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So there I was, try all kinds of librarian ninja tricks on the fanciest, most expensive research databases money can buy (SciFinder, Reaxys, Inspec...) and no joy. Couldn't find what I needed. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I don't know all that much chemistry, but usually I do ok since I work…

Mark Pendergrast writes: It's time to wrap up this ScienceBlog Book Club on my book, Inside the Outbreaks. I want to thank Liz Borkowski, Steve Schoenbaum, and Karen Starko for their excellent, insightful commentaries, and thanks too to those who commented here. I assume that you can continue to…

And why we should care. Gary Price of the Resource Shelf pointed to a news story today, that Ebsco has acquired two more research databases: Criminal Justice Abstracts and Communications Abstracts. For those of you who haven't been following, Ebsco has recently acquired Ageline (it is now not…

Tonight we made our way to Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter to witness the New Orleans gathering of Worldwide Protest BP Day. The drizzling weather probably served to separate the men from the boys, as they say, and so good intentions and half-baked messages ran high (see photos from the…

After hosting blogs for four years, it's about time I started my own. So, welcome! Let me begin with a bit about me and what I believe. I believe that science has the unique potential to improve the state of the world. I think this potential is being hindered today by a lack of science literacy…

Mark Pendergrast writes: Instead of responding to last week's commentaries on this book club blog about my book, Inside the Outbreaks, I want to throw out a controversial idea that runs counter to what many public health commentators apparently believe. So I expect some disagreement here. (I…

I've gotten a few emails about the Pepsi-ScienceBlogs tempest. It's clearly taken a toll on ScienceBlogs' credibility. Some of my SciBlings have resigned in protest, and others are taking shots on the topic. Sponsorship is part of scientific publishing, even in the peer reviewed world. Remember how…

As I said  yesterday on Twitter, a big conflict of interest and transparency problem has arisen on ScienceBlogs. Like several other bloggers here, I'm now on a hiatus, however like like David Dobb's and Blake Stacy's, my hiatus from ScienceBlogs will be permanent. I've been contemplating a…

Karen Starko writes: Several basic questions related to Reye's syndrome (RS) have come to me from readers of Mark's book, Inside the Outbreaks. These show the importance of continued education on health issues. (For example, some physicians thought that fever was essential to getting RS). Again,…

Liz Borkowski writes: I wrote last week about how federal agencies can solve the problems that create conditions for disease outbreaks - or fail to solve them, as is too often the case. This week, I wanted to focus on the role Congress plays in public health agencies' effectiveness, because that's…

I tend to want to make posts on Creative Commons related topics at the CC blog, but this is essentially a personal post, and I also want to have it as widely read in our community as possible. Today is Kaitlin Thaney's last day at CC. She's been working for us on the Science Commons project for a…

Steve Schoenbaum writes: In his blog this week, Mark Pendergrast challenges someone/anyone to take on explaining the differences between case-control studies vs. cohort studies. As an EIS officer, back in late May/early June 1968, I did a case-control study as part of the investigation of a common…

I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting…

A press release landed in my inbox today with this headline, which raised my eyebrows (as it was obviously intended to do): "First Experiment to Attempt Prevention of Homosexuality in Womb."  It starts with this quote from Alice Dreger, a Northwestern University bioethicist: "This is the first…

I've been told that it's zombie day, so I thought I'd link to this research article by Gelman and Romero: The zombie menace has so far been studied only qualitatively or through the use of mathematical models without empirical content. We propose to use a new tool in survey research to allow…

Karen Starko writes: When the "financial crisis" started and the news media started throwing around numbers in the trillions and projected fixes in the billions, I realized I just didn't get it. So I got a little yellow post-it, labeled it "understanding trillions," and started a list of examples.…

Liz Borkowski writes: Mark Pendergrast wrote yesterday about how politics plays into the work of the EIS, and it's something that I kept noticing as I read Inside the Outbreaks. As he points out, my post last week highlighted the solution to the Reye's Syndrome puzzle - which was solved by Karen…

Mark Pendergrast writes: Thanks to commentators Liz Borkowski, Karen Starko, Steve Schoenbaum, and Mark Rosenberg for their thoughtful posts, though it appears that Mark Rosenberg's post got cut off after his first-paragraph query asking why anyone would go into the field of public health. I will…

by Nathalie A. Cabrol I realize how immodest the title of this first blog may sound and it is certainly not my intention to convince anybody that I will answer this question in the limited space allowed here or even in a lifetime. My hope is, instead, to stir thoughts and invite an exchange of…

[This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com] A recent paper published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (I have no idea what the B means, but maybe one of you can clarify with a comment) draws an enticing connection between whale excrement and climate change.Â…

If you can't make it to the Tishman Auditorium in New York tonight to catch the highly anticipated program The Limits of Understanding, we've got you covered. The event will be streaming live, but we'll also be there to cover it, so follow along with the commentary alongside the video stream, and…

At 8:00 pm EST tonight, tune in to the live stream of Black Holes and Holographic Worlds, which Greg Boustead and myself will also be covering live from NYU's Skirball Center. Moderator Alan Alda and physicists Raphael Bousso, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Andrew Hamilton and Kip Thorne will explore recent…

...is over here, where you can also see a live stream and comment thread. I'm in there via the Kimmel Center's liveblogging booth, but you can also follow me (or the #WSF10 tag) on Twitter. We're going live to Norway as we speak, so tune in! Update: Your 2010 Kavli Prize Winners: Astrophysics…

As part of the series of posts reflecting on the move of Science Commons to Creative Commons HQ, I'm writing today on Open Data. I was inspired to start the series with open data by the remarkable contribution, by GSK, to the public domain of more than 13,000 compounds known to be active against…

Anyone interested in Henrietta Lacks and the grave marker finally placed on her long unmarked grave this weekend should click here immediately for a beautiful post by scientist David Kroll, who attended the unveiling ceremony.  It's filled with beautiful photos of the day, and a tribute…

Today is a very exciting day:  Henrietta Lacks (aka HeLa) has been lying in an unmarked grave since her death in 1951. Today, thanks to Dr. Roland Pattillo at Morehouse School of Medicine, who donated a headstone after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her grave is finally marked…

So a week back or so, a number of friends read an article about death by rectal eel and immediately thought of me. For those of you who missed the story, it went a little something like this: * Chinese man gets drunk with friends and passes out * Friends think it would be hilarious to insert a…

You may have noticed things look a little different around here. We’ve gussied up for the 2010 iteration of our flagship festival, which officially went on sale last week. There are still a few bugs we’re ironing out on the site (please bear with us!) and a couple of exciting programs yet to be…

Things have been a bit quiet here as I finished up my crazy four-month-long book tour, and there's much to catch up on.  First, some big news just in: Oprah, Alan Ball, and HBO are going to be making a movie version of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  This news has gotten…

Welcome to the new home for The Thoughtful Animal! Welcome especially to new readers! To the old readers, I hope you'll enjoy the new place. Nothing big will change; but now I've got better technical support, a family of Sciblings (go check out their blogs!), a more powerful interface, and…