I'm at Cold Spring Harbor for the Biology of Genomes meeting (actually, I'm here a day early for the Microbiome 'pre-meeting'), so responding to email and comments will be sporadic. You know you're in a fast-moving area when the last figure is assembled Friday morning (…

Wendy Orent, having decided that Paul Ewald is the end-all and be-all of evolutionary epidemiology, is again repeating the mantra that pandemics will evolve to become less deadly. Never mind that, as ScienceBlogling Greg Laden reminds us, the first wave of the 1918 pandemic was far milder than the…

One of the disturbing trends over the last decade, give or take, has been how ethical behavior has become synonymous with "a conviction overturned on appeal." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's ethical. With that, I give you Matthew Yglesias (boldface mine; italics original): They…

You might have about the NIH Challenge Grants funded by the stimulus package. The grants are for two years, with a total (direct and indirect costs) of $1 million (there are other grants available too, but this post isn't about those grants). There will be roughly 200-300 funded grants. And I've…

One of things about living in Boston is that it's small enough that you start to recognize people. To many of those who don't live in the city, I'm sure the down-and-out, the homeless, and the somewhat deranged appear as a wave of anonymous humanity. But, like I said, you start to recognize…

For keeping the big picture in mind when it comes to influenza--as the CDC decides to proceed with seasonal influenza vaccine production: Dr. Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist, said the decision to proceed with seasonal flu vaccine production is evidence "that garden-…

Merry Thursday! Here are some links for you. Science: Bad Economy Causes Bronx Zoo to Evict Animals Everything you wanted to know about dying in Massachusetts Swine flu and Woo Swine Flu Genes From Pigs Only, Not Humans or Birds Retrocyclins: a defence against HIV, reawakened after 7 million…

...Oh my? The CDC is being very smart about this issue. As long time readers of this blog will know, the Mad Biologist is very concerned about the evolution of resistance to antibacterials (antibiotics) and antivirals. One such antiviral is Tamiflu which is used to treat influenza infections.…

Courtesy of Skepchick: If you are "more at risk" to have a deadly infectious virus, like you just got back from a pig-licking tour of Mexico* where you were repeatedly sneezed on, then you should see a real medical professional. Homeopaths do not necessarily have medical degrees and all they can do…

Probably not. I have no idea how serious this swine flu outbreak will be. As I noted yesterday, it could evolve to cause less severe symptoms or more severe symptoms--right now, nobody knows for certain. But I find the possible overreaction by the public to be disturbing (I think the public…

Surly Amy mixes swine flu and homeopathy: Do you suppose the homeopaths are diluting a smidgen of a pig in water right now? See, Twitter does have its uses....

Since TEH SWINE FLU!!!11!!! is a hot topic, I thought this post about how infections could evolve increased virulence after switching animal hosts was relevant. From the Murky Depths of the Mad Biologist's Archives: There's no reason to think that an epidemic influenza strain won't become more…

Republican Senator Susan Collins went along with Karl Rove and cut or eliminated funding from the stimulus package for pandemic influenza spending. While Democratic Congressman Obey was able to restore $50 million for infection reporting, all state and local funding was eliminated. Nicely done, '…

ScienceBlogling PalMD does a good job of eviscerating the false claims of expertise by woo practioner 'Dr.' Patricia Fitzgerald and the rest of the witch doctors over at The Huffington Post, so I thankfully don't have to (so many fucking morons, so little Mad Biologist...). But PalMD neglected to…

(from here) And I don't mean that in a good way. Washington Post columnist and Compulsive Centrist Disorder sufferer, regarding prosecutions for torture, scribbles: The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White…

Happy Saturday. Here are some links. Science: The New York Botanical Gardens Today: A Photo Diary Why Accidents (The Pregnant Kind) Happen Factors Behind the Relentless Spread of the Alt-Med Meme Obama's Tech Appointments: Aneesh Chopra (CTO) and Jeffrey Zient (CIO) both health care technocrats…

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/23/prosecutions/index.ht… It's one thing to be a stenographer--and a bad one at that. But, as Glenn Greenwald notes, our celebrity press corps goes beyond that: ...the favorite mantra of media stars and Beltway mavens everywhere -- Look Forward, Not…

In yesterday's NY Times, Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005 who worked on counterterrorism, wrote a devastating indictment of the failure of torture to collect useful intelligence. To me, the most critical part of the op-ed is about how torture fails to reveal novel…

In light of the April 15 protests, I think this chart by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities which describes the federal budget is appropriate: You'll notice that the largest component of the budget is defense spending (it narrowly edges out Social Security), and unlike Social Security,…

I was going to let the latest Huffington Post idiocy about antibiotics causing cancer go unremarked since Orac slaughtered it, but then I read the comments and became mad. Really Mad. First, this from the book promotion masquerading as an article: And many people still believe that antibiotics…

A while ago, I talked about some things biologists should learn, and the glaring omission was mathematical fluency. I bring this up because one of the things the Mad Biologist does is work on the Human Microbiome Project (between that, and fighting evil, we are very busy...). The part of the…

Julian Sanchez, writing about global warming, makes an excellent point about how denialists are able to be so successful (italics original; boldtype mine): Come to think of it, there's a certain class of rhetoric I'm going to call the "one way hash" argument. Most modern cryptographic systems in…