Science & Society

"To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life." -James Joyce Craig Venter is brilliant. Brilliant enough, you might say, to enter the ranks of literary gods. So brilliant, he might not even know it. Venter wants to patent the human genome--all 2.9 billion base pairs of it. And why not? The pioneering geneticist is, after all, the man responsible for sequencing it. Venter first set his sights on the intellectual rights in the 90s while still president of Celera Genomics. Later, the company's soured partnership with the publicly funded Human Genome Project served as a…

"Despite reports of concern from caregivers and some studies, there are limited data on  population-based estimates and predictors of risk for wandering associated with ASD/DD." --ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting  Wandering is a real issue with real, present-day ramifications. While it's important to not dive into knee-jerk reactions every time the news provides us with another example of wandering incidents and deaths, it does put a real face on the issue. It isn't some hypothetical what-if; parents and caregivers are dealing with it right now.Because…

Across the world, fewer people are buying the "I have a glandular disorder" excuse for obesity. As the average waistline increases but the numbers of obese people skew that result, society is getting less tolerant of heavier folk - even in cultures where being big is considered better, according to a cross-cultural study of attitudes toward obesity to be published in the April issue of Current Anthropology. The study didn't test what is driving the shift in attitude, but the researchers say that "newer forms of educational media, including global public health campaigns" may be playing a…

Imagine, if you will, a Borg cube from Star Trek humming along through space, part of a fleet of such cubes, each with millions of drones participating in a spatially non-localized brain of billions. Now imagine that this collective Borg brain has a headache. The camera zooms inside one of the cubes and we see the source of the problem: a dreadlocked alien has awakened, and he’s raging through the ship, ripping up the neural wiring that connects the Borg drones to one another. Suddenly disconnected from the collective, the drones are waking up and finding themselves for the first time.…

I just stumbled across a list of favorite ocean flicks, posted at The Film Pilgrim. The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo make a necessary appearance, as do epic disaster shows like Titanic and The Perfect Storm. Then there's Jaws, which (arguably) prejudiced a generation or more against great white sharks forever. Not a bright day for interspecies understanding. And then there's 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, to which the Film Pilgrim says: "I don't think there’s ever been a movie which greater depicts the ferocity of the giant squid." May I just say: the totally inaccurate, fictional,…

Spend anytime in the online autism community, and you'll find a rich cast of characters offering a diverse perspective on what it means to be autistic. From clinically diagnosed autistics in early adulthood to late middle age to individuals who have self-identified as autistic, I've had the chance to read over 130 autistic bloggers on the directory, in addition to other autistics whose writings appear in print, on websites, forums, and facebook.  In addition to these bloggers who've enriched my perspective on ways that autism can manifest and be expressed at the individual level are the…

Which science kills the most people each year?  Prompted by a quote-- "guns don't kill people-- physics kills people." ('3rd Rock from the Sun') -- it's time we look at which science really is the deadliest. So let's set up the big three: Physics, Chemistry and Biology.  In a Hollywood movieland world, Physics would be the clear winner on early deaths.  Car crashes, gunshot wounds, bicycle accidents, falling down, people hitting each other, and that biggie called 'war' are all physics-driven deaths. Pulling out real world statistics, we look to the Center for Disease Control (…

Methodological Stuff: 1. Introduction 2: Patterns3: Patterns, Objectivity and Truth4: Patterns and Processes The Pattern Library: A pattern of Difference 2: A Pattern of Feedback It has been a year since I defended my Ph. D research "Into Complexity", and since then I have been invited to give guest lectures on my pet subject, which has forced me to bring it down to its bare essentials. As the responses of people have been quite positive, I have decided to share this "Quick Guide to Complexity Thinking" with the community, hoping that it may help some researchers in their own work. So here…

There has clearly been enough controversy around the risks and hazards created by the Fukushima reactor problems over the past days.  Part of the controversy seems to originate with the idea that if a risk to public health is being suggested, then this is scaremongering and clearly an anti-nuclear sentiment.  On the other hand, if the risk is downplayed, then this is viewed as being pro-nuclear and representative of industry favoritism. I would suggest that when examining such risks that there are actually two perspectives that need to be considered and that we must be especially…

Back in October I made my picks for the hotly contested Etsy/NASA contest.  And now the winners are announced.  Neither of my picks (stenciled glass bottles and wooden toy blocks for alien children) made it.  And, well, I'll say I'm not leaping up to buy any of the winners.  Still, it was a neat little contest with interesting implications. AlexDIY satellite news every Tuesday here and at Project CalliopeGeneral space science every Friday at the Daytime Astronomer