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Placebo Buttons?

A recent article suggested that many of the buttons/toggles that we experience in our daily lives...

The Development Of Social Monogamy In Mammals

Two papers published this week have proposed explanations regarding the evolution of social monogamy...

Easy Answers To World Problems

After reading another article by Alex Berezow ["The Arrogance of a Well-Fed Society"] insisting...

The Precautionary Principle Review

There is an interesting series of articles published by the Guardian discussing various aspects...

Gerhard Adam

I'm not big on writing things about myself so a friend on this site (Brian Taylor) opted to put a few sentences together: Hopefully I'll be able to live up to his claims. "I thought perhaps you... Read More »

Empty Anti-Government Rhetoric

Nov 22 2009 | comment(s)

In today's political hotbed of ideological divisions there seems to be no end to the catch phrases that are used to convey some sentiment regarding the evils of government. A popular bumper-sticker notes "I love my country, but I fear my government".

What does that even mean? What is a country without a government? It certainly can't be so trivial as to pronounce a love for the square of dirt someone is standing on, so what is this statement supposed to represent?

Philosophy and Science

Nov 20 2009 | comment(s)

The question was just raised in a previous blog entry about what a research scientist could learn from philosophy. Perhaps this article, "Mad Science? Growing Meat Without Animals" can provide some insight.

Particularly telling was this quote:

"In principle, we could harvest the meat progenitor cells from fresh human cadavers and grow meat from them," Post said. "Once taken out of its disease and animalistic, cannibalistic context — you are not killing fellow citizens for it, they are already dead — there is no reason why not."

Still, Post suggests that marketing could overcome such hurdles.

An Animal Cruelty Rant

Nov 15 2009 | comment(s)

A story in the local newspaper related how a pit bull was turned into the animal shelter after having been found abandoned in a ditch with all of its teeth filed down to the exposed roots, emaciated by starvation (weighing less than 40 pounds), and having just given birth to 9 puppies that morning. The mother also had a few pressure sores from where bones rubbed against skin. All the puppies still had the umbilical cords attached and were wet.

This level of human cruelty and stupidity is beyond understanding and one wonders what could be done to bring such behaviors under control.

Cloned Cows

Nov 15 2009 | comment(s)

A recent article, "Cloned Cows: Less In, More Out" raised the question of food safety, since its sale was approved by the FDA last year.

However, my concerns are much more fundamental. The article indicates that cloning is beneficial so "that we get more beef for our buck". Suggesting that there is an economic incentive to ensure that we produce beef more efficiently. However, I'm not clear how this would be achieved since the costs that go into the cows would be offset by the other expenses produced such as patent rights (U.S. Patent 6590139).

Moon Water Conspiracy

Nov 13 2009 | comment(s)

There was an interesting article "'Significant Amount' of Water Found on Moon" which was also followed by "Water on Moon Propaganda".

While the former is interesting, the latter is quite entertaining. I tried to see if it was related to the phases of the moon (it wasn't). I thought perhaps it could be linked to Friday the 13^th (it couldn't).

This left only one thing. Smaller brains.

Human Evolution: Smaller Brains

Nov 13 2009 | comment(s)

An article entitled "Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink" was simply too good to pass up. At first I looked for a correlation with news reporting (thinking about a station named after the genera Vulpes).

Of course, one of the comments referred to a movie called "Idiocracy" which may well turn out to be prophetic.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapagos" also comes to mind. In any case, I suspect this is an unexpected turn in natural selection that we can all have some fun with.