scientificactivist

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection (along with Derek Araujo, Matthew Chapman, Austin Dacey, Lawrence Krauss, Shawn Lawrence Otto, and John Rennie) are spearheading a grassroots movement called Sciencedebate 2008 to try to convince the powers that be of the need for a…

Almost a year after Robert Gates left his post as President of Texas A&M University to become Secretary of Defense, the A&M Board of Regents has announced a successor: Elsa Murano, who since 2005 has served as Vice Chancellor of Agriculture for the Texas A&M System and Dean of the…

Dear Texas, Let me first of all say that despite our differences, I still consider you my home, even if I only get to visit a couple of times a year these days. Friends, family, football: you have it all for me. And, as I watched it get dark here in Oxford around 4 pm this afternoon, I have to…

Two weeks ago, on November 15th, researchers reported in the Journal of Translational Medicine (see citation below) that they had successfully isolated and characterized stem cells from menstrual blood. The researchers, Meng et al., were able to differentiate these cells--called Endometrial…

From today's (well, technically, tomorrow's) New Zealand Herald: Creature from hell promises salvation by Errol Kiong Scientists have discovered a methane-eating bacterium at Hell's Gate in Rotorua which may offer hope for global warming. Researchers at GNS Science hope their discovery of the…

That could easily have been the shared title of a pair of articles in today's New York Times discussing the science and political implications of two very significant stem cell papers published online yesterday. The biggest offender was Sheryl Stolberg: It has been more than six years since…

Newsweek has a story online today about a passage, in a book published by Wiley, that was recently discovered to have been plagiarized (D'oh!) from Wikipedia. Fellow ScienceBlogger Shelley of Retrospectacle gets a mention, though, for her run-in with Wiley earlier this year over her inclusion of a…

On October 20th, animal rights extremists acting under the banner of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) flooded the home of UCLA professor Edythe London. I don't have too much to say about this latest incident, as it's just one of a series of destructive actions associated with a movement that…

Thursday was the last day of the month-long DonorsChoose challenge, and ScienceBlogs did incredibly well. You can view the full leaderboard here, but Janet of Adventures in Ethics and Science offers these details: 20 Sb blogs mounted challenges; 12 of them met or exceeded their fundraising goals.…

If so, you'll be interested in today's announcement from BPR3 (Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting): We're pleased to announce that BPR3's Blogging on Peer Reviewed Research icons are now ready to go! Anyone can use these icons to show when they're making a serious post about peer-…

On November 6th (and now during early voting) Texans have the chance to vote on a variety of amendments to the Texas Constitution. One of these is Proposition 15: The constitutional amendment requiring the creation of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and authorizing the…

On Monday, Mike the Mad Biologist posted about the sheer idiocy of "choice-based health care," which seems to be so en vogue today in the Republican party and elsewhere. He writes: One of the most ridiculous ideas to come down the pike is the notion that most people, who are woefully ignorant of…

A few years ago, while I simultaneously enjoyed a mild Texas evening and a few beers with a second-year medical student, my idealistic and outspoken friend argued that as a society we spend way too much money on scientific research. That money should instead, she contended, be spent wholly and…

Along with thousands of other bloggers, I'm observing the inaugural Blog Action Day by blogging about the environment today. We heard some good news out of California on Saturday. Going against pressure from his own party and particularly from the National Rifle Association (NRA), governor…

Tomorrow, 15 October, is the inaugural Blog Action Day. This means that thousands of bloggers from across the internet will publish posts on a single topic: the environment. So far over 14,000 blogs have signed up, with an estimated audience of over 12,000,000 readers. And, especially…

Recently I came across a Nature commentary article (subscription required) by Robert May, former president of the Royal Society. Published in June of this year, May's article commented on the state of UK science as the government transitioned from the leadership of Tony Blair to Gordon Brown. As I…

Anyone who has lived outside of the United States or practiced science for a significant amount of time can vouch for the wonder that is the metric system. However, since an unfortunate majority of Americans do not fit this description, we're subject to outbursts like these: NO, on celsius. This…

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning, and it will be shared equally between Al Gore and the IPCC. It was widely anticipated that Al Gore would be this year's honoree. The IPCC was less expected, although it is certainly at least as--if not more--deserving of the honor. Here's…

We're one week into the DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge, and we're already off to a great start. Thanks to some generous donations, we've already (as of the publishing of this post) raised $295 here at The Scientific Activist (30% of our $1,000 goal). Even more impressively, the participants at…

Once again, fellow ScienceBlogger Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle is a finalist for the $10,000 Blogging Scholarship at CollegeScholarships.org. The winner is chosen by a popular vote, so if you think she's deserving, go vote for her here. I already did. Here are the reasons Shelley laid out last…

The winners of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine were announced this morning. The prize went to Mario R. Capecchi (University of Utah), Martin J. Evans (Cardiff University), and Oliver Smithies (UNC), all for their work contributing to knockout (and knock-in) mice becoming one of the…

As promised, Bush vetoed the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) earlier today. As the AP notes (in an article with a glaring typo in its title), "The White House sought as little attention as possible, with the president wielding his veto behind closed doors without…

It's that time of the year again, when us bloggers take a moment away from our posturing to actually do some good for this world. Yes, that's right: today DonorsChoose is kicking off its 2007 Bloggers Challenge. And, just like last year, several of us at ScienceBlogs have put together our own…

This announcement is related to another bigger one that's coming in just a few hours. Six Apart (who runs MovableType, the blogging platform we use at ScienceBlogs) is giving away $30 philanthropic gift certificates for use on DonorsChoose. The only catch is that you have to contact Six Apart by…

Yesterday, the House passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion by a vote of 265-159. The bill enjoyed some bipartisan support, although Republicans accounted for only 45 of the votes in favor and almost all of the votes against. Unfortunately, this is a bit short of…

Steve Irwin ("The Crocodile Hunter"), who died tragically in September 2006 from a stingray puncture to his chest, is a posthumous coauthor on a paper published today in PLoS One. Impressive. Bora at A Blog Around the Clock has more details.

Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney Harcourt: 2007, 400 pages. Buy now! (Amazon) At 2:09 am on September 13, 2007, Hurricane Humberto made landfall just east of Galveston, Texas--still the site of the deadliest natural disaster in US history, the…

Uh oh, it looks like there's trouble in paradise. From Roll Call (subscription required): Frustration among House Republicans over sluggish fundraising, staff strife and other internal operations at the National Republican Congressional Committee came to a head this month -- with Minority Leader…

Political campaigning can be a cynical business, but this takes things to a whole new level. Check out this ad by Republican Timothy Hugo of the Virginia House of Delegates. The ad quotes "others" as saying that Democrat Rex Simmons ran "the most cowardly campaign I have ever seen.... Rex was…

Congress appears to be on track for another major standoff with President Bush. The Washington Post reports today that the House and Senate have reconciled their differing versions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP or CHIP) expansion and will be voting on it this coming week…