purepedantry
Posts by this author
October 3, 2006
So there is this plant called dodder that parasitizes other plants, but until recently it was not known how it found the other plants. Recent research suggests that it does so by a form of smell.
Dodder is in fact a plant, but when it generates seedlings they will actually wave around towards…
October 2, 2006
No more excuses, men:
"Comparing sexual arousal between men and women, we see that there is no difference in the amount of time it takes healthy young men and women to reach peak arousal," said Dr. Irv Binik, psychology professor and founder and director of the Sex and Couple Therapy Service of…
October 2, 2006
I was just thinking about something. The Nobel Committee is usually mysterious in how they pick the winners, but why did Greg Hannon not win the Nobel with the others? My understanding was that he was sort of the guy for RNA interference. In fact, the review that I cited in my last post came…
October 2, 2006
Andrew Fire and Craig Mello have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of RNA interference:
Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a new avenue for…
October 1, 2006
The Synapse #8 has been capably posted at Mind Hacks. Thanks guys. Haven't figured out where the next Synapse will be. If you would like to host email me. I will let you know when I know.
September 29, 2006
Oh my God, best article ever:
Having sex in the weightlessness of outer space is the stuff of urban legends and romantic fantasy -- but experts say that there would be definite downsides as well.
Spacesickness, for instance. And the difficulty of choreographing intimacy. And the potential for sweat…
September 29, 2006
As the Nobel Prize announcements are due to come out soon, it would be good if you knew your Nobel history. Lawrence Altman for the NYTimes has an excellent article on it. Money quote:
Yet in a little known story, the Nobel Prizes, the first of which will be announced on Monday, almost never came…
September 29, 2006
The Synapse #8 is being hosted at Mind Hacks on Sunday. Make sure to get your submissions in before Saturday night so that they have time to read them. Details here.
September 28, 2006
I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and I mentioned the phrase All Your Base Are Belong to Us (AYBABTU) and just got a really blank stare. This is a shame because not only is it a funny line, but it is an absolutely critical part of recent geek history. So I thought I would…
September 28, 2006
I love YouTube -- so many ways to waste time at work.
Check out this video of a popped balloon in zero gravity.
September 27, 2006
Lee Smolin -- author of The Trouble with Physics -- was interviewed on the Leonard Lopate Show (on WNYC) talking about string theory and why he thinks we shouldn't change scientific standards because of experimental difficulties. A really interesting interview. You can listen here (it is a…
September 27, 2006
Have you ever seen a cyst fly?
A team of French doctors planned to slice a cyst off a man's arm Wednesday in the world's first zero-gravity surgery, operating aboard an airplane soaring and diving in and out of weightlessness.
The experiment is part of a broader effort to develop robots for…
September 26, 2006
So I am sititng in a movie theater the other day, and some teenagers sitting behind me are talking. Of course, they are talking. They are ALWAYS talking behind me. And what particularly irks me is that it is a Tuesday night during the school year, and I only come to movies at 10 pm on Tuesday…
September 26, 2006
Reason #1 why children are not cute:
A three-year-old boy has used his mother's computer to buy a £9,000 car on an internet auction site.
Jack Neal's parents only discovered their son's successful bid when they received a message from eBay about the Barbie pink Nissan Figaro.
Rachael Neal, 36,…
September 26, 2006
Scientists in FL are trying to make a prosthetic tail for a dolphin, Winter, who lost hers after getting tangled in a fishing line:
Winter learned how to swim without her tail, amazing her handlers with a combination of moves that resemble an alligator's undulations and a shark's side-to-side tail…
September 25, 2006
This Panda is not yet cute. It is in many ways precute. (It sort of looks like a fuzzy potato.)
In all its not-yet-cuteness, this baby Panda was born in the Atlanta Zoo to the proud Lun Lun. We can be confident that if biology takes its course, someday it will be cute -- allowing for swooning…
September 25, 2006
Encephalon #7 is up at OmniBrain. Remember to submit to the Synapse this weekend to be hosted at Mind Hacks.
September 25, 2006
James Gorman, writing in the NYTimes, laments the relative dearth of molecular biology colloquialisms:
Geology and ophthalmology may provide most of our overused metaphors (maybe that's what geopolitics is), but other sciences do their part. Anatomy has contributed the jaws of defeat, into which…
September 22, 2006
The trial for 6 medics in Tripoli who are being tried for infecting children with AIDS (and from what can be gathered were falsely accused) has been postoned til the end of October:
The retrial of six foreign medics facing a possible death penalty on charges they infected hundreds of Libyan…
September 22, 2006
Walmart is cutting prices on generic drugs in Florida as a test program:
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said on Thursday it would cut the prices of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting in the retirement haven of Tampa, Florida.
Target Inc., which has…
September 21, 2006
Hells yeah:
Modern, Cool Nerd
86 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 30% Dork
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.
Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to…
September 20, 2006
This is absolutely unacceptable. 6 medical workers are on trial in Libya under the accusation of infecting children with HIV, and if convicted they could be executed. While expert testimony and scientific evidence was presented at the trial, this evidence was thrown out from a combination of…
September 20, 2006
Check out this story ala Shelley about a drunk man who bit a panda. "Hey, pandas are not for biting buddy."
September 20, 2006
I was kind of wondering when they would start something like this. For the uninitiated a Wiki is an online text that anyone can edit. It has links within it to other articles forming a web on constantly changing information -- sort of like an encyclopedia only better. The most famous Wiki is…
September 19, 2006
I have talked repeatedly here about how I don't think that genetics provide an adequate explanation of the gender disparity in science. I haven't mentioned that this gender disparity does not overly disturb me, primarily because I think that some time in the next 10 years this is going to get…
September 19, 2006
I feel really bad for this guy:
Surgeons in China who said they performed the first successful penis transplant had to remove the donated organ because of the severe psychological problems it caused to the recipient and his wife.
Dr Weilie Hu and surgeons at Guangzhou General Hospital in China…
September 19, 2006
Hi everyone. Sorry for the lull in blogging. I was moving into the quintessential New York apartment. I now have a room only slightly larger than my mattress and back problems from trying to lug a couch up a three story walkup. Never again.
Anyway, over the weekend GNIF Brain Blogger published…
September 14, 2006
I talked before about how I think the Internet represents the possibility for Alternaworlds -- worlds facilitated by social interaction on the Internet with their own rules and standards.
Well, this World of Warcraft business may be rapidly careening out of control, but it is beginning to fulfill…
September 14, 2006
Wired Magazine describes the Ultimate Blog Post from a variety of popular sites:
"Blog" itself is short for "weblog," which is short for "we blog because we weren't very popular in high school and we're trying to gain respect and admiration without actually having to be around people."
Creating…
September 12, 2006
Roger Pielke at Prometheus has some back of the envelope calcuations suggesting that the prospects for climate stabilization are rather bleak. His conclusions:
1. Serious thought and research needs to be given to the prospect of stabilization levels much higher that currently being discussed. What…