Science & Society
Suicide rates in the U.S. have increased nearly 30 percent in less than 20 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported June 7. These mind-numbing statistics were released the same week two very famous, successful and beloved people committed suicide – Kate Spade, a tremendous entrepreneur, trendsetter and fashion icon, and Anthony Bourdain, a distinguished chef and world traveler who took us on gastronomic journeys to all corners of the world through his TV shows.
Their tragic deaths, and others like them, have brought new awareness to the rapidly growing public health…
Deep ancestry by DNA is not as straight forward as a paternity test. Simplistic assumptions can lead to grave misunderstandings which are not helped by how DNA test are marketed. I had my DNA tested by Ancestry.com and I am waiting for results from National Geographic’s Genographic Project 2.0. Using the raw data from Ancestry.com and open source tools found at gedmatch.com I found some perplexing results for those who are not scientifically trained. UPDATED below with my National Geographic Geno 2.0 information and a really odd result.
UPDATED Further…
Trump has had a lot of criticism after the summit, with many saying he conceded too much to Kim. I don’t think he did at all myself. The main thing he gave him was a meeting with him, and a couple of days of his time. And he built trust. He thinks that’s important. Previous presidents didn’t think it was important, they proceeded on a basis of distrust. He is trying something new.
The US and Korean flags flying together set the scene for the summit in a striking way - we were looking at those flags for minutes on end waiting for the leaders to enter from either side to shake hands. It had…
Short summary: This is a first paper in what they hope to be a long term study. It’s an interesting project, but it should not be used to predict what will happen to Earth in the future. Instead we should rely on projections by the scientists who are studying the effects of climate change, our population growth, predicting food security and looking at the intricate details of how our world works. The UN population division says as its middle of range projection that we level off at 11 billion people by 2100 and experts say we can feed everyone too, if we continue on target with the things we…
Two experts, Carlin, a former analyst for the CIA and the State Department widely regarded as one of the top experts on North Korea in the world, and Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos Laboratory for over a decade, have just released a suggestion for a deal for North Korea with a surprising element - a United Korea civilian space and nuclear program! It was covered by the Associated Press and their release was run in many news outlets including the NY Times. But their release only describes the first steps of their report and doesn't mention this which I think is one of the most…
Hank |
If you are a scientist who received their PhD/MD within the past 10 years you can apply for the 2018 Sartorius&Science Prize in Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy by October 1, 2018. The Sartorius Group is a pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment provider. The grand prize is $25,000 and a publication of your essay in Science while the Grand Prize essay and three runners-up will be published in Science Online.
It is aimed at supporting and encouraging scientists focused on basic or translational research that advances medical progress in regenerative medicine and cell therapy.…
Hank |
With the cancellation of "The Dr. Oz Show", his alternative medicine audience should not think of it as a time to mourn. but instead should take a moment to celebrate the man who created all their worst fears; they should rejoice a guy who wore medical scrubs during a show in which he suggested apple juice was as dangerous for children as plutonium, who taught concerned viewers to fear chicken and to love juice cleanses. They should applaud that for a decade (or whatever) we had a place to learn The Secrets Of Plus Size Models, that we had someone on television not afraid to do…
In The Neonic Ban: A Scientific Fraud Becomes Enshrined In EU Regulatory Law, I described the many elements of corruption that led to Europe’s recently announced ban on neonic insecticides (“neonics”) which is based on the fallacy that they are responsible for a supposed collapse in bee populations. In fact, bee populations are rising on every habitable continent in the world, and have been since neonics first came on the market.
So far, despite some worrisome signals from EPA early on, U.S. farmers appear tohave escaped the regulatory fate of their European counterparts. Largely unreported…
Emperor Meiji (明治天皇, the 122nd Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, who reigned 1867 to 1912), presided over a time of rapid change in the Empire of Japan, as the nation quickly changed from an isolationist feudal state to a capitalist and imperial world power, characterized by the Japanese industrial revolution. From him comes this Tanka (短歌, “short poem”) In my garden, Side by side, Native plants, foreign plants, Growing together. This, one might guess, refers to openness to foreign ideas for a country which had been cut off from the…
This is another of those sensationalist doomsday stories in the red top tabloids scaring people. The stories say that we are 100% certain to be hit by an asteroid. Well, yes, for small asteroids, but we are 100% certain to be hit by lightning too, many times a year. Your chance of dying of an asteroid impact is far less than that of dying of a lightning strike, 10,000 times less likely.
Yes it is close to 100% certain we are hit again by a small meteorite like the Chelyabinsk one over the next few centuries and close to 100% certain for larger asteroids over thousands or millions of years…