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New study: Ubiquitous chemicals known as phthalates linked to childhood asthma risk

About one in every 10 U.S. children is living with asthma — that’s closing in on 7 million kids. And while we have a good handle on what triggers asthma attacks and exacerbates respiratory symptoms, exactly what causes asthma in the first place is still somewhat of a mystery. However, new research points to some possible new culprits that are difficult, if not nearly impossible, to avoid. Those culprits are phthalates, ubiquitous chemicals found in just about everything, from food packaging to shower curtains to vinyl flooring to personal care products such as fragrances and shampoos. (…

Research Suggests Bipolar Children Likely to become Bipolar Adults

tags: bipolar disorder, manic depression, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, children Image: Myself43. If you are like me and suffered from unrecognized bipolar disorder as a child only to later have this mood disorder diagnosed upon reaching young adulthood, you might be pleased to learn that current research suggests bipolar disorder is increasingly being diagnosed as beginning in childhood. As a result, these bipolar kids are more likely to receive proper treatment and support such that they, their families and friends will suffer fewer of the deep emotional and social scars that…

Democrats and Religion

Slate offers up this depressing article, by Amy Sullivan about how religious people view the Democratic Party: Which is why it is startling that in the two years since this Democratic revival began, the party's faith-friendly image has dimmed rather than improved. The Pew Research Center's annual poll on religion and politics, released last week, shows that while 85 percent of voters say religion is important to them, only 26 percent of Americans think the Democratic Party is "friendly" to religion. That's down from 40 percent in the summer of 2004 and 42 percent the year before that--in…

Spaceman Blues, by Brian Francis Slattery [Library of Babel]

I've gotten out of the book-logging habit, but Spaceman Blues is good enough that I feel compelled to write about it. I had heard of the book some time back-- I believe I recall Patrick Nielsen Hayden saying nice things about it at some con or another-- but the packaging didn't really give me a clear idea of what it was like, so I never got around to buying it until Tor offered it as a free e-book. I'll buy a paper copy soon, though, and probably pick up his new book as well. It's hard to fault the copy writer, though. This is a really difficult book to describe. The promotional site name-…

Carnival of the Blue 12

In a rare treat on the usually quiet and contemplative Island of Doubt, I now bring you the 12th edition of the Carnival of the Blue, a celebration of all things wet and wonderful. Islands are only islands, after all, if they're surrounded by water. Hong Kong, for example, is what it is because of what it isn't: the mainland. Between the Special Administrative Region and China proper can be found the shallows of Mai Po, a staging area for thousands of sought-after East Asian/Australasian shorebirds, black-faced spoonbills, Chinese egrets, Saunders' gulls, and a host of other species that pass…

Canada's new Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications

Finally, the Canadian government's Tri-Agency funding councils (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) have released the consolidated final version of it's open access policy. The draft version came out some time ago. The consultation process garnered quite a few responses, which the Tri-Agencies were kind enough to summarize for us. And finally it is here. I have to admit I was getting a bit concerned. The final version was rumoured to have been kicking around the various departments waiting for final sign-off for months. With the rumours of the Conservatives possibly dropping the writ and calling a spring…

An uninformative "experiment" on dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer

I hadn't planned on writing about dichloroacetate, the inexpensive compound whose success in treating experimental cancer in rats that provoked a blogopheric storm about a "cancer cure" that would supposedly never see the light of day because it's not patentable. After all, I've done about seven posts on the topic, give or take a couple, in the course of the last four weeks or so. That's saturation blogging, and, really, nothing new has happened on the news front that merits a new post. Or so I thought. Then, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III, just when I thought that I was out…

The Great and Powerful (Dr.) Oz, dissected in The New Yorker

In the beginning, medicine was religion. Indeed, if you look at the history of medicine, you'll see that the very first physicians were virtually always religious figures in addition to their roles as healers. Indeed, in ancient Egypt, for example, the professions of priest and healer were one, and most medicine involved incantations, invocations of magic, and, of course, prayers to the gods, who were believed to be both the cause and the cure of human disease. Amulets were particularly popular, and consisted of three types: homeopoetic, phylactic and theophoric. Homeopoetic amulets, for…

Medieval Norse Trappers On Baffin Island

Icelandic sagas and a single archaeological site in Newfoundland document a Viking Period presence of Norse people in the Americas. Now National Geographic's November issue has a piece (here and here) on new work in the field, lab and museum collections by Dr. Patricia Sutherland. It deals with a group of additional and somewhat later sites that may expand that evidence. Dr. Sutherland, of the Memorial University in Newfoundland, kindly answered some questions of mine via e-mail. The best site is near Cape Tanfield on the south coast of Baffin Island. Dr. Sutherland emphasises the following…

How to Fix an Authentic Serbian* Sarma (Stuffed Cabbage)

Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, as there was other work to do, but here is the method for producing the most authentic sarma. As some steps may be too difficult, I will be adding tips and tricks along the way on how to do it with materials at hand - it will still be good, but you cannot call it "authentic" any more.** Part A - Making Sauerkraut The key to good sarma is good Sauerkraut, i.e., the sour cabbage leaves that you will do the wrapping with. And the most important piece of the puzzle for this is: The StoneTM Heavy, compact, dense, smooth block of rock.*** Taking one from…

The Other Threat to Evolutionary Biology: Evolutionary Psychology

While I wasn't put out by this article by ScienceBlogling Chris Mooney as others were, it did make me think about how evolutionary biologists are viewed. One of the things I've seen floating around the internets, and this is seems to be 'bipartisan', is the equating of evolutionary biology with evolutionary psychology. I've always been puzzled by this since many evolutionary biologists are skeptical about evolutionary psychology. If you went to a Society for the Study of Evolution meeting, many biologists, if not cautious or skeptical about evolutionary psychology, would be downright…

The Consequences of the Politics of Ideological Capture (Thanks, Geither, Summers, Nelson, and Conrad!)

There will be a lot of discussion of what the Democrats could have done to forestall or mitigate the collapse in the House. Most of will focus on messaging or tactical considerations. But, ultimately, I think it stems from the Democrats have forgotten (or never cosnidering in the first place) the Mad Biologist's Cardinal Rule of Politics: people have to like this crap. The issue isn't that Democrats used the wrong electoral and political tactics, it's that the problem was far more fundamental than that: the policies were dreadful. Healthcare reform, while it is an improvement, wasn't…

Deceptive Metaphor of the Biological Clock

Sometimes a metaphor used in science is useful for research but not so useful when it comes to popular perceptions. And sometimes even scientists come under the spell of the metaphor. One of those unfortunate two-faced metaphors is the metaphor of the Biological Clock. First of all, there are at least three common meanings of the term - it is used to describe circadian rhythms, to describe the rate of sequence change in the DNA over geological time, and to describe the reaching of a certain age at which human fertility drops off ("my clock is ticking"). I prefer the Rube-Goldberg Machine…

New study confirms that eating healthy does indeed cost more

On average, eating healthy costs about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy diets, a new study finds. The extra cost seems insignificant at first — a small cup of coffee often costs more — but it all adds up to be a considerable barrier for many low-income families. Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health set out to find the evidence behind the conventional wisdom that healthier foods cost more, conducting the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of price differences between healthy and unhealthy foods. In examining data from 10 high-income nations, researchers found…

Football Saturdays meet workers' rights

The population of Ann Arbor Michigan swelled this past weekend with football fans. It was the annual Michigan vs. Michigan State football game and I was in town to witness some of the fanfare. The sidewalks, parking lots, porches, lawns and frat house balconies were jam-packed with people. Everybody, I mean EVERYBODY was wearing a t-shirt to show their allegiance to either the Wolverines (Michigan) or the Spartans (Michigan State). A few contrarians and oddballs, like me, wore shirts promoting other schools, all in the spirit of fun and camaraderie. As I took in the football Saturday…

Deceptive Metaphor of the Biological Clock

Sometimes a metaphor used in science is useful for research but not so useful when it comes to popular perceptions. And sometimes even scientists come under the spell of the metaphor. One of those unfortunate two-faced metaphors is the metaphor of the Biological Clock. First of all, there are at least three common meanings of the term - it is used to describe circadian rhythms, to describe the rate of sequence change in the DNA over geological time, and to describe the reaching of a certain age at which human fertility drops off ("my clock is ticking"). I prefer the Rube-Goldberg Machine…

what would you have done?

Physics bloggers are quite taken with the recent financial market turmoil. Hsu considers propagator effects and asymmetries of time averaged risk, while the Incoherent Ponderer seizes upon my comment about the root cause between the Superconducting SuperCollider cancellation and current financial shenanigans What brought the original comment I made to mind, is that I recognized a name or two in a list of major players in the east coast financial and mortgage markets... er, Hey Guys! It was very clear when I was graduating that the academic job market in the physical sciences was in a bad…

Exploiting the Alabama Fires

As reported yesterday, three college students have been arrested for setting fire to 9 churches in Alabama (and possibly a 10th), and one of the students ridiculously claimed that their crimes were a "joke" that "got out of hand". I thought it would be hard to top that idiotic statement, but religious right leader Rick Scarborough is giving it a hell of a try. This is from the text of an email he sent to his followers today: The War on Christianity Rages Like... An Alabama Church Fire Today is the day that America called burning nine churches a college "prank." There were three arrests…

DonorsChoose Payoff: Sporting Superiority

As part of the "Buy This Blog" incentive for the DonorsChoose fundraiser, Ewan McNay asks for a post on the superiority of Commonwealth sports (cricket, football) over the US-favoured kind (baseball, american football) ;-). Oh, OK, then; I'll setle for cricket. Cricket? You want me to talk up cricket? The best I can do is this: If you've ever been watching a baseball game, and said to yourself "Boy, I wish this could go on all week," well, then, have I got a game for you... I can, however, make a case for the superiority of rugby to American football: Now, don't get me wrong-- I'm a big fan…

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part One

I'm back! Did I miss anything? The big summer vacay turned out to be much harder work than what I was doing in Virginia prior to leaving, but it was tons of fun nonetheless. Far too much to report on in just one blog post, so we'll do a few. Of course, the first order of business was to participate in the World Open chess tournament in Philadelphia. No one seemed to mind that I was standing on a chair while taking that picture. Since the World Open offers the largest cash prizes of any open chess tournament, it routinely attracts some of the top players in the world. One of the great…

How Big Brother keeps us honest

Imagine that you're walking along a quiet street and you see a wallet lying on the pavement. Would you take it? Now imagine a slightly different situation - the wallet has a red circle drawn around it. While many people would be tempted in the first scenario, almost no one would touch the wallet in the second. The key difference is that the lone wallet was most likely dropped accidentally by a passer-by buy the encircled wallet was clearly placed and marked by someone, who may well still be watching. And there is nothing that keeps people more honest than the presence of a watchman.…

Paul Rubin on the Evolution of Conflict

Paul Rubin has an editorial in the Washington Post about how evolution may result in a proclivity towards economic and social conflict: Conflict was common in the environment in which humans evolved. As primates, which are a very social order, our ancestors lived in relatively small groups in which everyone knew everyone else. Our minds are adapted to deal with populations of that size. Our ancestors made strong distinctions between members of the in-group and outsiders, and we still make such distinctions today -- social psychologists can create in-group and out-group feelings based on…

fMRI of a dead salmon: Why dead fish have almost nothing to do with "voodoo correlations" in neuroimaging

A number of very smart people (and smart communities) seem like they might be under the impression that the "voodoo correlations" scandal in the neuroimaging community is somehow related to recent work by Bennett et al, who used fMRI to show task-related neural activity in a dead fish. These two things have almost nothing to do with one another. 1) The Bennett work is, in the words of a friend, "a cute way to make a point" that every fMRI paper I've ever read has failed to explicitly acknowledge. The reason they've failed to acknowledge it is that it's standard to run equivalent statistical…

Diamonds last forever; art, not so much

My friend Nicole sent me this WSJ article about a month ago - it's about the sad reality that artworks made with nonarchival materials often don't outlive the artist: Art is sold "as is" by galleries or directly from artists. (Can you imagine Consumer Reports reviewing art?) Still, dealers hope to maintain the goodwill of their customers, and artists don't want to develop a reputation for shoddy work. But it's not fully clear what responsibility artists bear to their completed work, especially after it has been sold. That's particularly the case for artists who purposefully use ephemeral…

What is Generation Rescue selling now?

Oh, geez. You might have noticed that I haven't written much about Jenny McCarthy in a while. The reason is fairly obvious. She seems to have faded into the background as far as her previous promotion of a vaccine-autism link. Three years ago, she was leading marches on Washington in which anti-vaccine activists claiming not to be anti-vaccine but "pro-safe vaccine." Today, even though she remains nominally head of anti-vaccine crank organization, Generation Rescue, she's clearly been making an effort to be seen as "respectable" and to downplay that anti-vaccine message that she used to…

The Vista Bounce

It could be called the Vista Bounce. Here is how it works: First, you have to understand that a good desktop computer costs about $3,000 and always will. A good laptop costs the same. If you believe differently either you have been believing the ads or you do not know what a "good desktop" or a "good laptop" is. The reason that a computer is said to cost a certain amount, say "$1850.00" or "Under a Grand" but actually costs $3,000 is this: The less expensive computer does not have something important, like memory, or a screen, or enough of a hard drive, etc. When you add that stuff on…

We're all Dakotans

Just a thought…but you know, my town isn't far from the South Dakota border, and there really isn't that much difference between my neighborhood and that of some small South Dakota town 50 miles away. I think the piggish prigs who are pushing the legislation to criminalize abortion are contemptible, but does that mean we people of the progressive state of Minnesota are any better? That got me wondering—I'm a fully entitled, blissfully unaware, card-carrying member of the Patriarchy, after all, so I've never had to consider what it would be like to be female, 17, and worried that I might be…

Cynicism in the face of Idiot America

I have to disagree with Red State Rabble and his announcement of the demise of Intelligent Design. We're seeing signs of a shifting of strategies, the fading of a few personalities, and a little confusion on the part of our enemies, but it is a colossal mistake to be predicting their end at this time. Intelligent Design was nothing but the mask worn by one of the blank faces of ignorant creationism, and all we've accomplished with victories like the Dover trial is to take a slap at the façade. We've made them briefly recoil, and at best what we can expect is a brief respite while they try to…

HuffPo hits a new low---medical infomercials

My regular readers know that I hold the Huffington Post in the lowest possible regard when it comes to its medical writing. HuffPo offers a daily platform for the worst pseudo-science and infectious disease promotion. Apparently that was getting to hard, because now I think their down to phoning it in. Last week's post by a "body cleanse expert" reads like a late-night infomercial, and is about as accurate. The article, with the fanciful title of, "Antibiotics Cause Cancer?" is written by Kim Evans whose medical qualifications are apparently limited to selling books on how to cleanse your…

Did My Dog Die From Melamine?

I try to keep all posts here strictly on topic, after all this is Deep-Sea News. So if you are not interested in my personal life and only in the deep sea then stop reading now. Last year on July 4, I faced the decision that no one with a dog should ever face. The vet looked at me and said, "We can take Moses into surgery and try to find and correct the problem or..." It is the next words that scared me the most, "or put him to sleep." I never hurt so much except for the day I left him behind at an interstate exit when I asked for directions, not realizing he was missing until 10 miles…

Vaccines and the Republican War on Science

Ever since Chris Mooney's Republican War on Science was published in 2005, folks have been looking for a way to argue that Democrats are just as bad. The standard example for this counternarrative, one which Mooney even offered in his book, was vaccine denial – the claim that vaccines cause autism or are otherwise dangerous. Intuitively, this seems right. The folks and venues touting antivaxx conspiracy theories tended to be New Agey outlets, and the places facing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases tended to be liberal strongholds, like Boulder, CO or Marin County, CA.  That must mean…

Researchers’ nightmares

This excellent article in the Chicago Tribune documents the abuses of science by quacks. Legitimate researchers identify certain properties of autism — markers for inflammation in the brain, for instance, or correlations with testosterone — and write up papers that even go out of their way to explain how their observations are interesting, but do not necessarily lead to therapies, and what do you think the medical frauds do? They use them to justify useless or dangerous treatments like injections of testosterone inhibitors or anti-inflammatory agents or loading up patients with intravenous…

They f**k you up, your genes...AVPR1A that is

The post below on AVPR1A and fidelity alluded to the fact that this locus has been implicated in many other behavioral traits. I spent some of today digging through the literature. So check it.... AVPR1a and SLC6A4 Gene Polymorphisms Are Associated with Creative Dance Performance AVPR1A and OXTR polymorphisms are associated with sexual and reproductive behavioral phenotypes in humans Link Between Vasopressin Receptor AVPR1A Promoter Region Microsatellites and Measures of Social Behavior in Humans Association between a vasopressin receptor AVPR1A promoter region microsatellite and eating…

Internet Connectivity Problems

I've not been publishing much recently because I've been unexpectedly blown off the air. Tuesday at 2 minutes after midnight local time (Monday afternoon in NYC), when I was trying to publish Scientia Pro Publica, my internet connection crashed and I nearly lost the entire document (!), apparently due to a router malfunction. Rebooting multiple times did nothing to correct the situation, so it is assumed that the router is "dead." Never mind that it is brand-new (two months old?). Of course, the Germans being the models of technological inefficiency, have decided they cannot fix this issue…

Turing Award to the Institute’s Prof. Shafi Goldwasser

Prof. Shafi Goldwasser, who is at both the Weizmann Institute and MIT, will receive the 2012 A.M. Turing Award, together with Prof. Silvio Micali of MIT. Goldwasser is only the third woman to receive the Award since its inception in 1966, and she is the third faculty member of the Weizmann Institute to receive what is considered to be the “Nobel Prize in computing.” Goldwasser and Micali’s work in the 1980s laid the foundations of modern cryptography – the science that, among other things, keeps your electronic transactions secure. The basis of their work is a series of riffs on the…

A Dynamic Trio of Findings

Blurring, chopping and blocking. Three online items this week all deal with some pretty dynamic phenomena. The blurring is in our perceptions. It turns out that if you even think you have lost money in an experiment, your ability to distinguish between musical notes will be hampered. What’s the connection? Dr. Rony Paz has been showing that this tendency to lump sounds together is tied to fear. In our evolutionary past, humans may have survived because anything that sounded remotely like a predator aroused an immediate “fight or flight” response. But if mild stress can provoke a similar…

World’s Largest STEM Event Impacts Thousands

Nearly 800 volunteers and exhibitors brought the Lockheed Martin 2014 USA Science & Engineering Festival pavilion to life last April 25-27, including more than 40 hands-on demonstrations from across the corporation in the areas of nanotechnology, data analytics, robotics, energy, advanced aeronautics, and scientific discovery. A photo album is available online here, where you will see participants, young and old, flying cockpit simulators, trying on Antarctica cold weather gear, building and flying gliders, learning about 3D printing, and enjoying the many others activities in our…

Spirituality

I am always late for The Buzz. I just can't blog on command. Jason, Jason again, Mike, Mark, PZ and their numerous commenters have chimed in on time. But the "sprituality" buzz is long gone and I am only now getting to the topic. Ah, well. Anyway, it's late at night so I will be short and only semi-serious.... When asked "What's your religion?" who answers with "I am spiritual"? Here is a Borges-like Chinese Classification: A) People who really believe in ghosts, spirits, talking with the dead and Ouija boards. B) People currently under the influence of LSD C) People who get the strong…

In Memoriam: Charles Frederick Ehret, 1924-2007

This news just came in: Charles F- Ehret died of natural causes on February 24th at his home in Grayslake, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His Wikipedia entry is quote short: Charles Frederick Ehret is a WWII veteran (Battle of the Bulge/Ardennes along the Siegfried Line) as well as a world renowned molecular biologist who worked at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Lemont, Illinois, USA, for 40 years. Dr. Ehret researched the effects of electromagnetic radiation on bacillus megaterium with Dr. Edward Lawrence (Larry) Powers, as well as the effects of time shifts on paramecia, rats and…

Flu "hype", vaccinations and tin foil hats

It really gives me heartburn to see an otherwise sensible article in AOLNews by Katie Drummond with a headline: "Hyping H1N1: Did It Create a Dangerous Flu Fatigue?" I don't know if that was her title or not. Newspapers have headline writers who often seem never to have read the piece they are headlining, but online authors often title their own pieces. In any event, the word in the headline I object to is "Hyping." It implies deliberate exaggeration for ulterior motives. Did many respectable news outlets do this? Some did, no doubt. They are businesses and news is the commodity they are…

Credit Freeze: An Example of How Regulation Gives Consumers Choice Where the Market Wouldn't

Brian Krebs reports good news: Trans Union, one of the three major consumer reporting agencies, will offer all consumers the option to freeze their credit files in order to prevent identity theft: A credit freeze directs the credit bureaus to block access to a consumer's credit report and credit score. At present, at least 39 states and the District of Columbia allow consumers to freeze their credit files, but many of those laws do not take effect until 2008 or 2009. TransUnion would be the first bureau to voluntarily offer freezes to consumers in all 50 states (and D.C.). There's a lot to…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Computer Idle? Now You Can Donate Its Time To Find A Cure For Major Diseases: Not using your computer at the moment? You can now donate your computer's idle time to cutting-edge biomedical research aimed at finding a cure for HIV, Parkinson's, arthritis, and breast cancer. 1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before: World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Brain Detects Happiness More…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Marijuana Ingredients Show Promise In Battling Superbugs: Substances in marijuana show promise for fighting deadly drug-resistant bacterial infections, including so-called "superbugs," without causing the drug's mood-altering effects, scientists in Italy and the United Kingdom are reporting. Can Science Improve Man's Best Friend?: If you could design the perfect dog, what would it look like? Tall, short, fluffy, wiry, black, white, tan or brindle? While animal buyers often look closely at physical characteristics, behavioural traits can make the difference between a dog becoming a much loved…

Happy Birthday, PLoS ONE!

On this day one year ago, PLoS ONE opened its doors to manuscript submissions. Chris Surridge, the Managing Editor, wrote a blog post recounting the past year: The initial success of PLoS ONE is something unprecedented in scientific publishing. It has been achieved because of the commitment and faith of hundreds of people: PLoS staff, editorial and advisory board members, reviewers, authors and particularly readers. And yet this is only a very small step towards an open, interactive and efficient literature that will accelerate scientific progress. Over the coming months, we will take…

A naturally occuring mutation of the core clock gene timeless in European Drosophila affects photoperiodic response

Surprise, surprise - a paper in Science is up there with a free online access (not the PDF, but the Full Text and that is something!): A Molecular Basis for Natural Selection at the timeless Locus in Drosophila melanogaster: Diapause is a protective response to unfavorable environments that results in a suspension of insect development and is most often associated with the onset of winter. The ls-tim mutation in the Drosophila melanogaster clock gene timeless has spread in Europe over the past 10,000 years, possibly because it enhances diapause. We show that the mutant allele attenuates the…

The Best Life Science Blogs in The Scientist

The good folks at The Scientist asked a few of us to recommend some of the best and most interesting life science blogs. We have done so and the article is now online: So, we at The Scientist are asking you to help compile the first list of the best life science blogs. Tell us what your favorite life science blogs are and why by clicking the button and leaving a comment, and we will publish a list of the most popular choices across the different areas of life sciences. With your help we hope to provide a list of who is currently hot in the science blogosphere, and why you should be reading…

AAAS and NSF Communicating Science Workshop - April 3 - Raleigh, NC

Got an e-mail from AAAS and will try to go if at all possible: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and North Carolina State University, will be holding a one-day workshop "Communicating Science: Tools for Scientists and Engineers" on Thursday, April 3, 2008. We aim to extend an invitation to the faculty scientists, engineers, and Ph.D. students at your institution who would like to attend this workshop, in order to learn more about communicating science to news media and the general public. Please feel free…

Gribbit's Delusional Memory

Our old pal Gribbit is back, and he's inventing history. In the middle of a post about some crazy leftist that he, naturally, thinks represents everyone who disagrees with him, he writes the following: There a few leftists like you who did a blitz on me a few weeks ago trying to drum up traffic to their weak blogs. I know mine doesn't get much traffic, but I write for bigger blogs than they or you would ever hope to be. The same theme keeps coming up, the Al Franken school of debate. "Liar" "You're a liar" "Liar" but no proof. He is of course referring to the exchange where I tested his…

Trump, The Others, and A New Test of the Hypothesis

A couple of days ago I assimilated data from a bunch of on line polls where people could informally and unscientifically express their opinion about who won the GOP debate (the big boy debate only, with ten candidates). I suggested a series of hypotheses to isolate the idea that this sort of on line unscientific effort might reflect reality, with the idea of testing the results of those polls with upcoming formal polls. Now we have a couple of formal polls to test against. I took the raw percentages for the ten GOP big boy debate candidates, recalculated the percentages, and came up with…

Wonderful Life with the Elements

Have ever really thought about the elements? Have you ever really asked questions about them? If you are some kind of scientist or science geek, you probably know a lot about them, and that could even be a disadvantage for you, in a sense. For instance, if you learned early on that elements were formed at certain points in time and in certain places (the big bang or later in stars, for most atoms) then the following question may not have occurred to you: "What happens when a bunch of Carbon atoms get old. Do they fall apart?" Also, a sense of purity may be something you understand but…