Texas
scientificactivist | October 13, 2007Anyone who has lived outside of the United States or practiced science for a significant amount of time can vouch for the wonder that is the metric system. However, since an unfortunate majority of Americans do not fit this description, we're subject to outbursts like these:
NO, on celsius. This is the United States of America. We speak English and use Fahrenheit. Well, I guess you could show wind speed in kilometers, too. Where does it stop? I guess when we become a Spanish speaking nation.
Yes, this was just one the many responses to an announcement by Chief Meteorologist Tim Heller on…
grrlscientist | August 31, 2007tags: spider, giant spider web,arachnid, social behavior
Lake Tawokoni State Park rangers (l-r) Mike McCord and Freddie Gowin continue to monitor a giant communal spider web at the park Tuesday, August 29, 2007. Officials at Lake Tawokoni State Park have been watching the growth of a giant communal spider web that has formed in the park over the past several weeks. The giant spider webs are rare for Texas.
Image: Tom Pennington. [Scary wallpaper size]
Have you heard about the spiders that spun a web that is the size of Texas? Well, actually, the web is only the size of two football…
scientificactivist | July 15, 2007This one is for my readers in Texas, particularly those in the greater Houston area. Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and blogger at The Intersection, will be in Houston this week to promote his new book Storm World. Here are the details:
July 18, 20077:00 P.M.Barnes & Noble12850 Memorial DriveHouston, Texas
Check out the book's website for more info. If you're in the area, it should be interesting to hear what Mooney has to say about a topic that I know is near and dear to his heart: hurricanes and global warming.
scientificactivist | May 11, 2007This week's New England Journal of Medicine is a virtual smorgasbord of articles on HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccination. Although HPV also causes unsightly genital warts, HPV is more or less the sole cause of cervical cancer. I've written quite a bit here about Merck's HPV vaccine, Gardasil, since a February 2007 executive order by Texas governor Rick Perry made the vaccine mandatory for sixth grade girls in the state but was subsequently overturned by the state legislature (and Perry announced just this Tuesday that he would not veto the bill, which had been passed by a veto-proof…
scientificactivist | April 28, 2007On Monday, 23 April, the Texas Senate voted 30-1 in favor of its version of HB1089, a bill overturning Rick Perry's February executive order mandating that all girls entering the sixth grade receive the HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine Gardasil. On Wednesday, 25 April, the Texas House approved the Senate version of the bill by a 135-2 vote. On Thursday, 26 April, the bill was sent to Governor Rick Perry, who has ten days to sign the bill into law, veto the bill, or do neither (which would have the same effect as signing the bill). Even if Perry vetoes the bill, both the House and the…
scientificactivist | March 13, 2007The Texas House voted today 119-21 to overturn governor Rick Perry's executive order requiring mandatory vaccination against HPV (human papilloma virus) for girls entering the sixth grade. The bill, HB1098, still requires final approval in the House before moving along to the Texas Senate. Perry could attempt to veto the bill, but his veto could be overridden with a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. The House demonstrated today that it already has the necessary votes to counter a veto.
The House bill takes things a step further by preventing the adoption of any HPV…
scientificactivist | March 11, 2007On 2 February, Texas became the first state in the nation to enact a mandatory vaccination scheme for human papilloma virus (HPV), the primary cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine, Gardasil, is produced by Merck. Although welcomed by many, this was a surprising development since it was brought about by an unusual executive order from conservative Republican governor Rick Perry.
The executive order requires all girls entering the sixth grade to undergo the series of vaccinations, although concerned parents are given the choice to opt out if they so desire. Not surprisingly, there was an…
scientificactivist | February 19, 2007Back in my undergraduate days at Texas A&M University, I often lobbied for there to be a student representative on the A&M Board of Regents (the organization that governs the university). With issues such as skyrocketing tuition negatively affecting A&M's students, I thought that it was important for the students to have their own voice on a board that was otherwise pretty disconnected from their daily lives.
Apparently, this finally came to fruition the year that I graduated. The latest appointment from unpopular Republican Governor Rick Perry, though, is a complete…
scientificactivist | December 18, 2006Last month, I wrote a post about a research group at Texas A&M University that reported genetically engineering "edible cotton seeds" by using RNAi technology to stably and specifically knock out production of the gossypol toxin in the seeds of the plant. I thought that the paper was interesting for a variety of reasons, including the use of RNAi and the fact that this was a novel usage of transgenic crop biotechnology coming from an academic group. I recently contacted the study's leader, Dr. Keerti Rathore, to ask him a couple of questions in hopes of further understanding the…
scientificactivist | November 29, 2006In this week's edition of PNAS, crop scientists at Texas A&M University report the engineering of cotton strains with edible seeds. Now, when I think of cotton, I generally think of clothes, especially the kind that really seem to like getting wrinkled in the drier. Not counting the unrelated--but still delicious--exception of cotton candy, food generally doesn't come to mind. However, the new PNAS paper from the lab of Keerti Rathore may mean that it's time to think outside of the (clothes) box when it comes to cotton, especially in addressing world hunger.
According to the paper, for…
scientificactivist | November 7, 2006Here's some election news from back home in Texas--specifically, from the district where my mother lives, just south of Austin, Texas. From the Burnt Orange Report:
This just in from Hays County.
Former Republican [State] Rep. Rick Green who was taken down by Patrick Rose in 2002, apparently got a little upset over a Rose mailer that had his face superimposed on this year's Republican nominee Jim Neuhaus (as Green is deeply involved in running the Neuhaus campaign).
So upset that Rick Green drove up to the polling location that Patrick Rose was at a punched him in the face, catching him off…
scientificactivist | November 6, 2006This won't be news to anyone from Texas, but our governor, Republican Rick Perry, is a walking disaster. From The Dallas Morning News:
SAN ANTONIO - Gov. Rick Perry, after a God and country sermon attended by dozens of political candidates Sunday, said that he agreed with the minister that non-Christians will be condemned to hell....
"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket," Mr. Hagee said during a service interspersed with…
scientificactivist | November 2, 2006There's a hot congressional race going on right now deep in the heart of Texas in District 17, which stretches from just north of Houston to just south of Fort Worth and includes my alma mater, Texas A&M University. The contest pits incumbent Democrat and local guy Chet Edwards against Republican Van Taylor, who was apparently flown in by the GOP for this race. Edwards had a tough but successful race in 2004, when he was the only Texas Democrat targeted by Republican redistricting to retain his seat. So far things are looking good for Edwards this year, but, as with in the rest of the…
scientificactivist | October 26, 2006When you live in the wealthiest nation in the world but can still claim over 40 million people without health insurance--despite spending more than twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation--you might have a problem. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my home state, Texas, which leads the nation with 24.5% of its population uninsured.
Since the state government has done little to address the situation (often making things worse, by significantly defunding the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIPS), for example), others are taking up the slack. Yesterday's New York…
scientificactivist | September 14, 2006This post doesn't have anything to do with science, but I felt the need to pay tribute to former Texas Governor Ann Richards, who passed away Wednesday. Elected in 1990, Richards led a bold wave of progressive reforms statewide, capitalizing on the Democrats' continued electoral support in Texas despite the state sliding further to the right ideologically. Her defeat in 1994 by a then relatively unknown George W. Bush marked the beginning of the end for the Democrats in Texas and ushered in a new era of regressive conservative policies for Texas and eventually for the nation as a whole. If…