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Worldcon Thoughts

Before it slips too far into the mists of memory, I should probably post some summary thoughts about Nippon 2007, the World SF Convention in Japan that Kate and I attended last week. To some degree, this will be inside-baseball stuff, but if you're not interested in fannish stuff, rest assured, there is some good, weighty physics stuff coming later. Also, some utter fluff. We aim to please, here at Chateau Steelypips. So, the Worldcon in summary. Basically, I think it was an enjoyable experiment, and while I wouldn't call it an unqualified success, I'd be in favor of doing it again, several…

Two Cultures At Meetings

For some reason, I was forwarded a link to an old article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about how to give a scholarly lecture. (It's a time-limited email link, so look quickly.) As with roughly 90% of all Chronicle pieces, it's aimed squarely at the humanities types. The advice given thus ranges from pretty good advice even for science types ("Remember that people who show up to hear you want to believe that you're smart, interesting, and a good speaker"; "Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Then stop"; and "Prepare yourself in advance for questions.") to horror-show glimpses of how the…

Classic Edition: Wanted: Fewer Pundit Blogs

One of the bloggers quoted in Simon Owens's demographics post states flat-out that "I basically don't give a crap about the non-political blogosphere." I found this interesting, because I used to read almost exclusively political blogs, but my opinion has shifted to be almost exactly the opposite of this: I really find it hard to give a crap about most political blogging these days. Some of this is just outrage fatigue, but I've been at least ambivalent about the whole blog punditry thing for years. This is a Classic Edition post originally from July 2002, barely a month after I started the…

DonorsChoose Payoff: Malazan Book of the Fallen

Matthew Fisher buys a blog topic: I thought I'd throw in a request for another post on Steven Erikson. Specifically how his Malazan books either conform to, or subvert standard epic fantasy tropes. I've been a fan of his for quite awhile, and I'd like to think his stuff is different from Goodkind/Jordan/Eddings stuff (but that might just be elitism). I held off on this one for a little while because Erikson was at World Fantasy Con last weekend, and I figured there was a chance that he might say something relevant in the panel on "Taboos in Fantasy," which Kate just wrote up. He did say…

Flight 103 from Frankfurt

Apropos recent news events, a repost Scene: Berkeley, California, April 1986. A bar. Five conference attendees, myself included, grabbing a hamburger and a beer in a fern-bar on or near Telegraph. All eyes are on the TV's mounted over the bar, where we watch footage of an air strike against Libya. This is the retribution by Ronald Reagan against Insane African Leader Muammar al-Kadafi. The White House was issuing statements about al-Kadafi's involvement in bombings in Europe, the OPEC oil ministry kidnapping, linkage to the infamous Jackal, and so on. Nikki, a friend and colleague,…

"I only fish for the fishing, not the catching"

There are two lies you will hear from anyone who is into the sport of angling. 1) "It was THIS BIG!" and 2) "Catching fish isn't the point. It's the experience of fishing that matters." The Mocking Bass. For four years this fish watched me cast lures and live bait from the end of the small dilapidated dock in the lagoon behind the cabin, without ever showing interest in what I had to offer. Two weeks ago I dropped a plastic worm on his head. The worm slid off and rested on the bottom. The mocking bass reoriented towards the worm and took a sniff. I jiggled the worm. And, BANG. He…

The Science of Birdwatching

Birdwatching might be a casual activity, a hobby, an avocation, or even a profession (often, perhaps, an obsession) depending on the bird watcher, but there is always a science to it, in at least two ways. First, there is the science of how to do it. In this sense, the term "science" means something vernacular. We as easily say "birdwatching is an art" as we could say "there is a science to it" and here we are using both terms( "art" and "science") in their older sense where science is how we approach things with our minds, and art is how we approach things with our hands. Second,…

Wells’ false accusation against Randy Olson

The Discovery Institute is stepping up their smear campaign against Randy Olson and Flock of Dodos, and the biggest issue they can find is their continued revivification of Haeckel's biogenetic law. They've put up a bogus complaint that Olson was lying in the movie, a complaint that does not hold up, as I'll show you. First, though, let's simplify the debate. The Discovery Institute position is that any text that shows Ernst Haeckel's ancient diagram of various embryos is guilty of fraudulently distorting the evidence for evolution. They have accused scientists of a conspiracy of lies, of…

Pink Iguanas and Disappearing Islands

It turns out that a recently discovered population of land iguanas on the Galapagos is probably a new species that represents the basal (original) form of Galapagos land iguana. Moreover, this iguana is found in an unexpected place, according to a paper just coming out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). And it's pink. In 1984, Hickmann and Lipps said the following about the various pieces of evidence giving age estimates for the Galapagos islands: ... all are less than about 2 million years old. This age, together with independently determined geologic ages,…

A Follow-Up To the Previous Post

I'm back from Atlanta. Did anything happen while I was gone? Well, some people replied to my previous post. Of course, I knew when I posted it that many would disagree with my views. What I had not anticipated was that the main criticisms leveled at me would be so far removed from anything I was actually arguing. In a comment to the post, Josh Rosenau wrote this: Yeah, screw the complexity and nuance of real people doing real things for real and complex reasons. While we’re at it, screw real historians for trying to actually understand that complexity and for objecting when people rely on…

As If To Prove My Point...

Just in case you are still wondering why college professors tend to be politically liberal, the last few days have provided three examples that make my point perfectly. First up, we have this piece from Bret Stephens, writing at The Wall Street Journal. Stephens's piece is behind a pay-wall, but this essay at HuffPo quotes the most relevant part. Stephens is keen to argue that any notion that income inequality is a serious problem in America is just the product of envious left-wingers. Stephens writes: Here is a factual error, marred by an analytical error, compounded by a moral error. It…

Who Knew It Was All So Simple?

Yesterday's mail brought the new issue of “Prayer News,” the newsletter of Creation Ministries International. (What can I say? I'm on several creationist mailing lists. At least it arrived along with the new issue of Free Inquiry to dilute the effect.) The lead article is called “Why Don't They Get It?” by Scott Gillis, and opens as follows: Most readers, at some time, have probably asked this question. “When the evidence supporting the biblical Creation and Flood account is presented in a clear and convincing manner, why is it summarily denied and dismissed by evolutionists?” In short,…

Homologous Recombinaltion Tiniker Award for the Prevention of Cat People aka 'Manimals'

A couple of days ago, Orac directed us towards an article that is one of the funniest pieces of 'Science Journalism' I have ever seen, anywhere. See, those of us on the 'non-kook' side of things have marvelously eloquent writers like Carl and Ed, and inquisitive investigatory journalists like Trine. Sure theyre 'educational', but their work is depressingly devoid of 'WTF LOL!!' moments like this piece by an apparent anti-vax 'science' journalist, Sharyl Attkisson: The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what…

Familiar Cliches Dumped on Maher

Damon Linker reviews Religulous for The New Republic. Let's see, TNR is a left-leaning publication, so they will tend to be sympathetic to Maher's message. But they also fancy themselves very high-brow, which means they have to be turned off by Maher's in-your-face tactics. The review practically writes itself. Let's start at the end: Not only is this approach to religion intellectually fraudulent and morally sloppy--equating as it does scientifically literate believers with God-intoxicated scriptural literalists--but it is also asinine as a practical strategy. In the early 18th…

Report on the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, Conclusion

Time to wrap this up. So here are a few more interesting moments from the conference. The one genuinely interesting talk I attended had nothing to do with science at all. It was entitled “A Critique of the Precreation Chaos Gap Theory,” and was delivered by John Zoschke, a pastor from Kansas. Zoschke was keen to refute one particular form of the Gap Theory, which, in an attempt to reconcile Genesis with the long ages revealed by geology, inserts a long gap of time between two of the early verses in Genesis. (Which two depends on the particular version of the Gap Theory under consideration…

EoE Reviewed in CT

Christianity Today has now published a review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution. You might dimly recall this book, since it was briefly big news among the ID folks upon its publication last year. It disappeared pretty quickly on account of it being not only wrong scientifically, but dreadfully boring to boot. CT got Stephen Webb, a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College, to write the review. Bad idea. Unlike Behe's first book Darwin's Black Box, whose major errors could be ferreted out by anyone capable of a bit of logical thinking, the present volume really…

Dumbest. Statement. Ever.

Chris Matthews, from last night's Hardball. His guest was talk radio host Racheal Maddow. MADDOW: Well, it's two sides of the same coin, as far as I can tell. And the real substantive story here is that almost all of the Republican candidates have argued against the separation of church and state, have argued for it to be less, have argued that it's been overdone, that there ought to be more religion in the public sphere and that candidates' religion ought not to be just seen as a private matter, which is what Kennedy argued in 1960. Once you cross that line, one you say that religion…

The Gauntlet is Thrown!

Over at blogfish, Mark Powell has a little challenge for me: Scientists opposed to “framing” science keep asking for an example of what framing science looks like when done well. Here's a very good example in Carl Safina's description of an effort to raise awareness of climate change. I challenge PZ Myers, Jason Rosenhouse and other haters of framing to consider what Carl is doing and respond. And...for those who say what is this about...the question is how can we get scientific information to play a bigger role in public policy. Some say “frame” the science so people can hear the message.…

Creationists Don't Know What They are Talking About. Literally!

Ooblog presents a fascinating exchange that he had with Discovery Institute blogger Michael Egnor. The exchange centers on Egnor's oft repeated challenge to Darwinists to explain how it is possible for naturalistic processes to explain the growth of information during evolution. This nonsensical argument is a frequent guest in creationist and ID literature. Ooblog quite reasonably asked Egnor to explain what he meant by information in this context. The subsequent exchange of e-mails makes for interesting reading. Here is the first exchange. First Ooblog: Dear Dr. Egnor, A while back, I…

Irreducible Complexity in Mathematics?

It's been a while since I've replied to anything over at Uncommon Descent. But this entry from Salvador Cordova really caught my eye. It is based on this paper, by mathematician Gregory Chaitin, The paper's title: “The Halting Probability Omega: Irreducible Complexity in Pure Mathematics.” Goodness! There's irreducible complexity again. Let's check in with Salvador first: On the surface Chaitin's notion of Irreducible Complexity (IC) in math may seem totally irrelevant to Irreducible Complexity (IC) in ID literature. But let me argue that notion of IC in math relates to IC in physics…

Kitcher on Darwin and Religion

From the blog of Oxford University Press comes this essay from philosopher Phillip Kitcher. The subject: evolution and religion. Let's look at some highlights: The answer, very often, is that particular pieces of scientific knowledge are viewed as threatening. Acknowledging the truth about global warming would unsettle those who believe in the unfettered rights of oil companies to drill and of auto-makers to produce gas-guzzling behemoths. Acknowledging the truth about Darwin would raise worrying questions about religious belief (or so many people think). So the pressure for “alternative…

Eureka: Collecting the Origin

Almost everybody, regardless of what side they favor in the culture wars, knows that Charles Darwin was the first scientist to come up with the theory of evolution. At least, they think they do. In fact, lots of people had the general idea long before Darwin, including his own grandfather. We remember Darwin not because he was first, but because he made the strongest case, thanks in large part to that most basic of hobbies, stamp collecting. While Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist has been sighted in the wild, the official release date isn't until next week. So, if you're still waiting…

The All-Important Letters of Reference

It's the time of year where colleges and grad schools are making admissions decisions, and faculty job search season is winding down (for tenure-track positions in physics, anyway-- our search for a visiting professor for next year is still underway). In the spirit of the season, then, Matt "Dean Dad" Reed asks about the writing of reference letters. Given how much letters can count, I’m struck that we almost never talk about how to write them. They’re a genre of their own. For example, I’ve been told -- and I don’t know how true this is -- that without a FERPA waiver, it’s illegal to…

"Eureka!" and the Problems Thereof

I'm not talking about the tv show Eureka here, which was mostly silly fluff but not especially problematic. I'm talking about the famous anecdote about Archimedes of Syracuse, who supposedly realized the principle that bears his name when slipping into a bath, distracted by a problem he had been assigned by his king. On realizing the solution, he (supposedly) leaped out of the tub, yelling "Eureka!" (usually translated as "I found it!") and ran home naked, because he was so excited about the discovery that he forgot to dress. As you know, I'm working on a book about the relationship between…

The Seven-Year Postdoc

I'm starting to think that maybe I need to add "Work-life Balance" to the tagline of this blog, given all the recent posting about such things (but then, one of the benefits of having done this blogging thing for eleven years is that I know this is just a phase, and I'll drift on to the next obsession soon). Anyway, the genre of work-life blogging generally just picked up a new must-read post from Radhika Nagpal at Scientific American: The-Awesomest-7-Year-Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty-life: I’ve enjoyed my seven years as junior faculty…

Coyne Spanks Miller, Giberson

Jerry Coyne returns to the pages of The New Republic with this review of Ken Miller's recent book Only a Theory and Karl Giberson's book Saving Darwin. I previously reviewed Giberson's book here and Miller's book here. Miller and Giberson, recall, were both rying to carve out space for a reconciliation of evolution with Christianity. Coyne's verdict: This disharmony is a dirty little secret in scientific circles. It is in our personal and professional interest to proclaim that science and religion are perfectly harmonious. After all, we want our grants funded by the government, and our…

PNAS: Dennis Lee, Biotech Researcher

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dennis Lee, a researcher at a biotech company.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm the director of research for a small biotech company based in Houston. We're developing a new device for high-throughput…

PNAS: David Warman, Computer Gaming System Designer

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of David Warman, a computer game system designer.) 1) What is your non-academic job? Title: Game System Designer. Function: Computer Systems Generalist. I did not know such a job existed until it found me last…

Math and the Teaching Thereof

Firday's quick and sarcastic post came about because I thought the Dean Dad and his commenters had some interesting points in regard to high school math requirements, but we were spending the afternoon driving to Whitney Point so I could give a graduation speech. I didn't have time for a more detailed response. Now that we're back in town... well, I still don't have time, because SteelyKid has picked up a bit of coxsackie virus, meaning that nobody in Chateau Steelypips is happy. But I did want to offer at least a partial response to some of the comments both here and elsewhere. To start off…

BEC: What Is It Good For?

Another response copied/adapted from the Physics Stack Exchange. The question was: What are the main practical applications that a Bose-Einstein condensate can have? Bose Einstein Condensation, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a phenomenon where a gas of particles with the right spin properties cooled to a very low temeprature will suddenly "condense" into a state where all of the atoms in the sample occupy the same quantum wavefunction. This is not the same as cooling everything to absolute zero, where you would also have everything in the lowest energy state-- at the temperatures…

The Faulty Fluid Dynamics of Hotel Environmentalism

Boskone this past weekend was held at the Westin Waterfront in Boston, which has these funky double showerheads that they charmingly call the "Heavenly(R) Shower" (hype aside, they are very nice showers). The picture at right is courtesy of lannalee on Twitter, as I didn't bring a camera. Why am I telling you this? Because there was a sign glued to the wall in the shower that read: Refresh yourself, restore our world One of your Heavenly(R) Shower heads has been turned off in an effort to minimize water usage and protect one of our most precious natural resources. The smarmy enviroweenieness…

DonorsChoose Payoff: Why AMO Physics?

Months ago, during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I offered to answer questions from people who donated to the Challenge. I then promptly forgot to respond to the questions sent in. Mea maxima culpa. Here's a way-too-late response to a good question from "tcmJOE": I've spent the past few years trying to explore physics and figure out what I would be interested in doing--I've settled more towards energy research, somewhere between CM and MatSci, but I've tried at a variety of different things in the along the way. So my question for you is: How did you end up in AMO? Were there any other fields…

Freezing Coherent Field Growth in a Cavity by the Quantum Zeno Effect

When I saw ZapperZ's post about this paper (arxiv version, expensive journal version) from the group of Serge Haroche in Paris, I thought it might be something I would need to incorporate into Chapter 5 of the book-in-progress. Happily, it's much too technical to require extensive re-writing. Having taken the time to read it, though, I might as well make a ResearchBlogging post of it... (My comments will be based on the arxiv version, because it's freely downloadable.) So, "Freezing Coherent Field Growth in a Cavity by the Quantum Zeno Effect." That's quite a mouthful. What does it really…

Women field scientists haven't exactly had a picnic of their careers, Greg Laden

A semi-coherent point-by-point reply to the nearly incoherent, yet overwhelmingly disturbing, musings of Greg Laden on the subject of women scientists in the field. SIWOTI alert. If you don't understand why many of us get so riled up by Greg Laden here's a snippet that should help explain things: "That is, indeed, what every scholar needs: A wife (or two) who knows how to type, edit, wield a caliper, and still have time to do the grocery shopping, have lunch ready at noon, and give birth to and raise the kids." The point-by-point takedown of the rest of Laden's post is below the fold. The…

Latisse™: eyelashes are the new handbag

The tagline is from Elaine D'Farley at Self magazine talking about the FDA's then-pending approval of Allergan's Latisse™ for cosmetic growth of longer, thicker eyelashes treatment of hypotrichosis of the eyelashes. While not expected until early 2009, Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog clued me in to the approval last Friday (Allergan press release here). Whether Ms. D'Farley intended, the choice of the brandname, Latisse, conjures up images of the design of the same name used on handbags and area rugs. Allergan is a leader in "medical aesthetic products" such as botulinum toxin type A…

An endorsement of Dr Allan Friedman's surgical prowess: david m bailey

Apologies for being such a homer with the last few posts (and a couple upcoming) but there have been interesting local happenings of broad interest, especially while I was away earlier this week. Turns out that the good Senator Edward Kennedy took a foray to the Town-That-Tobacco-Built to have his glioblastoma excised by Dr Dr Allan Friedman. The local fishwrapper covered this while I was away and noted that while Duke is big on tooting their own horns, they kept an unusually low profile with their high-profile patient. But I actually didn't learn this news until I received an e-mail from a…

'Missing link' flatfish has eye that's moved halfway across its head

Imagine watching a movie where every now and then, key frames have been cut out. The film seems stilted and disjointed and you have to rely on logic to fill in the gaps in the plots. Evolutionary biologists face a similar obstacle when trying to piece together how living species arose from their common ancestors. It's like watching a film with a minimum of footage; the species alive today are just a few frames at the very end, and the fossil record represents a smattering of moments throughout the film's length. But the gaps, while plentiful, are being slowly filled in. With amazing…

In defence of science journalists

Defending the status quo is not my default position, particularly in my own field of science journalism, but I think someone should stand up for our side, considering the knocks we're taking from various angles. Some of my fellow SciBloggers have stepped to the plate but as I'm one of the few actual science journalists on the roster, I'm going to take a swing at it. First, I'm not going to insist that all scientists should learn how to be better communicators. That shouldn't have to be stated explicitly. So should every professional. And that's just a lazy response to complaints about…

Rebooting science journalism - thoughts from Timmer

Colour? Science journalists care not for colour. It's been more than a week since ScienceOnline 2010. Like many other people who went, I'm recovering from the disease that has become known as Scio10 plague, or sciflu, or Ed Yong plague (curse you, Skloooot!) and the depression of not being surrounded entirely by passionate, enthusiastic, ground-breaking people. Which explains why it's taken me this long to post reflections on the Rebooting Science Journalism session that I chaired. This will come but, for now, my co-panellist John Timmer has kindly provided his own ruminations. This is…

Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: A Discussion with Author David Hess

Part 1 | 2 | 3 - - - The World's Fair sits down with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization (MIT Press, 2007) and Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY. David Hess is a longtime leader in the field of STS. Like few scholars, this claim holds true by reference to academic leadership, mentoring, research, and community involvement. His past books, Science and Technology in a Multicultural World (Columbia…

Is Biotech Like Nanotech? Is Kansas Flat? And Other Queries (Part III)

This is the third of three parts in our Nanotechnology series with Cyrus Mody. (Part I; Part II; plus, a previously unmentioned angle on it.) The Wild West? Perhaps. It's the OK Corral of the nanoscale. For all installments of this Authors-meet-Bloggers series, see our archive. --- ...Continuing from Part II. TWF: Is nanotech really like biotech? No, of course - but why? Hold on. So what is it like? I guess the better question is, what's a good question to ask here? CCMM: Perhaps the "right" question is: why is it like biotech? There seems to be this assumption among policymakers,…

If I were to make a "This is My Life" music mix, and an invite for others to do the same.

Currently in the ScienceBlog forums (as well as in posts such as this), and under a variety of such non-descript titles as "The Search-Spammer has been Banned..." there is much discussion about music, good and bad, and how life is part of it. I'm a big music buff, less so now perhaps with the hecticness that comes with having young kids, but always on the lookout for things I like, and always trying not to let image sway a choice selection. So here's my invite to ScienceBloggers in particular (because I know we scientists are music buffs as a whole), but to others in general: If you make a…

Scientists "humanise" Foxp2 gene in mice to probe origins of human language

When Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse in 1928, he understood the draw that anthropomorphic mice would have. But even Walt's imagination might have struggled to foresee the events that have just taken place in a German genetics laboratory. There, a group of scientists led by Wolfgang Enard have "humanising" a gene in mice to study its potential relevance for human evolution. The gene in question is the fascinating FOXP2, which I have written extensively about before, particularly in a feature for New Scientist. FOXP2 was initially identified as the gene behind an inherited disorder that…

People overestimate their reactions to racism

Picture the scene - you sit in a room with two other people, one white and one black, waiting for a psychological test. As the black person leaves to use their mobile phone, they bump the knee of the white person on their way out. While they're gone, the white person turns to you and says, "Typical, I hate it when black people do that." How would you feel? Would you be shocked? Angry? Indifferent? And would you want to work with that person later? This was the scenario that Kerry Kawakami from York University used to try and understand the state of race relations in 21st century America.…

Life-shortening bacteria vs. dengue mosquitoes

The mosquito Aedes aegypti sucks the blood of people from all over the tropics, and exchanges it for the virus that causes dengue fever - a disease that afflicts 40 million people every year. The mosquito has proven to be a tough adversary and efforts to drive it from urban settings have generally failed in the long-term. So how do you fight such an accomplished parasite? Simple - use a better parasite. In fact, try the most successful one in the world, a bacterium called Wolbachia. Wolbachia's success rests on two traits. First, it targets the most diverse group of animals on the planet,…

Anthropocentrism: All of God's Special Little Snowflakes

Anthropocentrism: All of God's Special Little Snowflakesby Amy Peters My four-year-old has a book of science activities.  One rainy day not so long ago, my husband and son decided to pull out the book and complete a biology activity on classifying living things.  The objective was to cut out pictures of animals in old magazines and decide how they should be grouped together.  Should they be grouped by the number legs they have?  By whether or not they are plant-eaters or meat-eaters?  Sea or land animals? Daytime or nighttime creatures? Let's be honest here.  My boy is only four. …

I'm back, and I'm still not a fascist

I'm home! I even got a good night's sleep! And just to fire me up, Jeff Sparrow replies to my criticism of his article claiming that the New Atheists are a gang of neo-fascists. Bracing! It's especially fun since he begins the piece by disavowing one of my criticisms: "I do not think that the New Atheists are fascists, and nowhere did I say that they are." No, he's cleverer than that. He argued instead that the New Atheists were replacing anti-semitism with anti-Muslim racism, that they were converging with the populist right (does this mean we can invite Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush…

Glaxo Patent Giveaway: Charity or "Theft"?

I saw this headline on Google Fast Flip, and had to read it.  I'm always game for an anti-big-pharma story: even though I appreciate their efforts to relieve suffering, I do like to take notice of their shadier practices. href="http://business.theatlantic.com/2010/01/is_glaxos_charity_really_theft.php">Is Glaxo's Charity Really Theft? Jan 20 2010, 5:30 pm by Daniel Indiviglio Is there a fine line? Corporations have a duty to shareholders to maximize profits. But when they donate to charity -- which is regularly done these days, often through foundations -- this takes money out of…

Evolution meets IVF

Could test tube babies be revealing some of the hidden workings of evolution? It's a definite possibility, judging from some recent reports about the balance of males and females. For several decades, evolutionary biologists have been trying to figure out the forces that set this balance. It appears that they come down to a tug of war between competing interests. Imagine a species in which a freakish mutation makes the females gives birth to lots and lots of daughters. If you're a male, suddenly your chances of reproducing look very good--certainly better than all those females. Now imagine…

Stanford Researcher: Data Show That ClimateGate Has Had Limited Impact on Public Perceptions

At a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday, Stanford University communication professor Jon Krosnick presented the best analysis to date estimating the impact of "ClimateGate" on public perceptions of climate change and of climate scientists. Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, where Krosnick is a faculty fellow, has put together a detailed news release on Krosnick's survey analysis. Also above is a YouTube clip of Krosnick explaining the research. The full report should be read, but below I feature several key conclusions. Despite alarm over the presumed impact of ClimateGate,…