My parents tell me my uncle and my grandma hit and killed a deer, and now they plan to eat it.

My reaction: OMG isn’t there some horrible cervid prion disease out there?! Fuuuuuckkkk!!!!!!!

The New England Journal of Medicine published a non-technical article last month about New York City's recent smoking ban entitled, Nowhere Left to Hide? The Banishment of Smoking from Public Spaces. It raises some interesting questions. Nobody disputes the fact that cigarettes are responsible an enormous number of excess death and illness each ( Read more... )

Here are a couple images I recently made in my cell/developmental biology lab:


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Michio Kaku is currently promoting his new book, Physics of the Future. Today, for the second time, I heard him make an incredible statement about the genetic basis of human longevity. In episode 94 of Dr. Kiki's Science Hour he says:

"We are 98.5 [percent] identical to the chimpanzee, genetically speaking, and yet we live twice as long. So among ( Read more... )

Carol Kaesuk Yoon, who happens to be married to one of my professors, has an interesting article in the New York Times about the sticky moral questions we confront when we decide it's OK to kill and eat some organisms but not others. No Face, but Plants Like Life Too is a thoughtful article which I highly recommend reading. I don't entirely agree ( Read more... )

Seriously, this is what is wrong with science education. There is just so much wrong with it I don't even know where to begin. It's supposed to teach students the order of the steps and the major inputs and outputs in the fundamental processes that power all plants and animals. But sliding those tiles around is unnecessarily frustrating and time ( Read more... )

OOOOOOOMG ARSENIC-BASED LIFE!!!!111

Eh, not quite. To quote PZ: “…researchers have found that some earthly bacteria that live in literally poisonous environments are adapted to find the presence of arsenic dramatically less lethal, and that they can even incorporate arsenic into their routine, familiar chemistry.” He points out in an addendum that ( Read more... )

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I just read this article describing a new study which suggests fear of uncertainty is one major reason why so many Americans doubt the theory of evolution. The traditional view is that religious beliefs explain the disconnect between research scientists, who overwhelmingly accept (secular) evolutionary theory, and the general public. Research ( Read more... )

How biologists see the world:


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