terrasig | September 8, 2006Next month, the family Pharmboy is headed down to Beluthahatchee, Florida, to help celebrate the 90th birthday of famed human rights legend, Stetson Kennedy, the subject of some Woody Guthrie lyrics put to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco. Among ScienceBloggers, I've learned that Janet and Steinn are big Billy Bragg fans and Josh is a big Woody Guthrie fan, so it seems apropos to celebrate Mr Kennedy here. This is one post I've been meaning to move over here from the old blog, where it first appeared on 15 May 2006.
[I'm currently on the road and I've somehow screwed up the code for…
terrasig | September 6, 2006From BBC News,
"With the fight against illegal downloading of songs starting to pay off, the music business has set its sights on a new enemy on the internet - websites which transcribe pop songs into musical notation."
Not content with suing Moms and kids who illegally download mp3s, the recording industry is looking to further alienate a core demographic, the amateur hack musician.
Millions of scientist and non-scientist rockstar-wannabes around the world make use of guitar chord and tablature postings (tabs) to learn how to play complicated and not-so-complicated songs, trade ideas, and…
terrasig | September 6, 2006My ScienceBlogs.com colleague, Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript, has just posted on the announcement of a 3rd major San Diego/La Jolla research institute with plans to establish a presence in Florida.
Current issues of Roman numeral mixups notwithstanding, Florida has been very quietly rising on the national biomedical research scene, especially in the years since your humble Pharmboy stomped terra in Hogtown.
I discussed this issue about two weeks ago here at Terra Sigillata.
Therein, you'll find lots of good links to Florida research universities big and small and some editorial…
terrasig | September 4, 2006If you've read Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and you still eat beef, chances are that you prefer to purchase grass-fed over corn-fed feedlot beef. The advantages include a more humane lifestyle for the animals and less fat for the consumer.
Well, the US Department of Agriculture has been soliciting opinions on their proposed rules for labeling of beef as grass-fed and received a whopping 17,000 opinions before closing discussion last month.
From Libby Quaid, AP Food and Farm Writer:
With so many producers rushing into the market, the definition of grass-fed varies. Some meat is…
terrasig | September 4, 2006"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
Put simply, the struggles of the American labor movement have given me the luxury of being a scientist, having such a thing as "…
terrasig | September 1, 2006Another Wine Escapade : The Tuscan Dinner
by Erleichda, special guest correspondent to The Friday Fermentable
(Note to readers: As mentioned in previous editions, guest-blogger Erleichda is a slightly more senior colleague with a much more experienced and seasoned palate. I find Italian wines to be especially vexing, mostly due to their number and use of grape varieties seen rarely outside of Italy, but enjoy them tremendously when educated about them. Erleichda lives in one of those states with odd alcoholic regulatory laws, but I'd welcome the chance to do BYOB with him and his Sweetpea…
terrasig | September 1, 2006Interesting to see the Wall Street Journal this morning with an article carrying this title (here, but subscription req'd - hence, I will quote heavily).
Everyone knows that US NIH funding cuts have made it difficult for all academics who depend on the nation's health agency for research support.
When 27% of proposals were funded, it wasn't that hard to separate the top quarter, says molecular biologist Keith Yamamoto of the University of California, San Francisco. "There was a natural cutoff," he says. But at 10% "the ability to distinguish a grant that deserves funding from one that does…
terrasig | August 31, 2006I'm deeply appreciative of all who've come out to support my student and former lab intern, Jen, who is riding in her brother's memory in the Philadelphia LIVESTRONG Challenge 100-mile bike ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation on 10 Sept 2006.
http://www.livestrongchallenge.org/06pa/jenforjon
Jon, a Carnegie-Mellon graduate student, crew coach, and all-around monster athlete, died in late June of a bacterial infection secondary to his treatment for osteosarcoma. He was 23.
As promised, here's an update that shows her tremendous progress since our last post, when she was still around $2,…
terrasig | August 31, 2006Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
But we at least have Keith Olbermann, and an all-too-small handful of journalists willing to call it like it is.
You can read the text of his lovely essay and see the 30 August video here.
Hat tip: PZ and Crooks and Liars.
terrasig | August 28, 2006I was so happy to learn that this e-mail is still posted on CNN's website.
After I read it a year ago, I paid $55 on eBay for a Joe Horn Saints' jersey:
There was a Saint in New Orleans during the wrath of Hurricane Katrina and his name is Joe Horn, pro-football player for the New Orleans Saints. As I sat in my room at the Hilton Riverside, New Orleans, on Saturday two days before Katrina was scheduled to directly hit New Orleans, I weeped while I phoned home to North Carolina, to speak with my mother and my children. It had been confirmed that my flight was canceled along with that of my…
terrasig | August 26, 2006Four years ago at 11:24 am EDT (1624 GMT), your humble blogger was handed the keys to a whole new vocabulary of love.
The gift came in the form of a 7 lb. 13 oz. (3,544 gm), 20.5 inch (52 cm) bundle of drooling, peeing, meconium-pooping bundle of baby girl, yanked from an incision in PharmGirl's abdomen.
The lessons of compassion and unconditional love I have been taught by these two women have comprised the most formative experiences of my life.
In return, PharmGirl has suffered tremendous indignancies on my behalf: the necessary biological machinations required to mix haploid DNA…
terrasig | August 25, 2006The Burnham Institute chooses Orlando.
First, some big health systems like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic established satellite hospitals and clinics across north and south Florida.
Now we learn that one of the top non-profit research institutes in the US is setting up shop in Orlando.
The article brought to my attention that this is not the first of such moves by the San Diego/La Jolla contigent: The Scripps Institute recently announced plans to set up a research institute in Jupiter, FL.
I have always been deeply impressed with the quality of research and training at Florida universities…
terrasig | August 24, 2006The wimpy approval of OTC status today for Plan B emergency contraception only for women 18 and older has me nonplussed.
I've been disgusted by the intrusion of politics into science and medicine on this issue for quite some time.
As some Terra Sig readers know, a major network news outlet keeps the real Dr Pharmboy on their experts list for commentary on pharmacotherapy issues but my exact comments rarely make it on-air. Perhaps these will be inflammatory enough to get a call to be on this time, and then you'll all know who I am. (No, I am not Dr Raymond Woosley, but I wish I were.)
So here…
terrasig | August 24, 2006I've been terribly remiss in not welcoming the trickle of additions to the ScienceBlogs.com stable, especially Molecule of the Day, the new blog most allied with my subject matter.
However, I was not going to miss the Sb launch of one of my faves and long-time members of my very short and poorly-updated blogroll, Thus Spake Zuska.
Thus Spake Zuska is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, for anyone who believes that you shouldn't have to possess white skin and a penis to obtain a passport to Science-and-Engineering Land.
Although in possession of both white skin and a penis, I offer…
terrasig | August 22, 2006The beauty of being here on ScienceBlogs.com is being part of an international discussion with so many folks from diverse backgrounds.
So, on many occasions, commentors have more to say than I, with both broader perspective and greater brevity.
In our recent discussion of the Virginia teenage cancer patient who wishes to refuse conventional cancer chemotherapy, Terra Sig reader, Ruth, weighed in as follows:
My last paying job was doing patient follow-up at a major cancer center. Every year we had to contact former patients to see how they were doing. Some patients from the 1970's are now…
terrasig | August 22, 2006A Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey, writes in and says,
Dear Roseanne Roseannadanna,
I just read of some bizarre Southern ritual whereby Durham-Chapel Hill-RTP bloggers are meeting this coming Friday for a barbecue.
What have Triangle bloggers done to anyone such that they should be barbecued?? The ones here at ScienceBlogs.com seem nice enough, but even getting past the horror of the thought, that Coturnix would need a little more meat on his bones to be considered even remotely tasty.
Sincerely,
Richard Feder
Ft. Lee, NJ
Well, Mr. Feder, you've got it all wrong. It seems that…
terrasig | August 21, 2006I try to not to be too much of a homer here, especially since moving to ScienceBlogs.com. Instead, I have been running a second blog called Bull City Bully Pulpit for items of local interest that our some of the Terra Sig audience might not care about so much.
But with the university academic year kicking back in and some other stuff happening here of national and even international interest, I may put up a few things from one of the South's most vibrant small cities and best places to live.
I'm also not too much of a political blogger, but the following was just simply too rich not to…
terrasig | August 20, 2006Dear Readers,
Due to the combination of hot weather, a paucity of drinking and reading, and the intrusions of the day job and events in the reality-based community, I've decided not to post The Friday Fermentable for this week.
Please be sure to check back next Friday, 25 August, when this feature returns in all of its effervescent, biochemical glory.
In the meantime, I've been planning to update my blogroll to include your own favorite imbibing blogs and web sites. If you have any favorite wine, beer, or spirits blogs or web columns that you'd like to see aggregated here, please use the…
terrasig | August 19, 2006Yes, I know that I am late with The Friday Fermentable, but this pharmacologist couldn't pass up the following blogthing on a lazy Saturday morn:
Your Personality Is Like Ecstasy
You're usually feeling the love for the world around you - you want to hug everyone.
And while you're usually content to sit back and view the world with wonder...
Sometimes your world becomes very overwhelming and a little scary.
What Drug Is Your Personality Like?
Definitely the first blog quiz I've ever taken that nailed me.
Hat tip: La Blonde Parisienne at Daily Hysteric
terrasig | August 18, 2006I've stayed out of the Starchild Abraham Cherrix case, where a 16-year-old boy and his parents are trying to refuse known, effective, and life-saving chemotherapy for a curable cancer in lieu of a scientifically unproven alternative regimen that includes coffee enemas.
Orac of Respectful Insolence has been most prolific in commenting on the issues at hand and yesterday, The Cheerful Oncologist, weighed in. I'm happy about this because both fellas are MDs with highly-specialized oncology training in surgical and medical oncology, respectively. Hence, I defer to them on issues of life and…