Science
drorzel | January 23, 2007It's going to be a very busy day, in ways that will keep me away from the Internet for most of the day, so you'll need to entertain yourselves. Here's a question for the science-minded:
What's your least favorite science textbook of all time?
It could be a book that you loathed when you were a student, or it could be a dreadful book that you were forced to teach out of, but if you've got a least favorite textbook, leave the name in the comments. Obviously, my expertise in dealing with textbooks is mostly in physics, but I'll throw this open to all sciences, so go ahead and nominate that…
drorzel | January 23, 2007It's going to be a very busy day, in ways that will keep me away from the Internet for most of the day, so you'll need to entertain yourselves. Here's a question for the science-minded:
What's your favorite science textbook of all time?
It could be your favorite book from when you were a student, or it could be your favorite book to teach out of, but if you've got a favorite textbook, leave the name in the comments. Obviously, my expertise in dealing with textbooks is mostly in physics, but I'll throw this open to all sciences, so go ahead and nominate that biology book you can't get enough…
oracknows | January 21, 2007It looks like someone over at BlogCritics is undertaking the task of reviewing each of the component blogs of ScienceBlogs. So far, he's not particularly impressed with anyone except Martin and, to a lesser extent, Afarensis. Although he makes a few good points in checking out the first five blogs (he's proceeding in alphabetical order) and I have to applaud an attempt to do a critique of nearly 50 blogs, he clearly needs a gentle (for the moment) beating with a clue stick about a couple of things.
For one thing, he's full of crap when he says this about Janet:
My major criticism of this blog…
catdynamics | January 19, 2007An Icelandic Company, Ensímatækni hf., is claiming that penzim - an enzyme isolated from cod intestines - has strong antiviral properties and kills H5N1 influenze viruses in vitro
Well, fancy that. It would, since it is a protease, but it is a start, I guess.
My amma would approve, she always said that cod liver oil was good for you, and we all dutifully ate spoonfuls of the stuff. Still do, when I can get the real stuff.
Ok - so there's step from cold pressed cod liver oil, to enzyme from cod guts, but it is all same-same, eh?
Of course modern trawlers gut and discard the innards at sea,…
oracknows | January 18, 2007Geez, I might as well just put a paper bag over my head right now around my fellow ScienceBloggers.
You've heard me lament before about the woeful ignorance about biology and evolution common among all too many doctors. (You haven't? Well check here, here, here, and here.) Heck, you've even heard me lament about it just a few days ago, my irritation being piqued by a physician by the name of Dr. Geoffrey Simmons.
Now, as if to rub my face in it, Dembski's crew over at Uncommon Design have made me aware of an orthopedic surgeon named David A. Cook, M.D., who's adding to my embarrassment. As…
razib | January 18, 2007PZ and John have commented on a Steve Weinberg review of The God Delusion. This prompts me to offer up a cheap reflection which I've been meaning to air since watching Beyond Belief 2006, Steve Weinberg was, to my eye, the most ignorant and complacent of all the speakers and panelists, while at the same time being likely the most incandescently brilliant of them all. Weinberg is a great physicist, but having him review The God Delusion is like giving Leon Kass The Party of Death. On a related note, over at The Secular Outpost, Taner Edis wonders if Sam Harris shouldn't know something…
pharyngula | January 18, 2007
The vulva is one of my favorite organs. Not only is it pretty and fun to manipulate, but how it responds tells us so much about its owner. And it is just amazing how much we're learning about it now.
Don't worry about clicking to read more…this article is full of pictures, but it is entirely work safe because it's all about science.
It also helps that all I'm going to talk about is worm vulvas. Anybody who has taken a developmental biology class in the last ten years knew exactly what to expect: when a developmental biologist starts getting all enthusiastic about vulvas, you know he's…
oracknows | January 17, 2007Drat! Real life has once again interfered with my blogging. Fortunately, there's still a lot of what I consider to be good stuff in the archives of the old blog that has yet to be transferred to the new blog. Today looks like a perfect time to transfer at least a couple more articles from the old blog. This particular article first appeared on January 12, 2006. For those who haven't seen it before, pretend I just wrote it. For those who have, savor its Insolence once again.
I was perusing some journals yesterday, including the most recent issue of Nature, when I came across a rather…
pharyngula | January 17, 2007This is cool: a team using distributed computing to solve the protein folding problem has put out a promotional video asking for your unused computing cycles…and along the way they explain exactly what it is they are doing.
evolgen | January 17, 2007Esquire runs a regular article called "Answer Fella" in which stupid questions get stupid answers. In this month's edition we find out whether cloned humans have souls, why South Dakota's badlands are called badlands, and how many potatoes make up a bag of chips. My favorite answer, however, is to the question of what happens to the bodies of large animals when they die at the zoo:
According to Brandie Smith, director of conservation and science for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a necropsy--an animal autopsy--is performed first, to determine the cause of death and for research. "We…
evolgen | January 17, 2007Do you consider yourself a Science Blogger? You could be a hard blogging scientist, science journalist, student of science, or just a member of the general public with an interest in the scientific process. If you identify with any of these, I've got a challenge for you.
It boils down to this:
One week of science blogging and only science blogging.
At least one post a day of pure science content.
No blogging about anti-science -- no creationism, no anti-vaccination, no global warming denialists.
Just Science from February 5 through February 11.
More information can be found here or…
oracknows | January 16, 2007On our backchannel discussion forum, we ScienceBloggers have been discussing a rather interesting idea that we could use to provide extra value to our readers. The idea is to do short articles about basic concepts in science. It's an intriguing idea, and, while I could try my hand at posts about a number of basic concepts in science, I think that, given my background, my strongest contribution would be basic concepts in my areas of expertise. These could include questions such as:
What is cancer?
What is a randomized clinical trial?
How does chemotherapy work? (Certainly The Cheerful…
jrosenhouse | January 16, 2007The New York Times offers this brief, but useful summary of some of the evidence for human-caused glboal warming. Since it now seems incontrovertible that the planet is, indeed, warming up, the right-wing line has shifted to a rejection of humanity's role in the trend. I suspect as more data comes in, this line will prove untenable as well:
In the panel's last report, issued in 2001, and in more recent studies reviewed for the coming report, various trends provide clues that human activity, rather than natural phenomena, probably caused most of the recent warming. A number of trends have…
oracknows | January 16, 2007Here's an interesting concept that's just been released for purchase, either as a digital download or as a bona fide book: The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006. It's edited by fellow ScienceBlogger Bora Zikovic.
Oh, and it happens to contain a couple of posts by yours truly. In any case, it's a chance to see the best science blogging of the last year or so, all contained in one nice package.
pharyngula | January 16, 2007I mulled over some of the suggestions in my request for basic topics to cover, and I realized that there is no such thing as a simple concept in biology. Some of the ideas required a lot of background in molecular biology, others demand understanding of the philosophy of science, and what I am interested in is teetering way out at the edge of what we know, where definitions often start to break down. Sorry, I have to give up.
Seriously, though, I think that what does exist are simple treatments of complex subjects, so that is what I'm aiming for here: I talk a lot about genes, so let's just…
pharyngula | January 15, 2007The Bell Museum in Minneapolis is pulling out all the stops in the month of February, celebrating Darwin's birth month with an orgy of science and sex. I'm going to be there for the events on the 13th and 15th, and I'm really tempted by the talk on the 20th—I'll have to see if I can get away for that one.
People in Minneapolis/St Paul ought to appreciate that this kind of public outreach is what good museums do, and take advantage of the opportunities!
Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota
10 Church St. S.E. , Minneapolis, MN 55455, (612) 624-7389
In Feburary, the Bell…
drorzel | January 15, 2007"Thoreau," guest-posting at Unqualified Offerings, has a nice post commenting on a Physics Today article about the use of language in science, by Helen Quinn. The article is pretty standard stuff for anyone following the "culture wars" debates here-- use of the word "belief" to describe scientific conclusions causes confusion, and attempts to put science on the same level as faith. She calls for scientists and science writers to use "Scientific evidence supports the conclusion that" instead of "scientists believe."
Thoreau rightly points out that this issue is somewhat overblown, in that the…
evolgen | January 14, 2007I'm a big fan of recycling. I try to recycle whatever I can -- paper, plastics, glass, aluminum -- whenever I can. I was under the impression that recycling produces less waste than dumping in landfills and is better for the environment in general. Because of this, I was willing to pay the extra costs (indirectly through taxes) to support municipal recycling programs. Penn and Teller beg to differ:
If you don't want to watch the entire thing, here's the take home message: recycling paper and plastic is wasteful and costs a lot more than landfilling. Penn and Teller linger a lot on the wasted…
oracknows | January 14, 2007I've lamented numerous times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the sometimes painful ignorance of biology and evolutionary theory that's all too common among my fellow physicians, an ignorance that leads to truly embarrassing forays into the "debate" over the pseudoscience of "intelligent design" versus the real science of evolution, an example of which includes the Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity's idiotic petition expressing "skepticism" about evolution.
Here we go again. This time, I learn of a pro-"intelligent design" book for children written by....a physician!
Note the author:…
pharyngula | January 13, 2007That clever fellow John (Chris) Walken has proposed a useful idea—that we put together simple descriptions of basic concepts in our fields of interest for the edification of any newcomers to science. He picked the magic word Clade to write about first; I don't know why he didn't pick "Species", since he could have just dumped his thesis into one short, simple blog post. Maybe he'll do that next.
Larry Moran has joined in with a lovely lucid explanation of Evolution. This is very useful, because now whenever a creationist comes along here, we can just tell him or her to go to that post and…