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Another week of GW News, October 17, 2010

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week of Global Warming News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsOctober 17, 2010 Chuckles, Tianjin, Busan, COP16+, CBD, ICAO, ASPO, Jung et al., Lacis et al., Pakistan Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Global Institutions, BAD, Living Planet Report, Haigh Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Monsanto, WFD, Pavlovsk Agricultural Station, GMOs, Food…

No, vaccines do not cause sudden infant death syndrome, a Vaccine Court decision notwithstanding

In the early 1980s in the wake of reports, publicized by a news report and later a book by Harris Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher (DPT: A Shot in the Dark), that the whole cell DPT vaccine was linked to encephalitis and brain damage, a flood of product liability lawsuits was on the verge of bringing the US vaccine program to its knees. Later studies exonerated the DPT, especially a large case-control study, but those studies did not come until the 1990s. Even though existing evidence at the time did not clearly support a link, it did not clearly rule one out. As a result vaccine manufacturers…

Wherein I respond to Orac's counter-attack

[This is a very long post, a reply to Orac's (my respected SciBling at Respectful Insolence) equally long response to my also long original post that invited him to tell us what he thought separated his brand of medicine from the "alties" he frequently posts about. Probably most of you won't have the patience to wade through this. But a challenge is a challenge and must be met. Anyway, its Christmas Eve. Who's reading, anyway?] I had to smile at Orac's response to my "bit of a pot shot" across his bow with my chicken soup provocation, because that's what it was, a deliberate provocation. And…

The natural basis for gender inequality

Naturalism is a potential source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane decisions such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast.1 When it comes to airplanes, you'd better be a servant to the rules of nature or the airplane will go splat. When it comes to breakfast, it has been shown that knowing about our evolutionary history can be a more efficacious guide to good nutrition than the research employed by the FDA, but you can live without this approach. Naturalism works when it comes to behavior too, but there are consequences. You probably…

The exaggeration that is "food as medicine"

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. - attributed to Hippocrates Who said anything about medicine? Let's eat! - attributed to one of Hippocrates forgotten (and skeptical) students   Who hasn't seen or heard Hippocrates' famous quote about letting food be your medicine and your medicine your food? If you have Facebook friends who are the least bit into "natural" medicine or living, you've almost certainly come across it in your feed, and if you're a skeptic who pays the least bit of attention to what's going on in the quackosphere you will almost certainly have seen it plastered…

Medical marijuana and the new herbalism, part 3: Cannabis does not cure breast cancer

It's been a while since I discussed medical marijuana, even though it's a topic I've been meaning to come back to since I first dubbed medical marijuana to be the equivalent of herbalism and discussed how the potential of cannabinoids to treat cancer has been, thus far, unimpressive, with relatively modest antitumor effects. The reason I refer to medical marijuana as the "new herbalism" is because the arguments made in favor of medical marijuana are very much like arguments for herbalism, including arguments that using the natural plant is superior to using specific purified cannabinoids,…

Hitler Zombie massacre over evolution, part 2: Unexpected victims

Note: If you're not familiar with the Hitler Zombie, here are two posts to introduce you to the creature, with the most recent installment of his terror here, in which Orac narrowly escaped the creature. And, now, the adventures (if you can call them that) continue.... PRELUDE: SEVERAL MONTHS AGO It was a dreary, overcast day, as so many days were there, with the clouds seeming to reach down to engulf everything with a wet chill that went straight to the bone. An eminent professor sat in his study typing. Gray-haired, bright-eyed, and very professorial in appearance and bearing right down…

Yes, there really are people who don't accept the germ theory of disease

The longer I'm in this whole skepticism thing, the more I realize that no form of science is immune to woo. For example, even though I lament just how many people do not accept evolution, for example, I can somewhat understand it. Although the basics of the science and evidence supporting the theory of evolution as the central organizing principle of all biology, much of the evidence is not readily apparent to those who don't make it a calling to study biology, evolution, and speciation. It's not like, for example, gravity, which everyone experiences and of which everyone has a "gut level"…

Mitt Romney, health insurance, and the myth that no one ever dies because of lack of health insurance

The 2012 election campaign is in full swing, and, for better or worse, health care is one of the major defining issues of the election. How can it not be, given the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also colloquially known as "Obamacare," was one of the Obama administration's major accomplishments and arguably the largest remaking of the American health care system since Medicare in 1965? It's also been singularly unpopular thus far, contributing to the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, as well as the erosion of…

New and Exciting in PLoS this week

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: Crawling to Collapse: Ecologically Unsound Ornamental Invertebrate Fisheries: Fishery management has historically been an inexact and reactionary discipline, often taking action only after a critical stock suffers overfishing or collapse. The…

What's Up With Baby Z.

A lot of readers have emailed to ask what's going on with Baby Z.  If you will remember, in the beginning of July, we were placed with a newborn baby boy, straight from the hospital who, because of confidentiality issues, is known here as Baby Z.  I haven't talked tons about Z's story because it is private, but it has been a while and people are reasonably wondering what's going on.  The most common question I get is "Is he yours yet?"  I promise, if he ever becomes so, you'll hear!  In fact, the foster care process takes quite a while, and while we are cautiously hopeful that we may get to…

PIG Roast

How bad have things gotten for the ID folks? They're pathetically excited about the publication of Jonathan Wells' new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Drwainism and Intelligent Design. It used to be that the ID folks were keen to persuade us that they were going to revolutionize science. They published books like Darwin's Black Box and No Free Lunch, which at least put forward some actual scientific ideas. But then the scientific community laughed en masse at those ideas, and the ID folks found themselves with nothing left to say. So now they have to take satisfaction when sleazy…

Reply to Gibbons on Human Evolution

I had mentioned in a previous post that I was skipping William Gibbons' claims on human evolution for the time being because I was hoping that Jim Foley would weigh in with his thoughts. He has done so now and I will post it below. Jim chose not to do a line by line response, but instead to focus on the challenge he had laid out to Gibbons concerning certain specific hominid skulls. So I am posting the line by line response that I prepared, followed by Jim's response. Human Evolution Here Gibbons is still counting on old Lord Zuckerman to do his work for him. The problem is that Zuckerman'…

More bad science in the literature

That sad article on gyres as an explanation for everything has had more fallout: not only has it been removed from Science Daily's site, not only has Case Western retracted the press release, but one of the editors at the journal Life has resigned his position over it. The editorial board of the journal was completely surprised by the wretched content of the paper, which is not encouraging; apparently they exercise so little oversight at the journal that they were unaware of the crap their reviewers were passing through. One board member thinks it is a hoax, and laughed at off. Think about…

Never Mind That Boiling Kettle...

Last week I briefly mentioned some stark estimates about the potential extinctions that could be triggered by global warming. Since then, some global warming skeptics have tried to pour cold water on these results by making some dubious claims about natural selection and extinctions. While I have reported about global warming from time to time, I leave blogging on the subject to others (particularly David Appell over at Quark Soup). But in this case, evolution is drawn into the mix. Here, in a nutshell, is what the scientists wrote last week in their Nature paper (which the editors have made…

A caring scientist's view on things to be afraid of.

The other day I was having a conversation with a number of scientist types, and specifically the topic of movies like Sizzle or Expelled came up. This, of course, led to the whole "framing" thing, which to be frank is a little confusing to me generally. It was here, that one of my colleagues mentioned that an old creative non-fiction piece of mine, about science communication, might actually make a good narrative for a movie on big science issues. In particular, the ones that desperately need communicating and clarification to the public at large, but also those that are more meta in nature…

Mars: Back through the Looking Glass

By Dr. Janice Bishop; Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs Dr. Janice Bishop is a chemist and planetary scientist who explores the planet Mars using spectroscopy. Her investigations of CRISM data of Mars are revealing clays and sulfates in the ancient rocks that provide information about the geochemical environment at that time. Dr. Bishop studies the spectral fingerprints of minerals and rocks in the lab in order to generate a spectral library for identification of these in the Martian data. Her research also involves collecting and…

Why Not? Blogging My D & C

Blame it on Abel, who blogged his vasectomy, and Janet, who blogged her mammogram. Also blame Drugmonkey and Physioprof, who along with Abel, Janet, and others encouraged me to Blog My D&C. Yep. So here goes. It all started innocently enough back in May with my annual exam. First appointment. My nurse practitioner was bothered by my history: no periods since September 2006, followed by the sudden surprise! of brief bleeding episodes in February and mid-May. Various doctors of mine have been debating as to whether I am in menopause, or I just have screwed up hormone levels that…

Jeni Barnett MMR show on LBC - full transcript

Thanks to a sterling effort by a group of dedicated science bloggers and blog-readers, the whole Jeni Barnett MMR radio show has been transcribed for your reading pleasure. Browse it, read it, blog it, be shocked, be amazed, tell your friends, etc etc. OBVIOUS DISCLAIMER: This is a transcript pulled together by lots of people working late into the night. There will be mistakes, I'm sure, so use it as a tool to skim the show before listening to the bits that interest you. A recording of the show is available on Wikileaks, see here. You can also listen to each part via YouTube here. The…

Injustice, misbehavior, and the scientist's social identity (part 2).

Last week, we started digging into a paper by Brian C. Martinson, Melissa S. Anderson, A. Lauren Crain, and Raymond De Vries, "Scientists' Perceptions of Organizational Justice and Self-Reported Misbehaviors". [1] . The study reported in the paper was aimed at exploring the connections between academic scientists' perceptions of injustice (both distributive and procedural) and those scientists engaging in scientific misbehavior. In particular, the researchers were interested in whether differences would emerge between scientists with fragile social identities within the tribe of academic…

Dr. Bob lets his antivaccine freak flag fly

It's not a secret to anyone who reads this blog that I have an incredibly low opinion of celebrity pediatricians who are, if not outright antivaccine, antivaccine-sympathetic or leaning antivaccine and use their authority as physicians to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about vaccines. Without a doubt, chief among these pediatricians in this country right now is "Dr. Bob" Sears, author of The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child. His book is a veritable object lesson in how to pander to the fears of vaccine-averse parents and make them feel special and superior for "…

Cancer quackery going the distance

You'd think that after all these years combatting quackery and blogging about science in medicine (and, unfortunately, pseudoscience in medicine) it would take a lot to shock me. You'd be right. On the other hand, Even now, 15 years after I discovered quackery in a big way on Usenet and ten years after the inception of this blog, I still have enough hope in humanity that even when I come across men like Jerry Sargeant, a.k.a. The Facilitator I am still capable of utter wonder that someone would advertise something as reprehensible and/or deluded as this. I half wondered if it were performance…

Fun with phone surveys and vaccines

J. B. Handley never ceases to amaze me how much he is willing to torture me with his abuses of science, never mind his childish attempts to annoy me by cybersquatting domain names that he thinks I want. So there I was, all set to blog about a rather amusing homeopath that I've come across, when what comes to my attention, whether I want it to or not? Yes, hot on the heels of its reinvention of itself from being all about mercury all the time to a kinder, gentler entity making an intentionally much more difficult to test and falsify hypothesis that, oh, by the way, lots of other "environmental…

Someone didn't nail the coffin shut: Andrew Wakefield returns to the public eye

He's baa-aack. You knew he couldn't stay gone for long, I'm sure. He's just like the zombie who rises again just as the hero turns his back, thinking the zombie dead, or the blond terrorist in Die Hard who appeared to have met his end hanging from a chain only to appear later in the movie, just when it looks as though it's all over and Bruce Willis has triumphed, to try to take a shot at him. That's right. I'm referring to the anti-vaccine quack whose trial lawyer-funded, incompetent, and probably fraudulent research launched a thousand autism quacks looking to "cure" autism "vaccine injury…

Pat Buchanan: Hitler apologist

As I mentioned the other day, September 1 marked the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the "official" start of World War II. I say "official' because the invasion of Poland marked the beginning of a true shooting war in Europe after a long period of escalating tensions and increasingly brazen provocations by the Nazi regime, culminating in March 1939 with its invasion of what parts of Czechoslovakia Britain and France hadn't already given it in the Munich Agreement from the prior year. Because of mutual defense pacts signed earlier, which declared that an attack on any of…

One last time: Our young earth creationist medical student is at it again

Oh, boy. Last week, as part of my series Medicine and Evolution, I mentioned the blog of a homeschooled medical student who also happens to be a young earth creationist and used her as an example of why I feared that credulity towards a a pseudoscience that is so obviously wrong based on the empirical evidence, so easily debunked with so little effort is an indicator of credulity when it comes to other forms of pseudoscience, like quackery. I hadn't really planned on mentioning her again any time soon, or even ever, as I thought my point had been made. Then a reader had to point out to me…

A naturopathic "apostate" confirms that naturopathy is a pseudoscientific belief system

Naturopathy is 80% quackery, 19% science-based modalities like diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes rebranded and infused with woo, and maybe 1% valid medicine. Yes, I know I'm probably being generous given that naturopathy is based on a vitalistic, prescientific worldview and originated in the 19th century German "natural living" movement, but I'm in a generous mood right now. The reason I'm in a generous mood is not because naturopathy has suddenly become less quackery than it was. Just view a few of my posts on naturopathy if you think my opinion's changed. I still believe that…

Back in time in medicine

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times, thanks to three grant deadlines. So enjoy this bit of Classic Insolence from back in November 2010 and be assured that I'll be back tomorrow. Remember, if you've been reading less than three and a half years, it's new to you, and, even if you have been reading more than two and a half years, it's fun to see how posts like this have aged. Every so often, the reality of trying to maintain a career in science-based…

Why won't you call me, RFK, Jr.? Let's talk about vaccines!

What's Keith Kloor got that I haven't got? What's Laura Helmuth got that I haven't got? Why won't Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. call me to complain about all the not-so-Respectful Insolence I've directed his way over the years. I mean, seriously. I spend nearly eight years criticizing his antivaccine crank views, and these two get personal attention from The Man after just one post! I don't even get an e-mail, even though it's right there: orac@scienceblogs.com. I'm sorry. I'm just feeling a little envious (do Plexiglass boxes of blinking colored lights feel envy?) because both Kloor and Helmuth…

Autism prevalence is reported to be 1 in 50, and the antivaccine movement goes wild...again

I don't always blog about stories or studies that interest me right away. Part of the reason is something I've learned over the last eight years of blogging, namely that, while it's great to be the firstest with the mostest, I'd rather be the blogger with the mostest than the firstest. I've learned this from occasionally painful experience, although I'd be lying if I didn't admit that in part this is a rationalization for the fact that I have a demanding day job that keeps me from jumping all over stories and studies of interest in the way that some bloggers can. There's also the simple fact…

Does the flu vaccine cause miscarriages?

The reason there wasn't a post yesterday is simple. The night before, I was feeling a bit under the weather. As a result, I went to bed early, neglecting my blogly responsibilities. As I result, I missed the release of a whopper of a study that normally would have been all over like...well...choose your metaphor. On the other hand, the one day delay isn't necessarily all bad because it lets me see the reaction of cranks to this study, the better to apply some not-so-Respectful Insolence to it. The crankiest of these cranks, of course, is Mike Adams, a grifter deep in the thrall of any form of…

On vampires and ways of knowing

Jerry Coyne is nervous. He isn't sure if NCSE's Genie Scott will sit next to him at lunch, and he's not sure if he wants to sit next to her, when you get right down to it. Why? Because in a talk at DragonCon (a talk Jerry didn't attend and only has second-hand information about), Genie said that there are "ways of knowing" other than science. This is all part of the long and tedious battle between a clique of atheists who seem intent on enabling creationists in their muddling of the nature of science (enablers) and people who think it's possible for science and religion to exist without…

Saturday Sermon: Maha on Non-Violence

Maha on how violent resistance often fails over the long run: Every time a peaceful resistance is put down, somebody is bound to say they should have used guns. But when an armed insurgency is put down, or when it turns into a cycle of violence and vengeance dragging on for generations, for some reason this doesn't count against the effectiveness of armed insurgency. And how often does the residual anger from one war blossom into the next one? In fact, I'd say nonviolent resistance has a pretty good track record, particularly as far as long-term results are concerned. Of course, many of the…

Only the Decider Is Going to Do Some Decidering

White House spokesvermin Tony Snow yesterday just propelled us a little bit further down the path of either tyranny or impeachment: "You know, Congress has the power of the purse," Snow said, then added: "The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way." No, he doesn't. If Congress does not allocate funds for a troop increase, then the president is illegally using money appropriated for another purpose. It's that simple, although Senator Kennedy laid it out far more eloquently. Snow also said that he doesn't "want to play junior…

Republicans: Still Sliming Murtha

An exchange between Republican Congresscritter Gohmert and decorated veteran Democratic congressman Jack Murtha: Rep. Gohmert: Let me close by saying some have not had nice things to say about our colleague Mr. Murtha, and others wanting to pull out of Iraq quickly. I understand the faithful visitation that he does routinely. So i say thank god for his big heart. I say thank god for his compassion. Thank god for his visits to the wounded. Thank god for his ministering to grieving families. But thank god he was not here and prevailed after the bloodbaths at Normandy and in the Pacific or we…

Joan Jett Still Rocks

The best description of Joan Jett ever penned (and from the very uncool NY Times no less): In the 1980's, when she ruled Top 40 radio, Joan Jett was the perfect embodiment of rock's primal qualities. She was young, cocky, sexy, rebellious and knew how to rock a pair of leather pants. (Rahav Segev for The New York Times) Somehow she just doesn't seem pathetic like so many of the other aging rockers do. I had free tickets to go see Bow Wow Wow a couple of years ago, and the lead singer, who used to be in that 'sensual' rock star class, was...erm. Well, let's just say I expected her minivan…

Early Admissions to End at Harvard

Harvard University has announced that it will end its early admissions policy. Finally, the middle class and lower-middle class catch a break. As the Boston Globe put it: The practice, many educators and admissions specialists say, favors wealthy students, who are more likely to know the option is available and hence gain an edge, generally being admitted at a higher rate than later applicants. The same students often have other advantages, such as more access to test preparation and private college counselors. Low-income students face a deterrent to applying early, because if they are…

More on Social Security and the Samuelson Unit

I've invented a new unit of time, the Samuelson Unit, which is the length of time required for the Social Security system to become 'bankrupt.' Oddly enough, Social Security is always DOOMED roughly 34 years from the time of the estimate. In other words, Social Security is doing fine, and will continue to be solvent. Today, the NY Times had a pretty picture illustrating the Samuelson Unit in its full glory*: Notice that the estimate every year has been that Social Security will be unable to meet its benefits 30-38 years out...for the last fourteen years. Got it? I loves me my Samuelson…

Links 8/26/11

Links for you. Science: Blog Debunks 13-Year-Old Scientist's Solar Power Breakthrough When Anthrax first came to North America Eco-labelled fish may be unsustainably fished, or the wrong species If You Are Anti-Science, You Are Anti-Jobs The complexity of cancer Other: Why isn't the climate left stronger? No App-etite Another Senior Journalist Confesses to Ignorance Department of "Huh?!": What Obama Could Have Done Department (what I've found odd in all of this is how many of those who vehemently argue there's very little that could be done are so young. They sound old and crotchety) Rick…

Links 8/13/11

Links for you. Science: "We Win": Conservative Media Celebrate Public Misconception That Climate Scientists "Falsified" Data Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve (it's actually about how human genomics is forcing a reality check. For some). A Fox News Science Lesson It's not a freaking spider bite Other: The Bad Deal (by James Galbraith. Must-read) New York Times' Panic Reporting Gets S&P, Markets 180 Degrees Wrong Good Thing I Read the Post Tent Cities and Demonstrations The myth of the job creator The debt ceiling, the White House and the damage of 'compromise' Chinese…

Links 6/4/11

I heard there's some kinda E. coli outbreak. Anyway, links for you. Science: My contribution to the 'HUSEC41-strains-are-not-that-new' debate In praise of model organisms The importance of being median When is MRSA not MRSA? Ancient cave women 'left childhood homes' Other: The Dismal Political Economist Interviews John Maynard Keynes Bill Black: Bad Cop; Crazed Cop - the IMF and the ECB Madison Ave. Declares 'Mass Affluence' Over New study: You can't live on minimum wage The Mask of Concern Slips from the Anti-Choicers Face "Cancer Patients Unable to Obtain Oncology Appointments" Why…

Illinois Catholic Charities Prefers the Right to Hate Over 350 Foster Children

This is disgusting: Following up on their threat, Catholic Charities of Rockford, IL, have voluntarily ended all their adoption and foster care services rather than comply with the civil unions law that will take effect next week. In doing so, the organization terminated $7.5 million in state contracts, fired 58 workers, and likely displaced 350 foster children. Despite claims of religious freedom, this is what it's really about: But the decision had nothing to do with the children (who will do just fine with same-sex families) and nothing to do with religious liberty. It was a blatant choice…

One Jarring Observation on the Report About Women at M.I.T.

A recent evaluation of M.I.T.'s efforts to redress the underrepresentation of women on its faculty has been discussed widely on the bloggysphere. I don't have much to add, except that this section from the NY Times' coverage leapt out at me: Because it has now become all but the rule that every committee must include a woman, and there are still relatively few women on the faculty, female professors say they are losing up to half of their research time, as well as the outside consultancies that earn their male colleagues a lot of money. I guess we will have finally reached gender equality…

Check your buddy's sloping brow, he might be a Neandertal!

Possible ancestral structure in human populations: Using sequence data from the Environmental Genome Project, we find strong evidence for ancient admixture in both a European and a West African population (p ~ 10^{-7}), with contributions to the modern gene pool of at least 5%. While Neanderthals form an obvious archaic source population candidate in Europe, there is not yet a clear source population candidate in West Africa. 5% isn't jack, but, that's enough to introduce lots of novel alleles which might reshape the larger population into which admixture results in introgression. Remember…

Pat Robertson hasn't said anything about the Chilean earthquake

There was a natural disaster somewhere, so I opened my mailbox to find lots of links to Pat Robertson saying stupid things about the Chilean earthquake, like this one and this one and this one and this one. Sorry, gang, I don't believe it. Not only do I expect that nowadays, when his staff at the radio and television stations hear about a disaster, the first thought in their heads is how to stifle Pat, but some of those accounts are clearly satire, and they all say something different. It's become the obvious expectation that Robertson will blame something stupid for natural events, and…

Reader survey

I'm curious about the readers of this weblog as we've been queried by the higher ups, but I don't know much aside from readers whose handles I am familiar with. I've set up a small survey with two questions, the first which asks which other science weblogs you read and the second on political orientation. Both are optional, and in the first case you can answer as many as you wish (the list is long, but mostly alphabetical). Just click here and enter survey number 56717 in the "Take A Survey" box (to the right side of the screen) to take the survey. You can leave comments about yourself if…

Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory

Due to positive mentions from readers and friends I finally got Alan Templeton's Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory. I've read a few chapters and skimmed through much of the book, and my current take is that it's a bit too wordy in the exposition. I'd have preferred that there be more technical boxes and a more thorough scattering of compact formalisms. That being said, Templeton is a clear writer and the text is pretty penetrable (I enjoyed the coverage of quantitative genetics especially). Also, he didn't seem to take a kitchen-sink approach, a few themes came in for…

Priceless artifact for sale!

Oh, lord, I am convinced. Look at this fossil; it's a perfect human footprint, with a dinosaur track right on top of it! The people who found it promise that it's not a fake, they've actually done a CAT scan of the rock to show that it is genuine, somehow. This will revolutionize paleontology and shake up the entire field of evolution! It's also available for the taking on ebay. Only $5, and more than 10 of them are in stock. It's a bit pricey, but worth it for something that would get me an easy publication in Nature. I wonder…I've got a gross of nails from the True Cross here that I've…

First, Sociopaths Kill Animals, Then...

...people. A chilling story from Cullowhee, NC: A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said. Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police. "It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head," Johnson said. The bear cub was shot. For a…

Links 3/6/11

Links for you. Science: How is a mantis shrimp like a punching bag? The way it takes a hit. Scientific acupunture Other: Ten Years Of Library Internet In A Small Town Feds to investigate possible racial bias in Boston school closing plan Bardella Email Scandal Reveals Sorry State of DC Journalism Budget Deficits Don't Matter... EVER! Premiere Plants Tom Luna's education reform plan was a long time in the making: How Tom Luna's co-workers from the Bush administration -- and the private education companies they now help run -- positioned Idaho's schools chief to make changes that the for-…