Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
mikethemadbiologist
Posts by this author
May 11, 2009
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…
May 10, 2009
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…
May 9, 2009
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,…
May 8, 2009
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…
May 7, 2009
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'):
May 6, 2009
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…
May 5, 2009
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…
May 5, 2009
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).…
May 4, 2009
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 (…
May 4, 2009
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…
May 3, 2009
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…
May 2, 2009
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…
May 1, 2009
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…
May 1, 2009
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-…
April 30, 2009
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…
April 30, 2009
...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.…
April 29, 2009
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…
April 29, 2009
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…
April 28, 2009
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....
April 28, 2009
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…
April 27, 2009
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, '…
April 27, 2009
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…
April 26, 2009
(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…
April 25, 2009
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…
April 25, 2009
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…
April 24, 2009
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…
April 23, 2009
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,…
April 22, 2009
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…
April 21, 2009
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…
April 20, 2009
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…