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An Old Woman's Reply to A Young Woman

This post is a reply to a comment earlier this month from a very distressed young woman named Ellen. I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply sooner but family crises intervened. Ellen commented on the third in a series of posts I made regarding two calendars recently published, one in the U.S. and one in Australia, that feature women in IT dressed up as fancy whores (my term) or Screen Goddesses/Geek Gorgeous (their terms). The third post, Let Them Eat Cake - Beef vs. Cheese, compared the two calendars to the hot firemen's Flame Calendar (pun intended). In that post, I discussed why beefcake adds…

Rebuilt: Cyborgs or Robots or Bionic Ears, but not Jerry Falwell

The book Rebuilt, by Michae Chorost, and the documentary Sound and Fury, by Josh Aronson, here re-considered. (This is a Bookshelf #1 revisitation and expansion.) ((No reason for mentioning Jerry Falwell, by the way. That was a typo.)) I finished Rebuilt, about cochlear implants and technology-society relationships and deaf culture and the Bionic Man and cyborg philosophy. Here are some tidbits. Rebuilt is about cochlear implants. They put a thing in your head, behind your ear. You can then hear. Or have sounds transmitted to your brain, through the device. "You can then hear." Some…

James Hansen says goodbye to "scientific reticence"

Storms of My Grandchildren The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance to Save Humanity by James Hansen Bloomsbury USA, 304 pp. Another year, another plea for scientists to start communicating better. Here's Chris Mooney, reminding us yet again that Scientific training continues to turn out researchers who speak in careful nuances and with many caveats, in a language aimed at their peers, not at the media or the public. Many scientists can scarcely contemplate framing a simple media message for maximum impact; the very idea sounds unbecoming. Well, James Hansen,…

Internet censorship in Australia ramps up

I'm posting this on my American blog because the Australian government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority is fining people on Australian sites who give the links below the fold $11,000/day. Pretty well everything I feared about censorship by the internet filter and heavy handed government action is coming true. First of all, it transpires that only one bureaucrat at ACMA is required to block and ban a site, with no further oversight or redress. Second, it turns out that yes, ordinary and popular pornography sites are being blocked, so that if the filter becomes…

The ugly reason for CAM in US medical schools

Over the last several days, Dr. RW, Orac, and Joseph (Corpus Callosum) have been discussing the virtues, or lack thereof, of a national medical student association espousing the coverage of integrative, complementary and alternative medicine (ICAM) modalities in the medical curriculum. Our SciBling, Joseph, raised the interesting point that CAM education might improve the one aspect of medicine that administrators and health insurance companies are trying to drive from medicine: the doctor-patient relationship. I would say that none of the MD bloggers disagree that time constraints in the…

The clown shoe still capers

When last we visited Barney Zwartz, he was whining about those arrogant atheists having a conference in Australia. Now he's reduced to filtering and interpreting another anti-atheist, Mark Helprin, who has an essay in a book titled New Threats to Freedom. Apparently, people who are free of religion are a New Threat to Freedom. I haven't read Helprin's essay, but I think he ought to bill Zwartz for the price of the book, because after reading Zwartz's take I'm not at all interested in buying it. (Not that I was before; maybe the bill should be prorated, and Zwartz should give Helprin a nickel…

How the brain limits our ability to multitask

Multitasking refers to the simultaneous performance of two or more tasks, switching back and forth between different tasks, or performing a number of different tasks in quick succession. It consists of two complementary stages: goal-shifting, in which one decides to divert their attention from one task to another, and rule activation, by which the instructions for executing one task are switched off, and those for executing the other are switched on. Multitasking involves dividing one's attention between the tasks, and because each task competes for a limited amount of cognitive resources,…

Jared Diamond hides behind the "it wasn't science" defense

Just when I was wondering why there hasn't been more mainstream coverage of the Jared Diamond/New Yorker lawsuit I blogged about at the beginning of this month, Columbia Journalism Review has an update. And in a recent article in Science, Diamond commented, saying "The complaint has no merit at all." Oddly, the Science article (which is unfortunately subscription-only) frames this whole situation as a conflict between different disciplines - mainly science and journalism. Three worlds collide in this case. First is the world of science, specifically anthropology, which uses fieldwork and…

Double standards, politics, and drug treatment research

My mom, like millions of others in the U.S., has been a smoker for decades. She's tried to quit a few times, but it's been hard for her. The thing that's helped the most so far? The nicotine patch. While the patch is not a universal cure - see the Mayo Clinic's analysis here - physicians back them because, well, the long-term cost of remaining a smoker is too high (for the smoker, the smoker's family, and society). We all know smokers, and love them, and want to help them quit. Right? But there's a huge double standard in the media, and in society in general, when it comes to drug abuse…

Mommy Monday: The Daycare Thing

A number of readers have asked about Minnow's daycare situation and how she adjusted to it. Fish and I spent a lot of time debating daycare options before we settled on our current center. There are 4 basic choices in childcare: a daycare center, a licensed home daycare, an unlicensed stay-at-home mom who takes in 1-2 extra children, or a nanny. Of course, if you are lucky enough to live near relatives - grandmas can make great babysitters. But we're not so lucky. Our closest family is about 20 hours away. Given the economic imperatives of both Fish and I working, we need to leave our…

Mirror Mirror On the Wall, Who's The Fairest Elephant Of Them All?

By now you've probably all heard about the paper published by Plotnik, de Waal, and Reiss in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in late October titled "Self-recognition in an Asian elephant." I suspect that for people who study elephants, the results described in that paper come as no surprise. Researchers have been testing elephants on measures of self-awareness for a while, because they seemed like a good candidate. Still, the conclusion, stated in the title of the paper, is probably a bit premature. To understand why, though, it's important to understand the methods used…

A branch of learning that 'need not be learned'?

Prompted by my discussion of Medawar and recalling that once in the past I called him a gadfly (although obviously I meant it in the good way), Bill Hooker drops another Medawar quotation on me and asks if I'll bite: If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of…

The cult of anti-GMO: A lot like the cult of antivaccine

Over the years I’ve been studying science versus pseudoscience, medicine vs. quackery, reason versus crankery, I’ve noticed one thing. The cranks, pseudoscientists, and quacks of the world have a hard time dealing with legitimate criticism. Now, I know I sometimes get a bit—shall we say?—frisky with my criticisms. OK, obnoxious. I have, however, mellowed considerably since the dawn of this blog, as any reading of posts from the early days (or even not-so-early days) will confirm. Sure, I do occasionally still reach back into that reservoir of the “Insolence” that got me started, but I’d never…

Once again: Antivaccine, not pro-safe vaccine

Every so often, something happens that rekindles the need in me to discuss what, exactly, it means to be "antivaccine." As many of my readers know, if there's one thing about antivaccinationists, it's that they assiduously avoid ever admitting that they are antivaccinationists. In order to avoid having to make that admission, they'll go through all sorts of transparent rhetorical contortions to try to convince people that they are not antivaccine. The most common (and transparent) of these is a gambit I like to call "I'm not 'antivaccine'; I'm pro-safe vaccine" or "I'm a vaccine safety…

Why would naturopaths want to prescribe those evil big pharma drugs?

Recently, there's been a movement afoot among purveyors of that special brand of "natural" woo known as naturopathy to convince various legislatures and regulatory bodies that they not only are capable of serving as primary care physicians but that they should be allowed to do so. My first impression was laughter--that is, until I realized that the naturopaths are serious. For example, in New York, naturopaths, spearheaded by the New York Association of Naturopathic Physicians, are lobbying to be given the power to prescribe medications. Never mind that, despite their claims to the contrary,…

Crank magnetism strikes again

Since I happen to have fallen into the topic of anthropogenic global warming, before I move back to medical topics I might as well have a little fun. Certainly, I could use some, given that I just wrote two posts in which I felt forced to criticize someone whom I admire greatly. Besides, it's been over a week since I last blogged about vaccines on this blog. that has to be some sort of record. Why wreck it now? It feels good to take a break from the topic, and there's always next week. I have no doubt that the anti-vaccine movement will produce something begging for some not-so-Respectful…

The British Chiropractic Association: Beware the Spinal Trap

A while back, I wrote about the grievous miscarriage of justice that occurred to Simon Singh in the form of a ruling against him in the libel suit brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association. Suffice it to say, that the BCA is using the U.K.'s exceedingly plaintiff-friendly libel laws to silence legitimate criticism of the dubious practices of its members. This resulted in a campaign from the British pro-science organization Sense About Science to Keep Libel Laws Out of Science. Now, I learn that, true to Internet tradition, the attempt to suppress information or punish…

No wonder white power rangers like Ron Paul so much!

In one on my rare forays into political blogging (albeit with an emphasis on "alternative" non-evidence-based and non-science-based medicine), I discussed Ron Paul's record of supporting quack-friendly legislation and in not accepting evolution. Because of my interest in Holocaust denial, it also interested me that Hutton Gibson, a notorious Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist, would endorse Paul for President. Whenever anyone criticizes Ron Paul for being associated with white nationalists (whom I like to refer to as "white power rangers" or, when I'm feeling really snarky, "mighty…

Medicine and Evolution, Part 7: The theory that dare not speak its name?

I've written quite a bit about the role of the theory of evolution in medicine, including how it can be used to better understand disease processes such as cancer and sleeping sickness. I've also lamented the woeful state of knowledge about evolution that is possessed by all too many medical students and physicians, most recently taking to task an orthopedic surgeon named David Cook for some astoundingly ignorant statements about evolution and Dr. Geoffrey Simmons. (At least it's somewhat comforting to know that I'm not the only one who's embarrassed for his profession in this matter.)…

The white supremacist plot to kill Barack Obama: I'm surprised something like this didn't happen before

Warning: Some of the links in this post go to hate sites. I include them because I think it's important for people to see exactly what white supremacists say in their own words, if they are curious to do so and thus learn how low these people will go. However, if you're at work you may not want to click on them. Regular readers of this blog know that I have a major interest in World War II history and the Holocaust. Specifically, I've spent a fair amount of time writing about Holocaust denial. My interest in Holocaust denial derives from two sources. First, it's disgust at the racism, Hitler…

Saturday Review: Vaccines and the Immune System

I have a love/hate relationship with Nature Reviews: Immunology. It comes out once per month, and is usually packed with easy to read articles about fascinating (to me) topics, and each is filled with tons of great references so I can dig into the issue more. On the one hand, I get really excited about all the great things to read and new ways to expand my knowledge. On the other hand - that's a lot of reading. My Instapaper queue is about 80% Nature Reviews (15% other papers, and 5% random crap). This month is no different, but I decided to have the goal of blogging about the ones that I…

Leave nothing to the imagination

Last month I visited Amsterdam to take part in Sonic Acts, an art festival with a keen love of the scientific. Amid music woven out of the electromagnetic ether and artists painting geomagnetic storms, I took part in a panel convened by Arc editor Simon Ings to discuss the ‘futures of science and science fiction’. Not being a scientist or a science fiction author, I opted to look at how one influenced the other.  The theme of the festival was the dark universe - all that lies unknown and obscured. During the age of empires, Dutch cartographers were regarded as the best in the world, their…

Why Human Brains Vary

Many people assume human brains vary genetically and genetic variation maps to races. But the races are not real and genetic variation can't explain brain differences. Because, dear reader, brains don't work that way. Let's look just at the brain part of this problem. There are between 50 and 100 billion neurons in the human brain, and every one is connected to a minimum of one other neuron to produce about 100 trillion connections. So when we are thinking about how the brain is wired up, we have to explain how so many connections can be specified to make the brain work. There are…

Why reiki masters can't lose

Regular readers of my not-so-super-secret other blog, where I write under my own name, know that last month Steve Novella and I published a rather nice (if I do say so myself) opinion piece in a peer-reviewed journal about what we called “clinical trials of magic.” In it, we argued that certain alternative medicine modalities are so incredibly implausible from a purely basic science viewpoint, on physics and chemistry considerations alone, that it is a waste of time and resources, not to mention unethical, to do clinical trials testing them. Two of the main examples we used were homeopathy…

Thanks again, Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield! Thanks again for the measles!

I realize that I've thanked Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield before for giving the U.S. the gift of a measles resurgence. Originally, when I started this sarcastic little exercise, I assumed that it would be 5-10 years before we in the States caught up with the level of endemic measles that has been resurgent in the U.K. in the decade since Andrew Wakefield published his shoddy, fraudulent, pseudoscientific, litigation-driven article in The Lancet claiming that the MMR vaccine was responsible for "autistic enterocolitis," leading to an anti-MMR hysteria that drove down vaccination rates…

rdf:about="Shakespeare"

Dorothea has written a typically good post challenging the role of RDF in the linked data web, and in particular, its necessity as a common data format. I was struck by how many of her analyses were spot on, though my conclusions are different from hers. But she nails it when she says: First, HTML was hardly the only part of the web stack necessary to its explosion. TCP/IP, anyone? I'm on about this all the time. The idea that we are in web-1995-land for data astounds me. I'd be happy if I were to be proven wrong - trust me, thrilled - but I don't see the core base of infrastructure for a…

Socialized Business Losses Versus Socialized Medicine: What's Wrong with this Picture?

tags: socialized medicine, uninsured Americans, health care policy, election2008, politics I have a confession to make: I am an American who has no health insurance, and I have been so ever since my postdoctoral funding ended four years ago. But I am not alone: according to the most recently available statistics, somewhere between 45-47 million Americans are living without any sort health care coverage, and every year, more and more working adults and families join the ranks of the uninsured. Shockingly, according to the Urban Institute's estimate, 22,000 Americans actually died in 2006…

Chapter 5: Laws of Variation

To a man with a hammer, said Mark Twain, everything looks like a nail. The better your hammer, I would add, the more nail-like everything looks. In natural selection, Darwin had crafted one of the best hammers of all time. And in chapter 5 of the origin, 'Laws of Variation', you can hear him umming and aahing about various alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change before deciding that, actually, you know what this needs...hold 'er steady...Thwack! How about, for example, the "effect of external conditions" -- "food climate &c.". Well, "Gould believes that birds of the same species are…

The Biggest Memory Game of All

(Originally published in ChelseaNow, March 23-29) "I like to think of today's event as the NBA finals combined with the Super Bowl and the World Series," said world-renowned memory expert Tony Buzan in his opening remarks at the 10th annual USA Memory Championship on March 10. Before him in the auditorium of the Con Edison building on Irving Pl., a group of students, analysts, software engineers, and one journalist prepared to compete in a series of mind-bending events in the hopes of being crowned the strongest mental athlete in America. Seven hours later, the victor, 38-year-old David…

Science teachers in Arkansas self-censoring about evolution

Via Red State Rabble, I've become aware of an incredibly depressing story about science teachers in Arkansas explicitly censoring themselves when it comes to teaching evolution (the "e-word," as they call it) or in geology class teaching that the earth is 4.5 billion years old: Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the "e-word" (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word "adaptation" but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term "natural selection." Bob…

Cats, candy, and evolution

Here's a small taste of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a sweet story about a poor boy and his visit to an amazing candy factory…you've probably heard of it, since the new movie is getting a lot of press. Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit of chocolate. The whole family saved up their money for that special occasion, and when the great day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small chocolate bar to eat all by himself. And each time he received it, on those marvelous birthday mornings, he would place it carefully in a small…

Sometimes antivaccinationists reveal more than they intend about why they blame vaccines for autism

I had a long day in the operating room yesterday; so I was tired last night. As a consequence, I thought that today might end up being one of those rare weekdays free of new Insolence. Then, in the morning as I was doing my usual brief perusal of e-mail and blogs before heading to work, I noticed a post on that wretched hive of antivaccine scum and quackery, Age of Autism, that was such a perfect distillation of the reason why antivaccinationists refuse to accept all the evidence that autism has its roots largely in genetics that I couldn't help but whip off a quickie post. The post revealed…

It works every time, doesn't it?

Every so often I come across a news story relevant to the subject matter usually encompassed by this blog that makes me shake my head in disbelief at the sheer stupidity. OK, every day, if you count the antivaccine movement and its attacks on papers like the one I wrote about Monday and yesterday. True, the constant barrage of pseudoscience, quackery, and generalized scientific ignorance that the antivaccine movement floods me with constantly threatens to drown out everything else, even from other areas of medicine. This one, however, caught my attention. It was about a joke done by two…

Colorado PBS: Becoming a wretched hive of scum and quackery?

Over the weekend, as I was contemplating what to write about for today, I received a rather odd and unexpected e-mail. Indeed, it was with great surprise that I read this e-mail on Saturday morning, sent to the Burzynski Movie mailing list: Dear Burzynski Movie Subscribers: Major International Distribution Deal For Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, Part II: We are pleased to announce that Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, Part II has landed a major international distribution deal with one of America's top distribution companies. We can't give out any specific details until…

Antivaxers are collecting stories of "vaccine injury" to send to Donald Trump to change federal vaccine policy

I've written quite a bit about how our soon-to-be President Donald Trump has consistently expressed antivaccine views over the years, such as his oft-stated (on Twitter and elsewhere) beliefs that it's a "monster" shot that causes autism and infants get "too many" vaccines "too soon." I've heard Trump supporters who are pro-vaccine pooh-pooh these statements and claim that Trump won't be doing anything about vaccine policy because it's not a priority, an observation I counter by pointing out that Trump met with two of the biggest antivaccine "icons" there are: Andrew Wakefield and, just last…

John Oliver teaches us how to interpret medical and scientific studies

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of John Oliver. When my aging body allows me to stay awake late enough on Sunday nights and there’s a new episode on, I’ll almost always be watching. Since starting his own show Last Week Tonight With John Oliver on HBO, Oliver’s become quite the expert at using humor to explain and bring attention to injustices that are widely ignored and to skewer politicians and blowhards. This Sunday, he turned his attention on science reporting: I certainly would have written about this for yesterday, except that at 11:30 PM on Sunday night there’s only one place for…

Implicit Learning

The intelligence test is badly named. The main problem is that we should be talking about intelligence tests in plural, so that the IQ test is merely one of the many measures we use to assess our innate mental skills. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Howard Gardner, Robert Sternberg and others, the IQ test remains the singular test of individual cognitive ability. The mysterious entity that it measures - g, for general intelligence factor - is still seen as the dominant variable in determining the intellectual performance of our brain. (G was first coined, in 1904, by the…

Why We Dream

Over the weekend, I had a little essay in the Times on some new research on why dream at night. When I can't sleep, I think about what I'm missing. I glance over at my wife and watch her eyelids flutter. I listen to the steady rhythm of her breath. I wonder if she's dreaming and, if so, what story she's telling to herself to pass the time. (The mind is like a shark -- it can't ever stop swimming in thought.) And then my eyes return to the ceiling and I wonder what I would be dreaming about, if only I could fall asleep. Why do we dream? As a chronic insomniac, I like to pretend that our…

Attempted TfK Smackdown watch

Stephen Suh responds to the discussion of Stephen Johnson, the creationist EPA administrator: Stephen Johnson, Bush's EPA Administrator, doesn't see a "clean-cut division" between religion and science. This is actually not quite right. He doesn't, according to the original article, see a division between "creation" and "evolution." He told the Inquirer that "If you have studied at all creationism vs. evolution, there's theistic or God-controlled evolution and there's variations on all those themes." Which is true, but since he "declined to elaborate" on his own views, we don't really know…

How to fix science education in the U.S.

You might think, from the title of this post, that I have a completely worked out answer to the question of how to improve science education in the U.S. I don't. But, I have some observations that bear on the question, and I think looking at them might help us move in the right direction. This is a follow-up to my earlier post about a study looking at how U.S. science instruction (in 8th grade) differs from science instruction in Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. You'll remember that the U.S. Department of Education press release noted: In the United States,…

Not on my watch, or it's not my job to watch?

Via Evolgen, an article by Nicholas Wade on tools to recognize doctored images that accompany scientific manuscripts. Perhaps because "seeing is believing," pictures (including visual presentations of data) have been a favored weapon in the scientist's persuasive arsenal. But this means, as we know, that just as images can persuade, they can also deceive. The deceptions Wade discusses in the linked article rely primarily on using Photoshop to cover up inconvenient features (like bands on gels), to resize isolated parts of images, to rotate things, and the like. Wade writes: At The Journal…

Skepticism means caring about evidence

Marie-Claire Shanahan has a couple of great posts up about the science of science education, and research on what it takes to actually change someone's mind. They're great posts, and hold the promise of many more insightful looks at the skills and approaches best suited to increasing science literacy. That's a topic of no small interest to me. In my recent posts about the National Science Board, in my testimony and backstage efforts in Texas, and in my workshop on Defending Evolution in the Classroom and Beyond at The Amazing Meeting! (to name this month's major projects), the focus is…

What is religion?

In the course of talking about other things, Jason Rosenhouse raises a tricky issue: Fundamentalists are rightly excoriated for pretending that theirs is the only acceptable form of religion. But it is hardly an improvement when academics suggest that real religion is high-minded and metaphorical and intellectually deep, with the more commonplace version being a distracting side show. This idea of "real religion" is tricky, and is at the heart of a lot of the disputes between gnu/New/extreme atheists â who think religion is bad and favor eradicating it â and "accommodationists" â who don't…

In which I am misunderstood

Larry Moran is unhappy with me. This is fine; I knew that posting "On the need for grownups" would get people angry, and it did. I hoped it would spark some productive discussion, and it has, at least via email. What bothers me is that the reasons Larry is upset seem to entirely misconstrue what I wrote: Joshua Rosenau has fired another shot in the accommodationist war. As usual, he focuses more on rhetoric and mudslinging than on the logical arguments that are presented by both sides. In this case, he demeans all those who disagree with him in On the need for grownups [Updated].…

Cothran keeps defending Holocaust denial

I've been curious how close Disco. Inst. blogger and Focus on the Family stooge Martin Cothran would get to defending Holocaust denial in the abstract, rather than defending the Holocaust denial of Pat Buchanan specifically. In comments at his blog, Cothran inches closer. I observed that: You say Buchanan "does not deny the Holocaust." I've offered the generally accepted definition of the Holocaust, and shown that Buchanan denies it. You've offered no definition of the Holocaust, and point only to the fact that Buchanan uses the word. This is like the old joke: Q:If you call a tail a leg,…

Friday Random Recipe: Niu Rou Mien (Spicy Beef Noodle Soup)

This is a complicated recipe. It takes a couple of days to do properly, and works best done with a slow-cooker. But it's worth it. It's a Taiwanese dish - a spicy beef noodle soup. It's pretty much the national dish of Taiwan - Taiwanese love this dish. There are annual competitions in Taipei for who can make the best Niu Rou Mien. I learned about it from my wife, who grew up in Taiwan. I've made this a few times, and this is the recipe the way I've worked it out. Ingredients 3 lbs beef soup bones 3 lbs short ribs with bones. 3 star anise. 12 crushed cloves of garlic. 3 crushed slices of…

Evolution, Truth, and Politics

A follow up to yesterday's blast from the past: Ever since Majikthise, Pandagon, and Alternet linked to my post about Yglesias, my sitemeter hit-counter thingee has blown a gasket (and, Majikthise, um, thanks for the very kind words, but low expectations are much easier to live with...). Anyway, it's been interesting to read what other people think about the post. One general angle I've noticed is that many commenters are focusing on the politics of evolution. Granted, this post was picked up largely by political websites, so this is to be expected. Regarding the politics, I'm not naive: I…

Feral Pigs, Spinach, and E. coli O157:H7

(Yes, it's LOLFeral Pigs) A recent article in Emerging and Infectious Diseases just made the explanation of the E. coli spinach outbreak much more complex. When the contaminated spinach story broke, there were a lot of accusations bandied about that this showed that either corporate factory farming was evil, or that organic farming (the farm was organic) was evil* (an aside: by now, it should be apparent to everyone that politicized public health and biological issues are often not discussed rationally or consistently). I'm no fan of corporate farming because the high densities of animals…

Marriage Versus Servitude

A new divorce policy in Japan highlights the different outcomes when women are not dependent on men but interdependent with men. It's scaring the hell out of Japanese men: A change in Japanese law this year allows a wife who is filing for divorce to claim as much as half her husband's company pension. When the new law went into effect in April, divorce filings across Japan spiked 6.1 percent. Many more split-ups are in the pipeline, marriage counselors predict. They say wives -- hearts gone cold after decades of marital neglect -- are using calculators to ponder pension tables, the new law…

Staphylococcus aureus: Don't Pick Your Nose!

Yes, it's LOLStaphylococcus. They don't call me the Mad Biologist for nuthin' A colleague of mind sent along this paper, "Nose Picking and Nasal Carriage of Staphylococcus aureus": OBJECTIVE. Nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus is an important risk factor for S. aureus infection and a reservoir for methicillin-resistant S. aureus [MRSA]. We investigated whether nose picking was among the determinants of S. aureus nasal carriage. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS. The study cohort comprised 238 patients who visited the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) disease outpatient clinic of a tertiary…