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I need to take a shower after reading that

Occasionally, John Derbyshire gets kudos from the pro-science side of the national snarl because he at least manages to recognize that Intelligent Design creationism is a load of lies and pseudoscience. I've been less than thrilled with the guy; he's generally a creepy fellow who only advocates science as a prop to his bizarre ideological fantasies. The latest example: he opposes Obama because he will destroy the biological sciences. Why, you might ask? It's a peculiar assertion, since virtually every biologist I know considers the Republican party to have been a disaster for American…

What's New on ScienceBlogs.de, March 27-April 2

It's this week's top stories from our partner site, ScienceBlogs.de: German Communications Prof Observes U.S. Elections Miriam Meckel, Professor for Media and Communications Management at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, is touring the States on an Eisenhower Fellowship and sharing her insights into U.S. political campaigning on ScienceBlogs.de, on a guest blog called Amerikanische Begegnungen (American Encounters). Meckel has a ball watching Barack Obama dance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, while she finds that Chris Matthews, host of 'Hardball' on MSNBC, is no match for the…

ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap

9.24.07 to 9.30.07 Announcements Welcome New Sciblings Welcome anonymous ScienceWoman, a first-year assistant professor in "-ology." Her blog's title, On Being a Scientist and a Woman, is sufficiently self-explanatory. And second, welcome A Few Things Ill Considered, the climate blog of Coby Beck. Coby also writes at Grist.org's blog, The Gristmill, and is the author of the famed document "How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic." Homepage Buzzes 9/25: Ahmadinejad on Science On Monday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a packed audience at Columbia University. The president,…

College of Arts and Sciences from American University Explores the Physics of Music on National Mall

The physics of music is a greater way to appreciate music. This booth sounds quite interesting. Thanks CAS for helping get the word out about the Expo and coming to have a booth. Find the full post here. By Kaitie O'Hare October 13, 2010 Physics Professor Nate Harshman and High School Noura Jaber will demonstrate Chladni plates at the Expo. Professor Harshman and High School student Noura Jaber experiment with Chlandi plates. The physics department and audio technology programs are teaming up on October 23-24 to present "The Physics of Music" exhibit on the National Mall, part of the larger…

Learning to do the Rubik's cube! Practice Makes Perfect.

From time to time, my job requires some travel in order to run my experiments and this week I found myself in Houston, TX, yet again. Upon entering the dinning room of my hotel for breakfast I spotted a 17 year old boy with a Rubik's cube. Knowing the USA Science and Engineering Festival has a "You CAN do the Rubik's cube" competition I wondered if this young man was aware of this competition. I was itching to ask him a hundred questions but my internal investigative reporter suddenly went shy as he was sitting with his Mom and a few other peers and I quickly realized they were all speaking…

Making DNA art for DNA Day 2015

National DNA Day has a fun challenge for teachers and classrooms using Pinterest.  Your class can join a larger, national, effort to create a National DNA Day Pinterest board by making your own class Pinterest board on DNA, genetics, and genomics.  Some possible topics are: Things to do with DNA DNA and health DNA and the Arts DNA in the News We're really excited about the topic on DNA and the Arts! Here's how you can make some lovely DNA Art images for your Pinterest board in Molecule World on an iPad or, if you don't have access to an iPad, you can use Cn3D.   1.  Go to our DNA search at…

Sequencing a Genome: the video

Have you ever wondered how people actually go about sequencing a genome? If they're sequencing a chicken genome, do they raise chickens in the lab and get DNA from the eggs? Does the DNA sequence come out in one piece? Why is there so much talk about computers? What are Phred, Phrap, and Consed? What is the Golden Path? Wonder no more! You too, can take a virtual tour of the Washington University Genome Center. I found this really excellent series of short videos that follows two genetics students, Libby and Bryce, as they meet on the bus to the Genome Center and learn about all the steps…

Nobel Winners Announced

Recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prizes were announced the week of October 3. The winners in medicine were honored for their work in immunology, as reported on Tomorrow's Table. Steinman "discovered a new class of cell, known as dendritic cells, which are key activators of the adaptive immune system;" shockingly, he died a few days before the announcement. On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham questions the significance of Beutler's contribution, saying "the conceptual groundwork for its importance in the immune response had already been laid" by a researcher named Janeway. Kevin continues, "giving…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Groups And Grumps: Study Identifies 'Sociality' Neurons: A University of California, San Diego study has for the first time identified brain cells that influence whether birds of a feather will, or will not, flock together. The research demonstrates that vasotocin neurons in the medial extended amygdala -- which are present in most animals, including humans -- respond differently to social cues in birds that live in colonies compared to their more solitary cousins. Evolutionary Oddity: Erectile Tissue Helps Flamingos Eat: With their spindly legs, long necks and bright plumage, flamingos are a…

That which cannot be mentioned by name

Evolution! Wow! A jolt of electricity went down my spine. I feel like Harry Potter saying "Voldemort." Apparently, in biomedical journals, drug resistance and other phenomena can "emerge," "arise," or "spread." It can "appear", "develop", "become common", or "be acquired." As long as you don't say it "evolves." A group of researchers, at the University of Virginia, discovered that authors who were studying evolution and publishing in biomedical journals were reluctant to use the word (1). They found that: In research reports in journals with primarily evolutionary or genetic content, the…

Welcome Bioinformatics Students!

Our goal for this course (BioSci256) is to introduce you to some of the tools and databases that are widely-used in bioinformatics and give you lots of hands-on practice in using these tools to look at some questions in biology. Since many of you are either studying biotechnology or working in a health-related field, we will focus quite a bit on practical applications. I posted tonight's topics here since I've been told that some of you might not have access to Blackboard for a couple of days. Feel free to look around the place. ScienceBloggers discuss lots of topics that you might find…

Bird flu? These poultry workers should live so long!

If you work for Tyson foods, one of the US's largest poultry producers, you probably aren't very worried about bird flu. That's because you are too busy worrying about not getting cut to pieces, electrocuted, maimed from a fall or burned to death. As part of a strategy of increased attention to workplaces with higher than usual worker injury rates the US Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) inspected the Tyson poultry processing plant in Noel, Missouri, and found "serious, willful, and repeat" health and safety violations. The plant was fined almost $350,000 as a result.…

More Bush collateral damage: flu virus sharing

The world's five decade influenza surveillance system can be added as more collateral damage to George W. Bush's Global War on Everybody he Doesn't Like: Anti-US sentiment contributed to Indonesia's success in leading developing countries to push the U.N. health body into agreeing to change a 50-year-old influenza virus-sharing system, the health minister said. Iran, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Bolivia and Myanmar were among the 23 countries supporting Indonesia's argument that the existing system of unconditional sample-sharing was unfair to poorer nations, because they could not afford…

When the FDA gets tough . . .

Let's see. If I were making a pile of money by doing something illegal and I got caught, do you think I'd be able to get off just by agreeing not to do it again? I guess if what I was doing was making illegal prescription drugs, I could. I'll make a mental note: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the entry of a Consent Decree of Permanent Injunction against PharmaFab Inc., its subsidiary, PFab LP, and two company officials, Mark Tengler, PharmaFab's president, and Russ McMahen, PFab's vice president of scientific affairs, to stop the illegal manufacture and distribution of…

Gerberding testifies that CDC has sufficient resources

The CDC chief, Dr. Julie Gerberding was publicly spanked by a congressional panel this week. Not that she acknowledged it. As a good Bushie, she never admits fault. Like George W., she "understands" everybody's concern and she is concerned, too. About what? Morale at the very agency she runs, CDC. The only news here is that she admits there is a morale problem, because she has been denying any such problem for years even as morale was tanking as she bravely mismanaged the agency in the face of overwhelming evidence she was making a mess of things. Her acknowledgment was not an admission of…

Party tonight at Confined Space (sigh). See you there!

Tonight The Reveres are putting on their party clothes and headed for Jordan Barab's place, Confined Space. Doors open from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time. Truthfully, this party is also a wake, because Jordan is closing up shop tonight and has invited everyone over (that means you, too) to celebrate his last post. We'll be gathering in the Comment Thread. That's the bad news. Here's the good news. Jordan is closing the blog because he has a new job on Capitol Hill (for the non-Americans, that's where our legislative branch is located), working for the Committee on Education and…

Clocks, cell cycle and cancer

This is in the bread-mold Neurospora crassa. It is unlikely to be universal. I expect to see the connection in some protists and fungi, perhaps in some animals. I am not so sure about plants, and I am pretty sure it is not like this in Cyanobacteria in which the cycle of cell division is independent from circadian timing: Novel connection found between biological clock and cancer Hanover, NH--Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have discovered that DNA damage resets the cellular circadian clock, suggesting links among circadian timing, the cycle of cell division, and the propensity for…

Iran's science minister does science the easy way: by plagiarizing [updated]

People complain that ministers in the cabinet Iran's recently selected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government will say things so outlandish no one else would even think of saying them, but Declan Butler over at the Nature blog, The Great Beyond, begs to differ. Take Iran's Science Minister, Kamran Daneshjou. Daneshjou's credentials had been questioned in an LA Times report in August, but Butler has found that a paper co-authored by Daneshjou contains genuine peer-reviewed science. The only fly in the ointment is that it doesn't seem to be Daneshjou's science: Large chunks of text, figures…

Swine flu: "mild strain" kills two more New Yorkers

Yesterday New York reported two more swine flu deaths (a 41-year-old woman from Queens and a 34-year-old man from Brooklyn). CDC and just about everyone else who knows anything about influenza have been telling people to expect this. The influenza virus kills people all the time. We don't know exactly how many but we know that many people die of various immediate and underlying causes that wouldn't have died at that time if they hadn't become infected with the influenza virus in the period prior to their demise. Influenza is like heart disease or diabetes or cigarette smoking: a major cause…

Creationist crap lawsuit dismissed (again)

The detritus of the Bush era continues to wash ashore, but some of it has decomposed sufficiently that it isn't as noxious as when first dumped into the sea. One example is what was left of a Federal lawsuit filed by a creationist post doc against the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution alleging he was fired for his religious views. Those views were of the Creationist variety, and the job he was fired from was research involving development in zebra fish, specifically involving evolutionary processes. His views, per se, had nothing to do with it, of course. It was that his views prevented…

Professional liars and death from cholera and war

Whether they are called the White House Press Secretary or the regime's Information Minister, they seem to have in common one characteristic: they are professional liars. It goes without saying that all of Bush's press secretaries have been blatant liars, but it's also true of Clinton's and virtually very one of their predecessors. Some of them have been much more likable than others and when they lied made my hackles rise less, but they were still professional liars and why anyone believes what they say is one of the big mysteries. I have to keep reminding myself that our "Information…

Bird flu and blood cells

One nasty (and usually fatal) consequence of infection with bird flu (influenza A/H5N1) in humans is that the virus doesn't just infect the lungs but becomes disseminated to many different organs. We know that a bird-like receptor that the virus can use to get into cells is found in several other organs, including the lining of blood vessels and neural tissues. Central nervous system involvement is frequently a hallmark of fatal bird flu cases. The virus probably gets to a lot of other organs, as well. But how? An examination of the blood of a fatal case in a pregnant woman suggests answer…

Annals of McCain - Palin, XXXIV: out of the closet

OK, so Governor Palin spent $150,000 in two months on clothes and accessories. Big deal. It wasn't illegal. And it wasn't taxpayer money. It was campaign money. Money donated to the Republican Party by people who trusted Republican officials to be good stewards of their (possibly) honestly earned dollars. Yes, there are people who are grossed out by the profligacy. My own Mrs. R., upon viewing slide #5 in this slideshow of Palin wardrobe and shoes was aghast at the Louis Vuiton bag being weilded by 7 year old Piper. But there will always be curmudgeons. Or this guy: Mr. McCAIN. Madam…

Bush EPA sets new rules for lead in air: mirabile dictu

Here's some public health man-bites-dog news. George Bush's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did something right: The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stringent new standards for airborne lead particles, following the recommendations of its science advisers and cutting the maximum allowable concentrations to a tenth of the previous standard. It was the first change in federal lead standards in three decades. [snip] The new standards set the limits for exposure at 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from 1.5 micrograms, and well within the outer limit of 0.2…

Benzene in soda: update

We've covered the FDA failure leading to their overlooking benzene in soda pretty often (at least if pretty often means here, here, here, here, here, here and here). It's like the guy who went to the doctor complaining of pain in his belly. "Ever have it before?" the doctor asked. "Yes, twice" the patient said. "Well, you have it again." In this installment we learn that the benzene, a known human carcinogen, doesn't really have to be there. Recall how it got there. Two preservatives commonly added to soft drinks, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and sodium benzoate, react to produce the benzene…

Tweetlinks, 11-05-09

Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time (all my tweets are also imported into FriendFeed where they are much more easy to search and comment on, as well as into my Facebook wall where they are seen by quite a different set of people): Global warming worries drive biofuels research Research participants have a right to their own genetic data Time to talk periods RT @maninranks: Idea for TheRTP: Recent Imagine Science film festival in NYC. Why not here? Replay theirs? Do our own? Another post on distributed science v. open source science: Distributed…

A nasty biter among the cuckoo clocks

Influenza is spread person to person but there are viruses that depend upon another intermediate host to travel from host to host. Many of these viral diseases are found in tropical climes, although they used to be common in temperate regions. The US had quite a lot of malaria and yellow fever in the 18th and 19th centuries. These are both mosquito-borne diseases. They were eliminated by eliminating the mosquito species that carried them. Lately the US has had a resurgence of encephalitis viruses, especially West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis. Recently a new mosquito-borne viral…

Pat Boone isn't exactly the brightest pundit around

He has written recently about the terrorism in Mumbai. Grand old hotel, in an increasingly progressive and prosperous India: Suddenly, hundreds of innocent, unsuspecting people are hostages, some of them being systematically murdered. Bombs are exploding, people are screaming, military are descending into the chaos, TV crews are coming from everywhere to broadcast the carnage worldwide. Yes, it was a terrible and shocking event. However, he really doesn't care about Indians suffering and dying — he wants to warn Americans that it could happen here. Look around. Watch your evening news. Read…

Taxing the Ambassador

This is a weird story. It's about a dentist who has claimed he doesn't have to file taxes because he's "Ambassador and Citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven under its King Jesus the Christ" and therefore has diplomatic immunity from federal jurisdiction. That's pretty nutty and this guy is also a militant anti-tax activist. I'm not opposed to paying taxes. On the contrary, I believe there are things that are only possible if we each chip in: public safety (fire, police, health department), access to health care (aka, Universal Health Care), the social service safety net and much more. I detest…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Genetic Surprise: Mobile Genes Found To Pressure Species Formation: Biologists at the University of Rochester have discovered that an old and relatively unpopular theory about how a single species can split in two turns out to be accurate after all, and acting in nature. The finding, reported in today's issue of Science, reveals that scientists must reassess the forces involved in the origin of species. The beginnings of speciation, suggests the paper, can be triggered by genes that change their locations in a genome. General Mechanism Of Cellular Aging Found; Tumor Suppressor Gene May Be Key…

Should we rewrite the textbook chapters on voltage-gated potassium channels?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is really ground-breaking: Study Finds Brain Cell Regulator Is Volume Control, Not On/off Switch: He and his colleagues studied an ion channel that controls neuronal activity called Kv2.1, a type of voltage-gated potassium channel that is found in every neuron of the nervous system. "Our work showed that this channel can exist in millions of different functional states, giving the cell the ability to dial its activity up or down depending on the what's going on in the external environment," said Trimmer. This regulatory phenomenon is called '…

My Picks From ScienceDaily

Famous Galapagos Tortoise, Lonesome George, May Not Be Alone: "Lonesome George," a giant Galapagos tortoise and conservation icon long thought to be the sole survivor of his species, may not be alone for much longer, according to a multinational team of researchers headed by investigators at Yale University. New research led by biologists Adalgisa Caccone and Jeffrey Powell in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, with the strong support and cooperation of the Galápagos National Park and Charles Darwin Research Station, has identified a tortoise that is clearly a first…

Rotating shifts shorten lives

This is the first study I know that directly tested this - the effects of rotating shifts on longevity - in humans, though some studies of night-shift nurses have shown large increases in breast cancers, stomach ulcers and heart diseases, and similar studies have been done in various rodents and fruitflies: Working in shifts shortens life span: Study: A study of 3,912-day workers and 4,623 shift workers of the Southeastern Central Railway in Nagpur showed the former lived 3.94 years longer than their counterparts on shift duties, said the study by Atanu Kumar Pati of The School of Life…

Forbes gets slapped around some

I was more than a little disappointed when Forbes magazine published the screeds of those ignorant doofii, Ham, Wells, Flannery, West, and Egnor. Now, though, they've also published a broadside from Jerry Coyne that demolishes the five creationists. His primary focus is on Egnor (but just as much could be said against any of them), and he doesn't hold back. Why does he so readily dismiss a theory that has been universally accepted by scientists for over a century? Apparently because a rather old book, Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, first published in 1985, convinced him…

Aquatic Microbial Diversity

Today is a big day on Plos-Biology for the Oceanic Microbial Diversity Genomics. Last night they published not one, not two, but three big papers chockfull of data. Accompani\ying them are not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five editorial articles about different aspects of this work. James has already homed in on one important part of the discovery: the preponderance and diversity of proteorhodopsins - microbial photopigments that are capable of capturing solar energy in a manner different from photosynthesis. As always, light-sensitive molecules are thought to be tightly…

Me and the Copperheads

Last week I had lunch with a good old friend of mine, Jim Green. He got his degree in Zoology, then a law degree (patent law) and is now coming back for yet another degree in biological and chemical engineering. He did his research on snakes, so we reminisced and laughed about the time several years ago (that was before Kevin joined the lab, which is why I was recruited for this study in the first place) when we were taking blood samples from copperheads. What we wanted to do is see if snakes have melatonin and if so, if it shows a diurnal rhythm in concentration like it does in other…

The Cultural Politics of Sleep

Nicole Eugene recently defended her Masters Thesis called Potent Sleep: The Cultural Politics of Sleep (PDF) on a topic that I find fascinating: Why is sleep, a moment that is physiologically full and mentally boundless, thought to be a moment of absence and powerlessness? Where did this devalued notion of sleep come from and how can we situate sleep studies within a continuation of a historical processes and economic infuences? In other words, how does sleep effect and exist within systems of power? To answer these questions I turn to a range of scholarship and theoretical studies to examine…

My picks from ScienceDaily

As always, put the press releases under the dissecting microscopes: Thinking With The Spinal Cord?: Two scientists from the University of Copenhagen have demonstrated that the spinal cord use network mechanisms similar to those used in the brain. The discovery is featured in the current issue of Science. More under the fold... Quitting Smoking May Be Harder If Mom Smoked During Pregnancy: Quitting smoking may be more difficult for individuals whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, according to animal research conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers. Prenatal exposure to…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Singing For Survival: Gibbons Scare Off Predators With 'Song': It is well known that animals use song as a way of attracting mates, but researchers have found that gibbons have developed an unusual way of scaring off predators -- by singing to them. The primatologists at the University of St Andrews discovered that wild gibbons in Thailand have developed a unique song as a natural defence to predators. Literally singing for survival, the gibbons appear to use the song not just to warn their own group members but those in neighbouring areas. Scanner Offers Humane Way To Look At Bird Bones: Why…

Chilean earthquake and science

There is so much tragedy and sadness in the wake of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile that to bemoan the fate of research projects there seems kind of trivial. But if you are scientist your heart really goes out to your Chilean colleagues. Jocelyn Kaiser and Antonio Regalado have some details at ScienceInsider, Science Magazine's science blog: Scientists at research universities in several Chilean cities are reeling from last week's earthquake, which overturned microscopes, set fire to laboratories, washed years of research out to sea, and took the life of a young marine biologist.…

PowerPoint disease

This post contains an oldie but (fairly) goodie YouTube clip about PowerPoint (.ppt). I hate PowerPoint although I use it a lot out of laziness. I've been lecturing a long time and for at least half of it there was no such things as .ppt. If you had data you wanted to show, you thought long and hard about which graphs or tables because each yellow letters on blue background kodachrome slide cost $8 to $15 so you only made up ones about things you couldn't talk about from your notes or write/draw on the blackboard. I used the blackboard a lot as a lecturer because I had a tendency to talk…

Highlights of occupational health and safety research published in the last year

Researchers who assess the impact of working conditions on health have had a busy year publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed literature. The final section of our report The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2013 – Summer 2014---which we wrote about on Monday and Tuesday---profiles some of the best papers published in the last 12 months that provide insight into the scores of different workplace hazards and their relationship with injuries and illnesses. Especially prominent in the literature were studies involving Latino workers, healthcare workers, construction…

How many people can health centers serve? It depends on federal funds and Medicaid expansions

I've written before about the importance of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion and about the role of community health centers in delivering primary care to underserved patients. With roughly half of the states declining the now-optional Medicaid expansion and an uncertain federal funding environment, though, the extent to which health centers will be able to serve the newly insured is up in the air. A new report from the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative puts some numbers on the variability. Under different Medicaid expansion and funding scenarios…

American Banana Republic

In yesterday's NY Times Op-ed, Kristof apologized for comparing US income inequity to that of "Banana Republics" - that is, for insulting other nations by comparing them to the US, which has now achieved wholly unprecedented levels of economic injustice. My point was that the wealthiest plutocrats now actually control a greater share of the pie in the United States than in historically unstable countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. But readers protested that this was glib and unfair, and after reviewing the evidence I regretfully confess that they have a point. That's right: I may…

Why Land Is Part of Capital in Neo-Classical Economics

Interesting query and discussion at Martin Wolf's blog about how economics came to conflate natural resources and capital, and whether it should continue to do so. You'll want to read the comments too! The idea that land and capital are the same thing is evidently ludicrous. It requires us to believe that the economic machine is self-sustaining -- a sort of perpetual motion machine. Capital is the product of savings and investment. It is the result of human frugality and the invention required to imagine and create new capital goods. Labour is also -- and in today's circumstances,…

100 Billion, 3 Degrees

You've got to give our Secretary of State credit - she knows how to make an entrance. Show up at the door with 100 billion and people can't look away. Of course, she didn't promise 100 billion from the US, but to raise it collectively with some unspecified other folk by 2020, but still, it is an impressive number, and it isn't wasn't a bad way to get attention. That doesn't change the fact that the rich world is still trying to blame the poor, or that the climate talks are still failing. Meanwhile, a new UN report released confirms what we already knew - that everything presently on the…

"A day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up"

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious ship which will peer far and wide... The European Space Agency is being very sensible and mapping out its schedule for large and medium science missions for the medium term, under the Cosmic Vision program. In particular, the first of the large missions, L1, has been chosen and is JUICE, Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - a Jovian orbiter scheduled for launch in 2022, to study the three outer Galilean Moons. Athena The other mission concepts which competed for the L1 mission slot were Athena, a reformulated large X-ray observatory - Athena is revisit of the…

On Student Morale and the Ritual Humiliation of Astronomy Faculty

In which we dunk and pie our professors... Much has been written about student morale and the problems of student-faculty relations and the implicit expectations faculty have of the students. Over the last couple of weeks I have had occasion to test some of the more radical proposals to improve the interactions of our students with the faculty. It started two weeks ago last wednesday: we were summoned to the coffee room with the promise of sweets. Instead we were faced with a bizarre array of students and staff dressed in native costumes who, after some tribal dancing and handing out of…

Occupational Health News Roundup

44-year-old Iraq veteran Tim Wymore suffers from brain lesions, a blood disorder, and other health problems that leave him unable to walk unassisted. His wife, Shanna, quit her job to be his full-time caregiver. Wymore is one of several hundred veterans who've fired lawsuits related to exposure to open-air burn pits at US miliatry installations. Yet he's struggling to get benefits for himself and his family. Phillip O'Connor reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledges that Wymore's health problems are war-related. But the VA believes his condition…

Is a meeting "public" if you don't tell the public?

Two months ago, I applauded OSHA for announcing that its SBREFA panel meeting on a draft diacetyl proposed rule would be open to the public.  Today, I feel schnookered.  OSHA hosted its teleconference-meeting yesterday (5/19) and today (5/20) with specially-selected small employers, but failed to provide meaningful notice to allow the public to participate.  Is a meeting really "public" if you don't tell the public? Or is it really public if you only tell a select few?    Not in my book. In my March 17 post OSHA's new direction on diacetyl, I noticed that OSHA's Federal Register…