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Abortion Is Icky and Slutty

Inspired by this Jeffrey Feldman post, I'm putting together a post about abortion, evolution, and the dislike by some scientists of framing. Feldman argues that reframing abortion is necessary to deal with anti-abortionists like Rev. Joel C. Hunter: Abortion continues to be one of the most hurtful and divisive facts of our nation. I come from the part of the faith community that is very strongly pro-life. I know you're pro-choice, but you have indicated that you would like to reduce the number of abortions. Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common…

Willful Ignorance: the Global Warming Edition

Blogger Mike Stark recently debated Myron Ebell about global warming. Apparently, Mike Stark did more than just hold his own, which is pretty impressive considering the debate was hosted by the ultraconservative Federalist Society. Stark had this interesting point about credibility, which is similar to a point I made about creationist credibility: First of all, when arguing with somebody that either has no credibility or is not arguing a credible position, don't donate the credibility they need to be seen as your equal. You see, by calling his credibility into question immediately - and…

Agriculture, Antibiotic Use, and Genes in the Environment

Who would ever think that 'wastewater lagoons'--lakes full of animal shit--could be so interesting? And important in understanding how agricultural antibiotic use increases the frequency of antibiotic resistance genes. A recent study looked at the abundance of tetracycline resistance genes in eight lagoons that stored cattle waste. Two of the lagoons were used with cattle that were never exposed to tetracycline. Two were 'mixed use', and four high use, where the cattle have been exposed to tetracycline (an aside: the lagoon from which the waste is used as fertilizer is a high use lagoon.…

BIL, beach and hot sauce

A few of you have noticed that I'm a little darker skinned than I was previously (see photo to left). Well, the explanation is simple, it's a recent photo and I was at the beach getting my ultra-tan on. I happened to be at the BIL Conference, and was in Monterey where the beaches are. BIL was cool; the proactive social evangelism by the people behind it seemed to work pretty well. Out of the 200 people there was only one super-freak who parasitized everyone's attention (you know who I'm talking about if you were there). I met two bloggers, Lexi Bright and Shannon Clark; we bonded over…

Placing (Tea) Party Over Country

So the Tea Party Fort Sumter conservatives have sunk to new lows--they're celebrating the downgrade of U.S. debt (italics mine; video at the link): Is the tea party happy that Standard and Poor's, the credit rating agency, downgraded the United States' credit rating for the first time ever? You'd think that was the case if you were in the crowd at a tea party rally in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on Sunday morning. The Tea Party Express rolled into that northeastern city as part of its tour to bolster the six GOP state senators facing recall elections on Tuesday. But the most shocking moment of…

The Canberra Cabal

Everyone knows already why I was off in Melbourne this past week — it was the Global Atheist Conference — but why did I hare off to Canberra for the weekend? It was another conspiracy. Many years ago, the locus of all things evolutionist on the interwebs was found on Usenet, in a group called talk.origins, where a motley mob of ruthless science proponents regularly mocked and crushed creationists and honed their skills at rhetorical combat. I came out of that particular culture (and, by the way, the commenting rules here, with a policy of limited interference with the substance of people's…

Where are the seculars?

Over at Island of Doubt James Hrynyshyn says: As far as I can tell, North Carolina's no different from the rest of America when it comes to religion. About a tenth of the population is free of religious conviction.... Well, I was pretty sure that there is a statistically significant difference between most Southern states and the rest of the country in regards to these things, so I decided to check out the data in detail. The US Religious Landscape Survey allows me to see what proportion of each state's population are atheists; that is, they don't believe in God. Unfortunately the margin of…

Don't fry them

Shellee asks: "Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?" There have been many good answers so far, though I'll leave it to Shellee to sum things up tomorrow. Short answer: I am opposed to the death penalty I am not opposed to war ' Longer answer: My opposition to the death penalty is primarily pragmatic at this point. It is too expensive and riddled with problems in terms of the probability of killing someone innocent. Like laws against…

Military Proselytizers Target 'Darwin'

Apparently, humanism is selfish. That would have been news to Albert Camus, Nobel Laureate and resistance fighter. This is from a military chaplain's presentation about suicide prevention that apparently is cribbed directly from evangelical preacher Rick Warren: In March 2008, this presentation, titled "A New Approach To Suicide Prevention: Developing Purpose-Driven Airmen," was shown at a commander's call that was mandatory for an estimated 1,000 of Lakenheath's Air Force personnel, and sent out by email to the entire base of over 5,000 the following day. As the use of the phrase "Purpose-…

William Ayers and G. Gordon Liddy

If Obama has a 'Ayers problem', why doesn't McCain have a 'G. Gordon Liddy problem?' From Jamison Foser: G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy served four and a half years in prison for his role in the break-ins at the Watergate and at Daniel Ellsberg's psychologist's office. He has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary." He plotted to kill journalist Jack Anderson. He plotted with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt in order to thwart an investigation. He plotted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. He used Nazi terminology to outline a plan to kidnap "…

Ten Years from Now, Will Biology Be Automated? Thoughts on 'Post'-Informatics Biology

Detroit Industry by Diego Rivera To put this post in larger context, Paul Krugman stirred up quite a ruckus with a column that argued that a lot of jobs for college graduates are being rendered obsolete by technological change. For scientists, this is not a new phenomenon. At a recent celebration type-of-thing, a colleague explained how a Prominent Genomic Researcher realized that the next leap forward in biology was going to happen when biologists would view their science as an information science. The future was not going to involve benches filled with dozens of Ph.D.s furiously…

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be

People keep asking me for books on evolution for their kids, and I have to keep telling them that there is a major gap in the library. We have lots of great books for adults, but most of the books for the younger set reduce evolution to stamp collecting: catalogs of dinosaurs, for instance. I just got a copy of a book that is one small step in filling that gap, titled Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) by Daniel Loxton. It's beautifully illustrated, and the organization of the book focuses on concepts (and misconceptions!) of evolution, explaining them…

So Was the Fired Indiana Assistant Attorney General a 'Lone Wolf' Too?

There's been so much lunacy these last couple of weeks that it's hard to keep track of it all. In case you haven't heard, an assistant attorney general in Indiana (whose state reps have also fled like Wisconsin's) was fired for tweeting this vile hatemongering: On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building--something that didn't end up happening--one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition." From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He…

Re Social Security Cuts, If Egyptian Copts and Muslims Can Stand Shoulder to Shoulder...

...then maybe the middle-aged and the young in the U.S. can too? The most recent attempt to weaken the most effective U.S. anti-poverty program ever--Social Security--involves cutting benefits, but only for those who currently are younger than 55 years old. As Matthew Yglesias notes, this is...unusual: After all, this isn't how any other kind of benefit cuts work. When Obama proposes cutting oil and gas subsidies, they propose cutting them right away. When Obama proposes a nominal freeze in federal pay, he's proposing a real cut right away. When LIHEAP gets the ax, it gets the ax right…

Thoughts on Haidt's (and Tierney's) Claim About Conservatives in Academia

Tom Levenson responds to the articles by John Tierney and Megan McCardle which ask why conservatives are so rare in academia (in science, anyway, creationism might have something to do with it. Just saying). Anyway, Levenson makes a good point, although I think he misses one thing: ...the only other Haidt evidence Tierney references comes from an email from an allegedly victimized student: "I consider myself very middle-of-the-road politically: a social liberal but fiscal conservative. Nonetheless, I avoid the topic of politics around work," one student wrote. "Given what I've read of the…

Why Planned Parenthood Matters to Me

You might have heard of by now rightwing activist Lila Rose's attempted sting operation of Planned Parenthood, which resulted in the shocking finding that Planned Parenthood workers follow the law (and don't endanger themselves or their patients by physically confronting potentially dangerous people). Suffice it to say, it was a bullshit smear, but that's not stopping Planned Parenthood from catching flak. I have a personal reason for supporting Planned Parenthood (no, I'm not coming out of the closet or announcing that I am HIV-positive)--but, first, here's the breakdown of what Planned…

The Real Cost of Roads: $2.22 per Gallon...

...at least in Houston, Texas. With non-automobile transportation options in the news, on of the interesting things is that the actual entire cost of automobile transportation infrastructure--that is, roads, is rarely discussed, while it is almost always raised with mass transit. But, by way of Ryan Avent, lookee what happens when the lifetime cost of highways is accounted for (italics mine): The decision to build a road is a permanent commitment to the traveling public. Not only will a road be built, but it must also be routinely maintained and reconstructed when necessary, meaning no…

Why Do You Do Science (or Other Stuff)?

The question is inspired by a Washington Post op-ed by a former teacher who is leaving teaching. It's a very depressing piece, and, if nothing else, reinforces my suspicion that, to the extent charter schools have demonstrated better results, those results are largely due to unsustainable demands on teachers. But that's not what I want to talk about. The former teacher writes (italics mine): There is yet another factor that played a part in my choice, something that I rarely mention. It has to do with the way that some people, mostly nonteachers, talk about the profession. "Why teach?" they…

When Compulsive Centrist Disorder Isn't Centrist: The Healthcare Edition

Katrina vanden Heuvel makes a good point about some bad framing in the healthcare debate--the 'centrists' aren't in the center at all: Even a good regional paper like Louisville's Courier-Journal-- in rightly blasting the Blue Dogs as "deplorable" for being "unable to muster the spine to pay for health care reform with even so innocuous a measure as higher taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans"--calls them "centrist". The danger is that promoting the view that these conservative Democrats are somehow at the center of our politics plays into the hands of those who would like to…

Republican VA State Representative Raises Possibility of Treasonous Insurrection

I should never have to tag a post with "Secession." Moving right along... Having grown up in Virginia, I'm well aware of the propensity of batshit lunacy: this is the state whose Republican Party nominated Ollie North for Senate. But Republican VA state delegate nominee Catherine T. Crabill has elevated the lunacy to a whole new level. To start with, she's an Oklahoma City bombing truther. But Crabill veers from the lunatic to the outright dangerous: Crabill... claimed the Obama administration is pursuing legislation that will turn it into "the thought police" and wants to put…

Apartment Vacancies and the Fallacy of 'Recession Proof': The Boston Edition

By way of Calculated Risk, I came across this Reuters article about apartment vacancies reaching their highest rate in twenty years--and might soon break the record. Currently, the national rate is 7.5%. This matches my impression of the Boston rental market, even in the supposedly 'recession-proof' neighborhoods of Back Bay and Beacon Hill. In large apartment buildings (i.e., not smaller houses that have been chopped up into three to eight apartments), the vacancy rate is higher. Using Google cache, rents in the same buildings are down five to fifteen percent in nominal dollars as…

The U.S. Can Teach Kids Math Provided...

...they live in Massachusetts. Most of us have read the "ZOMG!! AMERICAN KIDZ DON'T KNOW TEH MATHZ!" stories. But a recent study (pdf), found by way of Matthew Yglesias, points out that some states in the U.S. actually do better than most countries (and then there's Mississippi, Alabama, and Washington D.C.). The authors took the NAEP test, which is administered to U.S. fourth and eighth graders, and used a cohort which also took the international TIMSS test, to transform the NAEP data into equivalent TIMSS scores. Looking at the fourth grade scores, MA, with an average TIMSS score of 572,…

If You Support the Public Option for Healthcare Reform, Write Your Senators and President

If you support a public option for healthcare reform, there's a campaign going on right now to get senators to commit in writing to whether or not they support a public option (Chris Bowers has more details). You should also write your president--I've heard rumors that, even though a huge majority support a public option, the White House is getting astroturfed (besides, Obama talks pretty, but action has been thin on the ground--let's 'encourage' him). Here's what I wrote to our president: Dear President Obama, Recently, you announced your support for a public option for healthcare. I urge…

The Bloody Dénouement of Scare Quotes Around 'Health of the Mother'

By now, you have probably heard of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, an ob/gyn who performed late-term abortions. Lots of other people have commented on this, but make no mistake about it: this will stem from demonizing abortion. It's really not that far from Republican presidential candidate John McCain's sneering about the 'health of the mother' exemption to pulling the trigger. As Digby puts it: If you think that women should have to endanger their lives in order to give birth to a fetus with no brain, then you probably think this man was a murderer. Or maybe it should be '…

The Compleat Coulter: the sum total of her argument against evolution

No, I don't have Ann Coulter's book yet (it is so annoying to want something cheap and easily accessible, yet have to refuse to actually pay for it on general principles), but since she's hammering the talk show circuit heavily, we're getting dribs and drabs of her amazing knowledge of biology. John Hawkins: If you were to pick three concepts, facts, or ideas that most undercut the theory of evolution, what would they be? Ann Coulter: 1. It's illogical. 2. There's no physical evidence for it. 3. There's physical evidence that directly contradicts it. Apart from those three concerns I'd say it…

Data, Drinking, and Boston: The Stupid Ranking Edition

Apparently, if the high-profile, exhaustively peer-reviewed journal Men's Health [/snark] is to be believed, Boston is the least boozy city in the country (italics mine): Fresno, Calif., tops Men's Health magazine's list of America's "drunkest" cities while Boston, home to the "Cheers" bar where everyone knows your name, was deemed the "least drunk," besting even Salt Lake City. The magazine, which will publish the list of 100 major cities in i's March edition, drew upon such data as death rates from alcoholic liver disease, booze-fueled car crashes, frequency of binge-drinking in the past…

Costumed Crimefighters Prowl Among Us

No, seriously. They do: THWAK! I swing with my right fist, trying to connect with my opponent's face. In a smooth motion, he deflects my punch with his forearm, which is protected with a black and metallic-plastic arm gauntlet. I swing with my left fist, and am again knocked away effortlessly. I can see my reflection in his sunglasses, framed in white. He smiles and smoothes out his red and white spandex shirt -- adorned with a letter "C," a flame shooting out of the top -- and then crouches into a fighting stance. "Oh, no," I think. "I'm about to get my ass kicked by a Lycra-wearing…

I Told You CDC (and HHS) Would Take the Fall for TEH SWINEY FLOO!!

From the NY Times, the blame game begins: At a hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, representatives of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security argued that they were right not to put immune-boosting adjuvants in the vaccine even though that could have quadrupled the number of doses available now, and that they were also right to leave decisions about allocating vaccine up to local health departments instead of trying to micromanage them from Atlanta or…

A Question for the LI Nurses: If the Swine Flu Vaccine Weren't Mandatory, Would You Get It?

While I think making swine flu vaccination mandatory for healthcare workers is bad policy, since it feeds into anti-vaccine paranoia: people forced to take the vaccine will assume that they are guinea pigs and this, in turn, will lead others to think something is wrong with the vaccine. Having said that, I'm concerned by the response of Long Island nurses unions--they apparently don't think the vaccine is unsafe but oppose it anyway. But these reactions by nurses are more troubling (italics mine): "This vaccine has not been clinically tested to the same degree as the regular flu vaccine,"…

Note to Max Baucus: Aging Is Not a 'Risk', It's Inevitable

This might seem a ludicrous statement of the obvious, but defining aging as a risk from an insurance standpoint is absurd. First, this summary of the premiums for the Baucus plan: Key relevant provisions of Baucus' bill [pdf] are called "Rating Rules for the Individual Market" (pages 1-2). These rules apply to people who would be required to purchase insurance in the exchange and define how much more the insurers could charge some individuals compared to others: Issuers in the individual market could vary premiums based only on the following characteristics: tobacco use, age, and family…

This Is Political Vindictiveness I Can't Believe in

While I think Bernie Madoff is a real slimeball (what Jew steals from Elie Wiesel?), putting him in super-maximum security is ridiculous: Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is being held in a super-max wing of the Manhattan federal lockup - a unit so tough it drives hardened criminals mad, the Daily News has learned. It's known as 10 South. Located on the 10th floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the high-security wing has housed the city's toughest mobsters and most bloodthirsty terrorists. John A. (Junior) Gotti was there, as well as his archrival, Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo. On 10…

It Sounds a Lot Like Creationism to Me

I know I make the point a lot that much of movement conservatism/Modern Republicanism operates in a intellectuallycognitively similar manner to the creationist movement. But the reason the comparison is instructive is that creationism (whether young earth or intelligent design) is so obviously stupid that it forces you to confront what is actually going on. For many people, economics or foreign policy (or at least subtopics in these areas) are difficult enough that you are tempted to cede that they might have a legitimate point of view, but one that is nonetheless very different than yours…

Economic Stupidity: The Moral Imbecile Edition With Bonus Lack of Self-Interest

Like Atrios, DeLong, and The Krugman, I'm old enough to remember when nine to ten percent unemployment was not only an economic disaster, but also viewed as an ethical and societal one. With that, I first bring you some ethics by way of the Slacktivist: I'm not an economist, but we've got five applicants for every single job opening. If you tell me that the best response to that situation is to lay off hundreds of thousands of teachers, I will not accept that this means that you're smarter and more expert than I am. I will instead conclude -- regardless of your prestige or position or years…

Two Thoughts About MRSA ST239

Maryn McKenna has a good article about a new strain of methicillin resistant of Staphylococcus aureus, ST239, aka The Brazilian Clone (as far as I know, no bikini wax is involved...). ST239 is troubling since it's not only resistant to methicillin, but also resistant to other antibiotics, including clindamycin, tetracycline, cotrimoxazole (also known as Bactrim), moxifloxacin, and gentamicin. While cotrimoxazole and tetracycline are old drugs, they have proven to be reasonably effective against many MRSA. So spread of a multidrug resistant MRSA means that we really only have one drug that…

The Upper Middle Class and Wealthy Should Favor a Progressive Tax Code

Steven Pearlstein, who usually has a tepid, establishment take on things, sounds kind of shrill, even, perhaps, liberal when he talks about income inequality. Pearlstein does a good job of laying out the facts of inequality (and how it's become worse), but it's the implications of inequality that are worth citing (italics mine): Concentrating so much income in a relatively small number of households has also led to trillions of dollars being spent and invested in ways that were spectacularly unproductive. In recent decades, the rich have used their winnings to bid up the prices of artwork…

42nd Street/Grand Central Subway Art 1, Detail 6

tags: Grand Central Station, 42nd Street, Fast Track and Speedwheels, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Fast Track and Speedwheels, 1990. Mixed-media sculptures in the passageway between the S and 4, 5, 6 lines in NYC's Grand Central Subway station, right side. Artist: Daniel Sinclair. Image: GrrlScientist, 12 January 2009 [larger view]. I had to include this detail in my exploration of NYC's subway art because I wanted to show you the contrasting textures and different shapes and colors -- kinda interesting, wouldn't you say? Dan Sinclair's Fast Track and Speedwheels are…

DonorsChoose Challenge Focus: The Viking Shark Project

tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty I am focusing on this project, The Viking Shark Project, because there are only four days left to fund this proposal before the deadline passes and 70 students from an impoverished high-crime magnet classroom are left wanting -- AGAIN! The teacher is asking for 35 dogfish for his 70 students to dissect and this proposal has already raised half of the required funds, but it still needs to raise the remaining $248.50 so these kids can enhance their educational experience. Given the fact that sharks are so misunderstood…

Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt

tags: Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Expat Life, Frankfurt through my eye, photography Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt (Frankfurt Christmas Market) Image: GrrlScientist, 20 December 2009 [larger view] This afternoon, my spouse and I investigated the Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt (Frankfurt Christmas Market) in Römerberg and Paulsplatz in downtown Frankfurt. It was five degrees below zero celsius (it felt a lot colder), and it was snowing vigorously -- all of which added to the festive atmosphere. We purchased a variety of flavors of "licorice" ropes -- including…

Mystery Bird: Forest Kingfisher, Todiramphus macleayii

tags: Macleay's Kingfisher, Blue Kingfisher, Bush Kingfisher, Forest Kingfisher, Todiramphus macleayii, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Forest Kingfisher, also known as Macleay's Kingfisher, Blue Kingfisher or Bush Kingfisher, Todiramphus macleayii, photographed at Mossman, Queensland, Australia. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Steve Duncan, 18 August 2009 [larger view]. Nikon D200 w/ Nikkor 300mm 1/1600 sec, f/4 iso 200. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. The Forest Kingfisher is classified in the genus…

A few links to delightful anti-ID pieces

Some good news first: Dembski gave a talk in Kansas. Kansas! You'd think they'd love him there, but his audience was better informed than you might expect, from the example of their elected Board of Education officials. Dembski, who may have been led to expect a warmer reception for his ideas—he was in Kansas, after all—seemed to grow testy as questioner after questioner expressed doubt about his assertion that evolution is a failed theory and that patterns in nature are best explained as a result of intelligence. I know there is a solid body of intelligent, well-informed people in Kansas,…

Please Accept My Apologies

There are still problems with this site. All my scheduled entries do not show up "below the jump" after they publish until I rebuild each one individually. So the scheduled mystery bird and the videos will taunt you but you will be unable to comment or read/view anything below the jump until I've found wireless at the airport and have been able to rebuild each and every scheduled blog entry .. unless the SB overlordz have gotten this issue fixed, but alas, I will be out of internet/email/blog contact for roughly 18 hours today, which means I cannot complain to hurry the process along. I…

Back to benzene in soda

It's been a while since we visited the FDA's benzene-in-soft-drinks failure (see here, here, here and here). No time like the present. Serious questions remain over how America?s food safety watchdog handled the presence of benzene residues in soft drinks, a senior ex-official has said, after tests showed some drinks still contained the chemical 15 years after the industry agreed to cut it. The source told BeverageDaily.com it was "embarrassing" the Food and Drug Administration had failed to eradicate benzene residues from all drinks. His comments come as newly released meeting memos show at…

Rx: exorcism

My Scibling, Orac, over at Respectful Insolence has a special thing about those he calls "alties." They make him crazy. For Orac alties represent a broad category of alternative medicine approaches. I more or less agree with him but I don't have the same passion about it he does. I'm also willing to believe some things now considered alternative approaches will become mainstream at some point and I know that many things we now consider conventional will be abandoned as without any scientific foundation. That's pretty much the way things work and I don't draw any larger lessons from it, except…

Nightmare in vaccination land

It's an influenza vaccination program's worst nightmare. In Israel, four elderly and chronically ill patients have died of cardiac arrest within days of receiving influenza vaccinations: Israel suspended flu vaccinations nationwide on Sunday after four men who had been inoculated died in the past week, the Health Ministry said. "I ordered to stop the vaccinations until things are made clear," Israeli Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri told reporters. "We have started to investigate everything related to this case," he said. The ministry said it had asked the French firm Sanofi-Aventis, which…

We're state-of-the-art. Don't worry.

I'm still trying to figure out if the statement by Ambassador John Lange, the US State Department's special representative on avian and pandemic influenza, that this country is close to "state-of-the-art" in its preparations for a pandemic of H5N1 and its biosecurity measures is some kind of dark humor about state-of-the-art in general or just an amazingly clueless assessment of where we are. I'm aware that a sense of humor doesn't usually characterize the official prnouncements of this administration, although some of them do produce hysterical laughter. I'm pretty sure he is either clueless…

Odontochelys, a transitional turtle

Now this is an interesting beast. It's a 220 million year old fossil from China of an animal that is distinctly turtle-like. Here's a look at its dorsal side: a, Skeleton in dorsal view. b, Skull in dorsal view. c, Skull in ventral view. d, Body in dorsal view. Teeth on the upper jaw and palatal elements were scratched out during excavation. Abbreviations: ar, articular; as, astragalus; ca, calcaneum; d, dentary; dep, dorsal process of epiplastron; dsc, dorsal process of scapula; ep, epiplastron; fe, femur; fi, fibula; gpep, gular projection of epiplastron; hu, humerus; hyo, hyoplastron; hyp…

Lethal hazards of falling TVs (not a joke, alas)

The last thing little Lizzette Peña ever did in this world was to climb up to get a toy atop the family's 37 inch TV. It fell and crushed her skull, killing her. Freak accident? Maybe, but there are a lot just like it. Lisette lived in Houston, where the staff of Memorial Hermann Hospital there is familiar with the problem. In the past year, at Memorial Hermann Hospital alone, there have been 11 injuries from falling televisions. In the past four months, five of those have resulted in death. The extent of the problem at other Houston-area hospitals could not be determined at press time. The…

Sustainable Environments and Livelihoods

Below, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka answers the second of our three questions. The problems I see as ripe for cross-disciplinary research are those where multidisciplinary approaches have potential to promote sustainable development alongside sustainable environments in developing countries, because even in the developed world, conservation and development are seen as competing forces, yet have even greater potential in the developed world. The fields I would choose to combine are those that independently affect sustainable environments and livelihoods. These include population, health,…

New site, new stories

Cells that “spit” out their contents and messenger RNA that is not so swift at delivering its message. Those are two brand new stories on our new and improved website. Check it out and let us know what you think. The first story arose from a simple question: How do secretory cells – those that produce copious amounts of such substances as tears, saliva or all those bodily fluids – manage to get their contents out of the cell? Cells are walled all the way around; they don’t really have doors for letting things the size of a drop of fluid out. Instead, they use the vesicle system – small globes…

Breaking the Law

A recent paper by Weizmann Institute scientists suggests that we might be able to break the third law of thermodynamics. This is how that law was originally formulated in 1908 by Walther Nernst: “It is impossible for any procedure to lead to the isotherm T = 0 in a finite number of steps,” (source: Wikipedia). To elaborate, the entropy of a system approaches nil as the temperature closes in on absolute zero, so that extracting further energy becomes increasingly difficult. According to the third law, you can get very close – temperatures of less than a billionth of a degree have already been…