Search Content

Displaying results 8851 - 8900 of 87947

Weekend links: Lo! the Internetz awaketh

"Mechanical heart" Bill McConkey Collage of a digitally enhanced pencil drawing of the human heart and photographs of different brass instruments. Digital artwork. From the Wellcome Image Awards 2009 - see the other winners here. Last week was Open Access Week, which meant I got to hear a great talk from John Wilbanks of the Science Commons (you should subscribe to their blog!) I've been thinking a lot this week about the legal challenges of data sharing, which is giving me a headache. But there's an easier way to celebrate Open Access Week: by visiting the Guardian's a multimedia show about…

Serotonin Transporter Changes in Seasonal Affective Disorder

alt="ResearchBlogging.org" src="http://www.researchblogging.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" align="left" border="0" height="50" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="80">I have to admit, I retain some skepticism about the concept of href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/04/seasonal_affective_disorder_th_2.php">Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Research such as the topic of this post helps, though, to lend some credibility to the concept.   It is true that exposure to bright light therapy (BLT) can alleviate symptoms of SAD.  That alone would seem to verify the…

Every Man A Media Mogul!

Portfolio & Wired have a one-two punch on the future of broadband up. I've read that it takes 3-4 months for a salary increase to be "discounted" so that individuals move up the consumption ladder and no longer feel flush. With internet speed the latency seems far more attenuated; there's always a new application around the corner. The Portfolio piece notes: Spurred by a new wave of Skype-linked families, Hulu-watching flash mobs, and HD-video downloaders, global internet traffic is likely to quadruple by 2012. That's an internet 75 times larger than it was just five years ago. It will…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Cellular Feng Shui?

Balance. It's what the woo-meisters who believe in "Feng Shui" tell us that it will bring to those who use its principles to arrange the objects in their life, be they furniture, homes, the design of buildings, or even the layouts of whole cities. Indeed, Feng Shui tells us that the way we arrange objects in our environment, choose a place to live, or even choose burial plots can allow us to achieve "harmony" with our environment. Obviously, this is true in a trivial sense. If your house is full of crap piled everywhere in seemingly random distributions, it is going to have a negative impact…

A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology

If you read only one book this holiday season, make it all of the following twenty or so! But seriously ... I'd like to do something today that I've been meaning to do, quite literally, for years. I want to run down a selection of readings that would provide any inquisitive person with a solid grounding in Behavioral Biological theory. At the very outset you need to know that this is not about Evolutionary Psychology. Evolutionary Psychology is something different. I'll explain some other time what the differences are. For now, we are only speaking of fairly traditional Darwinian…

Report illustrates worrisome trend of painkiller abuse among injured workers

by Kim Krisberg Researchers studying workers’ compensation claims have found that almost one in 12 injured workers who begin using opioids were still using the prescription drugs three to six months later. It's a trend that, not surprisingly, can lead to addiction, increased disability and more work loss – but few doctors are acting to prevent it, explains a new report from the Massachusetts-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI). Report researchers looked at longer-term opioid use in 21 states and how often doctors followed recommended treatment guidelines for monitoring…

Statins and Pulmonary Mortality

[Update: Retired Doc's Thoughts has a more complete review of the varied potential benefits from statins.] This morning, Effect Measure href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007/04/the_statin_story_continues_to.php">posted about a retrospective study that indicates that there may be a protective effect if statins are taken by persons with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.)  In also appeared that statins lowered the risk of death from pneumonia.   This is a so-called pleiotropic effect, meaning that the drug has an effect other than that which is originally intended…

Restored copyright? Querulous comments on early Hitchcock

A couple of days ago, on Walt, Even Randomer, I posted a set of desultory reviews of the fourth and final DVD of Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins. Sidebar: One eccentric feature of this blog used to be the "treadmill movie reviews," brief reviews of movies from Mill Creek Entertainment's multidisc packs viewed while I was exercising. I've reviewed a little more than 300 movies over several years. In moving to this more august site, I left the reviews behind and am not posting new ones here; that's one of few things still being posted on Walt, Even Randomer. The treadmill's gone as well--…

Some Labor Day Thoughts from MLK

In one of his last speeches before Martin Luther King was murdered, he spoke to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. It seems appropriate for the day: 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 enthusiastic numbers... If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you're commanding…

Not Quite Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Menorah (With Apologies to Wallace Stevens)

Note: Tonight is the sixth night of Chanukah, the night we remember Judith hacking off Holofernes' head by eating cheese (yes, there is a reasoning behind that strange statement), and I really had planned to write a post about that. But it is also Isaiah's sixth birthday and deep in the grading nightmare for the husband and the night before we get up at 4am to butcher the turkeys (and if anyone is looking for a free-range, heritage turkey for the holidays in the greater Albany/Schenectady area, email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com) and I'm just not feeling innovative. So here's an old piece…

Bruce Levenson's Racism In Broader Context: We need to be smarter.

Donald Sterling appears to be a hard core racist, and this, appropriately, got him in trouble. Recently, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson released an email he had written some time back, which discusses race related issues vis-a-vis the Hawks, and announced that he was bowing out of ownership from the team because of this racist email. The media reaction to this has been fairly uniform, and includes an aspect that I think should be examined more closely. Bruce Levenson, and his statement, have been placed in the same category as Donald Sterling and his statements. But they should not be.…

Linux Ease of Use: Designing The Ultimate Grandmother-Ready Computer

When it comes to ease of use, there is no difference between a computer with Windows and a computer with Linux, assuming both systems are installed properly. That there is a meaningful difference is a myth perpetuated by Windows fanboys or individuals who have outdated experience with Linux. Also, the comparison that is often being made is unfair: One's experience with a computer purchased as Best Buy or supplied at work, with OEM Windows already installed (see below) is being compared with a self-install of Linux onto an about to be discarded computer. When something "breaks" the two…

Another Bad Metric Error: Wages vs. Labor Costs

It's just been a week for metric errors. Via Media Matters comes an impressive list of stories in the media about the automobile companies financial problems, where they cite labor costs as a major issue. So far, so good. But in virtually every story about this, you'll find a statement along the lines of: "union workers make $71 an hour in wages plus benefits". In many cases, they even go so far as to specifically compare that figure as wages to other companies. For example, this quote, from a conservative talking head: "When you're paying $73.73 an hour to those people with salary and…

Books I'd like to read

Another list of books for your reading and collection development pleasure. Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities by Richard A. DeMillo When academics get together to talk about the future, they talk mainly to each other, but the American system of higher education has many more stakeholders than that. Over the course of months, the intended audience for what was now clearly becoming a book manuscript shifted noticeably from my academic colleagues to a more general readership--parents, students, taxpayers, elected officials, employers, decision makers at all levels…

The Magical Effects of Vinegar: A feature by Festival Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Joe Schwarcz Ph.D

In 218 B.C. the Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants to settle a score with Rome. The perilous journey almost came to an end when his army approached what looked like an impenetrable rock fall. But Hannibal, an ingenious leader, had a trick up his sleeve. Or at least, some vinegar in his pot. As the Roman historian Livy recounts, the general had his men heat up the vinegar and pour it over the rocks, causing them to crumble. And here the story crumbles. Scale deposits in a kettle may certainly crumble when immersed in hot vinegar, but that is a long way from…

Books: Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma

Amanda just reviewed Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma and also recently wrote a post on the same topic while under the influence of the book. I agree with her 100%, so go and read both posts. I have read the book a couple of months ago and never found time to write a review of my own. I also remember that I finished the book on a Thursday afternoon - an important piece of information as it is on Thursday afternoons that there is a Farmers' Market here in Southern Village, barely a block from me. The first thing I did when I closed the book was to walk up to the Farmers' Market…

Current Events, Insurance, and Womenâs Health

The recent economic downturn has left more people worried about losing their jobs, and for the 54% of our population relying on employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), losing a job also means losing health insurance. Some of those who lose ESI will be able to pay their full premiums, including the share formerly handled by their employers, and extend their coverage for up to 18 months under COBRA. (According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual premium in 2008 for is $4,704 for individuals and $12,680 for families â not easy amounts to come up with if your paychecks have stopped.)…

Are low wages an occupational health hazard? Two public health researchers say 'yes'

Low wages certainly impact a person’s health, from where people live to what they eat to how often they can visit a doctor. And low and stagnant wages certainly contribute to poverty, which is a known risk factor for poor health and premature mortality. But should low wages be considered an occupational health hazard? Health economist J. Paul Leigh thinks that they should. In an article published in May in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), Leigh, a professor of health economics at the University of California-Davis, and Roberto De Vogli, a global health professor…

Books on Atheism Raising Hackles?

On a recent trip to the local Barnes and Noble, I noticed a remarkable thing. On the main kiosk, the place where the Stephen King and John Grisham books are located, there were two prominently placed volumes that caught my eye. One was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, the other was God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor Stenger. I live in Western Virginia. These are not the sort of books you would expect to be popular here. Yet the folks at B&N, who I have no doubt are motivated solely by their desire to sell books and not by any particular political or religious bias, placed them…

Acid and a prepared mind: a guest post from Coracle

To coincide with the Nature Science Blogging 2008 conference this weekend in London, we present this guest post from Coracle, the away-from-the-bench scientist who writes the Science and Progress blog. I've long been a fan of Science and Progress and Coracle shares my love of natural products pharmacology and skeptical eye for alternative medicine. If you're in London and see Coracle at the conference, please buy him a pint and send me the bill. "Last Friday, April 16th, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon, being affected with a…

And now the Senate steps up to the plate

It's not a home run by any stretch of the imagination, but the Senate's counterpart to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill (a.k.a. ACES) that the House narrowly passed earlier this year at least gets global warming onto first base. There's bad and good in the awkwardly titled Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, of course, and it still won't get us anywhere the kind of greehouse gas emissions levels than even the conservative climatologists say are necessary. The differences between the bills are worth exploring. The sections that most pique my curiosity are devoted to emissions…

Are Day-traders gaming Fast-track approval at the FDA?

An investigative report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at the FDA Fast Track. For those who don't know, the FDA Fast Track was created to accelerate the drug approval process for drugs targeted at under-treated diseases. Yet there is a bit of debate about whether Fast Track drugs are approved more quickly or are more likely to be approved than other drugs. However, this report suggests that news that a drug has been Fast Tracked has created buying frenzies on Wall Street that have made people a lot of money: Overall, since 1998, Fast Track announcements for nearly 200 drug treatments…

Low carb, high protein diet found to increase mortality

Not good news for people who think low carbs is the answer. A recently published study has shown an increase in mortality associated with low-carb/high-protein diets. Studies looking at the comparative effectiveness of different diets have shown that basically all diets are equivalent. (Equivalently bad, that is. All the diets tested produced moderate declines in weight, but adherence was low.) However, no real studies have examined what the mortality benefits or hazards might be associated with the low-carb/high-protein diets that are currently de rigeur. Trichopoulou et al.,…

In Which Time and Energy Turn Out To Be Finite

The theme for August's Scientiae is transitions. All month long I thought I would write something about the transition that was forced on me some time ago, to which I am still not quite adapted: from happy participant in the paid workforce to migraineur on disability. But as it happens, I've got other things on my mind. The major transition in my life this past year has been helping my mother move from the house she lived in all her life to an assisted living facility. It's not just been a transition for her; it's affected the whole family. The very notion of a stable "home place" has…

The Big Climate News

Well, folks, Andy Revkin has done it again. Previously I have written about how Revkin has basically broken every major story about abuses of climate science, and climate scientists, by the Bush administration. And I must say, it's quite a litany of abuses. That's why I'm glad that so many bloggers (here, here, and here) have realized that Revkin's latest story provides yet another point of evidence of the "Republican War on Science." The meme is spreading, my friends. In any case, the latest news reported by Revkin--about more attempts to silence NASA climate expert Jim Hansen--reveals an…

Why didn't Darwin discover Mendelian genetics first?

image by Mike Rosulek buy merchandise here to benefit NCSE It's a classic question: if Charles Darwin had known about Gregor Mendel's genetic research, would Darwin have realized it was the missing piece he needed to explain how individual variation was inherited and selected? Was it simply bad luck that Darwin never stumbled on the right experiments? Or was Darwin so constrained by his own perspective on inheritance that he couldn't have seen the importance of Mendel's work, even if he had known about it? Jonathan Howard has written an intriguing overview of this question. He argues that…

An anti-vaccine activist destroys my irony meter...

While I'm having a bit of fun with the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism, I notice that its Boy Wonder Jake Crosby, the one-trick pony whose trick is playing "six degrees of separation" in order to try to link anyone who supports the science of vaccines with big pharma, the CDC, the FDA, or any other company or regulatory agency he doesn't like, has a new post up at AoA. In it he complains about being kicked out of a conference, the Research Ethics Book Group Lunch and Book Signing at the annual Advancing Ethical Research Conference held by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (…

Planning for the Harvest:Time Management for the Chronically Overworked

This year will be interesting - we anticipate adding two or three more people to our household (and maybe more - we're gently looking for a housemate or two once things settle down with the foster kids). In past years I've mostly been able to keep up with the "every year the kids get bigger and eat more" growth needs, but this ups the ante in several ways - besides adding more mouths to feed, we anticipate that the first few months we'll be pretty focused on the kids, with less time for garden and preservation than usual. I could let some of it go - just accept that this year less will be…

Anatomy of a Press Release

Joel Achenbach of the Achenblog at the Washington Post is worried about science press releases: Eight is Enough: Achenblog Question Scientific Authority The latter is about our press release on a paper that came out in Science last friday. Here is the original primary press release on EurekAlert.org. To get some sense over the degree of "control" the scientists have over press releases, note that the press release spells my name incorrectly, and provides an incorrect institutional affiliation! That is just for perspective. I've been involved in a number of press releases, some of which have…

Birds in the News 108

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter A brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, relaxes on a people-watching and photography trip at the Port Aransas Birding Center, Texas. Image: Scott Lewis [MUCH larger view]. Birds in Science A £200,000 study into what happens when people hear birdsong is taking off. Researchers at Aberdeen University in Great Britain will spend two years listening to birds to find out how their songs, calls and cries become a part of people's lives. "Listening to birds: an anthropological approach to bird sounds" has received…

Yet another dubious breast cancer cure testimonial

[NOTE: Please be sure to read the addendum!] I hate cancer quackery. I know, I know, regular readers probably figured that out by now, and even new readers rarely take more than a couple of weeks to figure it out. That's because cancer quackery is a frequent topic on this blog. One of the most powerful tools of persuasion that cancer quacks employ in promoting their quackery is something I call the cancer cure testimonial. Basically, a cancer cure testimonial is a story of a patient using alternative medicine and "curing" himself of cancer. Such testimonials come from both practitioners and…

Google, Verizon, and the Demise of Net Neutrality

So much for that "Don't Be Evil" Google bullshit: Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege. This issue has been quite the rage in the lefty and righty blogosphere for the simple reason that most grassroots organizations won't be able to afford the high-price superhighway, but, instead, be stuck on the slow road to oblivion. I've never thought the opposition to net neutrality is political in…

PROMED Needs Your Help

It's my birthday today, but instead of buying me presents, how about helping ProMED, a non-profit organization that provides important disease and health information to over 155 countries? Here's some more information about what ProMED does: ProMED-mail - the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases - is an Internet-based reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and acute exposures to toxins that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed. Electronic communications enable…

The Other Group That Did Well on That Pew Religion Test

By now, you've probably heard about the Pew report on Americans and religious knowledge. A lot of atheists have been chortling about how well they done, compared to believers, and have offered explanations like Amanda's: This, of course, was absolutely no surprise to the loose online atheist community. I took abbreviated version of the test, and wasn't particularly surprised that I got 15 out of 15 questions right. Many, maybe most, atheists that I know came to atheism because they learned so much about religion, enough that the logical inconsistencies and overt wish fulfillment aspects of…

Help Save Our Boreal Birds: Sign The Petition

tags: Save Our Boreal Birds, online petition, birds, conservation, environment Palm Warbler, Dendroica palmarum. Image: Jeff Nadler [larger view]. Save the summer homes of Palm Warblers and other North American bird species that breed in Canada's Boreal forests! The Boreal Songbird Initiative, along with other environmental groups like Bird Studies Canada, Nature Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, and others created a petition called "Save our Boreal Birds" a little over a year ago. This petition will be sent to the Prime Minister of Canada and many provincial leaders throughout Canada,…

Around the Web: Scholarship in the Public Eye: The Case for Social Media

I'm doing a short presentation later today on using social media as a researcher. It's part of the York University Faculty of Graduate Studies' Scholarly Communications Series. This one is titled Scholarship in the Public Eye: The Faculties of Graduate Studies and Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, along with the York University Libraries, are collaboratively facilitating a series of information sessions focused on scholarly communications intended for all graduate students and faculty members. The series will address issues related to research skills and research dissemination,…

Friday Fun: The 123 Worst Musicians of All Time

Music critics. Got to love them. Just the right mixture of disdain, hipster arrogance and snobbery to set the teeth on edge. Ooooh, love that band no one has ever heard of. Hate that band that "sold out" and became famous. They were so much more authentic when they were poor and no one heard and enjoyed their music. Ask U2. Vice's music critics have a new list out, The 123 Worst Musicians of All Time, which hits the hipster music critic disdain nail right on the head. Amongst them they come up with a list of the 123 worst musicians of all time, which amongst them leaves them with basically…

"Clap Your Hands" if you are Ready to Rock Out to Science with TMBG!

They Might Be Giants will take the stage on Saturday, April 16th at the USA Science & Engineering Festival for two incredible rockin' shows! This amazing alternative and tech-inspired group -- widely known for its theme song for TV's Malcolm in the Middle and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and other works -- will have the attendees at the DC Convention Center rocking out to science all weekend long! And like all performances at the Expo, this stage show is FREE! https://youtu.be/Rm9abSP-YuI A crowd favorite at the 2014 Festival Expo, TMBG wowed audiences with its electrifying pop…

Let the countdown begin! â¨Only 30 days until the 4-H National Youth Science Day on October 6!

On Wednesday, October 6, 2010, the third annual 4-H National Youth Science Day will bring together hundreds of thousands of youth around the nation to complete a single science experiment. This year, the National Science Experiment, 4-H2O, focuses on water quality and climate change - two critical issues facing our global community today. 4-H2O Experiment Kit: Order by Sept. 20 to Receive in Time for NYSD! Visit the 4-H Mall to purchase your 4-H2O experiment kits today! To receive your kits in time for 4-H National Youth Science Day on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, make sure to place your…

Butterfiles, birds, and worms

One of most wonderful things about the Internet has been the emergence of research projects that involve the general public. Universities like Cornell, Kansas University, and the University of Minnesota, to name a few, have established web sites and on-line databases that encourage both students and amateur biologists to participate in biological field studies. Not only do these projects extend the potential for good science by collecting more data, they give visibility to the research process and allow the public to take ownership and contribute to the store of scientific knowledge. Monarch…

Scientist Rock Star, Part II

Talking about the need to have popular scientists out there, I think the term "rock-star" was an unfortunate choice. Some people in joking, some people in all seriousness, started looking for people with PhD's who can play musical instruments. That is, of course, irrelevant. We are not looking for scientists who are also rockstars, but for scientists who are as well known, as universally respected and as seriously taken as the rock stars were back in the 1960s. The idea is to have a scientist or two or three being so well known that anyone and everyone in the country and the world is at…

Busy Blogging Day Yesterday

Hwoosh! What a day! Hit-and-run blogging instead of a nice long post about amylase I was getting ready to write.... I went to Raleigh for lunch and to start planning for the next years' edition of the Science Blogging Anthology - stay tuned, there will be more news soon. Of course, I was following the whole Edwards/Marcotte/McEwen saga every time I had a minute to get on the computer (which was not that much today) Then, in the evening, we had our first Blogger MeetUp of the month. Apparently there was a game (UNC vs. Duke) going on, so not many people showed up, but we had a great time…

Purppura Päivänkakkaraa

tags: flowers, Purppura Päivänkakkaraa, travel, Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day, photography Vaaleanpunainen Päivänkakkara. Photographed in the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Image: GrrlScientist, 18 May 2010 [larger view] Canon SX100 IS. Here's a silly thing that you might enjoy. When naming this image, I used Google translate to check my Finnish because, well, we all know why. Anyway, I found something weird (you can check this for yourself if you are so ambitious): English Finnish…

The Best of August

I have posted 131 times last month (definitely a decrease in numbers as most of the one-off quick-links are now going straight to Twitter/FriendFeed/Facebook instead of cluttering the blog). Interestingly, many of last month's posts were some amazing videos - check them out. Here are some of the highlights: Not-so-self-correcting science: the hard way, the easy way, and the easiest way was, in my opinion, the best post of the month, with The Perils of Predictions: Future of Physical Media coming in second place. ScienceOnline2010 is off to a good start. But unfortunately, I had to miss its…

ScienceOnline09 - tapping into the hive-mind

Continuing with the series of posts highlighting sessions in the Program at the upcoming ScienceOnline09, here are some sessions that deal with collaboration and networking between scientists and between their data. Community intelligence applied to gene annotation: This session is moderated by Andrew Su and John Hogenesch: Despite identification of the ~25,000 genes which comprise the "parts list" of the human genome, researchers continue to largely study previously-studied genes, leaving half of the genes in the human genome virtually unannotated. Moreover, there is growing recognition…

Rethinking FOXP2

Earlier studies have indicated that a gene called FOXP2, possibly involved in brain development, is extremely conserved in vertebrates, except for two notable mutations in humans. This finding suggested that this gene may in some way be involved in the evolution of language, and was thus dubbed by the popular press "the language gene". See, for instance, this and this for some recent research on the geographic variation of this gene (and related genes) and its relation to types of languages humans use (e.g., tonal vs. non-tonal). Furthermore, a mutation in this gene in humans results in…

Science Blogging Conference - who is coming? (Open Classroom)

There are 73 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 119 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time. Careful long-time readers of my blog may have noticed that I sometimes mention and link to my friend David Warlick. I first met…

Agnes, the Priest and the Parrots

Yesterday, I was very upset because I learned that my state and local taxes, which I prepared many weeks ago using an "IRS approved" online tax preparation service, were not e-filed as I thought they would be, but because I was a dork and missed reading the little announcement at the very beginning of this interaction, I wouldn't have known that unless I paid $6.95 to this so-called service to learn this. (Because of a mysterious state holiday, the deadline for NYstate taxes was yesterday). Worse, all that data I entered into their site was not printed on the state tax forms, so I have to dig…

Number 4

I hate to publish online quizzes on a more or less daily basis for you all, dear readers, instead of writing material with more substance, but right now, this is the best I can do. By posting these quizzes, I am trying to let you know that I have not abandoned you, that even though I am quiet right now, I am here, that your comments mean more to me than you probably know, and I try to respond to your comments in email. However, that said, I daily debate with myself about whether I should provide more detail to you regarding why I cannot post here at my typically frequent level. There are…

APHA adopts policies on minimum wage, fluorinated chemicals at annual meeting

The American Public Health Association (APHA) adopted 11 new policy statements which will guide its work in the coming years. They include: Raising the minimum wage: The policy calls on states to increase their minimum wage, index the minimum wage to inflation, and prohibit state-government preemption of municipal minimum wage policies. Among other things, the new APHA policy also recommends research on the effects of living wages on public assistance budgets. Reducing exposure to highly fluorinated chemicals: The policy calls on Congress to fund research on alternatives to perfluoroalkyl and…