Repost
retrospectacle | July 17, 2006A short communication in the International Journal of Obesity caught my eye this morning. A research group from Cornell explored some seemingly-obvious questions: Do people eat food just because its there, and will they eat more if the food is close in proximity and unlimited in supply? And one not so obvious: Do we underestimate how much we eat when the food is closer (the idle munching effect)? (More below the fold!)
The team recorded the chocolate consuption of 40 adult secretaries for 4 weeks. They manipulated proximity by placing the chocolates on the desk of the participant or 2 meters…
retrospectacle | July 11, 2006While reading the June issue of Nature, I saw an editorial piece called Last Rites which touched on a subject which interests me: humane euthanization of lab animals. Our lab does research on guinea pigs (we must be the last lab to *actually* use guinea pigs), and its of the utmost concern to all of us that they feel no pain when they are sacrificed (or "sacked" as we say). There exists two main ways of euthanization: inhaling carbon dioxide gas or by "cervical dislocation" (euphamism for breaking the animal's neck). The former require little to no researcher interaction, but may be a slow…
retrospectacle | June 6, 2006Sometimes by serendipity, we have the ability to meet people who have paved the way for us. Today, I was able to briefly meet Gerry Fox, a concerned citizen and lobbyist who was primarily responsible for the inception of the NIDCD (who funds us).
There are many division of the National Institute of Health (NIH), and one of these funds the type of work I do, the National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD). This wasn't always the case, though; prior to the existence of the NIDCD, all hearing-related research petitioned for funding from National Institute of Neurological…
retrospectacle | June 6, 2006
As I live in the isolated, educated, and overly-pampered environs of Ann Arbor, sometimes I forget that such a place as Detroit lurks only 30 minutes away.
But then, I have the Detroit News to remind me, with chilling stories such as this. Over 30 people in Detroit have died in the last week of fentanyl overdosing, the most recent death being a Wayne State film student. He was found in the mens' bathroom, a syringe by his side.
This highlights a disturbing new trend in drug abuse, especially bad in the Detroit area: dealers are spiking heroin or cocaine with fentanyl to give the drugs a…
tfk | October 10, 2005A repost from the archives.
At last I got a chance to read the last few pages of the book I've been pimping in the sidebar for a few months now. I've made some broad comments drawn from it before, but it's nice to be able to see the full sweep of the book.
Chris Mooney's argument in RWoS is more complex than it might seem from the title. He isn't decrying the lack of scientific basis for policies per se, but the ways in which the Republican Party in particular misrepresents the state of science and the nature of science in order to promote certain actions or forestall other actions.
I'll…
tfk | September 17, 2005A Repost of some classic TfK.
I missed the Bush speech the other night, and from the coverage, I can't say I care. The idea of making No Man's Land an "enterprise zone," like the idea of auctioning off "surplus" federal lands, only justifies the fears expressed by some locals that the wealthy would be taking over the former homes of the (black) low-income residents of New Orleans. It's bad politics and bad policy.
It's indisputably true that we have to think twice about how the new New Orleans will be built, but planning to integrate low-income housing with middle class homes and commercial…
tfk | August 3, 2005Reposted from the old TfK.
The DI figured out how a typo gets into print:
[Times reporter Bumiller] apologized for the error saying it was "nothing more than a mistake madie in haste" and has assured us that the Times will run a correction in the print edition tomorrow. In explanation she indicated that she'd taken notes very quickly in shorthand and later under deadline pressure from editors inadvertently substituted "biblical" for "biological."
Whether it's a Freudian slip or not it is likely to be a comment that grows into an urban myth. So, it is with relief that we see the reporter and…
tfk | May 26, 2005A repost of a Wikipedia approved classic, from the old TfK.
it's only a theory...: On the Shoulders of Giant Mistakes...:
Consider the following excerpt from a letter written by Isaac Newton to Reverend Dr. Richard Bentley in 1692, in which he describes some of the implications of his Law of Gravitation...
"To your second query I answer that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were impressed by an intelligent agent. For since comets descend into the region of our planets and here move all manner of ways, going sometimes the same way with…
tfk | May 22, 2005Reposted from the old TfK.
Burt Humberg has a long and detailed analysis of Creationist Fears, Creationist Behaviors at the Panda's Thumb:
Creationists Are in Fear
To understand why creationists fear evolution, it is necessary to consider three things. First, many creationists believe that the Bible must be taken literally, though this literalism is typically ad hoc. (They interpret literally when literalism serves their purposes and they interpret metaphorically or symbolically when it does not.) Second, one must consider the concept of salvation, specifically Christian salvation. (No other…
tfk | April 6, 2005Reposted from the old TfK.
I say no, Bill Dembski says yes:
Despite intelligent design's clear linkage, both methodologically and in content, with existing sciences that sift the effects of intelligence from undirected natural forces, critics of intelligent design often label it a form of creationism. Not only is this label misleading, but in academic and scientific circles it has become a maneuver to censor ideas before they can be fairly discussed.
To see that the creationist label is misleading, consider that one can advocate intelligent design without advocating creationism. Creationism…
tfk | February 1, 2005A repost from the archives, providing background in theology
The Leaking of the Wedge:
The story begins, so far as the world at large is concerned, on a late January day seven years ago, in a mail room in a downtown Seattle office of an international human-resources firm. The mail room was also the copy center, and a part-time employee named Matt Duss was handed a document to copy. It was not at all the kind of desperately dull personnel-processing document Duss was used to feeding through the machine. For one thing, it bore the rubber-stamped warnings "TOP SECRET" and "NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION…
tfk | December 13, 2004Reposted from the old TfK.
A few years ago, I someone gave a presentation here, arguing that we should reintroduce a bunch of extinct Pleistocene species into North America. Cheetahs were on the list, along with lions and Asian elephants (like these from the Bronx Zoo). The idea was that human hunting caused these species, and many more, to go extinct, so we ought to bring them back. The ecologists in the room all thought this was madness incarnate.
On a vaguely related topic, Salon.com has an article about elephant hunting. As in any conflict over the management of a large, charismatic…
tfk | November 29, 2004Reposted from the old TfK.
Over at Death's Door, there is a certain degree of consternation about the possibility that mallard ducks would be gang raping each other.
There is a bunch of confusion wrapped around that so let's start slow.
I also wasn't aware that duck's had duck cocks to gangbang with. I never eaten a duck but I've eaten a lot of chicken, and when you buy the chicken in the store and pull out that little pouch of giblets and shit, I've never seen a tiny chicken cock sittin off in there.
So, what do duck dicks look like, and why don't you see genitalia in chickens from the store…
tfk | August 10, 2004This was the first post ever on Thoughts from Kansas.
On the third anniversary of the decision to limit stem cell research, Laura Bush endorsed the existing stem cell policy. Lots of bloggers, especially Chris Mooney, have been pushing this as a wedge issue that the Democrats can win on, and rightly so. Even the Bushes seem to think so.
But there are just some fascinating philosophical issues in this that get glossed over too fast as this has been politicized. The debate, for those joining us recently, is to what extent stem cells obtained from human embryos ought to be accessible to…