Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
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Posts by this author
May 31, 2009
Sunday morning, Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas, was murdered on his way into the church where he worships. Dr. Tiller was targeted because he was one of the few doctors in the U.S. who performed late-term abortions.
Late-term abortions make up a tiny fraction of the abortions performed in…
May 31, 2009
Another overcast, cool, and dry morning today.
The pickings were extremely slim. However, it also bears mentioning that the amount of visible gastropod damage to my plants -- especially my food crops -- is greatly reduced since I began my snail eradication campaign less then a month ago.
I'm going…
May 30, 2009
This morning was overcast, cool, and dry.
But, as it wasn't a school day, I was determined to get some gastropod action.
This wasn't easy, as the snails and slugs didn't seem to be in any of their reliable hang-outs. Not even a single slug on the watering can.
My strawberries have still been…
May 29, 2009
Since the school science fair is safely behind us, we can give you a peek at the projects the Free-Ride offspring presented. (We couldn't do this prior to the science fair without running the risk that the sprogs would be accused of lifting their projects from a blog post.)
Here's the elder Free-…
May 29, 2009
This morning was dry and cool and overcast, so the pickings were slim.
I went right to the places where gastropods have been found hiding on mornings like this and came up empty.
Actually, since I cleared some weeds (and some piles of previously whacked weeds and tall grass) yesterday, I figured…
May 28, 2009
There's an interesting piece in the Chicago Tribune on the "Oprah effect". The upshot is that products or people who Oprah deigns to grace with airtime tend to find enormous public acceptance.
While this is well and good if the product is a novel or the person is a television chef, it's less clear…
May 28, 2009
In a recent post, Candid Engineer raised some interesting questions about data and ethics:
When I was a graduate student, I studied the effects of many different chemicals on a particular cell type. I usually had anywhere from n=4 to n=9. I would look at the data set as a whole, and throw out the…
May 28, 2009
There's a new feature article by Liza Gross [1] up at PLoS Biology. Titled "A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars," the article does a nice job illuminating how the themes of trust and accountability play out in interactions between researchers, physicians, patients, parents,…
May 28, 2009
Another morning, another gastropod foray.
Conditions in the yard were a little odd this morning, owing to the fact that our wee patch of lawn was watered last night. This means that conditions were moist in the vicinity of the lawn but fairly dry otherwise.
Strangely, the lawn itself was not…
May 27, 2009
The happy news and the wistful news concern separate matters, though.
First, the happy news:
Science fair projects were completed well before dinnertime the day before they were due -- and this despite the fact that the Walgreen's photo-printing kiosk was not "while you shop" but "come back in an…
May 27, 2009
Actually, the awards will include other sorts of blogging, too, but it's the awards for science blogging that have a fast-approaching nomination deadline.
3 Quarks Daily Announces The Quarks: The First Award for Best Science Blogging Judged by Steven Pinker
Celebrating the best of blog-writing on…
May 27, 2009
This morning, like yesterday morning, was sunny and dewy, and just a little bit chilly.
Good snailing weather.
Actually, though, given recent gastropod ratios during my morning forays, it might be more accurate to call it slugging rather than snailing. Except that slugging already has a meaning.…
May 26, 2009
Following up on an excellent post she wrote earlier this month, Jessica Palmer at Bioephemera brings us an update on the lawsuit against Jared Diamond and The New Yorker. You may recall that this lawsuit alleges that a story written by Diamond and published in The New Yorker defamed its subject (…
May 26, 2009
You may recall my examination earlier this month of a paper by Johnson and Stricker published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. In my view, it was not a terribly well-argued or coherent example of a paper on medical ethics. Now, judging from an eLetter to the journal from Anne Gershon, the…
May 26, 2009
Finally, a morning that dawned clear, cool, and moist.
Tired of being holed up wherever it is they hole up during the dry weather, the gastropods came out to play.
They were not, as it turns out, waiting in the new gastropod shelters we put up Sunday. Instead, they seemed quite content frolicking…
May 25, 2009
This morning, once again, was dry and overcast, although not as cold as it has been.
Because I know this is low-yield gastropod-picking weather, I went right to the most likely locations: the bottom of the watering can and the new snail and slug shelters.
Nothing.
I thought about watering near the…
May 24, 2009
Science fair projects are due Tuesday morning. Can you guess what we're doing today?
The elder Free-Ride offspring tried to argue that preliminary experiments (growing crystals from solutions four different solids) had to be omitted from the project write-up. Why? Well, because the elder Free-…
May 24, 2009
Another slow morning for snail picking.
It was cold and dry, so most of the gastropods were probably hunkered down wherever it is they hunker down.
I'm hopeful, however, that after yesterday's significant weed-clearing operation there are fewer slug and snail safe-houses.
While I wasn't picking…
May 23, 2009
The Free-Ride family enjoyed a late breakfast (although you better believe that if either of the Free-Ride offspring claims to be hungry in the next two hours, I'm calling it an early lunch) at a local diner.
While there, the elder Free-Ride offspring struggled to eat an omelette off an unstable…
May 23, 2009
This morning I slept in. But once I woke up, I had to patrol for gastropods.
It was chilly, dry, and overcast. By now, you know what that means: hardly any snails or slugs in evidence. While I was hunting for them, I did some weeding. (After all, the weeds give them shelter without actually…
May 22, 2009
You're coming to the close of your sabbatical year. Probably you didn't make quite as much progress on your research or writing project as you had hoped to, but you have enjoyed a much-needed break from the demands of teaching (and especially grading) and committee work. Whenever they see you,…
May 22, 2009
Bruce Weinstein ("The Ethics Guy" at BusinessWeek.com) offers advice on how to be ethical to the business school class of 2009.
His five nuggets of advice seem like good ones for anyone who is interested in being ethical. Two in particular jumped out at me:
1. LISTEN TO THE WHISPERS.
Frances…
May 22, 2009
This morning was relatively warm and fairly dry.
If you've been following the details of my campaign to control the back yard gastropod population, you know what that means:
Hardly any gastropods were out to be picked.
On the plus side, this means I was able to get another day out of the SBMD I…
May 22, 2009
The Free-Ride offspring have been using the silkworms as a springboard for discussions of math as well as biology.
We started with 16 silkworms hatched from eggs that came home last June. They were joined, a couple weeks after they hatched, by another 15 silkworms brought home from the science…
May 22, 2009
You may recall our dispatch last weekend when the largest of the Free-Ride silkworms indicated their readiness to pupate.
They didn't figure it out right away.
Being ready to pupate doesn't mean an instant cocoon:
Actually, it took us a little while to figure out that the tall cylindrical plastic…
May 21, 2009
You may have heard that the Obama administration has proposed new rules for federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. (The proposed rules are available in draft form through the end of the public comment period; the NIH expects to finalize the rules in July).
While researchers are…
May 21, 2009
Another cool, dewy morning today as I went out to pick gastropods. The wet grass brushing against my bare legs got at least some of that moisture from the slugs stretched along the blades.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to remember to put on jeans before I go out snailing.
There was still room in the…
May 20, 2009
At White Coat Underground, PalMD explores the question of what kind of responsibilities might fall on celebrities, especially those who use their soapboxes in a way that exceeds the tether of their expertise. The particular celebrities under examination are Jenny McCarthy, who has used her…
May 20, 2009
It didn't end up raining yesterday (so I didn't get a chance to test my dedication to snailing by snailing in the rain). Today dawned cold and dewy.
Which meant I knew I was going to get some gastropod action.
And indeed, I did. There were slugs aplenty on the moist leaves and blades of grass.…
May 19, 2009
There's an interesting article in the Telegraph by Eugenie Samuel Reich looking back at the curious case of Jan Hendrik Schön. In the late '90s and early '00s, the Bell Labs physicist was producing a string of impressive discoveries -- most of which, it turns out, were fabrications. Reich (who…