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Mike Adams is so stupid it hurts

Yes, I know, I'm stating the obvious again. But I just couldn't resist when I saw this. In his never-ending quest to attack all science that doesn't affirm his belief that vitamin D and fruit smoothies will cure all disease, he's gone after the new new induced pluripotent stem cell findings. As far as I know, he's the only one to criticize the new technology as a whole, and his reasoning? Really I can't believe he's this stupid. Reasoning, is the wrong word for this. Let's ask instead, what is his demented, completely ignorant, insipid, moronic justification? While less controversial…

WSJ: Wal-Mart Era Wanes

Maybe Americans' bad taste can be reformed! Gary McWilliams reports: The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close. [...] Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart's low-price promise by offering greater convenience, more selection, higher quality, or better service. Amid the country's growing affluence, Wal-Mart has struggled to overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives. The Internet has changed shoppers'…

Schulte's Analysis Challenging Climate Consensus Has Been Rejected

DeSmogBlog has the details. Apparently, "cut-and-paste" Schulte didn't have anything new to say, not even enough for a journal like Energy and Environment to take it. Although, Richard Littlemore's letter discussing his loose use of other researchers contributions might have helped. Here is the email that I sent to Boehmer-Christiansen" ... Dr. Schulte's analysis has engendered both enthusiasm and controversy, but at least one arm's length "reviewer," Dr. Tim Lambert, has noted that Dr.Schulte's draft draws heavily from a document that it does not credit, an earlier letter on this topic…

Premise Media Loves Cranks

Anyone who has been reading Scienceblogs knows that the creationists are all in a tizzy over their new movie expelled, which plans to unite the superstar power of Ben Stein with the superscience power of creationism. My favorite part of the whole thing, based on my appreciation for quality crankery, is the built-in persecution. You see, it's not enough to make a movie about the supposed persecution of people like Richard Sternberg (who clearly was not persecuted despite unethical behavior). They have to be persecuted for even coming up with the movie. They have to be persecuted for…

New paper on Ebola--no primate-to-primate transmission seen

By the same lead author that published the pig Ebola transmission paper comes a new publication examining airborne transmission among primates. In these, Ebola did *not* spread between non-human primates (NHPs) via air. I sent an email to the PI to comment; will update the post if he responds, but in the meantime, some money quotes directly from the publication: "One experiment reported contact free transmission between infected NHPs to one uninfected NHP although cross-contamination due to husbandry practices could not be ruled out with certainty26. Interestingly, EBOV infected swine…

Are we *sure* Ebola isn't airborne?

Since yesterday's post, several people have asked me on various social media outlets about the airborne nature of Ebola. Didn't I know about this paper ("Transmission of Ebola virus from pigs to non-human primates"), which clearly showed that Ebola could go airborne? Indeed I do--I wrote about that paper two years ago, and it in no way changes my assertion that Ebola doesn't spread between people in an airborne manner. Let me back up. The paper in question was an experimental study done in the wake of the 2008 finding of the Reston Ebola virus in pigs and a previous study looking at the Zaire…

Thar's bacteria in that there snow!

I really need more time to fill in a gap in my microbiology education: environmental microbiology. I run across papers all the time that are absolutely fascinating, and wish I had a free year to just take some additional coursework in this area. For instance, a paper in today's Science magazine discusses how atmospheric bacteria result in the formation of snow; more after the jump. The authors here were looking at ice nucleators (IN) in snowfall. Think of this like crystal experiments you did as a kid--you had to stick something into the solution to serve as a seed for the crystal to…

When it rains, it pours

...and that's not just a comment on the weather here. The past few days have been packed. In addition to the work stuff, I've been gearing up for classes next week and getting my kids off to their new school year (and my son in kindergarten). It's always nice when hard work pays off, but it would be even nicer if it didn't all pay off in the same week. But of course, when it rains, it pours. In addition to the publicity for the HIV article, a Reuters story on my Streptococcus suis talk in Wisconsin came out earlier this week, and was mentioned in the ProMed email alerts yesterday:…

Science/journalists update redux: Mooney chimes in

In addition to comments by Mike, Jennifer, and Astroprof, Chris Mooney added his thoughts to the scientist-journalist communication discussion in a post here--so perhaps a few more journalists will pop out of the woodwork there and elaborate. I see a common theme here. Scientists have often had issues with misquotation, and it tends to sour them on science journalists. Journalists know that misquotation is bound to happen now and then, and it bothers them less. Chris notes: I also second Jennifer Ouellette that sometimes scientists get too miffed about being misquoted. Don't get me wrong…

A few must-read posts

Today is the kids' last day of school, and just happens to be an early dismissal as well, so I'll be busy with them and not tied to the computer this morning/afternoon. However, there are tons of good things to read elsewhere. First, Orac has a long-awaited update on the Tripoli Six: the group of nurses and doctors accused of killing children in Libya by deliberately infecting them with HIV. The science exonerated them, but that didn't change the court outcome, and I've not seen updates until now. Next, Revere writes about the H7N2 influenza outbreak in Wales, reminding us (as as I've…

Can't get away from the mumps

I wrote several posts last year on the mumps outbreak here in Iowa. We didn't get hit with mumps this year, but there has been an ongoing outbreak in Canada, primarily in Nova Scotia. So how do I fit into this? Most recently, mumps has been diagnosed in Toronto: Canada's ongoing mumps outbreak has hit the country's biggest city. And Toronto's public health officials expect the current case count of three infections to climb before the outbreak subsides. "I think we may see more cases," Dr. Barbara Yaffe, director of communicable disease control for Toronto Public Health, said in an…

Mysterious illness fells honeybees

What's killing honey bees? Something is wiping out honey bees across North America and a team of researchers is rushing to find out what it is. What's being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has now been seen in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and way out in California. Some bee keepers have lost up to 80 percent of their colonies to the mysterious disorder. Now, I'm admittedly not much of a bee fan. Several of my relatives are highly allergic, and I've only been stung once and hope I'll be fine if it happens again, but they do kind of make me nervous when I see them…

Friday Blog Roundup*

While we here at The Pump Handle have been focusing on popcorn problems (the big story is here, the latest installment here), other bloggers have been keeping tabs on public health issues in Congress: At RH Reality Check, Anika Rahman and Tod Preston explain the Global Gag Rule and why itâs a good thing that Congress has voted to repeal it. Lisa Codispodi at Womenstake adds up the numbers behind the State Childrenâs Health Insurance Program, and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews reports on the financial wrangling behind this important legislation. Joseph Romm at Gristmill prepares us for the…

Another Day, Another Disaster

You may already have read about a series of chemical explosions that occurred this morning at the Barton Solvents plant near Wichita, Kansas. An estimated 650,000 gallons of an âarray of chemicalsâ were on fire, sending flames up to 150 feet high and a steady stream of thick black smoke into the air. The good news is, plant workers were taking a break at 9:04 am, the moment when a Park City resident saw âthe most craziest thingâ heâd ever seenâa canister âthe size of a semi-truckâ flying several hundred feet in air âlike a bottle rocketâ before becoming engulfed in flames. Residents living…

Friday Blog Roundup

With all the interesting new research coming out, itâs good that we have bloggers to help us stay on top of it all. The Olive Ridley Crawl explains the basics behind the reports on chemicals linked to breast cancer; Corpus Callosum looks at a Health Affairs article that helps put drug risks in perspective; Andrew Leonard at How the World Works highlights a paper on undocumented migrant berry pickers in the Pacific Northwest and Oaxaca; Kate Shepard at Gristmill summarizes new thinking on the long-cherished âthe dose makes the poisonâ idea; and Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily describes a study…

CDC Tells OSHA "It's Not Just Popcorn Workers"

By David Michaels On April 26, 2002, exactly five years ago today, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published a report about the risk of a terrible and sometime fatal lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, in microwave popcorn workers. The report appeared in the CDC's widely-disseminated Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Since then, dozens of workers at factories where artificial butter flavors are produced, mixed or applied have become sick, and at least three workers have died. Others are awaiting lung transplants. By coincidence, today CDC has issued a new report in MMWR about…

Friday Blog Roundup

The FDA certainly wasnât the biggest newsmaker this week, but it did create some buzz in the blogosphere â mostly due to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, which is up for Congressional reauthorization. Matt Madia at Reg Watch and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews are tracking PDUFAâs progress through the Senate. Corpus Callosum has three posts on three New England Journal of Medicine editorials about PDUFA (here, here, and here). (Weâve got Susan Woodâs take on the editorials here; or, check out all our PDUFA posts here.) The Olive Ridley Crawl reports that proposed restrictions on new-…

Will Nevada Deprive Injured Workers of their Fourth Amendment Rights?

by Les Boden For the past several years, Nevada employers and insurers could avoid paying workersâ compensation benefits to workers who had positive drug tests. According to an article in Occupational Hazards, this led to the denial of 10%-12% of claims filed in Nevada. But thereâs a loophole that the Nevada legislature is considering closing. Workers have the right to refuse drug testing. The Insurance Journal reports that proposed legislation would require all injured workers to submit to drug tests if they apply for workersâ compensation. What a good idea! No matter that Ken Rosenman and…

Undeniable Global Warming

Friday, February 2, 2007 (3:30 AM EST): Tune in to listen to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) webcast announcing the Working Group I's approval of their Fourth Asssessment Report.  There's no doubt the global warming naysayers will critique the IPCC's report with gusto.  But, as Naomi Oreskes writes in "Undeniable Global Warming" in todayâs Washington Post "the chatter of skeptics is distracting us from the real issue: how best to respond to the threats that global warming presents."  On the eve of the IPCC's report release, the Senate Committee on…

Didn't think I'd see this in a science write-up

Paleontologists X-ray fossil embryos The article describes the cover story in this weeks' Nature, that PZ has already blogged about here. As the headline to the story suggests: Paleontologists have created detailed three-dimensional images of evolution's first multicellular creatures in their embryonic stages, some so detailed that they reveal more about the development of long-extinct creatures than scientists know about their modern counterparts. PZ has much more about the science and implications, and since that's his area I won't even try to elaborate, but what struck me was this quote…

Flu update

As pointed out yesterday, flu blogging has been light this month, even though there have been interesting developments. As such, to catch up a bit, I'm posting an overview of the current Indonesian cluster and some other thoughts below the jump... As always, I point anyone who wants to keep up-to-date on the latest news over to Effect Measure for excellent analysis of what it all means, or to H5N1 for news from around the world on the topic. Obviously, the biggest news of the moment is the Indonesian family cluster, which appears to not only be an example of human-to-human transmission, but…

Okay, I'll play

Oooh, fun. I have a stack of smelly plates waiting for me in the incubator...but Janet's ABC meme is more interesting. Answers below the fold. Accent: Midwest, so what most people think of when they say "American accent." Did start saying "waaa-ter" and "cawww-fee" a bit too much after waitressing for several years in Connecticut, but have long shaken that. Booze: Not much of a drinker. Tried to develop a taste for beer but still hate the stuff. On the rare occasions I actually go out, it's usually something with a vodka base. Chore I Hate: Vacuuming. Dog or Cat: Have a dog…

A bit of free advice

If you're in the food service industry, don't go back to work while you still have an intestinal bug. Or, fer crimeny's sake, at least wash your hands thoroughly. The majority of cases of foodborne gastroenteritis in the United States are caused by noroviruses. This report summarizes an investigation by the Kent County Health Department (KCHD) in Michigan into three norovirus outbreaks and a cluster of community cases that were associated with a national submarine sandwich franchise restaurant during May 3--9, 2005. The investigation identified a potential source, a food handler who had…

Computer builds virus

This is too cool. One of the world's most powerful supercomputers has conjured a fleeting moment in the life of a virus. The researchers say the simulation is the first to capture a whole biological organism in such intricate molecular detail. The simulation pushes today's computing power to the limit. But it is only a first step. In future researchers hope that bigger, longer simulations will reveal details about how viruses invade cells and cause disease. (Continued below) The fleeting simulation, published in this month's Structure, reveals that although the virus looks symmetrical it…

About that drop in cancer deaths...

You've probably seen this announcment trumpeted somewhere: "Cancer deaths fall for first time." I just wanted to post a very brief note on this. First, let's look at their numbers: The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down from 557,271 the year before, according to a recently completed review of U.S. death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics. It's the first annual decrease in total cancer deaths since 1930, when nationwide data began to be compiled. Now, a decrease in cancer deaths is always a good thing, but talk about making a mountain out of a…

Need another fix?

Now that all of you have burned through the 7th Harry Potter book like GWB with an 8-ball of coke in the 70s, what is left for you to do? How to combat that remorseful feeling of being out of such perfectly fluffy literature? Well here's an open thread to discuss those other series which may provide a HP-like fix for those who are starting to suffer. I have a suggestion that is no mere methadone substitute. The series I'd recommend wholeheartedly would be George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series that begins with A Game of Thrones. Martin has created the most interesting series I…

Bottled water is for chumps

I for one salute Gavin Newsom for refusing to waste government money on bottled water. I have never bought bottled water. It's silly to spend good money on bottled water when throughout this country it's possible to drink clean potable water for free or a tiny fraction of the cost of bottled water - and it's far more environmentally sound. Penn and Teller, of all people, covered this issue the best. They simply show that people can't differentiate in taste between tap water (excepting Florida's) and tap water, and can be tricked into spending idiotic amounts of money on, well, water. The…

The mystery of Pete the purple squirrel

Late last year (on December 22nd) the British newspapers told the story of Pete, a purple-coated Grey squirrel Sciurus carolinensis photographed in the grounds of Meoncross School, Stubbington (Hampshire, UK). Why a Grey squirrel should have a purple coat is, of course, the big mystery. One suggestion is that Pete might have found purple ink cartridges in the bin and somehow groomed the ink into his fur. I suppose that's possible, but it sounds pretty unlikely. Local naturalist Chris Packham has been quoted as suggesting that Pete fell into a bucket 'containing a weak colour solution'.…

Fear and greed fuel the growth of African churches

It's a modern-day version of a long-running evil: children in Africa are being murdered in the name of God. The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall. His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse. A month later, he died. Inciting violence against "witches" is only…

The legend of Hogzilla

I just couldn't resist covering this, sorry (though, technically speaking, it's old hat). On June 17th 2004, the reign of Hogzilla - an immense pig estimated to be nearly half a ton in weight and 3.7 m in length - was brought to an end. The animal 'rampaged' across southern Georgia until it was shot in a hunting preserve and, amusingly (for fans of Family Guy, the best thing on TV), the hunter's name is Chris Griffin. Now comes news that the story of Hogzilla will hit the big screen sometime in the near future... After exhuming the carcass in October 2004, a team of researchers working for…

Frederick Cohan—the Origins of Ecological Diversity in Prokaryotes

How do we distinguish bacterial species? Cohan shows us some nice diagrams of phenotypic and molecular clusters, and they show groups separated by gaps — therefore, species. Unfortunately the species defined thereby are big and contain considerable diversity within them. Darwin defined species as divergent forms between which one finds morphological gaps. Mayr: cohesive set of organisms whose divergence is constrained by genetic exchange. Speciation requires a breakdown of that exchange. Mallet has developed a version of Darwin's species definition that includes molecular characters. Under…

Friday Random Ten, November 10

1. **Porcupine Tree, "Prepare Yourself"**. Porcupine Tree is a strange bad, which started out as an elaborate joke. This is off of their most progressive album, "The Sky Moves Sideways". It's a brilliant piece of work. 2. **Dream Thater, "Blind Faith"** 3. **Dirty Three, "Dream Evie"**. Ah, Dirty Three, one of my favorite post-rock ensembles. Very classical sounding group, wonderful. 4. **Tortoise, "By Dawn"**. More post-rock; unfortunately, I find Tortoise rather dull. 5. **Harry Bradley, "Miss Thornton's". Traditional Irish music played in exquisite style by one of the great masters of the…

Binary Fingermath

There is another way of doing math on your fingers, which gives you a much greater range of numbers, and which makes multiplication particularly easy. It's a bit more work to get used to than the finger abacus, but it has a lot less limitations. Someone in the comments of the finger-abacus post mentioned that they do something similar. The methods for binary fingermath that I'll describe are my own creation; so if you think they're ridiculous, the blame is entirely mine. I know other people have come up with similar things, but this is my own personal variant. The idea is to use your…

The Geekiest? Right here.

Yes, it appears that I have won the great ScienceBlogs nerdoff/geekoff. [Janet announced the results yesterday][geekoff], and despite [much][orac-whines] [whining][pz-whines], I'm proud to say that I was the winner. There was some stiff competition, particularly from Orac, but in the end, no one could quite exceed my pathetic level of geekiness. In answer to a question I've heard a couple of times: Janet called it a "Nerd-Off", but I've preferred to call it a "Geek-Off". I consider them roughly equivalent. Depending on where you are, geographically, I've found that the differences between…

Protecting the Homeland: the Terrorists' Target List

Longtime readers of GM/BM will remember [this post][homeland], where I discussed the formula used by the Department of Homeland Security for allocating anti-terrorism funds. At the time, I explained: >It turns out that the allocation method was remarkably simple. In their >applications for funding, cities listed assets that they needed to protect. >What DHS did was take the number of listed assets from all of the cities that >were going to be recipients of funds, and give each city an amount of funding >proportional to the number of assets they listed. > >So, the Empire…

Subtraction: Math Too Hard for a Conservative Blogger

This has been written about [elsewhere][lf], but I can't let such a perfect example of the fundamental innumeracy of so many political pundits pass me by without commenting. Captain Ed of [Captains Quarters][cq] complains about a speech by John Edwards in which Edwards mentions 37 million people below the poverty line: >Let's talk about poverty. Where did John Edwards get his numbers? The US Census >Bureau has a ready table on poverty and near-poverty, and the number 37 million >has no relation to those below the poverty line. If his basis is worry, well, >that tells us nothing;…

This Year's Turing Award Winner

Today, the ACM announced the winner of the Turing award. For those who don't know, the Turing award is the greatest award in computer science - the CS equivalent of the Nobel prize, or the Fields medal. The winner: Fran Allen. The first woman ever to win the Turing award. And the first Turing award winner that I've personally known. Fran deserves it, and I'm absolutely overjoyed to see her getting the recognition she deserves. Among her many accomplishments, Fran helped design Fortran and create the worlds first optimizing compiler. One of my fondest memories of work is from 8 years ago…

What did a dinoceratan do?

Inspired by yesterday's comments, I'm very keen to get posting on the Paleogene mammals we were talking about. I mean, seriously, I've got stuff prepared on pantodonts, apatemyids, pantolestans, dinoceratans, artocyonids, mesonychians... I just do not have the time to finish it and publish it. So here's another sneak peek, which I'll discuss in due time (sorry to keep doing this, I hope you can understand). Dinoceratans: what did they do? If you consult most sources you'll see them being depicted, and discussed, as forest-dwelling rhino analogues that had a weak, undersized and poorly…

Mystery Bird: Black-necked Grebe, Podiceps nigricollis

tags: Eared Grebe, Black-necked Grebe, Podiceps nigricollis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Eared Grebe, also known as the Black-necked Grebe, Podiceps nigricollis, photographed in Monterey Bay, California. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 5 May 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1000s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. This migratory species, photographed in California, is challenging to distinguish from another, closely-…

Supreme Court Justice Scalia is a supremely clueless jerk

The Supreme Court just heard arguments in the case of Buono v. Salazar, a case which is challenging the use of a gigantic cross on federal land, which was initially erected to honor WWI dead but has now become a cause celebre for the wanna-be theocrats who want official endorsement of America as a Christian nation. This exchange with Scalia is simply stunning: the man is an incompetent ideologue who I wouldn't trust to rule on a parking ticket. Can we have him impeached? Here's how he reacted when told that non-Christians might object a teeny-tiny bit to having their dead memorialized with a…

Science Café Raleigh - North Carolina Snakes: Facts and Fiction

North Carolina Snakes: Facts and Fiction Tuesday, August 18, 2009 6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A Location: Tir Na Nog 218 South Blount Street, Raleigh, 833-7795 Did you know that North Carolina is home to almost 40 species of native snakes and all but six of them are non-venomous and considered harmless? Of the six venomous species found in our state, only one, the copperhead occurs statewide and is likely to be encountered in Wake County. Unfortunately, snakes are often feared and misunderstood, with many harmless species being misidentified and killed.…

North Carolina science/nature/medical blogs

I am trying to put together a list of science, nature and medical blogs based in North Carolina, mainly in order to update the Blogroll/aggregator on the Science In The Triangle media page. I tried to put together, out of my own memory, the names and URLs of blogs based in NC, but I need your help to make the list better. These are either personal, or news, or institutional blogs based in the state. In some cases, these are blogs of people who I know are coming to live in NC very soon. Some of these are group blogs in which one or more co-bloggers are living here. And one is a large group…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Babies Born To Women With Anxiety Or Depression Are More Likely To Sleep Poorly: A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that babies are more likely to have night wakings at both 6 months and 12 months of age if they are born to women who suffered from anxiety or depression prior to the pregnancy. Bird Feathers Produce Color Through Structure Similar To Beer Foam: Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers. Straw Bale House Survives Violent Shaking At…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Female Spiders Eat Small Males When They Mate: Female spiders are voracious predators and consume a wide range of prey, which sometimes includes their mates. A number of hypotheses have been proposed for why females eat males before or after mating. Researchers Shawn Wilder and Ann Rypstra from Miami University in Ohio found that the answer may be simpler than previously thought. Males are more likely to be eaten if they are much smaller than females, which likely affects how easy they are to catch. Cryopreservation Techniques Bring Hopes For Women Cancer Victims And Endangered Species:…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Brain Structure Provides Key To Unraveling Function Of Bizarre Dinosaur Crests: Paleontologists have long debated the function of the strange, bony crests on the heads of the duck-billed dinosaurs known as lambeosaurs. The structures contain incredibly long, convoluted nasal passages that loop up over the tops of their skulls. Movement Restored To Paralyzed Limbs In Monkeys Through Artificial Brain-muscle Connections: Researchers in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have demonstrated for the first time that a direct artificial connection from the brain to muscles can…

Evolutionary Psychology - why it is fundamentally wrong

Larry, Amanda, John, Mike and others are comenting, quite positively, on the recent Scientific American article - Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology by David J. Buller. And I agree - this is an excellent, well-deserved and well-thought smack-down of Evolutionary Psychology and I am happy that it appears in a popular magazine and is spreading around the blogosphere. The Fallacy 1 - Analysis of Pleistocene Adaptive Problems Yields Clues to the Mind's Design - is my favourite counter-argument when I hear someone offering an EvoPsych-style Just-So-Story, but the other three just as…

Oh, no — she's questioning everything they taught her!

One of those agony aunts, Dear Margo, got an amusing request for help. Dear Margo: Our daughter started college a year ago, and we've noticed during her visits home that she's not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she's saying that she's joined an atheist club on campus and is questioning everything we taught her. Now my husband refuses to let her in the house and is threatening to turn her in to the FBI. I've tried to cure our daughter and reconcile with her, but nothing seems to work. I've prayed over her at…

No, you don't need a physical 'newsroom'

You know I am very interested in the way the Web is changing the workplace, in many instances eliminating the need for having a physical office. Michael Rosenblum appears to feel the same way about it: Two years ago, we began a very interesting experiment with a major cable provider. We built and ran (and continue to run) a hyper-local TV station which is probably the most cost-effective in the country. It's a model for others. Now, after two years, we are going to start our second one. When we sat down to do the budgets, the first thing we cut out was the office. We had an office for the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

First Right Whale Sedation Enables Disentanglement Effort: For the first time ever, rescuers used a new sedation delivery system to help free an entangled North Atlantic right whale. The new system was developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with NOAA and the Univ. of Florida and the Univ. of Wisconsin veterinary schools to make the animals more approachable by rescue boats. Biologists Find World-record Colony Of Amoeba Clones In Texas Cow Pasture: A Rice University study of microbes from a Houston-area cow pasture has confirmed once again that everything is bigger…

Five-Fiftysix meme - solutions to the puzzle

I promised solutions in 24 hours, and it's been a little more than that now, so here are the sources: 1. I suppose that the mere fact that I was in the company of two friends itself proves that I wasn't actually some kind of hermit when it came to my rat studies. Rats by Robert Sullivan (not a blogger, as far as I know) 2. They're screwing the security guards in the bathroom. The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani 3. By the end of the nineteenth century, organic synthesis was widely accepted and the vital force theory was abandoned. Tomorrow's Table by Pamela Ronald 4. Cyanobacteria…