Search Content | ScienceBlogs

Displaying results 551 - 600 of 112148

On bad evangelism

In Slacktivist Fred Clark's regular Left Behind blogging has reached a point in the novels where an Orthodox rabbi has gone on TV to explain that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jews should all be Jews for Jesus. One of the novels' protagonists (who found Jesus after seeing a billion or so people killed raptured) pumps his fists and cheers. This reaction, and the rabbi's broadcast itself, grate on Clark's ears. Clark is an evangelical Christian, and knows when someone's Doing It Wrong. This scene, he writes, "illustrates another important point in our lesson on How Not to Do Evangelism. Fist-…

The Countdown Begins! 365 Days Until the USA Science & Engineering Festival!

Save the date: the USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo is just one year away! We are so excited to bring you the largest celebration of science & engineering for the 3rd time! Leading up to the Expo we will have affiliate events, the return of the Nifty Fifty (x3), contests, and school programs! The Festival week will kick off with the U.S. News STEM Solutions Conference, the launch of X-STEM Extreme STEM Symposium (Thursday, April 24) and Sneak Peek Friday (April 25)! The free and open to the public finale Expo will be the weekend of April 26-27, 2014! The spotlight on STEM (…

Shop Days

The last couple of days at work have been Shop Days, with a fair bit of time spent in the department's machine shop making holes in a metal box. This would, I'm sure, be the occasion of much hilarity among my old junior high shop teachers, as my ineptitude in both metal and wood shop was pretty impressive, back in the seventh and eighth grades. I've gotten considerably more coordinated since those exceptionally gawky days, though, and I can use a drill press or a mill without too much trouble now, though no-one will ever mistake me for a machinist. In a certain sense, Shop Days are among the…

ScienceOnline2010 session videos - Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Part 6

Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Saturday, January 16 at 10:15 - 11:20am E. Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything - Pal MD and Val Jones. Description: We all know that there are potential pitfalls to having a prominent online presence, but for physicians, the implications affect more than just themselves. How should doctors and similar professionals manage their online life? What are the ethical and legal implications? Some preliminary reading can be found here.

ScienceOnline2010 session videos - Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Part 5

ScienceOnline2010 session videos - Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Part 4

ScienceOnline2010 session videos - Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Part 2

ScienceOnline2010 session videos - Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything Part 1

Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses #26--Chimps at risk from antibiotic-resistant bacteria

When we think of the spread of antibiotic resistance between animals and humans, we tend to think of it going from Them to Us. For example, much of the research over the past 20 years on the sub-clinical use of antibiotics in animal feed has looked how this use of antibiotics as a growth promotant breeds resistant organisms in animals, which can then enter the human population via the food we eat. Along a similar line, I just mentioned Burt's post post on cephalosporin use in cattle and the evolution of antibiotic resistance, where the worry is that use of these broad-spectrum antibiotics…

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Getting clueless over the vaccine-autism "debate"

I'm about to head home from the conference; so I don't have much time to do one of my usual posts. However, there is a brief bit that irritated me regarding the Hannah Poling case, and it comes from Dr. Sanjay Gupta: I want to continue the discussion today. Couple of points. First of all, it seems as if parents bring up concerns about vaccines, they are automatically portrayed as anti-vaccine. Why is that? Is it possible to completely believe in the power and benefits of vaccines, but still have legitimate and credible concerns? This statement shows that Dr. Gupta is rather clueless about the…

Books: "The Postman" by David Brin - chillingly current...

This review was first written on April 14, 2005... The final verdict has come from the shop: my computer is definitively dead, fried, kaputt. I will be scrambling for a replacament over the next week or so, but until then I cannot read 90% of the blogs (including my own), and while the car is in the shop (blew a gasket!!!) I cannot go to a decent computer either. That's a shame, as I cannot post links to good blog posts, read carnivals, or continue my series of Friday Good Blog Recommendations. I recommended Lance Mannion, Apophenia and David Brin's Blog so far, and intend to continue as…

Scienceblogs.com readers Meetup

If you attended the Science Blogging Conference or read what people blogged about it, or said about it in subsequent interviews, you know how much fun it is to meet your favourite bloggers in real life. You gain a new perspective, you read them more diligently, you understand them better, and you have some calamari and beer. So, we would like all the readers of Scienceblogs.com to organize local meetups. The organizing has already started (see here, here, here, here and here for examples). Rare are the people who read only one of us - most of our readers are shared across at least a few…

The Phalarope: Not just another polyandrous bird...

MIT researchers found that phalaropes depend on a surface interaction known as contact angle hysteresis to propel drops of water containing prey upward to their throats. Photo by Robert Lewis The Phalarope starts out as an interesting bird because of its "reversed" sex-role mating behavior. For at least some species of Phalarope, females dominate males, forcing them to build nests and to care for the eggs that the females place there after mating. If a female suspects that a male is caring for eggs of another female, she may destroy the eggs and force the male to copulate with her a few…

Books I'd Like to Read

More for your reading and collection development pleasure. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu (ISBN-13: 978-0307269935) As Wu's sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century--radio, telephone, television, and film--was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive…

The science behind Benghazi

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor (dubbed the Tripoli six) may be executed soon by the Libyan government for the crime of deliberately infecting over 400 children with HIV. If they did infect the children, this would be a horrendous crime. If they did not infect the children, it's the Libyan government that will be killing innocent people. The clock is ticking. Some of you might be wondering (I know I was): How exactly is molecular sequence data being used to solve the crime? Why are scientists and science bloggers claiming that the Tripoli six are innocent? Let's begin by…

The American Astronomical Society responds to "Scholarly Societies: Why Bother?"

A month or so ago I posted on Scholarly Societies: Why Bother?, basically on the challenges that scholarly societies face in the digital age. I got a few good comments, getting a nice discussion going. I also posed a few questions directly to scholarly societies but unfortunately didn't get any comments from any of the various societies themselves. I did find that a bit disappointing in that the public conversation seemed to be happening without them. Never a good thing in the digital age. Today, however, Kevin Marvel of the American Astronomical Society added a comment to my original…

A Whole New World at the Edge of the Solar System

"To me it made no sense to pull one of even a few objects out of the swarm and call them something other than part of the swarm." -Mike Brown, A.K.A. PlutoKiller In our Solar System, the four rocky planets dominate the inner portion, while the four gas giants dominate the outer Solar System. But out beyond Neptune, thousands of icy, rocky worlds -- including Pluto, the former ninth planet -- make up a vast, wide ring known as the Kuiper Belt. Image credit: NASA. What began as a curious collection of a few icy worlds has since revealed itself to us as an incredibly busy place, where -- since…

Global Warming News: 200th edition!

Yesterday was the 200th edition of "Another week of GW News", and close to the 50th edition posted here on A Few Things Ill Considered. Please join me in thanking H.E.Taylor for this remarkable effort that provides such a wonderful service to all of us interested in the issue of anthropogenic global warming. Thanks, HET! I don't know how you do it, but keep it coming! : )

Antivaccinationists will be holding a Congressional briefing to attack the Vaccine Court tomorrow

People who follow the antivaccine movement might remember that around this time last year, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), a particularly antiscience legislator who appears to be trying to take up the antivaccine mantle left behind when Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) retired at the end of the last session of Congress. Given that he now chairs the House committee that Burton once chaired, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa decided to take up that mantle by following Burton's lead when he was the chair and scheduled an antivaccine hearing last November, right after…

Encephalon.... the late prize winning February edition

In preparing for this issue of Encephalon I got access to the submission email account and realized that I had won 500,000.00 euro! I am in no way going to share this wealth with anyone else since it is my turn to do Encephalon. Here's the proof: Dear Email ID Owner, This is to notify you that you have won 500,000.00 euro in our online email Promo Draw in which email IDÂ´s are picked randomly by computerized balloting, Your email address was amongst those chosen for this period. contact: Dr. Mike Mejia, Accu Online Promotion. !#$%!#$%@I'mnottellingyousinceIwon.com…

I WANT A UNITY CONVENTION!

An annoying but intrinsic property of atheists is that we are all horribly fractured — this is a disparate group with no central leadership, and that's the way we like it — but it also means our presence is fragmented and easier to ignore. We have all these different godless organizations with different national meetings that overlap and often share members, but no coherence. Margaret Downey has been pushing an idea for a little while that you can read about in a post on the Friendly Atheist from last year: we should all at least once get together in one giant massive united meeting and make…

"It's quietâtoo quiet;" with a digression into online social media

Other people are doing NPG vs. CDL link roundups better than I am, so I'll limit myself to a few links: Think this is a one-off moment of insanity on NPG's part? Bernd-Christoph Kaemper demonstrates the pattern. Steve Lawson of Colorado College shares text of an email he sent to faculty at his institution. He is graciously allowing the rest of us to plunder his wording. Go ye and spread the signal! The next domino? How many more will there be? Have you read Bethany Nowviskie's Fight Club Soap post yet? If you haven't, do. If you have, you might want to check back for the comments, some of…

Twitter: as in actual science jargon (something to do with marmosets and shrews)

Since playing around with twitter for the last couple of days, I think I'm starting to a hit this threshold that's feeling a little like "twitter fatique." So, of course, this makes me curious as to whether such a thing has been studied. You know, in terms of behavioural sciences, but with the hope that someone has looked at it with some full-on neuroscience thrown in. So, what does one do if one is keen to track this stuff down? Well, for starters, you can go to PUBMED, and search for the keyword "twitter." And lo and behold, you do find a few papers. Most of them about scientific…

Professorship in Science Communication at Free University-Berlin

The Free University Berlin has an associate professor opening in Science Communication, as part of their Department of Political and Social Sciences and their Institute of Media and Communication Studies. I have posted the full description below the fold. Contact Markus Lehmkuhl at kuhle@zedat.fu-berlin.de for more information. Freie UniversitÃ¤t Berlin Department of Political and Social Sciences Institute of Media and Communication Studies invites applications for a tenured Associate Professorship in Media and Communication Studies, with special emphasis on Science Communication / Science…

PZ is a Gentleman and a Scholar

tags: PZ Myers, Pharyngula trailer I have noticed with dismay that certain people around here have been bashing PZ Myers (not naming any names, but you know who you are), and I find that upsetting. For the past few years, I have considered PZ and his wife to be good friends of mine, although we do not communicate as frequently as we have in the past (but we're all busy, whatever). But, as with all good friends, I know that they are there for me whenever I might call on them, and I would absolutely do whatever is in my power to help them out as well. What cemented this friendship? I had long…

Not an after life but a Second Life; chat with DemFromCT (with Update)

As an (unplanned) follow-up to today's morning post about public health use of the internet we have tonight's event in Second Life, a chance to meet and chat with wiki partner DemFromCT: Our next installment of the Virtually Speaking interview series takes place TONIGHT, Thursday, at 6pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern. We are very excited that DemFromCT can join us to talk about public health policy, in particular preparedness for a pandemic. He and I have been trading comments on some skepticism I have about this, so this is going to be an especially interesting discussion. All skeptics are welcome…

H5N1--does it live up to the hype? Redux

Okay, one more quick post. I've talked quite a bit on here (and over on Panda's Thumb) about the importance of surveillance, and how the current death rates from H5N1 influenza ("bird flu") are likely to be artificially high, since we're more likely to diagnose the very ill cases than the mild or asymptomatic ones. (See here and here for the relevant posts). Indeed, that first post linked discusses a study carried out here at the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the U of Iowa, which found that swine workers were much more likely to be infected with swine influenza viruses than those…

ScienceOnline'09: Interview with Glendon Mellow

The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January. Today, I asked Glendon Mellow of the The Flying Trilobite, to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background? I'm yet another Canadian atheist artist-illustrator recovering goth-punk who blogs about incorrectly…

Do Antidepressants Increase Suicide Risk?

This is kind of an old story, I know. Still, every once in a while it is good to revisit these things. When the topic first came up in 2004, it was the subject of much newspaper space and blog commentary. But now, it has pretty much faded from the national consciousness. Has anything more come of it? In a recent editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Gregory E. Simon, M.D., M.P.H., reviews the largest and most informative studies on the subject: href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/11/1861"> href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/…

Modeling antiviral resistance, IV: the essential assumption

[A series of posts explaining a paper on the mathematical modeling of the spread of antiviral resistance. Links to other posts in the series by clicking tags, "Math model series" or "Antiviral model series" under Categories, left sidebar. Preliminary post here. Table of contents at end of this post.] We are almost ready to begin a detailed examination of the mathematical model presented in the paper, "Antiviral resistance and the control of pandemic influenza," by Lipsitch et al., published in PLoS Medicine. The main model is presented in the first four paragraphs of the Methods. Some…

Report of Ebola death in London

Scary. A woman is feared to have died from ebola after taking ill on a plane home from Africa yesterday. Passengers and crew on the flight to Heathrow are understood to be panicking that they have contracted the contagious virus. They helped the Briton when she was vomiting and bleeding. Some even shared their drinks with her. Last night, tests were being run to confirm whether she had the haemorraghic fever. The 38-year-old was on Virgin Atlantic flight VS602 from Johannesburg. It is understood she worked at an embassy in Lesotho. (Continued after the jump) First, I'll note that this story…

There is no need for a 'Creepy Treehouse' in using the Web in the classroom

I love the way Web works! So, I was on FriendFeed earlier today and I saw through this link there that Paul Jones posted a note on Pownce (on which I am registered but never check) about this article in Raleigh N&O: An iPod Touch for each student? A Chapel Hill middle school could become the first in the country to give an iPod to every teacher and student, an experiment that would challenge teachers and administrators to ensure the hand-held devices are used as learning tools, not toys. It's still not clear how the iPod Touches would be used at Culbreth Middle School. And school…

Ah, that Conyers bill again!

The Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), is back. Despite all the debunking it got last time around, and despite the country having more important problems to deal with right now, this regressive bill, completely unchanged word-for-word, is apparently back again. It is the attempt by TA publishers, through lies and distortions, to overturn the NIH open access policy. Here are some reactions - perhaps Rep.Conyers and colleagues should get an earful from us.... Peter Suber, in Comments on the Conyers bill provides all the useful links, plus some of the…

Pycnogenol brand pine bark extract for ADHD: hope or hype?

Get ready to be barraged by news of a proprietary pine bark extract exhibiting efficacy against attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Today's report by the French company that manufactures a maritime pine bark extract seems to be associated (see press release below fold) with Dr Steven Lamm, a clinical assistant professor at NYU Medical School, and based on results published in the journal, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. I don't believe this is actually "news" as stories such as this one appeared about a month ago. Hence, I fear that today's press release and satellite hook…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Beatrice Lugger

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked Beatrice Lugger, the founding editor of ScienceBlogs Germany, to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and…

Bird flu in water. How big a problem?

One of the unanswered questions about the transmission of influenza H5N1 is the mode. We presume, probably correctly, that person to person spread is the main mode, mediated by coughing, breathing, sneezing. Whether the infective material is small enough to remain suspended in the air for long periods or whether it is primarily in large droplets that settle out quickly is a matter of importance still under debate but both possibilities pertain to person to person spread via the respiratory tract. Then there is the question of the role of inanimate objects, like door knobs, arm rests or…

ScienceOnline2010 - what to do while there, what to do if you are not there but are interested?

ScienceOnline2010 is starting in three days! If you are not excited yet....well, I think you should be! And perhaps I can help you....with this post. First, see the complete list of attendees, or, if you want more details about everyone, browse through these introductory posts. It is always good to know more about people you are about to spend two or three days with.... Then, check out the Program to see which session in each time-slot you want to participate in. Go to individual session pages right now and join in the discussions, or ask questions. Start shaping the discussion online before…

Tracking investigators' findings about on-the-job fatalities

Hedilberto Sanchez, 26, was killed on Monday (Jan 11, 2010) at a construction site in Elmhurst, NY when an 18-foot high cinder block wall collapsed on him. He leaves behind his wife, and two sons, Luis, 6 and Edison, 3. Three other workers were injured in the incident, including Mr. Sanchez's brother. The men worked for a subcontractor (who I've been unable to identify) who was hired by the property developer Thomas J. Huang. Mr. Huang has been described in some circles as a one-man wrecking crew for his disregard for building codes, zoning rules and other laws. The New York Times'…

DOJ Withdraws ADA Changes That Would Ban Non-Canine Service Animals

The Department of Justice hasÂ withdrawn its proposed ADA regulations that would have banned the use of assistance monkeys, birds, miniature horses, etc. Â This was in response to a memo from Obama's Chief of Staff directing all agencies to hold off on any new regulations until they could be reviewed and approved by Obama's administration. Â So for now, the ADA definition of service animal remains as it has been since it's original creation, which means it still includes all species of animals. Â One commenter here pointed out that for those concerned about this issue, now would be a good…

Want to learn about genetics? Play with molecular modeling? I need volunteers

Want to learn more about Parkinson's disease? See why a single nucleotide mutation messes up the function of a protein? I have a short activity that uses Cn3D (a molecular viewing program from the NCBI) to look at a protein that seems to be involved in a rare form of Parkinson's disease and I could sure use beta testers. If you'd like to do this, I need you to follow the directions below and afterwards, go to a web form and answer a few questions. Don't worry about getting the wrong answers. I won't know who you are, so I won't know if you answered anything wrong. If you have any concerns…

Doctor Strange: The only way to make homeopathy work

It would appear that I must respectfully disagree (or be Respectfully Insolent, if you will) with fellow comic fan Scott over at Polite Dissent. Two of my all-time favorite comics are Fantastic Four and (believe it or not, given my present day disdain for woo) Doctor Strange. Doctor Stephen Strange, for those of you not familiar with him, started out as an incredibly arrogant and greedy neurosurgeon who was involved in an auto accident in which he suffered nerve damage to his hands that impaired the fine motor control to the point where, while he could function normally in every day life, he…

Any Ann Arborites want to meet up?

I've got a better idea of what my schedule is like, and even have a recommendation for a hangout tonight — would anyone care to join me at the Arbor Brewing Company tonight (Thursday) around 7 or 8pm? I'm going whether anyone shows up or not, and if nobody joins me, I'll be drinking alone…and how pathetic would that be? Look for the bearded fellow with a copy of that book with a bright yellow cover titled "God is Not Great" — I'll be working on my Hitchens impersonation.

More Nonsense about Neo-Nazis in the Military

Someone named Greg Scott, writing at the famously misnamed Intellectual Conservative site, is up in arms about a New York Times report about the increasing number of neo-nazis and skinhead racists in the US military. That article was based on a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which cited Defense Department officials on the record about their ongoing investigations. Scott's critique of the Times' article is riddled with factual errors, distortions and exaggerations. Predictably, he's making the "they're insulting the whole military" argument, which is the standard reply from the…

Open Laboratory - old Prefaces and Introductions

One difference between reading Open Laboratory anthologies and reading the original posts included in them is that the printed versions are slightly edited and polished. Another difference is that the Prefaces and Introductions can be found only in the books. They have never been placed online. But now that four books are out and we are halfway through collecting entries for the fifth one, when only the 2009 book is still selling, I think it is perfectly OK to place Prefaces and Introductions that I wrote myself online. I wrote Prefaces for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 book, as well as the…

Cluster bombs: refusing to refuse

44 more days until these murdering bastards are out of OUR government. Meanwhile how much damage will they do? Damage, as in broken bodies, maimed children, dead people: An Afghan teenager who lost both legs in a cluster bomb explosion helped persuade his country to change its stance and join nearly 100 nations in signing a treaty Wednesday banning the disputed weapons. Afghanistan was initially reluctant to join the pact - which the United States and Russia have refused to support - but agreed to after lobbying by victims maimed by cluster munitions, including 17-year-old Soraj Ghulan Habib…

Peter Watts, Blindsight [Library of Babel]

This is the final Best Novel Hugo nominee of this year's field, and given James Nicoll's immortal description of Watts's writing ("When I feel my will to live getting too strong, I pick up a Peter Watts book" or words to that effect), I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about picking up Blindsight. I was on something of a roll, though, and took it along to read on the plane to our Internet-less vacation weekend in Michigan. In the end, I think my reaction to the book was colored by James's comment, but it wasn't as bad as it might've appeared. Blindsight is narrated by Siri Keeton, who had a…

Study: Fast food packaging contains chemicals harmful to human health, environment

Earlier this month, news broke of a study that found potentially health-harming chemicals in a variety of fast food packaging. Upon hearing such news, the natural inclination is to worry that you’re ingesting those chemicals along with your burger and fries. Study researcher Graham Peaslee says that’s certainly a risk. But perhaps the greater risk, he says, happens after that hamburger wrapper ends up in landfill and the chemicals seep into our environment and water. The chemicals in question are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), which are used to make consumer products nonstick,…

twit

ok, I give, I'm ready to join the tween decade signed up to twitter username is steinly0 we'll see how it goes

Anti-vaccine contortions: They never end

Let's review. Once upon a time, according to anti-vaccine zealots, the MMR vaccine caused autism. Soon after that, the explanation morphed. No, it wasn't so much the MMR that caused autism; rather, it was the mercury in the thimerosal preservative that used to be in several childhood vaccines in the U.S. until the end of 2001. Then, as evidence accumulated exonerating mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism, it became the "toxins." (Antifreeze, formaldehyde, and human fetal parts, oh my!) Finally, it became "too many too soon." And the anti-vaccine movement rested, because its latest excuse…

Friday Sprog Blogging: first contact with extraterrestrial life.

Despite the crush of the closing weeks of the semester, I found a little time to follow the conversation about whether Earthicans ought to welcome a meeting with whatever extraterrestrial life might be out there to meet us, or whether we'd be better off hiding under the bed. Although the Free-Ride offspring have not followed the point and counterpoint on the best alien life action plan, they're generally more enthusiastic futurists than I am. So, I asked them to dig deep into their imaginations and give us their visions of first contact. It should surprise no one that the elder and younger…

Advertisment

Donate

ScienceBlogs is where scientists communicate directly with the public. We are part of Science 2.0, a science education nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please make a tax-deductible donation if you value independent science communication, collaboration, participation, and open access.

You can also shop using Amazon Smile and though you pay nothing more we get a tiny something.