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Lots of Scientists Write a Letter About Infectious Disease Surveillance

One of the most important things in public health is surveillance. While it's not sexy, you can't solve health problems if you don't have good data. Recently, many professional societies sent a joint letter to several representatives asking their support for the National Integrated Public Health Surveillance Systems and Reportable Conditions Act which will be submitted to committee (the full text of the letter is at the end of the post). The primary goal of the NIPHSSRCA (try saying that ten times fast....) is to modernize our surveillance infrastructure. When I would argue for electronic…

Behavioral Economics: Not Everything Is Irrational

A recent column by Dan Arielly gives me a reason to discuss what I think are some of the problems with the recent emphasis on irrationality in economic theory. Before I get into that, I should note that I liked Arielly's book Predictably Irrational, and am impressed by Shiller's work. The idea that people behave non-optimally regarding economics--that is, we are not perfect economic calculators--is very important. For instance, understanding economic bubbles doesn't really make sense unless one accounts for irrationality (e.g., Shiller's work). Likewise, Arielly's Predictably Irrational…

The High Cost of Restaurant Culture

Don't get me wrong, I like to eat out. And what parent of many doesn't like the idea of food they don't have to cook and dishes they don't have to wash. At times restaurants and bakeries even may provide more energy efficiency than home cooking, especially in small households - one industrial walk in cooler is more efficient than six fridges. .Of course, that's in principle, in practice, the cooler *and* all six fridges are running! Household appliance energy usage has risen over time, even though we are eating at home less - while the efficiency of any given appliance has improved, we…

Scene III, wherein we move on to more important things

What could be more important than a good old-fashioned flame war? I'll get to that in a moment, so please stick with me. The recent imbroglio between some of our doctor bloggers and non-physician scientists got me thinking (so it couldn't be all bad). As a quick summary, PhysioProf of the DrugMonkey blog used an incident of a doctor committing battery on a patient as a generalization regarding surgeons, all doctors, and medical education. Many of us who are actually doctors and physician educators took issue with that. PhysioProf apologized, but made it clear that s/he still feels that…

Writing NIH grant proposals

by David Ozonoff  My new Pump Handle blog colleague, "Revere", has posted on NIH's proposal to limit the Research Plan section of Research Project Grant applications to 15 pages, down from the current 25. He/she/they (Revere's blog, Effect Measure, is ambiguous as to how many Reveres there are) also gives a peek into the NIH grant review process, something people are often curious about. As Revere says, it's a bit like seeing how sausages are made. You might not want to know. In any event, since Revere opened up the topic and since this site is more pitched to public health professionals…

Career pathways in biotechnology

Students in the United States take many convoluted and unnecessarily complicated paths when it comes to finding careers in biotechnology. If Universities and community colleges worked together, an alternative path could benefit all parties; students, schools, industry, and the community. The image below illustrates the current paths and the approximate time that each one takes. I was at two meetings recently, one in Arizona and the Bio-Link workshop in Berkeley, where we spent time discussing the paths to careers in the biotech industry. You might think, if you consider the number of years…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Intercept, Avi Asher-Schapiro reports on a new insurance plan that Uber is offering its drivers that could help them recoup wages and cover medical expenses if they’re injured on the job. Asher-Schapiro notes that while some have described the Uber insurance plan — which workers buy by setting aside 3.75 cents per mile — as a form of workers’ compensation, it hardly fits the bill. In fact, in documents obtained by the Intercept, Uber explicitly states that the insurance plan isn’t workers’ comp. He writes: Compared to traditional workers’ compensation insurance, Uber’s policy…

A Weak Defense of Reconstructionism

Christopher Ortiz, editor of the reconstructionist journal Faith for All of Life and communications director for the Chalcedon Foundation, has authored a weakly reasoned defense of reconstructionism. In it, he takes on critics like Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson. Ortiz seems to miss completely the real argument against reconstructionism by focusing on tactics rather than on outcome. For instance, he criticizes Clarkson thusly: The secularists are convinced that democracy itself is under siege by the dominionists. They proffer a false antithesis by suggesting that the theocracy advocated…

Electoral Vote, Popular Vote, Final Model Prediction, 2016 Clinton v Trump

The 2016 Electoral Vote Prediction I'm finished making predictions for the 2016 Presidential Election contest. According to my model, Hillary Clinton will win with 310 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 228 electoral votes. The map is shown above. Caveats and wrongosities: My model puts Iowa barely in Clinton's column. Polls say Iowa is for Trump. My model puts New Hampshire barely in Trump's column. Polls say it is for Clinton, barely. My model puts Ohio barely in Trump's column, but the polls put it in Clinton's column. Polls and other data are ambiguous about Florida, my model is…

Paul Douglas on Climate Change

Last night I attended a talk by meteorologist Paul Douglas, at the Eden Prairie High School. The talk was “Weird Weather: Minnesota’s New Normal? Our Changing Climate and What We Can Do About It,” and it was sponsored by Environment Minnesota, Cool Planet, and the Citizens Climate Lobby. I didn’t count the number of people in the audience but it was well attended (over 100, for sure). Extra chairs had to be brought in. You probably know of Paul Douglas either because of his own fame or because I often link to (or facebook-post) his blogs at Weather Nation or the Star Tribune, and I…

PNAS: Amy Young, Saponifier

(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of Amy Young, who runs her own soap-making business. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.--post-doc--academic-job track.) 1) What is your non-academic job? The relevant part of my work is as partner and chief developer/producer at Foam on the Range, which makes and sells soaps, lotions, and other bath/cosmetic-type products. My business cards say "Saponifier in Chief". It'…

25 Years of Great Albums

It feels a little weird not to be doing a Short Story Club entry, so here's a different sort of pop culture item: Over at EphBlog, my classmate Derek Catsam has decided to break up the carnival of reactionary politics by commenting on great albums, jumping off from Spin's Top 125 of the Last 25 Years. Which is always a fun game, so let's roll with that. 25 years goes back to 1985, which is right around the time I started buying albums, so this covers most of my pop music lifetime. Which is convenient, because pretty much anything I can remember buying new is eligible... In making their list,…

Science Festivals, Science Books, and Science Funding

The World Science Festival happened while I was at DAMOP (I missed getting to talk to Bill Phillips, because he left shortly after his talk to go to NYC), and by all reports it was a success-- they claim 120,000 attendees on their web site, and sold more tickets than expected for several events, and favorably impressed journalists. Good news, all. Of course, at the same time on the opposite coast, the annual Book Expo America was going on, and as Jennifer Ouellete reports, science was shut out: Every conceivable genre was prominently represented -- sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, romance, foreign…

Diversity is Good: Anthropology, Economics and Human Freedom

Over the years anthropologists have had a good deal to say about notions of power and inequality. For example, the late CUNY anthropologist Eric R. Wolf took his early experiences working with peasants in Puerto Rico to explore these larger questions in the global system. In the opening to his book Envisioning Power he wrote: We stand at the end of a century marked by colonial expansion, world wars, revolutions, and conflicts over religion that have occasioned great social suffering and cost millions of lives. These upheavals have entailed massive plays and displays of power, but ideas…

When the budget needs cutting, who gets to bleed? (Illinois edition)

Via Kate Clancy on Twitter, a news story about how one Illinois legislator wants to save his state some money. As reported in The News-Gazette State law allows employees who have worked for one of the Illinois' public universities for seven or more years to receive a 50 percent waiver of their children's tuition costs. Employees would lose that benefit if legislation (HB 4706) introduced earlier this month by state Rep. Dave Winters, R-Rockford, is eventually signed into law. "I think a lot of the universities have been using this as part of their compensation package," said state Rep.…

Jew with a gun tries to make point, gets busted, is very creepy

Or at least, I think he was trying to make a point, but I'm not entirely sure. Joel Rosenberg, author of Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota and proprietor of the web site "Jew with a gun," entered the Hennepin County Office Building to keep an appointment with Sgt. Bill Palmer, a Public Information Officer for the Minneapolis Police Department. Apparently, Sgt. Palmer noticed Joel's holster, hand gun, and a big knife. I presume that Joel being a white Jewish guy (though I don't quite get the "Jew" theme as he has developed it) was at first politely…

Responsible journalism

When Michael Moore tried to ask Roger Moore what responsibility he felt to Flint, Michigan, he got a simple answer. I'll get the same answer if I suggest that media companies like NBC ought to invest more heavily in public service programming (for instance by dropping Imus and his imitators), that major corporations ought to forego cheap foreign labor to keep Americans employed, that oil companies might legitimately be asked to pay some sort of windfall tax, or that Enron's real crime was not its financial chicanery but its abuse of California's energy supply. The answer is simple: business…

Solving Puzzles vs. Solving Problems [The ScienceBlogs Book Club]

Liz Borkowski writes: Mark Pendergrast wrote yesterday about how politics plays into the work of the EIS, and it's something that I kept noticing as I read Inside the Outbreaks. As he points out, my post last week highlighted the solution to the Reye's Syndrome puzzle - which was solved by Karen Starko, who's also one of the Book Club bloggers! - but didn't get into the larger issue: there can be a big difference between solving the puzzle and solving the problem. In yesterday's post, Mark writes: Although Karen's and subsequent CDC studies clearly demonstrated that giving children aspirin…

Solving Puzzles vs. Solving Problems

Liz Borkowski writes: Mark Pendergrast wrote yesterday about how politics plays into the work of the EIS, and it's something that I kept noticing as I read Inside the Outbreaks. As he points out, my post last week highlighted the solution to the Reye's Syndrome puzzle - which was solved by Karen Starko, who's also one of the Book Club bloggers! - but didn't get into the larger issue: there can be a big difference between solving the puzzle and solving the problem. In yesterday's post, Mark writes: Although Karen's and subsequent CDC studies clearly demonstrated that giving children aspirin…

It's Not Fascism When They Do It

Yesterday, I raised the possible specter of violent intimidation breaking out at a health care townhall meeting. Turns out I was off by about twelve hours: Tampa, Florida-- Fireworks were expected, but organizers of a town hall meeting on health care reform were caught off guard Thursday night by just how explosive the issue became. Hundreds showed up for the 6:00 forum held at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County on Palm Avenue in Tampa. The auditorium which holds around 250 people, filled up so quickly eventually Tampa Police were ordered to begin turning people away. Inside, U.S.…

Reading Diary: On the Grid by Scott Huler

In his incredibly wonderful new book, On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work, Scott Huler gives us three essential take-aways: Thank God for engineers Get out your wallet Let's learn to love our infrastructure. (p. 217-225) In fact, not much more need really be said about the book. In essence it's a kind of tribute and salute to the women and men who keep our highly technoligized society functioning. The people we often forget about, whose glamour pales in comparison to movie stars, singers, politicians, even police and fire…

The future of nuclear power = [null set]

I'm almost weary of blogging about nuclear power. But others are still going strong. Take the Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders, who writes this week that we shouldn't even think of abandoning the technology. Such enthusiasm is particularly curious because he glosses over the Achilles heel of nukes -- the cost -- and Canada has one of the most expensive varieties of nuclear reactors around. I can only assume that Saunders hasn't done enough research, because if he had he would never come to conclusions such as this: It may be possible in Europe and North America to talk about reducing consumer…

Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere

On Friday, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Chris Mooney presented "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere," a conference that brought together Seed, Discover, The Boston Globe, ClimateProgress, and more. The ScienceBlogs contingent included Joy Moore, Seed Media Group's VP of Global Partnerships, and bloggers Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera and Dr. Isis of On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess. Our two esteemed bloggers did not always agree on matters of civility, so if you want a third perspective, MIT's professor of science writing Tom Levinson…

Masks and UV light

Several readers have pointed me to an online piece on face masks and ultraviolet light as influenza control measures just published in the American Journal of Public Health. Both are presented as a Plan B in the (lkely) event Plan A's vaccine and sufficient or sensitive antivirals are unavailable. The review by Weiss, Weiss Weiss and Weiss (I know a joke that goes like this, but this isn't a joke) is measured an informative. First, face masks. The authors point out that cloth surgical masks protect other people from you, not you from them. They discuss N95 and N100 respirators and provide…

My advice to the American Chemical Society

When three separate people send you an article in Nature it gets your attention. Since I have a paid subscription to Nature, my attention was ready to be grabbed anyway, but I hadn't yet read this story so a tip of the hat to my informants. I also have paid personal subscriptions to Science and a number of other journals. I am not opposed to subscriptions for journals. But the story is about how some big scientific publishing houses have gotten together and hired a notorious PR hit man to battle Open Access publishing, apparently by any means necessary, whether intellectually honest or not. I…

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: when dinosaurs roamed the earth

There are creationists and creationists. One of those creationists (which one?) wants to be just a 72 year old's cardiac arrhythmia away from being President of the United States. It would be historic, although more historic for the rest of us than for the potentially almost President, Governor Sarah Palin, because her notion of the length of historical record is so much shorter. Like many Pentecostals, Governor Palin is said to be a Young Earth Creationist, someone who thinks the earth is only 7 thousand years old and that humans walked alongside dinosaurs. At least that's what one of her…

A Father's Day thought…

My father is gone. He died in 1993; I vividly remember how I felt when I got that phone call, the desperate search through my memory of every last moment I'd spent with him, the anguish over the missing details and lost days and years, the despair that there would be no more memories, ever. It's gotten worse over the years, too — it becomes harder and harder to recall the faces and voices of the dead as they recede into the past, no matter how important they were to us once, and while we might regularly resurrect fond remembrances, they aren't so pressing anymore, nor are they as vital as…

Lal the chicken-eating cow

People often send me links to stories of the Indian cow that took to eating baby chickens. The story isn't at all new: it appeared in the press in March 2007, and at least one of the cow's lapses into carnivory was filmed. It's shown here (though see below). As with the epic cat fight, do NOT watch this video if you are easily disturbed or upset by scenes of animal death and suffering. I will spoil the surprise by telling you that the cute little baby chicken gets eaten alive by the big nasty cow. The cow concerned - named Lal - lives in Chandpur, West Bengal (though: the cow in this video…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 7 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Re-Shuffling of Species with Climate Disruption: A No-Analog Future for California Birds?: By facilitating independent shifts in species' distributions, climate disruption may result in the rapid development…

New and Exciting in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine

Open Revolution: In 2001, Charles Vest, then President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced that MIT would make most of its course material freely available online. Browsing the Web site of MIT's Open Courseware (OCW) project (http://ocw.mit.edu), you feel the stirring of a "my God, it's full of stars" transformation: you can borrow material for your courses, study other teachers' teaching methods, maybe even retake college courses you regret having slept through! Remarkably, OCW is just one highly visible part of an "open education movement." The essays collected in…

Sorry for the Radio Silence...Update on Classes, Posts, Kids and More

Things have been a little nuts here. Two weeks ago Eric and I took an emergency placement of two children, six and 17 mos.  It turned out to be one of the most exhausting and stressful placements we've ever had, not because of the kids, who are delightful (although I had somehow forgotten what 17month olds are like - the "oh, yeah, I was hoping you'd pull all those books off the shelves and try and feed them to the cat" quality of that age toddler ;-)), but because of really complicated circumstances I can't talk about.  Let us just say it involves a lot of things we've never been buried in…

Bye-Bye Birdies: Global Avian Biodiversity Imperiled

tags: researchblogging.org, global warming, climate change, ornithology, birds, avian biodiversity, habitat destruction White-crested hornbill, Tropicranus albocristatus, also confined to African rainforests, may see more than half of its geographic range lost by 2100. Image: Walter Jetz, UCSD. [larger] Thanks to the combined effects of global warming and habitat destruction, bird populations will experience significant declines and extinctions over the next century, according to a study conducted by ecologists at the University of California, San Diego and Princeton University. This…

How much did federal officials know about air quality at Ground Zero?

As Jori Lewis notes in the case study about World Trade Center recovery workers' health and safety, those who showed up at Ground Zero on the days and weeks after 9/11 got some misleading information about the risks they faced. Most notably, the EPA issued reassuring statements about the air quality - when, according to a 2003 EPA Inspector General report, the agency had insufficient data and analyses to support calling the air there safe. More accurate information might have increased the use of respirators and delayed people's return to homes and offices in the vicinity of Ground Zero. Now…

At least two dozen workers dead from fire in Bangladesh factory that produces for US brands

by Elizabeth Grossman In an incident that brings to mind the Triangle factory fire that took place in New York almost 100 years ago, the fire that broke out on December 14th on the 9th and 10th floors of the building housing the Ha-meem Group's "That's It Sportswear" factory in the Ashalia industrial district outside Dhaka, Bangladesh killed at least two dozen workers, and injured scores more. Electrical short-circuiting is a primary cause being investigated for the fire that occurred Tuesday while a reported 200 to 300 of the factory's approximately 5,000 or more workers were on lunch break…

Occupational Health News Roundup

The same day that NPR and ProPublica published their investigation into the dismantling of the workers’ compensation system, OSHA released its own report, “Adding Inequality to Injury: The Cost of Failing to Protect Workers on the Job.” The agency writes that the failure of employers to prevent millions of work-related injuries and illnesses each year coupled with changes to workers’ compensation systems is exacerbating income inequality and pushing many workers into poverty. The report states: For many injured workers and their families, a workplace injury creates a trap which leaves them…

Science Online and in Real Life

The Sciece Online meeting wrapped up yesterday afternoon, though the associated conversations and socialization carried on late into the night. I got to meet a lot of people I've only previously known as cartoon avatars, and spent a surprising amount of time talking about rugby. One of the things that stands out about the meeting, and that lots of people raved about, is the "unconference" style, where there aren't formal presentations, but moderated discussions. This wasn't all that surprising to me, because it's essentially identical to the more casual sort of panel at a science fiction…

Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change?

Well, of course, this is trivially true, in the sense that $0 is "up to $1bn" and the report doesn't suggest that it could be more than $1bn. I got this from the Graun which continues to irritate by pointlessly and stupidly failing to link to the original study. I assume they do this because, like the mediaeval church, they regard themselves as gatekeepers and priests of knowledge: we should only be allowed their interpretation, and not see the original for ourselves. But enough ranting. There's a note at the bottom which says This headline on this article was amended on 21 December 2013 to…

Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller

Every time I mention the idea of teaching physics to a wider audience than just physics majors, somebody brings up Richard Muller's course, "Physics for Future Presidents," at Berkeley. So, I was pleased to find out that he has turned the course into a book, also titled Physics for Future Presidents, with the subtitle "The Science Behind the Headlines." I was going to try to cadge a free copy from his publisher, but our default local Borders is closing, and they were offering deep discounts on all their stock, so I just bought a copy. The book is framed as a sort of memo to somebody who will…

Newsflash: World Accepts Darwinism

The British Council, a Royally Chartered organization involved in education, has completed a survey which indicates that there is "a broad international consensus of acceptance towards his theory of evolution." From the press release: The research, conducted by Ipsos MORI, surveyed over ten thousand adults across ten countries worldwide including Argentina, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Great Britain and the USA. The results show that the majority of people polled have heard of Charles Darwin with the highest levels of awareness in Russia (93%), Mexico (91%),…

The Gene for Running Fast or Far

Jamaican sprinters make people who are not really thinking about this jump, like pole vaulters, to the conclusion that there must be a gene for running fast that somehow evolved ... like Olympic Beach Volley Ball seemingly from sterile sand ... despite the numerous hurdles for such an event to happen. Such is the nature of amateur science. As much as I'd like to make a contribution to this discussion right now, I'm engaged in other activities that preclude a knee-jerk reaction. So for now, I offer this repost of an earlier piece on running and genetics. As a wet blanket. Enjoy the wet…

The Decent Human Beings' Guide to Speaking at Atheist Conferences

Thanks to PZ for the format/inspiration! Be self-aware. You are the speaker in a room filled with dozens, hundreds, thousands of people. Especially at atheist/skeptic conferences, we are all very interesting people, but out of those dozens/hundreds/thousands of people who could have been chosen to give a presentation, you were chosen. Your opinion and your words are most likely highly valued, because other people want to hear them. Other people want to learn from you. Other people look up to you. Other people have not had the exact same life history, education, experience that you have…

Eddington, Neutrinos, and the Changing of Meaning by Context

I'm writing a bit for the book-in-progress about neutrinos-- prompted by a forthcoming book by Ray Jaywardhana that I was sent for review-- and in looking for material, I ran across a great quote from Arthur Stanley Eddington, the British astronomer and science popularizer best known for his eclipse observations that confirmed the bending of light by gravity. Eddington was no fan of neutrinos, but in a set of lectures about philosophy of science, later published as a book, he wrote that he wouldn't bet against them: My old-fashioned kind of disbelief in neutrinos is scarcely enough. Dare I…

Richard Powers: World's Fair Advisory Board Nominee #3

"When we don't know what we are after, we risk passing it over in the dark." -- Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma Nominee #2: Chris Ware Nominee #3: Richard Powers Richard Powers, like the other nominees, is a creative ambassador in the broadest and most noble sense. He goes beyond false distinctions between humanities, sciences, arts, culture, and whatever else. He transcends the need to be labeled as one or another. Stephen Burt at Slate notes the same thing: "After reading Powers, C.P. Snow's once-famous complaint about the "two cultures"--scientists and…

The problem with Twitter

Every day it seems there's a new essay or post about social networking fatigue, virtual connectivity's isolating effects, and the threats posed by rapid-fire media. Most of all, though, it's about the problem with Twitter. My "25 random things I hate about Twitter" post attracted an usually large amount of traffic, including several visits from those who were alerted to the piece via Twitter, but that was written at least half in jest. Now allow me to share with you some more carefully considered criticisms. The problem with Twitter is not that it's useless. As überTwitterfan Coturnix has…

Human grid cells tile the environment

HOW does the brain encode the spatial representations which enable us to successfully navigate our environment? Four decades of research has identified four cell types in the brains of mice and rats which are known to be involved in these processes: place cells, grid cells, head direction cells and, most recently, border cells. Although the functions of most of these cell types are well characterized in rodents, it remains unclear whether they are also found in humans. A new functional neuroimaging study, by researchers from University College London, published online in the journal Nature,…

The PTSD Trap - War, culture, and the overdiagnosis of PTSD

My story in the April 2009 Scientific American story, "The Post-Traumatic Stress Trap", just went online. Here's the opening: In 2006, soon after returning from military service in Ramadi, Iraq, during the bloodiest period of the war, Captain Matt Stevens of the Vermont National Guard began to have a problem with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Stevens's problem was not that he had PTSD. It was that he began to have doubts about PTSD: the condition was real enough, but as a diagnosis he saw it being wildly, even dangerously, overextended. [snip] "Clinicians aren't separating the…

The "Lost Women": science popularizers and communicators of the 19th century

Today's Guardian has a very interesting (though long) article by Richard Holmes, author of The Age of Wonder, about the unsung women of science. In the Guardian piece, Holmes shares some of his research for his forthcoming book, The Lost Women of Victorian Science: [M]y re-examination of the Royal Society archives during this 350th birthday year has thrown new and unexpected light on the lost women of science. I have tracked down a series of letters, documents and rare publications that begin to fit together to suggest a very different network of support and understanding between the sexes.…

How Dangerous is Manganese in Drinking Water?

Occupational exposure to manganese has been in the news lately, with law suits by welders who claim neurological disease caused by manganese exposure. Now two scientists at Swedenâs Karolinska Institute have written a paper in which they argue that current guidelines for safe levels of manganese in drinking water are based on a misinterpretation of a twenty-five year old study, and that newer evidence suggests that at least for infants and other vulnerable populations, the current guideline values are not adequately protective. In a paper available online at Environmental Health Perspectives…

Serious flaws revealed in longevity genes study

When an article was published in Science last week reporting that DNA samples from exceptionally long-lived individuals differed detectably from those of normal individuals, it got plenty of positive attention from the mainstream media. However, the buzz from experts was rapid and telling: my colleagues in the statistical genetics community weren't excited about the results, but immediately, profoundly skeptical. For people who've spent years doing genome-wide association studies (GWAS), several things stand out as unusual from this paper: the very large effect sizes of the identified SNPs (…

Andreas Moritz is a cancer quack

The Prime Quack has been identified: Andreas Moritz. He has admitted to getting Wordpress to pull Michael Hawkins' blog, and is also threatening me, now. Michael Hawkins, You may blame me for having your blog pulled. WorldPress had to remove your blog because otherwise it would have faced a hefty lawsuit, given the nature of the defamation campaign you had launched against me, and having positioned your blog link second place on the search engines. http://www.google.com/search?q=Andreas+Moritz&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a I…