Early cancer detection

I never thought I would see the day where I would call a piece written by David Gorski (aka Orac — I guess it’s good form to associate the two now since he’s blogging under his true name at Science-Based Medicine) well-written.
But here it is: his description on the difficulties of disentangling the effectiveness of [...]

Brian May (guitarist of Queen) is getting his Ph.D.

In astrophysics, even. Good for him.

Evolution vs. ID

Of late, my watching the evolution vs. intelligent design debate is like my watching Duke play Kentucky. (I’m a UNC alum, and have a genetic hatred for the two schools I mentioned. In such games, I lament the fact that someone gets to win. What can I say? It’s in my Carolina Blue blood.) On [...]

Blind people can use their hearing more effectively

And here’s how to reproduce the effects in the seeing.
Technorati Tags: mind hacks

Google has a patent search!

Sweet. Any guesses as to which patent I searched for first?

Ph.D. means Piled higher and Deeper

PhDComics shows us the “difference”:http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761 between the scientific method and the actual method we use in research.
Technorati Tags: science

The other side of the risk-benefit ratio

A few days ago, I wrote about a drug with “statisticially significant, but perhaps not clinically relevant, effect”:http://www.randomjohn.info/wordpress/2006/09/12/significance-statisticical-and-otherwise/. This is the benefit side of the risk-benefit ratio that the FDA tries to evaluate when deciding whether to approve a drug.
The other side, of course, is the risk. The “Campath”:http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06091422.htm story illustrates this issue quite nicely. [...]

Not your grandfather’s genetics

The lowly “vole”:http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/rodents-bizarre-traits-deepen-mystery-of-genetics-evolution-11492.html is challenging our theories of genetics.
Technorati Tags: genetics

Everything you know is wrong

Atoms are not bound together as tightly as we once thought.
Too much deuterium has been found; theory of universe is at risk.
A fight breaks out over exactly what a planet is.
Autism affects much more than social skills and communication.
It looks like a lot of textbooks are about to become outdated.
Technorati Tags: science astronomy

Gates’s sick vision of internet-connected household a step closer to reality

How long before we see ads for Tide because our laundry didn’t come clean and a notice popped up on our toaster telling us that?