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Why do you have blue eyes?

Well, you may not have blue eyes, but many people do. The post below suggests that there is still a lot of confusion on how eye color is inherited, but now in 2007 we are coming close to clearing up many issues. A paper which came out early this year, A Three-Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Haplotype in Intron 1 of OCA2 Explains Most Human Eye-Color Variation (Open Access), suggests that about 3/4 of the eye color variation in Europeans (from pale blue to dark brown) can be explained by polymorphism around the OCA2 gene. In other words, eye color comes close to being a monogenic Mendelian…

Longer term effective population

In a few posts below I mentioned long term effective population. The effective population is basically the breeding population as opposed to the census size. Depending on the species this can vary quite a bit. One important point to consider (and this is obviously relevant to inbreeding and genetic diversity) is that the breeding generation alive must be placed in its historical context, how many ancestors does this population have? For non-overlapping generations long term effective population size is the harmonic mean of the effective population sizes of each generation. It is defined by…

Selection on a quantitative trait

On occasion I've decided I'll quickly review some population genetic concepts. These are really "background assumptions," but sometimes comments make it clear that they're not in the "common" background. So to the left you see two normal distributions, assume these are quantitative traits. The x-axis is the trait value, while the y-axis is the frequency of that value within a population. As you might note I've labeled the two populations "generation 1" (g1) and "generation 100" (g100). The implication is that the two distributions represent the "same" population shifted in time.…

Theopolitical Conservatives and the Great Con

I've noted before that the background to the 'culture wars' is that white, male, Christian (often Protestant) is no longer the cultural default setting. Regarding religion: The greatest con theopolitical conservatives ever pulled was getting their religious views defined as the cultural 'default setting' when, in fact, most people aren't fundamentalist Christians. And the way they did that was by lying. By way of skippy and Pacific Views, I came across this interesting observation by Christine Wicker (italics mine): The 25 percent of Americans who say they are evangelicals don't go to church…

On Homophobia, Why Are We Listening to Bering?

Jeremy Yoder has a good takedown of another article by Jesse Bering. This time, Bering argues that homophobia is adaptive. This is the key point: Bering's post focuses on a series of studies by the evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup. Gallup was interested in the question of whether there might be an adaptive explanation for homophobia--which, given the fact that many (although far from all) human cultures treat homosexuality as a taboo--is a fair question for research. He hypothesized that treating homosexuality as taboo helped to prevent homosexual adults from contacting a homophobic…

A Question for Conservatives: How Many 'Lone Wolves' Does It Take to Make a Wolf Pack?

Whenever some right-wing associated nut shoots someone, we always hear it described as the actions of a 'lone wolf.' Well, if that's the case then them wolves have formed themselves a pack: -- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others. -- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama. -- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement…

Framing, Evolution, and Power

While I'm away on vacation, here's a blast from the past: Once again, the science framing wars have flared up. While I'm not allergic to the concept of framing as some are, one of the major reasons why I'm not a big fan of dwelling on the topic is that obsessing over language reminds me of the late 80s and 90s when the Left won the battle of words, and the fundamentalist Uruk-hai took over the damn country. I've been doing some thinking about the 'progressive' concern with media communication (including my own)--and it is important, no doubt about it. But, as the 2006 elections have shown,…

C Is for Cookie, but Is It Good Enough for Delayed Gratification and Linear Regression?

This is what children with poor self-control become (from here) Melody Dye at Child's Play has an interesting post about the famous (or infamous) cookie experiments, which involved observing children presented with a cookie and then left alone in a room. If they wait long enough, they get another cookie (and they know this). If not, then clearly they are doomed to fail in life: Twenty years later, having spent long hours forgetting those misplaced moments, a new crop of experimental psychologists will add insult to injury, and call you, and ask pointed questions about your education, your…

A Meme I Can Live With

tags: blogosphere, meme, 100 unusual lifetime experiences meme I discovered this meme at Guadalupe Storm-petrel, and thought it sounded interesting. This meme lists 100 unusual experiences that one might have had in his lifetime, and so I've emboldened those I've experienced, and placed a red asterix in front of those I'd like to experience someday. Started my own blog Slept under the stars -- many many times Played in a band -- I was in a handbell choir, I hope this counts *Visited Hawaii Watched a meteor shower Given more than I can afford to charity Been to Disneyland/world --…

The five best arguments for creationism ever!

Don't you just love a challenge? I'm always looking for some splendid argument from a creationist that would make me think, but they always give me such silliness, instead. And then, I saw this: a mainstream newspaper (well, the Telegraph…but at least it's not the Daily Mail) offers us an article with a tantalizing promise: they're going to give us the the five very best arguments to support creationism. Whoa. Cool. I'm sure they also put their very best science reporter on the job to get some real stumpers for scientists. Here goes. Brace yourselves. Prepare to be provoked and excited! No…

Birdbooker Report 65

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…

Structure of influenza NP protein determined

Compared to other viruses, the influenza virus is relatively simple, although its biology is not. To date, the eight genetic segments in the viral genome (the totality of its genetic information) has been shown to code for only eleven proteins. A virus can get away with this because it hijacks the host cell's extensive protein making machinery and doesn't use its own. But we are still learning about those eleven proteins, what their role is, how they work and even what they look like. A paper that just appeared in Nature (.pdf, subscription only) is the first to reveal what one of these…

Please get a flu shot

If you haven't gotten your flu vaccine yet or you don't plan to get one you are in the majority. Of course if you read this site you are in a small minority, so I'm guessing many of you plan to get a flu shot. Which is good. I'd also ask for pneumovax, too, a vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia, a frequent secondary infection in influenza. But back to flu vaccine. There is some evidence of cross-protection between seasonal influenza vaccination and H5N1 infection. Since one component of the seasonal vaccine, H1N1, shares a subtype N1 antigen with H5N1, this isn't implausible. More…

Questions raised by latest Indonesian case

The most recent human case of bird flu in Indonesia raises some extremely interesting questions. Here are the facts. A 17 year old farmer, named Umar Aup, in a remote province of West Java became seriously ill with an influenza-like disease after he and his cousin collected the carcasses of about 100 chickens from their backyard flock that had died suddenly. They fed the dead chickens to dogs. The cousin took ill and died of a disease that appeared to be bird flu but he was buried before any testing could be carried out. Aup also became ill and was admitted to a hospital last Wednesday but…

Stockpiling a mismatched bird flu vaccine. Not a no-brainer.

There is currently no vaccine for a pandemic strain of H5N1 avian influenza, and if a pandemic strain does emerge it will take at least 6 months to get the first batches of one. Currently the productive capacity for influenza vaccines is so overmatched by the needs of a global population, only a tiny fraction of those that will need it could be immunized. The current experimental (and relatively ineffectual) vaccines for H5N1 are not for a pandemic strain but for a strain current in southeast asia that is still poorly transmissible from person to person. It is thought an easily transmissible…

What's Evolution Got To Do With It? IV. The Problem With Merely Studying What Is. [Evolution for Everyone]

Working backwards through our four reasons to ignore evolution, we have shown that smart people don't necessary converge on the facts of the matter from different starting positions (4) and that reasoning on the basis of design benefits from knowledge about the designing process (3). Here is our next reason for ignoring the E-word (2): A reasonable research strategy is to study what is, without worrying much about how it got that way. After all, something like the brain is available to be studied in minute detail, whereas how it got that way is more speculative. Why speculate when we can…

How Do You Value What Didn't Happen? [The ScienceBlogs Book Club]

Karen Starko writes: When the "financial crisis" started and the news media started throwing around numbers in the trillions and projected fixes in the billions, I realized I just didn't get it. So I got a little yellow post-it, labeled it "understanding trillions," and started a list of examples. And when I learned that the US GDP in 2006 was 13T and the derivative market, estimated in June 2007, was valued at 500T, I quickly got a sense of the potential drain of the derivative market (in which money is spent on items without real value...my definition, please correct me if I am wrong). I…

Crowdfunding Basic Science: Support the Experimental Lakes Area, the world's leading freshwater research facility

There are two very strong competing emotions at work here in this post: delight versus depression. Depression that the government-funded research landscape here in Canada can sink so low that the premier freshwater research facility likely in the world is reduced to putting its hand out and asking for spare change just to fund its core research program. But there's also a kind of delight in acknowledging that we've reached a place in the evolution of open public science that regular people like you and I can participate directly in making sure important research happens and continues to…

Making the A.I.-Climate connection

Anyone asked to identify the two biggest forces for change in the world today could do worse than choose artificial intelligence and climate change. Both are products of technology whose effects are only beginning to be felt, and the ultimate consequences of both will almost certainly be transformative in every sense of the word. Other than that, there hasn't been much tying them together. Until now. Welcome to Climate City, a label that a group of current and former data analysts and entrepreneurs has applied to Asheville, N.C. It might seem an unlikely spot for revolutionary thinking on…

The nuclear misdirection

We can't seem to stop thinking about nuclear power. Given what's at stake -- the biosphere, the economy, our genetic integrity -- this is understandable. But I think too many are getting distracted from the fundamental problem with splitting atoms and arguing scientific questions we are unlikely to resolve anytime soon. Much of the recent hand-wringing is a reaction to George Monbiot's quasi-conversion to a nuclear power advocate. His latest column, Evidence Meltdown, practically radiates scorn for the "anti-nuclear movement," which he manages to reduce to a monolithic cult led by Helen…

Celebrating African American History Month With Role Models In STEM: Dr. Patricia Bath

As a girl growing up in the 1950s in Harlem, X-STEM Speaker Dr. Patricia Bath became fascinated by newspaper accounts of the humanitarian work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer (who treated lepers in Africa). That, coupled with encouragement and motivation from her family doctor and her parents, fueled her desire to become a physician. She would not only go on to fulfill her dream, but make medical history as well. Dr. Bath, a noted ophthalmologist and laser scientist, is especially known for discovering and inventing the revolutionary device and technique for cataract surgery known as the laserphaco…

Edison's Christmas Lights: The Spirit of Innovation Shines On

By USA Science & Engineering Festival Founder Larry Bock Edison´s contribution to those wondrous beacons of the holiday season is a poignant one. On a wintry night during the Christmas season of 1880 -- just weeks after introducing his revolutionary invention of the first practical incandescent light -- Edison, in a bold move to promote his new technology, wowed thousands of people in front of his Menlo Park lab with a live outdoor display of dozens of incandescent lamps strung together, creating the very first strand of electric lights. Two years later, Edison´s friend and associate,…

Women Who Changed the World Through Science & Engineering: Ada Byron

Ada Byron (later Countes of Lovelace) -- British mathematician The daughter of poet Lord Byron, her key collaborations in the 1880's with British inventor Charles Babbage led to the earliest computer; she is considered the first computer programmer. Born Augusta Ada Byron in London in 1815,  Ada Byron (who would also later be known as the Countess of Lovelace) was the daughter of a brief marriage between the famous Romantic Age poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle Milbanke. Ada's mother (known as Lady Byron) separated from Lord Byron just a month after Ada was born. Four months later, her poet…

An Interview with Steve of Omni Brain

After a bit of a hiatus, ScienceBlogger interviews are back! And today, in honor of his one-year blogging anniversary, we feature Steve Higgins of Omni Brain. What's your name? James Stephen Higgins, but that James name is one of those crazy family things where every first-born male gets the name and every other one goes by their middle name—so I guess I'm the every other one. Steve is the short answer. What's your blog called? Omni Brain What's up with that name? There used to be this great sciency magazine (back in elementary school) called OMNI, published by the guy who publishes Hustler…

From the Mind of a Young Inventor: Showing Us That 'Green' Vehicles Can Be Cool!

Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker, Ben Gulak. Unique, amazing inventions - and the story behind how they came about - always inspire us. Such is the story of Benjamin Gulak, who, as a teenager growing up in Ontario, Canada had a special wish: that one day he be known for his inventions - inventions that would help improve the world. Now, just age 21 and the inventor of the highly acclaimed "eco-friendly" Uno III -- a stylishly compact personal mobility vehicle he developed as a high school senior - he can honestly say he's off to a great start. Benjamin is also the creator of the DTV Shredder (…

CTO of Lockheed Martin, Ray O Johnson, interviewed by EarthSky about the USA Science and Engineering Festival

It is less than six weeks until the start of the USA Science and Engineering Festival. The excitement is starting to build. Check this out! Host Sponsor Lockheed Martin's CTO Ray O Johnson is interviewed by EarthSky (another Festival Sponsor) about why we need to re-invorate interest in science in our schools here in the US or we will fall behind in new developments and technologies. He talks about the role of the USA Science and Engineering Festival in his interview. The mission statement for the USA Science and Engineering Festival is: is to re-invigorate the interest of our nation's youth…

Why is Science Cool?

Why IS Science Cool? Have you ever pondered that question? Ever want to tell the world why you think that Science is Cool? I think science is COOL because through science I can find the answer to my hundreds of questions of why? Why is the sky blue but sunsets have colors? Why don't birds fall out of the sky? Why doesn't silly putty stay in the shape I put it? I love the question why and LOVE that I can find many of these answers through science and if I can't find the answer? I know I can set up an experiment to try to figure it out!! Now YOU have the opportunity to answer that burning…

Some like it hot - receptors for capsaicin and wasabi

To have an effect, a molecule must bind to a receptor and trigger a signal.  Studying a receptor's structure can give us insights about the way this triggering process works. Capsaicin is a fascinating molecule that puts the "pep" into peppers.  Curiously, the amount of capsaicin in a pepper is measured with a test devised in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville.  Dried peppers are dissolved in alcohol, this liquid extract is diluted in water, and trained people determine the pepper's Scoville value by "tasting" the heat. I wonder how these people are recruited.   I like hot sauce but I can't imagine…

What made me sick?

How do microbiologists determine which microbe caused a disease? As Tara has eloquently described (I, II), we are covered with bacteria and other microbes. A reasonable question then, is when we get sick, how do we which little devil deserves the blame? In many cases, pathogens (disease-causing organisms) are identified by a common series of steps, known as Koch's postulates. Robert Koch described these steps in 1876 when he used them to prove that Bacillus anthracis was the cause of anthrax. During the past century, his steps have been used successfully many times. Koch's steps are…

Home, Sweet Home

[Another piece from two years ago, August. Since we recently posted on personal prepping, I thought I'd give you the extreme version.] We all know from the last election that security is a major preoccupation of the American public. Hell, that theme won the last election for a guy who not only is a danger to the country, but a danger to the world. So I'm guessing there is a good market for this: For Sale By Owner - The Ultimate Secure Home Strategically located in the awesome San Juan mountains of Southwest Colorado, this patented steel-reinforced concrete earth home was built to withstand…

Salmonella sequel

This is a follow-up to the Salmonella outbreak at the Taste of Chicago 2007 outdoor food festival we reported a couple of days ago. The size of the outbreak continues to grow, with 636 reported illnesses, 66 of them laboratory confirmed as Salmonella serotype Heidelberg (one of the more common serotypes; CBS2, Chicago via ProMed). Fifteen people wound up in the hospital. An unusual aspect is that authorities have been able to pinpoint the source as a particular menu item, Hommus Shirazi, served at one booth at the fair. Even more unusual is that pictures of the booth and the Hommus Shirazi…

Bush's Surgeon General nominee. Holy Shit!

It's not as if the Surgeon General was such an important post. The SG's mission is mainly to educate the public and advise the President. No big deal, really. And in fact the past SGs might as well have been invisible. Hell, they were invisible. No use of the position as a bully pulpit to educate the public about good health. Now President Bush has nominated a new Surgeon General to replace the Acting SG who replaced the previous one who did almost nothing his whole tenure except issue a report on the dangers of second hand smoke and shortly thereafter found his appointment not renewed. So…

CDC's mask guidelines: huh?

What do you say when you really don't know the answer to the question, "Should I wear a mask to protect me against bird flu if it becomes pandemic?" Here's the CDC answer: If a super-flu strikes, face masks may not protect you. Even so, the government says people should consider wearing them in certain situations, just in case. The consumer advice issued Thursday reflects the fact that the science behind it is unclear. Whether widespread use of masks will help, or harm, during the next worldwide flu outbreak is a question that researchers are studying furiously. (AP) I'm not sure exactly how…

Turkeys in charge at UK bird flu farm

It is now clear someone will be punished for the bird flu debacle at Bernard Matthews turkey farm in the UK. Several hundred factory workers: Around 130 workers at a Bernard Matthews site face being laid off in the wake of the bird flu outbreak, a union has reported. The employees at Great Witchingham, near Norwich, will be stood down for 20 days from Tuesday, according to the Transport and General Workers' Union. The firm is preparing to lay off a total of 500 workers, the TGWU claimed. Environment Secretary David Miliband is expected to make a Commons statement on bird flu later this…

Tamiflu resistance puzzle

There have been three reported oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistant isolates of H1N1 swine flu (added: and now a fourth in Canada) but with those exceptions all others have been sensitive to this oral antiviral. This is in marked contrast to the other H1N1 strain, the seasonal variety which is almost entirely resistant. The spread of Tamiflu resistance in the seasonal strain happened with dramatic suddenness in the winter of 2007 - 2008 and came as an unhappy surprise. People assume that a rapidly mutating virus would inevitably become resistant, but based on several laboratory studies there were…

Is Mexico a part of the swine flu story?

Late yesterday we summarized a CDC media briefing about the developing investigation of cases of influenza in California and Texas with a previously unknown flu virus with genetic components from pigs ("swine flu", humans and birds). At the same time reports were surfacing of an especially virulent respiratory disease outbreak in central and southern Mexico that had resulted in 20 deaths and hospitalizations with acute respiratory failure. 137 cases have been reported, including health care workers. When asked yesterday, CDC said they were in close touch with their Mexican counterparts but at…

This Land is Your Land: the forbidden verses are sung on The Mall

Some people noticed a remarkable thing that happened on the Washington Mall on Sunday at the Obama pre-Inaugural concert, a part of which I posted on Tuesday. The second last appearance was by Pete Seeger, his grandson Tao and Bruce Springsteen singing Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land. What made it remarkable is the inclusion of three verses from the original version that are rarely heard under any circumstances and never heard in the corridors of power, much less in front of a world wide audience and in the presence and in honor of someone about to ascend to the Presidency of the…

Rotavirus vaccine: fingers crossed

Earaches, respiratory infections and diarrhea are the bane of existence for young parents. All are potentially the result of contagious agents. The most common agent for diarrhea in infants and children is rotavirus, a double-stranded DNA virus, that CDC estimates causes 400,000 doctor visits, 200,000 emergency room visits and 55.000 to 70,000 hospitalizations each year in the under 5 year old age group. Infection produces significant immunity, and while there are seven different serotypes (A through G), 90% of infections are serotype A. In addition to diarrhea, rotavirus infections cause…

Understanding the watermelon - Viagra connection: it's not hard

There is a lot of science stuff in newspapers that is just (barely) warmed over press releases from companies or universities. They get pushed out into the world via aggregating services like Eurekalert. Lots of science bloggers and journalists use this stuff for ideas and sources, but even when the origin is a university you have to be circumspect. Some of it is gross over reaching, probably by scientists being pushed by university media relations types trying to get some ink for their institution and not caring how much sense it makes. At least that's how I read this piece on Eurekalert…

Three Circadian Articles in PLoS ONE today

That is, among 20 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Distinct Functions of Period2 and Period3 in the Mouse Circadian System Revealed by In Vitro Analysis: The mammalian circadian system, which is composed of a master pacemaker in the suprachiasmatic…

RIP: Joseph Weizenbaum (Berlin, January 8, 1923 â March 5, 2008)

You may not know Joe Weizenbaum's name, but many people are familiar with the computer program he wrote more than 40 years ago, Eliza. Eliza mimics a Rogerian psychotherapist, picking up key words you type in and spitting them back in the form of questions: You: "I feel anxious today." Eliza: "That's interesting. What are you anxious about?" Etc. In some ways it was very simple minded and Joe himself considered it a parody of psychotherapy. But in other ways it struck a deep chord. It was one of the first computer programs to simulate a human conversation and to give the impression of a…

Was the TB lawyer a pawn in a budget ploy?

The American Journal Constitution has a story today wondering if the notorious TB lawyer (see our posts here) that caused an international ruckus because he flew against medical advice (the evidence is a bit obscure on this point) may have been part of a CDC ploy to get increased funding for its TB program. I don't know the answer to that, but the fact it should even be raised and taken seriously in some serious quarters speaks volumes about CDC, its management and an air of desperation there: Months before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker the…

Blogs, bad reporting and WHO [corrected]

The back and forth about WHO over the weekend generated plenty of comment. I am still of the mind that WHO is an important part of the pandemic flu picture and we should try to help it do better. After defending them on Friday of last week I turned around and slammed them for poor risk communication on Sunday. A commenter observed that this may have been bad reporting, and while I allowed the possibility, I thought it too similar to past examples to accept this as the first explanation. However yesterday I received the following email from Mr. John Rainford, the WHO spokesman I took to task…

Once was blind, but now I see (profits), the sequel

It's been a while since we discussed the Avastin-Lucentis controversy, but the battle has been taken up by another blogger, Howard Brody at Hooked: Quick overview--Genentech, the biotech firm, is maker of a very successful drug (brand name: Avastin) that is quite useful in colon cancer. The drug works by counteracting the tendency of tumors to create a lot of new, small blood vessels to keep the growing tumor supplied with blood. Some smart person figured out that the eye disease called wet macular degeneration is caused by a similar proliferation of new blood vessels and so the same sort of…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Light-sensitive Protein Found In Many Marine Bacteria: New light has been shed on proteorhodopsin, the light-sensitive protein found in many marine bacteria. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated that when the ability to respire oxygen is impaired, bacterium equipped with proteorhodopsin will switch to solar power to carry out vital life processes. More.... The Last Wild Hunt: Deep-sea Fisheries Scrape Bottom Of The Sea: An international team of leading fisheries…

Pope. Who?

Lance wrote a brilliant post - An alien anthropologist discusses marriage with the Pope - which reminded me of an old (April 24, 2005) post of mine, which, perhaps, stood the test of time after all... --------------------------- I have not mentioned the Pope on this blog yet. What will the election of Ratzinger mean for the future? I don't know - nobody really does - but here are some thoughts. If it is true that there are 1 billion Catholics on this planet, that makes it about a 6th or 7th of the world's population. This makes the Vatican the largest existing purveyor of myth, irrationality…

A year ago on the blog

It was a year ago today we put up our first post about swine flu: "The California swine flu cases." I think we were the first blog to notice it, and it began this way: Late yesterday afternoon a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Dispatch appeared on CDC's website that is unique in my experience. MMWR is usually heavily vetted and edited and nothing gets out of there fast. Indeed, in recent years, nothing at all got out of CDC very fast. And yet here is this Dispatch, with text referring to the same day of issue (April 21), reporting on two young patients with febrile respiratory…

BPA cardiovascular findings replicated

It's been over a year since we discussed the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article on bisphenol-A (BPA), a high volume chemical used in plastic components of food and drinks packaging and found in 90% of all Americans screened for the chemical. It is also a chemical that disrupts the endocrine system, a complex chemical signaling system that coordinates the actions and responses of various tissues and organs. The JAMA article examined self report in adults of cardiovascular disease and diabetes ("has a doctor ever told you that you had . . . ") and measured liver enzyme…

Dogs, cats and swine flu's promiscuity

Swine flu started in pigs (although we don't exactly when or where), adapted to and passed to humans who returned the favor and passed it back to pig herds. Then we heard that turkeys in Chile had contracted the virus, followed by ferrets and a house cat. We can infect animals cross species with flu in the laboratory, but all of these are cases acquired in the natural world by animals interacting with humans. Once cats were on the menu, the next question was dogs, another population "companion animal" (aka, pet) in the US and Western Europe (and literally a menu item in many parts of Asia).…

Study engages residents in collecting air samples around fracking sites, finds high levels of dangerous chemicals

A recent study of air quality around unconventional oil and gas extraction sites — more commonly referred to as fracking — found high levels of benzene, hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde, all of which pose risks to human health. But what makes this study particularly interesting is that the air samples were collected by the very people who live near the extraction sites, and the collection times were specifically triggered by the onset of health symptoms. Published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health, the study involved residents living near 11 unconventional extraction sites in…