Honey Laundering: A sticky trail of intrigue and crime:

".........He was suspected of trafficking in counterfeit merchandise -- a honey smuggler.

A far cry from the innocent image of Winnie the Pooh with a paw stuck in the honey pot, the international honey trade has become increasingly rife with crime and intrigue.

In the U.S., where bee colonies are dying off and demand for imported honey is soaring, traders of the thick amber liquid are resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards in order to dump cheap honey on the market, a five-month Seattle P-I investigation has found.

The business is plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup -- or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics.........."

Wow! I never thought of that! I had no idea that there was a shortage of honey due to the hive collapse. Read the whole thing.

From....

The American Physiological Society has another award available. This one is for undergraduates interested in doing summer research in the lab of an established (ie, hot shot) investigator. The research award provides $4000 for 10 weeks of support and a $1300 travel stipend in order to attend the annual Experimental Biology meeting.

The deadline to apply is February 2nd. Award information is here and the site to apply is here.

For those of you not already aware of this from Dr. Isis's-quicker-at-hitting-the-post-button-ScienceBlog colleagues, ScienceBlogs is upgrading their publishing software this weekend. This means that Dr. Isis will be unable to post between 1 pm Friday and 5 pm Saturday EST.

If you still need your SB fix, PhysioProf has graciously offered to allow a bunch of us to guestblog over at his joint. You can check us all out here during the Great ScienceBlogs Outage of 2009.

While you're over there, tell him how much you loved his Postdoc piece. And just wait until you see the hot freshness I have coming up for the grad students-to-be!

In case you haven't heard, Scienceblogs is upgrading to a new system over the weekend. So posting and commenting will be out of commission from 1 PM EST Friday until further notice (yikes!).

But that's okay, because SW and I are both offline a lot this weekend - I'll be driving through real snow from Detroit, after having the chance to rifle through the Society of Women Engineers archives on their dime. Any requests for what I should look up?

In the meantime, enjoy reading some cool non-Sb blogs, and have a fab weekend.

Ok, away from politics, and back to the good stuff. When I left off talking about encryption, we were looking at RSA, as an example of an asymmetric encryption system.

Since it's been a while, I'll start off with a quick review of RSA.

Asymmetric encryption systems like RSA are based on computations that are easy to perform if you know the keys, and incredibly hard to perform if you don't. In the specific case of RSA, everything is based on a pair of very large prime numbers. If you know those two primes, and you know the public key, it's really easy to compute the private key. But if you don't know the two prime numbers, then even given the public key, it's incredibly difficult to compute the private key.

To be a bit more specific, in RSA, you get a pair of large prime numbers, P and Q. You compute from them a totient of their product, which is the number N=(P-1)×(Q-1). Then you arbitrarily pick a public exponent, E, which is smaller than N, and which is prime relative to N. You can then compute the private key exponent, D. If you know what P and Q are, it's pretty easy to compute D.

Once you've got D and E, your public key is the pair is (N,E), and the private key is the pair is (N,D).

If you've got a plaintext message M, then encrypting it with the public key is done by computing M^E mod N. If you've got a ciphertext C encrypted with the public key, then decrypting it is done by computing C^D mod N.

Encrypting a plaintext with the public key is exactly the same process as decrypting a ciphertext produced with the private key. And vice versa.

I and the Bird #91 is up on From the Faraway, Nearby

.... (continued) ...

The Rwenzori Massif, a giant mountain indeed, the largest single mountain on the planet, rose to our north this one fine afternoon, gloriously visible for the first time in months; Visible in fact for the first time ever for many of the people on the expedition and for some of the children in the nearby village. The Rwenzori is normally covered in clouds and impossible to see from any direction. We were only a few kilometers south of it, and in fact, low hills just to our east on which we were conducting some of our research form the lowest and subtlest manifestation of this giant chunk of earth pressured so high into the sky by the conflicting tectonic forces that form the great Western Rift Valley of Central Africa.

Hardly ever seen but there it was, the five glaciers that blanket its summits glinting like enormous alien diamonds landing on a distant hillside, shades of green never before seen in these parts visible below the ice. It was deeply strange to see a mountain on the lowest slopes of which we lived for months but that we had never seen before, like it was just built that morning while we were paying attention to something else.

Have you noticed that Rachel Maddow, the newly en-scheduled MSNBC Cable News Show host, has a lot of interesting and rather endearing mannerisms of speech and presentation? Of course you have. But have you also noticed that Rachel also has a large and growing influence on the manersisms of others on both radio and TV? She is a trend setter in this regard.

There is a woman who has a radio talk show on Air America (as does Maddow) who has stolen all of Maddow's mannerisms. If you tune her in, you'll think it is Rachel Maddow. Lately I've begun to notice TV anchors and presenters emulating some of Maddow's style. Keith Olberman did it first, I think. I've seen a couple of minor reporters do it.

Today, when I saw David Shuster deliver a line in a pure Rachel Maddow style, I knew the phenomenon was for real.

I predict that in the near future we will see Bill O'Reilly doing the Maddow. (Well, maybe not.)

Steve Mirsky in Scientific American fisks McCain and Palin campaign anti-science statements (not that the remaining Republicans are any better, but these two were in the spotlight):

You're not supposed to kick a guy when he's down.

Of course, in reality, when he's down is the perfect time to kick him. He's closer to your feet, for one thing. But the particular kicking I have in mind should be thought of as tough love. These kicks at the freshly defeated McCain-Palin ticket, as I write in early November, are an attempt to knock some sense back into the group of my fellow Americans who seem determined to ignore or even denigrate valuable scientific research because it's something outside the realm of Joe the Plumber's daily activities....

And then it gets into the meat of things....

A number of interesting stories pertaining to evolution and/or anthropology are floating around the internet. Before I get to that, though, I urge you to check out this round up of the year in anthropology writing at Neuroanthropology.

Also, am evolutionary biologist who has never read On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life is going to read it and blog about it chapter by chapter. If you would like to join him, an online copy can be found here and a free pdf can be found here.

tags: Times Square, 42nd street Times Square, New York in Transit, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC

More Sara Palin Funnee

As part of ongoing follow up on my story in this week's New York Times Magazine, I've been posting about a Department of Justice document leaked to me with the wording of their proposal to ban all non-canine service animals. Yesterday I posted the DOJ's rationale behind the species ban. I've since gotten several emails asking whether the leaked DOJ documents contained language banning the use of psychiatric service animals as well. It doesn't. Here, below the jump, is the DOJ's new proposed service animal definition:

Three chapters a week.

First edition (if you know what is good for you).

Here.

With John Whitfield.

First, read this and this as mental preparation.

PZ is reporting that Mississippi is considering one of those inane textbook disclaimer bills (HB 25), the sort of thing that occurred in Alabama and Georgia.

AN ACT TO REQUIRE THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION TO INCLUDE CERTAIN LANGUAGE EXPLAINING THAT EVOLUTION IS A THEORY IN THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF CERTAIN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

The disclaimer would read:

The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.

Veteran creationism watchers will recognize most of the verbal tics that are present here: misuse of the concept of "theory", creation of a "controversy," conflation of evolution with abiogenesis, creation of doubt regarding the fact of evolution due to "unanswered questions," and the ever popular mentions of teh Cambrian Explosion and complexity.

This post by Science's Jennifer Couzin at ScienceInsider suggests how much serious overhaul the FDA needs.

Looks like some scientists at the Food and Drug Administration are doing what they can to influence president elect Obama's choice of their new boss. Nine scientists have written to Obama's transition team pleading with him to restructure the agency and lamenting manipulation of scientific data there. The biggest worry cited in the letter is around review of medical devices. Obama reportedly has his eye on some candidates who would likely shake up the FDA, including agency critic Steven Nissen and Joshua Sharfstein, who was the Obama staffer who received the letter, reportedly.

The letter, sent to Obama transition team leader John Podesta, said "There is an atmosphere at FDA in which the honest employee fearrs the dishonest employee," according to the Journal story. The letter particularly emphasized concerns about the agency's review of medical devices -- a sector whose growth is expected to replace flagging drug sales, and which lately has been aggressively pushing neuromodulators as treatments for almost everything.

"The scientists appear to hope that their concerns will pressure Mr. Daschle to quickly change leadership at the FDA," according to the story, and appoint someone like the above-mentioned Nissen or Sharfstein.

In lieu of real change, the agency has apparently been trying to boost morale through some rather elaborate cheerleading.

But even as FDA scientists seek change, the agency is finding itself in hot water for a pricey effort to boost morale. Members of Congress are fuming about the agency's decision to fork over $1.5 million to a consulting company to improve battered morale, following an independent review citing this as a serious problem at FDA. A slideshow designed by the consultants and shown at an FDA retreat reportedly compared senior FDA official Janet Woodcock to Golda Meir, a former prime minister of Israel, and Ghandi, the Wall Street Journal reports. A call to the FDA for comment went unreturned. A congressional committee has opened an investigation into the spending choice.

It's hard to overstate the importance of a healthy overhaul at the FDA. The agency's poor oversight of the drug and device industry the last few years has added to the public's -- and many doctors' -- loss of confidence in the integrity of drug-efficacy evidence and testing. A turnaround at the agency is badly needed to set things aright.

My year of flossing:

I flossed again last night.

I'm still waiting for that sense of ambient smugness (my loose translation here of arete, at least as it relates to the Artistotelian aspects of oral hygiene) that usually accompanies my occasional forays into a life of virtue. I think back here to my days spent as a jogger of sorts in the early 1990's, days well remembered by some friends of mine if only for the gaily-colored yellow tights I would don before pounding up and down the streets of Sunnyvale, Calif. (In fact to this day the cognomen "Bananaman" is still thrown up in my face by some whenever I undertake a new exercise regimen.)

But at least the entwined senses of virtuous persecution and moral superiority were a wonderful relish to the less tangible benefits of sore knees and clownish apparel, all of which raises of course the question of whether a life lived in accordance with the dictates of smugness may be led in any way other than in relationship to the perceived failings of others. But persecution for my flossing has been so far minimal, and I am loathe to inquire too closely into the state of my neighbors' gums.

("Neighbors" is here used broadly in the whole Luke 10:25-37 sense, lest folks on the block feel the need to spend their time in my presence with their jaws clamped shut.)

Now THAT'S a niche blog if I ever saw one! Yet fun so far anyway.

Starting tomorrow at 1pm EST and lasting through most of Saturday (or until it's done), scienceblogs.com will be undergoing an upgrade to MoveableType4, specially fitted by SixApart for the gigantic network we have here.

What does it mean to you, the readers, and to us, the bloggers?

We will not be able to post any new content during this period.

You will not be able to post comments.

I am sure some bloggers will "front-load" the weekend by posting a bunch of stuff tomorrow morning, so there will be plenty of stuff for you to read.

Some bloggers may post temporarily on their old blogs (check each of your favourite bloggers for notices like this one to see their plans).

Several bloggers will guest-post on Comrade PhysioProf's blog, letting their inner sailor free - as that is the "F-word obligatory zone".

Posts scheduled to appear automatically will only show up after the new system is set up, so you'll have to go back in time to look for those (probably not many).

Once the upgrade is done, posting will be easier and more fun for us, with some additional functionalities.

The look of the blog will stay the same, except that the right-hand margin will get a little narrower (actually reverting to it's width of several months ago), thus the posts themselves will be a little wider.

Me? I'll take a break. Have other things to do anyway....

One of the many great things about my readers is how you folks keep me up to date with any new crap that springs up, so that I don't need to spend so much time hunting down the real good stuff. There's a beautiful piece of crap on youtube that was pointed out to me by one of you guys. It's really a wonderful bit of circularity.

Circularity is something that I find beautiful in math. What I mean by circularity is that because numbers are closed, you can run around in circles playing games with that closure. Another post that I've got in progress is talking about RSA encryption, which is a beautiful example of circularity. You start with a message, encoded as a number, M. Then you take a particular set of three numbers, N, D, and E. If you raise M to the Dth power modulo N, you get a new number. M'. If you raise M' to the Eth power modulo N, you get the original M. You're never taking roots - but the two exponentiations cancel each other out modulo N. It's beautiful, and astonishing, and yet it makes perfect sense.

That's a complicated example of circularity. A simpler one, also involving modulo arithmetic, is to look at the tempered music scale. Let A=0, Bb=1, B=2, C=3, Db=4, D=5, Eb=6, E=7, F=8, Gb=9, G=10, Ab=11. Now, start at A, and follow through musical fifths - that is, go from A(0) to E(7). Then E(7) to E+7=14 mod 12 = 2 = B. Then B to Gb(9). Then Gb to Db(4). Then Db to Ab. Then Ab to Eb. Then Eb to Bb. Then Db to F. Then F to C. Then C to G. Then G to D. Then D to A. You've taken twelve steps of fifths, and wound up where you started. So by following through one of the natural musical elements of harmony, you've got a circle that visits each note exactly once. Looked at mathematically, it's trivial. But it's still pretty cool.

It's pretty easy to trick yourself with circularity of you're not careful. You can find what appear to be amazing numerical coincidences, because you don't realize that you've created a circle.

The target of this posts isn't an example of that. It's a really trivial circle.

Because you won't be able to do what you usually do, which is sit there in front of your computer reading my blog and commenting on PZ's blog, refreshing the Scienceblogs.com 24 hour page to see if there are any new posts by anybody, and imagining what it must be like to be a Scienceblogs.com blogger.

Because, on Friday, 1:00 PM Eastern Time, Scienceblogs.com SHUTS DOWN.

You WILL still be able to read scienceblogs ...

...you will NOT be able to post comments ...

...until the upgrade to our blogging software is complete. And we are very very excited about this upgrade.

The upgrade will mean that we will be able to blog faster, better, and smarter in several ways that are all trade secrets and that I cannot reveal.

Well, OK, really, we're just upgrading to the next version of Movable Type.

One difference this will make for you, that you will really notice and I hope appreciate, is that the width of the right side bar will be re-narrowed to its earlier width, and will thus be the same width as the left side bar. The width had been changed for unavoidable reasons some months ago, and now it is time to change back. For many readers, this will mean a cleaner read. For others, it may make little difference.

So, what do you do when we are "down" .... Well, I've got the following planned for you already, and I'll post a final list of links for you just before we go under.

First, I'm devoting this evening and tomorrow morning to writing up yet another edition of the Congo Memoirs, and also, another post about a topic I know you will be interested in. It is a really cool just published new bit of research involving archeology in South Africa and it will blow you away. You will laugh, you will cry. Mostly you will cry and feel really icky.

Second, I've written a guest post that will be published HERE. Yes, you saw that right, THERE. My Sbling, Comrade Physioprof, is hosting a number of us Sciencebloggers this weekend on his non-Scienceblogs site.

Third, you can keep an eye on my other blog, HERE. That is my old blog that I occasionally use as a backup when Scienceblogs.com borks out. This weekend could be considered a major bork-out, but I'm also going to consider it a time of rest, when I will simply blog less and do some other (but still blog related) activities. But if something important comes up and I just have to have it out, I'll put it there.

And, if the site is down for a long time, maybe I'll spend a little time with my family and go cross country skiing, get some hot chocolate, maybe take in a movie, get reacquainted.

But hopefully that will not be necessary and we can get right back to blogging Saturday night!

Let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS ONE this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

Living things, from bacteria to humans, depend on a workforce of proteins to carry out essential tasks within their cells. Proteins are chains of amino acids that are strung together according to instructions encoded within that most important of molecules - DNA.

The string of "letters" that make up DNA correspond to chains of amino acids, and they are read in threes, with every combination representing one of many amino acids. Until now, scientists believed that this relationship is unambiguous - within any single genome, every three-letter combination maps to one and only one amino acid. This strict one-to-one relationship is a tenet of genetics, but new research shows that it's not an absolute one.

A team of American scientists have found a surprising exception to this rule, within a sea microbe called Euplotes crassus. In its genome, one particular triplet of DNA letters can stand for one of two different amino acids - cysteine or selenocysteine - even within the same gene. It all depends on context. This is the first time that such dual-coding has been spotted in the genes of any living thing.

AIDS, to me, is such a scary horrible disease that it seems that all of us would naturally support a cure and work together stop it from spreading. I even forced my family to watch a movie on AIDS over the holidays. (And the Band Played On, based on a book with same title by Randy Shilts, who died of AIDS in 1994).

That's why I was astounded to read last night, at the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) news site, that the Iranian government has put two doctors in prison - doctors who specialize in treating AIDS patients. The PHR, if you're wondering, is well known for supporting human rights and shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Physicians for Human Rights article describes the doctors as:

People change, and thus, so will their blogs. The issues that arise from this fact are being addressed by a session at ScienceOnline, co-hosted by Sciencewoman and Propter Doc, entitled 'Transitions - changing your online persona as your real life changes'

As you move from high school to college, then to grad school and postdoc, and finally get a job in academia or elsewhere, you leave your name (and thoughts and pictures) all over the Web. When you are blogging as a student or postdoc, your style and choice of topics probably reflects your position in the Academia. How do you change your blog once you get hired (without alienating your regular readers) so it works for you in your new position? How do you manage your online persona so what is out there on the Web about you reflects what you do at the moment and not the shady past?

More good stuff that I'll never get around to blogging about. Science first:

The TV told me to "youtube" the Australian leader Rudd's Parliamentary statement tearing Howard a new one in regards to his statement about Obama and the American Democrats. So I did, and I thought I'd share it with you. Kinda fun:

Mr Howard later lost the election to Mr. Rudd. Oh, and Obama and the Democrats won in the US. And we all lived happily ever after.

One of the more interesting an robust survey datum in the United States is the low opinion of atheists, and, the finding that atheists are less popular than Mormons or Muslims or Homosexuals when it come to a vote for high office. Secular Right points out that the Inductivist has posted data from The World Values Survey on this question in an international context. I doubt people will be too surprised, but, I recommend you check out the Inductivist for the full list. Below the fold I've taken the data on that particular question, and compared it to the % of atheists, agnostics an non-believers from selected countries (see data source).

Burger King is running a strange promotion on Facebook: for every 10 friends you drop from your list, they'll send you a coupon for a free hamburger, because you love the Whopper more than your friends.

Let's see…I've got 3,747 friends on Facebook. That would mean I could get 374 free pieces of meat between slabs of bread, and each of you is worth what, about 30¢?

By the way, I have discovered that when you have that many facebook friends, it has some very rough spots. There are a few places where you click on something, and it asks if you want to send something to any of your friends, and it has to sit there loading all 3,747 names with pictures and links, and it takes something shy of forever. Maybe I should drop a few thousand of you…

(Nah, I wouldn't do that.)

In case you missed today's speech at George Mason, President-elect Barack Obama wants to double the production of alternative energy within three years and make over 75 percent of federal buildings and 2 million homes more energy-efficient. It's a move that will create jobs immediately and save money for homeowners and businesses down the line. His new infrastructure push would also support the construction of a smart grid to save money, protect power sources, and collect and distribute renewable energy.

While the actual plan has yet to be officially unveiled, the draft provides more detail including new job training for clean technologies, $150 billion over 10 years to support next generation energy development, and a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard that will require 25 percent of American electricity to be derived from renewable sources by 2025.

There's an interesting story on The New Republic website at the moment, "Going Under" by Jason Zengerle, that relates the sad story of a young anesthesiologist's descent into addiction. What I find interesting about it is the larger questions it raises about why this particular anesthesiologist's story is not so unusual. Indeed, the article offers an:

Observation: Anesthesiologists seem to suffer from addiction in greater numbers than physicians in other specialties.

And, it lays out

Three hypotheses as to why this might be so:

wtf is an impact evaluator???

apparently it is the trendy thing to be

the World Bank tries to explain

it is not convincing...

I had planned on letting a long rant loose on these assholes.

Statler and Waldorf John and George are still bitching about me. 'Me' being their magnificently crafted straw-man/ad hominem chimera. But their comments have reached such a fantastic level of meta-fail (and Ive only watched 12 minutes of their second bitch-fest) I cant help but think that this has to be a joke.

I mean, from Georges Dembski-esque not-pology, to John bitching about how depression and anxiety disorders are 'made up' by scientists, to the extreme meta-fail regarding scientists trumpeting their own research (hint: chastising a scientist for trumpeting her research into woo-woo-land was THE POINT of the post of mine George bitched about), this 'debate' is a complete joke.

And its clear that John and George have little, if any, interest in an actual dialog with me, or anyone from the blag revolution. Theres no point in a rant.

So Im just going to wrap up this topic by going back to the original discussion between me and Ed. Cause it turns out this exchange was prophesied by Our Lord and Savior Joss Whedon over a decade ago:

The blog post of that name (covering the Science article "Mispredicting Affective and Behavioral Responses" to Racism raises a good question.

I always liked my sister's response when such sentiments were aired.

"Excuse me," she would say, "but your cape is showing."

...to the dude I watched giving a job talk.

Dear Unemployed,

Your research may have been very important, but I wouldn't know because I have no idea what you were talking about. Not because I am not smart or knowledgeable in this field. Not because I was not initially interested in the topic. No, my dear colleague, you lost me when you violated the 6x6x1 rule of presenting and I was so distracted by your whack-a-balloon slides, that I gave up and started daydreaming about which shoes I should buy to go with my new red plaid skirt. The 6x6x1 rule is as follows:

Because, seriously dude!  Your paragraphs of 8 point white font on a blue background,  read while you sat in a chair with your back to us, made me want to stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand to end my own misery.  In case there is still any confusion, allow me to illustrate:

Figure 1:  Panel A -- An effective slide.  Panel B -- A slide that will make Dr. Isis wonder if there really is a God and, if so, why he has forsaken her.  And a 10 line table?   Seriously, you should know better, 

You may have cured cancer, but I don't really care because my head hurts so bad from trying to read your clusterfuck of a slide.  Now, if you have a way to cure my squinting-induced headache, I might be willing to give you another listen.  With that, I leave you with one additional piece of advice that may have made this all a little less painful:

You now know the 6x6x1 rule and, if you ever consider violating it again, slap your own hand and tell yourself it was from Isis.  But also of importance to you after seeing the shenanigans that took place today is that, when I give a talk, I carry my presentation with me on 2 forms of external media (usually a CD and a flashdrive) and I email the little piece of brilliance to myself.  I make sure I know what type of computer I am going to be using in advance so I can be sure that images and fonts are compatible.  Cause, really, it doesn't matter how cool your movies are when they don't work.

All my best,

Isis

We know what the US would look like if radical theists like Warren, Robertson, Dobson, James Kennedy, or any doughy sweat-stained evangelical were in a position of real authority.

We know.

Because other countries, even 'secular' ones, dont have the same luxury of the separation of church and state as we do. People in other countries are forced to live their lives under the greasy shadow of beautiful, hope inspiring religion.

Senegal: Court Sentences Nine Men to Heavy Jail Sentences for Sodomy

On January 8, 2008, the nine men appeared in court to respond to charges of criminal conspiracy and engaging in acts against the order of nature. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) was informed that lawyers for the defense had had limited access to case files and little time to prepare for the court hearing. The men were condemned to a sentence of 8 years in jail although the prosecutor had asked for a sentence of 5 years, which is the maximum penalty provided by Senegalese law in sodomy cases.

Homosexuality is illegal, AIDS is a fag disease, therefore if you are an AIDS advocate or HIV+ youre a fag and youre going to spend the next 8 years in jail.

What. The. Fuck.

We cannot solve the HIV/AIDS crisis while theistic homophobia is supported by the government. It keeps 'non-fags' from testing, being open with their sexual partners, and away from treatment. And yet... we have 'Conservative Christians' and 'Conservative Muslims' fighting for precisely that kind of 'religious freedom'. Freedom to have their secular governments enforce religious law.

Can you honestly tell the difference between these comments from Muslims in Senegal, and comments we hear day in, day out from evangelicals in the US?

In a statement, CAIS [Collective of Senegalese Islamic Associations] denounced "the increase in homosexuality in Senegal" and proclaimed that "for several years, homosexual lobbies have led a wide-ranging offensive aimed at destabilizing our society. The recent escalation of this insidious homosexual campaign has led to a scandalous celebration of an unnatural marriage which gravely threatens to undermine our moral values and our country's stability." The group called upon authorities to "combat homosexuality before it's too late."

"degradation of morality and disrespect for religious values"

"undermining decency and an unnatural marriage"

"invite the active forces of the country to face what it considers to be the repeated assaults by the enemies of faith and morality, who unscrupulously attack those sacred values which constitute the very essence of the noblest virtues of our society."

"the advent of so many forms of media in Senegal has led to a degradation of morality, because these radio and TV programmes do not conform to our cultural and religious realities."

Here's the latest carnivalia for you to enjoy;

I and the Bird, issue 91. This blog carnival focuses on wild birds and bird watching.

Carnival of the Vanities, 8 January 2009 edition. This blog carnival focuses on the best writing in the blogosphere for the previous week (or so), regardless of topic.

With tears in my eyes and my head bowed in deep respect, I share with you the account of Kevin Leitch's vasectomy via Twitter:

http://twitter.com/kevleitch

Kev is an autism and manic depression advocate in West Midlands, UK, who blogs at LeftBrainRightBrain and was one of my earliest followers on Twitter. (P.S. you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/abelpharmboy)

All Twittering in response, which includes Kev's own tweets, can be found using the hashtag, #kevsnip.

I first learned of his plans via Twitter but he also posted his scheme here. I am largely credited with the first vasectomy liveblog but readers will recall that my Treo 700p didn't render the MovableType blogging platform. So, I had to post in real-time to a discussion forum and then put the entire accumulated account up on the blog. If I had my iPhone, I would have directly live-blogged or Twittered. Kev has a Blackberry Storm which allowed him to Twitter using TwitterBerry.

Kev appears to have had a bit of a complication with his right vas deferens and bled more than the average patient, but he now appears to be home and resting. I send him my warmest best wishes for a quick recovery - please feel free to do so yourself.

I posted on my own procedure back in February largely to get men discussing their concerns and apprehensions, encouraging my brethren to do this as a favor to their wives who suffered far far more in bringing their offspring into this world.

Where do we go from here as an online vasectomy community? Perhaps the real coup de grâce would be to have a physician blogger perform a vasectomy on another science blogger, then have each blog from their perspectives.

The drugs athletes use to gain an illegal edge in take one of two general forms: they are variants of (most often) steroids already known to, and tested for, by doping authorities, chemically modified to make them less detectable or undetectable in screenings; or they are drugs developed in order to treat familiar diseases, with their effects on strength, speed, and endurance being merely a happy and happenstance finding among "sports pharmacologists" who then deploy them well before testing authorities get wise.

The former "class" become more popular in the 21st century as technology on both the cheating and testing sides has become more elaborate--in the past, drugs use for doping were invariably drugs already on the market and developed for the purpose of treating illnesses. In the case of the latter, testers have an especially difficult job when the "drug" is actually a substance produced naturally in the body that has recently entered mass synthetic production thanks to recombinant technology. Perhaps the best-known example of the is erythropoetin (EPO), a hormone produced in the adrenal glands that stimulates the production of new red blood cells. Originally used to treat anemia, most often in people with chronic kidney disease or cancer, it quickly became a favorite of distance runners, Nordic skiiers, and cyclists because of its immediate and marked effects on aerobic capacity. It has spawned a number of synthetic cousins since the early 1990s, notably darbepoetin.

Ok - so Nancy Drew was never into string theory. But parents and teachers, take note: the Magnet Lab website at FSU mantains a list of books that incorporate painless, plot-relevant science lessons:

Take as an example the below excerpt from one of our featured books, Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster. Enterprising middle school teachers could use this story as a jumping-off point for a discussion about superconductors.

"Don't you see?" said the Professor. "It's a superconductor."
"But that's incredible!" Dr. Fenster said. "At room temperature?"
"So it appears. There's no other explanation."
"A superconductor?" Danny put in. "What's that?"

I was all ready to ho-hum this site - I mean, how hard is it to find examples of science in fiction these days? But their recommendations for adults stopped me cold! The too-short list includes classics like Proof, Flowers for Algernon, and something I have got to read called The Wizard of Quarks: A Fantasy of Particle Physics:

"I should like to hear more about leptons," stated the Tin Geek. "And bosons," cut in the Scarecrow, just to show that he was still there. "Yes, certainly," agreed Dorothy. "Bosons and leptons and quarks, certainly," she repeated. Somehow after that they all found themselves singing Bosons and leptons and quarks, oh my!

Yay!

There are some things I never contemplated before, but in case you need a list to be really sure, here are Eight Reasons You Should Keep Coke Away From Your Vagina. Heed them!

tags: kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, image of the day

As a young child, my family was poor and we had to go to a public clinic for dental work. Since we were being seen by dental students, often the process was painful and took much longer than it should have. It was a tremendous relief when my uncle opened a swanky dental practice with a lake view, and soothing '70s rock wafted out over the audio system. I'm pretty sure my uncle was a better dentist than the students who had been seeing me before, but it also seemed like just the environment in his office contributed to me feeling better when he had to do an awful procedure like filling a cavity.

I felt like the total environment in the office contributed to my sense of well being -- his pretty young assistants, his elegant timber-framed reception area, the splashing waters of Lake Union against the pier. But recent research suggests the primary factor may have simply been the music. While the results haven't been consistent, there is some evidence that playing music for patients who've undergone painful medical procedures may help mitigate their sensation of pain.

The problem in the research comes in identifying the kind of music to play. Some researchers have focused on finding the ideal type of music for all patients -- "anxiolytic" music that is supposed to reduce anxiety and relax patients. But different people have different music preferences. Music that Jim finds relaxing seems obnoxious and grating to me. Music that I find relaxing seems obnoxious and grating to Greta. Greta and Nora like Broadway musicals, which I enjoy too, but in much smaller doses.

People nowadays are used to creating their own personal audio environment on their iPods. Wouldn't it make sense to let them choose their own music as a way of distracting them from medical pain?

A team led by Laura Mitchell recruited 80 people to bring their favorite song to the laboratory, where they would be paid to dip their hands in frigid water for as long as they could tolerate it. The musical selections they chose ranged from works by Johnny Cash, to The Verve, to Rancid. The volunteers first dipped their hand in warm water to bring it to a consistent 32°C. Then they held it in a circulating cold water bath at 5°C -- close to freezing! This was repeated three times -- once while listing to their favorite song, once while staring at a blank wall, and once while looking at a work of art they selected from 15 chosen by the experimenters. They were told to hold their hand in the water as long as they could stand it, or five minutes, whichever came first. Did listening to the music affect their ability to tolerate pain? Here are the results:

For those of you at this year's Terry talks, you'll obviously be aware of our little YouTube experiment. In any event, I present to you the fruit of that labour below.

If you weren't at the conference, here is the gist: audience members were ask to participate by brainstorming, pitching, choosing, and then executing an activity amenable to recording via YouTube. This was done during the odd free 5 minutes here and there in the conference program. In total I think about 20 minutes in all was used to get the material for the video.

Daniel of Neuroanthropology has made an excellent roundup of last year's best anthro blogging. Check it out!

The genre of "environmental documentary" or "environmental film" is large enough now that it can suitably hold sub-sets. Here is a start to a filmography of agro-environmental documentaries and films. Since it is by no means exhaustive, I welcome all additions. I should say too that although many of these almost necessarily touch on GMOs and biotechnology in general, I am looking more for ones that put the lens on alternative and sustainable agriculture as their centerpiece.

Princeton's Environmental Film Festival (currently underway), is hosting some of these agro-food films, along with entries on coal, plastics, and more. It got me started on putting this list together, pushed along by my plan to use a handful of these in a course I'm teaching this Spring on science, technology, and sustainable agriculture.

So, food- and/or ag-based films below:

The technology for creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is appealingly clever, and it opens up a host of possibilities for engineering crops and livestock to order. But how things work in theory (and in the lab) does not necessarily tell us all we need or want to know about how things will work in the world.

Consider transgenic Bt corn, corn genetically modified to express the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, which is poisonous to many insects. The appeal of Bt corn is that it makes its own pesticide, poisoning the voracious insects that might try to eat it without the need to spray synthetic chemical pesticides that might harm the farm workers or even the consumers eating the corn.

The fine state of Mississippi is about to be led astray by the cretins they've elected to congress. They have introduced yet another textbook disclaimer bill, which will require that all school books that mention "evolution" be slapped with this sticker:

The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.

Sound familiar? They all kind of run together into one blur of noise, don't they.

This is nothing new. Here's the textbook disclaimer they tried to push in Cobb County, Georgia.

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Here's the disclaimer that was read to classes in Dover, Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.

They all have some things in common: in particular, the pettifogging and incorrect attempt to hide behind the word "theory", as if that somehow discredited the idea; the pretense of open-mindedness, when these are actually attempts to slander good science; the setting aside of evolution as a special case, when all scientific ideas are supposed to be regarded critically; and just the general notion that the fact that evolution is discussed means the whole subject must be treated gingerly.

The Cobb County and Dover disclaimers have something else in common: they were slapped down hard by the courts. The Mississippi disclaimer should join them soon, and it's a little surprising that the backers of this bill didn't bother to consider legal precedent.

The differences are also interesting. Mississippi tries to get specific, and offers a list of topics that are not discussed in the textbook. This is very peculiar, because all of those items are topics that are discussed in some detail in the college-level textbooks with which I am familiar. The creationists have been campaigning for decades to strip out the evolutionary content of our public school science texts, and now they are using the absence of substantive discussion of select issues as an argument for further damning them? The lesson to authors and publishers should be clear: you don't gain anything by caving in to these troglodytes.

Maybe the message to the Mississippi school board now is that they should pick out science texts that carefully discuss the evolutionary context of the Cambrian, describing the pre-Cambrian antecedents that led to the tens-of-millions-of-years "explosion". Then they can describe how the majority of animal phyla (but not all forms!) diversified over the next 500 million years into the different patterns we see now, and how there are many transitional forms on record illustrating portions of this process, and how we are now discovering the details of molecular complexity that further reinforce the idea of common ancestry. These are the conclusions of modern science, and we shouldn't allow the history of censorship by public school boards stand in the way of letting these stories be told in the science classroom.

The message should be to broaden and deepen the coverage of evolution in our schools, so that we stop seeing ignorant clowns like Representative Gary Chism foisting their inanity on our children.

tags: announcement, scienceblogs, Movable Type 4.0, MT4.0

Picture the scene - you sit in a room with two other people, one white and one black, waiting for a psychological test. As the black person leaves to use their mobile phone, they bump the knee of the white person on their way out. While they're gone, the white person turns to you and says, "Typical, I hate it when black people do that." How would you feel? Would you be shocked? Angry? Indifferent? And would you want to work with that person later?

This was the scenario that Kerry Kawakami from York University used to try and understand the state of race relations in 21^st century America. Kawakami found that people are very bad at predicting their responses to racism. They may claim to shun hypothetical racists or be upset by their actions but when confronted by such people and events in reality, their predictions turn out to be dramatic overestimates of their actual feelings. This discrepancy may help to explain why racism is such a widely condemned but remarkably prevalent part of modern society.

Kawakami recruited 120 volunteers of various races (apart from black), sat each one in a room with two actors - one white, one black - and watched as the white student reacted to having their knee bumped. In some trials, they said nothing; in others, they said, "Typical, I hate it when black people do that," and in the most extreme cases, they said, "Clumsy nigger." When the black partner returned, all three were asked to fill in a survey about their current state of mind and the real volunteer was asked to pick one of the other two to help them complete a word task.

Only half of the volunteers - the "experiencer" group - actually sat through these events. The other half - the "forecasters" - were only told about it and asked to put themselves in the shoes of an experiencer. Kawakimi found that their forecasts of their feelings and reactions bore little resemblance to the way the experiencers actually behaved.

Expectedly, forecasters said that they would be very upset by either racist slur. In reality, the experiencers were largely indifferent, and those who heard negative remarks were actually no more distressed than those whose partners hadn't said anything at all. Likewise, only about 10-20% of the forecasters said that they would choose the white person as their partner over the black one but a much higher 63% of the experiencers actually did so. If anything, they were more likely to pick their white associate if they made a racist slur than if they said nothing.