Science & Society
The month of April is National Autism Awareness month. Because this is a subject that touches many, and is frequently a topic of discussion not only on this site - but across the entire world of media and journalism – ScientificBlogging will be presenting a special series of articles focused on autism during the month of April.
We will be exploring the scientific perspective of autism: the research, the studies, the medical advancements made in its diagnosis and treatment. But we will also be presenting several articles and posts of a more personal nature. What is life like with autism, both…
The big news in biotech this week is the court ruling against Myriad Genetics and gene patents. As Genomics Law Report discusses, this was an overwhelming win for the plaintiffs (which included the ACLU and various research and patients' organizations). The judge issued a summary judgement, which means 1) that both sides of the case agreed on the basic facts, and 2) the law was judged to be overwhelmingly on the plaintiff's side:
For either side to receive summary judgment, it must show that there are no disputed issues of fact that require a trial to resolve, and that, on the undisputed…
I forget how I ran across this link, but this blogger reflects on how six years of blogging has helped his work as a political analyst:
In this sense, generating and maintaining the blog magnificently expanded my professional "RAM," or random-access memory storage capacity. Without that upgrade, I simply couldn't write or think at the level I do today, nor could I cover as much of the world or so many domains. Without that reach, I couldn't be much of an expert on globalization, which in turn would seriously curtail my ambitions as a grand strategist -- because nowadays, strategic thinking…
If you want to believe news reports Prf. James Lovelock think we are too stupid to stop climate change.
What he actually said was"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle as complex a situation as climate change, the inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.”
He also said“What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek.”
“The good sceptics have done a good service,…
A survey of television weathercasters conducted by George Mason University researchers shows that two-thirds are interested in reporting on climate change, and more than half are skeptics of the phenomenon.
The survey comes at a time when only a handful of TV news stations employ a dedicated science reporter.
Ultimately, the team hopes to turn TV meteorologists nationwide into a reliable source of informal science education about climate change.
"Our surveys of the public have shown that many Americans are looking to their local TV weathercaster for information about global warming," says…
"When I was your age, I used to change your diapers," said eighteen month old Sam Taylor to his father. Two years later, Sam correctly picked out his grandfather from a photo of his grammar school class of 27 children, shouting "That's me!" Sam's father believes his father has returned as his son to share the love he was unable to express in the former lifetime.
Jim B. Tucker, M.D., medical director of the Child and Family Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Virginia, oversees reincarnation research conducted through the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), a unit of the Department of…
"Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist who has vigorously opposed the entanglement of science and religion while also calling for mutual respect between the two, has won the 2010 Templeton Prize." Yet again the prize has gone to a scientist who says nice things about religion.
"Ayala, 76, a naturalized American who moved from Spain to New York in 1961 for graduate study and soon became a leader in molecular evolution and genetics, has devoted more than 30 years to asserting that both science and faith are damaged when either invades the proper domain of the…
On Blogging And Soothsaying
The internet is a wonderful means of spreading information, but there is a danger of spreading misinformation. It probably takes far fewer years of education to read a science article than to fully understand it. The danger is that, just as many people rely on their horoscopes, so too do many people rely on their favorite bloggers to do their critical thinking for them.
If bloggers write in the full knowledge or expectation that they address a largely uncritical audience, and with the intent to do their readers' thinking for them, then they are the new…
At the New York Review of Books, physicist and science writer Jeremy Bernstein tells what it's like to witness an atomic explosion:
With the renewed interest in nuclear weapons I have been struck by how few people there still are who have seen one explode. There are a few survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there are a small number who witnessed some of the above ground test explosions. But the last American above-ground test was in 1962 and the last above-ground test by any country was conducted by the Chinese in 1980. This means that the Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis—to say nothing of…
Aitch |
The Order of Merit - the so-called "most exclusive club in the world". But what is it and what makes it so special?
Sir James Black invented beta-blocker drugs, won a Nobel Prize and is widely hailed as one of the great Scottish scientists of the 20th Century. But tucked away in his biography is a lesser-known accolade. In 2000, Sir James was given "the UK's highest honour" - the Order of Merit (OM).
The medal is compared to France's Legion d'honneur and America's Congressional Gold Medal, but with one big difference. Most people in France and the US have heard of their country's honour,…