mikethemadbiologist

While I'm away, I'm using the ScienceBlogs Blogerator 9000 to repost something from the old site. The NY Timesinterviewed me about an Australian Salmonella outbreak. From the archives: A few days ago, an article in the NY Times about multi-drug resistant Salmonella in fish tanks was published. I…

While I'm hardly the first blogger to ever wonder about what the bloggysphere likes and dislikes, I'm curious to find out if anyone actually reads the posts about antibiotic resistance. Typically, I get the occasional comment or email from someone who has suffered personally from these infections…

Some brilliant Republican solons from the great state of Missouri have released an official state report that argues that abortion has led to illegal immigration. The 'argument?' Abortion has eliminated U.S. workers, leading to a need for illegal immigrants. Clearly, these brilliant minds have…

Casey Luskin is a moron. Carl Zimmer tells us why.

Well, things are looking up anyway. By way of Matt Stoller comes this letter from SEIU president Andy Stein: More than 5,300 Houston janitors have reached a solid tentative agreement with their employers that will put workers and their families on the road to a better future and pave the way for…

This week, Democratic Senator Carl Levin proposed that the U.S. begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in four to six months. Granted this is vastly superior to the Bush 'plan' which seems to be 'change absolutely nothing 'cuz it's worked damn well so far.' But I have a question: why wait four to…

Here are some weekend links you might have missed. First, the science stuff: PZ rips apart a creationist--it's always entertaining to read. Corpus Callosum has a nice summary of a bunch of bloggers bothered by Bush's appointment of faith-based medical practioner Dr. Eric Keroack to head the…

One of the maddening things about the creationists is that they are rarely forthright about their agenda. Euphimisms like "teach the controversy" and "fairness" abound. This leads to a lot of support that would not exist were their true agenda to be placed front-and-center. Amanda points out, in…

Maybe they won't beat us in prison if they think we're white, not Latino I was going to update this post about the Houston police who used horses to break up a peaceful union demonstration. But the way the police treated the union members once in custody is so awful, it deserves its own post.…

(from here) Because if janitors get healthcare, then the terrorists win Last night, Houston police used horses to break up a peaceful demonstration by unionized janitors, who on average, make $5.35/hr and have no health care. You know, if the Houston police were civilized they would have tasered…

CNN describes Nancy Pelosi as "damaged goods", and she hasn't even had her chance to screw up the country yet. Digby sums it up nicely: There are no honeymoons for Democrats. Remember that. And "moral authority" is about haircuts and Hollywood, not torture and illegal wars. It is not merely a…

Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency…

That Carnival o'the Wee Beasties known as Animalcules is being hosted by Andreas Baeumer over at Baumhaus. It all looks really interesting, so check it out. And yes, I have a few contributions myself.

A few weeks ago, an FDA expert panel by a vote of 6-4 decided against the approval of the use of the antibiotic cefquinome in cattle. Unfortunately, I've heard through the grapevine that the political appointees at the FDA plan to overrule the expert panel and approve the use of cefquinome. The…

For you younguns, in the 80s, the USDA decided to define ketchup as a serving of vegetables so it could skimp on subsidized meals for needy schoolchildren. Well, the USDA has decided to stop using the word "hunger" and replace it with "very low food security." Here's some statistics on "very low…

Matt Taibbi on politics in the era of television: The thing that people should be concerned about isn't that the news networks are choosing to cover politics like a football game. It's the idea that both televised football games and televised politics might represent some idealized form of…

Every year in the U.S., thousands of children are born with heart valve defects. Researchers have developed a way to grow heart valves from stem cells in amniotic fluid. From the AP: Scientists for the first time have grown human heart valves using stem cells obtained from the fluid that cushions…

I like it like that. Webb writes dirty words in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. You know, words like "class" and "elites." Says Webb (italics mine): The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes…

(from here) That's gotta hurt Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon discusses a shocking development--a majority of voters view Democrats as the fiscally responsible party: There is a shocking poll that should be a wake-up call to conservatives and Republicans nationwide. If I were a Republican…

...then what we think makes community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) so infectious might be wrong. A to-be published article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (Dec. 15) asks "Is Panton-Valentine Leukocidin the major virulence determinant in community-…

I appreciate all of you (well, except for a couple of conservatroll assholes), but this comment by "The Teachers Union" in response to a rightwing screed left in the comments is brilliant. First, the rightwing screed: Ha. You're full of shit. The gay baiting (Foster, Haggard, Mehlman), race…

I have a question about the movie Borat. Am I the only one who noticed that Sasha Barra Cohen's anti-Semitic character, when he speaks his 'native' tongue, is actually speaking Hebrew (with a few random smatterings of other languages thrown in)? I can't be the only one who picked up on that.

A while ago, I wrote about the effect that the rise of certain forms of Christianity was having on the military. To summarize: certain ideological or religious views mean that you might not be able to do your job very well. Bob Broughton carries the analysis over to the White House staff. His…

Now that the Democrats have taken both houses of Congress, there will be loud calls for them to govern from center. This silliness will be promulgated by the likes of David Broder and other Mainstream Media Mandarins who suffer from Complusive Centrist Disorder. Complusive Centrist Disorder has…

Here's some good weekend stuff from the internets. First, the science: Neaderthal introgression, in an easy to understand graphic format. A wonderful roundup of some fascinating endangered species. Make sure to check out the Dracula ants. If you're an itty-bitty microbe how do you outcompete…

Usually, I add good weekend posts to my weekend roundup, but Glenn Greenwald's post about the soulessness of the Mainstream Media Mandarins is so good, it deserves some special Mad Biologist commentary. Greenwald writes about how the Punditocracy has completely misread Sen. Russ Feingold because…

Notice that I separated these two words. That's because between 2004 and 2006, there was a thirty point shift to Democrats among Latinos. Why? Well, this might have something to do with it: I think the Republicans need to work on that whole Latino outreach thing...

This is one reason why having a Democratic congress matters. The Inspectors General of NASA and the Commerce Department have begun to investigate whether scientific findings were muzzled or altered by the Bush administration (italics mine): Prompted by a request this fall by 14 Democratic senators…

Whiskey Fire explains the 2006 election very cogently: A lot has been said already about the '06 elections, and a lot more will be said. Most of this will be crap. So let me just be clear: The Republicans lost the '06 elections because they are crazy people with shitty policies that have all failed…

This isn't to say that they weren't well on their way there to begin with. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online's blog, The Corner, and an LA Times columnist (no, really, he is) gives Little Lord Pontchartrain some post-election advice: I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush…