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Like a Moth to a Flame

A looong time blog pal of mine (I am proud to say), YoungFemaleScientist did me the honor of mentioning me today on her blog in response to an email she received; It is interesting to note (and I dont mean this as a dig at you) that all the FEMALE scientific blogs do not really cover science at all but are generally full of moaning and bitching about people in the lab colleagues etc. Whereas the majority of male scientific bloggers concentrate on science issues. Strange! She responded by saying; This is a very astute observation, though not strictly correct. Grrrlscientist, over at…

God is Hate

tags: God is Hate, christians are haters, religion is organized hate, religion, fundamentalists are everywhere, mindcontrol The above letter was spoofed and supposedly signed by Alice Shannon of Soldotna, Alaska, and republished by DIGG. However, the original letter was published in the newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle on Monday, October 22, 2001, when all the good religionists in the area were pondering the role of a gawd-inspired terrorist act: the destruction of the World Trade Towers, portions of the Pentagon and the downing of an airliner in an Pennsylvania cornfield -- which…

Mystery Bird: Ross's X Snow Goose, Chen hybrid

tags: Ross's X Snow Goose, Chen hybrid, birds, nature, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Ross's X Snow Goose, Chen hybrid, photographed at Coronado Lakes, Santa Fe, New Mexico. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 20 March 2008 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1250s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: White waterfowl are an open trap for the unwary -- in many parts of the US, at many times of the year, the most abundant such bird is Mallard, many of…

Sticks and Stones ..

tags: mental health, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, children How many of you are survivors of childhood verbal abuse? I am not talking about an occasional parental outburst, but rather, consistent full-scale verbal assaults by your parents? According to a recent study by Harvard University psychiatrists, these so-called verbal beatings are as hurtful to an individual as sexual abuse and may also have long-lasting effects on the brain and behavior. "Exposure to verbal aggression has received little attention as a specific form of abuse," notes Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at…

What is it with atheists and GLBT folk?

There is a strange correlation: most of the atheists I know are straight, yet when I post a pointless poll like this one, I know with near certainty which way the godless hordes of Pharyngula will try to skew it. Do you agree with President Obama's decision to extend certain benefits to gay partners of federal employees? 51.38% Yes 48.62% No It goes further, too. We atheists tend to strongly favor women's rights and equality in the marketplace, yet only about half of us are female. I could bring up an article like this one, in which conservative democrats demand that abortion services not be…

Wild Birds: Canaries in our Global Coal Mine?

tags: researchblogging.org, endocrine disruptors, environmental pollutants, DDT metabolites, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, birdsong, physiology, behavior European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris. Image: Gerd Rossen [larger view]. An elegant but disturbing paper was just published that documents that biologically relevant concentrations of endocrine disrupting pollutants are affecting the quality and quantity of song produced by male songbirds, which in turn, influences female mate choice. According to the research team, not only do these pollutants influence behavior, but they also affect…

Scientists Create Genetically-Engineered Supermice

tags: researchblogging.org, supermouse, Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase, PEPCK-C, glucose metabolism Like a Lance Armstrong equivalent among ordinary mice, a group of American scientists report that they altered a single gene involved in glucose metabolism in a mouse and discovered that this genetically altered mouse demonstrates remarkable athletic abilities. For example, this supermouse runs 20 meters per minute for five hours or more without stopping -- a distance of 3.7 miles (6 kilometers)! "They are metabolically similar to Lance Armstrong biking up the Pyrenees. They utilize…

Birdbooker Report 53

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "One cannot have too many good bird books" --Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…

Occupational Health News Roundup

On April 5, 2010, an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia killed 29 miners. Four different investigative bodies reached the same conclusion about the causes of the blast: that mine owner Massey Energy disregarded fundamental safety practices while pursuing profit. (Celeste describes these findings and more in a post published on the second anniversary of the disaster.) The office of US Attorney Booth Goodwin is prosecuting individuals they found to be involved in criminal mine safety violations at Upper Big Branch. The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr.…

Memorial Day 2012

Today the United States honors those who died while serving in the military. The Washington Post's "Faces of the Fallen" gallery has photos and other information on the "6,440 U.S. service members have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom." Several entries have been added over the past few days: Sgt. Jabraun S. Knox, age 23, of Fort Wayne, Ind., on 5/18/12, "Died in Asadabad, Afghanistan,of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an indirect fire." Sgt. Michael J, Knapp, age 28, of Overland Park, Kan.,  on 5/18/12, "Died in Asadabad, Afghanistan,…

World Water Day 2012: Food security challenges and drinking water progress

Today is World Water Day, and this year's theme is "Water and Food Security." UN Water explains why we should care: Each of us needs to drink 2 to 4 litres of water every day. But it takes 2 000 to 5 000 litres of water to produce one person's daily food. Today, there are over 7 billion people to feed on the planet and this number is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. To be able to feed everybody, we first need to secure water, in sufficient quantity and adequate quality. We will also need to produce more food using less water, reduce food wastage and losses, and move towards more…

Lung cancer risk of diesel-exposed workers reconfirmed, kudos to MSHA for addressing hazard 10 years ago

The Center for Public integrity's Jim Morris was the first to report that two long awaited cancer mortality studies of US workers exposed to diesel exhaust finds significantly elevated levels of lung cancer. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) proposed the studies two decades ago, going great lengths to address methodological limitations identified in previous epidemiological studies of diesel exhaust-exposed workers. The bottom line, and with now stronger evidence than ever, there should be no question…

Changing the rules in the middle of the game: Philadelphia's green infrastructure

Aging US water infrastructure has meant more leaks, flooded basements, and massive sinkholes in cities across the US. Fixing the water and sewer systems in need of repair will take billions of dollars, and it's hard to find that kind of money in the budget these days. Saqib Rahim reports for ClimateWire on Philadelphia's decision to use "green infrastructure" rather than building a larger pipe system to handle the water that's dumped on the city during severe storms. The combination of more intense storms and more paved area is a problem: Impervious surfaces like roads, sidewalks, and…

Testing the Anthrax Vaccine in Children

The Obama administration has asked a federal advisory committee, the National Biodefense Science Board, to make recommendations about testing the anthrax vaccine in children. The vaccine has been tested in adults, administered to military personnel, and stockpiled so it can be administered quickly should an attack occur in the US. The Washington Post's Rob Stein reports that a federal simulation of an anthrax attack got federal officials thinking about how to handle children. If an actual attack occurs, would be easier to make the call to vaccinate children if we had already conducted…

Health and environmental groups sue EPA over new rules on toxics

Earth Justice, the United Steelworkers, the Environmental Defense Fund and other public interest groups are suing the Trump administration over two new regulations to address toxic substances. The groups filed petitions last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. They are asking to court to review the rules which EPA published on July 20, 2017. The groups will argue that the regulations are contrary to Congress' intent. The Natural Resources Defense Council's Daniel Rosenberg and Jennifer Sass use these photos to illustrate the matter.  It's the difference between what…

Five key points about Medicaid and GOPcare

Kim Krisberg has already ably described how the Senate’s “Better Care Reconciliation Act” would gut Medicaid while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest, so I want to emphasize a few key points that are worth bearing in mind. The Congressional Budget Office score of the Senate bill finds that over the next 10 years, 22 million people would lose coverage (relative to keeping the current law), and 15 million of those people would be losing Medicaid. The worst of the Medicaid cuts would come after 2026, though, as the per-capita cap on the federal share of spending rises much more slowly…

Worst of the worst for worker rights and safety: “Dirty Dozen” profiled in new report

Ignoring workers’ safety concerns. Failing to fix hazards. Directing employees to do unsafe tasks. Repeatedly violating safety laws. Falsifying training records and safety audits. Lying to safety inspectors. Who would do such things? Regrettably, far too many employers and 12 of them are profiled in the report “The Dirty Dozen 2017: Employers who put workers & communities at risk.” It was released this week by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) as part of global commemorations of Worker Memorial Day. National COSH asked its expansive network of health…

Revolving door from chemical industry to EPA: No way to boost public confidence

The Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Richard Denison, PhD tipped me onto news that the chemical industry’s chief trade association now has one of its own in a key EPA office. Nancy Beck, PhD began work on Monday as second in command of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Immediately prior to her appointment, Dr. Beck was with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) in the position of Senior Director of Regulatory Science Policy. Prior to that she worked in the White House's regulatory czar's office during parts of the G.W. Bush's and Obama's administrations. President…

Public health ROI: Fluoridation prevents tooth decay and saves a ton of money

As 2016 comes to a close — and 2017 looms with enormous uncertainty — let’s end the year with some encouraging public health news. This time it’s a study on one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century: fluoridation. Published this month in Health Affairs, the study is an update on a 2001 study that marked the most comprehensive examination to date of community water fluoridation benefits and costs. This new study found that in 2013, more than 211 million American residents had access to fluoridated drinking water. That fluoridation was associated with the prevention of…

CDC: Cases of sexually transmitted diseases reach highest number ever

In troubling public health news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported just yesterday that combined cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia in the U.S. have climbed to the highest number on record. With the release of its “Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2015” report, the agency documented more than 1.5 million cases of chlamydia, nearly 400,000 cases of gonorrhea and about 24,000 cases of primary and secondary syphilis. Syphilis clocked the largest increase from 2014 to 2015 at 19 percent, gonorrhea increased by nearly 13 percent and chlamydia rose by nearly 6…

When adults forgo their immunizations, it costs the nation billions in care

Another day, another study on the benefit of vaccines. This time, it’s a study on the economic cost of vaccine-preventable diseases among U.S. adults — a cost that likely surpasses your wildest guesses. Published this week in Health Affairs, the study found that vaccine-preventable diseases affecting adults cost the American economy $8.95 billion in 2015, with unvaccinated adults accounting for $7.1 billion of that total. To conduct the study, researchers examined the economic burden associated with 10 vaccines that protect against hepatitis A; hepatitis B; shingles (or herpes zoster); human…

A puzzling OSHA regulatory agenda for last 6 months of Obama term

Priorities for a successor? That’s what I wondered when I reviewed the worker safety topics on the OSHA's latest regulatory agenda which was issued last month. In addition to rulemaking projects already identified by the agency, I count five new topics listed on the agenda for possible future regulatory action. They involve the following topics about which OSHA would seek public comment via a "Request for information" or an "Advance notice of proposed rulemaking": Protections for healthcare workers against violence on-the-job (here) A lower blood-lead level to trigger medical removal…

Study: Dramatic drop in HPV cases since introduction of the HPV vaccine

Another day, another study on the potentially life-saving impact of vaccines. This time it’s a new study on the vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted disease that can lead to cervical cancer. Earlier this week, researchers announced that since the vaccine came on the scene, rates of HPV among young women in the U.S. have plummeted. Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyze HPV prevalence among women ages 14 to 34 in the four years before the HPV vaccine was introduced in 2006 and…

AAAS rejects fellowship of UCLA professor who willfully violated lab safety standards

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) deserves credit for standing with worker safety and victims of egregious safety violations. The group’s Section on Chemistry voted not to move forward with the nomination of UCLA professor Patrick Harran as an AAAS fellow. They made the announcement yesterday. Harran has four criminal felony charges pending against him for willfully violating workplace safety standards at his UCLA laboratory. Those charges were brought by the Los Angeles County District Attorney (DA) following a criminal investigation into the 2009 death of lab…

The Darwin Conspiracy

Sometimes you just have to sit and stare dumbfounded at the appalling stupidity creationists will state with absolute conviction. Here's an example that will leave you awestruck, too: a site that declares there is a Darwin conspiracy, and cites three fatal flaws that they claim conclusively prove that evolution is wrong. You might expect that such a grand claim would be accompanied by arguments that are at least impressively sophisticated … but no, we get two claims that kids should learn the answers to in high school, and a third that is just flaky and weird. Wow, but these are amazingly…

Best headline on SCOTUS ACA decision: "Six million sighs of relief"

The American Public Health Association (APHA) takes the prize for the best headline in response to today’s Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA): "Six million sighs of relief." APHA’s executive director Georges Benjamin, MD elaborated: “We are pleased the court understood the legislative history and intent of this law… We know that when people can’t afford health insurance, they don’t get health care — and get sicker as a result. …APHA and the public health community rejoice in today’s decision, and look forward to working with the administration and Congress to realize…

Thumbs up and down for House bill to reform toxics law

Congress continues to take key legislative steps to reform the 40 year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The latest move came last week in a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In a bi-partisan unanimous vote (21-0) on May 14, the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy reported out the TSCA Modernization Act. It is now ready for action by the full Committee. We’ve reported previously on The Pump Handle about a TSCA reform bill making its way in the Senate. The Vitter/Udall bill (S.697) has 39 co-sponsors, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Kim…

Swedish Skeptics in Transformation

Excellent Swedish feature-journalism magazine Filter has a 17-page piece about the skeptical movement in its current issue (#17). Magnus Västerbro's take on the movement in general and the Swedish Skeptics Association in particular is supportive yet not uncritical. I've been a board member of the Swedish Skeptics (VoF) since 2004, and I think the article is excellent advertising for us. Västerbro's main message is that the Swedish skeptical movement has long been academic, small and low-profile, and is now becoming more youthful, more inclusive, more active and louder. I think he's pretty…

Ancient Kings On the Edge of Historicity

Asked Felicia: "... those Viking saga kings, Ragnar Lodbrok and Björn Järnsida. I'd like to know if there exists any evidence at all that these persons ever existed?" In the present, the categories "real person" and "fictional character" are pretty distinct. But when we look retrospectively at the first historically documented centuries in any given area, things get fuzzy. And it's even worse if we look at people who are supposed to have lived before the introduction of writing to an area, and who are mentioned in early or foreign texts. These centuries to either side of the introduction of…

Tol on Ward on Wiki

Richard Tol, not content with a quiet and peaceful life, is having fun on wiki. He's trying to add a "criticism" section to the [[Bob Ward]] page, featuring the exciting adventures of... yes, you've guessed it, one R Tol: In 2014, Ward was accused by Professor [[Richard Tol]] of conducting a smear campaign against him... And so on. In a desperate attempt to stuff this in, he's tried changing the section title from "criticism" to "communication style" but that obviously won't fly. More popcorn on the talk page. Tee hee Update: its getting better; as ATTP predicted, Tol doesn't know when to…

Lost On A Fieldwork Gamble

Success and failure in archaeological fieldwork is a graded scale. I wrote about this in autumn 2008: My excavation at Sättuna has taken an interesting turn. I'm not feeling particularly down about it, but the fact is that we're getting the second worst possible results. The worst result would be to mobilise all this funding and personnel and find nothing at all. We're certainly not there. The best possible result would be to find all the cool things the metal detector finds had led me to hope for, viz the foundations of a 6th century aristocratic manor. We're not there either. The second…

Selling Stuff With Liberal Chic

Blogging here at Sb has many advantages, one of which is a free subscription to Seed. I received the latest four issues the other day and have been reading them with great interest. It's a very pretty mag with great content. One detail surprises me. Almost all Most of the models in the ads are black. I have an inkling what this may mean: let me explain. Most of Seed's readers are in the US. In the US, black people are on average less well-educated and affluent than white people. Therefore, marketing a US pop-sci mag primarily to black people would be a bad idea. The ads are instead in all…

Give labor its due

Classes start this week at UMM and next week at our branch campuses in the Twin Cities, and it looks like we might get to deal with a clerical workers' strike. AFSCME Local 3800 is taking to the picket lines to protest the inadequate pay raises offered to them. We're all tightening our belts in our underfunded universities — we've had salary and hiring freezes in the few years I've been here, and we're seeing cuts to library services and teaching lab support; you could argue, I suppose, as university president Bruininks does, that we're all in this together and that everyone should compromise…

Why Should the US Join Kyoto?

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: Why should the US join Kyoto while India and China haven't? Answer: The United States puts out more CO2 as a nation by far than any other nation on Earth, including China and India. Considering the relative populations (1 billion+ for each of China and India versus 300 million in the US) the per capita emissions are many times those of either of these other countries. On top of that, this has been the case for the past 100+ years of CO2…

ACLU Wrong in Arizona

Here's one where I'll probably be feeding the STACLU crowd, since I don't think they've said anything about this case. The ACLU is filing a suit in Arizona to stop a new state law that provides a tax credit for companies who contribute to a fund for tuition grants for low income students to attend private schools. I strongly disagree with their rationale. The centerpiece of school-choice advocates' legislative agenda during the 2006 session, the tax break provides companies with a dollar-for-dollar income tax savings for the amount of qualifying donations to groups that provide low-income…

No respect for Christianity…so stop demanding it

Atrios was getting some heat (most of it misplaced) for saying he was sick of the Christian whiners on the Left who make up stories of their martyrdom in the Democratic party—the same nonsense I was snarling about. While Atrios can say he's not hostile to religion—he's just apathetic—I can't, and reading some of the other reactions to the whole business just confirms my contempt. I like Avedon Carol, but she just doesn't get it. Explaining that the Right has successfully portrayed the Left as "godless" and then talking about how wrong they are because the Left is full of good religious people…

ID Proposals in Ohio and Michigan Postponed

As Josh Rosenau reported yesterday, the latest attempt by the ID crowd to get their ideas into science classrooms in Ohio by hook or by crook was tabled at a state Board of Education subcommittee hearing. The meeting ran out of time before a measure sponsored by Deborah Owens Fink, which would essentially require schools to teach both sides of any "controversial issue", could be considered. Ohio Citizens for Science has put out a response to that proposal that shows its flaws. After the board voted to remove the "critical analysis of evolution" lesson from the curriculum standards, Owens…

Connie Morris Blames Everyone Else

After losing her seat in last week's elections, outgoing Kansas school board member Connie Morris says it's everyone else's fault, not hers: A conservative member of the Kansas State Board of Education claims the "lying liberal media" defeated her in last week's primary election. She and other conservative Republicans lost their 6-4 majority and control of the Board just nine months after voting to enact science standards that require critical analysis of evolution -- including scientific evidence refuting the theory -- in school classrooms statewide... "The media assassinated me," Morris…

Gay Pride March Brings Bigots Together

The three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have been fighting each other, killing each other and oppressing each other for centuries, a fact that many lament. Which is why it's so heartwarming to see all three religions unite together, joined by their hatred of gays: Jewish and Muslim religious leaders say that an international Gay Pride gathering set for Aug. 6-12 in Jerusalem could trigger a worldwide Islamic uprising more intense than the riots and bloodshed generated by the cartoons in European newspapers of the profit Mohammed. Representatives of conservative…

STACLU Member Files RICO Suit

I knew that being on the STACLU mailing list would be a source of much amusement and it didn't take long to pay off. The second email I got from them referred to a lawsuit filed by a STACLU "supporter" by the name of Bobby Wightman-Cervantes. He's filing a RICO suit against...well, practically everyone, including the ACLU (read the complaint here), alleging a vast conspiracy going all the way back to a Supreme Court decision in 1865. I've just started reading the complaint and it's already given me a good deal of mirth. First of all, he's alleging a RICO conspiracy involving practically…

DaveScot vs Dembski Et Al

Good ol' DaveScot has once again stepped into a big problem, without recognizing it or admitting it. In this post where he takes PZ Myers to task for "projection" - put your irony meters on maximum - he says the following: So the purveyors of Darwinian dogma continue to hold an exclusive but increasingly tenuous grasp on the indoctrination of young minds into their chance worshipping worldview. They know full well that any honest examination of the evidence will support natural selection changing the size of finch beaks and color of moth wings, that the fossil record and common genetic code…

ACLU's Internal Disagreements

The New York Times had an article yesterday about the ACLU board literally debating over their own right to disagree with the rest of the board. They are debating over two proposed rules for the board. The first one would say that "a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board and staff." The second one would say that "Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement." I've written about this before…

Bush's Gay Marriage Speech

The White House has been kind enough to put the text of President Bush's speech advocating the "Marriage Protection Amendment" yesterday on their webpage. It would make a perfect example of illogical argumentation for a logic course. The union of a man and woman in marriage is the most enduring and important human institution. But apparently not so enduring that it can't withstand more people getting married. For ages, in every culture, human beings have understood that marriage is critical to the well-being of families. And because families pass along values and shape character, marriage is…

DaveScot and the ACLU

In a new post, DaveScot criticizes the ACLU for suing the state of Kentucky over a new law banning protests at military funerals. As usual, he gets the facts wrong and misses the point. The mistakes begin with the title of his post: "ACLU Supports Vile Protesters at Military Funerals." Nonsense. They don't support the protestors any more than they supported the Nazis in Skokie, or support Rush Limbaugh, or support Jerry Falwell. What they support is the idea of free speech, regardless of the content of that speech. And in this particular case, they aren't challenging such regulations across…

Hentoff on Civics Courses

Nat Hentoff, long one of my favorite writers despite his surprising and indefensible position on the Terri Schaivo situation, has a column in the Village Voice about the importance of civics classes in public schools. He points to the abysmal ignorance that study after study has shown about some of the very basic facts about our system of law. I'll post a long excerpt from that column below the fold: In a national study last year, Future of the First Amendment, funded by the Knight Foundation, more than 100,000 high school students were interviewed on what they know of the First Amendment.…

Samuel Chen, Take 2

This keeps getting funnier. In this comment on his own blog, he says the following about the Wedge Document: Cody, you are quoting from various parts of the "wedge document" and so forth. These are documents that we, including DI, do not necessarily agree with. Meaning, we have seen certain errors with intelligent design in the past and with promoting it and have worked to change those errors so we can stay honest. Honesty, something evolutionists have none of. How do you top that punchline? While claiming that "evolutionists" have no honesty, he says with a straight face that the DI doesn't…

Sci Foo recap

Despite a miserable red-eye flight — I left San Jose at 6:30 last night, and arrived in Minneapolis at 4am, followed by my familiar long drive home — I'll try to say a few words about Sci Foo. Short version: weirdest meeting ever. That's a good thing, though. The guest list included Carl Djerassi, Eric Drexler, Eric Lander, Eugenie Scott, Freeman Dyson, Henry Gee, James Randi, Kim Stanley Robinson, Martha Stewart, Martin Rees, Paul Sereno, and a few hundred other people, so the first function was to just get all these very different people to ping-pong off each other. There were some…

Science Is Hard

Jonah Lehrer at the Frontal Cortex asks an interesting question: Why is science so much work? But I'm curious why science takes so long. I know this is an incredibly naive question, but why do post-docs have to work so hard? What is it about the scientific process that forces the average researcher to come in on Saturday (and sometimes Sunday)? My own limited experience tells me that one of the main reasons science remains so labor-intensive is failure. Perhaps I was simply inept, but an astonishing amount of my time in the lab was spent repeating failed experiments, or repeating successful…

Academic Advising

Two links containing important advice for the academic set. First, Derek Lowe reminisces about summer in graduate school: When I was in graduate school, I had a law student as a neighbor for a while. We were both pretty quiet, and got along fine in our respective dinky efficiency apartments, but we couldn't help but notice some differences between our studies. The biggest one became clear around this time of the year: he left, and I stayed. I still remember the look of surprise on his face when I told him that we didn't have any time off. Well, I know that law students don't generally go off…

The Last Stand, Except for the Sequel

Despite generating a surprising number of comments with last week's burning question (thanks to Kate for the suggestion), we didn't actually go see X-Men III until yesterday afternoon. Short verdict: Not quite as bad as I was led to believe. The longer version is either on Kate's LiveJournal, or below the fold. As lots of people have said, the fundamental problem with this movie is that it really wanted to be two different movies. The Phoenix plot deserved a movie all its own (at least based on the number of comic books and Saturday morning cartoons it took up previously), and the mutant cure…