Why Things Are
terrasig | July 19, 2010With great sadness, I announce that my colleague, Bora Zivkovic (aka Coturnix), is departing from ScienceBlogs.
However, his long-awaited analysis of the Pepsigate #sbfail episode is superb and he provides an unparalleled history of science blogging, its relationship with the legacy media, and his views of the future. He ends on an optimistic note, so I hope that his leaving the network is a GoodThing for both him and his family.
Bora has been and will continue to be a great blog mentor. I am most fortunate to know him in real life as well.
I can't help thinking that this is another nail in…
terrasig | November 16, 2009Before you tell me to go do this, I did - and I still don't have a good answer.
I was reminded of this issue when I learned that a couple of friends were off this weekend to the snowy Rocky Mountain West attending the 2009 Carnivore Conference: Carnivore Conservation in a Changing World sponsored by Defenders of Wildlife at the Grand Hyatt Denver. Some of these folks are graduate students and freelance writers who are on tight budgets.
The most recent article I found on this issue was by Barbara E. Hernandez at BNET. She asked the same question as I, made some observations, and asked…
terrasig | March 6, 2009We're really fortunate here at Terra Sigillata World Headquarters to have a strong, dedicated readership. But I'm always tickled when we attract new readers and attention to the views we express here.
Late yesterday I received a very nice e-mail from Andrew Plemmons Pratt, Managing Editor of Science Progress, a blog of the well-known liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.
In his post, Don't Bury the Next Generation of Researchers Under Billions in NIH Funding, Andrew notes my enthusiasm in our 23 Feb post for being sure that junior investigators already in the pipeline not be…
terrasig | May 31, 2008Our quick post yesterday cited Jonathan Alter's Newsweek essay this week on the sad state of cancer research funding in the context of Hamilton Jordan's recent death and Ted Kennedy's recent glioblastoma diagnosis. Like many areas of US federal research funding, cancer research support has been flat under the Bush administration and, in fact, declined in real dollars since 2004.
But when one hears a federally-funded researcher like me whining about this situation, one might think I am solely acting in a self-serving fashion, caring only about the preservation of my career and that of my…
terrasig | June 26, 2006Not exactly a natural products question, although naturally-occurring dyes have been used for millennia for body decoration.
My elder SiBling, Prof Tara Smith at Aetiology, wrote a post last week on a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report article about cases of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus infection in clients of tattoo "establishments" with poor regard for sterile technique. (BTW, "aureus" refers to the golden color of the bacterial colonies that form when cultured on solid media.).
A quick glance past the purulent picture reveals such gems as "guitar-string…