Should We Try to Prevent Autism?
Advocates for those with austism debate the value of prevention versus better care and support.
Read more...Category Archives: Science and the scientific method
Is American Science Stuck in a Doom Loop?
The American scientific community is in a difficult place. I started my first job in an academic research laboratory (funded by the Energy Research and Development Administration and the National Science Foundation) in 1975, which somehow was fifty years ago when I was the youngest person in the laboratory instead of the oldest. I have […]
Read more...Coffee Break: Beware the Jargon, Chocolate(!), Arsenic Life Final Update, Death Becomes Us, and the Scopes Trial,
Part the First: Beware Scientific Jargon. But everyone here already knows that. Nevertheless, this is a perpetual challenge for every scientist and other scholar who wants to be understood by our fellow citizens without “dumbing it down.” Scientific jargon can be ‘satisfying’ — but misleading. Jargon works especially well for those of my tribe who […]
Read more...The Impact of a Ghostwritten Paper on the Fate of Glyphosate
A downsized EPA faces a deadline to review the herbicide’s safety without much of its in-house expertise.
Read more...‘Alternative Facts’ Aren’t a Reason To Skip Vaccines
Just because RFK, Jr. is wrong on vaccines does not make vaccine orthodoxy correct.
Read more...Cancer Super-Survivors May Hold Keys to New Treatments
Researchers typically ask why people get cancer. What if they studied why some survive — or never develop the disease?
Read more...Coffee Break: Biotech vs. Science, NIH Under New Management, More on Malaria, Dreams of De-Extinction, and an Aside on the State of America
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...Coffee Break: COVID-19 and Cancer, NIH Weaponized Against the People, Consciousness, AI and the Internet, and Famine
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...Long-COVID, Viruses and ‘Zombie’ Cells: New Research Looks for Links to Chronic Fatigue and Brain Fog
A theory of what might cause the many symptoms of Long Covid, which if proven further, should help in developing treatments
Read more...Can States Reinvent U.S. Healthcare? This Expert Thinks So
Trump has sent a wrecking ball through US healthcare. Can states team up to preserve some measure of the old normal?
Read more...Funding the Fundamentals of Biomedical Science: The National Institutes of Health in 2025 and Beyond
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...‘Farming in the Dark’: Brooke Rollins’ Leadership, DOGE’s Grip and the Cost to American Agriculture
In her first six months, Donald Trump’s second agriculture secretary has altered the course of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She says prosperity is ‘just around the corner.’ But staffing cuts and restricted research could have long-lasting impacts.
Read more...Coffee Break: Garden of Healing, Good News on PEPFAR, Life in Biotech, and Our American Israel
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...Hayek’s Bastards and the Rise of Neoliberalism
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...FEMA’s Flood Maps Often Miss Dangerous Flash Flood Risks, Leaving Homeowners Unprepared
Even where FEMA identifies a flood risk, the overreliance on historical data and political influence leads to maps that don’t fully represent true risk.
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