Ars Technica has an article on bad science in entertainment, with a list of items that were particularly annoying:
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Ars Technica has an article on bad science in entertainment, with a list of items that were particularly annoying:
Here’s some exciting news: Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years. It is exciting but not surprising at all — but of course we’re going to be able to assemble entirely artificial life forms soon. It’s just a particularly complicated kind of chemistry, and it’s more of a deep technical problem than anything else. I wouldn’t be quite so specific about the date — there are also all kinds of surprises that could pop up — but I’m optimistic, and I think the overall assertion is supported by the increasing rate of accomplishment in the field.
But of course, in addition to the usual suggestions from interested followers of science that I should mention this cool article on the blog, I’ve gotten a few from creationist complainers (Already! See what my email is like?) Expect to hear more outrage from the religious right as this story develops in the coming years, which might be a good thing … they’re going to have to spread themselves thin to fight all the interesting work coming out of biology, and evolution won’t be the only target anymore. Anyway, here’s one of my creationists, expressing his unhappiness in odd directions.
If it existed, it might also be profoundly autistic and … diabetic? So science cannot disprove the existence of a soul, but one thing we’re learning is how much valued human properties such as love and attachment and awareness of others are a product of our biology — emotions like love are an outcome of chemistry, and can’t be separated from our meaty natures.
The latest issue of BioEssays has an excellent review of the role of the hormone oxytocin in regulating behaviors. It highlights how much biochemistry is a determinant of what we regard as virtues.
I just finished Sean B. Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo the other day, and I must confess: I was initially a bit disappointed. It has a few weaknesses. For one, I didn’t learn anything new from it; I had already read just about everything mentioned in the book in the original papers. It also takes a very conservative view of evolutionary theory, and doesn’t mention any of the more radical ideas that you find bubbling up on just about every page of Mary Jane West-Eberhard’s big book. One chapter, the tenth, really didn’t fit in well with the rest—the whole book is about pattern, and that chapter is suddenly talking about a few details in the evolution and development of the human brain.
So I read the whole thing with a bit of exasperation, waiting for him to get to the good stuff, and he never did. But then after thinking about it for a while, I realized what the real problem was: he didn’t write book for me, the inconsiderate bastard, he wrote it for all those people who maybe haven’t taken a single course or read any other books in the subject of developmental biology. I skimmed through it again without my prior biases, and realized that it’s actually a darned good survey of basic concepts, and that I’m going to find it very useful.
Jonathan Eisen dresses down university press departments that oversell science, and also hits on one of my pet peeves: the attempt to portray all scientific research as addressing human ills. In this case, it’s claiming that research on shark gene expression will help treat birth defects.
In my own research, I look at the effects of alcohol (among other things) on embryonic development in zebrafish, and it is a kind of animal model of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. People always jump to the assumption that I’m trying to find a cure for FAS, and I have to correct them: I definitely am not. FAS is a developmental disorder, and is not curable … and we already have a solution in the form of public policy and maternal education that can prevent the problem. I use teratogens as a simple tool to perturb the process of development so I can view the interactions involved; I also see development as an event involving both genes and the environment, and just about everyone mucks around with genes, so I’m looking at it from the other side.
So my work with teratogens is much more directly applicable to research on birth defects, and I deny the association; most of the work out there on gene expression in fins is going to even more remote from applied medical uses, not that that will stop PR departments.
Sandy is peeking at and playing with Jim Watson’s most intimate bits. So can you!
Here is an excellent article on the biology of sexual orientation. We all know this is a contentious issue — are we born with an orientation, or is it a ‘choice’ that people make? — and the article just lays the facts out for us and points out some of the lacunae in our knowledge.
Despite a miserable red-eye flight — I left San Jose at 6:30 last night, and arrived in Minneapolis at 4am, followed by my familiar long drive home — I’ll try to say a few words about Sci Foo.
Short version: weirdest meeting ever. That’s a good thing, though.
I’ve got to get back to my meeting, but Cosma just had to distract me with these classic video clips on dissecting the squid giant axon, including movies of one of my personal heroes, JZ Young (pronounced, as everyone knows, as jay-zed), in action. It’s beautiful stuff.
Abbie of ERV has made her first guest post on the Panda’s Thumb, and it’s a good one. Go see how Behe was wrong and there are documented genetic and biochemical changes in the evolution of HIV, including the evolution of new molecular machinery.
