Science & Society

One of those areas that always fascinated me was looking at historical figures and events and trying to figure out the science behind it.  For example, I had a genetics professor in college whose hobby was to study famous people who had died for "mysterious" or "unknown" reasons, and see what genetic disorder they might have had.  It was pretty interesting, although the nagging "we won't ever know unless we dig them up and test their remains" issue always bugged me. Anyway, here is a cool article I found in a similar vein (I mean to post it around Halloween, but of course time got…

An article entitled "Children unaffected by smoking ban consequences" points to a new study indicating that children's exposure to second hand smoke is unaffected by the smoking ban in Wales. We found that the smoke-free legislation in Wales did not increase second-hand smoke exposure in homes of children aged 10-11.  Nevertheless, the home did remain the main source of children's exposure. So one of the most telling aspects of the study is what it didn't mention. The smoking ban didn't change anything regarding second hand smoke exposure.  This would strongly suggest that the…

FOXP2 is known as “the language gene.” When it goes wrong, as it famously did for a family in England, it can cause severe deficits in language ability. In the “KE family" in England, for instance, several family members carry a defective mutation of the gene and have trouble with grammar and writing, and with making the right face and mouth movements for normal speech.  There’s a nice write-up on the gene at “Not Exactly Rocket Science”  Now this is unusual for a gene: the protein it codes for in humans differs from the chimp version at only 2 of its 700+ amino acids, while…

Pinker goes after Gladwell, for doing a sloppy job on picking and analyzing the research he uses, and then does it himself in his critique of Gladwell. Ooops! By now many of you may have read Steven Pinker’s review of Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw in the New York Times over the weekend. Several people have commented here and elsewhere on the review. In it Pinker takes Gladwell to task for misspelling eigenvalue as “igon value.” He see it as instance of what he believes is Galdwell’s larger “igon value problem: when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert…

What do rock climbing, book clubs, and sci fi have in common? The answer is they all help an astrophysicist with job hunting. Read on for why and how! Back on May 1st, 6 months ago, I decided to transition to a pure freelancer lifestyle. At the time, Stephanie P. asked "How do you transition from research to writing within NASA?" My answer was "I think I need to see what luck I get hunting, before I can speak with any credence on 'how to transition'!?!". And indeed, freelancing @NASA is still a nut to crack. Their culture doesn't encourage outside contribution as much as I think it needs to.…

This is a question to the many readers of science and technology articles and publications.  What are you seeing out there happening to engineering and science education where you come from?  What do you see for the future? As the United States struggles with the 21st century and comes to grip with the recession, lost jobs, and the rise of China as a world economic power, technical education would seem to be of paramount importance.  Is it?  What is being taught now and how does it matter tomorrow? Here are two examples that may or may not be real example of the state of…

The 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species is coming up next week, and even the creationists are celebrating. In fact one of them is giving out free copies of Darwin's seminal book. The catch? It comes with a confused, incoherent creationist rant as the introduction. The creationist is Ray Comfort, who has decided to distribute copies of the Origin to "100 top U.S. universities," which apparently includes Washington University here in St. Louis. because Comforts foot soldiers were out in force, handing out books to students at the campus metro train station. This…

A recent article, "Cloned Cows: Less In, More Out" raised the question of food safety, since its sale was approved by the FDA last year. However, my concerns are much more fundamental.  The article indicates that cloning is beneficial so "that we get more beef for our buck".  Suggesting that there is an economic incentive to ensure that we produce beef more efficiently.  However, I'm not clear how this would be achieved since the costs that go into the cows would be offset by the other expenses produced such as patent rights (U.S. Patent 6590139). This seems like the "benefits…

Gross generalizations about atheists remain in style. A letter in response to a Sunday New York Times article in the Week in Review section, by Nicholas Wade. Dear Mr. Wade, While I always enjoy - despite being an atheist - having my thinking stimulated by good articles about spirituality, and, in particular, the origins of religious experience, and enjoyed your article (The Evolution of the God Gene), I feel I must point out a paragraph that seems to me to sound a little glib and not clearly thought through. You write "For atheists, it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion…

In a review of Gladwell's new book: An eclectic essayist is necessarily a dilettante, which is not in itself a bad thing. But Gladwell frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring. He provides misleading definitions of “homology,” “saggital plane” and “power law” and quotes an expert speaking about an “igon value” (that’s eigenvalue, a basic concept in linear algebra). In the spirit of Gladwell, who likes to give portentous names to his aperçus, I will call this the Igon Value Problem: when a writer’s education on…