Anthrax, false research, triglycerides, mea culpa, cellphone freedom
Accidental anthrax Which is the more likely threat to public safety? A single big release of deadly organisms by terrorists, the nightmare that fuels much bioweapons research and a string of lookalike...
View ArticleA fix for GMO battles? Plus sexual harassment during field research
Give us this day a fix for the GMO battles? Two papers published in the last week were signal events for agricultural genomics. First was the draft of the huge, and hugely complex, genome of bread...
View ArticleH. floresiensis or H. sapiens with Down syndrome? Plus landing on a comet
Lords of the zings I don’t know why the new papers about the “hobbit,” the 2003 find of tiny ancient bones from the Indonesian island of Flores, have made such a splash. No, I take that back. I do...
View ArticleConcussion, TBI, human evolution, Neanderthal DNA, blogging news
Concussion, traumatic brain injury, and life’s hard knocks Search “concussion” in the media and you’ll come away thinking hard knocks to the head are chiefly a problem for kids and football players (or...
View ArticleUpdate on gene editing of human embryos–and other organisms
The National Academy of Sciences has confirmed officially that yes, as rumored for weeks, it will hold a meeting to thrash out issues posed by the new gene editing techniques. These will probably be...
View ArticleObamacare lives and Kennewick Man is a Native American
WHEW! The Affordable Care Act (aka ACA, aka Obamacare) subsidies to help people buy health insurance got saved by the US Supreme Court after all, with the somewhat unexpected help (unexpected by me,...
View ArticleFirst Americans mystery again plus $100 million search for extraterrestrials
DUELING PAPERS ABOUT THE FIRST AMERICANS Oh, goody. Dueling papers. Always a treat. And dueling papers in the same week in Science and Nature, an extra-special treat. The topic a hot one, as befits...
View ArticlePinker’s gene editing rant ignored most bioethics issues; debunking stoner...
Do you suppose Steven Pinker’s broadside against professional bioethics oversight of CRISPR and other forms of gene editing–Pinker’s command to bioethics was brutally inflexible: “Get out of the...
View ArticlePsychology cleans up its act, plus biohackers embrace gene editing, CRISPR,...
THE MESS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER SCIENCES TOO You’d think that the just-published Science paper, recounting a massive attempt at replication of 100 selected research projects published in the top...
View ArticleBreast cancer: Should DCIS be treated? Pig genome: messy and quite boaring
SHOULD DCIS BE TREATED LIKE BREAST CANCER? No one seems to know exactly what to make of the big study on the outcomes of DCIS. (DCIS = ductal carcinoma in situ, often called stage 0 breast cancer or...
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