mikethemadbiologist

If brilliant economists can't invest wisely, what chance do the rest of us have? A while ago, I finished reading High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families. One of the interesting points of the book was how the emphasis on 'investor choice' has led to increased financial risk…

This will be something of a technical post, but I've decided to pick the hivemind's brain. In some projects I'm involved with, we're generating lists of SNPs for a bunch of bacterial strains using Illumina. For a given strain, anywhere from ten to forty percent of the SNPs are indels (actually '…

In the midst of the financial crisis, I think we've lost sight of the real victims here--people trapped in a housing debt prison: ...they were counting on increasing income and increasing home prices to finance their lifestyles and their family's future. It isn't going to turn out well for them.…

I'll be away for a couple weeks on a much needed vacation. Don't worry, blogging will still happen, just not quite as regularly.

It's not great, and I would like to see more things in it that can be negotiated away, but it still hits most of the points I raised. Outsourced to Ian Welsh: So yeah, the Dodd plan. Good plan. Buying up mortgages for 15% less than the current market value of the house, then reissuing a clean…

First, the last name of "Kaptur" is awesome. Also, she has an accent that is nearly as ridiculous as Palin's, so Kaptur must be a 'real' American: There's really no reason to get stampeded into this.

Five, actually. This showed up on a listserv I'm a member of: NCSE and The Panda's Thumb are recruiting scientists named Steve, or Stephanie, or Stephen, or Esteban, et al. to join Project Steve, a tongue-in-cheek response to creationists. All members of Project Steve agree with the following…

Cuz I can:

Ten million dollars buys you a lot of police misconduct: An investigation is indeed necessary, but I am already pretty sure about what happened: In August, protesters at the 2004 RNC successfully won police brutality lawsuits against the New York City police department. So, a few days later, the…

...John Bircher? By way of ScienceBlogling Ed Brayton, I came across this Salon article describing Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin's claim that she is a young earth creationist (or, at the very least, believes that human and dinosaurs lived at the same time, which is fucking stupid enough). But…

Before I get to the letter I sent to my Congressional delegation, I want to discuss why the proposed bailout matters if you consider yourself a friend of science. It's very simple: if we sink $700 billion or more into propping up brokers you can kiss any science-related initiatives goodbye. No…

If it's wrong when the government gets into the health insurance business*, why it is right when the government gets into the financial insurance business? Surely, physical health is as important as financial health? Never mind. *Of course, government is already in the health insurance business in…

Clearly, John McCain isn't reading the blog. Consider this McCain utterance by way of Josh Marshall: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by…

So John McCain apparently doesn't realize that Spain is: 1) not in the Americas; 2) fighting alongside us in Afghanistan and is a NATO ally; 3) not our enemy. Here's the backstory: Per a post on Josh Marshall's site, I just listened to an interview John McCain did with a Spanish journalist…

If you ever needed evidence for the idea that voters are not rational but rationalizing, this NY Times story about the role abortion might play in Pennsylvania is a clear example (italics mine): One parishioner ruled out voting for Mr. Obama explicitly because he is black. "Are they going to make…

The NY Times has a good article about G. Wayne Clough, the new chancellor of the Smithsonian. Clough is definitely a breath of fresh air after former chancellor Lawrence Small who never met an extravagance he wouldn't make the Smithsonian pay for. First, Clough is setting an example of good…

Here's another resounding success of the Bush Doctrine. Erm, not so much (italics mine): "It's like the good old days," Oleg Mikhailishchin, a pilot in camouflage uniform, told reporters during a rare visit by foreign media to the Engels base last month, before the war with Georgia further raised…

If Al Gore were dead, he would be spinning in his grave: Asked what work John McCain did as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate's top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry. "He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin…

Enough about the Straight Bullshit Express: here's an election I can believe in. In Massachusetts' Second Suffolk District, the Democratic primary for State Senate features Sonia Chang-Diaz and Dianne Wilkerson. For the very little that it's worth, the Mad Biologist endorses Sonia Chang-Diaz. On…

One of the most important things in public health is surveillance. While it's not sexy, you can't solve health problems if you don't have good data. Recently, many professional societies sent a joint letter to several representatives asking their support for the National Integrated Public Health…

While discussing the difference between spin and lying, I noted how the mainstream media is unequipped to deal with flat out lies. Jamison Foser has a suggestion (boldface mine; italics original): When a candidate makes a false claim, reporters can respond one of three ways: * They can ignore it…

Yes, I'm being mean, but this clip below has all the legitimacy of creationism--which is to say none: Really, creationism is just as nutty, this is simply not dressed up in pseudoreligious baggage. Bonus Insanity: A creationist has put together a site opposing Electronic Arts' game Spore because…

New data show that antibiotic resistance genes travel together, at least in E. coli isolated from farms. Lookee, a picture: (click to embiggen) These are the major types of antibiotics. Anytime you see a "+", that means that a gene that provides resistance to some or all of the antibiotic in…

One of the tools that people interested in framing use is the focus group. I've always been wary of them because I think researchers and the participants can strongly bias your results. Joe Klein described a focus group involving Colorado independents. Klein describes the group: There was some…

I'm heading off to a microbiome meeting in Gaithersburg, MD (blech). Don't worry though, the Blogerator 9600 will still be firing off posts.

Recently, a loyal reader related to me that the house next door to where I grew up sold at about fifteen percent less than the original asking price (not two years ago, housing prices were still climbing). This slashing of housing prices was euphemistically referred to by the broker as a "price…

One of the reasons to study the human microbiome--the microbes that live on and in us--is that many diseases might have a microbiological component. One of the best examples of this are gastric ulcers, most of which are caused by an infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. A recent report…

Conservative writer David Frum has an article in the NY Times magazine where he attempts to understand why wealthy areas like Fairfax County, Virginia, and Beacon Hill, MA are trending Democratic, or even becoming Democratic strongholds. The article would be informative, were it based in any way,…

No doubt, many around these parts will see this as a bad thing, but I think it's very good that a Christian religious studies scholar is calling out--and forcefully--the 'teaching the controversy' canard (italics mine): Is it "indoctrination" if we teach the history of the Holocaust and do not give…

In the midst of the swooning over Palin (talk about the bigotry of low expectations...), Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden is giving some great speeches. Here's one: Give 'em the truth, Joe!