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History never repeats

One of my favourite bands of the 80s was Split Enz, out of which Crowded House evolved. And one of their best songs was titled "History never repeats", a sentiment that seems to be fairly widespread. Recently, I started Dawkins' latest book (what is it with established writers on evolution? Gould's brick was immensely in need of editing, and so is The Ancestor's Tale). The first epigram is attributed to Mark Twain: History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes Compare this with the somewhat later claim by American philosopher Georges Santayana: Progress, far from consisting in change, depends…

Ribosome-SRP-Signal Sequence Structures

As a grad student at Columbia, I once saw a talk by Joachim Frank at Rockefeller. Siting in the audience, I was wowed as Frank described the cryo-EM structure of the ribosome in many different conformations, each representing one step of the polypeptide chain elongation cycle. Compiling them together, he produced a little movie of a ribosome manufacturing a protein. While I was taking in this movie I remember thinking - wow, this is how the machine works! Recently a few other labs have published the cryo-EM structures of the ribosome with every freakin' Ribosome cofactor. The latest…

It isn't an exclusionary filter, it's a standard of quality

In my week long visit to Ireland, I only had one encounter that left a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone I talked to was forthright and willing to state their views clearly, even if I thought they were dead wrong and rather stupid (my radio interview with Tom McGurk comes to mind — he was an unpleasant person more interested in barking loudly than having a conversation, but his views were plain), and most of my conversations were fun and interesting. The one exception was with a creationist in Belfast. After my talk, this one furtive fellow who hadn't had the nerve, apparently, to ask me…

BLS estimate of work-related amputations grossly understates magnitude of the problem

Brett Bouchard, 17, was working at Violi’s Restaurant in Massena, NY last month. Press reports indicate he was cleaning out a pasta-making machine when the equipment severed his right arm at the elbow. He was rushed to a local hospital which later transferred the young worker to Massachusetts General Hospital. Nationally, there are thousands of work-related amputations each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 5,100 U.S. workers suffered an amputation injury in 2012. But we’ve written here before about the limitations of BLS’ estimates for work-related injuries. Those…

The End of the World Is At Hand...

...My laundry pile was empty. I mean, empty. Nothing more to wash. This unprecedented state of affairs (in a working farm household with 6 people, four of them attracted to mud like magnets) didn't last long - then Asher dumped his muddy socks on the floor and Eli took a bath and pushed the towel into the tub and then the kids got out of the clothes bearing the day's accumulated grime - but I did briefly have no laundry to do. None. Other people may think this is a weird thing to worry about, but you have to understand my life. There is ALWAYS laundry in the pile, there are ALWAYS…

A coal miner's views about black lung disease

Last week The Pump Handle featured an article by Carole Bass entitled Why is Black Lung back?  In response, a former coal miner offers his views on why coal miners in the U.S. continue to develop and suffer from this occupational lung disease that is 100% preventable.  He writes: Thank you for your article on the resurrection of black lung disease.  As a former coal miner and someone who has worked in the field of workplace health and safety most of my life, I have a few insights that you should consider: 1.  NIOSHâs Dr. Petsnok and team have identified a sentinel event regarding the…

Things that want to eat your brain

This is the fourth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Eric Wika. Let's face it, it's a dangerous world to be a brain. The brain is so soft and squishy it cannot even support its own weight. That's right, even gravity itself is enough to take out an unprotected brain. Besides these passive threats, there are several factions out there that active try to damage your brain! Zombies are an ever present menace which wish to eat our brains. TV will rot our brains, drugs will fry our brains and bullies will offer to “beat your brains in”. It's no wonder mother nature had to come up with the…

Pili in streptococcus: moving from genomics toward the clinic

I wrote here that pili--long, filamentous surface molecules involved in adhesion and bacterial "sex"--had recently been discovered in gram positive organisms; pecifically, in group A and B streptococci (Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus agalactiae, respectively), using a genomics approach. Though this publication is quite recent, this is a fast-moving area of research, as evidenced by two new papers which extend this earlier research into pili in the group B streptococcus (GBS). A new study published in Molecular Microbiology further analyzes the role of pili in GBS. This is a…

The little-known subgenre of Talpanas tribute art

Waterfowl (or wildfowl, or anseriforms, or ducks, geese, swans and kin) are awesome. Last year saw the publication of a particularly freakish, recently extinct member of the group that's been known to some of us for a while: the surreal Hawaiian duck Talpanas lippa Olson & James, 2009 from Kauai*. I'll admit that I missed the memo (didn't know about publication until Glyn Young sent me a pdf), even though Chris Taylor at Catalogue of Organisms wrote about Talpanas on its publication. * Note that Talpanas joins that very annoying list of names where the authorship of the taxon [Olson…

Surreal Nimbers: No, that's not a typo!

(A substantial part of this post was rewritten since it was first posted. I managed to mangle things while editing, and the result was not particularly comprehensible: for example, in the original version of the post, I managed to delete the definition of "mex", which continuing to use mex in several other definitions. I've tried to clear it up. Sorry for the confusion!) This is actually a post in the surreal numbers series, even though it's not going to look like one. It's going to look like an introduction to another very strange system of numbers, called nimbers. But nimbers are a step on…

Dissecting an emu

Back in 2006 my good friend Matt Wedel - who you may know better as one of the three SV-POWsketeers or as plain old Dr Vector - produced a short article on an emu dissection he participated in at the University of California at Santa Cruz [adjacent image: an Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae... though note that this one is very much alive and not involved in any way in the photos you are about to see]. Because I like talking about ratite anatomy, I've been meaning for ages to steal borrow showcase Matt's photos here at Tet Zoo. Finally, I'm doing it now (with his permission), better late than…

Modern day Isaacs

Colleen Hauser has flown the coop. She has defied a court order to bring her sick son, Daniel Hauser, to a qualified doctor for essential medical care. The boy has Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease with a very good prognosis if treated soon, but is a painful death sentence within a few years if neglected. His mother, though, is fervently religious, and no doubt smug in her righteousness, has bundled her son into a car and is devoutly driving to Mt. Moriah. I hope she's not expecting an angel of the lord to appear and spare her son. What she has done has gone even deeper. Daniel is 13 years old; he…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 26 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: The Clock Genes Period 2 and Cryptochrome 2 Differentially Balance Bone Formation: Clock genes and their protein products regulate circadian rhythms in mammals but have also been implicated in various…

With friends like these.....White House throws OSHA under the bus

I was already tired of President Obama repeating the Republican's rhetoric about big, bad regulations, how they stifle job creation, put an unnecessary burden on businesses, and make our economy less competitive. He did so last month in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and in his State of the Union address. But yesterday, the White House went too far. In advance of the President's speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the chief of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) threw two OSHA initiatives under the bus. Right after mentioning President Obama's January 18…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At Reveal, Jennifer Gollan reports on how the Navy and other federal agencies give lucrative contracts to shipbuilders with troublesome worker safety records. In fact, Gollan reports that since 2008, the Navy and Coast Guard’s seven major shipbuilders have received more than $100 billion in public funds despite serious — and sometimes fatal — safety gaps. She noted that in his first days in office, President Trump announced plans for a massive Navy fleet expansion, which could mean even more workers will be at risk. Gollan writes: With extra business comes more risks for workers. But there is…

Pat Boone's ACLU Lies

The Worldnutdaily, for some strange reason, has made Pat Boone - yes, that Pat Boone - a weekly columnist; I guess Perry Como was busy. Most of his columns are just plain embarrassing, of course, but this one about the ACLU was even worse than usual. Let's see if we can count how many lies, falsehoods and exaggerations he can pack into a single article. He starts by claiming that they favor "Eradication of any reference to the Ten Commandments or the Bible from public buildings or hillsides or even cemeteries." This is false. They have no objection to such things in cemetaries, as long as the…

Physics Face

Thursday night, I needed to work late, so rather than upset the dog by going home for dinner, and then leaving, I went for sushi at a local restaurant. I had a very pleasant meal, which I spent reading through the first few chapters of the textbook I plan to use for my Quantum Optics class next term (to make sure it will work for my purposes), and listening to the woman at the table next to me talk to her kids (ages 7 and 9, and cutely overactive). Eventually, the kids wandered off to go pester the sushi chef (they're apparently regulars), and their mother asked me "What is it you're reading…

Giving Students and Teachers the Tools for Greatness

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." -Albert Einstein "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." -William Arthur Ward On one side of the room, the interviewer's palms begins to sweat. Although the young man has done his research, his guest is unpredictable. His guest has an agenda, his guest has a polarizing position on a very divisive issue, and his guest may lie or make up facts right there on the spot. The moderator will step aside once the debate commences,…

Getting #Matthew Wrong

This morning I was forced to do the "get off my lawn" thing with the kids at the bus stop. They were systematically destroying the pavement around the common mailbox area down the street from my house, throwing chunks in the street. I lined them up and read them the riot act. They are children, so they can be excused for bering a bit stupid about life, and the guy down the street telling them to get off the lawn is part of the learning process for them. And now it's your turn. The right wing yahoos have already started yelling about conspiracies related to Hurricane Matthew. "They are…

When Aliens Attack

As I have admitted previously, I have a fondness for tv shows about UFO's, the loonier the better. So, when I learned that there was a show called When Aliens Attack airing last night on the National Geographic channel, I was all over that. I'm happy to report that it did not disappoint-- it brought the crazy, in exactly the manner I was hoping for. The premise of the show is a look at what would happen if aliens turned up on Earth, and turned out to be hostile. It claims to be a look at military contingency plans for dealing with an alien invasion, though the "plans" in question seem to be…

Taking Property Rights Seriously: The Case of Climate Change

Via a VV comment at ATTP I discover How a professional climate change denier discovered the lies and decided to fight for really long headlines which is fair enough, but via that I discover the far more interesting Taking Property Rights Seriously: The Case of Climate Change by Jonathan H. Adler1, a friend of said reformed denier. This is interesting for two reasons: the arguments it puts forwards, and FME4 itself. Here's its abstract: The dominant approach to environmental policy endorsed by conservative and libertarian policy thinkers, so-called "free market environmentalism" (FME), is…

Back to School!

Classes start on Monday. I knew that intellectually, of course, but I had it brought home to me a few days ago when I innocently drove onto the campus, only to find a traffic jam and crossing guards directing the cars. Students were moving into the dorms, you see. Higher education is beset with problems nowadays, and I can recite the litany as well as any faculty member. But for all the legitimate complaints, the bottom line is that I still think I have the best job in the world. I get out of bed in the morning excited to go to work, and the upsides of my job vastly outweigh the downsides…

Three for Three (SU-SJU, UMD-Duke, IM)

Light blogging today, because yesterday was a Hoops Day here in Chateau Steelypips. A goog hoops day, too, with victories in all three games that mattered: Syracuse edged St. John's, Maryland beat the hated Dukies, and the intramural team I'm playing on won a tough game last night to more or less lock up first place in our division. Of course, in addition to preventing me from scheduling weighty blog posts, these games conflicted with each other-- the Syracuse game was shown on tape delay (the live game was only on pay-per-view) in a slot that overlapped with the Maryland game, and I had to…

Sunday Chess Problem

Our diagram position today was composed by Joseph Babson in 1927. The stipulation is selfmate in three: Recall that in a selfmate, white plays first and forces black to give checkmate. That's right! White is trying to get checkmated, while black is doing everything in his power to avoid giving checkmate (or at least to postpone it beyond the stipulated number of moves). It's a complete inversion of normal chess logic. Let's get right down to business. The key move is for white to play 1. a8Q!, leading to this position: Folks, as key moves go, that's pretty appalling. Promoting to…

Picking Silly Fights

Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers, those little scamps, are kvetching about the NCSE again. It seems that the NCSE posted a link to this series of videos defending the compatibility of evolution and Christianity. Here is the NCSE's post: Interested in exploring the issues raised by science and faith? A free webcast series promises to assemble “thirty of today's most inspiring Christian leaders and esteemed scientists for a groundbreaking dialogue on how an evolutionary worldview can enrich your life, deepen your faith, and bless our world.” To be broadcast throughout December 2010 and January…

Autistic children are less sensitive to the movements of living things

For any animal, it pays to be able to spot other animals in order to find mates and companions and to avoid predators. Fortunately, many animals move in a distinct way, combining great flexibility with the constraints of a rigid skeleton - that sets them apart from inanimate objects like speeding trains or flying balls. The ability to detect this "biological motion" is incredibly important. Chicks have it. Cats have it. Even two-day-old babies have it. But autistic children do not. Ami Klim from Yale has found that two-year-old children with autism lack normal preferences for natural…

Being an Absentee President

Of late president Obama has taken a little bit of heat for his frequent (and mostly male) golf outings. Before him, president Bush took the same sort of heat for his golf and vacations. If you were willing to dig a bit through the news archives, I'd bet you could find similar tut-tutting about previous presidents taking time off. It's a common theme for criticism of just about any important federal officeholder - it's no coincidence that so many congressional "fact-finding" missions are to tropical paradises or European vacation spots. In that case it's a criticism I vigorously share, as…

Brain to Muscle Link in the Monkey

I am a little late to this party, but I do want to talk about this paper in Nature Neuroscience. Moritz et al. implanted an electrode into a monkey's motor cortex. The electrode was designed to only record from a single neuron at a time. Then the output of that cell -- after a little amplification and transformation in a computer -- was connected to a muscle in the monkey's wrist. Finally, the nerves that innervated that muscle were temporarily anesthetized. The monkey was trained to play a little game that involved moving the wrist muscle to get a reward. The researchers wanted to know…

Fodor vs. Dennett - Against Darwinism

There's an interesting debate happening at I believe, Cognitive Science, this year. Jerry Fodor has come out with a full force denial of evolutionary psychology and in the process has managed to piss off Daniel Dennett who has responded with a very nasty paper of his own. I'll give you a couple snippets of the exciting debate as well as the papers concerned. Fodor: This started out to be a paper about why I am so down on Evolutionary Psychology (EP), a topic I've addressed in print before. (see Fodor, 19xx; 19xx). But, as I went along, it began to seem that really the paper was about what…

Happy Birthday, Alfred Russel Wallace.

Today is the 185th anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace. He's best known, of course, as the young(ish) scientist who, while recovering from malaria somewhere in Indonesia, independently came up with the same ideas about evolution that Darwin had been working on for three decades, wrote them up, mailed them to Darwin, and catalyzed the old boy into finally getting the damn book written. In fact, that part of his career is so well known that it's hard to find any mention of Wallace that doesn't also bring up Darwin. Despite his enormous talents as a naturalist, he's almost always cast as…

On Religion and "Taking the Red Pill"

I've never really talked about religion on this blog before, at least not directly. But there's trouble a-brewin' at ScienceBlogs which has worked more than a few of our ranks into tizzies of knotted panties and carpal tunnel blogging. I figure this is as good a time as any to tackle the topic, since I've been pussy-footing around it, well, my whole blog-life (the immense span of 1.5 years!). The issue came up a few days ago when new SciBling Rob Knop wrote a post espousing his position that science and Christianity were not exclusive, what the purpose of religion was, and why he is…

A drug company, a psychiatrist, and an inexplicable failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychiatrist at Emory University alleged by congressional investigators to have failed to report a third of the $2.8 million (or more) he received in consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies whose drugs he was studying. Why would congressional investigators care? For one thing, during the period of time when Nemeroff received these consulting fees, he also received $3.9 million from NIH to study the efficacy of five GlaxoSmithKline drugs in the treatment of depression. When the government ponies up money for scientific research, it has an interest…

Clinton vs. Obama

I am utterly undecided. Feel free to make a suggestion. To me, it is simply not the case that in most regards one candidate has better positions than the other. The main difference I see is in that Clinton has articulated her positions in more detail than Obama. Obama seems to be running more of a hope and charisma campaign. I liked Bill Clinton, and I never had negative feelings towards Hillary Clinton, as many people seem to. I hear Hillary Clinton supporters expressing the thought that she would be a good president and the best possible campaigner against any of the Republicans,…

Which baby do you want? A dilemma for 21st century parents-to-be

Nature News has an intriguing article on the next three decades of reproductive medicine: essentially a series of short musings from scientists working in the field about the issues we will be facing in 30 year's time. It's worth reading through in full, but this statement from Susannah Baruch at Johns Hopkins caught my eye: There's speculation that people will have designer babies, but I don't think the data are there to support that. The spectre of people wanting the perfect child is based on a false premise. No single gene predicts blondness or thinness or height or whatever the 'perfect…

When John Almost Died of Naturopathy

Recent discussion of Canadian Naturopathy caused this old memory of mine to surface, regarding a friend who nearly died because he had a treatable illness but was attended to only by a Naturopath. A stupid, badly dressed Naturopath who couldn't drive for shit. I won't say his real name, because he's reasonably well known, and I'm not sure how much he knows I know about this story. He was pretty private about it at the time, but when he was in the hospital still unconscious after the emergency surgery, his wife told me everything, much of which I already knew by observation, some I already…

Weekend mailbag: Orac is a bad, bad man

After yesterday's lovefest that really did go to my head. Really, when I wrote it I wasn't trolling for praise, although in retrospect it now does kind of look that way to me. I was simply expressing amazement that anyone would listen to a pseudonymous (although not really anonymous anymore) blogger. Fortunately for my ego, which threatens to expand until it pops like an overinflated balloon, there are are readers who aren't all that impressed by me. Heck, there's even a whole blog, every blogger of which really, really detests me. (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess to which…

Magical thinking in data curation

Peter Keane has a lengthy and worthwhile piece about the need for a "killer app" in data management. It's too meaty to relegate to a tidbits post; go read it and see what you think, then come back. My reaction to the piece is complex, and I'm still rereading it to work through my own thoughts. Here's a beginning, however. In at least some fields, data are their own killer app. I expect the number of fields to grow over time, especially as socio-structural carrots and sticks for data-sharing grow, which I expect will happen. We don't have to talk about the uses for data in the subjunctive mood…

The Death of the Republican Brain

Perhaps this is redundant, since Jon Swift has already taken care of it, but how could I possibly resist an article titled "The Death of Science," posted on a "Blogs for Bush" site? It's got wingnuts, it's got irony, it's got dizzyingly inane interpretations of science. It's like everything that's wrong with the Bush approach to science, all in one short article. What reasons could a blinkered Bush supporter with a petrified brain and no background in science possibly advance to support the claim that science is dead? A lot of different factors - but the main thing was that science could…

Science advisor

This summer, I sat in with some big shots to discuss the future of science policy in an Obama Presidency, and of space policy in particular. One of the ideas I pushed, and which received general support, was the importance of a cabinet-level science advisor to the President, one who would be appointed and confirmed quickly, and given maximal access to the President and his decision-making process. Many scientists and science societies agree. Now that Obama is planning his transition, the question moves to a more practical realm: who should he appoint? First, I think the science advisor…

Is the holocaust denial/climate change denial comparison apt?

Many of the climate change denialist sites have been up in arms by comparisons of climate change denial to holocaust denial. In particular Marc Morano at climate depot has had multiple articles attacking and expressing hysterical outrage at these comparisons. We know they don't like the comparison, but the question is, is it apt? One article in particular from Micha Tomkiewicz, who is himself a holocaust survivor, has earned the ire of climate denialists around the web because in addition to the comparison of the tactics of global warming denialists and holocaust deniers, he additionally…

Oh no, not another new Wealden theropod!

I think I said recently that there have been way too many dinosaurs on Tet Zoo lately. It isn't that I don't like dinosaurs: it's just that I aim to provide balance and, let's face it, writing about charismatic megafauna all the time - especially dead charismatic megafauna - doesn't help. However, I'm sure you'll all forgive me for discussing my own published research. Last week another new paper came out with my name on it; hey, I'm fourth author of four, but it all counts, right? It's on another new bloody dinosaur... Given that I write on Tet Zoo about such diverse subjects as the global…

Weekend Diversion: My Love Letter to Winnie Cooper

"When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; scientist, philosopher, artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time." -Kevin Arnold, The Wonder Years Like many who grew up around the same time I did, The Wonder Years was one of my favorite shows, putting on display much of the awkwardness, anxiety, hope and powerlessness that comes along with being a pre-teen/teenager in this world. And like many, I had a secret crush on Winnie Cooper, played by Danica McKellar. To accompany this post, with a modern twist, here's the Easy Star All-Stars singing…

A true ghost story. Part I: A City of Death and Misery

For Halloween, I'm reprinting the only Ghost Story on my blog (so far). It is in several parts, and here's part one: Everything I'm about to tell you in this story is true.1 This is a long story, so it may span more than one blog post. You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.2 Kimberley South Africa is said to be the most haunted city in the world, and it certainly is a city with a remarkable and dark history. The culture of Kimberley is constructed from the usual colonial framework on which are draped the tragic lives of representatives from…

Inauguration day: How President Trump could undermine trust in vaccines

In a (very) few short hours, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the 45th President of the United States. I realize that I don't normally blog about politics, at least other than that related to medicine, but I make no bones about it. I'm dreading 12 Noon ET on January 20, 2017. There is more than enough reason for dread given the likely effect on medical science, at the very least. Also, Donald Trump is antivaccine. He's shown it through meetings with Andrew Wakefield and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the former of whom spoke a year ago on a "Conspira-Sea Cruise" and the latter of…

Huxley's On the Origin of Species

If there is any author associated with the book title On the Origin of Species it is most certainly Charles Darwin, yet Darwin was not the only person to pen a book beginning with those words. The full title of Darwin's first edition was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, but about two decades later another On the Origin of Species would be published bearing Thomas Henry Huxley's name. With the full title On the Origin of Species: Or, the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature, the book was a compilation…

Skin color is not race

One of the peculiarities of American discussion about race is that skin color is assumed to be synonymous with racial distinctions. That is, skin color is not just a trait, but it is the trait which defines between population differences. There's a reason for this, the skin is the largest organ and it is very salient. Populations with little phylogenetic relationship to each other, from India to the Pacific to Southeast Asia have been referred to as "black" by lighter-skinned populations. No population is referred to by their neighbors as those "straight hairs," to my knowledge. But another…

Unavoidable Adaptation to Climate Change: Water, Snow, and Ice

Snow. Glaciers. Icecaps, River flows. All of these are vulnerable to climate change, especially rising temperature. This isn't just theory. It’s now observable fact.   Scientists worry about the growing threat of climate change because the global climate is tied to everything that society cares about: human and environmental health, food and industrial production, water availability, extreme events, and more. Figuring out how all these pieces tie together is difficult. And many of us, from scientists to the public to policy makers, have only a partial understanding of the true implications of…

WHO prepares to don a hair shirt

The finger pointing and the told-you-so-ers are out in force these days and WHO seems to be one of their targets. In the face of wealthy European countries cutting their swine flu vaccine orders because of limited demand, critics are claiming that WHO exaggerated the threat in league with or under the influence of Big Pharma vaccine makers out to make a killing. This is really two issues. One, did WHO appropriately appraise the risk; and two, were they unduly influenced by greedy drug makers. I think the answer to these questions are "Yes" and "No." In our view WHO was caught between a rock…

Workers' Memorial Week 2013: Mourning the dead, fighting for the living

This week is Workers' Memorial Week, when we remember the thousands of men and women who die on the job each year and work to prevent future deaths by improving workplace health and safety. Workers' Memorial Day is recognized worldwide on April 28, and more than a dozen US communities are holding local Workers' Memorial Week events. In the US, nearly 5,000 workers are killed on the job each year and, as the AFL-CIO notes in its annual Death on the Job report, an estimated 50,000 die from occupational diseases. This week begins in the shadow of a tragedy in Texas, where a massive fire and…

The Eggs are Yummy and Definitely Worth It!

In the NYTimes today, Nicholas Kristoff asks just the wrong question "Is an egg for breakfast worth this?" Of course, it isn't, but that's not the right way to frame this. Nothing about an egg for breakfast could be worth this in terms of animal cruelty, human health or any number of other considerations: "It's physically hard to breathe because of the ammonia" rising from manure pits below older barns, said the investigator, who would not allow his name to be used because that would prevent him from taking another undercover job in agriculture. He said that when workers needed to enter…