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Neurological Surgery Professor Paul Muizelaar Banned For Illegal Experiments

Neurological Surgery Professor Paul Muizelaar Banned For Illegal Experiments

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

In 2010, when Dr. Paul Muizelaar of U.C. Davis began performing illegal experimental treatments on terminally ill brain cancer patients, he earned over $800,000. (1)

That's pretty good money for an academic, especially while we are enduring the political theater of universities canceling core curriculum classes to try and pressure taxpayers into agreeing to tax increases if we 'care about education'.  
Science May Help You Win Your Fantasy Football League

Science May Help You Win Your Fantasy Football League

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

A team of academics from the University of Southampton thinks they will top the rest of the English Fantasy Football League when the new football season kicks off next month in England.

By football, we mean Soccer to Americans.  Sorry if we confusingly used the term for the game that actually uses feet and lets people who use their feet in the Hall of Fame.

Biofuels include

Biofuels include

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

 "Bioethanol, Biobutanol, Biodiesel, Vegetable oils, Biomethanol, Pyrolysis oils, Biogas, Biohydrogen. Biodiesel: Technically, Mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable lipid feedstock such as vegetable oils and animal fats for use in Compression Ignition engines”. 
The definition eliminates pure vegetable oils. Depending on the feed stock it may be referred as : – Soybean methyl ester - SME or SOME – Rape methyl ester - RME – Fatty acid methyl ester - FAME (a collective term including both of the above). – Vegetable oil methyl ester - VOME yielding plants provide bio-diesel. 
On vacation

On vacation

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

I am spending my vacations in the beautiful island of Leukada, in the Ionian sea. Consequently, my posting rate here has dropped significantly in the last few days. I will return in August; in the meantime I will still post something, but expect a much smaller rate of articles for a while here.

Disgruntled OxyContin Addicts Switch To Heroin

Disgruntled OxyContin Addicts Switch To Heroin

Jul 22 2012 | comment(s)

Drug addicts are outraged by recent changes to the formula of frequently abused prescription painkiller OxyContin which makes it harder to inhale.

So they are taking their business to heroin.

For nearly three years, psychiatrists have been collecting information from patients entering treatment for drug abuse and more than 2,500 patients from 150 treatment centers in 39 states have answered survey questions about their drug use with a particular focus on the reformulation of OxyContin.

Surveys. Of drug addicts. Calibrate accordingly.
If Cuban Healthcare Is So Great, Why Is There A Cholera Epidemic?

If Cuban Healthcare Is So Great, Why Is There A Cholera Epidemic?

Jul 21 2012 | comment(s)

Cuba is adored by communists - maybe they like 1950s decor. 

No, they like the socialized medicine. Specifically, they like to claim that a lower infant mortality rate means Cuban health care is better than in America. It doesn't take long to see through that. America does not abort at the first sign of trouble, like Cuba does, and so America has more babies that don't live very long.

Abortion is not the issue in this case, except to show that abortion rates are not a bellweather of health care. What is a bellweather of health care is the health of the country overall. Cuba's cholera epidemic shows that its health care system, which they present with pride, is not all that terrific. 
Was Charles Darwin a Plagiarist? Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution

Was Charles Darwin a Plagiarist? Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Today, scientists are extremely careful in making sure they cite others’ works, if not for ethical reasons because plagiarism destroys reputations and is potentially a career ender. However, in the past for some scientists including Charles Darwin and James Watson, the public has controversially given them credit for game changing discoveries and catapulted them into rock star status.

European Commission Endorses Free Public Access To Research

European Commission Endorses Free Public Access To Research

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The European Commission, which controls one of the world's largest science budgets, has backed calls for free public access to taxpayer-funded research. Reed Elsevier is not thrilled.

"Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research and they need seamless access to raw data," said Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda, though Kroes does not understand taxpayers are still paying twice.   The largest open access publishers do tens of millions of dollars in revenue by shifting the cost from readers to scientists - who are taxpayer funded.
Gestation Stalls For Pigs - A Business And Cultural Win

Gestation Stalls For Pigs - A Business And Cultural Win

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Have you noticed a huge increase in the price of pork chops or bacon or hot dogs?

Neither have I, despite the fact that sow gestation stalls, or crates or whatever you may call them in your neighborhood, are disappearing.  The stalls are basically where pregnant sows are kept. Anti-science hippies who are always looking for ammunition in their war on human food contend big business uses these crates because they are, you know, eeeevil, but that isn't true.  Long before Big Pork even existed farmers kept sows apart because they fight.  And during pregnancy, if you screw with a female pig, you are asking to roll in the mud.   The American Veterinary Medical Association says stalls are safer and therefore better than pens(1).
Psychic Science? Scientists Read Monkeys' Inner Thoughts

Psychic Science? Scientists Read Monkeys' Inner Thoughts

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Brain activity is a complex cipher but researchers were recently able to 'decode' monkey thoughts and determine how the little primates were planning to approach the same task - before they moved a muscle.

Watching large groups of neurons doesn't reveal much but a group of scientists recently took it to another level; they demonstrated that multiple parameters can be embedded in the firing rate of a single neuron and that certain types of parameters are encoded only if they are needed to solve the task at hand. Interesting enough, but  they also discovered that the population vectors could reveal different planning strategies.  

 They could, in effect, read the monkeys' minds.
Guest Post: Higgs ? 126 GeV, Said The Four Colour Theorem

Guest Post: Higgs ? 126 GeV, Said The Four Colour Theorem

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The following text has been offered as a followup of the Higgs observation by the LHC experiments, which finds a signal at a mass compatible with the pre-discovery predictions made some time ago by Vladimir Khachatryan - ones which I published in this blog. - T.D.

Considerations following the Higgs boson discovery - Ashay Dharwadker
300,000 Caribou Huddle Together To Avoid Nature

300,000 Caribou Huddle Together To Avoid Nature

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

A giant herd of cattle are not huddled together to get away from evil oil companies or other things that have overwhelmingly improved the ecosystem in Alaska, these Northwest caribou are avoiding nature.

Namely, mosquitoes.
Geologic Puzzle: What Explains Titan's Low Crater Count?

Geologic Puzzle: What Explains Titan's Low Crater Count?

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Compared to most moons in our solar system, Titan is relatively smooth. It has few craters  but Titan is around four billion years old, about the same age as the rest of the solar system - so it isn't an age issue. Yet if you went by the number of craters, its surface looks much younger, between 100 million and one billion years old.

In 2004, radar images from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft penetrated the atmosphere of Titan and revealed an icy terrain carved out over millions of years by rivers of liquid methane, similar to how rivers of water have etched into Earth's rocky continents but that opened up the mystery about its geologic past. 
Jansky Very Large Array Gets First Light

Jansky Very Large Array Gets First Light

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The Very Large Array (VLA) radio astronomy observatory, named for American physicist Karl Guthe Jansky, who discovered radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in 1931, is the largest and most capable radio telescope in the world
How To Succeed In Science Without Really Trying

How To Succeed In Science Without Really Trying

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Science can be a sweet gig if you don't have to work so much.  Doing research in Theoretical Phys Ed, for example, doesn't take all that much effort, but some fields require experiments and those can be a real time sink.

If you're envious of people who can just make up data, John Timmer at Ars Technica has a wonderful primer for you.


Credit: Aurich Lawson. Link: Ars Technica
Frankenstein Was Not A GMO

Frankenstein Was Not A GMO

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

The Los Angeles Times got a little Huffington Post-ish in an article July 17th about Oxitec's genetically modified mosquito to control dengue outbreaks in various poor countries - and perhaps even in the Florida Keys.
Why Is Generation X So Skeptical About Climate Change?

Why Is Generation X So Skeptical About Climate Change?

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

We just had Snowmageddon and then heat a heat wave in parts of the US. Local, short-term weather events are suddenly proof of long-term climate change once again, according to journalists and biased bloggers who claim to care about science.

"Generation X", as marketing people call the generation after the Baby Boomers, aren't buying it, despite the fact that awareness campaigns about global warming have gone on for most of their lives.
California Has Highest Whooping Cough Incidence In 60 Years

California Has Highest Whooping Cough Incidence In 60 Years

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

California had the highest number of cases of whooping cough (pertussis) in 60 years, despite the fact that it has a readily available vaccine. A new study in The Journal of Pediatrics describes that 2010 whooping cough epidemic and details strategies to decrease the incidence of this infection.

Some science education would be a good place to start. California has a strong anti-vaccine mentality, especially in coastal regions, and results showed much higher incidents of Whooping Cough in those areas, despite those being high income, well-educated communities.
World CO2 Emissions Up, Despite Declines In OECD Countries

World CO2 Emissions Up, Despite Declines In OECD Countries

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), considered the main cause of global warming, increased by 3% last year, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tons in 2011.
Where Are The Extraterrestrials? The People Speak...

Where Are The Extraterrestrials? The People Speak...

Jul 20 2012 | comment(s)

We live in times of extraordinary discovery. Exoplanets appear to be quite common in our galaxy. NASA’s Kepler Telescope has identified over 2,000 planetary candidates orbiting other stars. And yet the universe appears to be silent – at least when it comes to any detectable signs of alien civilizations, either at present in our galaxy or their remnants from the last couple of billion years.