milhayser
Posts by this author
August 16, 2012
Information exchange defines us as humans, and perhaps even as living things. In 2012, we're approaching a whole new level. Greg Laden introduces us to Apple's iBook, which handles images better than a generic eBook. Greg says "An iBook can be a product that has almost no writing in it at all, or…
August 8, 2012
Despite NASA's teasing prospect of a crash landing, the Curiosity rover touched down on Mars without a hitch. It is the biggest, most expensive, and best-equipped scientific instrument to ever reach the Red Planet. On Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau writes:
With its plutonium-fueled power…
August 7, 2012
In Uganda, the fourth outbreak of Ebola in twelve years has killed sixteen people. On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham says the virus is "readily transmissible," kills quickly and assuredly, "and the way it kills is gruesome - causing massive bleeding from all orifices." These may seem like dominant…
August 3, 2012
At first glance, Richard Muller's "conversion" from global-warming skeptic to true believer—based on research funded by global warming denialists—is a welcome surprise. Hey, people can change their minds! But on Stoat, William M. Connolley takes a more critical view. Connolley asks, "Everyone who…
July 30, 2012
On ERV, Abbie Smith writes “Malaria kills 1.24 million people a year. Mostly babies under 5 years old.” Malaria, although carried by mosquitoes, is caused by a single-celled protist which infects the liver and goes on to parasitize red blood cells. Now, a little genetic engineering could put a stop…
July 19, 2012
At scales where nothing can see, the best science is done by colliding particles at near lightspeed and picking up as many “pieces” as possible. We know of six quarks (which combine to make baryons, protons, and neutrons), six leptons (which include electrons and neutrinos), and four gauge bosons (…
July 16, 2012
Chief Justice John Roberts proved himself an independent thinker last month, siding against his fellow conservatives (and Republican appointees) in upholding the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Roberts agreed that Congress could not force a citizen to buy insurance, but allowed the individual mandate…
July 11, 2012
The Milky Way panorama by European Southern Observatory
Steinn Sigurðsson recently spent a weekend considering exoplanets and extraterrestrials at the Second SETI Conference in California. He writes, "It is important to remember that while science and discovery is important, it is not the…
June 18, 2012
Animals serve as useful models in medical research—but they also serve as models for our anthropocentric fantasies. On Life Lines, Dr. Dolittle reports that researchers were able to "restore locomotion in paralyzed rats using a combination of nerve stimulation and engaging the mind by having the…
June 11, 2012
On ERV, Abbie Smith reports that scientists have discovered an entirely new branch of viruses in the boiling acid pools of Yellowstone National Park. By analyzing RNA segments from the pools, researchers inferred the existence of positive-strand RNA viruses with unknown genetic configurations.…
June 9, 2012
Spring is in the air, and Clostridium tetani is in the earth. On Casaubon's Book, Sharon Astyk writes "with playing in the dirt comes minor injuries that you really don’t want to turn into anything nasty." Infection through open wounds can be fatal, as the bacterium releases a neurotoxin that…
June 8, 2012
On EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse says his new book Among the Creationists: Dispatches From the Anti-Evolutionist Frontline is now available with turnable pages and a hardcover binding. Rosenhouse calls the book "a collection of stories and anecdotes from my experiences attending creationist…
June 6, 2012
On Earth Day, Greg Laden took the opportunity to thank BP for the “modifications made to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico” by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Surviving specimens of coral “have been provided with hip new color schemes (mainly black and blackish),” while creatures such as shrimp…
June 4, 2012
By gluing radio chips to the backs of 800 honeybees, researchers proved that Neonicotinoid pesticides interfere with their behavior. Greg Laden reports that bees exposed to the common aphid-killer "forage abnormally, have 'olfactory memory' problems, are easily disoriented and become poor learners…
June 1, 2012
On Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson sifts through Hubble's vast catalog of stars, gas, and galaxies, looking for a diamond in the rough. Many images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope have never really been looked at; Sigurðsson says "In some cases the PI died before doing so. More usually…
May 30, 2012
Day and night, the sun is something most of us take for granted. But on Respectful Insolence, disciples stare at it intently in order to gain its energy. Orac writes "sun gazers seem to think that mammals are like plants in possessing an ability to absorb energy directly from the sun"—and diehard…
May 25, 2012
According to UN Water, "Each of us needs to drink 2 to 4 litres of water every day. But it takes 2000 to 5000 litres of water to produce one person's daily food." If that seems like a lot, it is. But it's funny how much depends on your perspective. A graphic from the USGS shows what it would look…
May 24, 2012
On Denialism Blog, Mark Hoofnagle argues that unless homeschooling is better regulated, it should be banned altogether. He writes "universal primary and secondary education is part of why our country has been so successful." While Rick Santorum can teach his kids that global warming is a hoax…
May 24, 2012
On the Weizmann Wave, researchers have made a discovery surrounding exons—"bits of genetic code that are snipped out of the sequence and spliced together to make the protein instruction list." When a cell needs to make a protein, it pulls exons out of pre-messenger RNA and stitches them together…
May 22, 2012
Cause and effect weave a tangled web, but a new data analysis tool called MIC can help make sense of it all. The Weizmann Institute writes that "Large data sets with thousands of variables are increasingly common in fields as diverse as genomics, physics, political science, economics and more." …
March 28, 2012
There are many factors that can drive an organism to drink. Some might have a genetic predisposition—others might want to poison a parasitic wasp before it consumes them from the inside out. On ERV, new research shows "the epigenetics of the cells in the brains of alcoholics is messed up;"…
March 19, 2012
We've all heard of bird and swine flu, but bats, which comprise "about a fifth of all known mammalian species," also carry a diverse host of viruses. By swabbing the rectums of little yellow-shouldered bats, researchers in Guatemala discovered a new influenza virus that defies easy classification…
March 12, 2012
Science publishing is at a crossroads. On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham says that early scientists "communicated amongst themselves in person or in letters or in books. They shared discoveries freely and it was possible for an individual human to be aware of almost the entire sum of human knowledge…
March 1, 2012
On Denialism Blog, Mark Hoofnagle writes that a wide array of drugs, from antibiotics to steroids to diuretics and chemotherapeutics, are in short supply around the country. Hoofnagle explains, "The drugs affected span all classes, what they have in common is they are all generic." Because of…
February 27, 2012
On Casaubon's Book, Sharon Astyk writes "counter-intuitively, demographers generally find that the conditions necessary for people to choose fewer children include radically lower child, infant and maternal mortality. [...] The less certain you are your children will live to adulthood, the more…
February 21, 2012
On Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson flags a few foreboding articles on the future of NASA. Sigurðsson says the orbiting telescope Galex, or Galaxy Evolution Explorer, will be shut down later this year despite continuing to function. NASA has withdrawn from the international research mission…
February 16, 2012
On The Pump Handle, Liz Borkowski surveys a new report on chronic illness released by the Institute of Medicine. Borkowski writes, "diabetes and heart disease are what leap to my mind—in part because they're so tied to the lifestyle factors of smoking, inadequate exercise, and poor nutrition, and…
February 15, 2012
The Fordham Institute recently released their assessment of state science standards with a handy color-coded map—and California was the only state to receive a solid "A," along with the District of Columbia. On Pharyngula, PZ Myers wonders how his state will ever get into college with a lowly "C…
February 14, 2012
On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham reports that scientists have genetically enabled E. coli to digest a sugar found in algae. Bonham writes, "Scientists have been picking this bug's locks for decades, and it's already been engineered to make not just ethanol, but many other useful products as well."…
February 2, 2012
Posted to the homepage on January 20, 2012
On Aetiology, Tara C. Smith shares the results of her latest study into methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. She and her team "looked at not only conventional meats, but also 'alternative' meat products" labeled "raised without antibiotics" or "…