terrasig | April 9, 2009
A recent business sojourn to Key West, FL, gave your intrepid blogger (who still has yet to set up his own CafePress swag shop) an opportunity to revisit a story we first discussed in February of an acupuncturist being arrested on three felony charges for obtaining controlled substances by forgery. Commenter ebohlman noted at the time the address of the acupuncturist's practice:
Duck Avenue? Is that where all the quacks have their practices?
While I expressed some sympathy for the practitioner if she were addicted to narcotics, I also feared that she might have used some of the drugs to…
terrasig | April 9, 2009My deepest gratitude goes out this morning to Bora Zivkovic, Mrs. Coturnix, and family for hosting what was for my daughter and I our first Seder supper. The evening was made even more special with Sheril Kirshenbaum, her BF and his labmate, Lisa (I'm sorry I don't know your full name but I do remember you got your recipe for the spicy matzah dish from The Southern Jewish Cookbook), Anton Zuiker and his wife, and all our kids - celebrating as Bora said, in "a very secular/humanist/feminist/environmentalist way, focusing on good company, good food and good wine." Speaking of the latter, I…
terrasig | April 7, 2009Great timelapse video of the crowd converging on Franklin St at Columbia just below the Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery and the evolution of the bonfires that I still just do not understand.
But the best part of yesterday's game for me was reading Ed Brayton's recollections of his connections to the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Michigan State national champions:
So watching them win the national championship was a huge deal to me. I still remember every name, not just Magic and Greg Kelser and the stars but all the role players too - Terry Donnelly, Mike Brkovich and his brother Don,…
terrasig | April 6, 2009I was very late to the game on a DrugMonkey post last week examining the demographics of Early Career Award winners from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Drug noted that only 9 of the 50 awardees are women:
So who got lucky? See the slideshow here.
huh. anything strike you? no? lemme get a pencil here....hmmm.
2 African-American looking guys, another maybe. Six Asian guys. Maybe another four or five men who look other than standard model white guy. Nine women.
Really? That's the best you could do? Seriously? You couldn't even that gender ratio up even a little bit better than…
terrasig | April 5, 2009
As of late, I've not been particularly good at responding to those of you who've been so nice to comment on the blog. So, I spent a little bit of this morning going through your comments and looking at your blogs and websites, especially those of you with whom I was not previously familiar.
Among these was commenter Keith, co-founder and editor of an online zine called Today's Drum. Keith was kind enough to write a couple of notes on both our Diversity in Science carnival submission on NIGMS's Dr Geraldine Pittman Woods and the 65th anniversary of the first interracial college basketball…
terrasig | April 3, 2009
Arikia Millikan, then-Intern at ScienceBlogs.com (now gainfully employed Ex-Intern), demonstrates her facility in liveblogging the comparison between two pinot noirs.
So why has it taken me exactly 11 weeks to write this post? I think it's because once we post it, I have to let go of how awesome this event was. But, this post has been sitting in my queue for way too long. So, now, I must finally tell all regular readers about our proposed live winetasting on 16 January at ScienceOnline'09.
As you may know, about 240 science bloggers and associated miscreants gathered in Research Triangle…
terrasig | March 31, 2009A little over a week ago, we posted on the very sad story of the accidental death of a University of Colorado sophomore from ingesting poppy seed tea. The poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the commercial source for prescription narcotic painkillers such as morphine and codeine. The seeds can be had online and in retail stores. The plants can often be grown if these seeds are not roasted or otherwise sterilized.
I had originally suspected that the CU-Boulder student had not used poppy seed tea but rather some other decoction of the plant itself. I had always contended that the seeds did not…
terrasig | March 28, 2009
Dr John Hope Franklin was a 1935 A.B. graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, TN, then earned his M.A. (1936) and Ph.D. (1939) from Harvard University. [For reference, W.E.B. DuBois also graduated from Fisk (1888) and was the first Black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard (1895).] Franklin's doctoral dissertation, The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860, planted the seed for his classic 1947 work, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (subtitle later changed to "A History of African-Americans"). This book, now in its eighth edition, was written originally during his four-…
terrasig | March 27, 2009Just a quick note of congratulations to friends of Terra Sig (FOTS, if you will) on earning 2008 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism from the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ).
Online
FIRST: M.B. Pell, Jim Morris and Jillian Olsen, Center for Public Integrity, "Perils of the New Pesticides"
SECOND (tie): Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, The "Well" blog
SECOND (tie): Scott Hensley, Jacob Goldstein and Sarah Rubenstein, The Wall Street Journal Online, The Wall Street Journal Health Blog
THIRD: Randy Dotinga, Voice of San Diego, "Suicide Magnet" [Part I, Part II]
You…
terrasig | March 26, 2009
Dr Geraldine P Woods (1921-1999) was inarguably the most influential scientist in establishing and promoting NIH's programs in research and research training for underrepresented groups. Therefore, I have chosen her story for my entry to this month's Diversity in Science blog carnival recognizing Women's History Month.
My interest in Dr Woods was inspired by a recent post by my friend and colleague, acmegirl, who writes the blog, Thesis - With Children. In her post recognizing the work of Duke University behavioral biologist, Dr Erich Jarvis, acmegirl noted that both she and Dr Jarvis are…
terrasig | March 25, 2009My colleague, DrugMonkey, recently wrote an absolutely fantastic post on bigotry in sports and the pioneers other than Jackie Robinson in breaking the so-called color barrier. I had actually forgotten that in the 1970s, Warren Moon spent much of his career in the Canadian Football League because NFL teams wanted him to convert to some other position, you know, because Black players couldn't be quarterbacks. The post is much deeper than that and I encourage you strongly to read it.
But Brother Drug triggered my longstanding intention to write about a related topic; between his post and the…
terrasig | March 23, 2009
As I have stated many times before, this blog has brought me some personal experiences and friendships I would have never had in my life as "just" a lab scientist and pharmacology professor.
Among the most cordial relationships I have had online with a professional journalist has been with Scott Hensley of the Wall Street Journal. Mr Hensley is a top-notch print reporter on health issues who two years ago became founding editor of the Journal's foray into HealthWeb 2.0, the WSJ Health Blog. Today, he has announced formally that he is leaving the blog and the Journal.
I have long admired…
terrasig | March 22, 2009I had the happy pleasure of visiting on Friday with Sheril Kirshenbaum and Bora Zivkovic for a panel discussion in a course at Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.
Directed by Dr Misha Angrist, PubPol 196S "Science in the Media" is described in the course catalog as follows:
Those who write about science, health and related policy matters for a general audience face a formidable challenge: to make complex, nuanced ideas understandable to the nonscientist in a limited amount of space and in ways that are engaging and entertaining, even if the topic is far outside the…
terrasig | March 21, 2009Kudos to The Washington Post for publishing an op-ed by author, journalist, blogger, Chris Mooney, on the George Will WaPo global warming fiasco. Author of "The Republican War on Science," "Storm World," and co-author with Sheril Kirshenbaum of the forthcoming "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future."
This is Mooney at his best - first and last paragraph:
A recent controversy over claims about climate science by Post op-ed columnist George F. Will raises a critical question: Can we ever know, on any contentious or politicized topic, how to recognize the real…
terrasig | March 21, 2009After writing this post, I came across Alex's obituary and guestbook on Legacy.com. By all accounts, Alex was a great kid - loved and admired by many - an accomplished hockey player and musician with a love for the mountains. This could have been you or I, or worse, one of our own children.
Breaking my heart this morning is news from Boulder that last month's death of 20-year-old CU student, Alexander McGuiggan, was from consumption of "opium tea."
Police department spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said investigators believe McGuiggan and others had acquired poppy plants -- which are available…
terrasig | March 18, 2009I just had a chance to check in on a triad of posts by Prof Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science (1, 2, 3) on the ethical issues of the conduct of studies, particularly clinical trials, supported by the US NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
For background, NCCAM was originally established for political, not scientific reasons, as the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine in October 1991. It received a token budget of $2 million at the time. They still only get $120-ish million; modest by NIH standards as compared, say, with the 2007 NCI…
Fullsteam Brewery founder and local-ag guru, Sean Wilson, to appear on WUNC-FM's The State of Things
terrasig | March 18, 2009The local food movement is not local here in the sprawling US. Hence why am posting this note here.
North Carolina beer saint and local-ag brewer, Sean Lily Wilson, will be on the radio in about an hour. We featured Sean back in January when the state's flagship newspaper named him Tar Heel of the Week for his efforts to modify our draconian beer laws to allow high-gravity beers, especially many of our European favorites, to be sold statewide.
Sean's a good man, a great dad, and epitomizes community on so many levels. If you're not local, you can listen to him together with two other…
terrasig | March 15, 2009I am truly humbled by reader response to my Thursday post on the 12th anniversary of my father's death. What began as a simple journaling exercise interspersed with some great photos provided by my sister has become one of my most highly-read and most-commented posts.
I don't want to comment too much lest I take away what this post has meant to me and others. But for background, this is something that I had intended to write for the 10th anniversary of Dad's passing. However, I had only been with ScienceBlogs for a few months and wasn't yet in a position to write so frankly and personally…
terrasig | March 14, 2009Blogfather, editor, and science journalist extraordinaire, Anton Zuiker, is selling his house.
Tomorrow, they are hosting an open house:
Help me sell my house - invite your NC friends to stop by our open house Sun, 3/15 at 2pm. http://bit.ly/Q8UoZ
Although nestled in tall pines, the home is exceptionally bright and comfortable, and the hardwood floors are absolutely to die for. A perfect location with interstate access, tons of shopping, a great low-traffic neighborhood, all while being in a quite, relaxed setting.
Anton and his wife, Erin, have opened their lovely place to us shifty science…