Why Things Are

Bora leaves ScienceBlogs with superb history and analysis of science blogging

terrasig — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:08:52 +0000

Bora leaves ScienceBlogs with superb history and analysis of science blogging

With 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 the ScienceBlogs coffin. I hope I am proven wrong.

terrasig Mon, 07/19/2010 - 06:08

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Why Things Are

Thank you so much. This was not easy. But I hope we all come out of this stronger.

This is most unfortunate, and I hope he starts another blog elsewhere. He definitely will continue to be a great blog mentor.

Another good blogger has leave us today :(

So, with Pharyngula on strike, more people abandoning ship, and others still contemplating (but, I think, likely to follow), do YOU have a blog set up somewhere else?

Hi Samantha,

Funny that you should ask. Just today, I exported all of my posts and comment threads to a backup site at Wordpress. It's currently private but would be at:

http://abelpharmboy.wordpress.com

Good to know who are the people who care about the health of others and we expect to find many of them, because in the world there are always people who care about the health of millions who suffer daily...

Why do expensive hotels charge for Internet while less-expensive ones don't?

terrasig — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:29:31 +0000

Why do expensive hotels charge for Internet while less-expensive ones don't?

Before 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 rhetorically why high-end hotels don't seize on such a low-cost, good-will amenity instead of aggravating us all with yet another charge.

I suspect that the answer is, "because they can."

I suspect that marketing studies show that people who can afford to stay at expensive hotels (or, more likely, who are doing so on a business's dime) don't really care about another $9.95-$12.95/day Wi-Fi charge whereas someone staying in a $40/night hotel isn't going to pay another 25% for internet when they can go down the street and get it for free at another budget hotel.

So, why do we tolerate it when we go to a big scientific conference?

terrasig Mon, 11/16/2009 - 01:29

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Because they can.

My 1/50 $:

As you say, the answer is probably "because they can". Or rather, "because with everything weighed in, they make more money that way".

As long as:

1) a large number of guests accept paying the extra charge,

2) few people making a reservation ask for a room rate including a connection and then base their choice of hotel on that rate,

then this is extra income for the hotel which will "go straight to the bottom line", as they say.

This is not very different than, for example, some airlines charging extra for checking in luggage or car dealers structuring their prices as a "base price" plus "options".

Some hotel chains will have this as part of their loyalty programs, so that you will always have an internet comection when you stay there, or include it when negotiating rates with large clients.

When it comes to the conferences, I think that is the best option: the organizers, when negotiating rates for conference attendees, should state that the rates should include internet access.

I think it's because many people staying at such a place are staying on a business account. Notice that breakfast at cheap hotels is often free, while it's insanely expensive at expensive hotels.

or, more likely, who are doing so on a business's dime

This is the key: if I'm spending other people's money, I am less likely to keep a close eye on expenses than if I'm paying for the trip with my own bank account. In this respect it differs from airline baggage charges: the checked bag fee is designed to hit the low end customer traveling on a cheap ticket, while first and business class travelers are typically exempt. Unlike with hotels, it is not so easy to switch airlines if you have a cheap ticket--but if you are paying full fare you can walk over to the next ticket counter and fly the competing airline that won't charge you to check luggage. Frequent customer waivers in both cases serve the same purpose: they don't want to encourage their best customers to use the competition.

We tolerate it because charge the access fee to our employer/grant/account etc.

Also worth noting, as I am about to leave for a conference, that if I were traveling on my own dime I would be staying at a much less expensive hotel as well.

Probably for the same reason they are able to charge $30/day for parking ... because if you have enough cash to be able to pay for the overpriced room and parking, you probably won't notice the $10-15/day for internet.

The same reason they have $7 bottled water?
People are very susceptible to marketing, and water tastes better if it's more expensive. Internet service seems zippier if it's $14/day.

Oh, this isn't the worst of it. Around three or four years ago, I was at a conference and staying at the Marriott in San Diego, which charged the usual $12.95 for wifi Internet access in the room. I assumed that would allow me to use the wifi in the lobby and other public areas of the hotel. No go. That was a different wifi system for which the Marriott charged--you guessed it!--another $12.95 a day to use.

You know, Orac might have mentioned this before but it makes one wonder if NIH is cool with this - what does one estimate might be the cost to NIH of Wi-Fi charges via grant travel funds?

I often travel on business. I find that the hotels that cater specifically to corporate travelers on expense accounts are the ones who usually charge more for Internet access. To these travelers, who usually pay far more per day merely for parking, the charge for Internet is a small, acceptable business expense.

Budget hotels, that cater to small business owners, salespeople, and other "road warriors", know that their clientele is penny-pinching. The perk is well worth the low cost to the hotel.

That said, when you work for a really large corporation, as I do, you often have the option of staying in good hotels that are on a "preferred" list. Our company has negotiated special deals with these hotels, and the quoted room rate usually includes Internet even if included Internet isn't generally offered to others.

I've noticed a similar phenomenon in which smaller, rinky-dink local airports offer free wifi, but large ones charge crazy hourly rates.

Abel @9, there is another complexity which relates to the old problem of hotel *phone* charges.

I just enjoyed $17.99-$19.99 (for speed differences apparently..) per 24hrs of wifi at a hotel. add the odd wifi fee in airports along the way and you could be closing in on $100 per meeting without trouble.

Cheaper, of course, would be some sort of fractional recharge of your bill if you chose to have some fancy tetherable smart phone or a cell-network based network connection for your pc. the institutional accounting systems I've been around are not good at doing this sort of thing, at least for us drones.

-and yes, I pay for essentially all of my business-related phone activities when traveling, and often when in town, myself. Also a ton of work related email-connectivity. Because I use my cell phone.

In addition, there's the perverse fact that they got into it early. Back when "internet access" involved spending money to wire the rooms, add routers, etc. the hotels got a jump start by contracting it out to the "who the hell are they?" people you see on the login screens.

The hotels didn't have to pay up front, they got "internet access" for the cost of allowing the service providers to collect fees. Sounded like a great idea.

Now everyone adds internet access for the cost of a little bit of Cat6 and some $100 access points, and the big hotels are fat dumb and happy with the same idiot arrangements they made ten-plus years ago. Some of them may even be stuck in long-term contracts for all I know.

I do know from being in the conference-planning loop that a good conference planner will insist on having the access included free with the rooms. Your mileage may vary.

Another way to look at it is to ask "Why doesn't Motel 6 charge for WiFi?", to which the answer is of course "Because they can't."

Since the hotel's cost per user is negligible, once the capital cost of the system is amortized, the fee (if any) is pure profit. The big hotel would rather have the profit, while the little commodity joint would rather not lose customers to their neighbors who do offer free WiFi..

Ok,
So I guess it's the Rinky Dink hotels that actually appreciate the business enough to have enough respect for their customers right?

Keep in mind that Boutique hotels provide free wi-fi in their rooms too, but then they're just expensive Rinky Dink hotels with rates that seriously challenge and surpass those of the crappy overpriced rip-off chains which also have pathetic so called business centers. Those places could easily provide free wi-fi but they are of the thinking that they don't have to work so hard to take your money.

The best way to deal with this attitude is to ask if they have free wi-fi, when they tell you there is a fee, just thank them and hang up. Then call the nearest boutique hotel and book your room, you will probably find yourself with a much better deal.
That is the only way it will change once they see it affects their bookings. I

I generally travel a lot and hate getting stuck in these crappy overpriced chains. Boutique hotels on the other hand always come through with free wi-fi. Thats only because like most little guys they have to work harder for your dollar.

Center for American Progress's "Science Progress" features yours truly

terrasig — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:21:23 +0000

Center for American Progress's "Science Progress" features yours truly

We'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 overlooked by stimulus dollars. Moreover, he seized on my suggestion that we not use to much of the stimulus money to overtrain scientists who cannot be absorbed by tenure-track academic positions or other employment requiring a PhD in a biomedical science:

The NIH has about $10 billion from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act to pour into job-creating grants and research infrastructure. The Scientist reports that the new Challenge Grants program will direct $200 million of that money towards areas of high-priority research. One opportunity here, as Abel Pharmboy points out at Terra Sigillata, is for those grants to support the crop of younger researchers who might currently have limited access to the upper echelons of their fields. He writes: "My hope is that review of the current proposal rankings will focus on those junior, tenure-track investigators who have been shortchanged by the worst NIH paylines since the early 90s."

SP contributor Beryl Benderly tackled precisely this issue in her January piece, reporting that mismanagement of future NIH growth could have devastating ramifications for the long-term health of the research community in the United States

Benderly's message:

This mismatch between effort and outcome is, according to leading labor force economists, the central obstacle discouraging many of America's most talented young people from pursuing advanced scientific studies.

Go forth and read these two really nice posts at Science Progress, as well as the rest of their superb offerings:

Change Young Scientists Can Believe In: Time to Finance A New Generation of Researchers
by Beryl Benderly, 30 Jan 2009

Don't Bury the Next Generation of Researchers Under Billions in NIH Funding
by Andrew Plemmons Pratt, 5 Mar 2009

Many thanks, Andrew!

terrasig Fri, 03/06/2009 - 05:21

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Too little too late for most of us "junior scientists" I'm afraid. But noble sentiment nonetheless, and maybe the next round of suckers will fare better.

That's really cool, Pharmington! You are the bestest!

I'm with bill on this one. Those of us who are currently trying to get started as new/early career investigators are likely to be overlooked by the stimulus cash grab. We'll get screwed, continue to struggle for a few more years, be denied tenure and leave academia altogether and when the current crop of established PIs start to wither and die in 20 years time, the sudden lack of up and coming junior faculty will become apparent and will be to the very great detriment of higher education in the US.

On that somber note, IT'S FRIDAY! w00t!!!1!!!

Congrats on the blurb, btw :)

Bill and PiT, my point is the you are EXACTLY the people who should benefit from this boondoggle. With no disrespect for undergrads entering PhD programs, you two have a tremendous amount of time and effort invested in the biomedical enterprise. It is your efforts and future success that should be prioritized.

Abel: I should have been clearer in my earlier comment and said that I agreed with the point you made in your post. From what I've seen in the stimulus announcements from the NIH, there's nothing in the cash grab that will specifically target early career investigators - the only mention I've seen is the statement on the challenge award RFA that says that "recipients will not be considered New PIs or ESIs when they apply for NIH research grants in the future."

This approach WILL create jobs further down the road though when we get denied tenure due to our inability to get funding!

Okay, now I see how I misread, PiT - sorry 'bout that. My wish is that some thought be given to a comprehensive long-view that provides sustainable opportunities for you to get the support you need through a tenure decision.

The concern some have about training too many more postdocs comes from the decision to fund about 14,000 grants already in the review pipeline that received good scores but missed previous paylines. NIH should've used those funds to fully support existing grants whose support was cut during the project period - for example, mine was cut 28% at award five years ago, then 2.5-3% each successive year (all while my institution required cost-of-living increases in salaries).

On a brighter note, I hope to use my new Scarpas today, thanks to your fine recommendation!

No problem - and I agree with everything in your comment. Again, it's a short-sighted approach that will create more postdoc (and presumably grad student) numbers in the short-term (which is what the stimulus bill was all about) but will lead to an even higher demand for junior faculty positions and early career PI funding in a few years ... unless federal research funding is increased over the longer term to compensate. Sigh. All I can do right now is try to get a piece of the pie and continue to beat my head up against the wall in the hopes that things will improve in the coming years.

Hope the Scarpas work out today! Just remember that they take a long time to break in but if you can persevere through that agony, you will have an awesome, comfortable pair of shoes for life. My Scarpas really enjoyed their first taste of snowshoeing earlier this winter :)

Cancer research funding: not just a bunch of self-serving whining

terrasig — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:23:08 +0000

Cancer research funding: not just a bunch of self-serving whining

Our 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 trainees - the next generation of cancer researchers.

Well, Marilyn Chase has a short piece on page 3 of this morning's Wall Street Journal that raises another issue about cancer research funding that should concern all citizens and their loved ones with cancer:

Dr. Davidson, a professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said the situation has led to a curtailment of research into breast cancer, melanoma, sarcoma and pediatric cancer.

"A hundred Phase I and Phase II clinical trials have been postponed, and the number of people able to participate in clinical trials has been reduced by 3,000," she said. [my emphasis]

For context, Orac and I had over two dozen collective posts last year on dichloroacetate or DCA, a simple chemical that may target a metabolic Achilles' heel in some but not all cancers. Because this agent is not protected by intellectual property, any development or clinical investigation of its promise relies on academic clinical trialists. Following their discovery of DCA's potential activity against human tumors grown in rodents, Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta have been raising money on their own to test DCA in people, to the point that two rural Alberta towns have conducted fundraisers for these trials. A recent search of ClinicalTrials.gov, a US NIH-run registry of North American clinical trials, revealed that the Canadian trials are still the only ones planned despite intense public and media interest in this compound.

North American citizens depend on US cancer research funding for the preclinical and clinical investigation of new cancer drugs (yes, the US NIH supports a number of Canadian researchers). But as Dr Nancy Davidson's comments illustrate, the current funding environment has halted ongoing clinical trials and prevented still others from being launched.

For the naysayers who have remarked that the establishment has made no progress on cancer treatment since President Nixon declared his War On Cancer in 1971, here is another point that Marilyn Chase makes:

More than 1.4 million Americans will develop cancer this year, and about 560,000 are expected to die from the disease. There now are between 10 million and 11 million U.S. cancer survivors, up from about 3 million in the 1970s -- a measure of the gains that could be threatened.

There are stories all around the blogosphere about concerns that research funding issues are keeping trainees from getting jobs, requiring investigators to be increasingly creative in their strategies, or even preventing existing researchers from keeping their positions. These are, of course, real problems that also need to be addressed.

But let's put this all in the proper perspective, at least in my field of cancer research: the real losers here are the cancer patients grasping for their last straws.

More here on the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) - Orac is currently at the meeting in Chicago and we look forward to some updates from him.

terrasig Sat, 05/31/2008 - 03:23

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How do tattoos work, anyway?

terrasig — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 05:10:28 +0000

How do tattoos work, anyway?

Not 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 needles," "computer ink-jet printer cartridge," and "park bench." Interesting also that the pustules were peripheral to the ink itself, perhaps indicative of lymphatic drainage of the tattoo site.

Tara's comment thread was abuzz when she revealed herself as having not one, but two, tattoos. Speculation continues to abound as to the physical sites of her body ink, owing to her own statement, "They're not in oft-seen areas under normal attire, but neither are they anywhere "naughty."

This led me, of course, to wonder how exactly do tattoos work. Like anyone who watches CSI knows, the epidermis is constantly sloughing off dead skin cells as new skin rises to replaces it. This is why Coomassie Blue protein stain colors your fingers for a couple of days, until those skin cells fall off.

Being tattoo-naive, I was aware that needles are involved in the process, but I hadn't truly appreciated that the dermis underlying the epidermis is relatively static. According to 'Go Ask Alice' at Columbia University's Health Education Program:

The human skin is made up of two principal parts: the epidermis and the dermis. The outer, thinner epidermis consists of four or five cell layers. The inner dermis is made up of two portions: the upper, papillary region and the reticular region. Tattoos are made by inserting ink into the deepest layers (the dermis portion) of the skin, which shed cells at a slower rate than layers closer to the surface. That is why tattoos can last a lifetime.

(The site producer claims that the 'Go Ask Alice' moniker came to him/her in a dream rather than being an obvious reference to the Jefferson Airplane song, "White Rabbit." - fat chance given the frequency with which the song has been played on New York radio stations for decades.)

Alice also provides good information on what to look for in a tattoo artist and studio here, as does Prof Smith at the end of her post.

But that leads me to another question...what kind of people routinely read a CDC publication entitled, "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report?"

terrasig Mon, 06/26/2006 - 01:10

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Why Things Are

But that leads me to another question...what kind of people routinely read a CDC publication entitled, "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report?"

:) I've never claimed to be normal. But you may be surprised at all the interesting outbreak news that's reported in there.

Of course, I'm well-aware at the importance of MMWR to ID (infectious disease, in this case) folks and those involved in the public's health. But I do admit that it's odd-looking to find a colleague single-mindedly off in another world while reading a publication with such a title!

"Go Ask Alice" was also an early taste of the War on Some Drugs(TM) -- it was presented as the diary of a teenager, but was a disguised moralistic screed against the Evils of Altered Consciousness. Or, you know, something of that sort. The author(s) apparently churned out a number of similar crapfests.

Why do some dyes last longer in the body while others (like yellow) degrade quickly?

I'll bet that it has more to do with the UV stability of the chromophore than anything to do with staining of the dermis. I'll do a little digging but I'll bet that Tara or other tattoo enthusiasts might already have the answer.