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Another Reason to Vote Democratic

If George Bush is driving our nation down a one-way road to hell, it's the Republican-controlled House and Senate that are enabling him to do this. On October 17th, Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which had previously passed the Senate and House on the 28th and 29th of September, respectively. This is another dangerous piece of legislation from the Bush Administration, one that should leave us all slightly disturbed and give us something else to think about on election day. Current Yale Law student and former Oxford student (and India travel buddy) Cyrus Habib…

The Next Target for Global Warming Denialists: Children's Books

What they clearly lack in substance, they attempt to make up for in style, but global warming denialists certainly aren't winning any points for class. In a September 25th speech in the Senate, Crazy Ol' James Inhofe--who once called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and who ironically serves as the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee--attacked The New York Times' esteemed environmental reporter Andrew Revkin for what else but his new children's book The North Pole Was Here. "So here we have a very prominent environmental…

Ask a ScienceBlogger: Being a Good Science Teacher

Before I get started here, I have a quick announcement. Seed is seeking reader-submitted questions to ask its ScienceBloggers, so if you have a burning question (and I know you do), submit it to askablogger@seedmediagroup.com. This week's (or last week's, rather) Ask a ScienceBlogger question is "What makes a good science teacher?" I probably put this one off for so long because there's so much to cover there. Since nobody wants to read a 5,000 word essay, and since I've pretty much missed the boat on this one anyway, I'll make this one short. Most of the general qualities that make…

Bacterial Ice-9?

Ice 9 by toastforbrekkie. The idea of Ice-9, although fictional, has always fascinated me. Its properties are so powerful, so influential, that one "seed crystal" can direct its entire surroundings, freezing oceans. A recent discovery of one component of the cell wall of bacterium reminded me of this effect. Let me explain. First: Ice-nine is a fictional material appearing in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. It is supposed to be a more stable polymorph of water than common ice (Ice Ih) which instead of melting at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F…

How Tea Party Members Don't Always March to the Same Beat

This is an anonymous guest post for the 4th of July and is not an endorsement of a political party. It is presented for the purposes of a civil discussion about the complexities of American politics. Amidst the media storm about the Tea Party, often labeled as uneducated extremists letting off steam, I would like to offer a different perspective. The Tea Party is portrayed by most news media as a caricature of disgruntled right-wing fundamentalists. Yes, many of us are disgruntled by Washington politicians {isn't most of America?} and our Party initially formed with the moniker "Tax…

Whale Poop

Earlier this week we talked about how to use whale snot for science. I especially enjoyed blog bff Scicurious's take on the study: Budgetary requirement: $5000 for series of expensive remote control helicopters. Source: Toys R Us. Justification: Need something that can fly close to a whale and collect snot for measurement. Also, this is the only kind that comes in red, and the gunmetal grey ones suck. This day, however, we will travel farther, er, south. Through the mouth, down the esophagus, into the stomach, detour through the intestines, take a left at the sphincter, but, what, what's…

RIP Richard Matheson, father of the zombie

Sci-fi and fantasy author Richard Matheson has passed away aged 87, leaving behind a legacy of books, TV and film. Even if you don't recognise his name, you will probably have seen his work on screen. Many of his stories were adapted for film, including I Am Legend, Duel, and A Stir of Echoes, and he wrote perhaps the most famous Twilight Zone episode of all time, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. I don't normally write memorials but I feel I owe Matheson one because he's responsible for one of my generation's most enduring monsters - the zombie. Now, zombies were around before Matheson, of course -…

Love, obsession, and cephalopods: Busy Monsters by William Giraldi

I've just closed the back cover on Busy Monsters, the debut novel from William Giraldi, a breakneck plunge through a world of love, obsession and giant squid. Join the imaginative world of Charles Homar, a diarist of some mediocre fame who is thrown into disarray when the love of his life abandons him to hunt the frigid Antarctic waters for the creature of her dreams, the giant squid. Heartbroken and lost, Charles wanders across America, trying to make sense of his loss, becoming embroiled in endless adventures involving Sasquatch, manipulative UFO-seeking midgets, tantric Ivy League sex…

Demonstrate calmly for pro-science

Brianne writes fairly frequently about her experiences as a clinic escort, dealing with shrieking fanatics who stand on sidewalks harassing people going into family planning clinics. They're hideous and awful and have lost all sense of perspective and humanity, and they're also remarkably ineffective…unless, of course, their goals are to make other people miserable and to expose their own obsessive inhumanity. They have a lot in common with another group, animal rights protesters. Sanctimonious assholes, all of them. They're all over UCLA, and they're busy protesting researchers' homes, at…

I wonder why women find themselves discouraged from pursuing science careers?

In case you hadn't heard yet, Science magazine is making a play to reach the supermarket checkout aisle and tabloid market, with exciting new covers featuring sexy womanly body parts and leaving out pointless details like their faces. I don't know, they could have taken it a step further and featured dramatically posed dead sexy women. It should be obvious that this photo is problematic. Seelix has a good summary of the concerns. The via Science Editor-in-Chief has apologized, strangely, on a blog that apparently was set up for just this purpose that contains only one post, the apology. The…

Sleep, Sex, and Drosophila

60 Minutes ran a special on the science of sleep this week. The special included an interview with Scott McRobert about sleep deprivation and mating in Drosophila. So if lack of sleep impacts our appetite, our metabolism, our memory, and how we age, is there anything it doesn't affect? How about sex? Scientist Scott McRobert at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia is asking that very question, studying fruit flies. McRobert could be seen showing Lesley Stahl a fly in a vial, which he then sucked up in a pooter. He then placed that male, along with a female, in a small dish. Stahl watched…

DonorsChoose.org -- Week 1 Update

There are two exciting pieces of news about the DonorsChoose.org ScienceBlogs Challenge. First of all, Seed has offered to match all donations by ScienceBlogs readers for the second year in a row. Last year, Seed matched donations up to $10,000, but this year they're willing to match up to $15,000. So, start donating. We're currently 15% of our way to our goal of $1000. Secondly, I have an offer for evolgen readers who donate to the evolgen challenge. When you donate, save your confirmation email so that you can win one of the still unannounced prizes from Seed. In the meantime, if you send…

Junk DNA, Revisited

Some bio-bloggers are atwitter over an article by Wojciech Makalowski on Scientific American's website about Junk DNA. I'm a little late to the game because, well, I've been really busy looking at sequences to determine if they are junk DNA. Is it irony? Is it coincidence? Who cares? It's an opportunity to discuss semantics, and I love semantics. Those of you who have hung around here for a while know this topic often comes up at evolgen (remember this, this, and this . . . hell, here's what a search for Junk DNA turns up). Long story short, I can't stand the term junk DNA, but I do agree…

Christians can get awfully reductionist when it suits them

Amanda Marcotte rips into stupid gotcha by Marco Rubio. When Rubio appeared on CNN after Thursday night's Republican debate, he kept insisting that this vague entity called "science" has declared that human life begins at conception. (Actual biologists, for what it's worth, argue that life is continuous and that a fertilized egg is no more or less alive than a sperm or an unfertilized egg.) CNN host Chris Cuomo vainly tried to point out that "science" says no such thing, and Rubio got a little excited. "Let me interrupt you. Science has—absolutely it has. Science has decided... Science has…

Knowing something by heart

A number of people have noticed that after getting transplants their personality changes - and not only that- their personality changes to reflect the donors personality. ...though she was born and raised in Tucson, she never liked Mexican food. She craved Italian and was a pasta junkie. But three years ago, all that changed for Jaime Sherman, 28, when she underwent a heart transplant at University Medical Center, after battling a heart defect since birth. "Now I love football, baseball, basketball. You name it, I follow it," said Sherman, a psychology student at Arizona State University. "…

The creationist billboards of Minnesota make the news again

Greg Laden has the story. It's really not much of a story, but it's local, so we care—basically, a crazy Jesus lady is buying prime billboard space around the area to flaunt her opinion that evolution is bunk, and newspapers are writing about it. It's content-free noise, and we can only hope that all of our creationist opponents continue to be this shallow and stupid (and what do you know—they are!), but still, shallow and stupid seems to draw in the fan base. The article does mention some of her sponsors: if you're planning on having a home built in the Duluth area, scratch Legacy Custom…

The Courtier's Reply

There's a common refrain in the criticisms of Dawkins' The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) that I've taken to categorizing with my own private title—it's so common, to the point of near-unanimous universality, that I've decided to share it with you all, along with a little backstory that will help you to understand the name. I call it the Courtier's Reply. It refers to the aftermath of a fable. I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the…

Go Little Vger, Go!

Vger 2 (Voyager) took off in 1977, and over the last 30 years has been working pretty well. Vger is now 12,680,021,376 kilometers away and is traveling at 56 327 km per hour. Think about it this way: How many instruments in current scientific labs, and how many computers sitting on anyone's desktop, were made n 1977. Probably a few, but not many. Just now, this space ship is in the vicinity of the Plasma Boundary, or the Termination Shock Wave. I like to think of the Termination Shock Wave as a speed bump, or maybe one of those spiky things in parking lots ... (DO NOT BACK UP - TIRE…

Muslim vs. Moslem

The question recently came up as to whether the term "Moslem" (as opposed to "Muslim") is considered insulting or somehow anti-Moslem*. More specifically, I made the claim (though I did not put it this way exactly at the time) that "Moslem" was a dogwhistle signifying teabagging anti-Obama racist scumpuppies. I have since been told by various teabagging anti-Obama racist scumpuppies that I was wrong, but I was told this in such a way as to convince me that I must be right, even though I was going on gut feeling at the time. Subsequently, I decided to do some research. I separately entered…

How To Get Away With Teaching The Controversy

The following is an abstract from an article by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education called “WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE "TEACH THE CONTROVERSY" SLOGAN?” available here. a repost Teachers are often exhorted by creationists to "teach the controversy." Although such encouragement sounds on the surface like a proposal for critical thinking instruction, the history of the creationist movement in North America belies this claim. Rather than teach students to analyze and evaluate actual scientific controversies, the intent of "teach the controversy" exhortations is to have…

The unspeakable vileness of religious law

Am I supposed to believe religion is a force for morality, when I see so many examples of it more being a force for mindless obedience to arbitrary rules? This story out of Pakistan is disturbing in many ways. Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a "fanatic", who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said today. Ms Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many…

Mishugina Michigan Militias on the Move?

Over the last couple of days, FBI agents have staged a number of raids in Michigan and arrested members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group based there. The Christian Soldiers have been preparing to do battle with "The AntiChrist." which we suspect either the Democratic Party, the Health Care Bill, or Barack Obama himself. Local Militias (Michigan is famous for it's radical Militia groups) claim that they have nothing to do with this "cult." One story is here, and additional reporting here. The latter source points to a reported sequence of internet chat room chatter that is somewhat…

Google: "We borked the Buzz"

Well, that is not a direct quote, but Google has admitted that the early version of Google Buzz had serious flaws related to privacy, and this may be related to Google having skipped a step with its testing process. The BBC has a story on this. ...Buzz was only tested internally and bypassed more extensive trials with external testers... "We've been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn't quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild." The biggest problem was the automatic creation of a circle of "friends"…

Richard Poe on the Merced murders

In his book The Seven Myths of Gun Control, Richard Poe has an extensive account of the murders. He is much more careful with his facts than the other pro-gun writers who hang an attack on safe storage laws on the tragedy. He interviewed the mother of the victims and contradicts claims claims by Suprynowicz and Lott that "the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But they were locked up tight." According to Poe, the gun was not locked, but stored unloaded on a high shelf. And she did not run to where the gun was stored. The…

Sage - Open Access Data from Merck

Big news today at the CHI Medicine Tri-Conference. Merck has pledged to donate a remarkable resource to the commons - a vast database of highly consistent data about the biology of disease, as well as software tools and other resources to use it. The resources come out of work done at the Rosetta branch of Merck (you might remember them as the company whose sale capped a boom in bioinformatics) and is at its root a network biology system. In use inside Rosetta/Merck last year alone it led directly to a ton of publications. This is all going to happen through the establishment of a non-profit…

Another reason data services need librarians

Some people watch football over Thanksgiving weekend; I get into discussions of disciplinary data regimes with fellow SciBling Christina and others on FriendFeed. Judge me if you must! Another common truism in both the repository and data-management fields is that disciplinary affiliation accounts for a lot of the variation in observed researcher behavior. For once, I have no quarrel with the truism; it is unassailably the case. The wise data curator, then, knows some things about disciplinary practices going in. But what things, exactly? I don't believe that taxonomy exists yet; it'd be an…

No, you can't have a pony

I read the RIN report on life-sciences data with interest, a little cynicism, and much appreciation for the grounded and sensible approach I have come to expect from British reports. If you're interested in data services, you should read this report too. A warning to avoid preconceptions: If you pay too much attention to all the cyberinfrastructure and e-science hype, it's very easy to fall prey to the erroneous notion that most of science is crunching massive numbers via grid computing and throwing out terabytes of data per second. It ain't so. It never was so. Will it be so in future? Not…

Comparative Physiology Crystal Ball

Image source: The American Physiological Society. I just read an amazing review article written by George Somero from the Department of Biology at Stanford University on how the field of comparative physiology may be used as a crystal ball to predict how different species will respond to global changes. Some changes that may impact species include temperature, salinity, pH, and oxygen levels. For these studies, scientists often examine closely related species that are adapted to different environments to see how they differ physiologically and behaviorally. Changes in biogeographic…

Bee Sting Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis

I'm really afraid of bees. I've only been stung once, and after 2 seconds of pure torture, I thought the end of the world was approaching. Now I'm reading that there might be a way to use bee venom to help individuals with multiple sclerosis and arthritis... by voluntarily being stung! It sounds crazy, but it's been shown to help some individuals. This video from National Geographic shows the journey of one woman with multiple sclerosis undergoing Bee Sting Therapy (also known as Bee Venom Therapy). She got up to 200 honey bee stings per week (I'm blacking out, hold on one second... OK, I'm…

A suggestion for the comments

The comment section at Pharyngula is becoming a bit too wild west lately. I am all for vigorous, unhindered language and the expression of strong opinions, and I think dumb ideas need to be dealt with harshly, but we also need to allow opportunities for those ideas to be fully expressed. Too often, the conversations are beginning to go like this: Stranger: I think… Old hand: [Pulls out six-gun, shoots stranger down]I do believe I didn't like your accent, stranger, and you were a bit cross-eyed. I'm not at all keen on this. It makes the comments a very hostile place to new people (I like…

Why is health reporting so hard?

C'mon, Times, it's not like you're some kind of penny-ante operation. You've got at least modest resources, you know like the internet and telephones to call up experts. Right? I don't know whether it's a lack of resources, laziness, or ignorance that allows pieces like this one into the paper, but it doesn't change the craptastic nature of the piece. The byline says: Anahad O'Connor, who writes the Really? column for The New York Times, explores the claims and the science behind various alternative remedies that you may want to consider for your family medicine cabinet. I also "explore…

Disturbing pseudo-psychology in HuffPo

When Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his comrades at Ft Reed, he gave no indication of his motives, other than a generic shout of "God is great!" Generally we think of terrorist acts as involving a conspiracy rather than the actions of an individual, but the difference is unlikely to matter to the dead. Understanding Hasan's motives may, however, help prevent future murders. If this was a terrorist conspiracy, hopefully the government will display more competence than has been apparent. But if his actions were more closely related to those of a disgruntled teenage loner with a gun…

Cannabis and cancer cachexia

One of the most frightening symptoms of advanced cancer is "cachexia", or severe, unintentional weight-loss and wasting. It's a terrible prognostic sign, and the only truly effective treatment is removal of the cancer. Treatment of this syndrome has the potential to improve quality of life in patients with advanced cancers. Various types of medications, including antidepressants, hormones, and cannabis derivatives have been tried with little effect. Treating the symptoms of incurable cancers is difficult and although we're pretty good at it, we sometimes fail. Cannabis seems a plausible…

"I'm not getting a flu shot because I never get the flu"

Basing medical practice on science helps us avoid the pitfalls of relying on our own reasoning and experience. If I want to start a patient on a new medicine, the individual characteristics of the patient are important (Is the drug meant for their condition? Will it interact with other drugs they are on? Are they allergic to it? Can they tolerate it?) but at least as important is how the drug performs when used on large numbers of people. This attenuates the large differences that can be seen among individuals, and allows us to predict how in general the drug will act.   One of the metrics…

"I am the great and powerful Oz PAL!"

In medicine, theater can go a long way. The seemingly simple acts of laying hands on a patient, leaning in to listen to them, and giving them instructions to follow can be therapeutic. Sometimes this is labelled as part of the so-called placebo effect, but whatever we call it, physicians (and priests) have been doing it for thousands of years. But how far should we push it? As medicine becomes more science-based, relying on actual evidence to guide practice, where does theater fit in? One argument is that since this difficult-to-quantify intervention can clearly do something, we should…

Mercy for father who murdered his child?

If you haven't heard by now, the parents who murdered their diabetic daughter are getting a taste of justice. This week Dale Neumann, the father of the diabetic girl whom he and his wife watch die in their home while giving only "prayer", was found guilty of reckless homicide. Death by diabetic ketoacidosis is not pretty. The symptoms start with extreme thirst and frequent urination. Then the person develops headaches, abdominal pain, and vomiting. Eventually, they become confused and lethargic, then lapse into a coma before dying. The discovery of insulin has made this event rare, at…

Health care reform---what, me worry?

I've got a lot of patients who are worried about health care reform. Most of it is expressed in right-wing radio talking points. They quite literally believe that they will no longer be able to choose their doctor, or that other doom and gloom events are imminent. Have they no experience with government? Health care reform isn't going to happen quickly. When it does, it will likely have an American character. While socialized medicine works very well in some other countries, Americans just aren't into it, even if it were to work. Whatever I may think about it, it's a non-starter.…

One more chance to support the NIH

Sadly, unlike my post a couple of hours ago, this is not an April Fools jest. Evolgen previously reported on the success of the Specter-Harkin Amendment in the Senate to change a completely flat National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget containing actual real cuts to the budget of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to one with a modest increase in fiscal year 2007. Both the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and Genetics Society of America both weighed in when the budget was sent to the House in order to garner support in committee for adding an amendment similar to the Specter…

No Child Left Behind: Unintended consequences

How depressing. Right there on the front page of the New York Times this morning: SACRAMENTO -- Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it. Schools from Vermont to California are increasing -- in some cases tripling -- the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams…

Ohio rejects intelligent design

As someone who lived in Cleveland for 8 years and whose wife grew up in Toledo, it does my heart good to see that the Ohio Board of Education finally got something right. They voted to strike language in their state science standards singling out evolution for a "critical evaluation: COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 14 -- The Ohio Board of Education voted 11 to 4 Tuesday to toss out a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution and an accompanying model lesson plan, dealing the intelligent design movement its second serious defeat in two months. The board, which became…

Helle Dale attacks the Lancet study

Just when you thought you had seen all the different possible attacks on the Lancet study, Helle Dale, writing in the Washington Times, comes up with a new one: the study's authors are having second thoughts. Dale writes As the Financial Times reported on Nov. 19, even the Lancet study's authors are now having second thoughts. Iraq's Health Ministry estimates by comparison that all told, 3,853 Iraqis have been killed and 155,167 wounded. Gee, did the Financial Times really report that the authors were having second thoughts? Let's check. The report (…

Bleach Enema Karaoke

Long day in the OR yesterday. By the time I got home, believe it or not, I was too beat to deliver one of my characteristic rants full of Insolence and science that my readers all know and love (well, mostly love). Consequently, today's a perfect day for a quickie. (No, not that kind of quickie; get your minds out of the gutter!) I'm referring to an observation that a reader sent in the other day about the upcoming yearly autism "biomed" quackfest known as Autism One. It's a little ditty I'd like to call Bleach Enema Karaoke: It’s Kalcker’s Kerrioke Lounge hosted by the CD Community at…

At the top of the list of the worst doctors of 2011

I know I said I'd probably chill this weekend and not post anything new until after New Years, but another thing showed up in my in box that--shall we say?--inspired me to post another quickie. It's Medscape's list of the Physicians of the Year: Best and Worst. It starts with the worst, and guess who shows up first? Andrew Wakefield, who is described thusly: Wakefield's MMR-Autism Vaccine Study an "Elaborate Fraud" In January, the BMJ published a series of 3 articles and editorials charging that the study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield (pictured above) and colleagues…

The Yellowstone Problem

As you have surely heard, the Yellowstone Caldera ... the place where Old Faithful and the Geyser Basin reside ... has been undergoing increased "activity" including some earthquakes and a rising up of the land. Is this a big problem? Should the evacuate? Should those of us living only a few states away start wearing earplugs? The paper reporting this, in the current issue of Science, concludes: The caldera-wide accelerated uplift reported here is interpreted as magmatic recharge of the Yellowstone magma body. Although the geodetic observations and models do not imply an impending volcanic…

Nature Cell Biology on Postdoc-hood

Another "We support the postdocs" editorial at Nature Cell Biology: The days when one could imagine starting a laboratory following a short postdoctoral position, or even with no postdoctoral training at all, are long gone. Nowadays, extensive postdoctoral training is essential not only if you are pursuing an academic career, but also for a research career in industry or biotechnology. Although the pool of postdocs has expanded significantly in the past two decades, an increase in the number of academic positions, and other research opportunities that they can subsequently move to, has not…

Differentiation within organelles

Non-cell biologists have often viewed the cell as a bag of molecules. Over the years as cell-biology has developed, it became clear that this was a simplistic generalization. Cells are organized by a dynamic cytoskeletal network that can organize the cellular architecture. Cells are also subdivided into membrane bound organelles. The deeper we look into the cell the more we find that each cellular component is subdivided into specialized regions. Now it would seem that organelles themselves are subdivided. As all good cell biologists know, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a large continuous…

Good times, good times. Wait, I meant bad times

Remember the good old days, when you could always trust a creationist to claim their theory was not religious, and then they'd turn around and neatly undermine their own claims for you? Think Bill Buckingham at the Dover trial, who completely won the case for the good guys by saying a lot of stupid stuff. Wait, good old days? I think I meant now. The Louisville Area Christian Educator Support (LACES) organization had a conference, where Bryce Hibbard, principal of Southern High School (a public school!) was one of the speakers. He first tries to claim that teaching creationism in the school…

Signing-off on Megavertebrate Week

The core idea behind Megavertebrate Week was to identify neritic species that can be found in the deep sea, in order to make that "deep-sea connection" for people outside our typical readership. It worked. We hit the list serves for C Turtle and for MarMam. We made the blog rolls in Germany and Russia. We introduced you to many marine animals that you already knew, like the sea turtles, whales, elephant seals, and penguins, and we showed you how these marine megavertebrates spend a good part of their daylight hours diving well below 200m. The marine megavertebrates we profiled are all…

Scientist falls in love with manta rays, finds new species

When Andrea Marshall began studying the manta rays of Mozambique for her dissertation five years ago, she never expected to discover a new species, let alone a globally cosmopolitan, highly migratory ocean wanderer. She was "awestruck by their beauty," studied the rays, and then gradually noticed subtle differences between them. Species can be cryptic; hard to recognize from others. Individuals are identified by their unique patterns of marking on the body and underside. The clue to Marshall's discovery was lifestyle. "The two species have mainly overlapping distributions, but their…

Too Many Species, Too Few Scientists

That is the common theme in marine biology. Clara Moskowitz has an article up at LiveScience describing how scientists are struggling to keep up with marine life discoveries. Here is a short snippet: "Scientists figure there are at least 1 million species of marine organisms on Earth. Of these, only about 230,000 are known to science now, and some of those have more than one name. To keep them all straight, 55 researchers from 17 countries are working on a new list, the ultimate tally of sea creatures great and small. The list is about half done, the team announced today. So far, the…