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 Saturday, February 1, 2003
This story,. about the Texas Tech biology professor who won't write recommendation letters for his students unless they profess to believe in evolution, and who's now under attack by a right-wing "religious freedom" group, has occasioned a fair amount of blogging. My advice: Don't decide what side you're on before reading this magisterial post by Mark A. R. Kleiman. [Electrolite]
SInce when is a professor required to write ANYONE a letter of recommendation? If you can be forced to write one, then it has no meaning. I'm sorry but if I was asked to write a letter of recomendation for someone entering biology or medicine and they could not answer a question about evolution, they would not get the recommendation. They may turn out to be compassionate but many incompetant charlatans are compassionate also. Evolution is a basic principle of any science dealing with life on Earth. It is a proven and observed process. Modern medicine is more and more dependant on research which is grounded in evolution. The law of common descent is backed up every day by more and more data. To ignore this and its implications implies an inability to draw conclusions from observing the natural world. A doctor who is incapable of this is one who will be much more likely to make a critical error in care. Faith healers are compassionate also but I would not go to one for a bypass. 11:13:18 PM 
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This site has up-to-the-date news. But what is really poignant is that it has Quicktime movies from NASA TV as the mission control gets it last message from Columbia and then tries to re-establish contact, 4 minutes after it had broken up. With Challenger, everyone knew immediately that something had happened. In this instance, Mission Control was still futilely trying to talk to the doomed astronauts. Nothing is private anymore. 10:01:07 PM
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I can't remember who in Ilan Ramon's family said this (brother?) but he was talking about Ilan sending an email a few days back saying how much fun he was having in space and how he did not want to come back. And he didn't. ... I lost it there. We are only 50 years into the exploration of space. We have a long way to go before it is anything close to safe. We need to recognize this and realize that we still have to go forward. That is the only direction possible. 9:52:31 PM
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I stopped writing this morning as soon as I heard. It came across my newsreader and I was downstairs with CNN on ASAP. They already were showing pretty vivid videos of the breakup. Besides a profound sadness, I was thunderstruck with the public nature of the tragedy, much like I was with Challenger. How many cameras were focussed on the sky this clear morning in Texas? It is really easy to become complacent with the space program. After Challenger, I cehecked everytime for the safe liftoff and return of a shutle. Yet, after several years, I gradually stopped checking. But it sure looks like a lot of people remain completely interested and were willing to get up early on a Saturday to watch it fly overhead. I wish we never would have known how many had a camera ready. 9:41:25 PM
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Public Release: 31-Jan-2003
Genes & Development
The making of a brain
An international collaboration of scientists, led by Dr. Guillermo Oliver at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, TN), has identified a single gene, called Six3, as a crucial factor in the normal development of the vertebrate forebrain -- the part of the brain that is responsible for smell, memory storage, intelligence, and vision, as well as the regulation of body temperature, breathing, and sleep. This discovery also sheds light on a possible mechanistic basis for the human congenital brain defect, holoprosencephaly.
Contact: Heather Cosel
coselpie@cshl.org
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
[Eurekalert - Biology]
Public Release: 31-Jan-2003
Genes & Development
St. Jude researchers show that the Six3 gene is vital in the creation of the brain[base ']s complexity
Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered a critical, early step in the growing vertebrate embryo that is required for the proper development of a major part of what is often called the most complex structure in the universe--the human brain.
That vital step is orchestrated by the product of a single gene called Six3, which guides the formation of the embryonic part of the brain called the forebrain.
National Institutes of Health, Pew Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences
Contact: Bonnie Cameron
bonnie.cameron@stjude.org
901-495-4815
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
[Eurekalert - Biology]
I love homeobox genes. Most times if the name ends in an x, it is a homeobox gene. These are important proteins that activate developmental pathways that can have huge effects on how an organism works and looks. In this report, loss of the Six3 gene has important ramifications for brain development. One can the hypothesize that altered expression of the gene could also result in altered development of the brain, permitting whole new structures to come into being. Most likely these would be subtle, since the biological network of cellular processes can usually adapt to many changes. But it would be a way that a few small mutations could have a huge effect on the outcome. 7:40:41 AM
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Of course, this report may just be another psychological tool to weaken the Iraqis. Just thinking about the huge number of missiles being shot at them should cause the people to change their behaviour (i.e. leave Baghdad, making it easier to get to Saddam). But Baghdad is a city the size of LA. What effect would sending 600 missiles in 2 days against that city be? I did like the comment at the end of the posted article:Statement from CBS News Anchor Dan Rather: 'We assure you this report contains no information that the Defense Department thinks could help the Iraqi military .'' Thanks, Dan. Another reason I suspect that this is part of a psychological campaign. One that I hope works. I'd love it if no weapons had to be used. I am sure Bush would be happy also. If he can get Saddam out of the way without a war, I think he will probably get re-elected. Of ocurse, I'd love it if we could just find Osama and get him out of the way. 7:15:51 AM
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Why Don't We Have a Better Press Corps?. Tim Noah of Slate notes this amazing exchange. Question: Is Karl Rove really so totally uniformed about the consequences of the policies he advocates? Or is he just betting--cynically and correctly--that if God had not wanted the press corps to be sheared, he would not have made them sheep. The most interesting thing (to me) about Dana Milbank's Washington Post story is the implication that none of the reporters meeting with Rove knew enough about economic policy and had the... [Semi-Daily Journal]
I laughed at this. Not because Rove was nonsensical in his explanation. He knew exactly what he was saying. It was knowing that he would not get called on it because the majority of the press corps are idiots who were probably so proud just to be allowed into the presence of the great. The purpose of the press is not to get the facts straight or provide useful answers to difficult questions. It is to sell advertising. Its clients are not the readers but the companies that buy ads. Those companies only care about how many people read the ads. So, anything that gets more readers will be selected for and anything that might turn readers off, like facts, gets selected against. Sturgeon's Law would say that 95% of the press corp is awful Luckily, there are so many of them that the remaining 5% does some very good work. It is just hard to find them. The Internet makes it easier but not quite to the point where they can get enough traction against the malinformed. Maybe someday. 6:46:35 AM
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FDA Wants Anti-Radiation Drug. A centuries-old blue dye can be used to protect humans from radiation contamination. The Food and Drug Administration wants a medicinal version made to treat victims of dirty bombs. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News]
Buried in this article is a nice little discussion of the deadly effects of a dirty bomb explosion in Washington, DC. Members of the Federation of American Scientists told Congress last year that a small dirty bomb -- one containing only 10 pounds of TNT and pea-sized amount of cesium-137 -- were detonated in Washington, 'The initial passing of the radioactive cloud would be relatively harmless, and no one would have to evacuate immediately.'
But residents within about five city blocks of the detonation would have a one in 1,000 chance of getting cancer, the scientists said. A mile-long area of about 40 city blocks would exceed EPA contamination limits, and residents in that area would have a one-in-10,000 chance of getting cancer. If decontamination were not possible, those areas would have to be abandoned for decades.
California Institute of Technology researchers, on the other hand, said exposure would lead to only one extra cancer case per 100,000 people.
In both of these cases, the number of new cancer cases would probably still be less than the number of people actually killed by 10 lbs of TNT in a small space. I wonder how the two groups arrived at a 1000 fold difference in deaths.The purpose of a dirty bomb is to strike terror, which it would do, even if the real effect was minor. I would not be surprised to find out that the number of projected deaths from this radiation was still less than the higher number of cancer deaths from living at high altitude where you are closer to cosmic radiation. Flying in a plane is supposed to be comparable to a couple of dental X-rays.While the exposure to a dirty bomb is probably not trivial, I wonder how much it compares to various background radiation levels? 6:31:20 AM
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Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies: "The point of an argument is to give reasons in support of some conclusion. An argument commits a fallacy when the reasons offered do not, in fact, support the conclusion. " [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]
While knowing all of these probably would not have helped me in any of my teenage discussions with my father, they are useful to understand. It often seems that the majority of arguments used by people quoted in the media fall into one of these items. At least you can now understand what you mean when you say 'post hoc ergo proctor hoc', as I do in casual conversation every day 6:13:44 AM
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Steve Gillmor interviews John Perry Barlow on copy .... Steve Gillmor interviews John Perry Barlow on copyright, fair use, and the compensation of authors and artists in the January 24 InfoWorld. [FOS News]
One of the more interesting quotes from this interview: We can't be creative without having access to other creative work. [If] I have to make sure that the rights are cleared every time I download something or somebody wants me to hear something, it's going to cut way back on what I hear, which is going to cut way back on my capacity to create. Imagine what it would be like to write a song if you'd never heard one. Fair use is essential. But it is under assault.
Creativity does not happen in a vacuum. Yet, we were often prevented from working on a molecule in a research setting, trying to find out if it had an activity that had never been described, because of intellectual property concerns. A lot of movies are not out on DVD because no one really knows who owns them. These are important works that remaon obscure because of IP concerns. The same with books. Even if you want to uphold the law, trying to track down the original copyright holder in many cases is so burdensome that the work never gets used. This needs to be fixed. 6:04:58 AM
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Robert A. Baron, Reconstructing the Public Domain, .... Robert A. Baron, Reconstructing the Public Domain, originally delivered at a NINCH Copyright Town Meeting, March 23, 2002. From the abstract: "This paper advocates the development of a strong public domain as a remedy to the copyright industry's success in convincing Congress to increase the length and scope of copyright. To revitalize the public domain, and to reveal the means by which our copyright system has been induced to lose its traditional balance between interests, public and private, the author collects and analyzes the rhetorical language and metaphors employed by advocates for a tight copyright regime and by proponents of a strong public domain." [FOS News]
A very nice discussion of the problems faced and perhaps why. It adds a lot to the debate. 5:58:26 AM
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Babies' Mental Delay Tied to Moms' Vegan Diet: "The breast-fed infants of two mothers who did not eat any animal products, including milk and eggs, developed brain abnormalities as a result of a vitamin-B12 deficiency, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Thursday." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]
Again, what is an acceptable diet in an adult is not one in a child. Some of the well known deficiencies in a vegatarian or a vegan diet are the lack of B vitamins, particularly B-12 and folate. These can have very large negatiive effects on the nervous system of a developing child. Doctors need to make sure that vegan mothers know of this and supplement their diet with sources that contain these needed vitamins. 5:55:02 AM
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X-Rays Abound When Lightning Strikes [Scientific American]
To examine lightening, we have progressed from flying a kite in a thunderstorm to launching rockets. This new work is very exciting. The fact that you can get X-rayed when lightening strikes is a wonderful image. But the particle guys are going to be very interested. Getting electrons up to relativistic speeds at ground level seems like it would have some uses. Of course, you'd have to wait for a good thunderstorm to do your work. 5:39:41 AM
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Well, I started doing taxes. They always drive me nuts. It seems that they progress in a standard fashion. I first wildly overestimate the amount we will owe (usually forgetting some important deduction). So I get all upset. Then I redo it and get a more correct number. This year is particularly bad, because I had to exercise and sell my stock options last year. So, not only am I in a much higher tax bracket, but the stock is up 20% from where I had to sell. It looks like I will be in the top 5% (greater than $300,000 gross income) for last year and, unless I find employment soon this year, in the bottom 25% this year. See, just as I have said, the people in the top 1% do not always stay there. Statistics are great but they do not reflect individual lives. Oh well. At least I was wealthy for one year ;-) 5:15:10 AM
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