Animal

Interesting sand animations done by Sigrid Astrup.
Mark of SB's own Denialism Blog has asked other science bloggers who use animals in their research to speak up and discuss what they do either in their own posts in the comments. I do not participate in lab research involving animals, but I have taken an interest in the subject, especially when non-human primates are used. While I don't doubt the importance of animal testing, I do have reservations about the ethics of using non-human primates in medical research. This is not to say that I advocate the acts of terrorism by extremists as related in Mark's posts, but I do have concerns about…
These days, few things are as commonplace in the landscape of scientific research than the perpetual yowl of opposition. Despite the fact that huge announcements in the sciences often aren't, off the bat, that thrilling ("two galaxies a million light years away collided and we aren't sure where the mass went!"), there still always seems to be someone that's up in arms. Most of the time, it's the usual suspects -- Baptists, the Bush administration, pro-lifers, and school boards in the midwest -- people whose interests are threatened, ideologically, by the potential of specific knowledge.…
If you can't infer from the heady smell of musk and cheap cologne emanating from your computer screen, let me inform you officially and scientifically that this is the Universe Sex Issue. Although, as a serious science forum, Universe tends to avoid this terrifically subjective topic, I was asked to write a column for the LA Alternative Sex Issue a few weeks ago, and decided to rise to the challenge. 2006 is all about getting into the spirit of things. Besides, I am not a square. But before you loosen your belts too much, know that things are staying strictly Animal Kingdom. Although I am a…
I'm not going to lie: this blog will rarely concern iself with Pressing Science Ethics Issues. This sort of thing -- the morality of Stem Cell Research, "Is Cloning O.K"? -- should remain where it rightly lives, which is to say, "town hall" style discussions on public television. This is not to dub these issues irrelevant. They are, of course, more relevant than anything I will bring up in this forum. However, they are also instant boresville. No one needs an in-depth analysis to realize immediately that people opposed to mild levels of stem-cell research are either conservative wack-jobs or…