mikethemadbiologist

In response to this post about annual influenza (also crossposted here), I received several emails and comments that missed the whole point. I am not denigrating the importance of 'other' diseases. AIDS and cancer are worth curing and preventing. My point about influenza is that preventing most…

Over at Shifting Baselines, there's an interesting discussion of a question that economist Steven Levitt asks: why are we eating so much shrimp? Unfortunately, the way the question is phrased--is it supply or demand--ignores the history of another crustacean craze. Lobster. It's hard to believe…

Tom Pennington/Fort Worth Star-Telegram, via Associated Press First, rock snot. Now, giant spider webs that cover acres. One more screwy thing, and I'm stocking up on canned goods. From the New York Times: Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with…

...or too much of anyway. One of the most eloquent speeches that I have ever heard was by Martin Luther King to striking sanitation workers. What's sad is that, while the particulars have changed somewhat, the overall picture remains the same. From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers…

...but they don't need no stinkin' healthcare. From the Boston Globe: American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory, or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year. They also get more done per hour than…

It's the 'freshmen are invading Boston' links edition. By the way, if you're at the corner of Exeter and Boylston and you can't find the Prudential Center--which is right below the really tall building that has "PRUDENTIAL" on it--you are prima facie evidence that admissions standards are indeed…

Last week, I saw the movie Lucky Number Slevin. I thought it was a great movie, and lent to friends, who agreed that it was really well done. The odd thing about the movie is that I had never even heard of it, and others had also never heard of it or had vague recollections of it (and hadn't seen…

One of the most shameful things about the destruction of New Orleans was the attempt to blame the victims. Too many Americans--disproportionately Republican--could not rationalize two beliefs: Americans and George Bush are good people. These same good people deserted other Americans and left them…

A well-developed sense of irony can be a very useful thing to a politician. From Paul Krugman: "I don't want the people who ran the Katrina cleanup to manage our health care system," says Mitt Romney... Good reason not to vote for Republicans, I think. Particularly, if you're on Medicare...

Even though it's nearing the end of the tourist season, I was inspired by a letter to Boston's Weekly Dig, and thought some advice for out-of-town visitors would be helpful. First, the letter: Dear Slack-jawed Touristas, While we appreciate the dollars that you pump into our Menino-pillaged…

Via LiveScience comes this interesting story about gay relationships during medieval times (italics mine): Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says. Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as…

For me, the moment I discovered that the New Orleans levees had catastrophically failed is one of those moments that I will never forget. The night before (Aug. 29th), I went to bed a little after midnight, thinking that New Orleans had survived the worst of Katrina, and that the city's luck had…

No, "I think I'm pregnant" is a universal constant. The four words are "It can be better." Recently, maha and I have written some posts about conservatism. I've also finished reading Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting with Jesus which is an excellent natural history of Southern conservatives (note: I…

No, not Senator Craig's hypocrisy. The conservative commentariat's. Glenn Greenwald beats me to the punch (italics mine): What accounts for this complete shift in right-wing commentary about the Craig story? How can it possibly be that Craig's bathroom adultery compels his resignation today, but…

(from here) I think he needs to hear this.

A while ago, I posted about eigenFACTOR, a bioinformatics tool that can be used to calculate the relative impact of scientific journals. Well, the eigenFACTORials have developed a whole buncha new stuff you can do with the program: Maps of science. How different fields of science cite each other…

This is all Massachusetts needs--an invasion of rock snot: Already a scourge in New Zealand and parts of the American South and West, the aquatic algae called "rock snot" is creeping into New England, where it is turning up in pristine rivers and alarming fishermen and wildlife biologists.... Over…

...and why most scientists oppose the Bush administration. In a post about hurricane Katrina, Rick Perlstein writes (bold original, italics mine): I recently had an instructive moment with a colleague here at Campaign for America's Future. We've been discussing a series of texts for a redesign of…

Glenn Greenwald catches Washington Post political 'reporter' Anne Kornblut impugning the patriotism of millions of Democrats: The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut, analyzing the differences between Republicans and Democrats on Iraq, explained on Tuesday night's Hardball: ANNE KORNBLUT, "THE…

Yes, I'm kidding. But there's a new poll which should make every Republican political operative and politician terrified. From Strategic Vision, a Republican polling firm: 4. Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only) Yes 51%…

It's a hot Sunday, particularly since my building's fucking air conditioning conked out (and I get to live on the top floor). But here's your links anyway. Science firstest: It's the annual influenza epidemic stupid. N =1 suggests that nurses need to play a role preventing this epidemic. Here's…

Brought to you by Glenn Greenwald: That is why war opponents on the "left" -- including bloggers -- were and still are deemed Unserious even though they proved to be correct. Their opposition was not based (at least principally) on the belief that we were using the wrong "force deployment packages…

ScienceBlogling Tara of Aetiology has co-authored a PLoS Biology article about HIV denialism and the internets. Go read it. The HIV denialists are clogging up the internet tubes...

Yes, I've cribbed the title from Chris Hedges' superb, must-read book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. But Josh Marshall stumbles across a great insight about the Iraq War and Occupation, but doesn't quite carry through all the way. So the Mad Biologist will. Marshall writes about…

This post by ScienceBlogling revere about the horrendous human cost of influenza is getting some serious exposure. This gives me an excuse to mention something I haven't in a long time: Stop worrying about avian influenza. Get serious about 'ordinary' influenza. Why? Last year, 'ordinary'…

It probably doesn't look like Marvin. (from here) The data haven't been released yet, but that's what CNN is reporting: The soil on Mars may contain microbial life, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago. The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead…

Forget smoking cessation. This is a patch everyone can use. From the August 10 edition of ScripNews (subscription only): Iomai's traveller's diarrhoea vaccine patch shows promise Iomai's investigational vaccine patch for traveller's diarrhoea has shown positive Phase II results in volunteers…

Maha does a great job of getting at the underlying issues in the Bush adminstration's opposition to expanding the S-CHIP children's health insurance program: The most legitimate question that we have to ask, seems to me, is why is there government? In particular, what is representative, republican…

The Anti-Defamation League reversed its previous position that held the genocide of Armenians wasn't genocide yesterday. Sort of, anyway: The national office of the Anti-Defamation League reversed its long-held position today and acknowledged the Armenian genocide of 1915, saying in a statement…

You might have heard of Family Security Matters, a rightwing faith-tank that has been embarrassed by one of their members, Philip Atkinson. He embarased them so thoroughly that FSM has purged all reference to him from its website (more about that, later). So what was the offending passage, given…