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Thanksgiving Dinner Means A Bacterial War For Your Teeth

Thanksgiving Dinner Means A Bacterial War For Your Teeth

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

On Thanksgiving Day, it will be all hugs and football for many people, but inside their mouths one of the biggest wars of the year will be taking place.

Streptococcus mutans and other harmful bacteria get their own holiday feast and S. mutans gets to launch one of its biggest assaults of the year on your tooth enamel.  But you have soldiers on your side too, namely cranberries and even wine, say dental researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center
New Federal Money Pouring into Science Education and Citizen Science

New Federal Money Pouring into Science Education and Citizen Science

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

Earlier this month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that $8 million worth of new grant money has been awarded to educational and non-profit institutions across the United States to support programs that connect the public to science appreciation and interactivity.

The NOAA's Environmental Literacy Grant program focuses to enhance informal educational opportunities at museums and through family and teen programs, as well as expand citizen science networks. The funded projects will work to increase the understanding and appreciation of environmental issues of the oceans, coastlines, Great Lakes, and the climate around the globe.

25 states with crazy laws still on the books

25 states with crazy laws still on the books

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

In which state is it illegal to set a mouse trap without a hunting license?  If you said California because you always say California regarding goofy laws, you're right, but this time California is not alone.

In Florida, if you leave your elephant tied to a parking meter, they will fine you just like they would a car and in Maryland Randy Newman's song ‘Short People' can't be played on radios.

See the entire list at Lunch.com
Xbox Kinect Helps With Autism?

Xbox Kinect Helps With Autism?

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

John Yan, editor at GamingNexus.com, has a son with autism and parents of kids with autism want to find things that can help little ones engage with the world around them.   

Where a PS3 and a regular Xbox were not much use for a little guy who can't use the controllers very well, Yan says he took to the Kinect right away.  
Shadow puppets for ultimate geeks using Xbox Kinect

Shadow puppets for ultimate geeks using Xbox Kinect

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

Using libfreenect Kinect drivers and ofxKinect, these two made their Microsoft Xbox Kinect system do skeleton tracking on the arm and determine where the shoulder, elbow, and wrist is to control the movement and posture of a giant funky bird.

Instead hand puppetry for cool kids.

If you could play basketball like this girl...

If you could play basketball like this girl...

Nov 23 2010 | comment(s)

...let's be honest.   You can't.

Harvesting The Genome Of Thanksgiving Dinner

Harvesting The Genome Of Thanksgiving Dinner

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

Back in September, researchers published the genome of Meleagris gallopavo, the domestic turkey and America's fourth most popular meat.

It will be invaluable as future generations of scientists set out to optimize meat yield and quality without falling back on adding organic nonsense like water to make average turkeys seem better than they are.    
IPhone App: Lyme Disease Tick Map

IPhone App: Lyme Disease Tick Map

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

A research team at the Yale School of Public Health has developed the first smartphone app for Lyme disease.  Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium, which spreads to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks.

Using Global Position System, the application provides information regarding the abundance of infected ticks at the location of the user and a list of precautions one should employ to help avoid tick-bites. If bitten by a tick, the list gives step-by-step instructions and a 40-second video on how to remove the tick.
TSA X-ray chaos - Body scanner makers spend big on lobbying

TSA X-ray chaos - Body scanner makers spend big on lobbying

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

L-3 Communications, which sold $40 million in scanners to TSA, doubled its lobbyist spending in the last five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance its cause in Washington.
Head of IPCC surprised people didn't like bogus climate data

Head of IPCC surprised people didn't like bogus climate data

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN IPCC, says he was surprised that bogus data they printed as fact, that Himalayan glaciers were going to disappear by 2035, caused an uproar among the public and led to suspicion about what in their reports was accurate.

When scientists first disputed that part of the report in 2007, he dismissed their statements as "voodoo science".  A few months later it was revealed to be the exact opposite; instead, that part of the 2007 IPCC report was voodoo, simply being a statement made to a journalist.
Al Gore accepts science at last: Corn ethanol

Al Gore accepts science at last: Corn ethanol "was not a good policy"

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

Beginning in 1988, and until a Republican Congress approved mandates and subsidies for biofuels in 2005 (at which point every Democrat and environmental activist irrationality extolling ethanol must have realized there was something wrong), Al Gore insisted despite a lack of evidence that it was a viable solution to the fossil fuel issue.   He saw 'renewable' and didn't look any farther but he is older and wiser now.

What the non-agenda-based section of science (people in the actual energy industry that is, science bloggers fawned over the stuff) knew all along was this would be an expensive boondoggle and accomplish nothing.
Is math inherently part of the structure of the universe?

Is math inherently part of the structure of the universe?

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

In another thread on Science 2.0 we got onto the nature of existence and what we can say for certain about the universe (if anything).  Given that physics and math seem so intimately linked in practice, I often wonder if this link is "real".  In other words:
Do numbers and other mathematical entities actually exist, or are they made up by the human mind?
Is cancer curable?

Is cancer curable?

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA’s double-helix structure recently called for a back to basics approach in dealing with cancer.  In previous post threads I’ve discussed cancer’s complexity and in particular the confounding and scary implications of somatic evolution, which underscores some of the reasons we are not winning the “war on cancer.”  Here I will discuss some cutting edge approaches to treating and preventing cancer and how they might pan out in light of the complexities of the disease.

Second U.S. human embryonic stem cell clinical trial gets green light

Second U.S. human embryonic stem cell clinical trial gets green light

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Advanced Cell Technology for the second human trial of human embryonic stem cells (hESC), in people with macular degeneration, a progressive form of blindness.

Advanced Cell Technology said it would start testing its stem cell-based treatment on 12 patients with Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy, which usually impacts children between 10 to 20 years of age, resulting in blindness due to degeneration in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). 
Cancer research surprises

Cancer research surprises

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

Many people would admit to not understanding cancer well, but fewer people would admit to not understanding evolution well.  Here are some challenges to our understanding of both.

Starvation may help cancer treatment. “As little as 48 hours of starvation afforded mice injected with brain cancer cells the ability to endure and benefit from extremely high doses of chemotherapy that non-starved mice could not survive.”

Smolin Vs Susskind: The Judge’s Decision Part 1

Smolin Vs Susskind: The Judge’s Decision Part 1

Nov 22 2010 | comment(s)

At the Edge you can find a rather interesting discussion between Lee Smolin and Leonard Susskind, involving all the stuff I try to demystify often.

They fought via email, then agreed to each write a final letter on the edge. And today you can read the final judgment right here at the source from somebody who is little prejudiced by his own hidden agenda, which is by the way one of the main charges that Susskind

Why I killed Pluto: It had it coming

Why I killed Pluto: It had it coming

Nov 21 2010 | comment(s)

Disappointed that our solar system mnemonic "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" became "Mean Very Evil Men Just Shortened Up Nature" at the International Astronomical Union meeting which demoted Pluto as a planet?

You're not alone but Mike Brown, the astronomer who ignited that spark, is unapologetic, and has even written a book on it, "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming", where he discusses the origins of his quest, which resulted in Eris and led to the elimination of Pluto as a planet due to a rather ridiculous, arbitrary of definition of planet specifically designed to exclude Pluto instead of being, you know, science.
Before You Buy: A Woo Primer For Parents

Before You Buy: A Woo Primer For Parents

Nov 21 2010 | comment(s)

It seems like many autism-related sites have ads on them for our kids, promising all sorts of results. How do we evaluate the claims of these products and prevent ourselves from (1) wasting precious financial resources, and (2) putting our precious children in harm's way? There are some key things that one can look for that indicate woo and pseudoscience.

We don't have to be experts in a field; we just have to know how to evaluate claims and evidence.

Look at this ad located at the Autism File:


NN Serpentis - Binary Star System More Like A Game Of Billiards

NN Serpentis - Binary Star System More Like A Game Of Billiards

Nov 21 2010 | comment(s)

Astronomers using two decades of observations from many telescopes around the world have discovered an unusual star system which looks like, and may even once have behaved like, a game of snooker.  Or billiards, depending on which side of the pond you are on.

They looked at a binary star system called NN Serpentis, which is 1670 light years away from Earth. NN Serpentis is actually a binary star system consisting of two stars, a red dwarf and a white dwarf, which orbit each other in an incredibly close, tight orbit. By lucky chance Earth sits in the same plane as this binary star system, so we can we can see the larger red dwarf eclipse the white dwarf every 3 hours and 7 minutes.
Genetic Links Between Obesity And Early Puberty In Girls

Genetic Links Between Obesity And Early Puberty In Girls

Nov 21 2010 | comment(s)

Researchers conducting genome-wide association studies say they have discovered 30 new genes determine the age of sexual maturation in women - and many of those genes also act on body weight regulation or biological pathways related to fat metabolism.

Menarche, the onset of first menstruation in girls, indicates the attainment of reproductive capacity and is a widely used marker of pubertal timing. Age of menarche varies widely and is highly dependent on nutritional status and early menarche is associated with many adverse health outcomes later in life, including breast cancer, endometrial cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as shorter adult stature.