Search Content

Displaying results 8751 - 8800 of 87947

Why Do We Do This (Again)?

tags: meme, blogging, Why Blog?, navel gazing, lint picking Steffi Suhr, who writes Science Behind the Scenes at Nature Network, is (re)asking this popular meme in the wake of the internecine explosion that ensued after a misunderstanding at the recent Science Online 2010 conference expanded to encompass the two best and biggest English-speaking science blog sites in the world: Nature Network and ScienceBlogs. The questions; What made you start blogging? Is a sense of community an important part of blogging for you, or do you prefer blogging 'solo'? Are there blogs you never look at? If…

Teaching Carnival #13

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the Teaching Carnival where we discuss all things academic, from teaching to college life, from HigherEd policy to graduate school research. Last time, I separated the Two Cultures in a way. This time I want to keep them mixed - both sides of campus often deal with the same issues anyway. There are tons of links, so let's start right away... SATs and getting into college Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles commented on the top SAT essays published by the NYTimes. He argued that writing a decent essay in 25 minutes with a prompt not known in advance is…

The Labor Day Speech You Won't Hear

...or too much of anyway. One of the most eloquent speeches that I have ever heard was by Martin Luther King to striking sanitation workers. What's sad is that, while the particulars have changed somewhat, the overall picture remains the same. From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine): My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say…

Martin Luther King: "All Labor Has Worth"

One of the things that is often neglected on Martin Luther King day is his dedication to economic justice. What is forgotten--often willfully--is that he was an advocate for racial and economic justice. From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine): My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis…

Martin Luther King Supported Public Workers

As the ongoing assault against public sector employees continues, it's worth remembering why Martin Luther King was in Memphis when he was assassinated: he was supporting striking sanitation workers. Due to conservative revisionism, we seem to have forgotten the radicalism of King, that he detested both war and economic rampant inequality. There was much to King than the phrase "the content of their character." From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine): My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and…

MLK in Memphis: "Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God's children"

Image by Bettmann/CORBIS With ten percent unemployment, and nearly eighteen percent underemployment--and much of the political establishment unconcerned about this--Martin Luther King's passion for economic justice sadly is still relevant. What is forgotten about Kings--often willfully--is that he was an advocate for racial and economic justice. From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine): My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of…

One Weekend After Glenn Beck and the Tea Buggers Misappropriate King, Let's Remember This Speech

(from here) Last weekend, Glenn Beck and his Tea Party dupes decided to 'reclaim' Martin Luther King's legacy. In light of that, this speech King gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis seems appropriate--and puts the lie to Beck's propaganda: My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and…

Statins for influenza. Why don't we know if it works yet?

Statins for influenza are in the news again, this time because of a paper given at the Annual Meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA). We'll get to it in a moment, but first a little background. Statins are cholesterol lowering drugs that are taken by tens of millions of people (including me; I take 20 mg of generic simvastatin a day). The statins are a group of drugs that competitively inhibit an enzyme, 3 hydroxy 3 methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase). They are quite effective in lowering cholesterol and have an excellent safety profile (not perfect,…

Planning for Irene

If you live in the Eastern US, particularly, but not exclusively the eastern coastal US, you need to be prepared for quite a storm. No one is sure what track Irene will take, or how much damage she will do, but everyone between New England and the Carolinas, potentially including NYC and NJ are in the potential landfall range for what is being described as a huge storm. Most of the latest forecasts suggest the storm will avoid landfall in North Carolina. "However, this is a very dangerous storm and much of the East Coast, including North Carolina, should be prepared for a landfall," said…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: The great spirit squid of doom DIABETES

It's been five months since I first started Your Friday Dose of Woo. I started it on a whim, after wondering if I should have a Friday feature, as so many other ScienceBloggers do (Friday Cephalopod, Friday Sprog Blogging, The Friday Fermentable, among others). In those five months, this thing has taken on a life of its own, producing woo more woo-ey than any that I had ever encountered before, woo like DNA activation, quantum homeopathy, Dr. Emoto's water woo, spiritually guided surgery, detoxifying boots, and the global orgasm. Sometimes the woo had religious overtones; sometimes it abused…

6 New Age cures that are (mostly) as full of crap as you think

Sometimes you find good skepticism in strange places. One example of this has been Cracked.com. Normally, Cracked.com is a humor site based on the magazine that I used to read sometimes back in 1970s. Unfortunately, the magazine folded several years ago, but the website lives on. For example, Cracked.com once did a snarky article making fun of the "heroes" of the antivaccine movement and contrasting them to "villains" like (of course!) Paul Offit. It even featured for emphasis the infamous "baby eating" poster that Age of Autism ran a couple of years ago that featured Steve Novella, Paul…

Microsoft, Merck, and Bill Gates: Eugenicists?

Since I wrote about a man who is arguably the biggest seller of quackery on the Internet, namely Joe Mercola, yesterday, I thought I'd turn my attention to someone who is arguably another of the biggest promoters of quackery on the Internet, namely Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com. If Joe Mercola is proof positive that quackery sells, Mike Adams is proof positive that there are conspiracy theorists out there who are so reality-challenged that they'll believe virtually anything. Whether it's his despicable assaults on dead celebrities as having been "killed by modern medicine," his constant…

climate of innuendo

strange allegation that NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, was "paid" by the Soros foundation... NASAwatch points to an op-ed in Investor's Business Daily where they claim: "How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely "NASA whistleblower" standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros' Open Society Institute , which gave him "legal and media advice"?" That's right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros' flagship "philanthropy," by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI's "politicization of science" program. Huh?…

Anti-vaccine grande dame Barbara Loe Fisher cries "intimidation"

A couple of weeks ago, I sounded the alarm regarding a highly deceptive public service announcement/infomercial being run on some Delta Airlines flights, courtesy of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). That's the organization founded by the grand dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, who features prominently in the PSA. I call this PSA deceptive because, although it tries mightily to pass itself off as a reasonable series of strategies for avoiding catching influenza, in reality this PSA is a very sneaky and clever bit of anti-vaccine propaganda. Why do I say this…

Spin, Lies, and the Straight Bullsh-t Express

Recently, a loyal reader related to me that the house next door to where I grew up sold at about fifteen percent less than the original asking price (not two years ago, housing prices were still climbing). This slashing of housing prices was euphemistically referred to by the broker as a "price enhancement." Some might call that turning a frown upside down, but its proper name is spin. While the term price enhancement is spin, it does bear some relationship to truth: after all, it did encourage the buyer to buy. From the buyer's perspective, this is an enhancement--less money, same amount…

Breathing 102---bringing the woo

(This one is cross-posted over at Science-Based Medicine. FYI. --PalMD) If you've been a regular reader of SBM or denialism blog, you know that plausibility plays an important part in science-based medicine. If plausibility is discounted, clinical studies of improbable medical claims can show apparently positive results. But once pre-test probability is factored in, the truth is revealed---magic water can't treat disease, no matter what a particular study may say. So it was with great dismay that I read an email from a reader telling me about parents buying hyperbaric chambers for their…

Things that want to eat your brain

This is the fourth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Eric Wika. Let's face it, it's a dangerous world to be a brain. The brain is so soft and squishy it cannot even support its own weight. That's right, even gravity itself is enough to take out an unprotected brain. Besides these passive threats, there are several factions out there that active try to damage your brain! Zombies are an ever present menace which wish to eat our brains. TV will rot our brains, drugs will fry our brains and bullies will offer to “beat your brains in”. It's no wonder mother nature had to come up with the…

Study: Kids with chronic health problems will face greater financial burdens if forced out of CHIP

More than 8 million U.S. children depend on the Children’s Health Insurance Program for access to timely medical care. The program is authorized through 2019, but its federal funding expires in September and it’s unclear what Congress will do. That uncertainty stresses all the systems and families that depend on CHIP, but it may be especially risky for the 2 million chronically ill children who get care through the program, which was originally designed for families falling in the gap between market affordability and Medicaid eligibility. In a study published this month in Health Affairs,…

Bush and Plame

On my recent trip to Denver to see my brother's graduation ceremony, my father and I talked a lot of politics, as we always do when we're together. My father is a lifelong Republican who has, to my knowledge, never voted for anyone but a Republican in any race above the local level. Nonetheless, he told me that he thinks the Bush administration is the single most corrupt administration in history (pretty incredible, given the last one!) and that he will be voting for anyone but Bush this fall. Probably the biggest reason why he thinks that is the Valerie Plame/Joseph Wilson affair. Joseph…

That Some Scientists are Mean is Generally Acknowledged, But Also Not Relevant

This is pretty funny, but also quite true. It is from a comment on a post at Chicago Boyz: One of the arguments in Jonathan Rauch's "In Defense of Prejudice," is another dirty secret is that, no less than the rest of us, scientists can be dogmatic and pigheaded. "Although this pigheadedness often damages the careers of individual scientists," says Hull, "it is beneficial for the manifest goal of science," which relies on people to invest years in their ideas and defend them passionately. And the dirtiest secret of all, if you believe in the antiseptic popular view of science, is that this…

The delusion of immortality

Imagine all the poor transhumanists who were born in the 19th century. They would have been fantasizing about all the rapid transformations in their society, and blithely extrapolating forward. Why, in a few years, we'll all have steam boilers surgically implanted in our bellies, and our diet will include a daily lump of coal! Canals will be dug everywhere, and you'll be able to commute to work in your very own personal battleship! There will be ubiquitous telegraphy, and we'll have tin hats that you can plug into cords hanging from the ceiling in your local coffeeshop, and get Morse code…

John Daniel, the civilized gorilla

It wasn't so long ago that, if the price was right, you could buy an ape. Plucked from Africa and sent to Europe and America, apes often changed hands several times for large sums of money before expiring after only a few weeks, months, or years. Writing of the attempts of the Bronx Zoo to keep gorillas at the dawn of the 20th century, for instance, William Hornaday doubted whether it would ever be possible to successfully house gorillas for more than a few weeks. When you got news of a gorilla arriving at the zoo, you made haste to see it. Only some of the apes were housed in zoos, however…

The 1/6th People

@EricRWeinstein is at it again in twitterland, this time on the subject of the funding of science. For an intriguing read about the glut of Ph.D.s versus science funding, he links to his (circa 1998?) article titled: "How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers." An interesting read, to say the least. Then @michael_nielsen points to Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion by Daniel Greenberg which I now have to go out and buy. Damn you internet for pointing me to things I should read!…

Religion and Science

You've probably all heard about the Beyond Belief series, in which scientists give talks about the conflict between science and religion, as well as the science of religion. I've only watched the cognitive scientists (and Dawkins, for reasons I'll mention below), so far, and that's probably all I'll watch. If you're looking for them, V.S. Ramachandran is in Session 4, Patricia Churchland is in Session 5, Elizabeth Loftus is in Session 6, Mahzarin Banaji and Scott Atran are in Session 7, Atran is in Session 8, Paul Churchland participates in the discussion in Session 9, and Ramachandran is in…

Why ethics matter to science.

Regular readers of this blog know that I teach an ethics class aimed at science majors, in which I have a whole semester to set out ethical considerations that matter when you're doing science. There's a lot to cover, so the pace is usually more breakneck than leisurely. Still, it's rather more time for detail and reflection than I get in the four 50 minute lectures of the ethics module in the introduction to engineering class. In that context, my main goal is to persuade the students that ethical considerations aren't completely disconnected from the professional community of engineers…

Brain-Friendly Giftables, part 3: Building sets.

The human mind seems to like creating things, and kids will use whatever tools are at their disposal to build. My uncle used to build death-defying systems of roadways with Hotwheels track and masking tape. A childhood friend of mine built elaborate structures out of Fig Newtons (largely because they were in abundance in her home and she couldn't stand to actually eat them). When you have a creative itch, almost anything can serve as the scratcher. Here are some toys for building that are probably less likely to attract ants than are Fig Newtons: Gearation Strictly speaking, you might…

How can one know?

If there was one thing about going to TAM7 last week, it was the opportunity to contemplate among a thousand fellow skeptics just what critical thinking and reason mean. If there's one thing about woo, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories in all their forms, it's not just a lack of critical thinking and a plethora of logical fallacies. More importantly, it's the question, "How do we know what we know?" Certainly science is the primary means by which we explore the natural world and make conclusions about how it works, however imperfect they may be, but not everyone uses science, reason, and…

Reflections on 300 examples

Originally posted at The Evolution Project. Chris Mooney asks "should scientists refer to the well-adapted features of a given organism as having been 'designed,' even though we all know these are the result of natural selection?" and cites this article in The Scientist :: Journals and intelligent design: Biologists often get angry about the publication of studies defending "intelligent design," the notion that biochemical systems could not have been produced by evolution because they are "irreducibly complex," and as such, must have been "designed" by an unknown entity. But a careful…

An antivaccine activist explains how she uses Facebook reporting algorithms to harass and silence pro-science bloggers

I wish this post were an April Fools Day joke, but it is not. Three weeks ago, Skeptical Raptor and I wrote posts describing how a particularly vicious, nasty antivaccine troll named Heather Murray had successfully gamed Facebook reporting algorithms intended to report abuse in order to silence pro-science bloggers. It is, unfortunately, a tactic that I first heard about over two years ago, when antivaccine activists affiliated with what was then called the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) used the same sort of tactics to target pro-science bloggers and activists associated with a group…

Strike

Tomorrow, November 2, will be a general strike in Oakland. The move was approved nearly unanimously by the roughly 1600 people voting at last week's Occupy Oakland general assembly, held the night after police from Oakland and several surrounding areas attacked nonviolent protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, flashbang grenades, and nightsticks. The plan is to gather at 9 am in Frank Ogawa Plaza - renamed Oscar Grant Plaza by the folks occupying it - and protest. Different people will surely come focused on protesting different issues, but the major theme is sure to be the…

BPA gets attention from industry spinmeisters (leaked minutes)

We've had occasion to write about the endocrine noise-maker bisphenol-A (BPA) quote a few times (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here for starters). The word about BPA has gotten to consumers and they have fled BPA-containing products like they are swine flu carriers. Meanwhile the scientific evidence is piling up and what the market hasn't done will likely bring BPA into the cross-hairs of food safety regulations, if not via the FDA then by state and local governments, some of which have already acted. So it looks like the writing is on the wall for BPA unless the food…

One of a Mind: Interview with Shelley Batts

Shelley Batts and I are of the same "generation", meaning that we became SciBlings on the same day. You need to hurry up and check out her blog Retrospectacle before she moves to a new blog in a few days. At the Science Blogging Conference last month Shelley moderated the Student blogging panel--from K to Ph D. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job? I'm an end-stage Neuroscience graduate student at the University of Michigan, my thesis is related to…

Local New Jersey officials integrate worker safety into restaurant inspections; collect new insights on occupational risks

Food safety is at the top of the list for local restaurant inspectors in Rockaway Township, New Jersey. Recently, however, inspectors tested out the feasibility of adding a new safety checkpoint to the menu — the safety of restaurant employees. The effort was a success and one that organizers hope will ultimately lead to safer working conditions for food service workers statewide. “Workers need a voice,” said Peter Tabbot, health officer for the Rockaway Township Division of Health. “This is a small way that we can help provide a bit of that voice.” The new occupational health and safety…

Top fossil fuel producers caused half of global warming, third of sea level rise

I'll just put this item from UCS here for your interest: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Study Finds Top Fossil Fuel Producers’ Emissions Responsible for as Much as Half of Global Surface Temperature Increase, Roughly 30 Percent of Global Sea Level Rise Findings Provide New Data to Hold Companies Responsible for Climate Change WASHINGTON (September 7, 2017)—A first-of-its-kind study published today in the scientific journal Climatic Change links global climate changes to the product-related emissions of specific fossil fuel producers, including ExxonMobil and Chevron. Focusing on the largest gas, oil…

Idiot of the Month: David Morrell

It's been a while since I handed out an Idiot of the Month award, and I'm sad to say that for the second time since i started this blog, the honor goes to someone from my own state. David Morrell attends Hillsdale College, an excellent little school, and is the founder of The Hillsdale Conservative. He is also another of the gaggle of hack writers for intellectualconservative.com, which seems to forever expand the boundaries of mediocrity and absurdity. Morrell is also the author of this ridiculous little screed about the ACLU that repeats all the old ad hominems (they're commies!) and adds…

Pediatric cancer patient checks in at age 55; beneficiary of Dr Charlotte Tan's actinomycin D work

I love it when new readers stumble upon old posts. Such was the case when I received the following delightful comment from Seattle-based psychologist, Dr Gary Grenell, on my April 2008 post about the passing of Dr Charlotte Tan, a pediatric cancer chemotherapy pioneer: I was probably in one of her earliest actionmycin-D trial groups for Wilms tumor in 1957. Now at age 55, 52 years later, still going strong! Most of you scientific youngsters today probably only know of actinomycin D as a laboratory tool for inhibiting RNA synthesis. But here in the following repost, learn about the…

The Aging World

The average age of the world population is getting older, and this is very likely to have serious social and economic consequences in the countries and regions where it is most severe. However, I feel like this is very rarely discussed in politics. Politics seems to be rather specialized at not discussing the issues that are most likely to be relevant. Anyway, I caught two articles on the aging population in the last week, and in honor of Super Tuesday I thought we should discuss the demographic trend that is most likely to shape the world over the next 100 years. The first is by Lutz et…

NIH seeks long-lived families to help discovery secrets of a long and healthy life

Do you live near Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, or Southern Denmark/Rostock, Germany and have at least two relatives (or yourself) over the age of 80? The US National Institutes of Health has funded researchers interested in recruiting you and family members to find out the secrets of longevity. (see full press release below the fold) We're a little too late in the Pharmboy family, but I am certain that 84-year-old PharmGranny would say that it was the constant stream of good Polish vodka that allowed her to live with a BMI over 40 and an average blood pressure of 190/140. The late 96-year-…

Norms are what we ought to do, not what we suspect everyone actually does.

In the comments on a number of recent posts, I've been sensing a certain level of cynicism about the realities of scientific practice, and it's been bumming me out. (In fairness, as I reread those comment threads today, the comments aren't as jaded as I remember them being; it's probably that the ones with a cynical edge are staying with me a bit longer.) I am not bummed because I think people ought to have a picture of the scientific community as one where everyone is happy and smiling, holding hands and singing and wanting to buy the world a Coke. What's sticking in my craw a little is…

On a Mission from God

Lately I've been reading the 19th and early 20th century traveler's accounts of what is now known as the Western Rift Valley and the Ituri Forest, Congo. Some are written by the famous 'explorers' such as H.M. Stanley, others written by scientists on expeditions in the area, and still others by missionaries. Reading these accounts puts me in mind of my own experiences, as a scientist working in that same area, with the missionaries that live and work, or sometimes just visit, there. So, a few missionary stories are in order. This is a Repost in celebration of Missionary Weekend There were…

The $5000 genome by 2009? Complete Genomics emerges from stealth mode

The already frantic DNA sequencing market just got a little bit more crowded, with the dramatic entrance of a new competitor called Complete Genomics. The newcomer brings new technology to the table, as well as big promises: namely the commercial provision of whole-genome sequencing for a bargain $5,000, beginning in mid-2009. It's still unclear whether the company has the capability to make good on such a promise, but its claims have certainly gained it some attention - the story was broken in the NY Times, Bio-IT World and MIT's Technology Review today (see also coverage from The Genetic…

From the Archives: Science Gets Googly

I just found out that the journal impact factors for 2005 were recently released, and as usual, the journals with the highest impact factors are not necessarily the ones that would be considered the most prestigious. Therefore, the following post from the archives, about an alternative rating scheme for scientific journals, seemed relevant. Enjoy! In regards to my statement below about my old site's PageRank, I did finally get one but apparently the new site hasn't made an impression on Google yet.... (17 February 2006) How do you know how important a website is? You probably already…

Birds in the News 185

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter Zebra Finch, Poephila guttata. Image: orphaned [larger view]. Birds in Science Low-quality females prefer low-quality males, at least in the avian world. This is according to research published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, testing female zebra finches' taste in males. As adults, the low-quality females showed a preference for the songs of males of the same quality, and for the male birds themselves. Evolutionary biologists previously thought that females would always opt for the best male available. A…

The Blogosphere Is Alive With The Sounds of Bullying

I've been watching with interest a recent kerfuffle involving a relatively new blog in the sciblogosphere, Academic Jungle, which is written by the pseudonymous blogger GeekMommyProf. Prof-Like Substance has already written a good summary of recent events, so I won't duplicate his efforts. Instead, I'll duplicate his text! (Bracketed bold text inserted by me): GeekMommyProf started a blog about a month ago, which burst onto the scene in a hurry. Most blogs (including this one) toil in obscurity for a while, eventually gain some steam and get enough readers coming back to get talked about a…

Birds in the News 166

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter In a dramatic discovery, BirdLife has filmed Common Cuckoos calling with a "Ooo-Cuck, Ooo-Cuck". (April fools?) Image: Greg & Yvonne Dean/WorldWildlifeImages.com. Birds in Science and Technology Count your chickens after they hatch, and they may do a little arithmetic themselves. Chicks only 3 or 4 days old manage an animal version of adding and subtracting, says Rosa Rugani of the University of Trento Center for Mind/Brain Sciences in Rovereto, Italy. Inspired by experiments with human babies, Rugani and her…

The Food Babe: "There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever"

It's been a while since I've taken notice of Vani Hari, a.k.a. The Food Babe, the misguided "food safety" activist who sees chemicals, chemicals, chemicals everywhere and raises fears about them all, especially the ones that she can't pronounce. The first time I took any significant notice of her was about a year ago, when she was making news for lobbying Subway to remove the "yoga mat chemical" azodicarbonamide from its bread. Of course, as I explained, azodicarbonamide is a safe chemical that disappears during the baking. It's a maturing agent that makes bread dough rise better and…

Seed Founder Speaks Out Against Loss of Canadian Science Adviser

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, while chatting with Canadian parliament member Scott Brison, Seed Magazine's founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly lamented the Canadian prime minister's recent decision to fire the country's science adviser, Arthur Carty. Shocked by the news, Brison brought up the matter on the parliament floor as soon as he got home, saying: "Dr. Carty was a voice of reason on climate change, stem cell research, resource management and the environment...Does the Prime Minister not realize that his attack on science is making Canada look like the Flat Earth…

My picks from ScienceDaily

How Social Insects Recognize Dead Nestmates: When an ant dies in an ant nest or near one, its body is quickly picked up by living ants and removed from the colony, thus limiting the risk of colony infection by pathogens from the corpse. The predominant understanding among entomologists - scientists who study insects - was that dead ants release chemicals created by decomposition (such as fatty acids) that signal their death to the colony's living ants. 'Hobbits' Couldn't Hustle: Feet Of Homo Floresiensis Were Primitive But Not Pathological: A detailed analysis of the feet of Homo floresiensis…

London’s congestion charge and Seattle’s affordable transit

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on March 16, 2015: by Liz Borkowski, MPH In 2003, the city of London took a dramatic step in the battle against traffic congestion: It implemented a congestion charge of £5 for those driving private vehicles into an eight-square-mile central congestion zone on weekdays between 7am and 6:30pm. The fees were increased twice, and since 2011 have stood at £10. Drivers purchase day passes online, and a camera network…

Michele Bachmann for President? Perhaps it is time to remind the country of Bathroomgate.

The rest of the country is starting to learn something about Michele Bachmann that those of us in her home state (and district) have known for some time: The woman is not only ultraconservative and of questionable judgment, but she also has a very weak grip on reality and truth. Her grip on reality was questioned some five or six years ago with Bathroomgate. I find it interesting that very few people talk about Bathroomgate these days ... I think the national press and wider blogosphere is simply unaware of it. And more recently, a speech she gave in Iowa was loaded with untruths about…