Academics
pharyngula | October 25, 2007Homer Jacobson wrote a paper 52 years ago in which he speculated about the chemical conditions underlying the origin of life. After discovering that the paper is frequently cited by creationists, and after reviewing the work and finding multiple errors, he has retracted the paper. Good for him. It won't matter to the creationists, though; this paper will continue to get cited and mangled and misused.
The writeup makes an excellent point.
It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all…
pharyngula | October 23, 2007Florida Ciizens for Science reports that their brand new state science standards are available for comment. That means you can click over there and make suggestions, even if you aren't a Florida educator (they do ask for your connection, so don't worry that the creationist mob can just descend on this poor document and taint it). Make good, productive, constructive suggestions, and help the kids of Florida.
I haven't gone through it carefully yet, but my general impression is that the evolution standards are broad, but good; on the other hand, the organismal biology standards read like a med…
pharyngula | October 19, 2007I was just turned on to this recent issue of the McGill Journal of Education which has the theme of teaching evolution. It's a must-read for science educators, with articles by UM's own Randy Moore, Robert Pennock, Branch of the NCSE, and Eugenie Scott, and it's all good. I have to call particular attention the article by Massimo Pigliucci, "The evolution-creation wars: why teaching more science just is not enough", mainly because, as I was reading it, I was finding it a little freaky, like he's been reading my mind, or maybe I've been subconsciously catching Pigliucci's psychic emanations.…
lua yar | October 19, 2007So one of the questions on our Neurobiology test due today was to see if there were any heritable diseases in humans that are caused by defects in ion channel genes. I discovered that mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene have been linked to Cystic Fibrosis (CF).
CF is a genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of its victims. The defective CFTR gene produces a thick, sticky mucus that provides an environment for life-threatening pathogens to establish an infection, and can clog the lungs. This unusually thick mucus also interferes…
pharyngula | October 18, 2007
I am pleased to announce that the Richard Dawkins Foundation has contributed over $2000 to the freethinkers challenge to support science education in American public schools. That brings us close to meeting our goal of $20,000, so we just need a few more of you to sign on.
If you take a look at the leaderboard, you'll notice that one of the columns lists the dollars donated, but the next column lists the number of donors. We're again leading the pack, with 152, but I'd really like to be able to say that 200 pharyngula readers were willing to give a few bucks to teachers. 300 would be even…
pharyngula | October 17, 2007Hey, the freethinkers are doing well with the DonorsChoose challenge to support school teachers. We're still a bit shy of our final goal, so if you want to help show that we godless folk can be charitable, loosen those wallets and kick in a few bucks.
And if you don't like my chosen proposals, or you'd rather not back an openly and proudly god-free endorsement, browse the leaderboard and pick one of those other sciencebloggers'choices. They're all good. Maybe not as good as mine, but they're trying.
pharyngula | October 16, 2007UMM recently hosted the University of Minnesota board of regents, and we got a look at the status of the whole U of M system. It's not a happy story. We have an administration with ambitious goals (that's good), but they seem to be a bit divorced from reality — they want to turn us into one of the top three public research universities in the world. That sounds like a great 50 year plan, but I'd rather see an ambitious and feasible 5-year goal, myself.
One of my colleagues at the Twin Cities branch campus has analyzed some of the statistics. The most telling one to me is that, despite our…
bright_lights | October 13, 2007We are about to finish Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer in class this week and I've been reflecting on how, despite science's deep impact on how we think and act, we still have subconscious belief in superficial myths that slip out despite our common knowledge of biology and the world around us. For instance, Zimmer illustrates the battle that people like Thomas Willis went through in trying to draw attention to the superiority of the brain over the heart in its control over all our emotional and reasoning faculties. After dissecting thousands of brains, comparing and contrasting the anatomies…
pharyngula | October 13, 2007Last night, I attended talks by Katha Pollitt and Julia Sweeney here at the Freedom from Religion Convention, and I learned that the godless are a happy, humorous, good-natured group — even if I weren't philosophically inclined this way myself, I'd want to be a member of this community.
Then this morning, I checked in on my DonorsChoose challenge and discover that you're all generous and charitable, and that you care about kids and education. I'm having a grinch moment right here…my heart is growing a few sizes larger, and I'm pretty sure it's not a symptom of congestive heart failure. We met…
lua yar | October 12, 2007While I was reading the assigned chapters of the book Soul Made Flesh (Zimmer, 2004) for class this past week, I came upon the story of the physician Thomas Sydenham. He was particularly good at making careful bedside observations while he was treating patients. In fact, he made the observation that diseases acted the same in everyone, and they were not unique to an individual. He made careful notes on disease symptoms, and even suggested that perhaps diseases should be treated as if they are individual species.
Sydenham's work turned out to be controversial, because when prescribing a…
pharyngula | October 12, 2007
Now you must donate to my DonorsChoose challenge. For the honor of the godless.
One of those pathetic appeasers has made this an issue of the charity of atheists, has accused us of being "cheap bastards", and claims that his weak-kneed, wobbly camp of wooly-headed apologists for delusion are more generous than we are, and more interested in promoting science education. We know he's wrong, of course, but hey, when they let theologians use them for a doormat, it's understandable that they might be burdened with lots of foolish ideas.
I gave them a 10 day head start. Now this means we have to…
pharyngula | October 11, 2007
I must be the last one to hop on this bandwagon — only because I had to give everyone else a chance first, you know, I wouldn't want to drain all the donors* — but now it's about time I joined in. Scienceblogs is working to raise money for teachers, and we need you all to chip in and donate to DonorsChoose. Go ahead and donate to any of the projects on the Scienceblogs leaderboard, or you can donate to thespecific projects in the Pharyngula challenge. It's all a good deal, because Seed will match funds, up to $15000.
So come on, dig into your pockets, and hand over a little cash to the…
pharyngula | October 9, 2007My students are getting their first take-home exam in neurobiology tomorrow, and I'm using this entry to give them a convenient link to a paper they're expected to analyze. The rest of you people can just ignore this.
1. We've discussed the ionic basis of the action potential and had an overview of channel properties. I'd like you to read the following paper from a recent issue of Nature, which neatly combines several subjects we've discussed:
Binshtok AM, Bean BP, Woolf CJ (2007) Inhibition of nociceptors by TRPV1-mediated entry of impermeant sodium channel blockers. Nature 449, 607-610.…
pharyngula | October 9, 2007This is an excellent brief overview of the crucial problems in American education by Ed Lazowska, a computer scientist and engineer at the University of Washington who also served on an advisory committee under GW Bush. From his first hand view, he does not seem kindly disposed towards Republican policies in science.
Presidential scientific advisory committees have been politicized. I have seen this firsthand. The general denigration of science emanating from the White House, and the near completee failure of the President's Science Advisor, Jack Marburger, to speak out, is poisonous. Right…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle is up for scholarship for bloggers, and she needs your vote. You must vote for Shelley. She once gave me a special cookie in her bed. None of the others have ever given me or you a cookie of any kind, and we aren't going to get anywhere near their beds, so the choice is clear.
Vote Shelley Batts. The one with the cookies. And the parrot. And the nice blog about neuroscience.
pharyngula | October 6, 2007Jonah unkindly mentions that California will spend three times as much operating its prisons than running the UC system. Doesn't that reassure you so much about America's priorities?
bright_lights | October 6, 2007Hello again! It's been a little while since my last post and I need to post for this week or I'll be docked points from Dr. Myers. I've been a little bit behind on things as I've been preparing for my upcoming senior seminar, but I did have time to check out at least one cool article I found on different energy systems used while running.
I had a race today and I noticed that every time I do an 8k (5 miles), about three miles in I hit a wall of fatigue. I get dizzy, it's hard to focus on the guy in front of me, driving my knee up feels next to impossible, and the only thing I care about is…
pharyngula | October 5, 2007Josh talks about the difference between teaching about ID and teaching ID. There is a huge difference that the Discovery Institute does not seem to understand.
I am opposed to teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom. It's an absurd idea that is unsupported by any evidence — it has not earned a place in the curriculum as a legitimate scientific hypothesis. The propaganda novels that the DI has tried to peddle in the past, Of Pandas and People and their new one, Explore Evolution, do not belong in the classroom. They are badly written, and incompetently push completely false ideas as valid…
lua yar | October 5, 2007Adult neurogenesis
The creation of new neurons, known as neurogenesis, is an important process. It is by this process that the brain forms, and most of it occurs during pre-natal development. An early theory proposed by neuroanatomists that has recently been refuted by experimental evidence is that adult neurogenesis does not occur. In adult neurogenesis, it has been observed that most of the new neurons die shortly after their formation, while only a few become integrated into the functioning structure of the brain. So what is the significance of adult neurogenesis?
While the functioning of…
pharyngula | October 5, 2007Are you trained in vertebrate systematics or natural history? Would you like to work at a liberal arts college with undergraduates? We have the perfect opportunity for you.
Tenure-Track Position in Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris
The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education, to fill a tenure-track position in vertebrate biology beginning August 18, 2008. Responsibilities include: teaching a two-year rotation of undergraduate biology courses including upper level electives in vertebrate systematics or natural history and…