Texas
oracknows | June 27, 2012And now for something completely different.
Except that it isn't really. I say that it isn't really different because, although this post will seem to be about politics, in reality it will be about a common topic on this blog: Anti-science. And where is this anti-science? Sadly, it's in the platform of a major party of one of the largest states in the country. It also meshes with the anti-science inherent in a lot of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and all comes together in one place: The proposed 2012 Platform of the Republican Party of Texas. It's all there, as you…
tsmith | June 15, 2012This is the third of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Mary Egan.
Murine typhus has been in the news recently in Austin, TX, where in May of this year, two people were found to be positive and one died. This rings a number of alarm bells for me, since I live in Texas, and specifically in Austin. I know of another Austin veterinarian who got sick with murine typhus in 2008, when it was first noticed in Austin and investigated by the CDC. I was also working as a relief vet at the Town Lake Animal Center, the municipal shelter, and at the Austin Humane Society, the main nonprofit adoption…
lborkowski | February 28, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Walking around a public health laboratory is seriously cool.
Giant humming machines, rows of test tubes and small, round dishes containing specimens with hard-to-pronounce names, biohazard warnings and emergency shower stations, an egg incubator and liquid nitrogen generator, people in protective gear with bulky white hoods and face shields. Oh, and boxes with severed animal heads inside.
"Everything is just so unusual and every day is different," Dr. Grace Kubin told me as she took me on a tour of the Texas state public health lab in Austin last week.
After years of…
sastyk | February 6, 2012I am a homeschooler, a private schooler and a public schooler, and as such, don't have a strong ideological commitment to any of the above - I think they all have their place. My oldest son has severe autism and attends a private school for children with autism, but paid for and managed by the school district since they have no appropriate placement for him. My three younger boys are homeschooled, which we started not because of a dislike of public schools, but because our local school went to all-day kindergarten when my son Simon was ready to start. His birthday was late November, and at…
pharyngula | May 22, 2010The evil bastards have gone and done it. The right-wing dbags on the Texas board of education have approved their decrepit curriculum — you know, the one that has decided that Thomas Jefferson was persona non grata, while Joe McCarthy is a true American hero. It's a tragedy for the nation, because, as we always point out, Texas clout is going to warp schoolbooks all around the country, but the worst thing is that there are 5 million kids in Texas who are now going to get a substandard education. OK, an even more substandard education.
There's not much we can do at this point, except keep up…
laelaps | April 15, 2010Top of the encrusted surface of a brachiopod shell, showing the "war" between an edrioasteroid (star-shaped organism at center) and a fast-growing bryozoan colony. From Sprinkle and Rodgers 2010.
Back in the early days of paleontology, when the meaning and origin of fossils was still in doubt, some naturalists believed that the shells, shark teeth, and other petrified curiosities were attempts by the rock to imitate life. Fossils were not true vestiges of history, it was believed, but instead the product of some "plastic virtue" suffused throughout the non-living Creation. As naturalists…
oracknows | February 11, 2010Well, that didn't take long, at least not once the trial ended.
It's good to see the jury act with such alacrity to find Anne Mitchell not guilty and send a strong message to the hapless Dr. Rolando Arafiles and his errand boy Sheriff Robert L. Roberts, who spent more effort tracking down a nurse doing her duty than I bet he spends tracking down thieves and murderers, as well as the equally clueless County Attorney Scott Tidwell. It's good to see that justice was finally done in the end, but it's absolutely horrifying that it took so many months for it to happen. This is a prosecution that…
oracknows | February 7, 2010About five months ago, I blogged about a true miscarriage of justice, the sort of thing that should never, ever happen. In brief, it was the story of two nurses who, disturbed at how a local doctor was peddling his dubious "herbal" concoctions in the emergency room of the local hospital when he came in to see patients, reported him to the authorities. Moreover, they had gone up the chain of command, first complaining to hospital authorities. After nothing happened for months, they decided to report the physician, Dr. Rolando Arafiles, Jr., to the Texas Medical Board because they honestly…
rskloot | January 24, 2010I've been meaning to post about this for several weeks, but as we all know, things have been a weee bit hectic. But now, finally: News on the informed consent for using tissues in research front.
Since the 1960s, US law has mandated that all newborns be screened for
genetic diseases. What most people don't know is that those samples
are often stored and used in future research without the knowledge of
the parents (or, obviously, the children). I write about this in the afterward of my book, which is of course directly related to this issue.
For decades ethicists, scientists, policy makers…
grrlscientist | January 23, 2010tags: Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party, astronomy, science, stars, Milky Way, streaming video
This fascinating video is a time lapse video of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas. In this video, you will see the bright galactic core of the Milky Way crossing the Texas sky. Images taken with 15mm fisheye lens.
oracknows | September 18, 2009I just found out via one of the mailing lists I'm on of a very disturbing case in Kermit, Texas. Two nurses who were dismayed and disturbed by a physician peddling all manner of herbal supplements reported him to the authorities. Now, they are facing jail:
In a stunning display of good ol' boy idiocy and abuse of prosecutorial discretion, two West Texas nurses have been fired from their jobs and indicted with a third-degree felony carrying potential penalties of two-to-ten years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of $10,000. Why? Because they exercised a basic tenet of the nurse's Code of…
terrasig | September 9, 2009Update: Visitors arriving by search engine may care to read our followup post on 20 November following M.D. Anderson's filing of legal action in this case.
The premier US cancer hospital and research center in Houston released a statement today distancing themselves from a Dallas company claiming an endorsement of their water product by The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center:
Recently, you may have heard or read about a company that sells Evolv, a "nutraceutical beverage," which is being promoted in part based upon testing done at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer…
gregladen | April 23, 2009Next time I get down on you slack-jawed yokels in Texas, which could be any time, I don't want to hear any flack. No excuses. You can take my critique in the gut and live with it OR you can tell me to stuff it. But the latter is only an option if you get off your bovine Texas asses and do what you need to do.
State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, faced searing questioning during his uncommonly long confirmation hearing Wednesday at the Senate Nominations Committee.
And Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said McLeroy's nomination is on shaky ground because he might not be…
amillikan | March 26, 2009Over the past three days, the Texas State Board of Education has heard over 50 testimonies debating a proposed amendment to reinstate the requirement of teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution in the statewide science curriculum. The proposed regulation, which has provided creationism a place in the classroom in the past, alarmed scientists not only for its potential repercussions in Texas, but because of the state's large textbook market as well, which forces textbook authors to bend to the state's curricula. To their relief, the bill failed this morning in a…
scientificactivist | March 23, 2009What can I even say about this? From the Austin American-Statesman:
At a hearing Thursday of the House Committee on Human Services, [Texas State Representative Gary] Elkins and other members of the panel considered more than two dozen bills related to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Three hours into the hearing, Elkins asked: "What's Medicaid?"
The Houston Republican continued: "I know I hear it -- I really don't know what it is. I know that's a big shock to everybody here in the audience, OK."
And, for the win....
Medicaid, for the record, is the federal-state health…
scientificactivist | March 9, 2009What else is new?
Via Greg Laden comes news that creationists are once again mucking about with Texas' education standards. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) explains just what's at stake:
A number of amendments to the science TEKS were passed at the January 2009 meeting. Here is a brief analysis of these amendments, and why they are problematic for science education in Texas.
In general, the amendments single out topics touching on evolution (including the age and evolution of Earth and the universe as a whole) from other scientific topics included in the TEKS. They uniformly…
grrlscientist | September 6, 2008tags: Long-Billed Thrasher, Toxostoma longirostre, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Long-Billed Thrasher, Toxostoma longirostre, at Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 31 March 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/750s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | September 5, 2008tags: Golden-Fronted Woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Golden-Fronted Woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons, at Valley Nature Center, Weslaco, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 31 March 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/320s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | September 4, 2008tags: Golden-Fronted Woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Golden-Fronted Woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons, at Valley Nature Center, Weslaco, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 1 April 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/100s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | September 3, 2008tags: Least Grebe, Tachybaptus dominicus, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Least Grebe, Tachybaptus dominicus, at Brazos Bend State Park, Creekfield Lake, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 21 January 2007 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/160s f/8.0 at 500.0mm iso400.