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Some Helpful Advice for Boston Tourists

Even though it's nearing the end of the tourist season, I was inspired by a letter to Boston's Weekly Dig, and thought some advice for out-of-town visitors would be helpful. First, the letter: Dear Slack-jawed Touristas, While we appreciate the dollars that you pump into our Menino-pillaged coffers, being from East Bumfuck, Iowa, is no excuse for the complete lack of common sense and/or courtesy that you and your fellow bus-cattle exhibit as you continually add yet more obstacles to our ceaseless urban rat race. Here's a few helpful hints. Step away from the center of the thoroughfare while…

Let the Presidential Election Be About Being President...

I often always have many unpublished posts in my cue, so I was going to let my response to Katha Pollitt's Nation column about the sexism behind a lot of the Senator Clinton bashing slide by, but then I read Amanda's post about Pollitt's column. Onto what Pollitt wrote (italics mine): The more people insist that sexism plays no part in the primary campaign or its media coverage, the more likely I am to vote for Hillary Clinton and I'll bet I'm not the only one. Her poll numbers with women are rising, after all. I think a lot of women are just fed up to here with the sexism they see around…

"The Vapidity of the Whole Meme Thing"

Over at Uncertain Principles, Chad writes: He [Dawkins] rubs me the wrong way when he talks about science (I wish I could find the old post somebody on ScienceBlogs did about the vapidity of the whole "meme" thing), and really gets up my nose when he talks about religion. I don't know if he's referring to my critique of the meme concept, but I figured it gives me an excuse to resurrect this post about memes from the old site: I've mentioned in several posts that I can't stand the word meme. I suppose it's time I explain myself. (You can find several definitions of the word meme here). It…

'Faith-Based' Religious Discrimination and the Failures of Conservatives and Modern Conservatism

While there's been a lot of discussion about David Kuo's book Tempting Faith, the wee lil' Mad Biologist seems to be the only one who has viewed the intentional rejection of proposals from non-Christian religious organizations as religious discrimination ('no Jews need apply'). This discrimination is why funding faith-based organizations based on their religiosity and not on what they would to do advance the interest of the Republic is so odious. At a personal level, it represents the failure of individual conservatives: certain people thought it was appropriate to discriminate against…

Teaching Multiplication: Is it repeated addition?

I've been getting peppered with requests to comment on a recent argument that's been going on about math education, particularly with respect to multiplication. We've got a fairly prominent guy named Keith Devlin ranting that "multiplication is not repeated addition". I've been getting mail from both sides of this - from people who basically say "This guy's an idiot - of course it's repeated addition", and from people who say "Look how stupid these people are that they don't understand that multiplication isn't repeated addition". In general, I'm mostly inclined to agree with him, with some…

Sizzle: A Review of the latest from Randy Olsen

Back in May, we here at ScienceBlogs got an offer to get an advance screener copy of Randy Olson's new movie, "Sizzle", if we promised to review it. I hadn't seen any of Olson's movies before, but I've been involved in a few discussions with him as part of the Great Framing Wars, and while I frequently disagree with him, he seemed to be a bright and interesting guy, so I was interesting in seeing what he's been working on. So I signed up for the review, telling the people from the production company that I'd review it from the viewpoint of a mathy guy - expecting that it was really a…

Why Do We Fetishize Budget Deficits and Not Trade Deficits?

Before I get into the meat of the post, if, after reading this, you end up obsessing over trade deficits too, then I've failed (just wanted to make that clear). But imagining what the possible consequences of placing the trade deficit über alles would be demonstrates why the current budget deficit fetish is absurd. Because, currently, even erstwhile progressives like Ezra Klein, have turned the budget deficit into a shibboleth (I might have more to say about that silly numerically illiterate post, but the tone and tenor are what matters for now). If you're not familiar with the trade…

Some More Thoughts About the German E. coli Outbreak

After Friday's post, I've held off on writing much about the German E. coli outbreak, often referred to by its serotype, O104:H4, or as HUSEC041 (HUS stands for hemolytic uremic syndrome). Having had the weekend to digest some of the ongoing analysis and news reports, here are some additional thoughts: 1) The multilocus sequence type (MLST) of this outbreak is definitely ST678. This means this outbreak strain is related to an older strain found in 2001 that caused disease. A new, improved assembly released by BGI yields a perfect match to ST678. In addition, there is independent…

Conservatives are as smart as liberals

One "urban legend" which is in common circulation among my friends is that liberals are smarter than conservatives. From my own personal experience this seems plausible, and I doubt I'm the only one as evidenced by the furious speed at which the "Bush voting states have lower IQs" meme spread around the blogosphere several years ago. But is this true? I've seen enough data to suggest that this really isn't so, and my psychologist friends have told me the biggest predictor of liberalism isn't IQ, but a strong tendency toward "openness" on personal tests. But I just couldn't leave it alone…

Even the nice theologians annoy me

Christ. It's yet another review of the Global Atheist Convention, this time by a long-winded Anglican priest. I'm being rude in my evaluation despite the fact that it is actually a generous review, because he repeats another of those oblivious stereotypes that always pisses me off. I've highlighted my triggers. I know my atheist colleagues and friends think this way of recognising life is just a form of 'misfire', a delusion.  They find support for their view from the natural processes like a tsunami or a congenital disease, which appear to be indifferent to the value of life.  But these…

Steven Pinker is wrong on religion

Sort of. I assume that part of this is delivery and the nature of a short interview format. But, I think it is important to highlight a point of mild disagreement between Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein in their Salon interview: PINKER: Exactly. I would be opposed to a requirement on astrology and astronomy, or alchemy and chemistry. Not because I don't think people should know about astrology. Astrology had an important role in the ancient world. You can't understand many things unless you know something about astrology -- the plays of Shakespeare and so on. What I'm opposed to is…

"Black" & white twins again

Hsien-Hsien Lei points me to another story about black and white twins. First, the "black" twin is clearly mixed race, her skin color is between the modal complexion of Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans on the von Luschan scale. The "white" twin on the other hand does seem to exhibit the color of someone of European descent. What's going on here? This is somewhat different than the other case of black and white twins, in that case both parents were mixed-race, in this case the father is white (German) and the mother is mixed-race (Jamaican & English). The two cases are different even…

A Story About Why Froomkin Was Let Go, but Ezra Klein Remains

It's simple--as long as one doesn't criticize the press corps from the left (doing it from the right is ok and accepted--you get to be the house liberal. Bob Somerby: For starters: We of course have no way of knowing why the Post has dumped Dan Froomkin. Let's repeat that: We simply don't know. But if we were going to write a novel, as Rosen did--if we wanted to pretend that we knew--our novel would look like this: Dan Froomkin criticizes the press corps. In the press corps, if you're a liberal, that just isn't done. Duh. We've explained this bone-simple point for years. If there's one…

Science Explains Why Boston's Red Line Sucks So Badly

One of the enduring mysteries of Boston's transit system is why is the Red Line always fouled up. I can understand why the Green Line is squirrelly: parts of the Green Line run above ground and intersect with traffic, the above ground stops take much longer at the stations (to prevent people sneaking on without paying, only the front door of each car opens), and, inbound, there are four different Green Lines that merge into one. In other words, the Green Line is a guaranteed clusterfuck. But the Red Line has none of these problems. So why is it almost always screwed up, even when it…

Y2K, SARS, West Nile and now bird flu?

One of the knocks on the alarms about bird flu is that it is just another in a series of false alarms like Y2K, West Nile and SARS. Not true. Pandemic influenza is indeed another in a series of alarms, but the only one that might conceivably be considered a false alarm (and this isn't even sure) is Y2K. Let's take them one at a time. The investment in fixing the Y2K bug was substantial on the part of business and government world wide, extending over several years prior to 2000. It is difficult to say what the results might have been without that investment. In many respects it is similar to…

John Wilkins of Evolving Thoughts Says... [The Rightful Place Project]

It came as an email. Then it was on the Seed Bloggers Forum. Now it's on my frigging Facebook - they really want me to answer this: In his first speech as President-elect last November, Barack Obama reminded us of the promise of "a world connected by our own science and imagination." And on Tuesday, in his inaugural address, President Obama cemented his commitment to a new ethos and culture by vowing to "restore science to its rightful place." At Seed, we are firmly committed to President Obama's vision and want to help make it a reality. We begin today by asking you, our friends and…

A Few Questions and Answers on Reye's Sydrome [The ScienceBlogs Book Club]

Karen Starko writes: Several basic questions related to Reye's syndrome (RS) have come to me from readers of Mark's book, Inside the Outbreaks. These show the importance of continued education on health issues. (For example, some physicians thought that fever was essential to getting RS). Again, thanks to Mark Pendergrast for a wonderful addition to our public health knowledge. Is an influenza or chickenpox infection necessary to acquire RS? The answer is no. RS generally has two phases: the antecedent illness and usually, within a few days of this, the syndrome of vomiting and…

Reading Diary: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson's book on Apple founder & CEO Steve Jobs is a fairly long book. It's not exactly a thriller either, especially since I know how it ends. As a result it took me a while to plow through it. I tended to read it in bursts of 40 or 50 pages over a few days then maybe put it aside for a while. As a result, I ended up reading a bunch of other auto/biographical works at the same time. And there are some interesting parallels. Ozzy Osbourne's I Am Ozzy and Tony Iommi's Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath are both great books. Like Jobs they are…

Thomson Reuters, Nobel Prize predictions and correlation vs. causation

It's time for my annual post taking issue with Thomson Reuters (TR) Nobel Prize predictions. (2002, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2009, 2010) Because, yes, they're at it again. Can the winners of the Nobel Prize be correctly predicted? Since 1989, Thomson Reuters has developed a list of likely winners in medicine, chemistry, physics, and economics. Those chosen are named Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates -- researchers likely to be in contention for Nobel honors based on the citation impact of their published research. Reading this you would reasonably assume that TR thinks there is at least a…

Reading Diary: Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age by Cory Doctorow

While I was reading Cory Doctorow's Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, I was reminded of a quote of his that I blogged about a few years ago: The people in Makers experience a world in which technology giveth and taketh away. They live through the fallacy of the record and movie industries: the idea that technology will go just far enough to help them and then stop. That’s totally not what happens. technology joes that far and them keeps on going. It’s a cycle of booms and busts. There are some lovely things about when you’re riding the wave and some scary things…

Open Access Rants: On the wagon with Henry Ford & Steve Jobs

Yes, it has become a trilogy. The two Twitter rants I recapped here sparked more angst and anguish in me, prompting me to write a third rant. As it became ready for Twitter publication and approached 800 words, it also became clear that this particular rant was fast outgrowing what I could reasonably expect people to follow on Twitter, easily over 40 tweets worth of text. As many epic fantasy series can attest, these things can get out the control of the author quite easily. At least I'm not pulling a GRRM and taking 6 or more years in between installments! I did sent out a tweet last…

Residential Water Use in California: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Guest Post: Matthew Heberger Pacific Institute, Oakland, California New monthly water use data for California water utilities shows that residential water use varies widely around the state, and that the response to the drought has been uneven. Moreover, in some areas, residential use averages more than 500 gallons per person per day, indicating that we could be doing much more to save water. In July, the State Water Resources Control Board, or the Water Board, issued an emergency regulation to increase water conservation in urban areas. The new regulations prohibit certain water uses, like…

Explorers in Our Midst: What the James Cameron Voyage Can Tell Us

By Larry Bock Founder and organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival In our world of high-tech bravado, I often wonder where we'd be without explorers -- those undaunted heroes and heroines of the past and of today whose achievements, like an unforgettable song or movie -- form a lasting impression in the brain over what the human spirit can accomplish with will and perseverance. From the annals of history, their names roll off the tongue almost effortlessly: Vespucci, Columbus, Lindbergh, Earhart, Shackleton, Henson, Cousteau, Glenn and others -- people who, bolstered by a sense of…

Support for the USA Science & Engineering Festival by Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Thank you Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers for supporting HR 1660 and your support for STEM education in Eastern Washington! Read below: 13 October 2010 Dear Friends, I write to you with tremendous excitement about the recent passage of H.R. 1660, which promotes the objectives of the first USA Science & Engineering Festival. This national festival, which will take place in Washington, DC from October 10-24, 2010, will feature over 550 organizations from across the United States. As a strong proponent of innovation, education and entrepreneurship, I support this festival and all the…

Denialist editorial at British Medical Journal

The British Medical Journal is an odd thing. I was very impressed when they went Open Access a few years ago, only to be disappointed when they stopped, even though their new editor, Fiona Godlee, came over from the world's leading Open Access publisher of medical journals, BioMed Central. Recently they have been publishing pieces that seem to challenge conventional wisdom. This has the odor of "catch up to The Lancet" about it, but maybe not. In any event, conventional wisdom isn't always wrong. In fact it is mainly conventional because it is wise thinking. Not always, but usually. So it's…

Modeling antiviral resistance, V: the model variables

[A series of posts explaining a paper on the mathematical modeling of the spread of antiviral resistance. Links to other posts in the series by clicking tags, "Math model series" or "Antiviral model series" under Categories, left sidebar. Preliminary post here. Table of contents at end of this post.] In this post we begin our look at the mathematical part of the model in the paper, "Antiviral resistance and the control of pandemic influenza," by Lipsitch et al., published in PLoS Medicine. The main model is presented in the first four paragraphs of the Methods section. The Model: view from 50…

Playing Grandmaster chess with swine flu

A reader asked an offline question that is general enough to post about (NB: I try to respond to as many questions as I can, but I'm traveling and can't keep up, so in most cases I won't be able to respond. I also don't hand out personal medical advice over the internet, something I consider bad practice). CDC says on the basis of clinical trials with the unadjuvanted vaccine used in the US that two shots, 21 days apart, are needed for children under 10. WHO, on the other hand, is telling its member nations that one will suffice. Why the confusion? We may be comparing apples and oranges. Many…

Swine flu : thoughts on social distancing

I am thinking out loud here. Since that's never a pretty sight, you might wish to avert your eyes. With that merest of advance warning, the school closure problem has gotten me to think more generally about social distancing. The term itself is a kind of oxymoron. "Social" emphasizes togetherness, intercourse between people, relations. "Distancing" is negation of the social. We have examples: canceling school, prohibiting mass gatherings, telecommuting, but the underlying idea is straightforward. With a contagious disease that passes from person to person (details still to be worked out, of…

Swine flu: on not knowing

The unpredictability of flu and difficulty of making any predictions with confidence is tiring to repeat and tiresome to listen to. Unfortunately that doesn't make it any less true. There are things we know -- because we see them happening -- and things we don't know -- because the information isn't available (like an accurate estimate of CFR or prevalence) or they have yet to happen. What we know is that we are confronted with a new influenza virus that is spreading with ease outside of its normal season, is infecting an age group that normally doesn't get easily infected (the 5 - 24 year…

Swine flu: bits and pieces at the end of the day

Some end-of-the day (but not end-of-the-world) bits and pieces in the emerging swine flu story. From Helen Branswell (Canadian Press): In Mexico, Secretary of Health Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said in a television interview that there have been 45 deaths, but only 16 of those were directly related to the flu in question. An estimated 943 people are ill, the television report said. The majority of the cases are occurring in young, previously healthy adults in their mid 20s to mid 40s, reports suggest. Experts aren’t certain if all of those people are sick with this virus or if other flu or…

My picks from ScienceDaily

New Insights Into The Origin Of Life On Earth: In an advance toward understanding the origin of life on Earth, scientists have shown that parts of the Krebs cycle can run in reverse, producing biomolecules that could jump-start life with only sunlight and a mineral present in the primordial oceans. The Krebs cycle is a series of chemical reactions of central importance in cells -- part of a metabolic pathway that changes carbohydrates, fats and proteins into carbon dioxide and water to generate energy. Scot T. Martin and Xiang V. Zhang explain that a reverse version of the cycle, which makes…

BLS estimate of work-related amputations grossly understates magnitude of the problem

Brett Bouchard, 17, was working at Violi’s Restaurant in Massena, NY last month. Press reports indicate he was cleaning out a pasta-making machine when the equipment severed his right arm at the elbow. He was rushed to a local hospital which later transferred the young worker to Massachusetts General Hospital. Nationally, there are thousands of work-related amputations each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 5,100 U.S. workers suffered an amputation injury in 2012. But we’ve written here before about the limitations of BLS’ estimates for work-related injuries. Those…

California Board votes to maintain better worker’s right-to-know

Thanks to a unanimous vote of California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board last Thursday, workers get to hold on to a robust chemical right-to-know rule that puts their health and safety first. The vote also means that California workers will reap the benefits of more meaningful right-to-know rules than those at the federal level. “It’s a human right to know about the hazards of the work you’re doing,” said Dorothy Wigmore, occupational health specialist at Worksafe, a state-based organization dedicated to eliminating workplace hazards. “If employers don’t know about the…

Omnibus spending bill allocates Prevention & Public Health Fund money

Both houses of Congress have now passed, and President Obama has signed, the omnibus spending bill, and it’s a welcome relief from budget battles through the end of this fiscal year (September 30, 2014). I was especially curious to see what the bill contained for the Prevention and Public Health Fund, an important part of the Affordable Care Act that has suffered under previous budget manuevering. Section 4002 of the Affordable Care Act established the Prevention and Public Health Fund "to provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to…

"Timeliness" a priority for Obama's regulatory czar nominee, backlog awaits him

Themes related to time---meeting deadlines, doing retrospective reviews----were heard frequently today by President Obama's nominee to direct his Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).  Howard Shelanski, JD, PhD, the President's choice for his  "regulatory czar" post, appeared for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental  Affairs. The nominee's written statement was short on details about his vision for OIRA, but in response to a question from Committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE), he mentioned three specific priorities: "Should…

Digging in the Couch Cushions for Loose Change: Or, Why Don't We Just Create More Resources?

I would like to create more oil. Specifically, I'd like to create it up on my field - a gusher of light, sweet crude would be just the thing to fund my farming habit, plus provide some neat little tax benefits. Rural upstate New York has a sad lack of oil fields, and given its recession-prone economy, I think it would be just the place for some oil. Fortunately, all I have to do, according to Forbes Magazine, is help along the development of new technologies that will extract all the oil that I'd like upstate New York to have. Because, of course as any dimwit knows, we don't consume…

The Phantoms of the OPERA

If 3σ results are wrong half the time, does that mean 6σ results are wrong all the time? The social networks are a-buzz over the claim of a significant detection by the OPERA experiment of a neutrino pulse propagating superluminally over a 750 km baseline from CERN to the Gran Sasso lab. arXiv paper here (submitted) You heard the claim - neutrino pulse generated 400 GeV protons fro the old Super Proton Synchrotron. Every 6 secs a kicker magnet bumps two 10.5μs wide proton pulses, separated by 10ms. These crash into a 2m graphite target (that is 7 ns travel time through target); the mesons (…

Fat but Fit? Research on Obesity and Health

Peter Janiszewski at Obesity Panacea has posted a fascinating series on the issue of people who are obese but metabolically healthy. We worry about rising rates of obesity because obesity increases the risk for health problems like diabetes and cardiovascular disease -- but what if that's not universally true? And if it turns out that some obese people aren't at an increased risk of chronic diseases, should they still be urged to lose weight? The first post in the series introduces the definitions of "obese" and "metabolically healthy": To date, countless epidemiological studies have shown…

Labor Dept's Solicitor failing safety whistleblowers

It's long past time to breathe some fresh air into the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office (SOL).  I was hopeful when President Obama nominated M. Patricia Smith in April to serve as the Solicitor of Labor, but since her May 7 confirmation hearing, her appointment is languishing in the Senate HELP committee.  The Solicitor's Office has about 600 employees, many of whom are attorneys working in regional offices across the country, and they are supposed to help DOL agencies accomplish their missions by providing legal advice.  The mission statement includes, ensuring that the "…

More Delays on OSHA's Overdue Crane Rule

When OSHA finally published on October 9 a proposed rule to protect workers using cranes and derricks, I thought (maybe) we'd turned a page on at least one inexcusable rulemaking delay.   But no.  OSHA's acting assistant secretary, Thomas M. Stohler, signed off last week to drag out this rulemaking even longer.  In a Dec 2 Federal Register notice, the agency chief said that a "significant number of stakeholders have requested an extension" of time to submit their written comments.  The new due date is January 22, 2009.  Who are these significant number of stakeholders?   OSHA doesn'…

Unified theory of the crank

A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned. - Nature, 8 Nov 1906 Here at denialism blog, we're very interested in what makes people cranks. Not only how one defines crankish behavior, but literally how people develop unreasonable attitudes about the world in the face of evidence to the contrary. Our definition of a crank, loosely, is a person who has unreasonable ideas about established science or facts that will not relent in defending their own, often laughable, version of the truth. Central to the crank is the "overvalued idea". That is some idea they've incorporated into their…

Promoting women in STEM--what do we discuss?

While I loved Jeanne Garbarino's recent post, "Want to promote women in STEM? Leave home life out of the discussion", and agree with probably 90% of it, I think it unfortunately goes from one extreme to another with some of her recommendations. Garbarino notes several reasons why she thinks it's counter-productive to discuss home life issues when trying to promote women in STEM careers: 1) it is rare that home life situations for men in STEM are discussed; 2) not everyone shares the same home life experiences or goals; 3) it doesn’t move the conversation forward. Very true for 1 and 2 (though…

The Uncertain Etiology of PMS and a Link to Infectious Disease

Student guest post by Anne Dressler Ninety percent of menstruating women experience some kind of premenstrual symptoms during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, with 20-30% experiencing moderate to severe symptoms. With an even more severe collection of symptoms, is premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). 3-8% of menstruating women report symptoms severe enough to be considered suffering from PMDD. Yet another designation, premenstrual magnification (PMM), is used to describe women who are symptomatic the entire cycle but have a premenstrual exacerbation of a diagnosed psychiatric,…

Alcohol based mouthwash and Oral Cancer - too much confusion

Student guest post by Francis Mawanda If you are like me, you probably always and almost faithfully, include a bottle of mouthwash on your grocery list especially after watching and/or listening to the numerous commercials in the media which claim that you will not only get long lasting fresh breath, but also freedom from the germs that cause plaque and gingivitis. However, many proprietary mouthwashes including my favorite brand contain Alcohol (ethanol) which also gives them the characteristic burn we have to endure, albeit for a few seconds each day, but safe in the knowledge that the…

Yet another study shows no link between abortion and breast cancer

Last summer, I mentioned that groups receiving federal funding were providing misleading information about abortion, including the unsupported statement that having an abortion increases the risk of development of breast cancer. As I noted, this "link" has been refuted by a number of analyses, including a 2004 Lancet paper and a 2003 National Cancer Institute report. As if those weren't enough, a new study comes to the same conclusion: yep, no link. More after the jump. The new study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at data from 105,716 women participating in…

Semmelweis: ID hero

You may or may not be familiar with the name Ignaz Semmelweis. It's not one that's typically taught to school children, like Koch or Pasteur may be. He even tends to get glossed over in upper-level biology courses. But Semmelweis was an important figure in the history of microbiology (indeed, I picked his work as the greatest experiment in my field). Here's what I wrote about him in that post: Semmelweis was a physician in Vienna in the 1840s, with an interested in "childbed fever," a leading cause of mortality in women who'd given birth. During this time, he noticed that the mortality…

Nature Calls to End Court Ordered Secrecy

By David Michaels An editorial in the latest issue of Nature takes up a problem that public health advocates have been battling for years: confidentiality orders that keep important scientific data hidden from the public, scientists, and even regulatory agencies. One recent case of such data being kept secret, which Nature reporter Jim Giles covers in an accompanying article, is Eli Lillyâs schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. David Egilman, a physician who had access to confidential documents about Zyprexaâs dangers, is being threatened with jail time for his role in the release of the papers to,…

The Most Influential Supreme Court Decision You've Never Heard Of

By David Michaels Dr. David Healy is the probably the single person most responsible for identifying the link between anti-depression drugs like Zoloft and suicide risk. His work led to the FDA to require the addition of a âblack boxâ to the label of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), warning of the increased risk for âsuicidality.â A few years before the FDA instituted this policy, Dr. Healy was asked to testify about the effects of Zoloft in a lawsuit filed by the parents of Matthew Miller, a teenager who hanged himself soon after starting taking the drug for depression.…

I, Priodontes, the tatuasu

As always, at least a few people got yesterday's picture correctly identified: it was indeed a Giant armadillo or Tatuasu Priodontes maximus, and specifically the animal's right hand and lower arm. I photographed it at the National Museum of Ireland (Natural History) during SVPCA 2008. A stuffed specimen was on display next to the skeleton, so the scaly leg you could see in the background was indeed a pretty big clue. Armadillo skeletons - like those of all xenarthrans - are so weird and unfamiliar to us euarchontoglirans that it would be easy to write thousands of words on their weirdness.…

That most famous of yeti tracks

The image depicted in the previous brief post is one of those famous iconic photos that many people have seen but few know anything about: it's an alleged yeti track, photographed by Eric Shipton and Michael Ward on the 8th November 1951 on Menlung Glacier during their exploration of the Gauri Sanker range in the Himalayas (Heuvelmans 1995). Together with the Sherpa Sen Tensing, Shipton and Ward apparently followed a trail of large, human-like tracks for about a mile but, unfortunately, only photographed one track. There have been several efforts to interpret this track as one made by a…