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"Stereotype threat", women, and math tests.

Regular commenter Blair was kind enough to bring to my attention an article from The Globe and Mail, reporting research done at the University of British Columbia, that illustrates how what we think we know can have a real impact on what we can do: Over three years, researchers gave 135 women tests similar to those used for graduate school entrance exams. Each woman was expected to perform a challenging math section, but not before reading an essay that dealt with gender difference in math. Of the four essays, one argued there was no difference, one argued the difference was genetic and a…

Free ethics advice for the Pope.

When, speaking to journalists about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, you make a claim that the epidemic is: a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem those listening who assume you are committed to honesty (because of that commandment about not bearing false witness) and that you are well-informed about the current state of our epidemiological knowledge (because, as the Pope, you have many advisors, and owing to your importance as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, leading scientists…

Several items for your careful consideration ...

I've only got random stuff for you now, but it is all good stuff. Well, not really all good, but it is most definitively all stuff. First, we have Chris Mooney interviewing Rebecca Watson in a Point of Inquiry Podcast. Give it a listen. I'm happy to be one of the men who supports Rebecca. Those of you who are mad at me for that please continue to comment here, because Imma write a book about WTF is going on in your heads. Along the lines of a Stephen King novel, I think. On a more mundane and immediate note, we just received word of a four year old girl drowned in Clearwater Park.…

What's the matter with Colorado?

Some commenters wondered if the Ken Poppe mentioned in the previous story was the same Ken Poppe who wrote a creationist book, Reclaiming Science from Darwinism. Yes, it is. He's at Trail Ridge Middle School, a public school in Longmont, CO, and is listed as teaching 6th grade science. He freely admits to teaching creationist crap to his class, and says that the book grew out of his lessons. For a quick estimate of the scientific quality of his book, look at the cover. Look carefully. Anyone notice anything … funny … about that putative DNA molecule? Oh, well, it's just the cover, accuracy…

The problem with appeasement of creationists is ...

..that even when you try diligently to separate the politics of religion vs. creationism and to say again and again that religion can go along its merry way as long as it stays out of the science classroom, people like Casey Luskin will still find the words in your rhetoric to accuse you of attacking religion. A while back, Genie Scott appeared with me and Lynn Fellman on Atheist Talk Radio, where we discussed science education. Genie is the director of the National Center for Science Education. Subsequently, in a posting on the Discovery Institute web site, Casey Luskin makes the contrast…

Evolution vs. Creationism by Eugenie Scott, Second Edition

A timely repost: It's out! Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction Second Edition is now available on line and in bookstores (or at least it is being shipped out as we speak). This is the newly revamped edition of Genie Scott's essential reference supporting the Evolutionist Perspective in the so called "debate" over creationism vs. evolution. The original version of this book was excellent, but this updated version is essential. There is quite a bit of new information in this volume reflecting the fact that quite a few things have happened since the publication of the prior edition…

Cost of Modern Medicine, Insurance Reform, and Death in the Paleolithic

Are you going to be finishing all of that mastodon meat? Cost of Modern Medicine, Insurance Reform, and Death in the Paleolithic Two months ago, I fell on the ice, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, got emergency surgery, and two/three days later was released from the hospital. The paperwork I waas handed on my release indicated that the costs to that point were $20,000 US (all covered). I estimate that this injury will cost, medically speaking only, about another ten grand, so the total cost of this injury is going to be, let's say, $30,000. A few weeks later, a tooth crown that I…

Frequency Of Female Fire Fighter Fewer Than Four Percent

In the 1970s and 80s, a number of law suits and other actions began to change the rules for hiring firefighters. There was a moment in the 1980s when a documentary was made (starring the very annoying John Stossel) pieces of which I still use when teaching on Gender. It shows Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and others arguing in favor of women being firefighters, and others (including, of course, one woman who is already a fire fighter) arguing against. One of the interesting things about the film is the way it is biased against women being fire fighters while at the same time trying really…

Be nice to me or I might not talk to you. Or worse, maybe I will talk to you...

Recently published research shows that individual humans will be nicer (more altruistic) when there is the possibility that the recipient of an act can respond verbally. The paper, "Anticipated verbal feedback induces altruistic behavior" is published in Evolution and Human Behavior for March. These results are not particularly surprising, but it is important to confirm these things through experimental work. From the abstract: [Humans may be...] motivated by concerns for praise and blame. ... we experimentally investigate the impact of anticipated verbal feedback on altruistic behavior…

Maybe I should have stuck with Clinton

The Obama Surge may still be real, but it has hit the hard rocky shore of the Clinton Campaign in Ohio and Texas. Or has it. I heard an alternative theory explaining the patterning of the election last night that I think is pretty interesting. This was related by Chris Matthews during election coverage on MSNBC last night, and sorry to say, I did not catch the name of the person who came up with this idea. Simply put, it works like this: Among typical mostly white Democrats who are working class and middle class, there is a fixed percentage, not a surging or shifting percentage, of support…

Jesus was a defective mutant, born of a cytological error

Why is it that the funny stuff always breaks out when I'm away from the interwebs? The always looney DaveScot takes issue with the claim that the virgin birth of Jesus is biologically unlikely, and cobbles up a bizarre scenario to allow it. Why, I don't know; is ID dependent on the chromosomal status of Jesus Christ, or something? Anyway, DaveScot proposes that 1) meiosis was incomplete in one of Mary's ova, producing an egg that contained 2N chromosomes; 2) this egg also bore a mutation that causes XX individuals to develop as phenotypically male; and 3) something then activated this egg to…

Kathleen Nordal on Dr. Oz and John Edward: I was edited beyond recognition!

Well, well, well, well. Last week, I wrote one of my usual patented bits of insolence directed at "America's doctor," Dr. Mehmet Oz. What prompted my irritation was a recent episode in which Dr. Oz featured psychic scammer John Edward, the self-proclaimed "psychic" who claims to be able to speak with the dead. In actuality, Edward is nothing more than a mediocre cold reader, but he's parlayed his skills into a lucrative career as host of his own TV show (Crossing Over With John Edward, which ran for several years back in the 1990s and early 2000s), author, and touring psychic medium. His…

The NIH threatened

As most of you know, most of the basic and translational biomedical research in the U.S. is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Unfortunately, the NIH budget has been stagnant for the last five or six years. That's been bad enough, leading to a decline in funding success rates for applicants for research grants to a low level that we haven't seen in nearly 20 years. Worse, even though FY2011 started October 1, the federal government still doesn't have a real budget. It's operating on a continuing resolution. While this plays havoc with all government agencies, it's particularly…

The worst pseudoscience of the decade?

It's the end, the end of the '70s It's the end, the end of the century. Joey Ramone, 1979 As amazing as it is to me, the first decade of the 21st century is fast approaching its end. It seems like only yesterday that my wife and I were waiting for the dawn of the new millennium with the fear that civilization would go kablooey because of the Y2K bug. (Remember that?) Obviously, civilization didn't end. Given the rise of pseudoscience over the last several years, it only seems that way sometimes. However, even though it's an entirely arbitrary construct and a human imposition of our own wishes…

One last brief comment about Suzanne Somers

Before I move on for a while from the topic of that faded 1970s comic actress, Suzanne Somers, whose latest book is a paean to cancer quackery and who has been carpetbombing the airwaves with burning napalm stupid, I think one revelation is worth a brief mention. Specifically, after my post about how I find Somers' story about being misdiagnosed with cancer, a fan wrote: Orac, Sarcoidosis? Nope. Wrong again. Suzanne admitted on TV she had an acute pulmonary fungal infection, valley fever. Try going back to medical school, you mental midget. I do so love the adoration of my fans. However, it…

Iron Surgeon?

I just returned from Las Vegas after having attended The Amazing Meeting. Believe it or not, I was even on a panel! However, my flight was scheduled to arrive very late Sunday night, and I'm still recovering. Consequently, for one more day I'll be reposting some Classic Insolence from the month of July in years past. (After all, if you haven't been following this blog at least a year, it'll be new to you. And if you have I hope you enjoy it again.) This particular post first appeared in July 2007. The other day, Sid Schwab, surgeon blogger extraordinaire, brought up a question that, I'm…

DDT use in South Africa

I've written several posts debunking the myth that using DDT is banned, pointing out that is used in places like South Africa. Now Professor Bunyip has finally discovered this fact and slams Tim Blair for spreading the myth: This item from the BBC will have Tim Blair beside himself -- a contortion worth seeing, given that he has long since assumed the initial improbable position of being well up himself. South Africa had stopped using DDT in 1996. Until then the total number of malaria cases was below 10,000 and there were seldom more than 30 deaths per year. But in 2000, [South Africa] saw…

Orac gets e-mail: Woo infiltration at Ohio State University?

Orac gets e-mail from time to time. This time around, a person working at The Ohio State University writes about a disturbing incident there demonstrating yet more evidence that academic medical centers are having increasing difficulty distinguishing between evidence-based medicine (which they should champion) and non-evidence-based medicine, which they should not. This e-mail comes from someone who wishes to remain anonymous: Time after time I've read Orac's accounts of woo infiltrating the medical community. Last month I witnessed its encroachment into the Ohio State University. Each year…

Did WHO change its DDT policy?

Last year I wrote about the inaccurate claims that the World Health Organization had reversed its policy on DDT when it had in fact supported its use all along. A recent paper in Lancet Infectious Diseases 2007; 7:632-633 also concludes that there has been little real change. Authors Hans J Overgaarda and Michael G Angstreicha write: In September, 2006, WHO alarmed many of us working toward a reduction in the use of toxic chemicals such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). In a press release, the organisation announced the promotion of DDT for indoor spraying against malaria mosquitoes…

Alexander Cockburn goes quote mining

MarkH has made a case study of Alexander Cockburn's crankish nonsense on global warming, but there is a bit left over for me to comment on. Cockburn's main scientific authority is some guy he met on a cruise who worked as a meteorologist for a whole three years, but he does quote on other person on the science. Look: As Richard Kerr, Science magazine's man on global warming remarked, "Climate modelers have been 'cheating' for so long it's become almost respectable." It takes a few seconds to find the source of the quote. You need a subscription to read the whole article, but the bit you…

Alex Robson's ignorance

You may recall how Alex Robson demonstrated his ignorance of basic statistics and of climate research. Now he has written an op-ed in Sydney's Daily Telegraph where he claims that there is no research at all that contradicts John Lott: Laws for the concealed carrying of guns are present in some form or another in 48 US states, and serious research (most notably by Professor John Lott of the State University of New York) consistently demonstrates their deterrent effect. Robson seems to be unaware that the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research and conducted its own analysis and…

What? No cephalopod genome project?

I was reading a review paper that was frustrating because I wanted to know more—it's on the evolution of complex brains, and briefly summarizes some of the current confusion about what, exactly, is involved in building a brain with complex problem solving ability. It's not as simple as "size matters"—we have to jigger the formulae a fair bit to take into account brain:body size ratios, for instance, to get humans to come out on top, and maybe bulk is an inaccurate proxy for more significant matters, such as the number of synapses and nerve conduction velocities. There's also a growing amount…

Khilyuk and Chilingar, oh my

Paul Hamer sends me an email about Khilyuk and Chilingar: (my emphasis) I had a quick poke around on the ISI database to see if anyone had cited their original study that you've covered. I found that their is a single citation - a self citation. It turns out Khilyuk and Chilingar have written another article with the help of one O. G Sorokhtin. I can't be 100% certain but seems like they're making a very dodgy claim here: "The main factor determining climate's temperature parameters is the atmospheric pressure." They then proceed to breeze over geological history and suggest two mechanisms…

Chinese navy disproves global warming

Christopher Monckton has a lengthy article in the Daily Telegraph where he attempts to debunk the notion that there is significant anthropogenic global warming. The main problem with his article is that he doesn't know what he's writing about it. He offers up an untidy pile of factoids, some of which are true but out of context, some of which are not at all true, and some of which he seems to have conjured up out of thin air. What they all have in common is that they support his position. Monckton seems to be unable to separate the wheat from the chaff. My favourite factoid is this one:…

Tim Blair claims Richard Garfield criticised Lancet study

Tim Blair, whose reaction to the Lancet study was to reject the entire concept of random sampling offers us this: Among other Lancet critics: Paul Bolton, a professor of international health at Boston University; Stephen Apfelroth, professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City; and mortality studies expert Richard Garfield. Of the three, the only one who is an expert in mortality studies is Richard Garfield. What does he say? The Lancet study cited two sources for the 5.5 pre-war mortality rate: the 2003 CIA Factbook entry for Iraq and a 2002 profile from…

Corcoran's reckless disregard for the truth

Charles Montgomery's excellent expose of the so-called "Friends of Science" group must have really hit a nerve, because it has drawn an over-the-top response from Terence Corcoran in the National Post. It appears that Corcoran was so incensed by it that he didn't bother to check whether anything he wrote was true. Andrew Weaver lists a few of things that Corcoran got wrong, the most telling of which is this: 6) I never dismissed "the original hockey-stick research debunking research debunking the 1,000-year claim as "simply pure and unadulterated rubbish" In fact your newspaper already…

Shades of Lysistrata!

One of the things that I remember most about my A.P. English course in high school is the time that we all read Aristophane's Lysistrata. This play, as you may or may not remember, is a comedy taking place during the Peloponnesian War. The plot, boiled down to its essence, entails a plan by which the women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, join with the women of other warring states and decide that they will refuse to have sex with their men until the war is ended and peace agreed to, as summarized here: The women of Athens, led by Lysistrata and supported by female delegates from the other…

It's a start

It may not seem like much when it comes to dealing with animal rights "activists" who cross the line into vandalism, harassment, and intimidation, but it's a start: Three animal rights activists who organized a campaign to harass employees and clients of a New Jersey research lab were sen tenced to prison yesterday by a judge who said their commitment to social justice had morphed into frightening and sometimes violent protests outside people's homes and offices. "The means used, the harm im posed, almost arrogantly, is serious -- and warrants serious punishment," Senior U.S. District Judge…

Christopher Booker's misinformation about the Polar Bear Specialist Group

Chris Mooney refutes claims that a skeptical report was suppressed by the EPA. (See also Deep Climate's analysis of the origin of the report. Another story about skeptics being suppressed has been concocted by Christopher Booker: Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the [Polar Bear Study Group], but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted…

The Australian's War on Science 32

Today's Australian included a double feature in its war on science. And they were both news stories, not opinion pieces. First up is John Stapleton. Last month Stapleton wrote a story arguing that winter was evidence against global warming. So how does Stapleton write a story about a heat wave here in Australia. Well, it's evidence against global warming: It's a scorcher, but 70-year record stands Much of inland Australia sweltered as towns from Ivanhoe and Pooncarie in far-western NSW to Onslow in the Pilbara, Kerang in Victoria and Marree in South Australia hit 45C yesterday. But even…

Will this work?

The US has done wonderfully well in collecting Nobel prizes this year, but there's no reason to be complacent. There's a lot of momentum in our science establishment, the result of solid support for many years, but there are troubling signs that the engines of our advance, the young minds of the next generation, aren't going to be propelling us as well. Take this report by science educators, for instance: "We are the best in the world at what we do at the top end, and we are mediocre — or worse — at the bottom end," said Jon Miller, of Michigan State University, who studies the role of…

Chris Mitchellgate: Posetti vindicated

THE ABC has posted the audio of Åsa Wahlquist's remarks at the conference, proving that Posetti's tweets accurately quoted her. The two five minute audios are well worth listening to for an insider's take on the toxic work environmnet that is The Australian. Look carefully at what Wahlquist has said since: Mitchell rejects the allegation and Walhquist has also denied it, saying she has never spoken to Mitchell about climate change. Wahlquist has not retracted or contradicted any of the things she said at the conference. I hope she expands on them at book length. Anyone know any publishers…

Recycled: Obliterating your lungs

A man who eats a lot of popcorn (2 bags a day) has been diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans (via NYTimes). The fact that diacetyl is still used is rediculous so I re-posted the popcorn/obliterated lung piece. What is interesting about this is that we've all known for a long time that this is harmful for workers, but only just now are the companies getting out of using diacetyl. Apparently this is due to some EPA study that the public doesn't have (read more about this at The Pump Handle). The possible negative outcomes from lawsuits must have outweighed the cost of moving to an…

My Amazing Life (Narrated by the Author)

[Editor's Note: By a strange coincidence the following exchange was secretly recorded on the same day this report was released: "Personal Comments By Physicians Distract From Patient Needs."] Dr. Xavier Yonder Zither: Hi, Ms. Ursaline. How are you feeling these days? Ms. Penelope Ursaline: Not so good, Doctor. My feet are swollen and I have this pain that shoots down my hip whenever I run after purse snatchers. Dr. Xavier Y. Zither: I hear ya - you should have seen me after I finished a 10K run on Saturday! They had to practically carry me off the course. In well-intentioned efforts…

Ask a Question, Get an Answer, Become a Better Doctor

I have a question for any students in the audience today. Are you ready? Here it is: what is the most important part of the medical history? The medical history, by the way, is what physicians document when they meet a patient for the first time. The doctor asks a series of questions and the answers are shaped into a narrative that documents the details of the clinical situation in order to deduce what exactly is wrong with the patient and maybe even correct the problem. The medical history is recorded in this order: Chief Complaint History of Present Illness Allergies Medicines Past…

Little Ol' Wine Drinkers of the World Unite!

Cassio. ...O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed and the ingredient is a devil. Iago. Come, come; good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used; exclaim no more against it. -Othello, Act II, Scene iii It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it, if for no other reason than to set an example for the vacillating chicken-hearted men of the world. I have already taken the pledge. Have you? "Wine is key to longer life, says new study" At the American Heart Association Conference on Cardiovascular Disease, Epidemiology and Prevention this week a study was presented…

Tacky Genes Give Me the Blues

DUSP6! MMD! STAT1! ERBB3! LCK! Was ist diese? CB radio patter? Pilot to co-pilot chatter? 3rd-and-long huddle banter? Of course not - that would be too easy. These cryptograms represent five different genes found within non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) that predict the both the relapse-free and overall survival of patients at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan who underwent surgical removal of early stage NSCLC, as reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. By the way, if you've ever wondered why scientists use so many acronyms, here's a good example. The…

Evolution vs. Creationism (2nd. ed.), by Eugenie Scott

Originally published by Greg Laden On February 6, 2009 11:14 PM It's out! Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction (Second Edition) is now available on line and in bookstores (or at least it is being shipped out as we speak). This is the newly revamped edition of Genie Scott's essential reference supporting the Evolutionist Perspective in the so called "debate" over creationism vs. evolution. The original version of this book was excellent, but this updated version is essential. There is quite a bit of new information in this volume reflecting the fact that quite a few things have…

13 Things That Don't Make Sense, by Michael Brooks

Review by Chad Orzel, from Uncertain Principles Originally posted on: January 25, 2009, 4:18 PM Michael Brooks's 13 Things That Don't Make Sense turned up on a lot of "Best science books of 2008" lists, and the concept of a book about scientific anomalies seemed interesting, so I ordered it from Amazon. It's a quick read (a mere 210 pages, and breezily written), but ultimately a frustrating book. It took me several chapters to pin down what bugged me about the book, but it all became clear when I looked at the back cover flap, and saw that the author is a former editor of New Scientist. The…

Friday Fractal LX: Zoom Down to the Surface

Note from your fractalist: Sorry, folks, this one is a day late. I discovered early yesterday that my old website had been hacked. It has been fixed, now, although I plan to eventually remove everything from there, and repost it here somewhere. Just getting the bad scripts out has kept me plenty busy. Never fear, I did finish the Friday Fractal. Other (current) posts are forthcoming. -K I’m not the only one around here who gets into fractals. I’ve noticed a few other science bloggers occasionally blog on the topic. Mark, over at Good Math, Bad Math, has been working on a series describing the…

Accretionary Wedge: just how nasty was it, 1.7 billion years ago?

I bet I'm not the only geologist who always wants to list "time machine" in the budget request for every grant proposal I write. Yes, we've got a lot of tools to sort out what's happened in the past, but wouldn't it be a lot easier if we could just go back and see for ourselves? So I love this month's theme for the reactivated Accretionary Wedge carnival. I want to go back about 1.7 billion years, to see what on Earth was happening when my favorite local rock was being deposited. This is the Vallecito Conglomerate. It's been metamorphosed, but its sedimentary features are still preserved. It'…

Redesigning a broken course

I've got a course that (IMO) is broken, and I'm working on fixing it. I've been teaching a course called "The Control of Nature" (after John McPhee's book) for 16 years, after thinking of the idea on my way home from my first academic job interview. (Yes, that was a bad time to come up with an answer to a question like "what other class could you teach?" No, I didn't get that job.) I've taught it as an intro course for non-majors and as an upper-level interdisciplinary general education class, and I had plans, once, to adapt it for a freshman seminar and for a large-lecture gen ed class. It'…

Balloon on the Bayou: Grassroots Mapping in Bay Baptiste

"The bucketheads are here," Jeff Holmes radioed back to his camp in Grand Bayou Village, a totally bizarre and charming outcropping of homes built on salt marshes that Holmes is worried will disintegrate under a thin but suffocating blanket of oil that is creeping up the bayou. That is, in part, why he has volunteered to take us out to film the bay as part of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade's Grassroots Mapping Project, which is helping citizens use balloons, kites, and other simple and inexpensive tools to produce their own aerial imagery of the spill (which is then pieced together by GIS…

The Best Argument in Favor of Open Access Science is All of Them

While going back through blog archives and reviewing incoming links, I stumbled on this post from about a year ago from Zen Faulkes at Neuro Dojo: There are many reasons to argue for open access of scientific research. But this is not the best one: It’s your taxes that fund the research, you should have access to the results without me or anyone else being a mediator. That one is from Kevin at We, Beasties. When I protested that this argument omits indie science, Kevin replied that it’s such a small amount as to be not even worth considering. I object to this characterization of my argument (…

What a lovely compliment

[A while back, I received a question from a reader via e-mail. Dear Beasties: If you had a mutation in either C4 or C5 which one would be worse... I guess the question is is it more important to have the ability to opsonize or the ability to lyse cells with the MAC complex? I could have done some digging and given a perfunctory answer, but I decided instead to ask my friend Matt Woodruff, another 3rd year grad student in my program whose lab works on compliment, if he could provide an answer and a bit of background. I think you'll agree it was the right choice. The Compliment System by Matt…

A Delayed DNC Report

Oh, what a couple of weeks. Between preparing for the DNC and hosting out of town guests, my plans to return to blogging were somehow delayed. Now the excitement has passed and I’ve run out of excuses to avoid my computer. So, as I turn to this giant pile of bloggable stuff, I am wondering how on Earth I’ll ever catch up. Why not start with where I’ve already been? Of course, this is old news now, as everyone has gone on to gossip about Sarah Palin, but I can’t help it... Barak Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC was incredible. My husband Alan and I got to attend, with pretty good seats:…

Delicious Internet Noms

Okay, I'm still trying to figure out why my del.icio.us link-posting script is broken, but it's time to get back to quasi-regular link-posting anyway. Christie at the Cape has a great post on archetypal female geologists - a counterpart to those irritating jokes about geology stereotypes that suggest you can only be a real geologist if you have a beard: Why are the portraits so important, and why am I obsessed with Grey Braid fashion? Because it asserts so strongly the geologistness of these women, and the womanliness of these geologists. It represents a collective turning-of-the-back to…

Dispatches from the Future

It's been a few weeks since the iGEM jamboree, a whirlwind, completely exhausting weekend of student synthetic biology projects. This tweet from Robin Sloan from the #igem2010 stream is a pretty good way to sum up the weekend: */ Tweets tagged #igem2010 right now read like dispatches from the future. (It's the big student synthetic biology [!!] conference.)less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneRobin Sloanrobinsloan Bacteria that fill in cracks in concrete, bacteria that feel empathy, probiotic bacterial sentinels as new antibiotics, bacteria that play sudoku, yeast that can live…

Science: the enemy of public health.

Every party needs a pooper, that's why Scienceblogs invited me. Enemy? Really? Yes, it can be. Read on; It doesn't have to be. A commentary in Nature Nanotechnology discusses the European Environment Agency report, Late Lessons from Early Warnings. The basic idea is to make recommendations so that nanotech can grow with the idea that if you ignore risks and get dealt a nasty surprise, the public backlash will doom the whole field. They came up with a list of 12 lesssons: some are as old as the hills and probably won't followed; all would be welcome if they were followed. Among the lessons…

23andMe already testing for rare Parkinson's mutations?

This casual aside on a recent post on personal genomics company 23andMe's corporate blog caught my eye: Mutations in several other genes have also been associated with Parkinson's disease, but these are extremely rare. Many have been found only in one or two families. While these mutations are so rare that they are not covered by 23andMe (to date we have found no customers with any of them), studying them could help scientists better understand the mechanisms of Parkinson's generally... [my emphasis] In other words, the company already has probes on its custom chip targeting these variants,…