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Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: religious liberty, Bush style

I've said before I quite like Christmas as a secular holiday. I might be an atheist, but I like the sense of generosity, the urging (albeit with commercial motives) to do something nice for those we care about and those we don't know, the emphasis on Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards All. Too bad we can't do that more than just at Christmas. Unfortunately, this is not what I had in mind: Imagine if the religious right's beloved "war on Christmas" was a year-round affair. Legions of lawyers ready to pounce on school and civic administrators, the persistent neon buzz of ACLU-paranoia in the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Teens Who Do Use Condoms Often Don't Use Them Properly: A worrying number of young people who do use condoms don't use them correctly, so risking unwanted pregnancy or infections, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. But a good relationship with their mothers seemed to be associated with correct condom use, the research showed. Paleontologist Discovers South American Mammal Fossils: Fossils of a new hoofed mammal that resembles a cross between a dog and a hare which once roamed the Andes Mountains in southern Bolivia around 13 million years…

Spiders and Bycicles

Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much as I enjoyed writing it: This week's theme for the Tar Heel Tavern is bicycle. I was wondering what to write about. Perhaps about crazy bicycle rides I had as a kid. Or a fun riff on "fish needing a bicycle". Then, I was saved! Because, today is the Bicycle Day! That's just great, because I can go on a scientific tangent with a local flavor. If you do not know what Bicycle Day is,…

Pandemic prep teachable moment

For years those concerned about the consequences of an influenza pandemic from an exceptionally virulent flu virus, like A/H5N1 ("bird flu") have despaired about motivating business, government and neighbors to take it seriously enough to make serious preparations. It's understandable. There's are a lot of potential catastrophes competing for our attention and while each can be made plausible if we can get someone to listen long enough, it's rare we can do this. As I said, too much competition. Now that a real life influenza pandemic has arrived, the concern of some is that the public isn't…

Swine flu: Saturday 6 pm EST

There may not have been much news at the CDC briefing, but it is coming thick and fast now. The CDC works through state health departments and defers to them on information about what is going on in their localities. Hence all questions about this were deflected at the 1 pm CDC briefing. I think I understand the thinking behind this but it doesn't serve the goal of getting the information out there quickly. CDC needs to be the information clearing house for all the swine flu news going on around the country and they need to do with absolute transparency. Here's what has developed since that…

Obama, JFK and the sixties

Does the Obama candidacy signal a return of "the sixties"? It's possible. What does that mean? Even those us who were there remember the sixties imperfectly. Not because we were permanently stoned. Memory is selective. We remember it as better than it was. We were young, and that makes a difference.Yet, as tristero observes over at Digby's place, the sixties were not just a time of flowering creativity and the securing of new freedoms, but also a terrible, difficult and dark time for anyone who had any political awareness. The run-up to the sixties was in fact much like the last few years.…

Important new flu paper in Cell: part II

In our previous post we set the stage for discussing the results of a significant new paper by Imai et al. and colleagues on the mechanism of lung damage from diverse pathogens, including SARS, bird flu H5N1, 1918 H1N1 flu, inhalational anthrax and Monkeypox. If this work is verified it is a major step forward in our understanding of how the devastating consequences of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and Acute Lung Injury (ALI) come about and may well provide clues about how to treat what is still an essentially untreatable and catastrophic medical condition. There are two main…

Dead ducks, live ducks and bird flu [updated]

Hard on the heels of my semi-facetious prediction that bird flu would return to Germany because Germany had declared itself bird flu free, the Swiss announced an infected wild duck on the shores of Lake Sempach. Since this duck didn't have a passport on him I am sure he never strayed over the nearby border with Germany. We don't know what kind of duck this was [see update, below], a question that is of surprising interest in light of a new paper. Bird flu is avian influenza, i.e., an infection of birds by the influenza virus. The role of wild migratory birds versus human caused movement of…

The biodefense lab iceberg

OJ Simpson is back in the news, following hard on the heels of other celebrities in legal entanglements: Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Martha Stewart, etc., etc. Yawn. Were they treated more harshly beacuse they were celebrities? Yawn. The other side of the coin, of course, is the privilege of the famous and powerful. We know they often get off when lesser mortals wouldn't. So what does that have to do with what we usually talk about here, public health, infectious disease, bird flu, research? This. Yesterday we brought you the latest in an ongoing series of posts about accidents in…

Don't want to be vaccinated for swine flu? Fine. We'll give yours away.

In early September swine flu was just ramping up in the US and there was no vaccine. CDC envisaged adequate vaccine supplies by end of October but in reality this was too optimistic. For a period of weeks, the news was full of stories of long lines at vaccine clinics and the frustration of worried parents who were anxious about the health of their children in a pandemic where children seemed to be most at risk. The flu struck in North America first, but eventually made its way to over 200 countries on every continent, some of them desperately poor. They didn't have to worry about too much…

Bats and fungus

The caves in the Dordogne department in southwest France are most famous for paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux (the Dordogne is also famous for the being the home of microdot, whose blog The Brain Police is one of my daily reads). Now it has yet another claim to fame: the discovery of the first bat outside of the northeastern United States with White Nose Syndrome (WNS) Fungus (Geomyces destructans): Biologists are struggling to understand a recent emerging infectious disease, white-nose syndrome (WNS), which potentially threatens >20% of all mammalian diversity (bats). WNS is a deadly…

Karl Giberson strikes back!

Perhaps you remember Karl — I ripped into an interview he did a while back. Well, "ripped into" is probably the wrong phrase — I pointed out several things I thought were quite good, and then tore up his sectarian defense of Christianity, his blind obeisance before the Christian bible, and his mangling of what other scientists have said about religion. It must have rankled — he now gripes that "Myers doesn't seem to like me" and has slapped together a nice bit of hackwork that is the lead story on Salon. And clumsy hatchet job it is. Here's his opening: PZ Myers is a true believer, a science…

The Future - And Present - of Maternal and Infant Health Care.

One of our families favorite things to do is check out old cemetaries - my kids love to read gravestones and talk about the stories that came behind them. I love cemetaries - I find them comforting in an odd way, although I'm not fully sure I can explain why, and I'm glad that my children have the same passion for historical records and also the same pleasure in knowing something about lives before ours. Walking in old graveyards is also always a reminder of how fortunate I am. Most graveyards have a "children's" section, or family stones record the brief and incredibly short lives of…

Of Course Nature is Out of Control - Duh!

I knew I could count on my fellow Science Blogger Dr. Klemetti for a good take on the physical reality of the Chilean Earthquake, so I checked in this morning, only to see him, quite property, take the MSM to task for inane rhetoric, notably an MSNBC headline that reads "Is Nature Out of Control?" Klemetti rightly observes that this is bad science. He points out: Earthquakes happen, and they happen in a random distribution (more or less), meaning sometimes we get more, sometimes less. Spend any time looking at the USGS earthquake feed and you'll see sometimes we have lots of M3+ earthquakes…

Radio reminder

Shortly, Atheists Talk radio will be on the air with a conversation with Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They'll be discussing the upcoming national convention in Chicago. The show will air at 9 AM Sunday, Minneapolis time. Since all you foreigners always complain about my quaint temporal provincialism, here's a guide to the broadcast time that will help you out. Nothing will satisfy you guys. All right, I've replaced the original short list with this much longer list: Honolulu Sun 4:00 AM     Sao Paulo Sun 11:00 AM     Addis Ababa Sun 5:00 PM Anchorage Sun 6:…

BP's "Systemic Safety Problem"

Although most of us are focusing on BP because of the oil rig explosion and gushing well in the Gulf, it's also important to consider the company's safety record at its refineries. Because I keep track of workplace disasters, I knew that BP had earned the distinction of having the worst refinery death toll in the industry. Until I read the results of a new Center for Public Integrity investigation, though, I had no idea just how much worse BP's refineries are compared to their industry peers. Jim Morris and MB Pell report that when the worst safety violations identified by inspectors over the…

Obama, JFK and the sixties

by revere (originally posted at Effect Measure) Does the Obama candidacy signal a return of "the sixties"? It's possible. What does that mean? Even those us who were there remember the sixties imperfectly. Not because we were permanently stoned. Memory is selective. We remember it as better than it was. We were young, and that makes a difference.Yet, as tristero observes over at Digby's place, the sixties were not just a time of flowering creativity and the securing of new freedoms, but also a terrible, difficult and dark time for anyone who had any political awareness. The run-up to the…

And another thing about OSHA's overdue crane rule

After my post yesterday "More Delays on OSHA's Overdue Crane Rule,"  I thought more about why OSHA's decision to extend the comment period really perturbs me.   Some might say "we're in the middle of the Bush-to-Obama Transition.  It's not like an additional 45 days will make that much difference."  Here's why it does make a difference: If OSHA had stuck to its original Dec 8 due date for public comments, the work reviewing and reconciling the public input would now be underway.   Over the next six weeks before Mr. Obama is sworn in, the OSHA staff could have assembled a list…

Congratulations to Occupational Health & Safety Awardees

At the APHA meeting yesterday, the APHAâs Occupational Health & Safety Section held its annual awards luncheon â and the list of honorees included names that are familiar to many Pump Handle readers. Our own Celeste Monforton won the Lorin Kerr Award, which ârecognizes a younger activist for their sustained and outstanding efforts and dedication to improving the lives of workers.â (Lorin Kerr was a physician and lifelong activist dedicated to improving access to healthcare for coal miners and other workers and to obtaining compensation for and preventing black lung disease.) Celesteâs…

Beneath the Polish in the Beauty Industry

In an article in the 10/8 issue of The Nation, Virginia Sole-Smith reports that many U.S. nail salon workers are concerned about the health effects of the products they use â but gaps in research and regulatory agency responsibilities make it hard for the workers to protect themselves.  The vast majority of the U.S.âs 380,000 nail technicians are women, and their average annual salary is less than $17,000; about 40 percent are Vietnamese immigrants who earn as little as $50 for an eight- to ten-hour day, Sole-Smith reports. Theyâre exposed to a lot of chemicals on the job: In fact, the…

Skeptics' Circle 102 at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes

Please check out this week's skeptics' circle at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes. Of note, I liked Dr Austs' post on the human toll of HIV/AIDS denialism, it is stirring. I also found the Skeptic's field guide particularly interesting. I would have two suggestions. One would be to prioritize by frequency of use or rhetorical appeal rather than alphabetical, and second would be to include a section on conspiracy (like the ones the Lay Scientist and Dubito Ergo Sum describe in this issue ), which I believe is the hallmark of all denialist arguments. If you need a non-parsimonious conspiracy…

Terrorism denialism

I was reading two articles on disparate subjects and found them oddly linked in my mind. The first former terrorist Bill Ayers' explanation of why he didn't respond when Obama was smeared by association and the second P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker writing for the WaPo about the escalation in recent years of animal rights terrorism. What struck me about both these articles is the interesting divide between how terrorists justify their behaviors and diminish their objectives of striking fear into their opponents, and the reality of what the subjects of such acts perceive. Conn and…

Who smokes?

In this space, we have explored some real conspiracies, using as an example the tobacco companies' war on truth. Smoking, and smoking-related disease, continues to be a significant burden on the health of Americans. For example, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects between 10-25 million Americans. This disabling illness, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, is horrifying to watch, and worse to experience. Smoking is also one of the strongest risks for heart disease which kills over half-a-million Americans yearly. But it seems that smoking is on the decline…

Suck it DI

PLoS has an intriguing article providing additional reasons why the thermodynamic arguments against evolution are more than silly. It's called the maximum entropy production (MEP) hypothesis, and John Whitfield describes why life is actually may be favored by the second law of thermodynamics. At first glance, life and the laws of thermodynamics seem to be at loggerheads. Most glaringly, the second law states that over time, any system will tend to the maximum level of entropy, meaning the minimum level of order and useful energy. Open a bottle of perfume in a closed room, and eventually the…

Temple Grandin is wrong on vaccines and autism

Temple Grandin is undoubtedly one of the most famous women with autism of our time. Trained in animal science, Dr. Grandin is a widely read author and noted speaker on autism. April is National Autism Awareness Month, and Dr. Grandin has a new book out, "The Autistic Brain." Together, this must have seemed like a good time for the New York Times to interview her. Unfortunately, the interview is superficial and not very illuminating, and what Dr. Grandin does say is disappointing. Her take on vaccines and autism, which apparently is elaborated upon in her new book: Q: In your new book, “The…

Still Irked at MSHA's Response to Families

by Celeste Monforton  Yesterday in "MSHA Spokesman Parrots Bob Murray," I wrote about MSHA's rejection of a request by the families of the six trapped Crandall Canyon miners to have the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) serve as the miners' representative during MSHA's investigation of the disaster.  As usual for me, about two hours after hitting the "print post" button, I realized I should have said this and I should have said that.  Oh the glories of blogging!  Here's what came to me after hitting the "print post" button: I was irked by MSHA's spokesman Dirk Fillpot saying the …

You Say Troposphere, I Say Stratosphere

by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz Mr. Milkey (for the State of Massachusetts): Respectfully, Your Honor. It is not the stratosphere. Itâs the troposphere. Justice Scalia: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before Iâm not a scientist. (Laughter) Justice Scalia: Thatâs why I donât want to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth. [PDF of arguments here] We all know that our children lack basic understanding of science and how it works. The dearth of math and science majors in our universities and the huge percentage of kids who know little or nothing about evolutionary theory are…

Welcome to the new folks!

Lots of changes here at Scienceblogs today. The editors of Seed magazine give the lowdown at Stochastic: Welcome to the new ScienceBlogs! Beginning today, you'll notice a newly designed homepage (built from your feedback) at scienceblogs.com and the addition of 25 new blogs to our network. *** We believe in providing our bloggers with the freedom to exercise their own editorial and creative instincts. We do not edit their work and we do not tell them what to write about. We have selected our 40+ bloggers based on their originality, insight, talent, and dedication and how we think they would…

Bownessie the Lake Windermere monster is captured on film, and how we rejoice!

It seems wrong not to talk, at least briefly, about the latest lake monster picture that's doing the rounds. It's a poor-quality mobile phone photo of a humped object, taken in England's Lake Windermere by Tom Pickles while he was kayaking as part of a team-building exercise. Here it is... (or, rather, here is the uncropped image... read on)... Pickles described the object as "a giant dark brown snake with humps measuring three car lengths", and regarded it as somewhat seal-like in skin texture but with a "completely abnormal" shape. Apparently, it moved rapidly, with an undulating motion.…

Why I hate Darwin's beard

My recent brief mention of Thomas Huxley (in connection with the Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: A Historical Perspective volume) reminded me to look anew at this Tet Zoo ver 1 post from 2006... Here's a little known fact. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), the most important biologist of all time, did not spend his entire life as an old man. I despise stereotypes, especially those that are totally erroneous, and whenever I see a picture of 'old man Darwin' I wonder: why is it that so many of our most important scientists are consistently portrayed as old men? Don't get me wrong, I…

Return of the Bible Code Bozos

Remember back in the end of june, when I [talked about these insane bozos][code] who were [predicting that a nuclear bomb would be blown up in the UN plaza?][firsttime] And they were on their fourth prediction about when this would happen? And how each time they blew it, [they came up with an excuse for why they were wrong?][update] I thought it would be fun to take a look back at them, and see what they're up to six weeks later. Naturally, [they're still at it.][bozos] They've updated their prediction 5 more times now. But there are a couple of really amusing things about what they're up to…

The Disgrace of Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day, and I feel compelled to say something about it. We're in the middle of a horrible and pointless war. A war that we started, based on a bunch of lies. Since we did this, we have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and thousands of American soldiers. And we did it for no reason. As the situation has grown progressively worse, and more and more people have been maimed and killed, we've heard an endless drumbeat from Bush supporters: me must support the troops! I support American soldiers. As the son of a WW2 veteran, I grew up with a lot of…

The Yaounde Zoo mystery ape and the status of the Kooloo-Kamba

We've had reason now and again to mention the unusual ape photographed at Yaounde Zoo (in Cameroon) a few times. I finally got round to digging out and scanning the only photo of the animal I've seen: it was taken by Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby and first appeared in the November 1996 issue of the Newsletter of the Internal Primate Protection League (IPPL). It was later published in issue 100 of Fortean Times. Jenkins and Gadsby thought that the animal might be a gorilla-chimp hybrid. I can't help but get this impression too, mostly because the eyes look gorilla-like while the rest of the…

New and Exciting in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine

The Implications of Multiple Circadian Clock Origins: In the Beginning... Genetics has had an awesome impact on our understanding of basic processes like circadian rhythms, which were mysterious before the incredibly successful marriage between genetics and recombinant DNA technology about 30 years ago. Subsequent to the pioneering work of Konopka and Benzer [1], genetic screens and DNA sequencing in multiple systems (including but not limited to humans, mice, Drosophila, Neurospora, plants, and cyanobacteria) identified many circadian genes as well as their protein sequences. Coupled with…

The Science Blog Meme

The meme started here, so if you decide to do it yourself, please post a link to that as well (so your post can be tracked). A number of people have already posted their responses - some quite thought-provoking - so take your time to read them and reflect. Then write your own. See responses by: Eva Amsen Henry Gee Clare Dudman Steffi Suhr Stephen Curry Martin Fenner Massimo Pinto Larry Moran Kristi Vogel Maxine Clarke T. Ryan Gregory Mike Haubrich John Wilkins Paulo Nuin Heather Etchevers Lee Turnpenny Ricardo Vidal Bob O'Hara Andrew Perry Pedro Beltrao Shirley Wu Deepak Singh Thomas…

Spiders and Bycicles

Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much as I enjoyed writing it: This week's theme for the Tar Heel Tavern is bicycle. I was wondering what to write about. Perhaps about crazy bicycle rides I had as a kid. Or a fun riff on "fish needing a bicycle". Then, I was saved! Because, today is the Bicycle Day! That's just great, because I can go on a scientific tangent with a local flavor. If you do not know what Bicycle Day is,…

Werner Arber: Molecular Darwinism

This talk has me a little concerned: it's proposing something rather radical, for which Arber is going to have to show me some unambiguous evidence to convince me, and I'm coming into it with a very skeptical mindset. Here's the relevant portion of his abstract: The theory of molecular evolution that we also call "Molecular Darwinism" is based on the acquired knowledge on genetic variation. In genetic variation, products of evolution genes are involved as variation generators and/or as modulators of the rates of genetic variation. These evolution gene products act together with several non-…

Vertebral variation, Hox genes, development, and cancer

First, a tiny bit of quantitative morphological data you can find in just about any comparative anatomy text: mammal number of vertebrae cervical thoracic lumbar sacral caudal horse 7 18 6 5 15-21 cow 7 13 6 5 18-20 sheep 7 13 6-7 4 16-18 pig 7 14-15 6-7 4 20-23 dog 7 13 7 3 20-23 human 7 12 5 5 3-4 The number of thoracic vertebrae varies quite a bit, from 9 in a species of whale to 25 in sloths. The numbers of lumbar, sacral, and more caudal vertebrae also show considerable variation. At the same time, there is a surprising amount of invariance in the number of cervical…

Open Laboratory 2010 - submissions so far

The Submission form is here so you can get started. Under the fold are entries so far, as well as buttons and the bookmarklet. The instructions for submitting are here. ============================ A Blog Around The Clock: What does it mean that a nation is 'Unscientific'? A Blog Around The Clock: My latest scientific paper: Extended Laying Interval of Ultimate Eggs of the Eastern Bluebird A Blog Around The Clock: Evolutionary Medicine: Does reindeer have a circadian stop-watch instead of a clock? A Meandering Scholar: Back to basics: The Evolution of a Postdoc Anna's Bones: The Ape That…

Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion

After paging through a typical field guide to the birds of North America, most people become intimidated by the many hundreds of bird species that are pictured. When one considers the myriad different plumages for juvenile, immature and adult birds, males versus females, and seasonal plumage differences, the possibilities increase into the thousands. Suddenly, a pleasant and relaxing morning spent identifying a few birds becomes stressful, daunting, impossible. In fact, faced with such a task, it is easier to give up before even getting started. This is where Pete Dunne's Essential Field…

Mothership Question #8: Good Science Teaching?

Question: What makes a good science teacher? It took me forever to answer this question, mostly because I don't know the magic formula that makes a good science teacher, but I finally came up with a useful answer. Well, I think. I think that a good science teacher has the same qualities that any good teacher has. I have had many more terrible teachers than good ones, so I will begin by telling you about the qualities of those teachers whom I hated, and then I will tell you a little bit about the best high school teacher I ever had. I hated (science) teachers who; made me feel stupid (…

Royal Society statement regarding Professor Michael Reiss

Michael Reiss has resigned from his position as the director of education of the Royal Society. Some of Professor Michael Reiss's recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society's Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the Society's reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education a part time post he held on secondment. He is to return, full time, to…

Conserving Tropical Forest Birds: Even A Little Help is Beneficial

tags: conservation, rainforest, Costa Rica, birds Cagan Sekercioglu of the Center for Conservation Biology used a radio antenna to monitor bird positions in the agricultural countryside at Las Cruces Biological Station in Costa Rica. Image: Scott Loarie We all know the common wisdom; coffee grown on open plantations in Costa Rica is bad for the native tropical forest birds' long-term survival. But a new study shows that this situation is more complex than originally thought. According to this study, by Cagan Sekercioglu, senior scientist at the Stanford University Center for Conservation…

African Diaries: Sketches & Observations

tags: African Diaries: Sketches and Observations, nature, wildlife, field research, Africa, David G. Derrick, book review I love art, birds and travel, and because Africa has such a huge variety of exotic wildlife that I've only ever seen in zoos and aviaries, it is high on my list of places to visit. Recently, David G. Derrick, Jr., the author of a new book that combines art and African wildlife into an unusual diary format, asked if I would like to read and review his new book, African Diaries: Sketches & Observations (self-published, 2008). This slim paperback is an unusual travel…

Gastric bypass surgery and the importance of long follow-up times

At the New York Times Well blog, Anahad O'Connor writes about a new study, published in the journal Obesity Surgery, is a caution against recent optimism about gastric bypass surgery's ability to combat Type 2 diabetes. David E. Arterburn and his coauthors conducted a retrospective cohort study of 4,434 adults with Type 2 diabetes who underwent gastric bypass surgery between 1995 and 2008. Within five years after surgery, 68.2% of the subjects experienced "an initial complete diabetes remission" -- but then 35.1% of those "remitters" redeveloped diabetes within another five years. The study…

In wake of Chevron Richmond fire, California aims to improve refinery safety

Four years ago, in August 2012, a corroded pipe at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California ruptured, resulting in a catastrophic fire and a toxic vapor plume that engulfed, not only the refinery, but also spread over the northeastern San Francisco Bay area. Nineteen Chevron employees were caught up in the vapor cloud and one was trapped by a fireball. Remarkably, all survived. In the next several days, some 15,000 people in communities surrounding the refinery sought medical attention for symptoms related to smoke exposure. According to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, among the reported…

Farmworker advocates ask EPA to ban widely used, highly toxic pesticide

“If you’re a farmworker, you’re still using something that’s been deemed too dangerous to use in homes,” said Amy Liebman, Migrant Clinicians Network director of environmental and occupational health. What she’s talking about is the pesticide chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic, organophosphate insecticide that’s used widely on food crops. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned it for residential use in 2000 due to concerns about its toxicity, particularly to children. But it is still heavily used on numerous food crops. Chlorpyrifos also is one of the five pesticides most often…

They do everything

By way of Over My Med Body, I found this article that finds new virtues for seafood: it reduces anti-social behavior. This is great news! I plan to announce when I'm feeling cranky here at the Myers household, which will prompt an immediate serving of tasty salmon. I'm going to be eating fish every day! Well, maybe not…I'm really not that cranky. But it is yet another piece touting the virtues of polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially the essential ω-3 fatty acids in which sea food is rich, so it reinforces my preferences, anyway. Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids do have a record of…

Workplace suicide rates highest among workers in the protective services, researchers find

Workplace suicides took a sharp upward turn in 2008, with workers in the protective services, such as police officers and firefighters, at greatest risk, a new study finds. Researchers say the findings point to the workplace as a prime location for reaching those at risk with potentially life-saving information and help. According to the study, which was published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 1,719 people died by suicide in U.S. workplaces between 2003 and 2010, with an overall rate of 1.5 per 1 million workers. Workplace suicide rates had been on the decrease,…

Child and adolescent farmworkers report serious safety gaps on the job, new study finds

With agriculture ranked one of the most dangerous industries in the country, many Americans might be surprised to know that it’s still perfectly legal for farms to officially employ children. For years, advocates have been working to address this gaping loophole in the nation’s child labor laws, often citing children’s increased vulnerability to workplace-related injury, illness and exploitation. A new study confirms those concerns, underscoring the need to better protect the children and youth working in American fields. Published in the February issue of the American Journal of Public…