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gregladen | July 9, 2010Is Microsoft Losing its Grip on the Young Developers? Check out this interesting post by LIE. It's the truth.
Check out the BGR Plant Carnival here.
And the Carnival of Cinema is here.
cortex | July 9, 2010There's an absolutely fascinating new paper by scientists at Ohio State University in the latest Cell. In short, the paper demonstrates that mice living in an enriched environments - those spaces filled with toys, running wheels and social interactions - are less likely to get tumors, and better able to fight off the tumors if they appear.
The experiment itself was simple. A large group of mice were injected with melanoma cells. After six weeks, the mice living in enriched environments had tumors that were approximately 75 percent smaller than mice raised in standard lab cages. Furthermore,…
gregladen | July 9, 2010The highly untrustworty rag News Max is reporting:
In the wake of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's lashing out against the war in Afghanistan, CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante is reporting a buzz in the GOP inner sanctum that Sarah Palin should replace him.
Huh.
Anybody hear anything about this?
sschoenbaum | July 9, 2010In this post I want to address disease control opportunities for EIS officers, many of which are detailed in "Inside the Outbreaks: One of the first things we learned about on joining the EIS was John Snow's determination that an outbreak of cholera in London was attributable to contamination of the water from the Broad St. pump and his stopping the epidemic by removing the pump handle. On reading "Inside the Outbreaks" one is struck with the number of EIS officers whose efforts have removed pump handles....
The efforts of Jeff Koplan, subsequently director of CDC, and Mark Rosenberg,…
pharyngula | July 9, 2010At least when it comes to quackery, it is. An informal analysis of relevant stories on homeopathy reveals some sad results:
Fox news returned a total of 20 news stories; 5% were favorable towards homeopathy, 50% were unfavorable, and 45% were neutral.
NPR returned a total of 8 news stories; 12.5% were favorable towards homeopathy, 50% were unfavorable, and 37.5% were neutral.
The Huffington Post returned a total of 77 news stories; 68.83% were favorable toward homeopathy, 14.28% were unfavorable, and 16.88% were neutral.
Fox and NPR don't really have a horse in this race, so their…
gregladen | July 9, 2010As promised ...
William the Blogger of YNH fame should seriously consider starting a new blog (after a suitable rest period in a witness protection program).
One reason is just because everyone should blog. But the other reason is for his own good. I can't imagine how someone could carry out this litany of transgressions and not feel terrible about himself, but at some point ... after time has past and some reflection has occurred ... he needs to face the Internet again and make a positive contribution. Yeah, a little like a white collar criminal working in a soup kitchen every Thursday…
gregladen | July 9, 2010It's called "Science is Culture" and it is run by Adam Bly, who ...
.... founded Seed out of a biochem lab in Montreal, where he studied cell adhesion and cancer. He now lives in New York and is the CEO of Seed Media Group.
Go say hey to Adam.
cwilcox | July 8, 2010I think we all need a little happy right now. So, here you go:
This is Yoshi, my dear friend Kira's newest family member. Isn't he just the cutest?! Those blue eyes are just irresistible.
More adorableness below the fold.
gregladen | July 8, 2010... As promised ...
Chris Mooney is about to explain to just posted a detailed explanation (which I have not read yet) of his interaction with the famous William the Blogger of YNH, posed as "Tom Johnson." He's posted Part One of an explanation of this infamous maneno, and we await Part II.
Earlier, I had made some comments related to this issue (though prior to the posting of Part I) that people got mad at, and I'd like to clarify and expand on them now, prior to Chris's second post, although what Chris posts in his anticipated Part II may bear on this.
An oversimplified version of what…
gregladen | July 8, 2010On Skeptically Speaking:
We talk to researcher Dr. Kathleen Taylor, the author of Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain. Has the human brain evolved the capacity for evil? We'll examine cruelty as a scientific phenomenon, using the latest research from psychology and neuroscience.
Friday. Click here.
gregladen | July 8, 2010Since its inception, the Huffington Post's business model has been one based on providing decent political reporting and serving as a liberal news aggregate of content assembled from around the internet.
But in addition to its main news page, it has also built its success on the idea that it will let just about anyone write for them as long as they're willing to do it for free. ...
What...ever. Click here.
kbonham | July 8, 2010[This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com]
A while back I heard an NPR story about bacteria growing in reusable grocery bags, and now there's a piece from WaPo's health blog about bacteria fround on 3-D glasses you get at movie theaters:
In its July issue, Good Housekeeping magazine tested seven pairs of 3-D glasses, three that were wrapped and four unwrapped, and found that none of them were bacteria-free.
Well, duh. Bacteria are everywhere! When working with cell culture in lab, everything is done in a special "hood," a box with fans and filters specifically designed…
grrlscientist | July 8, 2010tags: Food Frontiers, Astroturf blog, influence peddling, PepsiCo,pepsi, scienceblogs
Subject: Food Frontiers
Dear ScienceBloggers,
I will be posting this on 3.14 in a few minutes:
We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.
We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations?…
gregladen | July 8, 2010There are three topics I want to blog about in the near future, but given baby duties, narcotic haze, and a few other factors I won't get to right away. But I thought I'd tell you what they are in case you have any preliminary remarks that I might find useful. Or, perhaps you can talk me out of addressing these topics.
1) How I can simultaneously NOT be a Chris Mooney Fanboy and chastise many of the commenters on The Intersection (and here) for getting it wrong when they blame everything on him. This would include a subtext regarding commenting and comment policies on blogs.
2) Why…
sb admin | July 8, 2010Mark Pendergrast writes: Instead of responding to last week's commentaries on this book club blog about my book, Inside the Outbreaks, I want to throw out a controversial idea that runs counter to what many public health commentators apparently believe. So I expect some disagreement here. (I will post responses to the commentaries as "comments" on each commentary. So go back and take a look at what I wrote there, please.)
Fears of bioterrorism are overblown. We should be spending much more money, time, effort, and print (including e-print) on naturally occurring outbreaks, epidemics,…
cortex | July 8, 2010There's been lots of chatter about Pepsi lately, so I thought I'd run with the theme. I don't have much to add to the media commentary - I'm just sad to see some of my favorite bloggers leave this space - but I've got plenty to say about soft drinks. And little of it will please Pepsi.
The first thing is that a soda tax is a great idea. Here's a compelling chart from a recent report published by US Department of Agriculutre's Economic Research Service (via Yglesias):
Some of these calories, of course, will be shifted to other categories of food - we'll drink less Pepsi, but we'll consume…
gregladen | July 8, 2010I want everyone else on the Innertubes to be nice to me, but I don't care to be nice to them unless I feel like it.
Ah... having made that confession, I feel much much better.
And now, for some intellectual type discussion on the subject of hypocrisy: Hypocrisy Part II
While you read that (and leaving your snarky comments) I'm going off to Physical Therapy for some serious kneebending. Then, medication. Then, blogging. See if you can spot the posts I wrote with vs. without medication. (The inverse of with vs. without pain!)
Grrrrr. Be nice to me or else.
tlambert | July 8, 2010*From Deltoid archives for 2004, a [repost](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/09/zywicki.php)*
In my previous post I mentioned Daniel Davies' demolition of yet another dodgy Steve Milloy article. Milloy attacked a recent JAMA study that found:
Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increased risk for development of type 2 diabetes in women, possibly by providing excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars.
Todd Zywicki, who endorsed Milloy's piece as a "devastating…
cwilcox | July 8, 2010By the latest count, ScienceBlogs has lost 11 bloggers over its mismanagement of the PepsiCo sponsored blog (which is now RIP). That's around a quarter of our Sciblings. Notably, we've lost some of my favorite bloggers, like Brian Switek and Scicurious.
With the strong reaction many had to this PepsiCo fiasco, you might be wondering why I am still here.
In part, it's because I don't feel that the incident was as bad as some of my peers did. Yes, it was poorly managed, and the blog needed to be well labeled as sponsored/ advertising/ something to make it blatantly distinct from the other…