mikethemadbiologist

Lots of links clogging up the internet tubes. First, the science: If you're not a science blogger, I have a simple suggestion for how you can help fight the anti-science stupidity. Here's why I think vaccination shouldn't be employed against E. coli O157:H7. Here is a bacterial threat we can do…

At the recent Republican debate, three out of ten Republican candidates stated that they did not believe in evolution. This reflects a larger ignorance of science. I have a very simple idea to combat the Stoopid for bloggers who don't think of themselves as 'science' bloggers: Once per week, link…

Another disgusting turn in Attorneygate: only politically correct--that is right wing--federal prosecutors who are murdered are worth the Department of Justice's time and effort. Just as the justice system can not function when witnesses are intimidated (or worse), the justice system also can not…

I'm working my through Lewis Lapham's Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration. Here's what he has to say about the culture wars: So many saviors of the republic were raising the alarm of culture war in the middle eighties that I now can't remember whether it…

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but something Huntington Willard said in that science blogging article published in Cell about how senior scientists have been trained to communicate science got me thinking. Modern biology (the article was in the biology journal Cell) has made tremendous…

No, KPC isn't a new fast food restaurant. It's short for Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase. The bad news: it's very hard to treat. The good news: it's very rare...for now. Actually, the correct term is KPC-possessing K. pneumoniae*, but we'll just use the slang 'KPC'--it's what all the cool…

The Blog Reader Project Survey is conducting an online survey. It doesn't take much time, and it's oriented towards smaller blogs. Find it here.

Tristero has an interesting multiple choice exam for everyone. I have a minor problem with one answer, however (italics mine): (B) Advocating the privatization of Social Security as a means of resolving a very real but overblown problem - as favored by the Bush administration and conservatives in…

Yesterday, the NY Times had an article about using vaccination to eliminate or greatly reduce E. coli O157:H7 infections. Strategies differ: some would vaccinate the cows, while others would vaccinate people. The new threat due to E. coli O157:H7 isn't from contaminated meat, but from…

...that it kills a great punchline. You see, companies are actually trying to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. That's what Business Week says, anyway. Ian Welsh, at the Agonist, comments: I don't understand why this is even considered. You don't put basic infrastructure like this in private hands,…

A recent meeting of the Utah County Republican Party I've argued before that the Republicans can't win elections without their racist base. Well, apparently they can't win without their cracked-in-the-head base either. From Utah County, Utah: Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for…

PZ, in response to a Boston Globe article about ID proponent George Gilder, attacks Gilder's idiocy. I've pointed out some of Gilder's stupidity he displayed in a Wired article before, so I won't revisit that intellectually depauperate wasteland again. But while rereading my original post and PZ'…

Here are some links for you. Let's blind you with some science: I argue that there's a difference between ecological interactions and natural selection. At Effect Measure, revere describes the politicization of the CDC and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. On a related…

We can't have that. A high school journalism teacher was banned from teaching journalism because the student newspaper ran an editoral calling for tolerance of gays: WOODBURN, Indiana (AP) -- A high school teacher who faced losing her job after a student newspaper published an editorial advocating…

Friday, Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias resigned because he had received 'massages' from an escort service. One of Tobias' major effects on U.S. foreign policy was to promote abstinence-only sex education: Tobias, who was in Berlin for the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS' 2004…

He's a Snuffleupagus, not a Seamus ...do we have to name everything Seamus? Yesterday, the Boston Globe had an interesting story about curing a sick tapir at the Franklin Park Zoo using antibiotics: With its trunk leading the way, the baby Baird's tapir once again explored pools and exotic plants…

While washing your hands for 15-20 seconds with soap and water is the best way to prevent the transmission of infectious disease through hand to hand contact, in a pinch, alcohol santizers work well. Good news from Australia: you can use sanitizers and drive. From Microbe: Young health care…

I think the investigative power the Democrats currently wield--and the threat of subpoena--is starting to get to Secretary of State Condoleeza "Ferragamos" Rice. At a press conference today, Rice misidentified Russia (emphasis mine): "The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in…

This is an abomination against the Evil Baby (which kicks Flying Spaghetti Monster's and the Mouse of the Disco Ball's asses--I mean that in the nicest ecumenical way possible): The post is pretty amusing. And this other one is pretty good too.

Hopefully, by now, the anti-Wiley blogswarm is getting geared up. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, ScienceBlogling Shelley over at Retrospectacle was threatened with a lawsuit by Wiley Interscience for reproducing part of a figure and a table (and why would they want to do…

I've invented a new unit of time, the Samuelson Unit, which is the length of time required for the Social Security system to become 'bankrupt.' Oddly enough, Social Security is always DOOMED roughly 34 years from the time of the estimate. In other words, Social Security is doing fine, and will…

Named after economist Robert Samuelson, who, along with the Concord Coalition, is fighting the Glorious War on Social Security. It's inspired by the Friedman Unit, named after NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who predicted for several years running that the "next six months" will be critical in…

...stoopid media tricks to ensue. Just thought I would direct your attention to this post.

Tonight, at 6:30pm, at the Boston Public Library, there's a meeting "Preparing Boston Residents for Pandemic Flu." I'm going, but with a great deal of pessimism. The reason I'm pessimistic, as I've said so many times on this blog, every year roughly 36,000 U.S. residents die from 'ordinary'…

ScienceBlogling Mike Dunford has an interesting post asking whether we should save an endemic Hawaiian plant, the williwilli. It's a good post, but I have two comments, one silly and one serious. The silly comment is that how could anyone let a plant named the williwilli become extinct? It's so…

Yesterday, PZ and Amanda both argued that a model for the acceptance of atheists should be the suffragist movement. I think that's the wrong model: the appropriate model is the mainstreaming of Jews into American society. Overall, despite an incident in Delaware, Jews have entered mainstream…

Here's some links for you. Merry Spring! Here's an excellent interview with Joe Felsenstein. Climatologist James Hansen offers five concrete steps to deal with global warming. While we're on the subject, here's a refutation of the global cooling argument. A topic near and dear to my heart: it's…

Remember Conservative Ideologues: You drink his blood after you molest him. It's more fun that way* I would like to think certain things transcend political, religious, and ideological divides. One might think that Meals-on-Wheels, a program that relies heavily on donations, discounts, and…

Hopefully, talking about Social Security will be marginally less inflamatory than evolution or global warming, and it illustrates many of the points made in various discussions. First, though, I want to clear the deck about some misconceptions about Social Security (I have a lot of the links here…

'E. coli conservatives' is Rick Perlstein's phrase, not mine. After all, the Mad Biologist is quite partial to E. coli; I suppose that makes me an E. coli liberal. Most E. coli, including those isolated from retail meats, are not harmful, so I've always thought the bug gets a bad rap. Only a…