News
rskloot | February 7, 2009The new stimulus package includes serious cuts to science funding (like nixing 100% of the National Science Foundation's $$). This -- as an old family friend of mine used to say -- is in the forefront of the not good. Details here. Contact folks to voice opposition here.
grrlscientist | February 2, 2009Have you read the latest piece of anti-intellectualism to come out of the LATimes? Apparently, their so-called journalists are showing their ignorance by stating that Jill Biden, who earned her PhD in Education -- and who also happens to be the wife of Senator Vice President Joe Biden -- cannot be referred to as "Doctor Biden". What have they been smoking??
"My feeling is if you can't heal the sick, we don't call you doctor," said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post's A section and the author of two language books. (He apparently agrees with the LATimes' stupidity, because…
rskloot | January 6, 2009NEWSFLASH: In this weekend's New York Times Magazine, I reported that the Department of Justice had proposed a ban on guide miniature horses, service monkeys, and other non-canine assistance animals (brief overview of the story and legal issues here, several follow up posts here). In my story, I mentioned that no one knew whether the DOJ had removed the species ban from their proposal after the public hearings this summer.
I just got a leaked version of the latest DOJ regulations, and the agency has in fact made the species ban more restrictive. The DOJ's initial proposal would have…
rskloot | December 31, 2008Skloot interviewing Richard the Assistance MonkeyThe New York Times just posted my latest feature, "Creature Comforts."
I've posted photos, videos and links below, but first, the gist of the story: When people think of service animals, they think guide dogs for the blind. But today it's monkeys for quadriplegia and agoraphobia, guide miniature horses, a goat for muscular dystrophy, parrots for psychosis and any number of animals for anxiety, including cats, ferrets, pigs, at least one iguana and a duck. They've been showing up in stores and in restaurants, which is perfectly legal because…
sb admin | December 30, 2008Yes, it's true, Culture Dish has found a new (and improved) home. After a long blogging hiatus while I finished writing my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (see below for details), I'm now packing up shop and moving here to ScienceBlogs (you can subscribe via RSS here, or get Culture Dish updates delivered to your email inbox by clicking here). As a welcome to readers old and new, here's a bit of a Culture Dish history as an introduction:
I'm a science writer whose forthcoming book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story of the amazing HeLa cell line and the woman…
rskloot | December 30, 2008Yes, it's true, Culture Dish has found a new (and improved) home. After a long blogging hiatus while I finished writing my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (see below for details), I'm now packing up shop and moving here to ScienceBlogs (you can subscribe via RSS here, or get Culture Dish updates delivered to your email inbox by clicking here). As a welcome to readers old and new, here's a bit of a Culture Dish history as an introduction:
I'm a science writer whose forthcoming book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story of the amazing HeLa cell line and the woman…
dmunger | December 11, 2008PLoS ONE turns two this month, and to celebrate, they're partnering with ResearchBlogging.org to make history on December 18.
On that day, we're asking bloggers to write about one of the thousands of articles that have appeared on PLoS ONE in the past two years, in a synchroblogging event of epic proportions. It might just be the biggest day ever for blogging about peer-reviewed research. Want to participate? Visit the PloS ONE blog for more info. I've also reposted their instructions below.
PLoS ONE turns two this December. For our community celebration we're going to run our second…
drorzel | December 5, 2008A few days ago, I complained again about the relative lack of science books in the New York Times "Notable Books of 2008" list. Yesterday, one of the big stories was CNN axing its entire science unit, such as it was, which drew comments from lots of blogs (and more whose links I can't be bothered to track down).
I'm probably the only one who thinks this, but in my opinion, these two are related. I'm not saying one caused the other, but that they're both symptoms of the same thing: the broad lack of respect for science among educated people. (Which I've ranted about before.)
One of the…
dmunger | October 21, 2008Yesterday Dan Ariely came to Davidson to give a few lectures and meet with faculty in the Economics, Philosophy, and Psychology departments. Greta attended two of the lectures and had dinner with him (along with the rest of the Davidson Psychology faculty). I went to his public lecture last night.
If you're not familiar with Ariely's work, you should consider reading his book Predictably Irrational, or at the minimum check out his blog, which is full of fascinating research and anecdotes about how we make (un)informed decisions.
At his talk last night, Ariely offered a several fascinating…
drorzel | October 20, 2008the New York Times Magazine has a cover story this week about Barack Obama's efforts to reach working-class voters. The headline writers did it no favors by tagging it "Will gun-toting, churchgoing white guys pull the lever for Obama?," which makes it sound like the worst sort of demographic electoral college nonsense. The actual article, though, is much better than the title suggests.
It's not perfect-- it's still got a lot of pundit-class chin-stroking about whether Obama is actually connecting with working-class whites, written in a manner that suggests that these elusive creatures are…
illconsidered | September 24, 2008Well, the good news is a recent finding of 740,000 year old permafrost in the Canadian arctic. What this suggests is that the permafrost may be more resilient than previously thought. If this ice is 740Kyr old, then it did not melt during the last three inter-glacial cycles. The peak warmth of at least the Eemian, 120Kyr ago, was a couple of degrees warmer than now, and some serious effort might keep temperatures from rising above that high marker.
The reason this is good news is because of the large (huge) quantities of methane stored in clathrates in this permafrost. If released, this…
dmunger | September 22, 2008You might think the zoo is an odd place for psychology bloggers to meet up. But on Saturday not only did Greta and I get a chance to connect with some of our readers and fellow bloggers, we also received some fascinating insight into the psychology of zookeeping. Our group toured the North Carolina Zoo, led by Jayne Owen Parker, Ph.D., the Director of Conservation Education of the Zoo Society.
As we strolled from exhibit to exhibit and listened to Jayne's comments, we were struck by how frequently psychology enters into the daily routine of managing a zoo. Through operant conditioning, the…
illconsidered | September 22, 2008 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
(skip to bottom) September 21, 2008 Melting Arctic, Arctic Geopolitics, Permafrost, CO2 Uptake, Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis, Abrupt Climate Change, Tutorials Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, Temperatures, Ozone, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts Transportation, Sequestration, Geoengineering Journals, Misc. Science Kyoto…
illconsidered | September 16, 2008Despite the familiarity of this headline, it actually only became news today (and is still a little uncertain).
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre is today anouncing the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has reached its minimum extent for this year.
Some notable facts from the article:
this is the second-lowest minimum extent since at least 1979, when satellite observations became available
the area is now 2.24 million km^2 below the 1979-2000 average summer minimum
this year did not set a new record, (congratulations Stoat!) stopping at 9.4% more than the record-setting 2007 minimum
this…
dmunger | September 2, 2008Over the weekend we finished transferring ResearchBlogging.org from its dependably quirky old home to sleek new digs. If you haven't visited the site in the past 72 hours, you should definitely head over to take a look -- or even if you have, you should go back again, since dozens of new posts have been added over the weekend. In addition to a fantastic redesign, the site has tons of new features.
We've been working for the last six months with Seed Media Group, who has generously donated hundreds of hours of project management, site design, and development from their expert SMG Technology…
illconsidered | August 30, 2008Hurricane Gustav is taking aim at the coast of Louisiana. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground is the goto place for the details of this storm.
If I am reading it all right, Gustav will be a major hurricane when it strikes the Gulf coast, possibly a category 4, and it may well strike New Orleans. The next 48 hours will reveal its plans.
illconsidered | August 20, 2008From yesterday's DemocracyNow headlines:
The Washington Post reports F. Chase Hutto III, a senior aide to Vice President Cheney, is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department. The promotion would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change. Officials say Hutto has played a prominent behind-the-scenes role in shaping the administration's environmental policies for several years and has been one of the oil and gas industry's key points of contact for energy and…
illconsidered | August 15, 2008Via Truthout, here is some interesting and important background on the Russian-Georgian conflict that is going on right now, because as usual, these things do not just happen out of the blue despite the dazed and confused coverage in the mainstream media:
When he was president, Clinton promised Yeltsin that NATO would not expand into former Soviet republics.
In 2004, seven countries joined NATO, some of them right on Russia's borders
At the same time, three other nations, including Georgia, took steps towards becoming members
Pro-western governments took over in Georgia and the Ukraine (not…
illconsidered | August 14, 2008For the second year running, the formerly mythical "Northwest Passage" has opened in the far north of Canadian waters.
(image and story at NASA's Earth Observatory newsroom)
Also in this weeks dispatches: images of Lake Faguibine in Mali drying up, locusts in West Africa, pyramids in Egypt, and drought in Oklahoma and Texas.
With regard to the Northwest passage, unfortunately the warning bells this event merits are drowned out by the "black gold" rush into previously unreachable areas.