vaccine
kevleitch | October 2, 2008In his entry today, Orac asks the question "How can we physicians and scientists deal with antivaccinationism? What "frames" can we use to combat the likes of Jenny McCarthy?".
This is an excellent question. I understand exactly why Dr. Offit did not cover this in his book: I think he had a very specific remit in mind and such a question went beyond that remit. Maybe he will do a an AFP 2 or maybe he is hoping another big name in the field of vaccines or autism will step up to the plate the way he has and tackle that. I hope they do too.
My field (I am a Web developer) is that of…
kevleitch | October 1, 2008In June of 2003, I opened my blog with these words:
Megan was born on 17-02-00 weighing slightly more than usual. The first few months of her life were totally normal- we didn't feel concerned about her health or well-being at all. That changed however when she had her DTP jab.
I know there's been a lot about the jabs (particularly the combined MMR jab) in the news but we (or rather I, Naomi was a lot more dubious than me but I managed to convince her) decided to go ahead with it and on the night of her first lot of jabs Megan began projectile vomiting and developed a temperature that peaked…
sporte | September 30, 2008HealthMap is a great site that could be an excellent resource when teaching a biology, microbiology, or health class. Not to mention, I can picture people using it before they travel somewhere or even just for fun.
I learned about HealthMap awhile ago from Mike the Mad Biologist, but I didn't get time to play with the site until today.
Here's an example to see how it works.
How do I use HealthMap?
I begin using HealthMap by changing the number of diseases selected to "none."
Then I scrolled through the list until I found something interesting. I chose "Poisoning." The number of…
sporte | September 30, 2008One time, I suggested in a list-serve that science teachers make more use of primary scientific literature. Naturally, I learned all the reasons why teachers don't do this-lack of access being one of the biggies- but I also learned something surprising.
One teacher wrote that she re-writes a lot of research articles to make them easier for her students to read. I can understand that notion, in principle. My students struggle with scientific language, too, even those that have bachelor's degrees in biology.
What surprised me was thinking about the amount of time that activity would take!…
sporte | September 29, 2008This First Annual Conference for New Jersey Biotechnology Educators will be held on Saturday, Oct. 4th at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
I'm excited about attending this conference, not only because of the biotechnology part, but because I've reading Sarah Vowel's book Assassination vacation and I'm looking forward to seeing the last resting place of President James Garfield. Sarah Vowel is an incredibly funny commentator on NPR's "This American Life" and so, even though I don't usually read about people making pilgrimages to famous presidential sites, I had to read…
sporte | September 29, 2008Calling all scientists and science-fans: you can help with science education by letting students know you're interested. How? Go and comment on classroom blogs and wikis.
I've been gradually collecting some blogs from different classes and I've even had some brave volunteers offer theirs for review.
So here goes:
www.missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog
Ms. Hoffman's AP class blog
Tomorrow's table from Pamela Ronald. This is going to be used for two months by students in a Genetics and Society class.
Biology in Action
Evolution and Diversity (Biol 124) at http://darwinslegacy.blogspot.com…
sporte | September 28, 2008Ozzie's will never be the same.
The sun shone so brightly yesterday afternoon that it left us with no choice. We had to go outdoors. Luckily, Ozzie's has a wonderful upper deck in full view of the daylight and well-equipped with chairs.
Photo footage below.
The scene of the crime.
Where do we hang the banner?
Bloggers and readers enjoy the Seattle sun.
Dave confesses some uncertainty about the fate of Schrodinger's cat.
That's all for now!
But our readers say they want to do this more often!
UPDATE: GrrlScientist has more pictures here.
sporte | September 27, 2008Then you need to head over to The Oyster's Garter and read Miriam Goldstein's incredibly funny post about the problems of male sea squirts.
Apparently, if you're a sea squirt, the size of your sperm is related to your environment and mostly the number of other sea squirts in your environment.
Usually, I'm not attuned to the issues of broadcasting spawn or the lives of those who live under a dock, but Ms. Goldstein channels Dr. Tatiana so well, I found myself sympathizing and laughing out loud at the struggles of the tunicates.
Sometimes extremely handsome pleats just aren't enough.
sporte | September 26, 2008Let's play anomaly!
Most of this week, I've written about the fun time I had playing around with NCBI's Blink database and finding evidence that at least one mosquito, Aedes aegypti, seems to have been infected at some point with a plant paramyxovirus and that the paramyxovirus left one of its genes behind, stuck in the mosquito genome.
During this process, I realized that the method I used works with other viruses, too. I tried it with a few random viruses and sure enough, I found some interesting things.
You've got a week to give it a try. Let's see what you find! The method is…
sporte | September 25, 2008Lots of bloggers in the DNA network have been busy these past few days writing about Google's co-founder Sergey Brin, his blog, his wife's company (23andme), and his mutation in the LRRK2 gene.
I was a little surprised to see that while other bloggers (here, here, here, and here) have been arguing about whether or not the mutation really increases the risk to the degree (20-80%) mentioned by Brin, no one has really looked into the structure and biochemistry of the LRRK2 protein to see if there's a biochemical explanation for Parkinson's risk. I guess that task is up to me.
Let's begin at…
sporte | September 24, 2008Would you like to win a cash prize and maybe an expense paid trip to New York City?
If you're in grades 7-12 and like research, you might be interested in the 2009 Young Naturalist contest from the American Museum of Natural History.
Winners (2 from each grade) will receive cash awards, from $500 to $2,500, and an all-expense paid trip to New York City to attend the awards ceremony at the Museum.
The contest involves investigating questions in ecology, biology, Earth science and astronomy and writing an essay. More information can be found here.
sporte | September 24, 2008If you like cool and unusual photos be sure to take a look at the 2008 Nikon Small World competition site. You can view lots of lovely pictures of things found under a microscope and vote for your favorite ones. You don't even have to focus the microscope!
One of my favorites is the tubeworm larva. It looks something from outer space.
There's even a contest to identify some of the more unconventional images. I only got three out of five. ;-(
You can find them at www.nikonsmallworld.com
sporte | September 23, 2008Every fall, we had to confront it. People would let their dogs run around on the field in the morning and by the time soccer practice started, the field would be full of deadly doo.
There's nothing that hurts soccer practice more than a soccer ball or shoes that went through a pile of dog poo.
That's why I'm so exciting to see this new application for DNA testing. That's right. Kids will be able to play soccer without worry and dog owners will be held responsible for cleaning up after their pets.
The forward thinking city that's going to implement this plan is Petah Tikva, in Isreal.…
sporte | April 27, 2008A potential link between lung cancer and human papilloma virus may make parents even more glad about vaccinating their children with Gardasil®. Not only are the children protected against viruses that commonly cause cervical cancer, they may be protected against some forms of lung cancer as well.
The April 25th version of Nature News reports (1) that two viruses, HPV (Human papilloma virus) and measles virus, have been found in lung tumors.
From Nature News:
Samuel Ariad of the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, Israel, and his colleagues began by analyzing tumours taken from 65 lung…