Search Content

Displaying results 86151 - 86200 of 87950

The Bush Record on Science: Are Biologists Whining?

The Scientist has an excellent article attempting to fairly evaluate the Bush record on science: What may be adding to the perception that the Bush administration is harder on science than ever before is that in recent years, biology has borne the brunt of political interference in science, which is a decidedly unfamiliar experience for many life scientists. "So far, most of [biologists'] experience with Congress has been showing up and asking for money and going home," says Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists. Now, politicians spend less time talking about atomic…

A Case of Personality Change With Brain Tumor

This case was href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/23/2411">written up in the NEJM, and made freely accessible.  The image on the top left shows a brain scan taken three years earlier than the one on the top right.  The other images show the cells in the tumor.   It is a meningothelial meningioma, World Health Organization grade I. You may ask, how is it that we happen to have available before-and-after views of the same brain.  That is not usually the case.  But this was an unusual case: the patient had undergone sex-change treatment, and was receiving high-dose…

"Classic Victim's Mistake" (?)

From an href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112001777.html">article in the Washington Post: Afterward, she stayed strong. She wasn't going to make the classic victim's mistake of blaming herself for provoking the attack. Mo, writing at href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/11/mdma_for_ptsd.php">Neurophilosophy, commented at length upon an article about the use of href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdma">MDMA ( href="http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma.shtml" rel="tag">Ecstasy) in the treatment of href="http…

More on Gerberding, Testimony Part II

Today I watched the C-Span broadcast ( href="rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/energy/energy102307_warming.rm">link to Real Player file, 80 minutes) of Dr. Gerberding's testimony to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.  The topic: The potential effects of climate change on public health. After seeing it, I have to agree that she was able to make many good points, and the Senate is more informed as a result.  That fact does not excuse the White House censorship of her written report; rather, it simply means that their anemic efforts at censorship were relatively ineffective…

More Convenient Bright Light Treatment for SAD

It is reasonably well established that treatment with bright light is effective for href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/07/seasonal_affective_disorder_th_1.php">seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  The standard treatment is to have someone expose their face to 10,000 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux">Lux of bright light every morning, for 30 minutes, preferably at the same time each day.  Early studies indicated that it is the intensity, not the color, that matters.   This is all very good, but bright light treatment sources are necessarily big, fragile, and use a lot of…

Ask Sciencewoman: Part-time post-docs

Dear Sciencewoman, I'm currently in the last 6 months of my PhD, and I have an 8 month old. I love research, but I want more time with my child, and I am curious if there is such a thing as a part time post doc. How did you get that kind of position? Did you have to create the position with your advisor? Thanks! Mommy, soon-to-be PhD Dear Mommy, soon-to-be PhD, My part-time post-doc began as a full time position, and switched to part-time only for a few months between the birth of my daughter and me leaving for the tenure-track. It worked really well for me, personally and professionally,…

Discourse on Animal Experimentation Marred By Violence

Scientists, read this statement. A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire. - Animal Liberation Front statement on behalf of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Let it sink in. Now insert your research institution in the place of Huntingdon Life Sciences, and you know what might be in store for anyone doing, or associated with,…

A Big Misunderstanding, In Retrospect(acle)

Earlier today I noticed this blog post on a Nature Blog, (cross posted here) specifically on FnL - Euan Adie's blog, who was overly critical of the science blogosphere's response to the 'Fair Use' kerfuffle (WileyGate?). He opined that it was quite unlikely that there was any big conspiracy going on. I agree. I think it really was a big misunderstanding, but whether or not it would have been viewed that way by Wiley perhaps has quite a lot to do with the response that the scientific blogosphere returned. Euan Adie is perhaps mistaken in that he assumes that the 'braying mob' can never…

My picks from the 2010 Olympus BioScapes Winners

This year's winner of the BioScapes digital imaging competition, Igor Siwanowicz, triumphed with a somewhat unusual portrait. To most biologists, it should be clear what anatomical structures are shown here - but what species could this be? Igor Siwanowicz, Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology, Munich, Germany. First Prize, 2010 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition®. click through for the answer, and for my picks of the other winners. . . That's Dr. Siwanowicz' frontal section of Daddy Longlegs (Phalangium opilio) eyes, showing lenses (two large ovals), retinas and optic nerves…

When Be gets an analogy in his head, nothing is going to shake it loose

I patiently explained all that was wrong with Be Scofield's characterization of atheists; now he has written back and said I am wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm just going to focus on his first weird point, because the whole thing is disposable, but I feel like making a token effort anyway. A good part of his argument was an analogy run amuck. He tried to argue that criticizing liberal religion for extremist religious actions must mean I don't like liberal politics (that is, I must be an anarchist!) or I am a hypocrite. I explained yesterday that this wasn't the case, I have no problem with the…

Do Iowa State football players need to be converted to the Christian faith?

Athletics are a fine part of the college tradition — students come to our universities, and some of them want to participate in sports, others like to watch, and others like to enjoy a non-academic social event. I think some support for our students' extracurricular interests is a good idea. What I detest, though, is the overpaid coaches and the tendency to set the small group of college athletes apart as something special, deserving of special consideration. Even at my small university, there is a constellation of special programs to serve the college athletes, and it gets rather annoying…

Teaching Tuesday: Minnow comes to class

Where we left our story, Minnow and I had arrived on campus for my 8 am lecture. First, just a reminder that my child really is the most easy-going 8 month old in history. I brought along her stroller, a sling, a few toys, and her diaper bag (all already in the car). I figured I'd put her in the sling during class, or if she wanted to get down and crawl around, that would be OK too. Secretly, I kind of hoped some student would volunteer to watch her and I'd gallantly refuse saying that her education was more important than my inconvenience. None did. We arrive about 3 minutes before class,…

Is Banning Trans-Fat a Question of Liberty?

I came across an interesting topic on the Irascible Professor's blog: whether or not banning harmful food product such as trans-fat infringes upon a person's right to eat whatever they want, healthy or otherwise. This question is in response to libertarian John Stossel's article "What Will They Ban Next?" where Stossel opines that citizens' eating habits should not be monitored by the government. Stossel says trans fat gives French fries "that texture I like" and since heart disease in America is declining, "So, if they're [trans fat] killing us, they're not doing a very good job." Booooo.…

Wall Street Journal Gets It Wrong on Hearing and iPods

Hey Wall Street Journal! I say boooooo to you and this worthless article on the "impending hearing health crisis." The title of the article ("Resolve to Turn Your Ipod Down") itself is rather silly, now that Ipods come with volume limits under the range of the levels that cause hearing loss. Plus, its not like earbuds or portable music is anything new: we've had the Walkman for years, and before that kids would just hold boom-boxes by their ears. Concerts have been around for ages, yet no one says "Resolve To Stop Attending Concerts." Boo. (Continued below the fold.............) The article…

Ill-informed science making a case for a liberal arts education

Last month, I wrote about the terrible botch journalists had made of an interesting paper in which tweaking regulatory sequences called enhancers transgenically caused subtle shifts in the facial morphology of mice. The problem in the reporting was that the journalists insisted on calling this a discovery of a function for junk DNA — the paper itself said no such thing, but somehow that became the dominant message of the popular press coverage. Strange. How did that happen? So Dan Graur wrote to the corresponding author to find out how the junk crept in. He found out. It's because the author…

Let Us Calculate!

The Ubuntu craze is sweeping SciencBlogs: href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2008/04/tech_note_ubuntu_linux_804_har.php">Aardvarchaeology, href="http://scienceblogs.com/thescian/2006/11/ubuntu_for_your_parents_uncles.php">Scientific Indian, href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/02/ubuntu_804_the_hardy_heron_is.php">Greg Laden, href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/03/yet_another_gentoo_defector.php">Corpus Callosum, even href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/the_ways_children_let_you_down.php">PZ's kid.   At SB, we strive for…

Socialized Medicine No Longer Pejorative

One of the darker chapters in the history of the title="American Medical Association">AMA is their historical opposition to universal, single-payer health care coverage.  The term socialized medicine came into use in the post-World-War-II period, in an attempt to falsely conflate such a health care plan with the menace of Communism.   Evidently, many people did not bother to discern the distinction between socialism and Communism; nor did they appreciate the fact that we have a mixed economy anyway.   I recall those days.  That is, I recall the days when the invocation of Communism…

A Little Consistency Check

This morning, or noon, or whatever, I read Jonah's post at The Frontal Cortex, href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/02/the_nfl_and_mental_illness.php">The NFL and Mental Illness.  It is a tragic story, but there is one thing about it that I want to comment upon, regarding the reported Adderall prescription. But first, a digression.  Reporters are expected to do at least a little fact-checking.  But in addition to checking facts, sometimes it is appropriate to check for consistency.  href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/sports/football/02concussions.html?ei=5090&en=…

Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease?

NEJM  has a very interesting article about the use of PET scans to differentiate between persons with normal cognitive function, those with mild cognitive dysfunction, and those with Alzheimer Disease (AD).  Unfortunately, you need a subscription to view the full article, but you can read the abstract for free, so I've taken the liberty of copying it here, then providing some plain-language commentary.  You also can read a more extensive review on href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549894">Medscape (free registration required). href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract…

Institutions, why they matter and how science and liberalism have strengthened them

I woke up, got the paper and then read this half baked OpEd by David Brooks, the world's most confused conservative. The thesis of his article: liberalism destroys institutions. Here's the opening paragraph: A few years ago, a faculty committee at Harvard produced a report on the purpose of education. "The aim of a liberal education" the report declared, "is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves." He then goes on to describe how important…

Science makes you good! (Sometimes.)

You've probably heard this explanation for the virtue of religion: that even if god doesn't exist, belief in god (or some other monitoring authority) makes people behave more morally. There have been many experiments that have actually shown that people are nicer or more generous when exposed to religious concepts, such as this one by Norenzayan and Shariff. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants…

Creationism is a marketing game

And they know it. Ken Ham has started a new billboard campaign for the creation "museum", with a variety of different designs, all featuring prehistoric* creatures as draws to get kids and family to attend. Here are some examples: Notice what's smart about them? They're focused, featuring an element that they clearly know is a key draw, dinosaurs; they're eye-catching; they're professionally designed and have thematic unity; and the Creation "Museum" knows that good marketing is a way to get people to come in to their propaganda mill. You know they invested a good chunk of money in this…

Dinner with the Transcription Crowd

Well last night I was invited to dine at Clio's with our Seminar Speaker, James Manley and some of the local transcription gurus, Kevin Struhl, Danesh Moazed, Steve Buratowski and Miriam Bucateli, a postdoc in the Buratowski lab. Unfortunately Dr. Manley had to leave early to catch a flight back to NY. But the rest of us had a nice conversation about that 70% of the genome being transcribed. (For past discussions click here and here). So all the transcription guys firmly believed that the whole bit about 70% of the genome being transcribed is true. In fact Kevin Struhl pointed out a review…

Limpets and Octopods, Civilization, Health Insurance, and the Loss of Common Sense

This is a tale of how a singular event can lead to two simultaneous outcomes, one absurd and one enlightening. Recently, I've needed to have a medical procedure to keep my body functioning. The first procedure over two years ago worked great till last fall. In December, I needed to have this procedure again. The enlightening part: Kevin was nice enough to send a copy of the Civilization and the Limpet by Martin Wells. Although aware of Well's research, I was wholly unaware of this book. I triumphantly finished it yesterday and am admittedly impressed. The book is unabashedly Mollusc…

After school experiment: avocado mayonnaise.

Given that today is Mole Day, it seemed only fair to follow up on our earlier experimentation with avocados. You may recall that, in discussing our efforts to dissolve avocados, we said: One further experiment we've decided to try at some future point is to investigate whether we can make mayonnaise substituting mashed avocado for some or all of the oil. That future point? Now a past point. Before I report the results from our kitchen, let's talk a little about mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is traditionally made up of oil, egg, and lemon juice (or something equivalent). You know oil and…

Donohue vs. Hawking

It's like Bambi vs. Godzilla, except no one would consider Donohue cute and innocent. In an interview, Hawking talked about gods: "What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible." When Sawyer asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said…

Incentivizing class attendance.

Over sushi last night, Julie and I had one of those "kids today!" discussions so common among people teaching college students. The locus of our old-fart incomprehension was the reluctance of a significant number of students to actually attend class meetings, even when not attending class meetings has disasterous (and entirely predictable) consequences. (For example, some significant number of Julie's students are now at the point where it is numerically impossible for them to pass the course, and this is strongly correlated with their absenteeism -- not their writing skills.) We didn't…

Five odd movies

Jerry Coyne has put together a list of his 20 most favorite movies, and invited us all to join in. I can't. I just don't believe in it. There is no such thing as a best movie, just movies that some of us like a lot. I also can't list 20, so you'll have to settle for an idiosyncratic 5 movies that aren't the best, but made me happy anyway. Zardoz : One of those movies where I just sat there with "Wait, what?" on an infinite loop in my head. Giant flying heads spewing guns, immortals and barbarians, Sean Connery in a diaper, Charlotte Rampling in nothing at all, Beethoven's Seventh, just…

What's the best way to excite kids about science (or at least not convince them it's boring or impossible)?

On the heels of my post wondering where the science is in elementary school, I'm interested in your sense of how things stand now and what, if anything, you think we should do about the situation. Draw on your experience as a former (or current) student, a parent, an educator (including educating future teachers), a working scientist, or whatever. The possibilities that have been raised so far seem to be: There is not now, and will not be any time soon, anything like a coherent and inspiring elementary school science curriculum because people who go into elementary education lack the…

Career pressures (working for the feds edition).

I'm working against a deadline today in the three-dimensional world, but the Union of Concerned Scientists has just released the results of a new survey of scientists working for the Food and Drug Administration, and I thought it was worth passing along. I'm never sure what to make of the proportion of the people who get a survey that actually respond to it; UCS sent this survey to almost 6000 FDA scientists and only about 1/6 of them responded. Will the statistics mavens pipe up to tell us whether (and how) this should influence our interpretations of the results? The UCS press release…

Movie review: Orphans of Apollo.

I've mentioned before that I grew up in a family that was fairly captivated by the U.S. space program, especially the Apollo program that brought humans to the Moon. But as impressive as those manned missions to the Moon were, what did the Apollo program accomplish? Where are our moon-bases? Orphans of Apollo, a documentary film by Michael Potter, explores what one group of space exploration enthusiasts did when NASA's commitment to the space age seemed to falter. By the mid-1970s, the Apollo program that put Americans on the moon was done, with two planned Apollo missions cancelled.…

How to live trap a mouse

Over the next few weeks, in the Northern Hemisphere, the mice will start moving in to your house. There are many strategies to manage this, and there are many factors in play (including exactly what sort of "mouse" is moving into your house). But many individuals will want to live trap the critters. If you do, please don't move them to a distant location. It is a bad idea to do that with any animals. Regardless of what you plan to do with the little furries once you've got them alive, you need to capture them first. Thus, the following timely repost: Sheril has asked for suggestion…

Birders Need to More Actively Embrace Evolution

People who watch birds identify them, and that process is integral to what makes birding interesting. But the best practices for identifying birds appear on the face of it to conflict with evolutionary concepts of birds, and this can lead to both sloppy thinking and missed opportunities People who watch birds identify them, and that process is integral to what makes birding interesting. But the best practices for identifying birds appear on the face of it to conflict with evolutionary concepts of birds, and this can lead to both sloppy thinking and missed opportunities. You need to know…

emacs for writers: org mode

After a little messing around with interesting emacs goodies, we might as well get right on to the good stuff. emacs uses a concept called "modes." You'll learn about that if you use emacs. For now, what you need to know is that there are "major modes" and "minor modes" and we're only interested in major modes at this moment. There are several major modes that make emacs highly useful for specific purposes, and some of those modes are designed with writing in mind, such as the text-mode the outline-mode and what is known as muse-mode. But writers really want to use org-mode and not much…

Stop it! Just stop it, Discovery Institute!

I really, really wish the Discovery Institute would stop putting out idiocy like this: We have blogged in the past about the growing numbers of doctors who are skeptical of Darwinian evolution to explain the complexity of life. Those numbers are continuing to grow, and conesquently doctors are beginning to organize themselves and reach out to others who hold similar positions. Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI) has for sometime had a website at www.doctorsdoubtingdarwin.com. Recently they have begun using the site to organize and promote conferences about Darwinian…

August Berkshire in the news

August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists gave a talk at Northwestern College, one of our regional evangelical Christian colleges, and the Star Tribune has a story about it. He gave the students a list of very poor religious rationalizations—it's a strange and interesting story, and a little sad, since the students don't seem to have learned anything at all. There are also peculiar little twists to everything that reflect how blinkered people can be. Berkshire was invited by the instructor in a theology class, and look how unaware this guy is: Johnson told the group that his association with…

The Wrong Way to Approach the Evolution-Creationism Debate

Amy Binder and John H. Evans, associate professors of Sociology at the University of California at San Diego, have written a piece on efforts to force religion in the guise of Intelligent Design and Creationism down the throats of children in Texas. a repost A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class. The proposal is a new round…

Putting Exodus into Words: The sed Bible Translation Project

So, a while ago, Ben Zvanwas talking about doing something with the Bible, which would involve processing the text through some filters and recompiling it. This sort of thing has always interested me: Not recompiling the bible, but rather, textual analysis in general using the basic material stripped of intended meaning by classifying and ordering arbitrarily. What, for example, is the vocabulary of the Rosetta stone, or the Kensington Rune Stone (a probable fake Viking misssive on display in west-central Minnesota). Does the rune stone sample the lexicon of a particular time period or…

I got totally screwed today, and here's a picture of it:

If you do not enjoy medical photographs, do not look below the fold. As some of you will recall, a couple of weeks into this knee-damage shtick, I was munching on a dried prune and a molar came clean off it's root on my lower left mandible. It turned out to be a crown that had lost its nail, as it were, and was deposed. Following this, there was a period of uncertainty and confusion which finally led to today, when Dr. Spanish, Amanda's family dentist, started the process of tooth implantation. The roots of this tooth were too far gone to allow a new crown, and the choices were between…

Hysterical Women and South LA Looters

Or should I say "Hysterical Woman OR South LA Looters" I spotted a video on Ed Brayton's site (Hillary Supporter Comes Unhinged showing a woman at the recent Rules Committee meeting being very hysterical about the outcome of that meeting. The money quote from her tirade is .throwing the election away...for what -- an inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president. (Video is below) Now, does anyone want to tell me what is wrong in this picture? No? OK, then, let me start. An hysterical woman is a woman who's ovaries have…

Is there a limit on the number of species in a clade?

A "radiation" (sometimes called an "adaptive radiation") is when a single ancestral species gives rise to a number of novel species, often in a fairly short (geological) period of time. Following this radiation event, it seems often to be the case that subsequent speciation is less common. In fact, many living clades that have only a small number of extant species have such radiations in their history. It is quite possible that the radiation event occurred for reasons local in time and space, such as a recent extinction leaving various niches open, or the presence of a particular…

A brief, diluted homeopathic interlude

I was out late last night due to the call of duty. By the time I got home, it was too late, and I was too beat to provide you with the heapin' helpin' of Insolence, Respectful or not-so-Respectful, that I usually do. Nor did I have time to draft a substantive reply to Dr. Zilberberg, who is in the comments and apparently very unhappy that I criticized her for her tendency towards dualism and her repeating various things that sound similar to some of the favorite gambits of the anti-vaccine movement. I had basically had the temerity to suggest to Dr. Zilberberg that, if she doesn't want to be…

The AP shoots and scores again

I never thought I'd see it, but I have. After an a decent article on the infiltration of quackademic medicine into American medical centers and a very good article on cancer quackery, Marilyn Marchione of the AP has done it again: AP IMPACT: $2.5B spent, no alternative med cures It almost seems as though Ms. Marchione is channeling Orac: BETHESDA, Md. -- Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do. Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo…

A battle won for free speech and science, but the war remains

I was wrong. I know it doesn't happen that often, but I'm forced to admit it. I was wrong. I predicted that Simon Singh would likely lose his appeal against an astonishing illiberal ruling on his libel case by Sir David Eady. Singh, as you may recall, is the British science writer who wrote a now infamous article about chiropractic, in particular, Singh labeled claims that chiropractic could treat colic, sleeping and feeding problems, ear infections, asthma, and prolonged crying as "bogus." Specifically, he wrote that the British Chiropractic Association "happily promotes bogus therapies."…

Latest celebrity drinking the Kool Aid of vaccine pseudoscience: Donald Trump

As if Jenny McCarthy weren't enough stupidity in pushing the alleged "link" between vaccines and autism, it looks as though Donald Trump has joined the fray on the side of pseudoscience: In an interview with Palm Beach Politics, Donald Trump offered a controversial opinion on a new topic: autism. The New York-Palm Beach real estate mogul is no doctor, but he said he thinks the rising prevalence of autism is related to vaccinations given to children at a young age. Autism now affects 1 in 150 children, a sharp increase from a few decades ago. But whether vaccinations have anything to do with…

Miranda Devine vs The Hockey Stick

According to this profile, Miranda Devine (last seen making stuff up in an attempt to debunk the Lancet study), once worked for the textile physics division of CSIRO. So she should know that one purpose of peer review is to weed out scientific papers that are inaccurate or where the conclusions are not properly supported by the evidence offered. She went on to write an opinion column where accuracy and supporting your claims are not important, so perhaps that explains why in her latest screed she seems to believe that peer review is a tool to silence dissent. Devine takes on the…

Link to me, or the Bible gets it!

Alright, people, I'm gonna get tough. You know what I want, and you'd better give it to me. I've got a bible here, and a 44oz. Diet Coke…lots of liquid containing a diuretic, to boot. In about an hour, I figure my bladder is going to be pretty full. You know what could happen. I don't need information from you, and I sure don't want your money. This is a weblog, and the currency here in these parts is the link, the trackback, the comment. Fork 'em over, or I'm taking this Bible down the hall. You know I'd do it. I'm a godless atheist—I don't think your Bible means doodley-squat. Intimidated…

Surprise! Surprise! Holocaust denier David Irving is trying to make a comeback

I knew it! I knew it was just a matter of time until arch-Holocaust denier David Irving emerged from whatever rock he's been hiding under ever since he was released after his prison term in Austria for having denied the Holocaust, decided he wanted to be in the limelight again. Back in December, I made a little bet about just how long it would take Irving to mount a comeback tour. I guessed weeks. I was wrong. I'll give Irving credit; he held out nine months before making a play for vindication: Ten months ago he was languishing in an Austrian jail, less than halfway through a three-year…

Send a message to Andrew Wakefield

Kevin Leitch informs me that DAN/ARI are asking people to leave a message for Andrew Wakefield. Yes, that Andrew Wakefield, the man who almost single-handedly started a scare over the MMR vaccine, the man who was paid by lawyers and was either so clueless, careless, and/or dishonest (take your pick) that the lab where he did his research where he "found" measles RNA sequences in the guts of autistic children didn't do even the most basic controls to eliminate false positives. Not surprisingly, essentially all the messages are nauseatingly supportive and full of praise. Here's a sample: Thank…

Les Roberts interview on Lancet Study

Democracy Now has an interview with Les Roberts. On the methodology: I just want to say that what we did, this cluster survey approach, is the standard way of measuring mortality in very poor countries where the government isn't very functional or in times of war. And when UNICEF goes out and measures mortality in any developing country, this is what they do. When the U.S. government went at the end of the war in Kosovo or went at the end of the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. government measured the death rate, this is how they did it. And most ironically, the U.S. government has been…