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The future of science publishing at SfN

Jake Young has written an excellent summary of a panel discussion he attended at the Society for Neuroscience meeting. I encourage you to read the whole thing, as it presents a fascinating interplay of the forces at work in academic publishing. But if Jake's synopsis is too much for you, here's a quick summary of the issues involved: The current "market-based" scholarly publishing system is primarily paid for by governments: Researchers and libraries get grants, and the grants pay for subscriptions to journals. This system limits access: not everyone has access to libraries, and not all…

John Barnes, Gaudeamus [Library of Babel]

In some ways, John Barnes's metafictional novel Gaudeamus is the proximate cause of the huge backlog in my book logging. I was more-or-less caught up at one point, but then stalled on this book, unable to think of what to say about it. I'm still not entirely clear on it, but I'm just going to bang some stuff out so that I can finally get the damn thing off my desk. I should start off by noting that Gaudeamus is definitely the work of the Good John Barnes, responsible for One for the Morning Glory, and not the Evil John Barnes who wrote Mother of Storms. That's a critically important…

So Just What Is Nature Doing???

Maxine Clarke commented on this blog: It might be an idea to read the Nature site before you opine. As I mentioned at the blog from which you found this information, Nature's mission statement was updated years ago and is available at the "about the journal" page free access. See http://www.nature.com/nature/about/index.html What has changed is that we have put in a correction to the original mission statement written in 1869. Try coming over and reading the source first, "then" write your post ;-) This is puzzling...surely if Nature had already updated its mission statement, it would not…

Online Prescription Records

Roy, writing at Shrink Rap, has a post about the prospect of online access to prescription records in the State of California.  The attorney general is proposing a database of all prescription records, that could be accessed by doctors and pharmacists.   href="http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2008/06/online-access-to-prescription.html">Online Access to Prescription Medication History Posted by Roy at 8:02 AM I saw a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugs5-2008jun05,0,2974326.story">headline this morning that the California attorney general is moving to provide…

HuffPo FAIL boat: Salmonella edition

Me: HAI GUYS! U NEED TO EAT GUD FUDS LIKE EGGS! EGGS ARE GUD AND CHEEP! LOL! YAY EAT EGGS U GET ABS LIKE ABS LOL! News: Salmonella outbreak in eggs, Massive recalls Me: FUUUUUUUUUU...... News: lol. But thats not the only reason I bring this up. SciBlogs 'special' friend, HuffPo, scavenged an article from AP, which noted that one of the reasons why this salmonella-in-eggs recall is so epic, is because the US government doesnt require hens be vaccinated against salmonella. I thought this was neat info, and it turns out the eggs I normally buy do vaccinate their hens ($2.35 a dozen -0.35…

Ubuntu for your parents, uncles and aunts. No tech support anymore!

During my visit to India last month, I promised myself that I would accomplish one important task. I would do everything in my power to eliminate the tech support role that I was playing to my parents. You see, my parents had inherited (ah, sweet pun) a desktop computer from me and in my absence had taken the help of local young men who gleefully installed Microsoft Windows software (pirated, of course). Pirated software, you must realize, is like getting a new pair of shoes with godawful bugs in them. They bite and you can't ask for help from the seller or go to a qualified doctor. My…

Techbros are hilarious

No, really, they are. Hipster libertarians are the new street mimes, so enjoy them while you can before everyone gets tired of them. The latest example is this silicon valley entrepreneur, Rob Rhineheart, who has written a paean to his lifestyle. It starts with a complaint about the horrors of alternating current. The walls are buzzing. I know this because I have a magnet implanted in my hand and whenever I reach near an outlet I can feel them. I can feel fortresses of industry miles away burning prehistoric hydrocarbons by the megaton. I can feel the searing pain and loss of consciousness…

Medicine and Brain Weekly Channel Highlights

In this post: the large versions of the Medicine & Health and Brain & Behavior channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. This week's Medicine & Health photo was kindly submitted by one of our own bloggers, the Neurophilospher. Brain & Behavior. The blurred colors of plastic Easter eggs. From Flickr, by josef.stuefer Medicine & Health. From Flickr, by Gaetan Lee Reader comments of the week: On the Medicine & Health channel, Orac discusses a contentious issue, sure to become more prominent as more parents buy into anti-vaccinationist…

Open Lab 2007 reviewed in Nature

Today's issue of Nature contains a short review of Open Lab 2007, and the article includes a brief mention of my contribution to the book: The editor of this second anthology of the best scientific communiqu's from the blogosphere thinks blogs offer new ways to discuss science. The Open Laboratory 2007: the Best Science Writing on Blogs (Lulu.com, 2008) takes the curious approach of using dead tree format to highlight the diversity of scientific ideas, opinions and voices flowing across the Internet. Every year a different guest editor - here Reed Cartwright, a blogger and genetics and…

Links 4/30/11

Links for you. Science: More deconstruction of the "tyranny" of excessive reviewer demands for more experiments Armadillos Can Transmit Leprosy to Humans, Federal Researchers Confirm Other: Female physicians make less money than male doctors, here's why (truly, no good deed goes unpunished) Health reform will drive up ER visits, like it did in Massachusetts (Romneycare beats no care, but it still sucks) Policy in an age of post-truth politics (while I don't buy the notion that we're in some 'new era', the political strategy is dead on target) A Book Store. That's Right. Book, Singular. The…

Radio, blogs and The Book

Well, as I said before, the end of the Conference/Anthology whirlwind is also a return to my Dissertation writing (and a lowering of my output here). But I had to procrastinate just a little bit more - I just gave a very pleasant 30-minute interview for the Asheville (NC) community radio station about blogging, science-blogging and everything else (including the Conference and a pitch for the anthology), as a part of their Tips For Political Bloggers series. The interviewer is Paul of the Brainshrub blog. It will appear on his site next Monday morning and will air on Monday evening - I…

Stuck in Vegas? Go to Red Rock Canyon

No, the Denialism Blog is not my personal travel blog, although it might seem that way lately. I was in Guatemala last month, where I encountered dirty hippies and woo, and learned about a new religion called new age. This week, I was at the Consumer Electronics Show doing a consulting gig for a large software company. CES is amazing--140,000 attendees, 2,700 exhibits. It's like being at the biggest Best Buy evar. I saw a 150" HD plasma television, with pandas on the screen, the smallest bluetooth headsets imaginable, neat location-aware devices, etc. Perhaps the most difficult…

HuffPo flops again

Whenever the Huffington Post brings up a science-related issue, I just cringe. It's Jim Carrey or Deepak Chopra or some other celebrity incompetent babbling out some nonsense — it's like the site editors have no B.S. detectors at all. Well, now they've really done it: they've got some quack named Kim Evans piggy-backing on the recent concerns about a pandemic to offer her own remedies: Got the swine flu? Treat it with an enema. And great dog in heaven, they've got another quack touting chiropractic as a treatment for swine flu. Of course, it's not just the liberal-leaning Huffpo — every day,…

Science of Harry Potter

Both Eva and Anne-Marie have started a series of posts about the Science of Harry Potter, focusing on the genetics (i.e., patterns of inheritance) of wizardry vs. muggleness. Anne-Marie has already moved on to the second part of her series, on dragons. It will be interesting to watch what these two come up with over the next few posts in their series. I have to say that I have been too busy and have yet to see the new movie (The Order of the Phoenix), but will try to see it soon. Also, my two copies of the book #7 will arrive in Chapel Hill on the 21st and I am wondering if I should buy a…

Global Heating Will Cook People, Too

Billions of people could be wiped out over the next century because of climate change, according to James Lovelock, a leading expert who pioneered the idea of the Earth as a living organism. Lovelock warned that as the climate warms, the global population which is currently around 6.5 billion, may sink as low as 500 million. Given the dire situation we face, Lovelock urged people to drop the phrase "global warming," which has cosy connotations, and instead start to think of it as "global heating." He also claims that any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the…

Those wacky Russians

Maybe "wacky" isn't the right word — if you read through this collection of Russian jokes translated by Mark Perakh, you might find some are fairly funny, others are completely opaque and strange, and others drop with a leaden thump. One common seems to be finding a kind of morose humor in misery. Having a strange sense of humor is the only way I can explain this: Pravda, the Weekly World News of Russia, has an article explaining Intelligent Design creationism, which fits right in with their usual fare of UFOs, girls in swimsuits, devils, and muscular bronze stallions with weird human…

035/366: Trike Rack

Another fall day, another holiday closing at the JCC. I was home with The Pip for most of the day, which was the usual mix of fun, exhausting, and puzzling. For example, while I offered several times to go out to a playground before lunch, he refused. But then insisted that we walk to the store to buy... something. I got this picture with my phone: The Pip's bike in the rack at the Co-Op. Because it amused me to see a bike rack with just a little red tricycle in it. We did go to a couple of playgrounds later, and I shot some video that I'll use for physics-y stuff at some point. But this…

How much better are cameras?

Cameras, CCDs, prisms, grisms, etc., are all some of the instruments that can go on top of telescopes to help us see things better. We haven't really increased the size of telescopes so much as we have the quality and ability of the apparatus that go atop them. Take a look at various pictures I've stolen off the web, all taken by (avid) amateur astronomers in different years. The pictures are of M81 and M82, two galaxies in a group that make up possibly the nearest cluster of galaxies outside of the local group. (The closest is either the M81 group, the Centaurus group, or the IC 342 group.)…

Sandefur on Amar

Timothy Sandefur has the first in what will be a series of posts by all of us at Positive Liberty about Akhil Amar's new book, America's Constitution: A Biography. Sandefur was kind enough to buy copies of this book and send them to me, Jon and Jason so we could all read it and comment on it. I'm still only about 1/4 of the way through the book so it may be a while before I add much of substance to the discussion, but I agree with Sandefur's overall endorsement of Amar's work. There are areas where I strongly disagree with him, but there is no question that he is among our finest…

Holiday Shopping Suggestion

A friend of mine who is an excellent writer and critic, fellow blogger and social scientist, is trying to make ends meet by enhancing sales at the family business. Distracted by other things, I didn't know about this until this morning. Welcome to Howling Pig, the uncommon soap company for uncommon people. Our soaps (and stuff) are for those who know that life is not just about getting by, soap is not just about getting clean, and smelling good is the best revenge. Each of our scents is unique, evocative, and memorable, created with passion to engage your senses and inspire your soul. We…

Washington DC meetup!

Hey, everyone, I said I was going to be in Washington DC this weekend, with the notorious Phil Plait. We've compared notes and figured out our schedules, and are ready to announce a time and place for a general meetup: 9pm, Saturday, 10 November at the Senators Sports Bar at Holiday Inn on the Hill (here's a map). There may be some other infamous bloggers on hand, too — we'll invite them, but well, you know, this is going to be a gathering of High Nerddom, and it may be a bit intimidating to normal people. Now go vote for Bad Astronomy for Best Science Blog. He's behind that front for…

Important World Cup Updates

The US managed to survive yet another appalling lapse of officiating and beat Algeria 1-0 on a goal in stoppage time. Simultaneously (in some frame of reference), England beat Slovenia 1-0. With South Korea advancing yesterday, countries with current or forthcoming editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog are 3-0 when it comes to advancing past group play. Meanwhile, France, where rights have not yet sold, was eliminated. I'm also happy to report that Spanish translation rights have been sold, and a translation is in progress, so Spain can go into their final group play game without…

Page Numbers!

This is clearly the result of my earlier blog post. Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. Rather than add page numbers that don't correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we're adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book's print edition. We've already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle…

Rescued from the spam-file (kind of).

Left by a self-proclaimed "fitness specialist" and "trainer of personal trainers" (along with all manner of contact information) as a comment on this post: Isn't it amazing that someone like Darwin is celebrated for his thoughts. Evolution is bunk! I am not a creationist either. But to evolve an animal had to make a conscious decision. An example: a fish had to decide that land was the next place it was going to make its home. How many fish had to make that decision and how many realized they would have to die before their gills evolved into lungs? Yet there are people who actually believe…

Best Buy will Sell Linux Computers

The Asus Eee Laptops being sold by Best Buy come featured with an Intel Celeron M Processor, 512 MB of DDR2 memory, 7" widescreen display, 4GB solid state drive, built-in webcam, and the Linux operating system. Weighing in at only 2lbs, the laptop is great for day-to-day traveling. The hardware might not seem much, if you're used to the high demands of a Windows-based PC, but for Linux, 512 MB of memory and a 4GB hard drive is plenty. You won't be using the laptop for much server-based work or playing any 3D accelerated games, but that's not what the laptop is about. It's about having e-mail…

Skloot, "Immortal Life" Featured on "Fresh Air" Today

Be sure to catch Fresh Air whenever it airs in your local market to day, or catch the podcast. Rebecca Skloot is on today, talking about her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which, as I hope you know, is released today. And I hope you pre-ordered your copy already. Fresh Air is on at 3 pm and again at 7 pm in Philly - can't wait! UPDATE: Terry Gross may just be the perfect person to interview Rebecca Skloot, who is wonderfully telling the story of Henrietta Lacks, and of how she came to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks. If you don't get to listen to Fresh Air on the radio,…

Hey Canada

Since Canadians seem to have an obsession with American health care policy (a nation of Ezra Kleins?), I thought I would pass along this weird Intrade screenshot: OK, I assume my liberal readers have cleaned themselves up after seeing that screenshot. I check Intrade as part of my "morning reads" and I really don 't know what's going on here, the health care prices have been between 20 and 50 for all of 2010, and usually between 30 and 40. Perhaps a speculative bubble driven by the magic of Obama's voice? Or Democratic staffers with "inside knowledge" starting buy up shares because they knew…

#scio10 Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Session: Engaging Underrepresented Groups in Online Science Media

Next weekend at ScienceOnline2010, I'll be co-moderating a session on encouraging scientists and science trainees from underrepresented groups to participate in social media. I will be working with Damond Nollan, a social media specialist and Web Services Manager at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). Damond is the author of the aptly-titled blog, In The Mind of Damond Nollan. The whys and hows are what we hope to discuss in the outline below. The reason for calling this the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Session stems from the fact that this conference has been held for the last four…

Never Say Goodbye: Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly

tags: Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly, Glaucopsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis, Joel Sartore, National Geographic, image of the day Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly (Glaucopsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis) 4,300 (Estimated 300 wild and 4,000 captive). Image: Joel Sartore/National Geographic. [larger view]. Wikipedia writes; The Palos Verdes Blue butterfly is a small endangered butterfly native to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwest Los Angeles County, California. As its distribution has been proven to be limited to one single site it has one of the best claims to being the world's rarest…

Friday Fun: The Top 10 Types of Douchebags in Tech and How NOT to be one

This one's pretty funny, but in a painful way. I'm sure this one rings true for a lot of people out there. I like Number 8: 8.) Self-Entitled Social-Media HotShots Who You Are: Your license plate reads "SCLEXPT". You spend all day teaching computer illiterate people how to create a facebook pages and twitter logins and you mock anyone who doesn't spend three hours a day updating their FB status or tweeting photos of their lunch. You have about as much "expertise" as 24-hour online certified priests, but tout your "knowledge" like a peacock on parade. What's the Remedy: Make somebody money…

ConvergeSouth - it is apolitical

When Ed announced that Elizabeth Edwards is coming to ConvergeSouth to lead a session about buidling online communities, a bunch of Republican commenters on his blog announced they are not going to show up because of her and found it hard (some, not all of them) to be persuaded that the conference is apolitical and that Elizabeth Edwards has more than one aspect to her - she is not just a Democrat, she is also a mother, a cancer survivor, a book author, a wife of a famous person, and an early adopter of online technology. In the end, Elizabeth herself showed up in the comments and explained…

Yum, genetically engineered plants!

Here's a good science blog you can help: Biofortified, a group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering (and, by the way, Sb's recent addition, Pamela Ronald, is part of the team). They are in a contest to win a small cash grant and an interview with Michael Pollan, and this group is thoroughly deserving — Biofortified is kind of the Panda's Thumb of plant genetic engineering. Unfortunately, they're in second place right now, trailing an anti-genetic engineering, industry sponsored site, and they need more votes to win. You can help out! To do so, though, is a little more cumbersome…

Online campaigning - corporate style

It's not just McCain who does not understand the Internet, it's his operatives as well: Spread John McCain's official talking points around the Web -- and you could win valuable prizes! That, in essence, is the McCain campaign's pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of "AstroTurf" campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper. On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied…

Congratulations, Anton!

My friend (and the driving force behind all bloggy events in the Triangle area) Anton Zuiker has a new job! And not just any job - but a perfect job: In August, I will take a new job at Duke University Health System as manager of internal communications. This will be a chance for me to mold a communications strategy that uses traditional tools (magazines, newsletters, posters) with new media tools (blogs, videocasts, wikis). I'm looking forward to the opportunities and challenges. They really, really need Anton. Finding information online about anything that has to do with Duke University…

BlogTogether.org

Yesterday, a bunch of us (e.g., Paul, Brian, Ruby, Wayne, Jackson, Mark and me) got together for tea at Anton's house, analyzed the past year of bloggy activity and plotted to take over the world next year: meetups (a.k.a. beer-blogs-bowling events), science blogging conference, faithblogging, foodblogging, storyblogging and other events we are thinking of doing over the next year. The second Science Blogging Conference was a great success (see the ever-growing list of blog posts about it) and we intend to do it again next year. But this is certainly not the only thing we at BlogTogether do…

Google Earth on PLoS ONE papers

As far as I know, there are two papers on PLoS ONE so far that, as Supporting Information, have KML files readable by Google Earth: Naturalised Vitis Rootstocks in Europe and Consequences to Native Wild Grapevine and this week's Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons. Just scroll down to the Supporting Information of those papers, click on "Map S1" and, if you have Google Earth you can explore the map of the area of study. If you are publishing a paper in an online, open access journal, think outside the box - there are things you can…

The Domesday Book On-Line

I'm not sure if this is really new, or just new to me, but via a mailing list, I learned that the National Archives of the UK has made the Domesday Book available on-line. What is the Domesday Book, you ask? At Christmas 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth, and how much was owed to him as King. It was a massive enterprise, and the record of that survey, Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement. If you know what you're…

Facebook is a Mecca for sin

What an awful story: a young woman is murdered by her own father for online chatting. A woman was beaten up and shot dead by her father for talking online with a man she met on the website Facebook. The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation. I don't think it's a web page causing the strife: I think it's a hateful cockamamie belief system. Don't blame our openness for your derangement, or our tolerance for your daughter-slaughtering monsters. A leading Saudi preacher told Al-Arabiya.net that…

Eight good essays on Mooney

There is a most excellent online seminar on Mooney's Republican War on Science going on over at Crooked Timber. The usual gang is reviewing it, with the addition of the inestimable Tim Lambert and Steve Fuller. Wait a minute…Steve Fuller? That Steve Fuller? Steve Fuller. Steve Fuller! Jebus. I saw some glimmers of some interesting ideas at the start of Fuller's ultimately long-winded essay, but they expired even before he started defending the "positive programme behind intelligent design theory" and collapsed into tired pro-creationism mode. When he called George Gilder and Bruce Chapman "…

Literature request

Here's a humble request of my readers. I'm looking for an article in a journal to which my university library does not offer online access. I'm interested in reading it, but not so interested that I'm wililng to pay the $40 to download it. If necessary, I can get it via interlibrary loan, but they'll just send me a poorly photocopied hard copy, possibly even a FAX. The article on evolution and cancer; so you can see why I might be interested. This is the article: B. J. Crespi and Summers, K. Positive selection in the evolution of cancer. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 81(3):407-24 (2006). Would…

Texas Official: Call it a "Creationism Degree"

Here's a novel idea for creationists: Be honest! As you know, the Institute for Creation Research is trying to get an online Masters Degree in "science education" approved in Texas. A faux committee comprised of nincompoops and creationists has approved the degree at the first stage, and it is now being considered by the Texas higher education commission. (Details here) A recent report indicates that the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education has chimed in on the suggestion that this degree simply be called a "degree in creation studies." Interesting solution. Apparently, one of the…

Thinking about teaching physics

Sometimes (ok - just once) I get asked for recommendations about reading material on the ideas of teaching physics. I used to recommend Arnold Arons book on teaching introductory physics. Still, that is a classic and a great resource. However, there is a better one. Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite - Edward Redish Originally, this was kind of like the instructor's manual that went with one of the big name intro-physics books (maybe the new version of Halliday and Resnick). But this book is way more than an instructor's manual. What is even better is that it is online and free (see…

Is our children learning?

The NYTimes (also International Herald Tribune which I mentioned before) piece on book-reading, the Web and literacy of the new generation, has provoked quite a lot of interesting responses: SciCurious: But this change in internet language has happened very quickly, almost as as fast an an invading force. Is it here to stay? Is I gonna haf 2 strt riteing all my posts liek this? And is this an acceptable change to the language? Are these new grammar and spelling rules that we should teach in the schools as evidence of language evolution? Samia: My one issue with printed media is that I…

An Innovative Use of Twitter: monitoring fish catch!

From NC Sea Grant: ....At nearly every fisheries management meeting he attends, Baker hears the same complaint: North Carolina's recreational fishermen don't have to account for their catch. Two years ago, during a regional meeting about snapper and grouper, Baker looked down at his hands and finally saw a possible answer: his mobile phone. "I wondered if you could send a text message to a computer database somewhere instead of just texting from phone to phone," he says. "And if you could do that, maybe that was something recreational fishermen could do to track their catches and fishing…

Gullhögen Barrow Report On-Line

As an undergrad and PhD student in the 90s I heard a lot of rumours about the 1988-93 excavation of Gullhögen, a barrow in Husby-Långhundra parish between Stockholm and Uppsala. These rumours held that the barrow was pretty weird: built out of charcoal (!), unusually rich, and sitting on top of unusually rich Roman Period graves. Supposedly, someone was out here re-sieving spoil dumps to collect individual gold filigree grains. Few really knew much about Gullhögen. In a 2001 Fornvännen paper, Kent Andersson could make only the briefest of mentions of some Roman glass and a gold ring found at…

Reading Diary: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua

Sydney Padua's The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is one of the most flat-out entertaining books I have read in a very long time. You should buy this book. Your library should buy this book. Buy a copy of this book for all your friends. What's all the fuss? TTAoLaB is a graphic novelization of the lives of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, those wacky pioneers of computers and programming. But TTAoLaB isn't really just a novelization of their lives -- really only the first chapter or so pretends at any kind of historical accuracy. What it is is an imagineering of what their…

The future of "integrative medicine" is now, unfortunately

I was depressed yesterday. I've been on vacation this week (staycation, actually, as I stayed at home and didn't go on any trips); so you would think it would take a lot to depress me. It did. Scott Gavura over at Science-Based Medicine wrote about how another once-proud academic medical center, the University of Toronto, is letting the Trojan horse that is "integrative medicine" into the halls of its medical school and school of pharmacy. As I frequently say, much to the annoyance of advocates of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and "integrative medicine," what "integrative…

Live From Netroots Nation!

I'm blogging live from a very hot Austin, Texas, at the Netroots Nation conference! Officially, Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) "amplifies progressive voices by providing an online and in-person campus for exchanging ideas and learning how to be more effective in using technology to influence the public debate." They're certainly right about that free exchange of ideas—I've eaten free pastries from an Oregonian who's running for Senate (thanks, Jeff Merkley!), chatted with a physicist who used to work with Carl Sagan (and yes, the legendary astronomer was apparently just as charismatic…

Hey sperm donors, could DNA testing be hazardous to your wealth?

Maybe you did it for the extra cash. Maybe you wanted to be part of the sperm cube public art project. Whatever the reason, it's possible, just possible, your sperm took on a life of it's own, once you left it. And now that a genome is no longer an entirely personal bit of information, you may be in for a surprise meeting someday, with the end result. That's right. Male adoptees are getting their DNA tested and getting information about their possible surnames. According to the BBC news: At least 30 men registered with US consumer genetic testing firm Family Tree DNA have found their…

Myers Blasts Wells on Embryology

I have been neglectful in not linking to this post by PZ Myers, wherein he exposes the highly dishonest tactics of Jonathan Wells in chapter 3 of his new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. It's pretty much just a rehash of the Haeckel material from Icons of Evolution, which just reminds us again of three things: that creationists never seem to learn from previous mistakes, that all they have, now and then, is a set of arguments against evolution, and that those arguments rely on misrepresentation of the evidence and the views of scientists in order to…