Science & Society
Hank |
Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden recently set out to test the unwritten rule of the sea that, during maritime disasters, women and children are first in the lifeboats.
What they found was that, factoring out a big disaster like the Titanic, sailors don't much care about gender these days. Women are no more likely than men to survive any wreck where at least 100 people were on board. And they don't care about anyone else; the Captain and crew generally survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers.
Is chivalry dead? Chivalry, as I noted in Medieval…
Excuse my use of the personal pronoun in this short article, but I am writing to get input as much as I am to simply observe a phenomenon.
I am increasingly drawn to the connection between bench science and the companies that provide them with their tools - from commercial assays, probes, and imaging chambers to engineered animals and so-called "experiment in a box" products.
As a journalist I am drawn to the subject for many reasons: it is an industry that is almost completely uncovered and one that supports, via advertisements and sponsorships, a growing number of science magazines and…
Another disabled person denied a transplant because of his disability. Another petition in hopes of changing the hospital's decision (go sign it, please).
After the last time, with Mia Rivera (click on her name to read the good news that her mother will get to give Mia a kidney), the disability community came out in full force to support the Rivera family, and it's happening again, thankfully, with blogger after blogger writing about Paul Corby's story.
Will this outpouring of outrage make the same kind of difference this time? We can hope. But one thing's certain, if we…
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Gibson Guitar Corp. entered into a criminal enforcement agreement resolving a criminal investigation into allegations that the company violated the Lacey Act by illegally purchasing and importing ebony wood from Madagascar and rosewood and ebony from India.
Since May 2008, it has been illegal under the Lacey Act to import into the United States plants and plant products (including wood) that have been harvested and exported in violation of the laws of another country. Madagascar Ebony is a slow-growing tree species and supplies…
Hank |
PETA, People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals, doesn't always make sense. They protest objectifying dead fish, for example, by objectifying live women. Actually, they show more naked women than Playboy, their marketing campaigns are littered with exploited females.(1)
Now they are critical of the US Army, but not for hurting fellow humans. Rather, for hurting goats.
War is messy, brutal business. In a perfect world, there would be none. But things happen, even if for different reasons. In Iraq, for example, war was unjustified neo-con imperialism (because…
Banks and brokerage houses employ a lot of physicists - it was a big fad of the last decade because the industry discovered that physicists knew how to make models and economists did not.
But physicists don't understand economics and the behavior of people any more than economists do and it hasn't worked. No rational model predicts that some trader will just go crazy and lose billions and automated schemes have been a disaster. Yet there is hope.
Gerolamo Cardano, Italian Renaissance mathematician, was known to the outside world for his achievements in algebra, but locally Gardano was…
vongehr |
One of the pretty boys of science writing has fallen. Jonah Lehrer has finally been called out for distorting science. Many more are going to fall. Or wait. No, wait, what? Oh – I see – he misquoted some singer-song writer dude! Ohhhh – how tragic! And without misquoting Bob Marley or whoever that was (please correct me in the comments because I really really care so much), he would be still one of those celebrated “science writers” selling better than porn these days.
Jonah Lehrer - dared falsely quoting Britney Spears instead of pulling Einstein out of context. Some deeds go too far even…
Hank |
For as long as I can remember, academic scientists have said that applied research is great - for someone else. But for themselves, they want to do basic research and be creative and not have to worry about any applied / societal benefit.(1)
But another election season is here and, despite $140 billion of taxpayer money being spent on research, no one in either party really gives a hoot about science topics and scientists are concerned neither candidate cares.(2)
Arizona State University Professor G. Pascal Zachary, writing at IEEE Spectrum, says the disconnect issue may be…
Hank |
Do you work in genetics? If so, you are out to ruin the brains of children, according to a claim at Alternet.org.
The biotech industry is willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds and our basic consumer rights.
I am not sure when it became a consumer right to buy seedless watermelons but I am not an irrational progressive blogger, so I have poor grasp of things I know nothing about, like what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they left that bit out. Yet I have to give this guy for knowing his audience. Anti-science hippies love their emotional verbage, especially…
Hank |
Science journalism used to not have that 'science' qualifier. It was journalism, like any other kind, but about science.
Last decade, though, science journalism lost its way, as we have discussed many times before. Too many science journalists became cheerleaders for science or, worse, advocates for aspects of controversial science topics. They were no longest trusted guides for the public and, as a result, people stopped reading them and corporate media no longer had need for something no one read. Science 2.0 and other sites filled the void nicely.
Chris Chambers and Petroc Sumner,…