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Phylogeny Friday - 2 June 2006

I wrote about the possibility of gene trees and species trees giving conflicting information in a previous Phylogeny Friday. In that example, the discordance was due to balancing selection maintaining multiple alleles across species boundaries. But can incongruities between genetic data and species history arise via entirely neutral processes? The answer is implied in the setup, but check out some of the details below the fold. Humans and chimpanzees share HLA alleles that have been maintained by selection. These loci are far from ideal for constructing evolutionary relationships between…

Friday Peer Reviewed Cat Blogging

A paper just out in Genomics presents a very thorough study of cat genetics. Cat as is in kitty cat. The findings are expected, yet surprising in a few areas. The conclusion the authors draw about cat origins is very weak, in my view, but the information this study provides about cat breed genetics is excellent and will be of value to cats around the world. Wild cats (Felis silvestris) are or were found in a roughly continuous distribution across much of Africa (not restricted only to savannas, as is often stated), the Middle East, and Europe, and possibly disjunct in Southeast Asia (…

Academic uncovers Holy Grail of palaeontology

According to this press release from Manchester.. Palaeontologist Dr Phil Manning, working with National Geographic Channel has uncovered the Holy Grail of palaeontology in the United States: a partially intact dino mummy. Named Dakota, this 67-million-year-old dinosaur is one of the most important dinosaur discoveries in recent times - calling into question our conception of dinosaurs' body shape, skin preservation and movement. The find is documented in the UK premiere of Dino Autopsy on Sunday 9 December at 9pm on National Geographic Channel. The special follows leading palaeontologists in…

King Tut Goes Home

Remember this? That was from the time of the first big Tut tour. Well, Steve Martin's silly rendition was not part of the tour, but one of the many fine cultural sidebars. This is not a cultural sidebar resulting from The Treasures of Tutankhamun: That comes from the observation of people trying to not fall down while walking on the ferry. Someone thought they looked like the figures in Ancient Egyptian paintings. It's all fairly culturally insensitive yet demonstrative of talent and highly entertaining for most people. I've not decided if making fun of Ancient Egyptians is OK or…

Tuberculosis Detected in Bones from 9 kya Israeli Neolithic Site

A team of archaeologists working offshore from Haifa, Israel in the Mediterranean has discovered both direct and indirect evidence of human tuberculosis. This is important because, if confirmed, the TB cases date to 3,000 years earlier than expected: The disease should not be in skeletons this old. Also, this research seems to indicate that Tuberculosis did not originally arise in cattle to be later transmitted to humans, but rather, the other way around. A Repost The site is called Alit-Yam, and it is a 9,000 year old Pre-Pottery Neolithic village. This site is about two or three…

Raw milk---another spectacularly bad idea

I've never understood food fads. Michael Pollan's maxim, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants," has always seemed like reasonable, practical advice. Maybe it's a disease of plenty---we have so much food, we have to find new ways to conceptualize it. Unless you live in an inner city, you can go to any market and find large quantities of foodstuffs, both healthy and unhealthy. Food in this country is cheap and plentiful and, for the most part, safe. Self-"regulated" industrialized production has contributed to problems with bacterial contamination of meats and produce, but food- and…

PETM, Volcanoes, and #18 in 25 Things You Should Know

Approximately 55 million years ago it was very bad to be a deep-sea animal. First the ocean temperature was rising. At the surface, temperatures rose anywhere from 5-10 degrees and in the deep around 5 degrees. The chemistry of the water also changed significantly. Oxygen became depleted. The ocean became more acidic. Global currents were altered such that deep-water upwelled in the Northern Hemisphere instead of the Southern for ~100,000 years. This event is used to mark the end of the Paleocene and the start of the Eocene and thus the event is called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal…

25 Things You Should Know About the Deep Sea: #17 Vent May Be the Womb of Life

#17!  The question posed by a reader was just too good not to include the series.  What's the current take on a deep-sea origin of life? I just finished reading Genesis by Robert Hazen where he discusses some of the hypothesis' pros and cons and how there is something of a divide between the "ventists" and the "Millerites" and was wondering if deep-sea scientists naturally fell into the "ventist" camp. First some background, in Origin of Life Circles you can either be a Ventist or Millerite. Millerites are disciples of Stanley Miller, who created an early earth analog in the…

Battling Rainbows! John Keats vs. James Thomson Poetry Smackdown

Richard Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow: Science Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder is on my active reading docket. The book has been around for a while (published in 1998), but it's proving to be a most enjoyable discovery as I continue to read it. So far, I concur with complete reviews' take on the book. It is a marvelous paean to the majesty and artistry of science. Dawkins' sense of wonder very much resonates with my own - that feeling of transcendence when I look at light shining through green leaves or the transformations of calculations that are revealed as a colorful abstract…

"If you don't understand your rights, you're going to get rolled"

Judge John E. Jones III, the presiding judge in the case that kicked ID out of classrooms, came to the University of Kansas to take part on the Difficult Dialogues at The Commons, a series of lectures that is bringing some big names for big discussions. Jones set as a precondition of his visit that he wouldn't discuss the contents of his ruling nor the process of the trial. His ruling is comprehensive, and he clearly doesn't think there's much to add. He instead wants to take advantage of his fame to clarify how judges do their work. As he noted, a lot of the commentary, whether before,…

What is Arnold made of?

Of course I am talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger. After looking at how many bullets he carries in Commando, I remembered this scene (also from Commando) (warning: maybe some not great language and some killing. You have been warned) If you don't want to watch that clip, here is a shot (sorry for the quality). Clearly Arnold is strong, but there is more than strength involved here. Oh, don't bring your "he did it with wire stuff". I am not buying that. Also, I am talking about THE Arnold - he is real. I am not talking about the character in the movie (not real). Now for some physics…

Apolo Ohno's Slime Jump

Here is a quick Apolo Ohno quiz. Which one of these pictures is fake? If you picked picture B - you are probably correct. That is a picture of "Apolo" being catapulted into a pool of slime at the Nickelodeon awards show (click on the link to see the video - I don't think I can embed it). Ok - time to crank out an analysis. I think I could approach this analysis from a couple of directions. Since all I have is a crappy version of the video, I could just look at "could this be possible"? The other analysis I could do would be to measure his acceleration in free fall. Let me start with…

Gillian McKeith does not have a Ph.D.

So don't call her Dr McKeith. She hasn't earned it. Also, it irks her something fierce when you question her title. If you're an American, you have something you can take real pride in: you've probably never heard of Gillian McKeith. I hadn't. Apparently, she's a prominent woo-peddler in the UK, with her face and various encomiums plastered on magic chlorophyll pills and dong-distenders and ingredients for superfoods that will make your hair grow and your liver do backflips. She also writes popular books that make outrageously silly claims about medicine and science. She also claims to have a…

There really is a war on science

FDA Admits Politics Trumped Science on Knee Device: For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has publicly admitted that politics has trumped science. The agency acknowledged yesterday that it approved a device to help with knee-replacement surgeriesâa device the agencyâs own scientists said often failedâonly after it received pressure from a cohort of Democratic congressmen from New Jersey, where the deviceâs manufacturer is located. The $3000 device was known as the Menaflex, a âcollagen scaffoldâ that supported a damaged meniscus in the knee. It failed its initial reviews…

Friday Random Ten, August 14

Peter Hamill, "The Unconscious Life": A track from an amazing live performance. In general, I'm not a big fan of live recordings - you really need to be there for a live performance. There's a dynamic between the performer and the audience in live music, and in a recording, you're listening to it from the outside - so you can feel that there's something missing. This recording has an intensity, an intimacy, which is extraordinary. And it's a great song, too. Valley of the Giants, "Whaling Tale": Valley of the Giants has taken its place as my favorite post-rock band - surpassing…

Induction, deduction and abduction....

Evolgen says: Let's focus on two things: the hypothetical deductive method and essential information that you must know to be able to read the science section of a newspaper. Hm. Amen. Sort of. Scientists in many fields needed to be straight-jacketed into the "hypothetico-deductive" model for a reason. I remember a phylogeneticist telling a group of us why the hypothetico-deductive method was crucial in his own work, before his time taxonomists would get into arguments where they would justify their opinion about systematic relationships with an operational "Cuz I said so!" Testing…

The Rage of the Obama Haters Will Get Out of Control

From Fayetteville, NC: Someone slashed the tires of at least 30 vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum on Sunday during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, authorities said. Sheriff's deputies are investigating. The tires were cut while people were inside the Crown Coliseum listening to speeches, said Maj. E. Wright of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. Many of the damaged vehicles were parked on Wilkes Road. Representatives from Obama and Sen. John McCain's campaigns said they were unaware of the acts. Susan Lagana, the North Carolina communications director…

Clough: Good News for the Smithsonian

The NY Times has a good article about G. Wayne Clough, the new chancellor of the Smithsonian. Clough is definitely a breath of fresh air after former chancellor Lawrence Small who never met an extravagance he wouldn't make the Smithsonian pay for. First, Clough is setting an example of good conduct: The Smithsonian's museum directors must now have their travel approved by an undersecretary of the institution, Dr. Clough said. Every new executive must undergo a thorough background check, and ethics is a regular topic of discussion among the Smithsonian's management. Dr. Clough's own travel…

Skylar Tibbits on Design

Below, Skylar Tibbits responds to the question: The boundaries of science are continually expanding as scientists become increasingly integral to finding solutions for larger social issues, such as poverty, conflict, financial crises, etc. On what specific issue/problem do you feel we need to bring the scientific lens to bear? The scientific lens should be expanded to include investment, not in terms of economics, rather investment in design, pure experimentation and higher order computation as an opportunity for social/political problem solving. As the instability of our financial…

Best Science Books 2011: Brain Pickings

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2011 lists are here. This post includes the following: Brain Pickings The 11 Best Science Books of 2011. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss The Physics Book:…

Hi, Jack Picknell!

Mr Picknell, at jackaroni1229@yahoo.com, had a little question for me. From: jackaroni1229@yahoo.com Subject: Eye for Eye Date: September 22, 2008 5:27:42 PM CDT To: pzmyers@gmail.com Delivered-To: pzmyers@gmail.com Received: by 10.140.171.8 with SMTP id t8cs330611rve; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:27:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.67.101.17 with SMTP id d17mr4232561ugm.40.1222122464643; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:27:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web63204.mail.re1.yahoo.com (web63204.mail.re1.yahoo.com [69.147.97.14]) by mx.google.com with SMTP id 24si12582441ugf.0.2008.09.22.15.27.42; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:27:…

Best Science Books 2010: Amazon.com Editors' Picks

It has begun. The annual year's best science books posting orgy! Every year for the past 4 or 5 years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best books" lists that appear in various media outlets and highlighting the science books that are mentioned. From the beginning it's been a pretty popular service so I'm happy to continue it. For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or…

Welcome to ScienceBlogs

Dear Visitor, 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. Science is driving our global conversation unlike ever before. From climate change to intelligent design, HIV/AIDS to stem cells, science education to space exploration, science is figuring prominently in our discussions of politics, religion, philosophy, business and the arts. New insights and discoveries in neuroscience, theoretical physics and genetics are revolutionizing our understanding of…

Women Who Changed the World Through Science: Stephanie Kwolek

PLEASE SHARE IF YOU ARE INSPIRED BY THIS STORY! (Send us your opinion today: Think of the various ways you can combine your hobbies and other interests into a  possible career in science! Stephanie merged her love of chemistry with her penchant for textiles and fabrics -- resulting in a life-saving invention!  Tell us what you think about that!) The next time you ride in a car, cross a suspension bridge, or wear a safety helmet or see a bullet-proof vest, think of chemist Stephanie Kwolek.  Her scientific achievements are perfect examples of how chemistry plays a vital role each day in…

Role Models in Science & Engineering Achievement: Shu Chien -- Internationally-known bioengineer, Life-saving researcher in the study of how blood flow and pressure affect blood vessels

"Even though he is a world-renowned scientist -- including being the recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Science (the highest honor that the U.S. can bestow upon a researcher) -- Shu Chien is also known for mentoring a generation of high school, undergraduate and graduate students research, which speaks volumes about his dedication to science.  He is also respected for his willingness to collaborate with colleagues across science and academic disciplines to solve research problems.  Born in Beijing, China, Shu grew up in Shanghai and was a pre-med student at National Peking…

Life Science and Physical Science Weekly Channel Highlights

In this post: the large versions of the Life Science and Physical Science channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Life Science. From Flickr, by Artiii Physical Science. Ice crystals on a frozen window. From Flickr, by *clairity* Reader comments of the week: On the Life Science channel, Bora of A Blog Around The Clock is excited to hear about Okapi in NC! The North Carolina Zoological Park will soon add the African animal, a cousin of the giraffe, to its grounds. Reader brtkrbzhnv, however, has eyes only for one type of animal: Well, yeah, okapis are…

Environment and Humanities Weekly Channel Highlights

In this post: the large versions of the Environment and Humanities & Social Science channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Environment. A saguaro cactus in the Arizona desert. From Flickr, by .Larry Page Humanities & Social Science. Checking out the surf at Fort Point, California. From Flickr, by Dawn Endico Reader comments of the week: In Do We Need Leatherback Turtles?, Sheril Kirshenbaum responds to a question posed by Andy Revkin in the New York Times about the urgency of protecting the severely endangered species. Why should we be so worried…

Vain Young Men, Insecure Young Women? Blame Age Segregation.

A Psychology Today article linked from today's edition of Arts & Letters Daily,entitled "The Loopy Logic of Love," discusses the mental tricks that lovers play when evaluating a potential mate. The article's author, Kaja Perina, writes that men and women in the first flower of a relationship delude themselves in typically gender-specific ways. Men overestimate a woman's degree of interest in them, while women defensively assume that men are just looking for sex (even more than is actually the case, that is). In the most interesting part of the article, Perina suggests that our society's…

Inside the Career of the Man Who Gave Us 'The Inner Life of a Cell'

For David Bolinsky - the co-creator, with his talented team, of the highly-acclaimed computer animated science film, The Inner Life of a Cell - the plunge into the wonders of medical animation began at age four when he went to see the movie Fantasia. From that moment, he was hooked. "That did it for me," says David. "From that minute on I wanted to be an animator." Now a widely-known medical illustrator and animator, David has devoted his career, and his artistic gift, to displaying complex medical concepts in a fresh, clear light. The son of a sculptor and art history professor, David…

Personal genomics and rat poison

Warfarin, a commonly used anti-clotting drug, sold under the brand name of Coumadin, has a been a poster child for the promise of pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine. The excitement has come from the idea that knowing a patient's genotype, in this case for the VKORC1 and CYP2C9 genes, would allow physicians to tailor the dose of the drug and get patients the correct dose more quickly. And it seems obvious that a test that would allow doctors to predict your ability to metabolize warfarin, would be a great thing, right? Figure 1. Human Cytochrome P450 Cyp2c9 bound to Warfarin…

China's scandalous behavior

After saying yesterday morning that China has not shared any of its human viral isolates, along comes an Associated Press report that two isolates were just sent and will shortly arrive at a WHO reference lab in the US. I'd love to say this demonstrates the power of Effect Measure, but . . . Anyway: The sample updates of the H5N1 virus from China's Health Ministry are awaiting customs clearance, said Joanna Brent, a spokeswoman for WHO's Beijing office. They include specimens from a 2006 case in Xinjiang in China's far west, and a case in the southern province of Fujian in 2007, Brent said. (…

Segregating urine

Too much nutrient in wastewater can lead to serious water pollution. The nutrients act as food for micro-organisms and algae who use up dissolved oxygen in the water when they metabolize them. When oxygen levels go too low -- when the stream or river or pond "goes anaerobic" -- new micro-organisms predominate, ones that don't use oxygen as their final electron acceptor but use other oxidizing agents. Many use sulfur compounds, and when these become reduced by the transferred electrons they produce hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg odor. Hydrogen sulfide not only smells bad. It is quite toxic.…

The smell of death

If you are attracted to leaving your body to science but still want to be buried au naturel, now you can have it both ways. Just bequeath yourself to the Anthropological Research Facility at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. There you can quietly decompose on their peaceful three acre facility, where perforated pipes from you buried corpse bring up the gasses produced as microorganisms busily break down your complex molecules to smaller ones. The idea is to discover what dead bodies smell like: It's not a pleasant smell," Vass said. "You never get used to it." It takes about 17 days…

When your computer crashes you

No swine flu again today. At least no swine flu on this blog. There's a shit house full of swine flu in the world. But we are otherwise occupied and there is a bevy of terrific flu bloggers out there. And I was away from the keyboard all day yesterday, which causes serious withdrawal symptoms: anxiety and palpitations when I think of the email piling up and the posts not written. It could be worse. I could be around my computer and seriously injured: According to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, more than 78,000 cases of acute computer-related injuries…

Puffer fish: your last meal?

Puffer fish are notorious. Considerable delicacy in Japan (a taste adopted by some non-Japanese Foodies), they come with a side of risk: some puffer fish have the potent lethal toxins tetrodotoxin and/or saxitoxin, neurotoxins more than 1000 times the lethal potency of cyanide: Symptoms start within 20 minutes to 2 hours after eating the toxic fish. Initial symptoms include tingling of the lips and mouth, followed by dizziness, tingling in the extremities, problems with speaking, balance, muscle weakness and paralysis, vomiting, and diarrhea. In severe intoxications, death can result from…

Holidays: officially over

I have just returned from my last long drive of the season, finally and regretfully shuttling the last beloved member of the Myers clan off to the distant Minneapolis transportation hub. Now, at last, I can relax, shed of my patriarchal obligations (speaking of which, the hair is getting a bit long and wild, and the beard is looking a bit ferocious…I may have to do something to tame them). I've also feeling the fatigue of waging the war on Christmas — my trigger finger is all calloused, and the recoil bruises on my shoulder would make you weep to see them — so it's nice to have a little…

What I hear when creationists speak

I like it. This is a perfect analogy to creationist argument. The theory of childhood, also known as child origin, is a damnable, loathsome and indefensible lie. How can any thinking person suppose all humans used to be babies once? There is no development path from babies to adults, no transitional forms between these two species. Show me even one baby with the head of a grown man on his body. Can you? No? Not even a bearded toddler? No adults with unfused skullbones, outside unfortunate disorders? Not even a tiny little newborn girl suddenly sprouting a respectable bosom? You can't find…

paying for research

there is a curious result in behavioural economics, which shows that paying people to do what they like to do, sometimes provides a disincentive for them to do it, and people correspondingly lower their effort to do the task. The example I recently came across, from the 7 Rules of Behavioural Economics, or some such, was that if you pay people to have their friends for dinner, they entertain less. But, enough about the decline of intradepartmental socialization... The reason I thought of this, is that yesterday we congratulated a colleague on a nice result, and another colleague asked some…

Occupational Health News Roundup

We've been following the story ( see here, here, and here) of the National Guard troops who were exposed to the carcinogen hexavalent chromium at the Qarmat Ali water plant in Iraq - which contracting giant KBR was tasked with rebuilding. National Guard soldiers from four states were stationed there; many of them suffered nosebleeds and other nasal problems while at the water plant in 2003, and have continued to suffer from respiratory problems and other chronic illnesses since returning home. Three have died of cancer. British soldiers and employees of KBR and the Iraqi Oil Company have…

Occupational Health News Roundup

High Country News investigated worker deaths in dairy operations in Western states, and found that at least 18 people died between 2003 and 2009. (See their list of injuries and deaths for details.) Rebecca Claren explains: They were killed in tractor accidents, suffocated by falling hay bales, crushed by charging cows and bulls and asphyxiated by gases from manure lagoons and corn silage. Others survived but lost limbs or received concussions and spent days in the hospital. However, it's difficult to form an accurate picture of the dangers lurking in dairies because the data are incomplete.…

EPA Official Tries to Make Dow Clean Up Dioxin, Gets Forced Out

The Chicago Tribune has just reported that Mary Gade, the Bush administrationâs top environmental regulator in the Midwest, has been forced to quit her job after months of efforts to get Dow Chemicals to clean up dioxin contamination around its Michigan headquarters. The Tribuneâs Michael Hawthorne explains: Gade, a former corporate attorney appointed by Bush in September 2006, invoked emergency powers last year to force Dow to clean up four hot spots of dioxin, including the largest amount of the cancer-causing chemical ever recorded in the United States. In January, Dow urged officials at…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Discarded computers, mobile phones, and TVs from consumers in developed countries often wind up in developing world, where workers â some of them children â disassemble the electronic waste to extract metal and other valuable materials. Usually working without any kind of protective equipment, theyâre exposed to lead, mercury, cadmium, flame retardants, and other toxic substances. Areas like Guiyu, China (one of the most infamous dumping sites for e-waste) become horribly polluted and contaminated. A growing awareness of e-waste problems has spurred efforts to make electronics recycling safer…

HUD Moves Quickly on Stimulus Allocation

A week after President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has allocated $10 billion of its funding. The agencyâs press release explains why the speed was possible: The funding announced today is primarily formula-based, meaning that it is allocated using set program criteria that do not require grantees to apply for the funds, allowing them to be allocated very quickly. Three-quarters of HUDâs stimulus money has already been allocated using this set program criteria; the remaining quarter will be competitively awarded for projects that…

Devra Davis Takes Aim at the War on Cancer

Somehow, I missed Devra Davisâ powerful essay Off Target in the War on Cancer which appeared in the Washington Post last week. Davis, a well known environmental epidemiologist, is the author of the just published The Secret History of the War on Cancer. In the Post essay, she makes a very convincing case that there is much we can do to reduce cancer risk. While we donât know all the answers, from a regulatory point-of-view its better to be safe than sorry: Consider the icon of American cancer, the cyclist Lance Armstrong. He's hardly alone as an inspiring younger survivor. Of the 10 million…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Flight crews from the UK and Australia are warning that engine-oil fumes can contaminate cabin air in certain types of planes. The BBC reports that after two incidents this year in which flight crews experienced problems with fumes, some flight crew members from the Exeter-based Flybe airline are refusing to work on the companyâs British Aerospace 146 fleet (which is generally used on domestic flights). Employees also reported two incidents on Qantas flights (on a 747 and 767); Matthew Benns from the Sydney Morning Herald explains: The problem stems from a cost-cutting design in jet aircraft…

Even sleazier than the DI

Climate change denialists have something in common with evolution denialists: they have a list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares," just like the Discovery Institute's list of hundreds of 'scientists' who "Dissent from Darwinism". There is a difference, though: the DI got it's list by asking crackpots and specialists in irrelevant disciplines to volunteer to sign on, so it is a real (but silly) list that exposes the existence of a tiny minority of loons within science. The Heartland Institute, a think-tank for right-wing denialists, isn't even that…

Berkeley Tree Sitters Come Down

It's been an exciting day here at UC Berkeley. Four helicopters have been buzzing the office since about 8 AM, because the UC decided to erect a scaffold around the lone tree left in order to extricate the tree sitters. I got to watch about 12:00 today. There were probably 400 observers for the final hour, where workers assembled the scaffold and started to pick apart the encampment near the peak of the tree. Apparently the remaining four tree sitters negotiated with UC officials, and came down voluntarily, which is good, because the risk to personal safety was very high. If the tree…

TB? Hold Your Breath

By David Michaels How to not stop the spread of drug resistant tuberculosis? Give health care workers and first responders respirators that donât fit correctly. It is hard to believe, but the House of Representatives will very soon (perhaps later today) be voting on an amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill that would prohibit OSHA from fully enforcing its respiratory protection standard to protect health care workers and first responders from tuberculosis. It would exempt tuberculosis exposures from the requirement for an annual fit test to make sure the respirator fits and…

Crops for a Warming Climate

While Indiaâs population has been growing, its rice harvests have been declining. Two of the culprits, reports the BBC (citing a study from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), are particulate and greenhouse-gas pollution. South Asia suffers from a particularly nasty âbrown cloudâ â layers of pollution containing soot and other fine particles. The brown clouds reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the crops, and polluted haze can also reduce rainfall. Researchers found that rice yields would have been higher under lower concentrations of greenhouse gases. The BBC also…

Lysorophians and aïstopods

At some stage, I'll have to write full-length articles on lysorophians, aïstopods, the remaining temnospondyls, nectrideans, microsaurs, and assorted other groups of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic non-amniote tetrapods. Alas, this hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, here are some slides from one of my talks... Lysorophians are peculiar, long-bodied lepospondyls from the Carboniferous and Permian, best known for Brachydectes. They had strongly reduced limbs and limb girdles and elongate skulls, typically with a strongly emarginated cheek region. Trace fossils suggest that some species were…