biology
evolgen | January 7, 2008Matt Nisbet thinks that Francis Collins should be the next presidential science advisor. He does this after rejecting excellent popularizes of science, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and E.O. Wilson, on the following grounds:
Most science popularizers such as Wilson or Tyson don't have the years of government experience to understand the machinations of Federal science policy. Moreover, they have a paper trail of strong opinions on issues that might make appointment politically tough.
I'm not sure what exactly those issues upon which they have strong opinions are. Is it that they're both…
scientificactivist | December 31, 2007An individual cell inside the human body is in a dynamic environment: it not only has to anchor itself to its surroundings but also be able to communicate with them and respond as appropriate. One group of proteins--the integrins--play a central role in all of these tasks. The integrins are large (about 200,000 Da) membrane-spanning proteins, and each integrin consists of two subunits (alpha and beta). The vast majority of the integrin is located on the exterior of the cell, where it anchors the cell to the extracellular matrix. Each subunit has a short tail inside of the cell, and the…
revere | December 31, 2007Everyone seems to have an opinion about whether bird flu will be the next terrible global pandemic. In current parlance "bird flu" means human infection with the highly pathogenic avian influenza/A subtype H5N1. There is no doubt that this is the 800 pound gorilla in the global health room at the moment, but not because it is more likely to become a pandemic (NB: pandemic by definition is a globally dispersed sudden increase in infection among humans; the same situation for animals is called a panzootic, and it is plausible to say we have an H5N1 panzootic for birds now). On the basis of…
revere | December 30, 2007After spending more time than I wished "defending" WHO against what I considered a particular kind of scurrilous attack (it also seemed to raise the hackles of some unintended as targets, but the dialog with them was at least rational) -- after all that, I now have to turn around and complain about WHO (again). Let me be constructive and offer their spokesperson, John Rainford (or whoever writes the statements he mouths), a little biology lesson. A mutation of a virus is a technical term that describes a replicable change in the sequence of bases that constitute the virus's genetic blueprint…
aardvarchaeology | December 28, 2007
I've known for some time from the local papers that the site of the old Tollare paper mill is badly polluted. It's only 1.6 km from my home, on the opposite shore of the Lännerstasundet inlet (one of the main historic shipping routes into Lake Mälaren). A couple of years ago, a large area in the water outside the site was fenced off with floating länsar to keep the bottom sediments from moving. Apparently, this was one of those paper mills that used mercury in a big way. They've recently started covering the polluted sediment with geotextile, cement and crushed rock. (Hope no interesting…
oracknows | December 28, 2007Lately, bloggers, including some of my fellow ScienceBloggers, have been expressing various concerns about the phenomenon that is Ron Paul, the Republican candidate who's ridden a wave of discontent to do surprisingly well in the polls leading up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. First, Jake and Greg have pointed out that Ron Paul apparently does not accept the theory of evolution. The other day, Ed Brayton and Sara Robinson discussed a story about an open letter by Bill White, the leader of the American Socialist Workers' Party, in which White claimed that Paul and his aides…
tfk | December 26, 2007Mere days after the skinned and beheaded remains of a Siberian tiger were found in a Chinese zoo, a Siberian tiger in the San Francisco zoo jumped the moat around its exhibit area and attacked three visitors, killing one. Police shot and killed the tiger, so we can only speculate about any link between those incidents.
The same tiger had attacked a keeper just over a year ago, chewing the flesh of keeper Lori Komejan's arm during a public feeding demonstration. The zoo's other Siberian tiger and its three Sumatran tigers are not suspected of assisting in yesterday's escape. Out of respect…
oracknows | December 23, 2007You be the judge:
I believe, first of all, evolution is a crock.
It takes a lot of faith to believe that I came from an ameba. A lot of faith!
So evolution should be taught in Faith Class, otherwise known in parochial schools as Religion Class.
It's a crazy world we live in. Crazier every day. But one of the craziest notions that ever came down the pike is evolution. Who in his right mind would ever believe that the complicated homo sapien derived from a speck? That's getting the larger from the smaller.
No, it's an even crazier world when a clueless twit like Grant Swank can write something…
revere | December 23, 2007The recent report of a novel influenza virus in pigs, the H2N3 subtype, has been raised some alarm in certain quarters. I just read the paper itself (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0710286104) and then the account in CIDRAP News, which is both accurate and complete. I recommend it highly as a summary of this work. I have a bit to add, but first their concise summary of events leading to the investigation:
The discovery of the new virus began with an illness outbreak in pigs at a Missouri swine nursery in September 2006, according to the report. The pigs' lungs showed obvious signs of pneumonia, and tests…
sb admin | December 21, 2007Since you've all been clamouring to see it, here's my new tattoo, and a video clip of the work in progress. It's an intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell, my favourite type of neuron. The artist was Gordon at Brain Drops, highly recommended. :)
Enjoy your holidays!
grrlscientist | December 20, 2007tags: The Snoring Bird, Bernd Heinrich, book review, birds, ornithology, biography, science
I remember that I felt very cold when I read Bernd Heinrich's book, Ravens in Winter, even though it was a hot summer day. That was the first of Heinrich's books that I read, but it definitely wasn't the last. I just finished reading his most recent book, The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology (NYC: HarperCollins; 2007) and just as I wore a sweater while I finished his Ravens in Winter, I found that my normally routine daily subway rides to and from the library were…
moleculeoftheday | December 19, 2007But if you've never read it, check out Can a Biologist Fix a Radio?
revere | December 17, 2007The title of the Nature paper is "Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins" (Nature 450, 1075-1078 (13 December 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06342) and the Editor's comment is given the slightly snappier title, "The mother load." (Nature (DOI:10.1038/nature06342). But I like the New Scientist version best: "Why pregnant women don't fall over."
Here's the issue. Animals that walk upright on two legs (bipedalism) have their center of mass (COM) over their hips. This means that when walking the muscles spanning the hip from trunk to leg have to contract on the weight…
moleculeoftheday | December 14, 2007Making biomolecules is tricky - getting a reasonable quantity of whatever DNA or protein you're after can take what seems like heroic efforts. You're made acutely aware of the fact that the humblest bacterium does this without breaking a sweat. Protecting and activating groups are needed, like DMT and phosphoramidites for DNA.
Dicyclohexylcarbodiimide is an activator used in making peptides.
purepedantry | December 13, 2007This is just too good. All molecular biologists have had a conversation at least once where they try to actually explain what they do with their day to a lay-person, rather than just talking in stale generalities. The problem with this is that molecular biology is technical, and it takes a bit of explanation. This is why this conversation is only attempted rarely and when the recipient has a lot of time to waste.
One of the weirder aspects of molecular biology is cell lines. Cell lines are strains of cells that will divide indefinitely, usually because they are somewhat cancerous. This…
oracknows | December 12, 2007Readers may have noticed (or maybe they haven't) that I haven't commented at all on the Guillermo Gonzalez case. As you may recall, Gonzalez is an astronomer at Iowa State University, as well as advocate of "intelligent design" creationism. In May 2007, ISU denied tenure to Gonzalez. Not surprisingly, the ID movement in general and its propagnda arm (Discovery Institute) in particular have done their best to try to portray Gonzalez as a martyr who was "persecuted" for his beliefs and denied his "academic freedom." Despite the attempts of the DI to milk it for all its PR value, as usual, the…
oracknows | December 11, 2007It's been a while since I've visited the cesspool that is Uncommon Descent, a.k.a. Bill Dembski's home for wandering sycophants, toadies, and lackeys. There's a good reason for this; I just get tired of the sheer stupidity that routinely assaults my brain every time I make the mistake of taking a look at UD's latest attempt to try to refute evolution. Worse, there's lots of other pseudoscience there these days, from the promotion of the use of cancer therapies that haven't been subjected to clinical trials yet to anthropomorphic global warming "skepticism." Yes, every time I peruse the posts…
revere | December 10, 2007The debate about how much wild migratory birds contribute to the spread of highly pathogenic influenza/A H5N1 goes on. According to a sensible Commentary in Nature (Dec. 6) it needn't. We should have taken steps some time ago to answer an answerable question. But we didn't and still haven't initiated those steps:
Two years ago, some believed that H5N1 viruses were poised to spread around the globe on the wings of migrating wild birds. A massive effort was mounted to track their movement but, as of September 2007, very few positive birds have been found in tests of over 300,000 healthy wild…
evolgen | December 9, 2007The Scientist blog reports that a representative of the National Science Foundation (NSF) was at the annual meeting of the America Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The NSF representative pointed out a couple of things things:
If your proposal describes research designed to find a cure for some disease, the NSF will not fund it. Well, duh! The NSF is about funding basic research. If you want to cure diseases, go ask the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for money. Research about human diseases and human health are not fundable by the NSF.
If your lab is well funded, don't expect the NSF…
oracknows | December 6, 2007This video would argue that the answer to the question in the title is no:
"I don't think anything predated Christians"?
What about Judaism? You know, the Old Testament, the book in which, Christians say, many prophecies of Jesus' coming were made?
I'd try to reassure myself that she's just more ignorant than average about history, but I'm not sure that she is.
(Via Pure Pedantry and Crooked Timber.)
Of course, this is the same woman who doesn't accept evolution and wouldn't commit to an opinion about whether the world is flat, as seen in this video:
Any bets on how long before we hear…