Social Sciences
j7uy5 | September 28, 2007The implantable cardioverter defibrillator is a device
placed under the
skin, near the heart. It delivers an electric shock to the
heart when a dangerous abnormal rhythm is detected. As you
might suspect, it hurts when this shock occurs (doctors call it a "
href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542830">short-duration
nociceptive stimulation"). Also as you
might expect, it can create a great deal of anxiety.
Persons with ICDs are liable to be shocked at any time, with no warning
at all.
There's an evidence-based review of the subject that is openly
available at Current…
grrlscientist | September 27, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, Seychelles warbler, Acrocephalus sechellensis, birds, evolution, social behavior, helping behavior, grandmothers
Seychelles warbler, Acrocephalus sechellensis.
Image: J. Komdeur.
When talking about evolution, some people have wondered aloud about why grandmothers exist in human society since they clearly are no longer able to reproduce. However, these people are conveniently overlooking the fact that grandmothers perform a valuable service; they help their relatives, often their own children, raise their offspring -- offspring that are genetically related to…
tsmith | September 27, 2007 I asked yesterday what readers considered the most important diseases in history. This was prompted by a new ASM Press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World, written by Irwin Sherman.
As I mentioned, Sherman included many diseases readers expected--plague, cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis, malaria, influenza, yellow fever, and AIDS. He didn't include a few that popped up repeatedly in the comments--leprosy, measles, and typhoid (or typhus, for that matter). While I think a study of these could have been illuminating (especially leprosy, since much of the stigma…
tetrapodzoology | September 25, 2007
Without doubt, one of the coolest living animals on the planet is the Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis, a giant flesh-eating lizard that kills water buffalo, eats children, harbours noxious oral bacteria and is impervious to bullets (ok, I made that last bit up)...
Unknown to western science until 1912 (when it was 'discovered' by J. K. H. van Steyn van Hensbroek, and described in the same year by P. A. Ouwens), it reaches a maximum authenticated length of 3.5 m and can weigh about 250 kg (Steel 1996). In contrast to most other monitors, its legs and tail become proportionally short and…
pharyngula | September 24, 2007You would think Yale would attract a smarter class of stude…oh, wait. I forgot what famous Yalies have risen to power in this country. OK, maybe it's not surprising that a Yale freshman would raise the tired canard of the "amoral atheist".
Recent years have seen an influx of anti-religious publications in the Western world, as well as a growing audience for such publications. From Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" to Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great," anti-theistic works have poured into bookstores as atheists in the United States and elsewhere have taken on a more strident tone in…
jrosenhouse | September 22, 2007According to The New York Times, Russia is having some church / state issues:
One of the most discordant debates in Russian society is playing out in public schools like those in this city not far from Moscow, where the other day a teacher named Irina Donshina set aside her textbooks, strode before her second graders and, as if speaking from a pulpit, posed a simple question:
“Whom should we learn to do good from?”
“From God!” the children said.
“Right!” Ms. Donshina said. “Because people he created crucified him. But did he accuse them or curse them or hate them? Of course not! He…
evolvingthoughts | September 20, 2007
Jason Rosenhouse, of Evolutionblog, has posted a rather snarky review of a book review by the historian and philosopher Ian Hacking that was published in The Nation. Jason titled his comment "How not to defend evolution". Here's my take on it.
Jason thinks that Hacking was pretentious, that he was not careful in his use of language, and that he was wordy. The essay was 4600 words long. Jason's response is 1520 words of part one of a two parter. Hmm...
The problem as I see it lies in the attitude of the sciences (and yes, I include mathematics amongst that tribe) to the humanities, and…
sb admin | September 20, 2007By Dick ClappÂ
Researchers devote a lot of effort to determining what causes cancer, and their findings can help us treat and prevent the disease. Industries that use and manufacture suspected carcinogens have something to fear, though, if research shows their products or processes to be contributing to cancer in workers or nearby communities. As a result, there has been a three-decade debate about the magnitude of the cancer burden contributed by these sources.
This issue is getting renewed attention because the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently released a report…
clock | September 20, 2007Symposium Light, Performance and Quality of Life is on Thursday, 8 November 2007 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands:
Introduction
The ancient Greek already referred to the wholesome effects of the (sun)light on mankind. Ever since the industrialization, more and more people are devoid of bright daylight for a large part of the day. With the ongoing industrialization and the current information-society the number of persons that spent al large part of the day indoors further increases.
The light in these buildings is, also due to the modern trend of small windows and low lighting-levels, notably…
clock | September 19, 2007
Brain Network Related To Intelligence Identified:
A primary mystery puzzling neuroscientists - where in the brain lies intelligence? - just may have a unified answer.
The title alone should provoke a storm in the blogosphere ;-)
Prehistoric Aesthetics Explains Snail Biogeography Puzzle:
The answer to a mystery that long has puzzled biologists may lie in prehistoric Polynesians' penchant for pretty white shells, a research team headed by University of Michigan mollusk expert Diarmaid à Foighil has found.
Who's Afraid Of The Big, Bad Wolf? Coyotes:
While the wily coyote reigns as top dog in…
purepedantry | September 17, 2007Last week, I posted a long argument for why I believe pairing science and atheism is a poor strategic choice for scientists. The response to that article has I think been largely positive, but I do want to address the criticisms of it now that I have had a chance to read all the comments and posts about it.
Let me state clearly, though, that I think all of the counter-arguments are legitimate. The world is a complicated place, and I have no special insight into its workings.
Further, if any people find my arguments pejorative, I apologize. It was my intent that this discussion be conducted…
evolvingthoughts | September 16, 2007
All the strangers look like family
All the family looks so strange
The only constant I am sure of
Is this accelerating rate of change
— Peter Gabriel, Downside-Up, from the Ovo Album
Creek Running North has a delightful rumination on the lack of a balance of nature, in which he notes that
The sheer fecundity of the world conceals its vulnerability to change.
and
There is no balance of nature. Or if there is, it is the balance of a teetering rock on a pedestal stable enough to hold it for the moment.
This instability of the world bothers many people, or they ignore it and hold fast…
clock | September 15, 2007Who Went There? Matching Fossil Tracks With Their Makers:
Fossilized footprints are relatively common, but figuring out exactly which ancient creature made particular tracks has been a mystery that has long stumped paleontologists. In the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of researchers overcome this dilemma for the first time, and link a fossil trackway to a well-known fossil animal.
Bird Completes Epic Flight Across The Pacific:
A female bar-tailed godwit, a large, streamlined shorebird, has touched down in New Zealand following an epic, 18,000-mile-long (29,000…
clock | September 10, 2007In PLoS Biology:
High-Resolution Genome-Wide Dissection of the Two Rules of Speciation in Drosophila:
The evolution of reproductive isolation is a fundamental step in the origin of species. One kind of reproductive isolation, the sterility and inviability of species hybrids, is characterized by two of the strongest rules in evolutionary biology. The first is Haldane's rule: for species crosses in which just one hybrid sex is sterile or inviable, it tends to be the sex defined by having a pair of dissimilar sex chromosomes (e.g., the "XY" of males in humans). The second rule is the large X…
jlynch | September 6, 2007This coming Sunday I will be giving a public talk on the Intelligent Design movement for the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix. Details:
Designs on Darwin: A History of the Intelligent Design Movement
September 9th @ 9:00am (Brunch to start, followed by talk)
HomeTown Buffet, 1312 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
Talk is free and open to the public.
mikethemadbiologist | September 3, 2007...or too much of anyway. One of the most eloquent speeches that I have ever heard was by Martin Luther King to striking sanitation workers. What's sad is that, while the particulars have changed somewhat, the overall picture remains the same. From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine):
My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say…
terrasig | September 1, 2007Renowned writer and international advocate for beer, Michael Jackson, died at his home in London on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He was 65 and had been suffering from Parkinson's disease, but the cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.
Simply put, Mr Jackson did for beer what fellow Englishman Hugh Johnson did for wine - provide a sense of appreciation and respect for the history of the various styles of the beverage and its place in civilized society. Perhaps more of a challenge than for Johnson, Mr Jackson elevated beer, the drink of the common man, to the status of a craft…
voltagegate | August 29, 2007On the way home from the mountains Sunday night, I was decelerating around one of those lovely Pennsylvanian descending hairpin curves just as a big white dog trotted casually up the slope in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid it, fully into the opposing lane, barely missed.
I swung the car around about a hundred feet down, pulling over to the side of the road. The dog had turned around, and was trotting towards my car, wagging its tail. Heather grabbed Oscar's leash and got out before I could say anything but "Careful," holding her hand out for him to sniff. It barely acknowledged…
clock | August 29, 2007Super Spiders Make Bolder Birds:
Recent research has revealed that by feeding spiders to their chicks, birds can manipulate the personality and learning ability of their young. In a report recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, University of Glasgow researchers reveal that birds preferentially feed their young spiders containing taurine.
Taurine is an amino acid which is also found in breast milk and energy drinks. The beneficial qualities of taurine include aiding the development of premature babies and reducing blood pressure in human adults, but it has not…
j7uy5 | August 25, 2007
class="inset" alt="Crusade Radio logo"
title="Crusade Radio logo"
src="http://www.crusaderadio.com/christianradiohdr.jpg"
align="left" border="0" height="131" width="304">This
topic has been covered by
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/more_christian_curses.php">Ed
Brayton,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/drake_endorses_huckabee_huckab.php">twice,
and by
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/lightning_bolts_boils_sour_bee.php">PZ
Myers. This is a little update.
A minister made headlines a couple of weeks ago when he called…