Weve all heard of that stupid book/diet that tries to tell you what to eat based on your blood type. Of course thats stupid and just a gimmic to get you to buy hundreds of dollars of crap 'supplements' for your blood-type (oh for Petes sake...).

I totally didnt know this before I read this neat Nature review, but there are actually viruses out there that can use the histo-blood group antigens (A, B, O) as their receptors!

Noroviruses!

Apparently, Type O are the most susceptible to some kinds of norovirus infection, and Type B are the least.

Now, this might be something other kids learned in high school or something, but I dont know jack about blood groups. *shrug* So I was like "WTF! If norovirus uses blood-group antigens as a receptor, how can Type O (lacks A and B) be more susceptible??"

Like I said, this was totally news to me: 'Type O' doesnt mean your red blood cells are 'naked', it just means that there is a standard sugar, 'O'. Some people have an enzyme that makes the standard 'O' a little different with an 'A' modification. Some people have an enzyme that makes a 'B' modification. Some people have both. But if you dont have either, you keep the standard sugar, 'O'. It doesnt mean you lack the sugar entirely.

This makes perfect sense, in retrospect, but its not something I have thought about before!

So, noroviruses like the 'basic' antigens for receptors, not so much the modified ones.

Got it!

But then I was all like "WTF! How can your blood type (glycans on red blood cells) have an impact on a virus that infects your gut??"
News to me: Some people express these antigens on the epithelial cells in their mouths/GI tract. Theyre called 'secretors'.

So even if you are Type O (more susceptible), if you are a non-secretor, you are actually less susceptible!

And this is just super good news for those of you today who are Type B non-secretor. You dont get as many opportunities to poop your guts out as the rest of us. LOL! I dunno how/where/if you can be tested to see if youre a secretor or not, though.

(SUPER AWESOME online textbook that taught me this stuff: 'Essentials of Glycobiology')

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Ever wanted to ask a Nobel Laureate in physics a question? Well here's your chance: check out this youtube page where you can upload your own questions to Albert Fert, 2007 Nobel prize winner for Giant Magnetoresistance.

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I couldn't say why, but I have never been very interested in stories about vampires. I have never read Dracula, I have no interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or True Blood, and I think Twilight is some of the worst literary and movie cheese to come out in a while, but despite my general apathy for tales of bloodsuckers I was intrigued by Mark Collins Jenkins' new book Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend. From the synopsis is seemed like a mix of history, science, and mythology that I could really sink my teeth into.

As it turned out, Vampire Forensics was not what I had expected. I had expected Jenkins to track down where stories of vampires originated from with a view towards a real-life basis for the folkloric monsters, but instead much of the book covers the evolution of vampires in popular culture. Jenkins spends far more time on how vampires were portrayed in novels, plays, and popular culture over the past 200 years than on where the folklore came from in the first place. Occasionally Jenkins covers certain diseases which have been proposed to give people a vampire-like aspect, but these passages almost read like asides in the more prominent vampire iconography. By about halfway through Jenkins begins to bring forensic science and folklore together to explain how ideas about death and burial influenced vampire folklore, but even then we are still not given much of a clue as to where all of these myths came from in the first place.

This is not to say that Vampire Forensics is a bad book. Not at all. Jenkins writes well and has put together and entertaining compendium of vampire lore from around the world (though mostly eschewing vampire folklore from after the early 20th century). The inspirations of writers like Bram Stoker and the fears of European peasants all fit into the review, and even if it does not dig deeply enough into where the legend of vampires originated from at the very least Vampire Forensics documents how different cultures have reacted to the idea.

Even though Vampire Forensics did not meet my expectations I still found it to be a very entertaining book. In many ways the descriptions of burial practices and what people did out for fear of the dead walking among the living are more chilling than any fictional treatment of vampires I have seen, and at the very least Jenkins' book provides some context for why modern vampires are depicted the way they are (except, of course, the baffling sparklepyres of the Twilight series). It will no doubt be of interest to vampire fans, but even if you prefer werewolves, zombies, or some other undead archetype there is still much to enjoy in Vampire Forensics.

[Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from National Geographic through a partnership between NG and ScienceBlogs.]

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The results of this costly international exercise have been disappointing. About 2,000 sites on the human genome have been statistically linked with various diseases, but in many cases the sites are not inside working genes, suggesting there may be some conceptual flaw in the statistics.

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New research is ROCKING the notoriously arrogant carnivorous plant scientific community: It appears that the largest carnivorous plant, the giant pitcher plant of Borneo (or the Nepenthes rajah for those in the know), has not evolved into its immense size in order to capture and eat small rodents, but to be a large toilet for furry tree shrews to deposit their nutrient rich feces in.

Don't nobody go in there for thirty-five...forty-five minutes!

Since their discovery in the early Eighteen...ahem...hmmm...(sorry, we're animal guys), the giant pitcher plants have been rumored to ingest not just bugs and worms as most carnivorous plants, but also small vertebrates. In the previously linked to article from bbc.com, however, Dr. Charles Clarke of Monash University in Selangor, Malaysia explains, "This species has always been famous for its ability to trap rodents, but I've been looking at the pitchers of this species on and off since 1987, and I've never seen a trapped rat inside." Yeah, what's up with that?

Dr. Clarke did notice all sorts of tree shrew feces in the bottom of the plants, leading him to reconsider the plant's evolution. As it turns out, the plants have large openings, but they also have concave lids which are covered with nectar-producing glands. The distance between the front lip of the pitcher and the glands happens to correspond directly with the average size of the local tree shrews. In other words, when the shrews come to eat the nectar, the plants reap the sweet rewards of being pooped into. You can follow his research more closely by googling "eating animal feces." Good luck with that!

Right now, my head is spinning with so many off color jokes on this subject that I may possibly have a nervous breakdown, but I'll just leave it at this. Somewhere, right now, an obsessive carnivorous plant geek is seriously questioning his entire existence.

Can I please tell you all what a wonderful resource NVDH is? He is like an entire research department for Zooillogix. My man!

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On today's Declaring Independence (unless Rachel calls again):

On today's show, just a single guest for the full hour: Paul Krassner. Founder of the Yippies (Youth International Party), member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, publisher of The Realist, and the world's only investigative satirist. Oh, and did I mention that he dropped acid with Groucho Marx? This should be a most entertaining show.

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At the American Independent News Network, we focus on what we call impact journalism -- stories that can lead to some positive action to change something for the better. And what more impact could you get than this?

On Feb. 23, I broke a story about how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan signed for hundreds of AK-47s and pistols using the name "Eric Cartman," evidently a reference to the popular "South Park" character.

On March 17 -- which Dave Weigel tells me is the season premiere -- "South Park" will show Eric Cartman signing for the guns.

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I was preparing to write something just like this post by James Joyner after seeing the right wing blogosphere declare that the man who opened fire at the Pentagon Metro stop, John Patrick Bedell, was a left wing extremist -- and the left wing blogosphere declare that he was a right wing extremist. But since he beat me to it, I'll just use what he wrote instead.

The liberal bloggers called him a "Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist" who "Worshipped Private Property Rights" and "Denounced Government 'Schemes' Like Public Education." Obviously he was a right wing extremist, right?

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In an American Chemical Society paper, "Forecasting World Crude Oil Production Using Multicyclic Hubbert Model" authors Ibrahim Sami Nashawi, Adel Malallah and Mohammed Al-Bisharah propose:

Even though forecasting should be handled with extreme caution, it is always desirable to look ahead as far as possible to make an intellectual judgment on the future supplies of crude oil. Over the years, accurate prediction of oil production was confronted by fluctuating ecological, economical, and political factors, which imposed many restrictions on its exploration, transportation, and supply and demand. The objective of this study is to develop a forecasting model to predict world crude oil supply with better accuracy than the existing models. Even though our approach originates from Hubbert model, it overcomes the limitations and restrictions associated with the original Hubbert model. As opposed to Hubbert single-cycle model, our model has more than one cycle depending on the historical oil production trend and known oil reserves. The presented method is a viable tool to predict the peak oil production rate and time. The model is simple, accurate, and totally data driven, which allows a continuous updating once new data are available. The analysis of 47 major oil producing countries estimates the world's ultimate crude oil reserve by 2140 BSTB and the remaining recoverable oil by 1161 BSTB. The world production is estimated to peak in 2014 at a rate of 79 MMSTB/D. OPEC has remaining reserve of 909 BSTB, which is about 78% of the world reserves. OPEC production is expected to peak in 2026 at a rate of 53 MMSTB/D. On the basis of 2005 world crude oil production and current recovery techniques, the world oil reserves are being depleted at an annual rate of 2.1%.

It looks like this is an interesting attempt to adapt Hubbert Linearization to other factors. It is interesting, and the major news sites seem to have taken notice, which is good. That said, they seem to be using high estimates for Kuwait, perhaps because the paper comes out of a Kuwaiti University. But I think what's important is the degree to which the paper validates Hubbert's methodology. You can quibble about the OPEC projections, or any given figure - since reserves are such a contentious subject, what I think is more important is that it is coming out of an OPEC country, with a peak date in the near future.

Sharon

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This is the ninth daily question on the Collective Imagination blog.

Every day, respond to the question (or another commenter's answer) and you will be eligible to win a custom ScienceBlogs USB drive. We'll announce the previous day's winner in each daily question post.

Yesterday, we asked what letter grade you would assign to your own personal health. Overall, you averaged about a B-, though there was one A+. Way to go, SianJon!

We did laugh at TheBrummell's question: "What do you have to do to get an F - be haemorrahging internally as you type in your response?" Well, yes, that would certainly qualify as failing health!

Janice in Toronto, who gave herself a solid B+, is our randomly selected winner of the day. Janice, email us at editorial@scienceblogs.com to claim your prize!

We'll be giving out USB drives daily through the end of March. To get your own, answer today's question in the comments below:

How can messages about healthy practices be communicated better?

Yep, it's an open-ended one. Get creative with it.

For more information about health care and technology, check out GE's healthymagination.

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Facing harsh criticism from both right and left over the organization he helped found along with Liz Cheney, Keep America Safe, taking out ads questioning the loyalty of attorneys who defended detainees from Gitmo, Bill Kristol takes to the pages of his magazine -- and promptly ignores the substance of that criticism and tries to change the subject.

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Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.

Today, I asked Russ Williams from North Carolina Zoological Society and the Russlings blog to answer a few questions.

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

I'm an English major from Northeastern Pennsylvania who works at the North Carolina Zoo (24 years executive director, N.C. Zoological Society). I try to stay somewhat current, despite my age (north of 60). For example, I am listening these days to music by Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, Flaming Lips, Radiohead and Pole Cat Creek, along with the oldies (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Hank [and Lucinda] Williams, Coltrane and Bach).

Started personally blogging about zoo animals and issues about five years ago. (Took an intro course in blogging at UNC-Greensboro by G'boro blogfather Ed Cone (Word Up). Found I was learning much from Google searches, and then by following the blogs and tweets of certain science journalists and bloggers, conservation researchers, etc. (The blogs and tweets of Wild Muse/@tdelene and you, BoraZ, are favorite sources.) Flickr and YouTube have provided much for my blogs and tweets too.

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present?

Had no idea I'd work for a Zoo. (Even named a son Noah; would never do that to someone by plan!) Growing up, I knew I would have a career in advertising, like my father. Did do some retail advertising (broadcast and newspaper) after graduation - early 1970's. Didn't like it. Backpacked in Europe for two months. Returned to work with weekly newspapers. This led to public relations/communications for non-profits. This led to fund raising. This led to North Carolina (United Way in Winston-Salem, 1980-85). This led to the NC Zoo Society - 1985-now.

Result: accidental zoology tinkerer.

What does it mean to be the Director of the NC Zoological Society? What does the job entail?

Always remember that I have about 100,000 bosses, in about 27,000 NC Zoo Society member households. Our staff tries to provide excellent customer service to our members and to be their "champions" when it comes to getting a good return on their investments in the Zoo in general or a very specific program, like Field Trip Earth (recognized as a Landmark website by the American Association of School Librarians - one of 21, including Google Earth, Library of Congress, NASA and Smithsonian Education).

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

Proud of my small role in how the NC Zoo and Zoo Society have grown and the creation of both Field Trip Earth (our educational website featuring journals and other media offered by conservation researchers around the world) and Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park (the largest such gathering, offering and breeding of rare and endangered ducks, geese and swans in the world).

Really enjoy helping folks accomplish what they want to accomplish for the future of the NC Zoo through "The Lions Pride", a grouping of people who have made planned arrangements for their Zoo, mainly through wills.

Capital campaigns, like Project: Pachyderms (African elephants and southern white rhinos) and Project: Polar Bears also meet my need to attain goals requiring some considerable preparation and effort. (I've also plodded through a few full, running marathons and to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, at 55).

NC Zoo has something else unique about it - the Zoo School! Can you tell us more about it?

A "magnet" Asheboro City high school, the Zoo School is right on site here. It uses the Zoo as a teaching tool not just to study biology and geography, but for all learning, making use of the Zoo for English composition and communications, mathematics, business and many other studies.

What was the best aspect of ScienceOnline2010 for you?

Appreciate your prodding, Bora, to demonstrate Field Trip Earth at ScienceOnline2010. The Charlotte Observer science editor attended our demonstration and the result was an 85-column-inch article in both the Observer and Raleigh News & Observer by T. DeLene Beeland, whose Wild Muse blog and tweets were already favorites of mine, introduced by your RTs, Bora. I want to take in more of the sessions the next time. Only got to one session (other than our own series of demos) and it was exceptional.

It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview. I'll see you at the Zoo soon....and at ScienceOnline2011, of course!

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I'm back from my northeast travels - I had a great time at both NOFA and NESEA, and am slowly recovering from a glazed state of sleep deprivation to something sort of coherent enough to finish the book (3 weeks to go!). But I'm still sleepy and tired, so to remind you that Pi day is coming, I include my classic (ok, if I have any classics ;-)) essay on why the world can be saved with Pie. If you are inspired to follow up with a submission to the Pi-day contest, that would be awesome.

The other day I got embroiled in one of those endless discussions/debates/headbangings about what the best approach to greening the planet is. Of course, all of you know that my defining characteristics are my reasonableness, aversion to confrontation and sensitivity, so my role here was to calm the hot tempers and settle the differences of others, which I do from my sheer love of humanity. I provided a calm and rational perspective that I know helped settle everything right down, because that's just the kind of healing, caring person I am.

Ok, just on the off chance that anyone involved in that conversation says otherwise, I want ask you upfront, who will you believe - them or me? After all, the people saying I was fanning the flames of this stupid umm...integral argument are nothing more than two or three hundred ordinary voices, where as I am a professional idi...author. I daily produce hundreds of words that are pulled randomly out of my a...er...finely crafted and honed for maximum effect. Sometimes the words even make sentences. Once in a while even grammatical sentences. These words are read by as many as eight or nine people around the world every single day. So you can certainly imagine that my ravings...um wisdom should outrank the sworn testimony of several hundred people.

So you'll be proud to know that I, of course, natural leader that I am, did come up with a healing solution, something that we could come together on, a real commitment to change, a possible solution to the profound difficulties wrought upon us by the Great Change that comes sweeping (ok, stupid metaphor deleted)... But I did have an idea.

The idea was pie. And my position is that I'm for it. I know this is just the kind of hard-edged, radical position taking that you can expect on this blog, the reason you know you can turn here first to hear opinions that are beholden to no one...except the guy up the road with the cherry trees, who I can't afford to piss off if I want pie. But this kind of risky political statement in favor of pie is just the sort of thing I know you'll wish to support by donating a large portion of your salary to keep me going. Just click on the button on the sidebar that says "big heaping wads of cash."

I'm in favor of pie. I mean, what could be better than pie? It is commonly associated with good, noble things like motherhood, America, light bondage and domination, clowns and the federal reserve, so how could we not be for pie? In fact, who isn't for pie? Well...

I have to tell you the ugly truth. There are powerful anti-pie interests in our government, and people working night and day to restrict your pie access. But we here at Casaubons book (Who is "we" you ask in puzzlement? Well, Sharon has obviously gone off the deep end writing her book, as you can tell from this post, so mostly the voices in her head. But they sometimes wear cool hats, and one of them is named "Leo.") are committed to bringing you the truth about pie access and other equally crucial issues, like socks and beer.

It occurred to me, as I was healing the rift brought on by unnamed troublemakers not named Sharon, that pie can do a great deal to heal our environmental crisis. For example, today's climate change and peak oil news was particularly awful. There's the coal, the wars, that we still torture.... There's the fact that even if we halved our emissions, global warming will keep going for 600 years. And then there's the financial news...

All in all, I think the only possible reaction (other than hysterical weeping) to all this bad news on a cold, snowy afternoon is to put on fuzzy pajamas, bunny slippers and eat half a pie. Or to drink a lot of local beer, I guess. Heck, you could drink beer and eat pie together.

Yes, I know that's pathological of me, but sometimes a retreat into pathology is rather comforting. I doubt I'm the only person who has ever responded to the bad news about our environment by thinking "apple or pumpkin?" The reality is whether we believe in stockpiling ammo or creating sustainable ecovillages, the need to derive comfort where we can is our common ground.

Pie can bring us together. And that unifying power isn't limited to the peak oil movement - pie can cross religious, cultural and national boundaries. While there may be deep cultural divisions between those who believe that you should make your sweetened orange vegetable pies with sweet potatoes and those who vote for pumpkin, I believe these barriers can be crossed, if only we'll just take a piece of each with a lot of whipped cream.

Pie can be a powerful political motivator as well. Right now, money tends to be the most powerful tool in politics, but let us not underestimate the influence of pie. Pies in the face are a powerful tool of political resistance in Europe. I've heard rumors that Bill Clinton sent the Haitians back because the republicans offered him all the blueberry pies he wanted. Dick Cheney regularly sat around nude, plotting his attacks on Middle Eastern countries while eating entire mince pies. During his campaign, Obama made strong statements in favor of pie (this, actually, is true).

This kind of inside information isn't easy to come by - the author had to send several pies to congressional aides. Fortunately, they are sleep deprived, wired on coffee and often morally bankrupt so bribing them with pie is very, very easy.

But pie is also essentially, deeply democratic. Pie is an essential ingredient in town-meeting style democracy in many New England states, along with baked beans. And pie is about democracy - fundamentally, pie (and pasties, empanadas, dumplings, wontons and all the other pie relatives) are about stretching high value foods to share with everyone. If you have six apples and ten guests, someone gets screwed, unless you put them between two crusts with some spices and call it pie - everyone gets a piece of sweet apple, everyone gets some crust. Pies are a way of getting maximum enjoyment from high-value foods. Meat, fruit, spices - these things are special. But they can be enjoyed regularly if carefully combined with other ingredients. They are about democracy, frugality, comfort and family.

And pies are things that you have to produce either for yourself or in your locality. The truth is that frozen pie crust tastes awful, and that Sara Lee pies taste like corn syrup, which is what they are mostly made from. Real pie - good pie comes either out of your kitchen or a local bakery or diner where they make it fresh every single day from real ingredients. Pies are part of a whole lifestyle - if you want to eat pie, you have to cook, or you have to have a little Mom and Pop bakery. And those things are democratic too - as opposed to corporatist.

Sure, you say, but if I eat too much pie, I'll get fat. And lord knows, that's a real possibility. But here's the thing. How many of you have ever met a really fat Amish man? I haven't. And they eat pie more or less constantly, or so my Amish neighbors tell me. The trick is matching the pie to the pie lifestyle.

Pie can power a human-powered lifestyle in the way that junky processed crap can't. Certainly the Amish cookbooks I've seen are filled with pies. And back when dessert (or breakfast in New England) was routinely pie, people were a lot thinner. One might argue that pie isn't what makes you fat - it is not living the pie lifestyle. Because the pie lifestyle means picking berries or walking to the bakery. It means eating pie as a treat, and as the place where you put your special festival foods that you don't have all the time, while most of you meals are simple. (If you do get a little plump, perhaps these gents can help balance out the pie.)

Instead, for many Americans, breakfasts is false pie - poptarts, which despite a plastic resemblance are not pies at all - because they aren't actually food. The poptart lifestyle makes you fat, the pie lifestyle makes you thin, or thinner. We need to speak out against the fake pie and its accompanying lifestyle.

Pie makes you thin. It brings about democracy. It brings about agrarian or relocalized societies and economies. It provides comfort, crossing political lines. People talk about oil as the "master resource" but perhaps we need to start reconsidering the power of pie to create a sustainable, human powered economy. Pie-centered societies, ones that provide a chicken in every pot pie, are what we're striving for. We can all consume less, and still have an evenly distributed piece of the pie.

Which is why I must say to you with a heavy heart - we are facing peak pie. Corporate interventions, and the "better than homemade" slogan has resulted in a US population that mostly doesn't know how to cook anymore. Millions of people think that pumpkin comes from a can. Farmers are still going out of business at an appalling rate. The majority of our pie ingredients are contaminated by pesticides. Our ability to provide for our pie needs is deeply threatened. We are facing the final destruction of the pie lifestyle - and the end of the last remnents of our democracy.

So what can we do about it? How can we fight back for the pie lifestyle, for Mom, Teddy Bears and Apple (or Peach) pie? The only way to deal with this depletion crisis is to start living the pie lifestyle. Bake a pie today from locally grown ingredients. Eat a pie today, and use it to fuel human powered activity - dump your leaf blower and get out a rake, get rid of the power mower and bring out the push mower, lose the chainsaw and get the bucksaw down.

Make a pie and give it to a neighbor. Give out the recipe. Get together and make pies for elderly shut ins or the school bake sale or to buy solar lighting for the neighborhood watch. Throw a pie at a warmonger - we'll have a bake sale to raise your bail. Point to the coal plant builders and the energy wasters and tell people - they are against pie! Start "Pie Eating Veterans for the Truth" and tar polluters and heavy emitters with the scorned label "pie haters." Don't forget to mention that they don't like mothers, babies or kittens either. Have a town meeting and hand out pie. Give out pie at the voting booths, to hungry people in the park, to the shelter and soup kitchen. Try pies from other places, other lands - and send the money you would have spent on poptarts to good causes. When the world seems to suck, eat pie, and use that energy to get back on your feet and fight again! Pie can save the world!

Sharon

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Lots of good suggestions as to Portland activities for my trip to the March Meeting next week. There's a second, related problem that I also need help with: What should I do at the meeting itself?

My usual conference is DAMOP, which I'll be going to in May, so while DAMOP is a participating division, and offers some cool-sounding sessions, it seems a little silly to go to the March Meeting and go to DAMOP talks. The whole point of being at the gigantic meeting is to see different stuff than usual.

The problem is, the scientific program includes forty-odd parallel sessions in each time slot, most of those featuring a dozen or so 12-minute talks, which are generally incomprehensible if you're outside the field. The invited talks are longer, and often better, but still variable. And there are so many of them...

So, here's my question for readers who know stuff about non-AMO physics: What sessions should I be attending at the March Meeting? I'm interested in invited talks, ideally by people who are good speakers, that will be reasonably comprehensible to someone outside the field. There are a couple of things I've already identified, but the only block that is definitely out of the question is the Tuesday 11:15 block (J sessions), when I'm speaking.

If there's something at the March Meeting that you think of as an absolute must-see, leave a comment and let me know.

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The fight over genetically modified foods, whether they're safe, healthy, good for the environment, or just plain "unnatural," has been going on for a long time now. Most people in the scientific community agree that genetic modification in general is a good thing, able to create crops that need less water, less fertilizer, less pesticide, or that contain extra vitamins and nutrients that are otherwise difficult to come by in certain parts of the world. Many would also argue that fighting against such life-saving, often environmentally sustainable modifications is a sign of an ignorant anti-science backwardness. Two recent articles in The Guardian and The Economist show that the issues surrounding the acceptance of genetically modified food technologies are a lot more complicated than a simple rational/irrational or scientific/ignorant divide.

In The Guardian article, plant scientist Eoin Lettice points out that most of the genetically modified (GM) plants brought to market today primarily benefit giant multinational corporations rather than the consumer. Tomatoes designed to last longer during long-distance shipment end up tasteless and mealy, and the most common genetically modified foods are designed to be resistant to the weed killer that Monsanto produces, the chemicals in which may actually contribute to health problems (although the numbers in the one study are worst than shaky and a lot more work needs to be done). Moreover, Monsanto and other GM producing corporations aggressively patent their products, holding back research in plant science by not allowing university researchers to use naturally occurring plant gene regulatory sequences that they have patented, and forcing small farmers around the world out of business. Government delays in approving the use of GM products cause a lot of problems for these corporations, and it is in their best interest to make their products seem natural and good and their opponents seem crazy and stupid. Lettice puts it well when he writes:

Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but I can't imagine many Irish or European consumers lying awake at night worrying about lost revenues for [the German chemical company] BASF. What Irish consumers are interested in, however, are real and tangible benefits from their foods.

Attitudes are also changing at Western agribusinesses, some of which used to dismiss poor farmers as mere "seed pirates". As developing countries develop GM crops of their own, these firms are now pursuing public-private partnerships or joint ventures with local firms and otherwise softening their stance. Monsanto, a hard-nosed pioneer of transgenic crops, is donating its drought-resistant technology to a coalition called Water Efficient Maize for Africa, for example.

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I already went over a Monte Carlo method for estimating Pi - you know, for Pi-Day (March 14). Well, here is a small addition. This is the same thing done in Scratch.

It is kind of fun to watch.

About Scratch

If you are not familiar with Scratch, basically it is a graphical programming language a lot like the stuff for the Lego robotics. It is free, runs on Windows and Mac OS X, and can be embedded in a webpage as a java applet. Sure, Scratch has some limitations, but it is great for kids. Here is what the code for the pi-estimation program looks like:

If you create an account on Scratch, you can download the code of any project. I like Scratch.

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It is almost Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. One thing this means that US citizens and I'd bet some Canadians will be receiving the annual Brown Recluse Spider Warnings via Email.

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And how is it different than genome sequencing?

So recently, I've been hearing people outside of the field of genomics refer to "deep sequencing." I'm not sure what that phrase means: I would like to think that, in a philosophical sense, all of the sequencing we do is "deep" (dude). We certainly don't set out to do shallow, stupid, and superficial projects.

If deep sequencing means the depth of coverage--the number of times, on average, a nucleotide is sequenced--depending on the project's goals, the size of the genome, and so on, sometimes we sequence deeply, sometimes we don't.

This sounds like a phrase invented by someone who really doesn't know what he is talking about.

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Brown University president Ruth Simmons has recently come under fire for serving on the board of Goldman Sachs. More than establishing any possible perfidy on the part of Simmons, this just shows how utterly useless boards of directors are. Other than hiring and firing the CEO (or, in the non-profit world, the executive director) and approving the overall activities at a very superficial level, they don't do much. They're certainly not going to exercise oversight or change the culture. Why? Because, even if they're motivated, they show up a couple of times a year and read a massaged report. The people at the company are there, day in and day out; the board, even if they want to challenge the leadership, can't run the company. They already have jobs. Besides, most of them don't want to rock the boat. Gretchen Morgenson summed this up nicely:

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Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

These days, I'm having a love-hate relationship with Elsevier. On the one hand, there are lots of reasons to hate Elsevier. For example, Elsevier took payments from Merck, Sharp & Dohme in order to publish in essence a fake journal designed to promote its products, and then got caught doing it again. On the other hand, Elsevier owns both The Lancet and NeuroToxicology. The former recently retracted Andrew Wakefield's original 1998 Lancet paper that launched the latest iteration of the anti-vaccine movement in the U.K., as well as a thousand quacks, to be followed by the latter, which withdrew Andrew Wakefield's unethical and poorly designed monkey study of the hepatitis B vaccine. These decisions go a long way--although not all the way by a long shot--towards balancing the harm that Elsevier has done over the years.

Perhaps the most persistent atrocity unleashed upon science by Elsevier has come in the form of a journal. It's a journal I have written about before called Medical Hypotheses. MH is a journal that describes itself and its requirements thusly:

The purpose of Medical Hypotheses is to publish interesting theoretical papers. The journal will consider radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas provided they are coherently expressed.

Medical Hypotheses is not, however, a journal for publishing workaday reviews of the literature, nor is it a journal for primary data (except when preliminary data is used to lend support to the main hypothesis presented). Many of the articles submitted do not clearly identify the hypothesis and simply read like reviews.

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tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

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A big list of 35 titles in various categories: Astronomy, Biography, Biology, Climatology, Environmental Science, Evolution, Geology, Health Sciences, History of Science, Mathematics, Natural History, Neurology, Oceanography, Paleontology, Physics, Psychology, Science, Technology, Zoology.

This particular list that Library Journal does every year is one that I always use for collection development. I'll order pretty well all the books that we don't already have. It's also heartening that a good chunk of the books that we do have were checked out when I checked the other day.

BTW, I may get around to updating my Top Books of the Year list...or I might not.

• Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe by Gates, Evalyn
  
• The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Farmelo, Graham
  
• Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science by Yoon, Carol Kaesuk
  
• Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance To Save Humanity by Hansen, James
  
• A World Without Ice by Pollack, Henry N.
  
• Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Brand, Stewart
  
• What We Leave Behind by Jensen, Derrick & Aric McBay.
  
• The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by Lovelock, James
  
• Evolution: The Story of Life by Palmer, Douglas & Peter Barrett (illus.)
  
• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Wrangham, Richard
  
• Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World by Zoellner, Tom
  
• Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System by Callahan, Daniel
  
• Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals About His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World by Duncan, David Ewing
  
• The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by Reid, T.R.
  
• Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Fara, Patricia
  
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Holmes, Richard
  
• Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist by Levenson, Thomas
  
• The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics by Pickover, Clifford
  
• One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World by Hempton, Gordon & John Grossmann
  
• Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery by Nicholls, Steve.
  
• Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City by Sanderson, Eric W. & Markley Boyer (illus.)
  
• Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Streever, Bill
  
• Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions by Barry, Susan R.
  
• Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance by Restak, Richard, M.D.
  
• World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Marine Life by Crist, Darlene Trew & others.
  
• How To Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever by Horner, Jack & James Gorman.
  
• Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particles by Halpern, Paul.
  
• On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction by Boyd, Brian
  
• Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Behavior by Dahaene, Stanislas
  
• Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Includes: Shapes, Flow and Branches by Ball, Philip.
  
• Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future by Mooney, Chris & Sheril Kirshenbaum
  
• The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Belfiore, Michael
  
• The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society by DeWaal, Franz
  
• On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear by Ellis, Richard
  
• Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Fraser, Caroline

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In the grand tradition of Rich Lowry's masturbatory reaction to Palin's winking, I give you Republican consultant Michael Goldfarb talking about Liz Cheney:

"I was excited about Palin; I'm more excited about Liz," he says. "The same sort of excitement you get when you hear her father, except she's this petite blonde with five kids ... There's just something about her. You see that response across the activist portion of the party. It's the response you saw to Palin ... She gets people worked up. She connects to people. She is in harmony with where the base seems to be. She's right on the issues.

"You have a little crush on her," he gushes. "It's hard not to."

Okay, seriously. Try typing with one hand. I bet there's more DNA in his keyboard than in the OJ trial.

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Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced that it has sequenced the DNA of American actress Glenn Close, the first publicly named female to have her DNA sequenced to full coverage. The service was completed in Illumina's CLIA certified and CAP accredited laboratory utilizing Illumina's Genome Analyzer technology and following the established process shown at http://www.everygenome.com/. Ms. Close's DNA was sequenced to an average depth greater than 30 fold, providing information on SNP variation and allowing for the analysis of other structural characteristics of the genome such as insertions, deletions and rearrangements. Specifically, over 95% of the known genome was reported, including over 12 million genotype calls on previously documented SNPs. In addition, 379,000 SNPs previously not reported in any public database were found.

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I recently wrote about an amusing article I'd read about people who bury statues of St. Joseph, the patron saint of real estate, in order to make their home sell. I got an email from a guy named Phil Cates, founder of St. Joseph Statue LLC, a company that sells those statues. And despite the fact that I roundly mocked him and every customer he has ever had, he pretends to have liked my article and comes on all friendly in the email. This is so reality averse as to be almost creepy. Here's the full email:

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Worldnutdaily grand poobah Joseph Farah is taking another one of his "you are dead to me forever" stands, this time over CPAC -- which he just spoke at a couple weeks ago. But as usual, he's claiming that he really decided this before going there. He complains about one of the CPAC organizers dissing the birthers in an interview before the conference took place and how he decided on the spot to take a bold moral stand against the group:

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Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm

C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford

Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?

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Helen Branswell, ace flu reporter, Helen Branswell:

TORONTO A landmark study looking at how to limit the spread of influenza has shown what experts have long believed but hadn't until now proved: Giving flu shots to kids helps protect everyone in a community from the virus.

The study, led by Dr. Mark Loeb of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., showed the risk of catching the flu was lowered by nearly 60 per cent in communities where a substantial portion of kids aged three to 15 got flu shots.

That level of indirect protection is nearly as good as what healthy adults might expect from getting a flu shot themselves and is perhaps better than what a senior with a waning immune system might expect from a flu vaccination.

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A Texas state judge shocked the world last week by declaring the death penalty in that state unconstitutional. Now he explains that ruling:

A Houston judge who declared the death penalty unconstitutional Thursday clarified his ruling in an impromptu hearing Friday, saying he ruled the procedures surrounding the process in Texas are illegal.

During Friday's hearing, prosecutors filed motions asking state District Judge Kevin Fine to reconsider his ruling and also to proceed with April's death penalty trial of John Edward Green Jr. Fine maintained at the hearing that he believes innocent people have been executed.

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The incredible thing is that even after scandal after scandal, Blackwater (now Xe) is still being considered for and given huge contracts by the government. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan is trying to prevent that from happening again in Afghanistan:

A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater, now called Xe Services, from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct.

The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield.

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Chicago Tribune recently banned (sensibly, it seems) the use of 119 cliched words or phrases in Tribune story. NPR blogger Ian Chillag, who apparently either did not get or badly misread the memo, promptly set about using all 119 in a single sentence . Jump the break ('read more") to revel in the whole thing:

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Daniel Sarewitz, professor of science policy at Arizona State University, has an important op-ed at Slate today explaining why if we continue to frame the climate change debate in terms of science, we may never achieve meaningful policy action. Drawing on the conclusions of much of the scholarship in the area of science studies, Sarewitz writes:

When people hold strongly conflicting values, interests, and beliefs, there is not much that science can do to compel action. Indeed, more research and more facts often make a conflict worse by providing support to competing sides in the debate, and by distracting decision-makers and the public from the underlying, political disagreement. In such cases each side will claim to have the scientific high ground.

Writing in the New York Times last week, Al Gore made exactly this point about climate change by noting that "the science has become clearer and clearer." Yes, there is a robust scientific consensus that human activity is causing the atmosphere to warm up. But so what? Decision-makers need to know how climate change will affect specific political jurisdictions, and, more importantly, what types of interventions will make a difference, over what time scales, at what costs, and to whose benefit--and whose detriment.

Sarewitz's op-ed resonates with my own views on the issue shared earlier this week at Dot Earth and in a news report at the NYTimes.com. Until we propose policies that reflect the values and input of a range of political voices and until we communicate about the national and local benefits of those policies, we may never overcome political paralysis. Moreover, the more that scientists and environmental advocates become distracted by the climate skeptic movement, responding to every new attack with a combo of war rhetoric and technical defenses of the science, the deeper the divide on climate change is likely to grow.

Sarewitz's full article is a must-read, but here's how he ends:

Politics isn't about maximizing rationality, it's about finding compromises that enough people can live with to allow society to take steps in the right direction. Contrary to all our modern instincts, then, political progress on climate change requires not more scientific input into politics, but less. Value disputes that are hidden behind the scientific claims and counterclaims need to be flushed out and brought into the sunlight of democratic deliberation. Until that happens, the political system will remain in gridlock, and everyone will be convinced that they are on the side of truth.

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                 Coca-Cola sucks India dry.
      Image: Carlos Latuff / Wikimedia CommonsThe marketing executive who came up with Coca-Cola's popular slogan in 1908 most likely never expected it would be taken so literally. However, a hundred years ago there probably weren't many who imagined a term like "water wars" could exist in a region that experiences annual monsoons.

On February 25 a complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court against the The Coca-Cola Company alleging that they knew about and sought to cover up human rights abuses in Guatemala. While that trial gets started, the company's controversial practices in India continue involving the over-exploitation of limited water resources and the contamination of groundwater supplies. In response to public outcry the soft drink company is now championing itself as a longtime environmental leader and the business community is eager to advertise their claim. Yesterday CNN Money reported that:

Coke has been a leader when it comes to environmental issues: It is aiming to be water neutral -- meaning every drop of water used by the company will be replenished -- by 2020.

This would come as a surprise to the Plachimada community in the State of Kerala. Ever since Coca-Cola opened a bottling plant on their land in 2000 they have been faced with chronic drought and polluted water. In 2006 these residents of a small impoverished community in southern India began a pitched campaign to evict Coca-Cola from their land which led to fierce battles with local authorities.

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There are 15 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

Extreme Female Promiscuity in a Non-Social Invertebrate Species:

While males usually benefit from as many matings as possible, females often evolve various methods of resistance to matings. The prevalent explanation for this is that the cost of additional matings exceeds the benefits of receiving sperm from a large number of males. Here we demonstrate, however, a strongly deviating pattern of polyandry. We analysed paternity in the marine snail Littorina saxatilis by genotyping large clutches (53-79) of offspring from four females sampled in their natural habitats. We found evidence of extreme promiscuity with 15-23 males having sired the offspring of each female within the same mating period. Such a high level of promiscuity has previously only been observed in a few species of social insects. We argue that genetic bet-hedging (as has been suggested earlier) is unlikely to explain such extreme polyandry. Instead we propose that these high levels are examples of convenience polyandry: females accept high numbers of matings if costs of refusing males are higher than costs of accepting superfluous matings.

Record Dynamics in Ants:

The success of social animals (including ourselves) can be attributed to efficiencies that arise from a division of labour. Many animal societies have a communal nest which certain individuals must leave to perform external tasks, for example foraging or patrolling. Staying at home to care for young or leaving to find food is one of the most fundamental divisions of labour. It is also often a choice between safety and danger. Here we explore the regulation of departures from ant nests. We consider the extreme situation in which no one returns and show experimentally that exiting decisions seem to be governed by fluctuating record signals and ant-ant interactions. A record signal is a new 'high water mark' in the history of a system. An ant exiting the nest only when the record signal reaches a level it has never perceived before could be a very effective mechanism to postpone, until the last possible moment, a potentially fatal decision. We also show that record dynamics may be involved in first exits by individually tagged ants even when their nest mates are allowed to re-enter the nest. So record dynamics may play a role in allocating individuals to tasks, both in emergencies and in everyday life. The dynamics of several complex but purely physical systems are also based on record signals but this is the first time they have been experimentally shown in a biological system.

Are Maternal Antibodies Really That Important? Patterns in the Immunologic Development of Altricial Passerine House Sparrows (Passer domesticus):

Maternal antibodies are believed to play an integral role in protecting immunologically immature wild-passerines from environmental antigens. This study comprehensively examines the early development of the adaptive immune system in an altricial-developing wild passerine species, the house sparrow (Passer domestics), by characterizing the half-life of maternal antibodies in nestling plasma, the onset of de novo synthesis of endogenous antibodies by nestlings, and the timing of immunological independence, where nestlings rely entirely on their own antibodies for immunologic protection. In an aviary study we vaccinated females against a novel antigen that these birds would not otherwise encounter in their natural environment, and measured both antigen-specific and total antibody concentration in the plasma of females, yolks, and nestlings. We traced the transfer of maternal antibodies from females to nestlings through the yolk and measured catabolisation of maternal antigen-specific antibodies in nestlings during early development. By utilizing measurements of non-specific and specific antibody levels in nestling plasma we were able to calculate the half-life of maternal antibodies in nestling plasma and the time point at which nestling were capable of synthesizing antibodies themselves. Based on the short half-life of maternal antibodies, the rapid production of endogenous antibodies by nestlings and the relatively low transfer of maternal antibodies to nestlings, our findings suggest that altricial-developing sparrows achieve immunologic independence much earlier than precocial birds. To our knowledge, this is the first in depth analyses performed on the adaptive immune system of a wild-passerine species. Our results suggest that maternal antibodies may not confer the immunologic protection or immune priming previously proposed in other passerine studies. Further research needs to be conducted on other altricial passerines to determine if the results of our study are a species-specific phenomenon or if they apply to all altricial-developing birds.

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tags: Department of Motor Vehicles, DMV, driver's license, prank, funny, humor, offbeat, odd, streaming video

The Department of Motor Vehicles has sure changed since when I lived the US. For example, I once had a cast on my foot and was told to wait to renew my driver's license until after the cast had been removed. When I see what these two guys managed to do, I admit I feel somewhat put out because after all, DMV wasn't photographing my foot!

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The latest study on flu vaccine effectiveness in children has been well discussed in the MSM and the flu blogs, so I'll point you to those excellent pieces (Branswell, crof, Mike Coston at Avian Flu Diary) and just add some things not covered elsewhere. The full text of the article is available for free at JAMA and it's a pretty good read, so if you want to see for yourself what is involved I urge you to read it, too. First, let me back up a bit and connect this to the controversy about observational and randomized clinical trials we've been discussing here of late (before my grant writing interfered, anyway).

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tags: cycles, Invasion of the Teddy Bears, music, animation, Cyriak, offbeat, odd, streaming video

Here's a truly peculiar video for you to watch featuring infinite teddy bears invading a beach. Music and animations by Cyriak, who has quite a following, apparently.

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"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

- Forrest Tucker

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compare and contrast

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Well, that didn't take long.

Remember when the grande dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, decided that she would try to harass, intimidate, and silence Paul Offit through the filing of a frivolous libel suit against Dr. Offit, Amy Wallace (the journalist who interviewed Offit for an excellent article last year), and Condé Nast, the publisher of WIRED, which ran the article? Well, the judge has ruled, and that ruling is...dismissed!

The text of the ruling can be found here.

There are some awesomely awesome passages in this ruling, which is a slapdown that, while not as epic as, for instance, the slapdown that Judge John E. Jones III delivered to creationists in Kitzmiller v. Dover, is nonetheless very satisfying to read--with one exception. The judge in this case makes some truly annoying statements like:

Moreover, in the context of the Wired article, the statement "she lies" lacks the provably false content that is required to support a defamation action.=

So far, so good. Then, not so good:

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Reviewed by other ScienceBloggers:

Prehistoric DNA reveals the story of a Pleistocene survivor, the muskox

Ancient DNA Isolated from Fossil Eggshells May Provide Clues to Eggstinction of Giant Birds

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This is part three of a multi-part presentation of a sample chapter from a forthcoming book, The Madam Curie Complex. Part One can be found here. Part Two can be found here.

Recently I was approached with an offer to share with my readers a sample chapter from a forthcoming book called The Madam Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. A caveat: I have not read the whole book, and offering the sample chapter here for you to read does not constitute an endorsement by me of the book. But I was sufficiently intrigued by the sample chapter I read to think it was worth sharing with you, to let you read if you want. You can make up your own minds and decide if you want to purchase the book, which is on offer at the Feminist Press site for a reasonable price. About the book:

This March, The Feminist Press will release The Madam Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science by historian Julie Des Jardins. The book tells the stories of women scientists, from Marie Curie to Maria Mayer, who took enormous chances and made great discoveries in spite of, and at times because of, the resistance they faced in a male-dominated field. Des Jardins compares their stories with prominent male counterparts in an exploration of whether, and how, women research, collaborate, and come to different conclusions about the natural world.

The chapter I have been given to share with you is chapter 7, The Lady Trimates and Feminist Science?: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. It came to me in a pdf version and a lot of formatting has been lost in moving it to this blog, but I hope you will still enjoy be able to enjoy reading it. I hope locating the footnotes will not be too hard. I've broken the chapter into sections for a series of posts, and the reference footnotes for each section will be at the end of each post.

On to the second section of the chapter...

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Several items in the general category of charitable activity:

• Kate is running the Con or Bust auction again this year, with proceeds going to support people of color interested in attending SFF cons, principally Wiscon. Bidding is open through Saturday at 11:59pm ET, and items up for bid include many things that may be of interest to readers of this blog, including a certain book, plus a bunch of other stuff I will put below the fold.
• I got email from the Nobel Prize committee the other day. Well, OK, the webmaster for Nobelprize.org. They have an "Ask a Nobel laureate" feature going on their YouTube channel, and the current laureate taking questions is Albert Fert, one of the Physics laureates from 2007. You can record a question for him through March 19, and they'll record and post his answers after that.
• The favorite educational charity of ScienceBlogs, DonorsChoose is in another of these online contests to win money from major corporations, in this case the Pepsi Refresh Project. If they get enough votes, they can siphon off a tiny fraction of a percent of the money Pepsi earns selling junk to kids, and put it toward classroom and library supplies for schools. If this sounds good to you, go over there and vote.

And there's your charity shilling for the moment. I'll put a list of the Con or Bust items Kate thought might especially appeal to ScienceBlogs readers below the fold:

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This is part two of a multi-part presentation of a sample chapter from a forthcoming book, The Madam Curie Complex. Part One can be found here. Part Three can be found here.

Recently I was approached with an offer to share with my readers a sample chapter from a forthcoming book called The Madam Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. A caveat: I have not read the whole book, and offering the sample chapter here for you to read does not constitute an endorsement by me of the book. But I was sufficiently intrigued by the sample chapter I read to think it was worth sharing with you, to let you read if you want. You can make up your own minds and decide if you want to purchase the book, which is on offer at the Feminist Press site for a reasonable price. About the book:

This March, The Feminist Press will release The Madam Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science by historian Julie Des Jardins. The book tells the stories of women scientists, from Marie Curie to Maria Mayer, who took enormous chances and made great discoveries in spite of, and at times because of, the resistance they faced in a male-dominated field. Des Jardins compares their stories with prominent male counterparts in an exploration of whether, and how, women research, collaborate, and come to different conclusions about the natural world.

The chapter I have been given to share with you is chapter 7, The Lady Trimates and Feminist Science?: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. It came to me in a pdf version and a lot of formatting has been lost in moving it to this blog, but I hope you will still enjoy be able to enjoy reading it. I hope locating the footnotes will not be too hard. I've broken the chapter into sections for a series of posts, and the reference footnotes for each section will be at the end of each post.

On to the second section of the chapter...

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

Oklahomas Christian Medical and Dental Association is such a massive joke.

They brought in Donald Ewert, a clueless dork, to talk about the 'Evolution of the Immune System' Creationism.

Brought in Mr. NOMNOMNOMNOM to talk about the science/religion/ethics behind stem cell research SCIENTISTS KILLING BABBIES!

And yesterday they brought in Ellen Myers to talk about: "Did the Nazis have it correct? Part II: Euthanasia and Doctor Assisted Suicide; Will We Repeat the Past."

I had no idea who this woman was. A casual Google search turned up juicy morsels like this:

She has published papers in the Creation Research Society Quarterly and at the International Conference for Creationism. She grew up in Nazi Germany, is multi-lingual, and has a Masters degree in History.

... The following 45 minutes were quite possibly the weirdest, most irritating 45 minutes I have experienced in a very long time (hey, its been a while since Caseytits was in town).

Part of it is that Im not used to crazy old people. I dont mean crazy as in 'kooky fun!' I mean crazy in a 'tea-bagger experiencing rapid cognitive decline' way. My grandmothers were strong independent women up till the end, and very respectful of my religious/political decisions, so it took me a minute to get used to an 80 year old woman, lecturing at a medical institution, saying things like "OBAMA SAID THE US IS NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN NATION! DID YOU HEAR THAT??? GERMANY WAS A GOOD CHRISTIAN NATION UNTIL NAZIS!"

It was kinda like a 45-minute version of this.

*blink*

The one bloggable thing I got out of this event was an observation*. A difference between Radical Christian ethics and my ethics.

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A bad day for your ego is a great day for your soul. -Jillian Michaels

But however you use a treadmill, there's one extremely simple thing you can do to dramatically intensify your workout: incline it!

If you're an outdoor walker/runner, this is the equivalent of going uphill instead of over level ground. There are many physiological differences in walking along an incline versus on level ground, but what does physics have to say about it?

Normally, if you're on level ground (or a level treadmill), you stay at the same level in the Earth's gravitational field.

But if you walk uphill (or on an inclined treadmill), you not only need to move forward at whatever pace you were moving at, you also need to climb -- a little with every step -- out of the Earth's gravitational field!

The Earth's gravitational field is no slouch, either. I'm an 80 kg individual, and for me to raise my elevation by just 5.3 meters (about 17 feet) costs me 4,200 Joules of energy, also known as one food calorie.

Now, if I actually exercise, I burn significantly more than one calorie by raising myself those 5.3 meters. Why? The two most significant reasons are as follows:

1. I am not a perfect engine. This means, in order for me to do 4,200 Joules of physical work, I need to burn about three times as much in food energy in order to get that much useful energy out. Alas, our bodies are inefficient in that manner.
2. When you exercise and then stop, your body doesn't know that it's okay for your heart to slow down for quite some time. So spending an hour walking uphill will elevate my metabolic rate for a lot longer than an hour!

Let's make a helpful table. We'll just look at the total distance you travel (e.g., if you walk at three miles-per-hour for one hour, you go three miles), put in the incline, and see how much extra physical work you need to do!

This is all for a person with a mass of 80 kg (about 176 pounds). Isn't that a spectacular difference? In other words, if you make a long-term change from walking on a flat ground (or treadmill) to walking up inclined ground (or an inclined treadmill), you burn extra energy with every step you take!

And what's with the Jillian Michaels quote? Well, I'm no longer the fittest guy on scienceblogs; say hello to Travis and Peter over at Obesity Panacea, our newest ScienceBlog! But whatever you're doing, don't forget to take the time to get out there and do something active; you'll feel better and you'll be healthier. And who doesn't want a higher quality of life?

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In the Feb 26 issue of Science, the Chief Patent Counsel for GlaxoSmithKline has written a "Policy Forum" article outlining the reasons that the pharmaceutical industry needs longer and stronger patent protection on its new drugs (to fend off those nasty generics). I was kind of shocked to see such a propaganda piece in Science, but I suppose it is all part of looking at both (all) sides of an issue. Big pharma has been telling us how tough they've got it for years, and the argument that they must charge very high prices to pay for all that R&D is so old that you can probably find it carved on stone in subterranean caverns beneath New Jersey (where many big pharma companies live). Unfortunately, many of the arguments are hollow as well - since it has been pointed out many times that over 75% (a conservative estimate) of new drugs come directly out of academic research and then get their souls licensed to big pharma. Anyway, I'm working on a letter to the editor (which only has a slight chance of getting into Science in any form anyway). Here's a first draft, which, I'm afraid, is most likely a bit too terse for Science as yet:

Dear Editors,

Regarding Sherry Knowles Policy Forum article in the 26 Feb 2010 issue of Science, it is difficult to feel much fiscal compassion for an industry that has long held the record for highest profit margins in the world. The GSK Chief Patent Counsel's suggestion for giving branded pharmaceuticals an even longer protection period from generics also elicits little sympathy for an industry that has forced the creation of literally scores of non-governmental agencies who fight daily for universal access to life saving medicines that are kept from people who need them simply because of patent restrictions and cost. It is true that new drugs cost a lot of money to develop, although nowhere near as much as the pharmaceutical industry claims (a discrepancy that has been pointed out for years by people like Marcia Angell, former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine). Is it wise, however, to give even more control over branded drug distribution to an industry that is steadily conglomerating into a small number of giant profit making machines? Are a few multi-billionaire CEOs, with an eye primarily on the bottom line, the best arbiters of what drugs the world may be allowed to have access to? I'd like to see a Policy Forum discussing how to decentralize the pharmaceutical industry: how to sever the currently requisite licensing-to-big-pharma model and create a large number of small-profit-margin ventures, working closely in league with academic labs, developing and manufacturing new, critically needed drugs, and getting them to needed populations at 3% over cost. Big pharma can stay around too: there's plenty of market for more Rogaine and Viagra spin-offs.

Sincerely yours,

Livid in Louisiana

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination