1. seed
  2. Quick Picks on ScienceBlogs, August 2

Quick Picks on ScienceBlogs, August 2

By ksharpe on August 2, 2006.

Five posts so red-hot I wouldn't recommend touching the screen while you read them.

  • "Science Is Not a Path to Riches"

    "They're not getting out based on a rational assessment of career possibilities, they're getting out because they don't like the first class or two that they take. By the time they find out about the lousy career possibilities, they're too far in to change majors..."

  • "Zombie DDT Myth Will Not Die"

    "The restrictions on the agricultural use of DDT that [Rachel Carson] helped inspire have prevented the development of resistance and are the reason why it can still be used today in many places to fight malaria. In short, she prevented many deaths from malaria."

  • "Alchemy Without the Shame"

    "Some of the most dramatic revolutions were born within systems of thought that today seem hopelessly backwards. I wonder how twenty-ninth cenutry historians will look back at our own revolutions today. Who will be cast aside as the new alchemists?"

  • "i : the Imaginary Number"

    "After the amazing response to my post about zero, I thought I'd do one about something that's fascinated me for a long time: the number i, the square root of -1. Where'd this strange thing come from? Is it rea?l"

  • "Study Finds Alcohol and Tobacco More Harmful than Marijuana, LSD, or Ecstasy--Drug Reclassification Should Follow"

    "The [UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee] report discusses specific cases where drugs were misclassified or their classifications were changed for political, rather than scientific, reasons. The report is particularly critical of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for not doing enough to push for a more scientifically based drug classification system."

Tags
Misc

More like this

Study Finds Alcohol and Tobacco More Harmful than Marijuana, LSD, or Ecstasy--Drug Reclassification Should Follow
Yesterday, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee released a report entitled Drug Classification: Making a Hash of It?, which challenges the logic behind current drug classifications in the UK, especially when tied to legal penalities. The report discusses specific cases where…
Study Finds Alcohol and Tobacco More Harmful than Marijuana, LSD, or Ecstasy (Revisited)
Back in August, I reported on an ACMD study buried in the back of a UK government report. The study gave strong evidence that the current drug classification scheme in the UK was fundamentally flawed and was not based on the actual danger of a given drug. The study has now been published in this…
Alchemy Without The Shame
John Noble Wilford has a long, interesting article in today's New York Times on the rehabilitation of the alchemist. Once the icon of the bad old days before the scientific revolution, alchemy has been emerging in recent years as more of a proto-science. Indeed, a fair number of the heroes of the…
Towards a more rational drug classification system
Are we dividing drugs into illegal and legal based on a rational classification system based on risk? A British government committee says no: The committee's report recommends that drugs be ordered on "a more scientific scale, to give the public a better sense of the relative harms involved". But…