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Bioethics

Bioethics

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

The intersection of medical technology, medical practice and ethical principles has long been an important field of study but the rapid advance of medical technology has made it perhaps the most important field of study. Rapid advances in medical technology have been made in medicine and health but we should also be concerned with how health can be maintained in an ethical manner and in an ethical environment.  

Should You Resign Over A Paper You Disagree With?

Should You Resign Over A Paper You Disagree With?

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

Klaudia Brix of Jacobs University has resigned from the board of the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology,  the official publication of the Italian Society of Anatomy and Histology, because a paper by prominent 'HIV does not cause AIDS' researcher Peter Duesberg of U.C. Berkeley was published.
Need Statistics Lessons For HEP Data Analysis ? Look Here.

Need Statistics Lessons For HEP Data Analysis ? Look Here.

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

Last week I spent a few interesting days in the pleasant winter setting of Engelberg, a mountain location in the Swiss alps. There I attended the CHIPP 2012 winter school, an event organized by Vincenzo Chiochia  from University of Zurich and Gabriella Pazstor from University of Geneva. They invited me to give a three-hour mini-course in Statistics for data analysis in High-Energy Physics, something which was a new experience for me. It took me the best part of the last couple of months to get prepared, but I was glad I did. In the end, the material I put together could have been used profitfully for five or six hours of lecture, but by skipping some of the topics I could get to the end without using a silly speed.
Teach Your Toddler Perfect Pitch: Diana Deutsch, President Of The Society For Music Perception And Cognition

Teach Your Toddler Perfect Pitch: Diana Deutsch, President Of The Society For Music Perception And Cognition

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

Conventional wisdom holds you're born with perfect pitch or you're not. The conventional wisdom is wrong. Here's how to train perfect pitch.

For my book Brain Trust, I interviewed Diana Deutsch, University of California San Diego professor and president of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, and she said the trick is pairing pitch with meaning -- early!

'The Atlantic' Revolutionizes Cancer Research By Ignoring Science

'The Atlantic' Revolutionizes Cancer Research By Ignoring Science

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

I hope The Atlantic is enjoying its page views - pseudoscience sells and they are pushing it out there.  After an ill-fated no-science-allowed cultural diatribe (by a food critic, no less) against genetically modified foods graced its pages they have clearly seen the dollar signs - so they want to say maybe cell phones don't cause cancer but (*PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE ALERT*) maybe they do.
Playing New Gauge Symmetry Games

Playing New Gauge Symmetry Games

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

First I will play the old gauge symmetry game repeated everywhere for EM. I will then teach that old dog a new trick that ends up with the same bone. I will then struggle a little over the lingo to describe what I am interested in, the center of the quaternion group. I will then show how a new new trick, the new trick shifted to the right just enough to work, will lead to a gauge symmetry proof.


Let's review gauge symmetry in EM. Start with an arbitrary scalar function f. Take the conjugate of the 4-derivative operator and apply it to f:
Can Squid Fishing Be Less Deadly (For Non-Squid)?

Can Squid Fishing Be Less Deadly (For Non-Squid)?

Jan 31 2012 | comment(s)

Most of the time, fishermen fish for one particular creature--be it tuna, sardines, or shrimp. Unfortunately, species tend to exist in a commingled muddle called ecology, and it's often difficult to separate them with fishing gear.

On the east coast of the US, longfin squid are caught with trawl nets. When dragged through the water, trawl nets also collects things which are not squid, called bycatch. And although the population of longfin squid seems to be reasonably healthy, some of these bycatch species are not doing so well.
Tibet And Buddhism To Stay Liberated

Tibet And Buddhism To Stay Liberated

Jan 30 2012 | comment(s)

The news of the world are filled again with anti-Chinese propaganda. I am appalled at how simplistic anti-Chinese bickering is allowed to be, because it hides the real problems and dangers of China, and there are also positive aspects, like that China has done much for secularism and science.

Isolation and identification of the C.papaya substances responsible for the release and/or production of thrombocytes.

Isolation and identification of the C.papaya substances responsible for the release and/or production of thrombocytes.

Jan 29 2012 | comment(s)

This Sunday I had nice discussion with Dr Sameer Agarwal our close relative and a senior Pathologist from Jaipur and he showed me some papers on the role of leaf extract from Papaya curing/ improving platelet counts. I have read as Botanist that many latex bearing plants are used in traditional medicine to cure different ailments . Day long we discussed on the mechanism of enhancement of platelet counts in patients in Malaysia . In Malaysia, many people take papaya leave juice to increase platelet count when they get dengue fever. It’s a fact that, to date, there’s no known medical cure for dengue fever since it’s caused by a virus transmitted through the bite of the Aedes mosquito.
University Wields Holocaust Denial Lawsuit To Silence Critical Economics Professor, Skeptics Smell Blood

University Wields Holocaust Denial Lawsuit To Silence Critical Economics Professor, Skeptics Smell Blood

Jan 29 2012 | comment(s)

Franz Hörmann, professor at the Vienna University for Economics (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien), distinguishes between Expert-Knowledge (Fachwissen) and Experience-Knowledge (Erlebniswissen). The latter rests on memories formed by personal involvement. He has not personally experienced the Nazi-Jew holocaust; he has no Experience-Knowledge of it. He is not an expert on history, so he claims no Expert-Knowledge on the holocaust either. Nice – somebody who is humble. Hörmann states that:
German Authorities Recommend Removal Of TiBREEZE Breast Implants

German Authorities Recommend Removal Of TiBREEZE Breast Implants

Jan 29 2012 | comment(s)

A New CMS Result On Quarkonium Suppression

A New CMS Result On Quarkonium Suppression

Jan 28 2012 | comment(s)

The CMS Collaboration has just released the results of a deep study of their sample of lead-lead collisions, produced at a center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon by the Large Hadron Collider.
Where was I ?

Where was I ?

Jan 28 2012 | comment(s)

The CHIPP 2012 winter school of particle physics is over, and so is the 50th winter meeting on nuclear physics. The two events had three things in common: they were both held in renowned locations for winter sports in the Alps (Engelberg, Switzerland, and Bormio, Italy); they both ran from January 22nd to 27th; and I attended both as a lecturer.
How To Learn -- From Robert Bjork, Director Of UCLA Learning And Forgetting Lab

How To Learn -- From Robert Bjork, Director Of UCLA Learning And Forgetting Lab

Jan 28 2012 | comment(s)

Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? All are exactly opposite the best strategies for learning. Really, I recently had the good fortune to interview Robert Bjork, director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, distinguished professor of psychology, and massively renowned expert on packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out. And it turns out that everything I thought I knew about learning is wrong.

Here's what he said.
Palaeobarbie

Palaeobarbie

Jan 27 2012 | comment(s)

This is pretty funny; this is based on (supposedly genuine) letter sent to a well respected US museum. Obviously the names of institutions and individuals have been changed.

Dear Mr. Smith:
Alcohol In China And Enzyme Evolution

Alcohol In China And Enzyme Evolution

Jan 25 2012 | comment(s)

In China, drinking alcohol is often still a vital part of doing business. Science is important in China, which has become the scientific leader in several ways, but science is business of course. At times, alcohol belongs to science here.

Favorite ArXiv Articles Of The Day

Favorite ArXiv Articles Of The Day

Jan 24 2012 | comment(s)

I read ArXiv regularly. It's not easy because most of the latest publications of physics go there before print. Apart from pedagogical articles (for teaching purposes), all the articles are aimed at other scientists working at the state of art in the subject. I try read the principles at the beginnings of the paper, skim the maths, and see if the conclusion match the rest of physics. So apologies to the authors if I accidentally misquote them.

Today there were enough fascinating articles that I wanted to write about them. This might become an occasional series so let me know if you find this useful.
Slit Experiments and Coherence Patterns

Slit Experiments and Coherence Patterns

Jan 24 2012 | comment(s)

Fire a machine gun at a wall with two slits. Look at the pattern bullets make that pass through. The pattern is the sum of two Gaussian curves. Classical physics makes sense.


Repeat the exercise with electrons or photons. Where there is constructive interference, the signal is strong. Where there is destructive interference, the signal can drop to zero. Waves behave that way all the time. Yet quantum interference works even if particles are fired at extremely low rates, such as once a day.
Magnetic Soap - Just Because We Can

Magnetic Soap - Just Because We Can

Jan 24 2012 | comment(s)

Scientists have developed a soap composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution.  That's right, magnetic soap.

But there is a practical side. The generation of this property in a fully functional soap could calm concerns over the use of soaps in oil-spill clean ups and improve industrial cleaning products.
This Brain Region Activates To Rationalize

This Brain Region Activates To Rationalize "Selling Out"

Jan 23 2012 | comment(s)

A neuro-imaging study found that personal values that people refuse to disavow, even when offered money to do so, are processed differently in the brain than those values that are willingly sold.

Sacred values - those 'sell your soul' issues - prompted greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits, where selling out can be rationalized.