biology
oracknows | July 22, 2012After all the years that I've been writing about vaccines, the science behind vaccines, and how antivaccinationists twist that science to turn what are arguably the greatest medical achievement of medicine and have saved arguably more lives than any other medical intervention devised by human minds into toxic cesspits of horrific chemical corruption that cause autism and destroy children, I thought I had seen it all. And perhaps I have. Sadly, seldum does any new bit of pseudoscience or new fallacious argument trying to claim that vaccines are dangerous surprise me anymore. That didn't used…
tfk | June 21, 2012Last Sunday I was on a panel at the American Society for Microbiology meetings. I'll post a slidecast of the talk in a few days, and get into the topic of the panel in more detail then.
Since I was presenting, I got a free pass to the rest of the conference, which was fascinating. I'm a macrobiologist by training and by avocation; I worked one summer in a fruit fly lab studying Wolbachia infections, and quickly moved on to animals one can see and touch. So I was curious to find out what microbiologists spend their time talking about.
What struck me most was how few of the techniques…
esiegel | June 14, 2012"Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody." -Mark Twain
Back before the telescope was invented, Saturn was known as the Old Man of the Skies. The slowest-moving of the naked-eye planets, it's the only one that would reliably be in nearly the same location, year after year. You can find it all summer, after sunset, by following the "arc" of the handle of the big dipper all the way until you run into the brightest northern-hemisphere star, Arcturus, and then speeding on to the very bright Spica. Saturn is right next door.
Image credit: EarthSky.org.
But…
jeure | June 7, 2012Mantis shrimp, or stomatopods, are the planet’s most powerful bare-knuckle boxers, armed with dactyl clubs that literally fly faster than a speeding .22 caliber bullet. Each strike boils the surrounding water and creates a tiny cavitation bubble, which then implodes with a sonic pop that can render targets unconscious. Consider that: if the strike itself doesn’t get you, its aftershock will. And that’s just the variety of stomatopod equipped with blunt fists - others launch their lance-like arms to pierce prey.
These little lobster cousins, usually between 4 and 12 inches long, are capable…
oracknows | May 7, 2012It's no secret that over the years I've been very critical of a law passed nearly 20 years ago, commonly referred to as the DSHEA of 1994. The abbreviation DSHEA stands for about as Orwellian a name for a law as I can imagine: the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Of course, as we've pointed out time and time again, the DSHEA is not about health, and it's certainly not about education. Indeed, perhaps my favorite description of this law comes from blog bud and all around awesome internist Dr. Peter Lipson, who refers to it as a "travesty of a mockery of a sham." Rather, it's about…
esiegel | April 25, 2012"Through that last dark cloud is a dying star... And when it explodes, it will be reborn. You will bloom... and I will live." -The Fountain
I want to start off by letting you all know that I, myself, do not have any children of my own. I have taught children, adolescents and adults for nearly a full generation now in varying capacities, and while each learner is different, there's one science fact that universally seems to shatter each and every one of them.
Image credit: the bloggers at Dear Kugluktuk.
The fact that the Sun, our Sun, the bringer of warmth, light, energy, and the sustaining…
esiegel | April 15, 2012"You never need think you can turn over any old falsehoods without a terrible squirming of the horrid little population that dwells under it." -Oliver Wendell Holmes
As an astrophysicist, I get sent all sorts of (unsolicited) novel ideas and theories claiming to overturn everything from special relativity to quantum theory to the Big Bang. But the biologists get one very special type that I don't, that I was fortunate enough to have shared with me. This is not a case of physicists vs. biologists; on the contrary -- as the Be Good Tanyas might tell you -- this is what it sounds like
When Doves…
oracknows | April 13, 2012You know, I really, really hate the way quacks abuse molecular biology. I know, I know. I've said it before, but certain quacks have a way of willfully misunderstanding the latest advances in genomics, molecular biology, and biology in general. Of course, this isn't limited to just medicine, unfortunately. After all, we have Deepak Chopra and his quantum woo, which abuses physics and quantum theory in the name of "proving" mind-body dualism, a bastardized version of "intelligent design" creationism that is based on Eastern mysticism rather than Christianity, and, of course, a "conscious…
aardvarchaeology | April 9, 2012Eurasian Jay, Garrulus glandarius, Sw. nötskrika, "nut screecher". Photographed in Fisksätra 6 April 2012.
esiegel | April 7, 2012"Well you run and you run to catch up with the Sun but it's sinking,
racing around to come up behind you again.
The Sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
shorter of breath and one day closer to death." -Pink Floyd
For the last four-and-a-half billion years, the Earth has spun on its axis, orbiting its parent star: our Sun. Today, our home planet looks something like this.
Image credit: Reto Stöckli, Nazmi El Saleous, and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen, NASA GSFC.
Looking at our world, even from outer space, you see some very familiar features that we think of as essential parts of our…
oracknows | April 6, 2012Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times, and it doesn't help that it's a holiday week plus a week I was traveling. So I dug way back into the archives, back to five years ago, for a little gem that reminds me that I really should write about evolution more. As the AACR meeting showed me this year, it's actually highly relevant to cancer research. Besides, if you haven't been reading at least five years, it's almost certainly new to you!
Well, well, well…
oracknows | April 5, 2012I have a soft spot for pareidolia, as regular readers know. It amuses me to no end to see Jesus and Mary popping up on freeway underpasses, tacos, toast, pieces of sheet metal, Lava Lamps, and the like. I thought that I had seen it all--until now:
His image has been seen on rocks, windows - even a tortilla as recently as Ash Wednesday.
Now, in the days leading up to Easter Sunday, it appears yet another strange image of Jesus has emerged.
Erika Scheldt, 24, claims she photographed a stingray with a glistening depiction of Christ on its back after it washed ashore a South Carolina beach on…
kmcwalsh | March 15, 2012There are many complex steps to the dance of DNA replication. And scientists must learn to sway along in order to understand how both healthy and cancerous cells divide.
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have begun to learn how to follow the complex molecular choreography by which intricate cellular proteins recognize and bind to DNA to start the replication process.
The replication process starts off the same way in every cell. In the cell's DNA, there are defined sites called the "origin of replication." The cell in which the DNA is housed uses a protein called the "origin…
oracknows | February 24, 2012Back in September, I merrily applied a little not-so-Respectful Insolence to the service of deconstructing the overwhelmingly silly fear mongering by a group known as SANE Vax over the alleged discovery of HPV DNA in the HPV vaccine. SANE Vax, as you may recall, is a group founded by a woman named Norma Erickson dedicated to spreading misinformation about the HPV vaccine. If you peruse the SANE Vax website, you'll see that the common antivaccine tropes are all there; they're just directed mainly at the HPV vaccine. The hysterial fear mongering over the alleged discovery of DNA fragments of…
carlyo | February 22, 2012Our mission is to re-invigorate the interest of our nation's youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational and entertaining science festival in the United States. In addition to the celebration, throughout the year we work to sustain the Science Festival's impact through year-round programming and curriculum development and a content-rich, interactive website. We strive to establish ourselves as a resource for everyone in the STEM community and especially our future STEM leaders.
One of the ways that we hope…
jeure | February 17, 2012No one credits heavy drinking with making people smarter - the mind-numbing effects are well documented. Odds are that if you haven't experienced this personally, you've witnessed it in the foolish antics of others. The clear correlation between rapidly diminishing intelligence and rising alcohol consumption is no secret.
But the long-term effects may go deeper than a morning headache or a need to wear sunglasses inside. A new study conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals that genetic factors can make some individuals more susceptible than others to lasting neurological damage…
aardvarchaeology | February 16, 2012For the past two weeks I've been hearing more and more birdsong. The bullfinch is singing his characteristic snowmelt ditty, and the woodpecker is making territorial drumrolls. Some other species of small bird is having these noisy cocktail parties where they fill a tree and chatter for hours. But the winter is far from over yet. We have lots of snow and it was -9ºC this morning. It must be the lengthening daylight that triggers those bird brains. And today two magpies have started fussing absentmindedly about the big nest outside our bathroom window.
oracknows | January 29, 2012It's rare that I have much in the way of reluctance to leap into writing about a topic. Any regular reader of this blog should know this to be true, given the topics I regularly take on and how often my writing draws flak my way from various proponents of quackery and pseudoscience, in particular the antivaccine crowd. Still, sometimes a topic gives me pause, although, I must admit, the reason is that blogging about it will bring embarrassment to me. Usually, I can overcome this reluctance, as I have done in discussing, for example, how my alma mater, the university from which I obtained both…