from the NY Times The villagers are very small, generally less than three and a half feet tall, and have a rare condition known as Laron syndrome or Laron-type dwarfism. They are probably the descendants of conversos, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who were forced to convert to Christianity [...]
Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
SUNDAY REVELATIONS: Pope’s Blood Now a Relic
(Huff Post) WARSAW, Poland — A vial containing blood drawn from Pope John Paul II shortly before he died will be installed as a relic in a Polish church soon after his beatification later this year, an official said Monday. Ed. comment This might be more quaint and benign if we are NOT still recov[...]
January 6th, 2011 - 8:11 am § in Schools & Colleges, Science
What is wrong with Scientific Publishing?
Can we put it right before it is too late? from Cambridge I sat down today to write code and and found that I couldn’t – I had to write about science publishing, so here goes. I intend this will be the first of several posts. I often blog in forceful style (rant?) but here […][...]
December 28th, 2010 - 9:00 pm § in Schools & Colleges, Science
How to Help Education in Haiti
A guide to groups assisting education in Haiti.[...]
Ardipithecus and the research university
from the Berkeley Blog Kevin Padian, professor of paleontology and evolutionary biology at Berkeley (and a cousin of mine) has previoulsy spoken out against the farce of intelligent design, earning him an ironic comparison to Archie Bunker (click on image). His post in the Berkeley Blog addresses a [...]
Of Tea Parties, Pot, and Lysenko
Original date: 12 Dec 2010, updates Jan 23, 2011 Ain’t democracy wunnaful? In older systems, the king or dictator could rule his reality into truth. The Popes ruled the solar system into a geo centric orbit. Canute ruled the tides not to come in. Stalin ruled DNA out and dialectical materialis[...]
Kiss My Tush?
from PZ Myer’s Pharyngula: “Funny business, this. Professor John McLachlan corresponded with the organizers of an international conference on integrative medicine, proposing some very peculiar ideas that he wanted to present. They were…intrigued. They asked him to flesh out his concept[...]
Anybody Here a Republican? DADT
Only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent call themselves independent, and the rest don’t know or will not tell. This number from a recent PEW report is not surprisng, but does have worrisome political implications in the era of witches [...]
Death of A Pioneer: Britton Chance
After Newton, science has had eras marked by new discoveries. One such era might be called the era of the pathway. Once we cell biologists learned about the parts of the cell, biochemistry and biophysics became dominant .. an era led by a few pioneers who determined the functions of these parts [...]
Should Academics Pay Money For Their Freedoms?
I recently submitted an article to a Journal that had asked me to write a review. All went well and I was excited about what I had written. Then came the shock. The website of the publisher required me to fill in a form before publication. The form gave me three options. For 3000 euros […][...]