kbonham

A little over 4 years ago, I joined up with three friends from grad school and launched a brand new science blog, "We, Beasties!" The name was meant to be a play on a phrase from Paul de Kruif's somewhat tongue-in-cheak translation of the first-ever microbiologist Antonie von Leeuwenhoek's term "…

Can you be skeptical about GM but believe in climate change? So asks Alice Bell in The Guardian. The answer is of course, "Yes," but you can also be a fundamentalist Christian while believing in evolution and being a great scientist, so being able to hold two things in your brain at the same time…

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk for Tonight, I'm presenting at the Science In The News (SITN) Spring lecture series. If you're in the vicinity of Boston, you can come watch at 7pm in Pfizer Auditorium, located in the Mallinckrodt Chemistry Lab, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138. If you can…

On Thursday, I had a post published on Scientific American's guest Blog about claims that genetically modified food crops could contain allergens. In it, I am critical of the Union of Concerned Scientists (a science advocacy and policy organization), for what I read as misplaced opposition to…

Two weeks ago, the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think-tank) released a position paper based largely on the academic research of one Jason Richwine. The conclusion (roughly paraphrased): Hispanic people have lower IQ's than white people, so an overly permissive immigration policy will drag…

Every time I see an ad for some remedy that "Helps BOOST the Immune System!"  I die a little inside. It's not just that these products are often homeopathic bull*, but (as I've mentioned before), boosting the immune system can actually be a terrible idea. The immune system is a finely tuned…

Ok, this is a little different, but it's annoying, so I'm going to talk about it. Let me begin by saying I love the Union of Concerned Scientists. They've been wonderful advocates on climate change for decades; they are media savvy, they train scientists to be media savvy, and they push the media…

Not going to report, since the facts will probably change before I hit publish, but these links should remain useful: Google people finder - for folks that can't get in touch with friends/relatives Boston Globe-run form for people looking for or offering places in the city Lots of folks offering…

Ever wondered if we could identify someone by their breath? How fast you can propel a rocket using fusion power? If you can shoot at a plane with lasers and cause the pilot to burst into flame? Watch AskScience Live! Despite some technical hurdles with the G+ event, I'd say it went well last night…

I'm trying something new. For several years now, I've been contributing to an online community called r/askscience. It's a place where curious people can ask questions, and have them answered - often with great, yet understandable detail - by expert scientists that have a passion for explaining…

Science - There's a new flu strain running around in China. As is often the case, Maryn McKenna over at Wired has the most important piece to read. - Allie Wilkinson's piece in Ars Technica about a climate change's irreversibility, but not inevitability... it's a weird distinction, but it makes…

My blogging has been slacking, but I'm still reading a bunch that I just don't have time to comment on. So I'm going to experiment with a link dump at the end of the week. This first one features a couple week's worth of posts - feel free to start a discussion in the comments Science - Keith Kloor…

For this week's OAS Wednesday, I thought I'd try to highlight some research that's in my field. As a result, I will likely be more prone than usual to lapsing into jargon and assuming knowledge that I shouldn't (or maybe I'll over-correct and get too simplified). Please let me know if anything…

[This is my latest review for Download the Universe] Honor Thy Symbionts, by Jeff Leach. Kindle In 2003, the Human Genome Project--an effort to sequence every gene in a human being--was completed. The success, announced to great fanfare, was supposed to herald a new era in health care.…

One of the things that bugs me most in pop-sci and woo-woo science is the obsession with "boosting" the immune system. The immune system is in a constant balancing act - tip it too far one way and even normally harmless bacteria become life-threatening. But tilt it too far in the other direction,…

[This past fall, I taught a course at Emerson College called "Plagues and Pandemics." I'll be periodically posting the contents of my lectures and my experiences as a first-time college instructor] One of the biggest challenges in organizing this class was figuring out how to incorporate readings…

I spend a lot of time thinking about the scientific method. I don't mean that thing you learned in high school, where you make an observation, form a hypothesis, design an experiment etc etc. That's certainly part of the scientific method, but the linear formula that freshmen are typically forced…

A "potentially historic" blizzard is barreling down on us here in New England, and is poised to drop up to two feet of snow on Boston. All of the schools in the area preemptively closed, our public transit system is shutting down at 3:30pm, and trying to buy groceries last night was bedlam. The…

It occurred to me after I posted my piece last week about rock climbing and arthritis that all of the photos of climbing were of men. This was purely coincidence - I was editing photos of last week's competition in reverse chronological order, and I'd only finished the photos of the Men's finals by…

In any physical activity, there is always the risk of acute injury - cuts, scrapes, bruises, and even broken bones are often par for the course. For some extreme sports like rock climbing, where you voluntarily drag your body hundreds of feet into the air on the side of a sheer rock wall, athletes…

[This question was originally asked on www.reddit.com/r/askscience on Jan 17, 2013] Why do microorganisms only begin breaking down our tissues after death? What stops them from doing so whilst we are still alive? The main reason is that our body maintains a multitude of barriers that largely…

There are a lot of reasons that posts to this blog sometimes don't happen for months at a time, but one of them is that I can often get sucked down the rabbit hole that is Reddit. If you don't know about reddit yet, you may not want to click that link, but if you do know (and you're reading this…

[This past fall, I taught a course at Emerson College called "Plagues and Pandemics." I'll be periodically posting the contents of my lectures and my experiences as a first time college instructor] In my first lecture, I used Powerpoint (well, technically Keynote), but I personally like chalk-talks…

[This past fall, I taught a course at Emerson College called "Plagues and Pandemics." I'll be periodically posting the contents of my lectures and my experiences as a first time college instructor] Most of this post was written back in September, when it still seemed possible that I would be able…

I disappeared for a while to teach a class. At the outset I had grand plans - Not only would I design the course from scratch, give the lectures, and grade the assignments, I would also write up all of the lectures for the blog and maintain my same level pf productivity in the lab. Unfortunately,…

[This fall, I'm teaching a course at Emerson College called "Plagues and Pandemics." I'll be periodically posting the contents of my lectures and my experiences as a first time college instructor] Lecture 1 That was a scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail, demonstrating the lighter side of the…

For the past 3 years, I've had the opportunity to spend a week in a house on a beautiful lake in Vermont. Usually, this week is a chance to completely unplug. I take some photos, buy a bunch of books from Northshire and read them, and lounge around. On this past trip however, I received and e-mail…

A mini furor erupted this weekend, when republican Senate nominee Todd Akin defended his position of denying abortions even to victims of rape, because in the case of "legitimate rape," women have biological defenses that prevent pregnancy: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors […

While going back through blog archives and reviewing incoming links, I stumbled on this post from about a year ago from Zen Faulkes at Neuro Dojo: There are many reasons to argue for open access of scientific research. But this is not the best one: It’s your taxes that fund the research, you should…

In case you missed it, over the past couple of days there have been reports of an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic  fever virus in Uganda. As of this writing, the most recent report I've seen puts the death toll at 16, with a few other suspected cases. Ebola is terrifying for a number of reasons - it'…