Search Content

Displaying results 8851 - 8900 of 87950

Friday Weird Sex Blogging - Corkscrewing

You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click: Today's lesson is on the reproductive anatomy of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica), which probably applies to the wild species in the pig family as well. Although we may reflexively think about invertebrates when pondering diversity of copulatory organs, mammals are not too bad in that department either. After all, the sperm is delivered in some species into the vagina (e.g., dog), in others into the cervix (e.g., pig) and in yet others into the uterus (e.g., horse), so different strategies are needed…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Multitasking Is No Problem, But Double Talk Overwhelms Us: We can listen to a car radio and drive while keeping an eye on changing traffic conditions -- separate complex tasks completed without much trouble. But if two people are talking to us at the same time, our perceptual frequencies get jammed. Tarantulas Produce Silk From Their Feet: Researchers have found for the first time that tarantulas can produce silk from their feet as well as their spinnerets, a discovery with profound implications for why spiders began to spin silk in the first place. Dinosaurs' Climate Shifted Too, Reports…

Turn your blog archives into a book (and sell it)

Some ideas from November 17, 2005: So, you've been writing a blog for quite some time now. You are proud of some of your work. You are particularly proud of some of your old stuff, now burried deep in the archives never to be seen again. Who reads archives, after all? You don't want to repeat yourself over and over again, and have never felt at ease with constantly linking back to your old posts (I never had such qualms). So, what can you do to make your old stuff more accessible and available? Well, now you can turn it into a book form - yup, the real, physical book - and sell it through…

OSHA Secrecy? Chemical Safety Board Secrecy?

The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward posted two items yesterday at Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog concerning records related to the August 2008 explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, WV that killed two workers  (previous posts here, here, here, here), and OSHA's and CSB's reticence in making certain records available to the public.  In OSHA Secrecy? Ward describes his attempt to obtain a copy of Bayer CropScience "notice of content."  This is the official communication sent to OSHA by the company indicating that they are challenging the OSHA citations.  The…

Lithgow mega-cat footage goes live

Those of you interested in the whole Australian mega-cats issue may recall my discussion of the Lithgow footage, filmed in 2001 by Gail Pound and her husband Wayne on their camcorder. I first saw the footage at a 2006 conference where it was shown and discussed by Australian cryptozoologist Paul Cropper... To remind you, here is what I said about the footage in that previous blog post... We start with a daytime shot of a perfectly normal grey domestic cat, sat on a shrub-covered hillside near a stand of trees. Then the camera pans to the right. From behind the trees slowly emerges a big…

Friday Weird Sex Blogging - Corkscrewing

You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006): Today's lesson is on the reproductive anatomy of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica), which probably applies to the wild species in the pig family as well. Although we may reflexively think about invertebrates when pondering diversity of copulatory organs, mammals are not too bad in that department either. After all, the sperm is delivered in some species into the vagina (e.g., dog), in others into the cervix (e.g., pig) and in yet others into the uterus (e.g., horse), so…

What's an office for?

You build a mine where the ore is. And facilities right next to the mine, to extract the metals from it. And a factory next to it that turns the raw metal into parts and objects. And a train station or a port next to it, so you can move the objects to the stores you built where the people are. And you also build a town where all your employees will live. That's how it's always been done. You cannot work the land, without living on it and getting your boots muddy. If you are hoarding something valuable, you need to hire night-guards who will actually show up at work. I understand, there…

Friday Weird Sex Blogging - Corkscrewing

You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006): Today's lesson is on the reproductive anatomy of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica), which probably applies to the wild species in the pig family as well. Although we may reflexively think about invertebrates when pondering diversity of copulatory organs, mammals are not too bad in that department either. After all, the sperm is delivered in some species into the vagina (e.g., dog), in others into the cervix (e.g., pig) and in yet others into the uterus (e.g., horse), so…

Friday Weird Sex Blogging - Corkscrewing

You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006): Today's lesson is on the reproductive anatomy of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica), which probably applies to the wild species in the pig family as well. Although we may reflexively think about invertebrates when pondering diversity of copulatory organs, mammals are not too bad in that department either. After all, the sperm is delivered in some species into the vagina (e.g., dog), in others into the cervix (e.g., pig) and in yet others into the uterus (e.g., horse), so…

October Pieces Of My Mind

From Current Archaeology #284: "The 'Great Hall' was entirely excavated in 2012, and represents one of the largest structures of its type". Cf. "Dr. Rundkvist belongs to one of the handsomest archaeologists in his generation." The reason that there are no Neanderthal sites in Sweden is apparently that the Romans never invaded the area. Guy two seats from me on plane was clearly very drunk and very afraid of flying. Complained loudly and moronically to his wife for entire hour-long flight. Sounded like mentally retarded 9-y-o. A character failing of mine is that when confronted with…

I get email

Oh, no! Neal's comments haven't been getting through, so he sent me a friendly email message to let me know. (By the way, the filters have been acting up in a horrible way lately — about 10% of the comments have been held up for moderation when they shouldn't, and it's irritating the heck out of me. I go in and approve broad swathes of arrested comments whenever I can, but it means sometimes your words get held up unnecessarily long.) Warning: you might find these comments inoffensive if you are a longshoreman or attended Catholic school. Otherwise, watch out. Some of you know Neal by…

The secret inner workings of PLoS ONE revealed

I have obtained a document that describes the secret, inner workings of the on line publication PLoS ONE. The document also exposes future plans for the enterprise. The link is below the fold. The link for the PDF of the document is here. Don't tell anyone where you got it. From the Abstract, which I have decoded for you: PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed Open Access academic journal published by the Public Library of Science, was founded in 2006 with the intent of reevaluating many of the aspects of the scholarly journal. As a result, PLoS ONE has taken elements of the traditional publishing…

2008: The Year in Ants

Another year passes.  The economy is in the toilet.  Violence spreads in the middle east.  In these trying times, one question must weigh on the minds of concerned citizens: "What's happening in world of ant science?" Of course.  Here are the myrmecological highlights of 2008: The Demise of the Standard Ant.  That is the title of a review by Juergen Heinze, but the idea that our basic conception of how ant colonies work is overly simplistic receives plenty of additional support from the research community.   For instance, Smith et al document the complexity of caste determination in…

Motor imagery enhances object recognition

THOUGHTS and actions are intimately linked, and the mere thought of an action is much like actually performing it. The brain prepares for an action by generating a motor simulation of it, praticising its execution of the movements by going through the motions invisibly. Seeing a manipulable object such as a tool, for example, automatically triggers a simulation of using it - a mental image of reaching out and grasping it with the hand that is nearest to the handle.   Motor simulations and movements are known to influence thought processes. Magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex influences…

The mirror movement mutation

MIRROR movements are involuntary movements that mimic, and occur simultaneously with, voluntary movements on the opposite side of the body. The movements are known to occur because of a failure in communication between the two sides of the nervous system. They are thought to be normal during infancy and early childhood, but usually diminish with age and disappear altogether by the age of 10, following maturation of the corpus callosum, the massive bundle of nerve fibres connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain. A large genetic study published online in the journal Science now…

Harvey Cushing photo journal

Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) is considered to be the father of modern neurological surgery. In the early part of the 20th century, he developed basic techniques and instruments for operating on the brain and, as a result, founded the discipline as a distinct surgical speciality. Before Cushing began his career, brain tumours were considered to be inoperable, and the mortality rate for any surgical procedure which involved opening the skull was around 90%. Early in his career, Cushing dramatically reduced the mortality rate for neurosurgery to less than 10%, and by the time of his retirement in…

Librarian Basics: The Reference Interview

This is the first in a series discussing things that librarians do.  Stephanie Willen Brown pointed me to this hilarious video from UT Arlington. Actually, the other librarian's reference interview isn't the model of perfection, either, but we'll talk about that. The purpose of a reference interview is for the librarian to understand the patron's information need - what information will be useful to them to resolve a problem or learn about something or whatever.  When done right, the patron can go from a sort of general unease (anomalous state of knowledge[1]) to information in hand/on…

New site for young women who love science

I sporadically get press releases from organizations trying to promote themselves to our readers. This time, I'm actually going to manage to post it in a timely fashion. The Feminist Press with IBM have just launched UnderTheMicroscope.com, a new site to involve young women in science and to encourage them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. The site is part of the Women Writing Science, a project initiated by The Feminist Press at the City University of New York and funded by the National Science Foundation. The site features personal stories of women scientists…

Weekend links: Lo! the Internetz awaketh

"Mechanical heart" Bill McConkey Collage of a digitally enhanced pencil drawing of the human heart and photographs of different brass instruments. Digital artwork. From the Wellcome Image Awards 2009 - see the other winners here. Last week was Open Access Week, which meant I got to hear a great talk from John Wilbanks of the Science Commons (you should subscribe to their blog!) I've been thinking a lot this week about the legal challenges of data sharing, which is giving me a headache. But there's an easier way to celebrate Open Access Week: by visiting the Guardian's a multimedia show about…

Serotonin Transporter Changes in Seasonal Affective Disorder

alt="ResearchBlogging.org" src="http://www.researchblogging.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" align="left" border="0" height="50" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="80">I have to admit, I retain some skepticism about the concept of href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/04/seasonal_affective_disorder_th_2.php">Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Research such as the topic of this post helps, though, to lend some credibility to the concept.   It is true that exposure to bright light therapy (BLT) can alleviate symptoms of SAD.  That alone would seem to verify the…

Every Man A Media Mogul!

Portfolio & Wired have a one-two punch on the future of broadband up. I've read that it takes 3-4 months for a salary increase to be "discounted" so that individuals move up the consumption ladder and no longer feel flush. With internet speed the latency seems far more attenuated; there's always a new application around the corner. The Portfolio piece notes: Spurred by a new wave of Skype-linked families, Hulu-watching flash mobs, and HD-video downloaders, global internet traffic is likely to quadruple by 2012. That's an internet 75 times larger than it was just five years ago. It will…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Cellular Feng Shui?

Balance. It's what the woo-meisters who believe in "Feng Shui" tell us that it will bring to those who use its principles to arrange the objects in their life, be they furniture, homes, the design of buildings, or even the layouts of whole cities. Indeed, Feng Shui tells us that the way we arrange objects in our environment, choose a place to live, or even choose burial plots can allow us to achieve "harmony" with our environment. Obviously, this is true in a trivial sense. If your house is full of crap piled everywhere in seemingly random distributions, it is going to have a negative impact…

A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology

If you read only one book this holiday season, make it all of the following twenty or so! But seriously ... I'd like to do something today that I've been meaning to do, quite literally, for years. I want to run down a selection of readings that would provide any inquisitive person with a solid grounding in Behavioral Biological theory. At the very outset you need to know that this is not about Evolutionary Psychology. Evolutionary Psychology is something different. I'll explain some other time what the differences are. For now, we are only speaking of fairly traditional Darwinian…

Report illustrates worrisome trend of painkiller abuse among injured workers

by Kim Krisberg Researchers studying workers’ compensation claims have found that almost one in 12 injured workers who begin using opioids were still using the prescription drugs three to six months later. It's a trend that, not surprisingly, can lead to addiction, increased disability and more work loss – but few doctors are acting to prevent it, explains a new report from the Massachusetts-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI). Report researchers looked at longer-term opioid use in 21 states and how often doctors followed recommended treatment guidelines for monitoring…

Statins and Pulmonary Mortality

[Update: Retired Doc's Thoughts has a more complete review of the varied potential benefits from statins.] This morning, Effect Measure href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007/04/the_statin_story_continues_to.php">posted about a retrospective study that indicates that there may be a protective effect if statins are taken by persons with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.)  In also appeared that statins lowered the risk of death from pneumonia.   This is a so-called pleiotropic effect, meaning that the drug has an effect other than that which is originally intended…

Restored copyright? Querulous comments on early Hitchcock

A couple of days ago, on Walt, Even Randomer, I posted a set of desultory reviews of the fourth and final DVD of Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins. Sidebar: One eccentric feature of this blog used to be the "treadmill movie reviews," brief reviews of movies from Mill Creek Entertainment's multidisc packs viewed while I was exercising. I've reviewed a little more than 300 movies over several years. In moving to this more august site, I left the reviews behind and am not posting new ones here; that's one of few things still being posted on Walt, Even Randomer. The treadmill's gone as well--…

Some Labor Day Thoughts from MLK

In one of his last speeches before Martin Luther King was murdered, he spoke to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. It seems appropriate for the day: My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and enthusiastic numbers... If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you're commanding…

Not Quite Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Menorah (With Apologies to Wallace Stevens)

Note: Tonight is the sixth night of Chanukah, the night we remember Judith hacking off Holofernes' head by eating cheese (yes, there is a reasoning behind that strange statement), and I really had planned to write a post about that. But it is also Isaiah's sixth birthday and deep in the grading nightmare for the husband and the night before we get up at 4am to butcher the turkeys (and if anyone is looking for a free-range, heritage turkey for the holidays in the greater Albany/Schenectady area, email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com) and I'm just not feeling innovative. So here's an old piece…

Bruce Levenson's Racism In Broader Context: We need to be smarter.

Donald Sterling appears to be a hard core racist, and this, appropriately, got him in trouble. Recently, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson released an email he had written some time back, which discusses race related issues vis-a-vis the Hawks, and announced that he was bowing out of ownership from the team because of this racist email. The media reaction to this has been fairly uniform, and includes an aspect that I think should be examined more closely. Bruce Levenson, and his statement, have been placed in the same category as Donald Sterling and his statements. But they should not be.…

Linux Ease of Use: Designing The Ultimate Grandmother-Ready Computer

When it comes to ease of use, there is no difference between a computer with Windows and a computer with Linux, assuming both systems are installed properly. That there is a meaningful difference is a myth perpetuated by Windows fanboys or individuals who have outdated experience with Linux. Also, the comparison that is often being made is unfair: One's experience with a computer purchased as Best Buy or supplied at work, with OEM Windows already installed (see below) is being compared with a self-install of Linux onto an about to be discarded computer. When something "breaks" the two…

Another Bad Metric Error: Wages vs. Labor Costs

It's just been a week for metric errors. Via Media Matters comes an impressive list of stories in the media about the automobile companies financial problems, where they cite labor costs as a major issue. So far, so good. But in virtually every story about this, you'll find a statement along the lines of: "union workers make $71 an hour in wages plus benefits". In many cases, they even go so far as to specifically compare that figure as wages to other companies. For example, this quote, from a conservative talking head: "When you're paying $73.73 an hour to those people with salary and…

Books I'd like to read

Another list of books for your reading and collection development pleasure. Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities by Richard A. DeMillo When academics get together to talk about the future, they talk mainly to each other, but the American system of higher education has many more stakeholders than that. Over the course of months, the intended audience for what was now clearly becoming a book manuscript shifted noticeably from my academic colleagues to a more general readership--parents, students, taxpayers, elected officials, employers, decision makers at all levels…

The Magical Effects of Vinegar: A feature by Festival Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Joe Schwarcz Ph.D

In 218 B.C. the Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants to settle a score with Rome. The perilous journey almost came to an end when his army approached what looked like an impenetrable rock fall. But Hannibal, an ingenious leader, had a trick up his sleeve. Or at least, some vinegar in his pot. As the Roman historian Livy recounts, the general had his men heat up the vinegar and pour it over the rocks, causing them to crumble. And here the story crumbles. Scale deposits in a kettle may certainly crumble when immersed in hot vinegar, but that is a long way from…

Books: Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma

Amanda just reviewed Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma and also recently wrote a post on the same topic while under the influence of the book. I agree with her 100%, so go and read both posts. I have read the book a couple of months ago and never found time to write a review of my own. I also remember that I finished the book on a Thursday afternoon - an important piece of information as it is on Thursday afternoons that there is a Farmers' Market here in Southern Village, barely a block from me. The first thing I did when I closed the book was to walk up to the Farmers' Market…

Current Events, Insurance, and Womenâs Health

The recent economic downturn has left more people worried about losing their jobs, and for the 54% of our population relying on employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), losing a job also means losing health insurance. Some of those who lose ESI will be able to pay their full premiums, including the share formerly handled by their employers, and extend their coverage for up to 18 months under COBRA. (According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual premium in 2008 for is $4,704 for individuals and $12,680 for families â not easy amounts to come up with if your paychecks have stopped.)…

Are low wages an occupational health hazard? Two public health researchers say 'yes'

Low wages certainly impact a person’s health, from where people live to what they eat to how often they can visit a doctor. And low and stagnant wages certainly contribute to poverty, which is a known risk factor for poor health and premature mortality. But should low wages be considered an occupational health hazard? Health economist J. Paul Leigh thinks that they should. In an article published in May in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), Leigh, a professor of health economics at the University of California-Davis, and Roberto De Vogli, a global health professor…

Books on Atheism Raising Hackles?

On a recent trip to the local Barnes and Noble, I noticed a remarkable thing. On the main kiosk, the place where the Stephen King and John Grisham books are located, there were two prominently placed volumes that caught my eye. One was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, the other was God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor Stenger. I live in Western Virginia. These are not the sort of books you would expect to be popular here. Yet the folks at B&N, who I have no doubt are motivated solely by their desire to sell books and not by any particular political or religious bias, placed them…

Acid and a prepared mind: a guest post from Coracle

To coincide with the Nature Science Blogging 2008 conference this weekend in London, we present this guest post from Coracle, the away-from-the-bench scientist who writes the Science and Progress blog. I've long been a fan of Science and Progress and Coracle shares my love of natural products pharmacology and skeptical eye for alternative medicine. If you're in London and see Coracle at the conference, please buy him a pint and send me the bill. "Last Friday, April 16th, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon, being affected with a…

And now the Senate steps up to the plate

It's not a home run by any stretch of the imagination, but the Senate's counterpart to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill (a.k.a. ACES) that the House narrowly passed earlier this year at least gets global warming onto first base. There's bad and good in the awkwardly titled Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, of course, and it still won't get us anywhere the kind of greehouse gas emissions levels than even the conservative climatologists say are necessary. The differences between the bills are worth exploring. The sections that most pique my curiosity are devoted to emissions…

Are Day-traders gaming Fast-track approval at the FDA?

An investigative report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at the FDA Fast Track. For those who don't know, the FDA Fast Track was created to accelerate the drug approval process for drugs targeted at under-treated diseases. Yet there is a bit of debate about whether Fast Track drugs are approved more quickly or are more likely to be approved than other drugs. However, this report suggests that news that a drug has been Fast Tracked has created buying frenzies on Wall Street that have made people a lot of money: Overall, since 1998, Fast Track announcements for nearly 200 drug treatments…

Low carb, high protein diet found to increase mortality

Not good news for people who think low carbs is the answer. A recently published study has shown an increase in mortality associated with low-carb/high-protein diets. Studies looking at the comparative effectiveness of different diets have shown that basically all diets are equivalent. (Equivalently bad, that is. All the diets tested produced moderate declines in weight, but adherence was low.) However, no real studies have examined what the mortality benefits or hazards might be associated with the low-carb/high-protein diets that are currently de rigeur. Trichopoulou et al.,…

In Which Time and Energy Turn Out To Be Finite

The theme for August's Scientiae is transitions. All month long I thought I would write something about the transition that was forced on me some time ago, to which I am still not quite adapted: from happy participant in the paid workforce to migraineur on disability. But as it happens, I've got other things on my mind. The major transition in my life this past year has been helping my mother move from the house she lived in all her life to an assisted living facility. It's not just been a transition for her; it's affected the whole family. The very notion of a stable "home place" has…

The Big Climate News

Well, folks, Andy Revkin has done it again. Previously I have written about how Revkin has basically broken every major story about abuses of climate science, and climate scientists, by the Bush administration. And I must say, it's quite a litany of abuses. That's why I'm glad that so many bloggers (here, here, and here) have realized that Revkin's latest story provides yet another point of evidence of the "Republican War on Science." The meme is spreading, my friends. In any case, the latest news reported by Revkin--about more attempts to silence NASA climate expert Jim Hansen--reveals an…

Why didn't Darwin discover Mendelian genetics first?

image by Mike Rosulek buy merchandise here to benefit NCSE It's a classic question: if Charles Darwin had known about Gregor Mendel's genetic research, would Darwin have realized it was the missing piece he needed to explain how individual variation was inherited and selected? Was it simply bad luck that Darwin never stumbled on the right experiments? Or was Darwin so constrained by his own perspective on inheritance that he couldn't have seen the importance of Mendel's work, even if he had known about it? Jonathan Howard has written an intriguing overview of this question. He argues that…

An anti-vaccine activist destroys my irony meter...

While I'm having a bit of fun with the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism, I notice that its Boy Wonder Jake Crosby, the one-trick pony whose trick is playing "six degrees of separation" in order to try to link anyone who supports the science of vaccines with big pharma, the CDC, the FDA, or any other company or regulatory agency he doesn't like, has a new post up at AoA. In it he complains about being kicked out of a conference, the Research Ethics Book Group Lunch and Book Signing at the annual Advancing Ethical Research Conference held by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (…

Planning for the Harvest:Time Management for the Chronically Overworked

This year will be interesting - we anticipate adding two or three more people to our household (and maybe more - we're gently looking for a housemate or two once things settle down with the foster kids). In past years I've mostly been able to keep up with the "every year the kids get bigger and eat more" growth needs, but this ups the ante in several ways - besides adding more mouths to feed, we anticipate that the first few months we'll be pretty focused on the kids, with less time for garden and preservation than usual. I could let some of it go - just accept that this year less will be…

Anatomy of a Press Release

Joel Achenbach of the Achenblog at the Washington Post is worried about science press releases: Eight is Enough: Achenblog Question Scientific Authority The latter is about our press release on a paper that came out in Science last friday. Here is the original primary press release on EurekAlert.org. To get some sense over the degree of "control" the scientists have over press releases, note that the press release spells my name incorrectly, and provides an incorrect institutional affiliation! That is just for perspective. I've been involved in a number of press releases, some of which have…

Birds in the News 108

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter A brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, relaxes on a people-watching and photography trip at the Port Aransas Birding Center, Texas. Image: Scott Lewis [MUCH larger view]. Birds in Science A £200,000 study into what happens when people hear birdsong is taking off. Researchers at Aberdeen University in Great Britain will spend two years listening to birds to find out how their songs, calls and cries become a part of people's lives. "Listening to birds: an anthropological approach to bird sounds" has received…

Yet another dubious breast cancer cure testimonial

[NOTE: Please be sure to read the addendum!] I hate cancer quackery. I know, I know, regular readers probably figured that out by now, and even new readers rarely take more than a couple of weeks to figure it out. That's because cancer quackery is a frequent topic on this blog. One of the most powerful tools of persuasion that cancer quacks employ in promoting their quackery is something I call the cancer cure testimonial. Basically, a cancer cure testimonial is a story of a patient using alternative medicine and "curing" himself of cancer. Such testimonials come from both practitioners and…

Google, Verizon, and the Demise of Net Neutrality

So much for that "Don't Be Evil" Google bullshit: Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege. This issue has been quite the rage in the lefty and righty blogosphere for the simple reason that most grassroots organizations won't be able to afford the high-price superhighway, but, instead, be stuck on the slow road to oblivion. I've never thought the opposition to net neutrality is political in…