The 7 August 2025 issue of Nature included an interesting article on The Science Fiction Science Method (paywall) by Iyad Rahwan, Azim Shariff, and Jean-François Bonnefon. The scientific method is difficult enough to understand these days, especially regarding previously important but mundane scientific advances such as vaccines. The Science Fiction Science (SFS) Method is likely […]
Read more...Part the First: Is This How to Do Science? San Diego, with the University of California-San Diego and the Scripps Research Institute leading the way, has been a Biotech/Little Pharma hotspot since the beginning, a strong third behind Boston and the Bay Area. Ups and downs are common, but in the current climate it is […]
Read more...Part the First: How Do You Awaken Sleeping Cancer Cells. Short answer: Inflammation. Speaking from experience, anyone who have ever been treated successfully for cancer never fully relaxes after his or her tumor or condition is resolved. Formerly metastatic cells can remain dormant for a long time. Recent research has shown how they are reawakened. […]
Read more...In the United States, the aim of the Current Administration is to support something called “gold-standard science.” Their clear implication is that American scientists have been publishing something less than the gold standard – perhaps silver or bronze, or maybe even brass, when gold is the standard of the day (here and here). We have […]
Read more...Part the First: The Healthcare Costs of Fossil Fuels. One would think this is a no-brainer. Nevertheless, the Current Administration has its stone cold heart set on gutting the Office of Research and Development in the Environmental Protection Agency. I suppose it would be churlish once again to note the EPA is one of the […]
Read more...Part the First: Pharmacopeia. Who doesn’t love a garden? It sometimes seems that all drugs come from plants, initially. My first biology teachers claimed they were taught that bacteria were plants back when life was either animal or plant. Garden of Healing is a bit long but very interesting. It is also a break from […]
Read more...The Neoliberal turn of late capitalism [1] rules our world. Quinn Slobodian has become the voice of our time in explaining how this has happened and why. In Globalists The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2020), he described, among other things, how the Liberals of Central Europe who became Neoliberals were most […]
Read more...Part the First: Algorithmic Intelligence in Clinical Medicine. From the article This Ohio health system tested an AI tool to predict sepsis. Here’s how it went. As the subhead notes: Summa Health’s experience highlights the challenges of AI adoption, especially at community health systems: Across emergency departments around Akron, Ohio, physicians were getting overwhelmed. In […]
Read more...On this Independence Day in one country in North America a few notes on life outside current politics, scientific and otherwise. Part the First: The Archaeology of Food Is Fascinating. Having read about Roman eating habits over the years I have wondered about two things, fish sauce and the dormouse. Now we know which fish […]
Read more...Shortly after COVID-19 was recognized as a worldwide catastrophe, my much better half asked me how long I thought this would this last. Based on my then 45 years of biomedical research experience I replied, “Three years.” I was wrong. That was more than five years ago, when the refrigerated makeshift morgues were parked on […]
Read more...Part the First: Financing Professional Education in the United States. College costs too much in the United States. Professional School costs way to much. Up until the present – who knows what will happen next as the broad attacks on American universities continue – graduate education at the PhD level in traditional disciplines in the […]
Read more...Part the First. How Did the United States Get This Healthcare System? I distinctly remember the first time this question occurred to me, because as the child of a union household a visit to the doctor or the Emergency Room (trees were made to fall out of) was never a problem. I was twenty years […]
Read more...I recently added a new volume to my Shelf of Little Books, some of which are not so little but all of which repay re-reading that helps me understand our world a little better with each successive encounter. The newest resident of the shelf was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press: Following Nature’s […]
Read more...Part the First: Who Will Supplant the United States in Scientific Research? Before going any further in answer to The Rev Kev’s suggestion from last week, it is important to note that while the US currently remains the acknowledged leader in scientific research, this is a matter of quantity as much as quality. Other countries […]
Read more...Part the First. Tales from the Crypt. Subtitled The lives of 17th century Milan’s working poor – their health, diet, and drug habits – emerge from thousands of bodies buried under a public hospital. This article appeared in Science on 1 May 2025: In 1456, the Duke of Milan established a medical institution dedicated to […]
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