Reprise
revere | August 31, 2009Well, we're back at the old homestead but today it took us 12 grueling hours in the car. We had hoped to get back earlier (it's almost midnight now) and have the time and energy to djinn up a new post, but it isn't to be. But it's hurricane season again and Danny Boy just sailed north parallel to the Atlantic coast. No doubt he will be followed by a number of others. Maybe one will get another shot at the high containment lab in Galveston. From a year ago:
Just before: Why would any sane person put a Level 4 biodefense lab in Galveston?;
. . . and a month later, after Galveston took the…
revere | August 30, 2009We're still on the road, but if all goes well we'll be pulling up to the old homestead later today. So this will be among the last of the links to previous posts and we'll be back in harness shortly, again masquerading as whoever we are masquerading as. You decide. But a propos of that thought, a little more than three years ago I wrote the post linked below, more as an idle reflection on a part of academic life that isn't discussed very often than anything else. It surprised me that since then rarely a week passes that I don't see on my referral log that someone has looked at it, usually via…
revere | August 29, 2009The car is almost packed and this is the last post before I unplug from the net and we are actually on the road. But by tonight I'll probably be connected again because the cheapie motels we stay in usually have free WiFi, unlike the expensive ones that charge you $15 a day for the privilege of always being reachable from work and thus having no time to yourself. Not that we won't be reachable while on the road, because we will have our cell phones. Don't worry. We never use them while we drive. It's a matter of principle (the principle being not endangering ourselves and others).…
revere | August 28, 2009We're starting to pack the car for the trek homeward. It's a thousand mile drive so we aren't going to do it in a day. But in my youth I once drove alone for 17 straight hours in a VW beetle that had no radio, stopping only to gas up and use the bathroom. Which brings me to this post from earlier this year (February), not about washing your hands after using a public bathroom ( hope you do), but about the vexing problem of drying them once you've washed them:
Link to: "Hot air and paper towels in the public bathroom"
revere | August 27, 2009We're still at the beach (you're probably tired of hearing that, but Mrs. R. is already wringing her hands and gnashing her teeth at the thought that next week we won't be able to say it), and it's really hot here. Nineties and humid. Two years ago (August 2007) we were also here and it was also hot. Nineties and humid. It's always hot and humid at the beach. That's why they call it the beach! (huh? I thought it was because that's the place where some bozo plays his music too loud and you get sand in your picnic sandwiches). Whatever. It's hot. Last time it prompted this little post on why it…
revere | August 26, 2009Here's some scientific background to the climate change discussion (we refuse to call it a controversy). Basic science literacy, explaining what a greenhouse gas is:
"Primer on greenhouse gases":
Part I
Part II
.
Nothing controversial. Just basic science literacy.
revere | August 25, 2009Over the years we've written quite a bit (well over 3000 posts) here and on the old site at blogger.com. Some of them have been ephemeral comments, some of them whimsical and but many of them dealing with serious topics that couldn't be accommodated in the format of a single blog post. The ones explaining new results in influenza science sometimes take three or four installments. We've done a 17 part series giving a paragraph by paragraph, equation by equation explanation of a paper on mathematical modeling antiviral use in influenza for non technical readers, and another 17 parter on the…
revere | August 24, 2009While we fritter away our last week at the beach, here's another installment of past posts on flu science. There are three subjects, but one of them took three installments to relate. That's because these involve cutting edge science papers in influenza science and we wanted to take enough time to explain them in ways that were understandable to non scientists. It's likely we weren't completely successful in every case, but even if you don't understand every detail, you can get a flavor for the struggle taking place in laboratories all over the world to understand this virus:
"The complexity…
revere | August 23, 2009A full year before the housing market had a melt down (Sept. 2008), the mosquitoes knew:
"Adjustable rate mortgages and West Nile Virus infection"
revere | August 22, 2009Infection with norovirus is something to which the adjective "unpleasant" hardly applies. While it's a self-limiting affliction, if you've ever had it, it's hard to imagine anyone subjecting themselves to norovirus willingly. But if anything illustrates the principle that people will do anything for a buck, this does:
"Getting sick for science (and money)"
revere | August 21, 2009The current pandemic with swine H1N1 remains sensitive to the oral neuriminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir (Tamiflu), an antivial. How long that will last isn't clear, and neither drug in this category (Tamiflu or zanamivir/Relenza) is very effective, although they appear to work to some extent against sensitive influenza virus. But Tamiflu can be expensive and the cost adds up when we are talking of tens or hundreds of millions of doses. Part of the cost is that the drug company that makes Tamiflu, Roche, is in business to make money and isn't readily giving up its licensing rights to allow…
revere | August 20, 2009Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican on health insurance reform and has also been a dogged critic of conflicts of interest in academic medicine. We've commented before that Grassley is a gold plated hypocrite because he himself reads ghostwritten talking points from the insurance industry, makes false and fraudulent claims on their behalf while trying to influence legislation and himself takes millions in health industry money without publicly acknowledging it. He has become typical of the corrupt phonies he self-righteously complains about.
Grassley's own corrupt behavior…
revere | August 19, 2009The original post was called, "Timing is everything." That's a truism. But it could have been called, "Elections do matter."
"Timing is everything" was posted the April before the 2006 mid term elections and it highlights blogger extraordinaire Jordan Barab and the importance of OSHA. Now it's 2009 and guess who the Acting Director of OSHA is? Jordan Barab. If your heart can withstand a wrench or two, here's some more of Jordan's blogging: "Jordan Barab's Weekly Toll"
Jordan is "Acting" pending confirmation of Obama's nominee to be OHSA's permanent Director, Dr. David Michaels. We've already…
revere | August 18, 2009We hear rumors the Obama FDA is not like the Bush FDA. We'll see. We don't expect to agree with everything they do. But if the question is, how are they doing?, one response might be, "compared to what?": "Tough guys at the FDA (sarcasm alert)"
revere | August 17, 2009Still "fishin' " but back at the bait shop we left this note.
Over the years we've written a lot about the basic science of influenza. Much of it centered on avian influenza H5N1 ("bird flu"), an extremely nasty and worrisome virus that is bubbling away in a rich stew of humans and livestock on three continents. But while we were keeping an eye on the pot, worrying it would boil over, an influenza pandemic started in an unexpected place (North America) and with an unexpected virus (of swine, not bird, origin). All pandemics are different and influenza viruses also differ one from another. But…