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Salmonella in frozen chicken entrees: multistate outbreak

There's another Salmonella multistate outbreak, this one involving 12 states and, so far, 32 cases. As with the infmaous tomator and/or pepper problem during the summer, the Minnesota Department of Public Health's laboratory has been in the lead in tracking down the source. Salmonella is killed by cooking, so raw produce or cross contamination of foods eaten uncooked (like a salad) by raw meat (for example, when cut on the same cutting board) is the usual source. But if you don't cook meat (for example, you just heat them up for eating) and it has Salmonella, you could have a problem. That's…

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: religion as knitting

Since it's a lazy summer weekend (the first of the summer, astronomically speaking -- that is, if you believe the earth goes around the sun), I was lazily contemplating some of the dumbass things said about one of my sciblings, PZ Myers, by another one of my sciblings, Matt Nisbet. The clip Matt embedded is no longer available (taken down at the insistence of the copyright holder; if it's so bad for the pro-science side, why did they take it down?), but it seems to be the infamous "religion is like knitting" clip. Since that clip is still up on YouTube, here it is again, in case you missed it…

They have a pill for that

Of the many tag lines I've seen as part of people's electronic signatures, the most apt for this post is this one: "I used to care about stuff. Now I have a pill for that." Sergeant Christopher LeJeune was anxious and depressed after long duty on Baghdad's dangerous streets. He often had to collect enemy dead from houses he had attacked. Sometimes there were tiny shoes and toys scattered around. The whole package was starting to get to him. So the Army took care of his problem: While the headline-grabbing weapons in this war have been high-tech wonders, like unmanned drones that drop…

Indonesian virus sharing by the book

Indonesia is providing bird flu specimens to WHO again. And Indonesian Health Minister Dr Siti Fadilah Supari has just published a book declaring the 50 year plus history of global influenza surveillance is part of a conspiracy by the developed world to control the rest of the world: "Developed countries become richer because they have the capability to develop the vaccine and control the world," she writes. Dr Supari also expresses alarm at WHO laboratories sharing bird flu virus data with the United States National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where nuclear weapons are developed. "…

Bush responds to my plea to shore up the infrastructure

After our recent rant on the necessity of supporting the public health and social services infrastructure instead of cutting taxes, President Bush has replied. He is cutting the infrastructure: President Bush's $3 trillion budget for next year slashes mental health funding and rural health care and freezes spending on medical research, among the cuts outlined in budget documents obtained by The Associated Press. The budget for the Department of Health and Human Services would be reduced by almost 3 percent under the Bush budget plan to be released Monday. The $2 billion in HHS cuts are about…

Flu shots: a tale of two cities

OK, they're not cities, they are states. Or cities in states. Whatever. But when it comes to flu shots they are quite different. First benighted Mississippi: The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reports 27 laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in counties throughout Mississippi. The presence of influenza was documented by the MSDH Laboratory in the past few weeks. "We are now in the peak season of influenza, which will last for the next couple of months," said State Health Officer Dr. Ed Thompson. "If you haven't gotten your flu shot, it's time to get it now. It's still not too…

Sometimes, I think public school administrators are the real enemy

A student, Brandon Creasy, submitted an opinion piece on evolution to the school news magazine. The principal, Kevin Bezy, rejected it and has held up publication of the magazine until it is revised. Bezy explains himself, and it's the usual kind of weasely nonsense that makes me very snarly in the morning. When asked his opinion of evolution and how that may have factored into the situation, Bezy declined to discuss his feelings on the theory. He said he considers that irrelevant to the matter, believing it important to remain unbiased when making decisions. I don't give a good greasy…

Explosives on a chip

There are computers on a chip and labs on a chip and now explosives on a chip. Explosives on a chip? WTF? This wonderful tech breakthrough is brought to us by Georgia Tech Research Institute and reported, straight-faced, by the Press Release service, Science Daily: Developed by a team of scientists from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the Indian Head Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, the highly-uniform copper structures will be incorporated into integrated circuits -- then chemically converted to millimeter-diameter explosives. Because they can be integrated into…

WHO's pep talk and fighting bird flu

With everyone on tenterhooks over the confusing outbreak of human bird flu cases in Pakistan and the first reported case in Burma (aka Myanmar), WHO is taking the opportunity to give its member nations a pep talk about swift reporting. Since there is evidence the reporting might not have been so terribly swift in that case, one must assume they consider this a "teachable moment" rather than an exemplar: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Sunday praised Asian countries for swiftly reporting the latest bird flu cases after Pakistan and Myanmar were hit by a resurgence of the disease. Asia-…

Dispatches from the Global War On Tuberculosis (the more important GWOT)

For whatever reason, TB control is back on the front burner. TB remains a worldwide scourge and has always had a dedicated cadre of public health professionals battling it. Now they are getting some new ammunition and reinforcements. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is weighing in with a substantial $280 million five year program, most of which goes to vaccine development. An effective TB vaccine is the Holy Grail of TB control. We know much more about the immune system than in the past, so maybe soon we'll see the breakthrough everyone in the field has been hoping for. Until preventive…

Flying blind into the cytokine storm

A new paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine underlines a point we have tried to make multiple times (e.g., see here, here and here). Naive and unthought out therapeutic responses to the idea that bird flu kills via a "cytokine storm" is a bad idea. Cytokine storm is also a common feature of sepsis, which accompanies some pneumonia and other infections and has a high case fatality ratio. I haven't read the original paper because I am at the beach where the Annals of Internal Medicine isn't carried at the local convenience store and my internet connection is barely adequate for email, but I…

Teaching Evolution Successfully

First posted on December 12, 2005 on Science And Politics, then re-posted on January 16, 2006 on The Magic School Bus and most definitely worth reposting again here... The new article on PLoS, Evolution for Everyone: How to Increase Acceptance of, Interest in, and Knowledge about Evolution by David Sloan Wilson, describes a successful experiment of teaching evolution to a broad segment of the student population at Bighampton College (the paper looks nicer in PDF format). Here are just a couple of snippets: The main problem with accepting evolution involves implications, not facts.…

Bill O'Reilly: Pinhead in rose-colored glasses

Bill O'Reilly is upset that little kids are using profanity, and he has a ludicrously sentimental vision of small town America. OK. That happens every day, all day in the public schools here in New York City. And I know it happens in Chicago and Los Angeles and Boston and Washington, D.C. In any major urban center. It doesn't happen in the small towns; it happens in the cities. I live in New York. I'm not gonna have my 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-year-old go to a school where they're saying that stuff in the hallway and the teacher doesn't do anything about it. You know, private school, that does not…

All-Clocks-All-Week is now officially over

I know most visitors do not read longer posts, especially not posts on arcane topics likeentrainment of circadian rhythms which filled this blog all week long. But I wrote them for myself and everything else is profit. I wrote them because I wanted to hype myself for my own Dissertation writing. Even if no one reads those posts, I feel better having written them. This whole exercise was quite instructive to me. Re-reading my old papers again, after 4-5 years made me see them in a different light. Compare, if you are interested, the way I described the data in my papers to the way I…

PERIOD clock gene variants affect sleep need in humans

The most exciting thing about this study is that this is, as far as I am aware, the first instance in which it was shown that a circadian clock gene has any effect on sleep apart from timing of it, i.e., on some other quality or quantity of sleep (not just when to fall asleep and wake up, but also the depth of sleep and the amount of sleep need): Performing Under Sleep Deprivation: Its In Your Genes: People are known to differ markedly in their response to sleep deprivation, but the biological underpinnings of these differences have remained difficult to identify. Researchers have now found…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Scientist Discovers New Horned Dinosaur Genus: A scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has announced the discovery of a new horned dinosaur, named Albertaceratops nesmoi, approximately 20 feet long and weighing nearly one half ton, or the weight of a pickup truck. The newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived nearly 78 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period in what is now southernmost Alberta, Canada. Its identification marks the discovery of a new genus and species and sheds exciting new light on the evolutionary history of the Ceratopsidae dinosaur family.…

Fish Eyes

Lots of food blogging around here lately, so why not re-post this one (from October 27, 2005): -------------------------------------------- A few years back my brother went to Japan to do some fieldwork for several months. Although he had been taking Japanese for several years, the classroom language skills and real-life language skills are different kinds of skills. Early on in his endeavour, trying to immerse himself in the local culture, he went to a restaurant. He picked up the menu and had no idea what any of the names of dishes meant. Well, he thought, if the Japanese can eat something…

3-D horror movies

When I was young there was a brief fad for 3-D movies. You had to wear those red/green glasses they gave you in the movie theater but the effects were pretty spectacular. I remember seeing Vincent Price in House of Wax and it was pretty impressive to my 11 year old psyche. But 3D faded. Something about those goofy glasses, maybe. Now it's back and the glasses are still part of it but much fancier. They are now high tech active motion glasses and they not just for theater 3-D, either (as in Avatar). 3-D television is making its debut. I've not seen the new 3-D movies or the TVs but Mrs. R.…

No fly disease regs don't fly

Better late than never. When the Bush administration proposed sweeping airport quarantine rules in 2005, even those of us most concerned about avian influenza thought it was a fruitless policy on scientific grounds, not to mention issues of civili liberties and economics. The airlines hated it, too: The regulations, proposed in 2005 during the Bush administration amid fears of avian flu, would have given the federal government additional powers to detain sick airline passengers and those exposed to certain diseases. They also would have expanded requirements for airlines to report ill…

Flu in hospital workers

The AMA just took over a journal called Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. In fact they proudly announced they were the exclusive publisher and distributor of the journal, formerly published by Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins. I wouldn't even know about it except it was in connection with a press release of an article likely to be of interest any health care worker: ":Which Health Care Workers Were Most Affected During the Spring 2009 H1N1 Pandemic?" by Santos, Bristow and Vorenkamp of Weill-Cornell Medical School in New York. And the AMA even said it was redesigning the…

Salmonella, food safety and potato chips

When last we visited the US food safety system during the Bush administration it was busy serving up peanut butter with a side of Salmonella. That one caused over 4 thousand product recalls, 700 Salmonella cases and at least 9 deaths. Now it's Salmonella serovar Tennessee in hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), a common flavor enhancer used in all sorts of food products, including, according to the FDA, soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings. An important difference -- so far -- is that there are no illnesses traced to the contaminated…

Safety whistleblowers on Warren Buffett’s railroad

Testing to make sure a train’s brakes work properly shouldn’t be controversial. But some railroad employees have lost their jobs because they insisted on the safety checks. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Tony Schick explains the situation in “Rail workers raise doubts about safety culture as oil trains roll on.” Schick profiles the experience of Curtis Rookaird, a BNSF train conductor. Rookaird was fired in 2010 after he raised safety complaints, including about the need to conduct air brake testing on a set of railcars. OSHA investigated Rookaird’s whistleblower complaint. The agency agreed…

Seven million enroll in private health plans thanks to ACA

Yesterday was the end of the first open enrollment period for people buying private health insurance plans on the federal and state-run health insurance exchanges. President Obama announced today that more than seven million people enrolled in private plans, helped by a surge of signups in the few days before the deadline. Many of these enrollees (those with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level) were able to get subsidies to decrease their premium costs. Severe technical problems plagued Healthcare.gov -- the federally run site where residents of states not creating…

Shutdown pressures WIC clinics

The government shutdown has cut off the flow of funds from USDA to WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Some states have enough money to keep their programs running for a while, but Utah's WIC clinic has already closed its doors to new clients as staff in the state are furloughed. WIC serves approximately nine million low-income women and children. It provides vouchers for nutritious food (milk, cereal, vegetables, etc) and infant formula, counseling on healthy eating, breastfeeding support, and healthcare referrals. Zoë Neuberger and Robert…

Mandated Reporting: The Evil That Men Do

Imagine, hypothetically, that a junior co-worker comes to you, distraught, to tell you they witnessed a horrendously evil act by a senior colleague. After you overcome the cognitive dissonance, because it is hard to believe that your friend of several decades could do such thing, what do you do? This is a "nice guy", you have known him since he was the hotshot young colleague, you are friend with his wife, know his kids; he is charming, affable, rich, powerful, generous. He is prominent at The Club, he founded a multi-million dollar charity; half the lawyers in town are on the Board, they…

Lawyers Give Nanotechnology Advice

The latest piece from Rick Weiss at Science Progress is a must-read for anyone concerned about the safety of nanotechnology. Weiss attended a conference sponsored by the Food and Drug Law Institute where lawyers provided advice about avoiding nanotech-related lawsuits, and learned this: In short, if you are a nanotech company you need to start developing a legal strategy for âhow to protect yourself,â summarized Henry Chajet, an attorney with Patton Boggs. Listening, I felt sheepish for thinking it was about how to protect your employees and customers. ⦠One of the best ways to stay clear…

Houston Mayor Sick and Tired of Benzene Emissions

The Mayor of Houston, Texas Bill White wants the Lyondell Chemical Refinery to justify and defend its practice of emitting tons of benzene annually into the air.  (In 2007, the refinery reported emissions of 39 tons, which they proudly noted was below their 58 ton annual cap.)  The Houston Chronicle's Matthew Tresaugue reports that the Mayor's office send a 96-page letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) requesting a public hearing on Lyondell's request for a 10-year extension of its toxic air emissions permit. "The refinery is in the city's cross hairs because…

To 911 operator: "I'm only allowed to tell you we have an emergency"

Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette has been following closely and reporting on the deadly blast on Aug 28 at the multinational Bayer CropScience's plant in Institute, WV.  His first story (here) indicated that witnesses saw a red fireball at about 10:25 pm, and that thousands of residents were told to shelter in place, and his next story reported on the plant's rocky safety record.  Mr. Barry Withrow, 45, who was killed in the blast was buried on Sept 1.  This small WV town is well known in public health circles because of its notorious connection to Bhopal, India and that city's…

Time for a Presidential Science Debate

By David Michaels, Susan Wood, and Liz Borkowski Weâve joined with our fellow scientists and citizens to call for presidential candidates to devote a debate to an issue we havenât heard enough about in campaign appearances so far: science. The âScience Debate 2008â campaign is a nonpartisan effort that states: Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness,…

OSHA issues PPE rule: What took 'em so long?

OSHA's long-awaited rule on "who pays for personal protective equipment" has finally seen the light of day.  Assistant Secretary of Labor Edwin Foulke made the announcement today in a telephone press conference; workers and employers should be able to read the rule in the Federal Register on November 15.  The Agency proposed this rule more than 8 years ago, and in today's statements, officials repeated that the final rule is very similar to the March 1999 proposal.  "...clarifications have added several paragraphs to the regulatory text." Several paragaphs in 8 years???   Well then…

Anti-Gay Marriage Argument makes no sense

I was bewildered by this LA times article over the weekend describing the latest tactic of the DOMA defenders planning to argue before the Supreme Court, that is, that marriage is necessary for heterosexuals only because of the possibility of accidental child bearing. Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can "produce unplanned and unintended offspring," opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court. By contrast, when same-sex couples decide to have children, "substantial advance planning is required," said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for House…

Dr. Oz is an increasingly dangerous promoter of denialism and quackery

I'm very disturbed to see the amount of exposure that Dr. Oz has credulously given to gay conversion therapy quacks. Via Ed I read Warren Throckmorton's coverage of the disaster on Oz's show, with the reversion therapists lying and contradicting their own previous statements about the therapy, what it accomplishes, and their philosophy of sexual orientation. Worse, those brought on to counter the misinformation were given no time to address all the falsehoods, all the while the gay conversion therapy quacks were represented as being of equivalent expertise. It's unfortunate that even as we'…

Dr. Amy Tuteur calls out the homebirth movement for denialism

I've been lurking at the Skeptical OB for a while and enjoying Amy Tuteur's very effective criticism of some of the extremes of the homebirth movement. I had noticed that among some advocates of homebirth that were proposing risky behavior for pregnant mom's that conflict with the literature that it appears to be a movement rife with denialists who promote the valorization of ignorance in Dr. Tuteur's words. Mostly their problems seem to be with accepting there is a real, measureable increase in risk with homebirth, and rejecting the very real health benefits that medical physicans offer in…

Presidential candidates and health care---watch them carefully

Politically, I'm a leftie. That should be no surprise to anyone who knows me. But when it comes to science and medicine, my politics are irrelevant. Given that John McCain has already made some questionable public statements regarding vaccines and autism, this seems like a good time to see what the democrats are saying. Over at Hillary's website, we can examine her positions on health care. She makes special mention of autism. Some of her recommendations sound quite reasonable and good, such as improving access to services for autistic children. But she repeats the questionable though…

Crank Trifecta Complete

It's funny, but the crank use of the recent reevaluation of global AIDS statistics by the UN reminds me of a sign you see driving towards Charlottesville from DC. It's faded wooden thingy that says, "Get the US out of the UN". About 5 miles up the road is a derelict-looking building with what looks like Santa Claus dressed as a confederate soldier carrying the battle flag, so you get a feel for the general sentiment of the area. For those outside the US, it might be helpful to understand this problem to know that a big part of the hatred is based on the belief of some fundamentalists that…

Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in history--part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, the epidemiology of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) was murky for several decades after it was first defined in the literature in 1955. In the ensuing decades, HUS was associated with a number of infectious agents, leading to the general belief that it was a "multifactorial disease"--one that had components of genetics and environment, much like we think of multiple sclerosis today, for example. Several HUS outbreaks made people think twice about that assumption, and look deeper into a potential infectious cause. A 1966 paper documented the first identified outbreak…

Peppered with Salmonella?

Revere once again is the voice of reason regarding latest developments in Tomatogate (e.g., the ongoing outbreak of Salmonella, serovar Saintpaul). Has the source been identified? For those of you who many not have been following this closely, the outbreak has now hit almost every state, with over 1200 confirmed cases identified since April and more than 200 hospitalizations. Though the outbreak was initially associated with tomatoes, investigators were unable to link tomatoes to the specific strain--a relatively rare one--and advice to consumers to avoid varieties of tomatoes didn't put…

MDR CA-MRSA in MSM*

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has taken up residence in sport teams, prisons, schools, the military, and even swine. A new article in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that, at least in Boston and San Francisco, it's also causing a lot of infections in men who have sex with men; more after the jump. To examine this, the authors looked at MRSA infections from a variety of health care settings: medical centers, community health clinics, HIV clinics, and emergency rooms. These were examined in separate analyses. For example, for the medical centers they looked at…

FDA and Drug Safety - what happened to the IOM report?

 By Susan F. Wood, PhD  In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine today, Sheila Weiss Smith points out that the FDA has not been responsive to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Drug Safety.  That study and its recommendations took on the question of how to improve our nation's drug safety system, specifically through regulation by FDA.  In her Perspective article, Dr. Smith writes: In general, the IOM implored the agency to "embrace a culture of safety" by increasing the priority accorded to the safety of patients. Such an emphasis could have ramifications for medical…

World Water Day: Coping with Scarcity

Today is World Water Day, and this yearâs theme is âCoping with Water Scarcity.â  In its WWD report (PDF), UN-Water (the official United Nations mechanism for follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals), warns that water scarcity will increase in the coming decades, driven by four main factors: Population growth will increase water use Increased urbanization will further concentrate the demand for water Per-capita water consumption increases as the world becomes more developed Climate change will alter freshwater resources The reportâs authors also note that polluting or otherwise…

Two book lists

I've been sent two lists of "10 Books That Screwed Up the World", and I'm not very impressed with either of them. The first is from a new book by Benjamin Wanker Wiker of the same title, published by Regnery Press, the imprint of right-wing wackaloons everywhere. Here's Wiker's list: The Prince, Machiavelli Discourse on Method, Descartes Leviathan, Hobbes Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels The Descent of Man, Darwin Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche Mein Kampf, Hitler Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Kinsey Here's another list, which seems to be inspired by…

Department of Homeland Security: Protecting America First from Regulators, then from Terrorists.

By David Michaels Here at the Pump Handle, weâve been trying to follow up some of the issues that Confined Space covered better than anyone else. One of these is chemical plant security. Many chemical plants are filled with explosive or toxic substances, making them appealing targets for terrorists. Congress considered bills to force chemical companies to take meaningful protective measures, but, as Confined Space readers will remember (see here and here for a refresher), these efforts were blocked by the now-deposed Republican leadership of the House and Senate. Instead, a rider giving the…

How Much Evidence Is Enough? The Limits to Epidemiology

By David Michaels Later today, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board will hold a public meeting to consider issuing an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers exposed to the chemical diacetyl. This chemical, a primary component of artificial butter flavor, has been implicated as a cause of bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating and sometimes fatal lung disease. Yesterday, on behalf of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP), I sent the Standards Board new evidence: an unpublished Dutch study reporting three cases of the rare lung…

Mike Argento slams Coulter

On my old blog, I professed my undying love for York Daily Record columnist, Mike Argento. During the Dover trial last winter, his columns were hilarious and right on target. (See, for example, here, here, and here for snippets, though the full-text articles are no longer available). He's now taken on Ann Coulter's characterization of the trial in her new book, "Godless." More after the jump... There is an irony buried deep under the vitriol, idiocy, slander, vileness, ignorance, stupidity and simply breathtaking inanity that passes for the contribution to the public discourse of an…

Ask a SBer: brain drain?

So, this week's Ask a Science blogger question is: Do you think there is a brain drain going on (i.e. foreign scientists not coming to work and study in the U.S. like they used to, because of new immigration rules and the general unpopularity of the U.S.) If so, what are its implications? Is there anything we can do about it? Others have already put up some excellent posts, so I'm going to take a bit of a different approach after the jump. First, as Chad points out, this question is really made up of a number of other questions. Since I'm rather new to the faculty side of the issue, I can'…

"One science question"

Both RPM and Chad beat me to posting this survey [edited to add: and Janet too! Freakin' quick triggers...] which I've had in my drafts box for almost 2 weeks now. So, before absolutely everyone else beats me to it, I thought I'd pose the questions to y'all, and see how you would answer the question, "What is one science question every high school graduate should be able to answer?" Here were the questions offered by the experts: 1. What percentage of the earth is covered by water? 2. What sorts of signals does the brain use to communicate sensations, thoughts and actions? 3. Did dinosaurs…

People really can be morons. Film at 11.

I know, not exactly a novel finding. But I somehow continue to be amazed at the level of utter stupidity displayed by some of those in the public eye. Now, admittedly, I'm not much of a celebrity-watcher. I don't care much who they're sleeping with, what drugs they're on, or how much their new mansion cost. But some things you can't help but notice, since they're discussed on every freakin' news show in the universe. Like this one: That's pop princess Britney Spears, for anyone who hasn't yet see that pic (and if such a person exists, can you tell me where I can find this haven from…

I stroked a pipistrelle

So the other day I got to stroke a live pipistrelle. In the adjacent photo, Mike Pawling (chairman of the Hampshire Bats Group) is holding the bat; Vicki is touching the bat's back. Mike and his wife Chris hold permits and everything, and they take care of rescued bats that have been found injured, or have been dropped by their mothers. Pipistrelles are certainly Britain's - and probably Europe's - most abundant bat; they are highly adaptable little bats (part of the vesper bat group, or Vespertilionidae) that inhabit cities and suburbs as well as woodlands and other places. Here are just a…

Building Interesting Shapes by Gluing

I thought it would be fun to do a couple of strange shapes to show you the interesting things that you can do with a a bit of glue in topology. There are a couple of standard *strange* manifolds, and I'm going to walk through some simple gluing constructions of them. Let's start by building a Torus. It's not strange, but it's useful as an example of interesting gluing. We can make a torus out of simple rectangular manifolds quite easily. We start by building a cylinder by doing the circle construction using rectangles instead of just line segments. So we take four squares; curve each one into…

Using Good Math to Study Evolution Using Fitness Landscapes

Via [Migrations][migrations], I've found out about a really beautiful computational biology paper that very elegantly demonstrates how, contrary to the [assertions of bozos like Dembski][dembski-nfl], an evolutionary process can adapt to a fitness landscape. The paper was published in the PLOS journal "Computational Biology", and it titled ["Evolutionary Potential of a Duplicated Repressor-Operator Pair: Simulating Pathways Using Mutation Data"][plos]. Here's their synopsis of the paper: >The evolution of a new trait critically depends on the existence of a path of >viable intermediates…