Science & Society

If you are even a teensy little bit into reason and rationality, then you are likely to wince every time you open a newspaper, surf the web or watch television. The wince of the week definitely came from an interview that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos conducted with G.O.P. House opposition leader John Boehner. The topic was global warming and what the Republican’s “plan” to deal with it might look like (don’t laugh! Well, not yet). I prepared myself for the usual denial mixed with narrow-minded statements to the effect that we cannot afford to save the planet during a recession, and I was not…

On the occasion of her centennial, Rita Levi-Montalcini addressed the crowd with the gentle tone of a grandmother and the confident cadence of a statesman.  At 100 years, she has an energy that many younger people might envy.  She divides her workdays between her namesake brain research laboratory and her foundation to encourage African women with potential for scientific achievement.  These dual pursuits are fitting of a woman who fought past the setbacks of her own time and culture to become a driving force in both medical research and the politics of science. Rita was born…

I was out tonight visiting with my friends Lucky and Saskia. Lucky is a passionate flamenco enthusiast and theoretical physicist. We were enjoying an evening of live music and talking about advances.... Precursers to the Industrial Revolution. Tin and Napoleons Buttons, Grey tin and white tin. Stirling invented the Stirling Engine. And Stirling cycle. He wanted to control the air in the room where his patients were. He made an enclosed room with an intake pipe > He created a machine that acted. Refrigeration unit that is an air conditioner. His patients did do better. Not because  but…

Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1986, turns 100 years old today: she was born on April 22nd, 1909 -before World War I had begun! "Ok," you might say, "she's probably bedridden and demented by now."  Not in the least. She is in full possession of all her wits, is a very active Senator, and has declared a few days ago that her brain works better now than it did when she was 20, because of her experience. I bet she is not kidding. As a researcher, her most important contribution to Medicine is the discovery, in 1952, of the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), a protein inducing…

At the European Geophysical Union EGU, Jochen Zschau from GeoForschungZentrum GFZ in Germany presented his Sergey Soloviev medal lecture, Meeting the Challenge of Earthquake Risk Globalisation: Towards the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) on the first day of this huge gathering of geoscientific expertice. We would all like to reduce the material and human costs of natural disasters. Earthquakes can be devastating events with large socio-economic impacts and both national and international organizations allocate a substantial amount of resources to reduce the risks and mitigate disasters. GEM is…

There are a lot of biologists out there with physics and engineering envy, and it shows in the occasional awkward and sometimes downright ridiculous borrowing of terminology. Take the term 'integrated circuit' for example. The term refers to putting the components of an electrical circuit on a chip, made of the same material as the circuit components. The reason is this: By making all the parts out of the same block of material and adding the metal needed to connect them as a layer on top of it, there was no more need for individual discrete components. No more wires and components had to be…

Just in case you didn't know, Scientific Blogging geek fave Garth Sundem will make a guest appearance on The Early Show (your local CBS channel) tomorrow AM, in promotion of his new book.    How will he wow the world this time?   I don't want to give anything away but he wrote about it here.   My big question; will Julie Chen shamelessly flirt with him the way Diane Sawyer did on Good Morning America?    We'll have to see.   I will try to snatch a fair use clip and put it here.    So tune in, even if you don't ordinarily watch television or morning…

Star Trek We don't talk down to people, no worries about appealling to 8th grade kids or whatever the reading level is supposed to be.

Bringing together more than 9.000 geoscientists from all over Europe and the rest of the world into one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, the European Geophysical Union (EGU) annual General Assembly takes place in Vienna this week. I'm involved in the Tsunami Risk and Strategies for the European Region, a EU funded project where more than 30 European institutions are preparing and developing an early warning system for Europe and I will present some results concerning the use of GNSS as well as meeting colleagues coming from all corners of the world…

It is said that people go into psychology to understand themselves...well, one of my main reasons why I went into genetics was to prove that I was not related to my family. That, of course, didn't happen - The Addams Family is a more functional collection of misfits than my assortment of relatives, but now I may have a second option. Maybe I can sue my parents for the genetic material that they gave me. Does it sound like I just took a break from reality? Maybe...but in today's world anything may be possible. A recent case in New York State may have set the stage for me to actually proceed…