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
April 22, 2008
While I'm away on vacation, here's one from the wayback machine about how Democrats might actually want to try throwing money at people who support them, as opposed to those who hate them:
The Strangler has an thought-provoking editorial (and very, very long) "The Urban Archipelago" on why liberals…
April 21, 2008
...I thought it appropriate to revisit some advice I gave to visitors to Boston last year (with a few changes):
Bring a street map. You will get lost. You don't believe me? Then why are you asking me for directions? Your Google search map didn't help, did it? Seriously, the entire city street…
April 20, 2008
What? You thought I was serious? I'm Mad, not crazy. But the release of Expelled gives me an opportunity to note one facet of creationist stupidity.
A while ago, in response to Michael Egnor, who features prominently in the movie Expelled, I discussed how creationists party like it's 1859. As…
April 18, 2008
Film critic Roger Ebert has been fighting cancer, but he's getting back to work:
On April 1 Roger Ebert published a letter to readers of The Chicago Sun-Times that was essentially a farewell to the long-running, widely syndicated weekly program that has made him not simply the best-known movie…
April 17, 2008
...the New York Times gives David Cay Johnston a buyout, and keeps Maureen Dowd on payroll.
Johnston is one of the few reporters with the brains and the patience to understand the intersection of politics and economics. He makes tax policy interesting for Intelligent Designer's sake. And unlike…
April 17, 2008
You might have read about the latest conclusive proof that Democrats are the party of out-of-touch elitists: Senator Obama ordered orange juice instead of coffee. While many see this as an attempt to manufacture controversy, I think the hypothesis that the press corps is so stupid as to border on…
April 16, 2008
The NY Times has a story about the welcome trend of doctors who refuse to accept industry pay such as consulting fees for sitting on advisory boards. In one case, at least, bloggers played a role (italics mine):
Dr. Peter Libby, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's…
April 15, 2008
Well, it's a better title than "Duration of Stool Colonization in Patients Infected with Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae." What the authors were looking at is how long E. coli and K pneumoniae (another opportunistic commensal that is found in…
April 14, 2008
Tristero, who is also disgusted by Bush's de facto admission that he authorized torture, writes (emphasis original):
I think bloggers should focus on the essential issue and constantly remind our readers what it is:
There is no longer the shadow of a doubt that the torture of prisoners was planned…
April 13, 2008
Here are some science links that you might have missed.
A Problem with the NIH Roadmap and Cross-Institution Research
Nesse and Stearns on How Evolution Is Used in Medicine
Streptococcus, Antibiotic Resistance, and Israelis...Oh My?!
Nonoptimal Virulence and Avian Influenza
Selection for height…
April 13, 2008
I've never understood why so many liberals and progressives think the Democratic field is strong. Yes, the candidates aren't insane, but neither of them are particularly good on economic issues. There is nothing in either Clinton's or Obama's records or speeches that suggests that they will do…
April 12, 2008
Steven Novella at NeuroLogica Blog has a great post explaining why ID can't meet the criterion of falsification. How does one conclusively disprove the existence of the Great Vorlon?
I would add two points. First, a good trick that intelligent design creationists play is that they subtly make…
April 11, 2008
By now, you might have heard about the copyright infringement by the producers of Expelled. Wesley Elsberry points out a serious legal problem for the producers of Expelled if a lawsuit were to proceed--the discovery phase (italics mine):
If the "Expelled" folks think about this for more than five…
April 10, 2008
The revisionist pro-Iraq war argument that 'the idea was sound, but the implementation was problematic' has always bothered me. It assumes that a 'war of choice'--that is, an unprovoked assault against another nation which does not pose an immediate threat--will work out just fine. So when it…
April 10, 2008
Several people have argued that if an influenza pandemic were to occur, it will rapidly evolve to become less virulent--that is less deadly. A recent paper explains why this might be wrong.
Basically, the flaw with the 'optimistic' argument is that it is assumes that the virus will be optimally…
April 9, 2008
So, by way of Oliver Willis, I came across the John McCain Is Your New Logo site. Being the Mad Biologist, I decided to combine it with this website, and presto chango:
Have fun.
April 9, 2008
While many laboratory experiments have shown that antibiotic resistance imposes a fitness cost on resistant bacteria, it's far less clear if this is the case in natural populations. In Europe, the phasing out of a vancomycin analogue, avoparicin, resulted in a dramatic decrease in vancomycin…
April 8, 2008
Kay Weber, a scientist at Fermilab, has filed a sexual harassment suit against the Department of Energy. The details are pretty disgusting:
She supervised a group of about 25 male technicians and engineers. A few years later she started to experience sexual harassment. She found jock straps in…
April 8, 2008
I've recently written a couple of posts about how evolution is used in medicine. Randolph Nesse and Stephen Stearns in Evolutionary Applications have written an article about evolutionary medicine. Here's one part that provides some additional examples (italics mine):
Some of the most useful…
April 7, 2008
A survey of Florida teens' sexual health knowledge yielded some very disturbing results:
A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in…
April 7, 2008
Last week, I attended a talk by Alan Krensky, who is the Director of the NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI).
First, OPASI is a superb acronym (Krensky has OPASI--it works better if you actually say it). One of OPASI's tasks is to oversee the NIH Roadmap and other…
April 6, 2008
Here are some science links for you. And if you have written something sciencey recently, feel free to add it in the comments.
Using Phylogenetics to Understand Medical Microbial Ecology
All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter: The Return of an Old Clade of E. coli O157:H7
Marine Life Series: Hermit…
April 6, 2008
...maybe it's time for Martin Luther King's promised land. Maha explains what I mean:
Much of white America was still simmering with resentment over court-ordered school desegregation. Also, Lyndon Johnson had initiated New Deal-style programs aimed primarily at relieving poverty among African…
April 5, 2008
In Judaism, one of the enduring symbols is Amalek, a tribe whose deceitful ambush has come to symbolize an enemy to whom one can't afford to demonstrate mercy. Gershom Gorenberg relates an interesting twist on the Amalek story that changes the call to hate the other to a call for moral…
April 4, 2008
Today, in 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. This is why he was in Memphis.
April 4, 2008
While discussing the recent Social Security Trust Fund report, I noted that there was a slight increase in the number of disability claims. It turns out that one reason for the increase is that sleazy insurance companies are trying to reduce the benefits they have to pay out by shifting the burden…
April 3, 2008
In an attempt at calm discussion, ScienceBlogling Chris Mooney is trying to explore some of the issues around framing. With that in mind, I want to raise one unacknowledged 'axis of argument': the extent to which various sides in the debate are willing to have the ranks of science supporters…
April 3, 2008
When the welfare debate was raging in the 80s and 90s, I never understood how a group with so little power--poor single women, often minority--were misperceived as having such a huge effect on society, while those who had the lion's share of power weren't to blame at all. More importantly, there…
April 2, 2008
Over at denialism blog, PalMD has two posts which, to me anyway, are related. The first has describes how sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are actually treated with antibiotics:
After hours, we see walk-ins, and that's where the STD fun really begins. For whatever reason, I see STDs daily at…
April 2, 2008
When I started blogging, I never (EVAH!) thought I would describe the biology of E. coli with a Tolkein poem:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a…