Related to my own essay, this week’s Lancet also has an editorial about terrorists and the advantages of keeping genome data free. As you’ll discover if you follow that link from outside a subscribing institution, you can’t read the article, entitled “Keep Genome Data Free”, unless you hand over $30.00.
Read MoreOne of the nice things about writing this ‘Blog is that, even on the quietest days, there’s a fair chance that my dad will drop by, so that PooterGeek will get one hit at least. Some of you probably know that he has had radiotherapy this year. Yesterday he was told that he now seems […]
Read MoreToday’s featured Wikipedia article is about Jesus’s foreskin, or rather his foreskins because quite a few people claim to have had it/them. When I worked in a hospital lab I discovered that discarded foreskins were an excellent source of a particular class of cell called a fibroblast. This is one of only a couple of […]
Read MoreLast week I was invited to the swankiest academic dinner offered to me since I graduated from my first place of higher education. And, for the first time since then, it seemed to be free-of-charge. Naturally, I filled out the faxback form straight away and, er, faxed it back. Having achieved fuck-all since I left, […]
Read More“Me, former President of the The United States, Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton? Alone? In a hospital? Surrounded by nurses? For five days? With my reputation? What were they thinking?” [Yanks go here for explanation.]
Read MoreEverything else had failed. Ken Starr gathered together his life savings, remortgated his house, and hired the professionals to get mediaeval on Clinton’s ass: “AFTER ‘harvesting’ bypass vessels from their former president’s arms and legs, US surgeons will cut into Bill Clinton’s sternum with a circular saw. His ribs will be eased to the side […]
Read MoreThe hippies at Libra Aries are, I think, onto PooterGeek. Now they are choosing the books they put in their window specifically to vex me. Today’s volume is Alex Constantine’s Psychic Dictatorship in the USA. Of course it would be easier to mock if the Republican Party wasn’t seriously considering mental health screening for all […]
Read MoreConcentrate hard as you approach the last of the nine risk factors claimed to account for 90 percent of all heart attacks. It’s as if someone had stood up at a meeting of Bible scholars and proposed that the lost eleventh commandment was “Thou shalt get thine round in.” Two pints and a box of […]
Read MoreThanks to Jo for this.
Read MoreWhere? There, on the stair.
Read MoreBit of a ruckus breaking out in the comments of my jokey “Staff Shortage” post about the cloning of human embryos. I think the two Davids are both right. Yes, I should be cautious about speculation and yes, as a scientist I ought to try to share my understanding of the technology with others so […]
Read MoreBizarrely, someone at the conference I was working at last week walked up to me and invited me to apply for a job here, despite my having told him to be quiet during a seminar that I later discovered he was co-chairing. He’s Australian; they have a different attitude to that kind of thing—and he […]
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, Ed Moses was the coolest man on the running track. He dominated World 400m hurdling. Now he is 48, has a dodgy knee, and is planning his comeback.
Read MoreThis is worrying and it’s also a rare example of a mainstream news report about genetics taking the time to try to explain the difference between a gene and an allele.
Read MoreMichael Crichton is a doctor, a best-selling author, and unfairly good-looking. He also gets to make a fortune both writing science fiction horror novels and at the same time debunking science “fact” horror stories. Backword Dave calls the Drake Equation “crack cocaine”. It is. Crichton breathed its vapours deeply before he made this famous public […]
Read MoreAnthony “Black Triangle” Cox isn’t around any more to flag this, so I will.
Read MoreResearch brings us more evidence that healthy people are healthier and that the rich are getting richer.
Read MoreI was once witness to a spectacular but non-fatal and non-crippling crash. The sequence of events was shockingly clear in my mind. A careless driver was turning right into the road where I lived. He drove straight across the path of an oncoming motorcyclist who was certainly not speeding. I know he wasn't speeding because […]
Read MoreSonya sent me two articles today about cancer care and kooks, one from the British Medical Journal and one from the BBC.
Read MoreThere's an important post about the latest developments in the Darfur region of the Sudan over at Black Triangle.
Read MoreThe headline alone is worth a 'Blog post, but Christopher Saigal, one of the medics involved in the ground-breaking study showing that "Sex Life Can Improve When Obese Men Lose Weight" is going to wish he'd been on the media training course when his colleagues start reading this quote out aloud in the doctors' mess: […]
Read MoreHere's one for the pharmacologically minded readers (Anthony “Black Triangle” Cox and little Leasey) about “pharmazooticals“. Next, testimony for those who really want to hear it from the intern's mouth—remember this story? Thirdly, one of the most detested (by the Right) papers of the liberal Left takes some well-deserved shots at the huge target that […]
Read MoreAnti-scientific hysteria has “progressed” from people believing that autism is caused by uncaring mothers to their believing that it is caused by evil drug companies. Both beliefs have caused unnecessary suffering. Both beliefs are, of course, unfounded. [Still on Black Triangle stand-in duty…]
Read MoreJudith‘s sharp editrix eye was caught by a couple of mixed metaphors in the media this week. Rob Lowe, a star of NBC TV’s West Wing said of one of his fellow actors in the show, Allison Janney: “She just tees the ball up and hits it out of the park every single time.” . […]
Read MoreUltimately, the goal of the work I contributed to in my Master’s thesis (1996) was to find a new computational technique for examining 3-D images. With it, psychiatrists would be able to detect variations in in the structure of human brains (in something called their “torsion”) and identify schizophrenics without having to dissect their heads […]
Read MoreYou don’t have to be a medic to enjoy this ward round story from the British Medical Journal.
Read MoreMaoi drew my attention to an article in tomorrow's Nature about an international call for patent-free, "open source" drug development, signed by various stars, including a couple of Nobelists. I would love to link you to the actual story, but there's no access for non-subscribers.
Read MoreToday one of my virtual colleagues linked to an article reporting on a study suggesting that computer use was not a direct cause of carpal tunnel syndrome. At the same site I couldn’t help noticing the link to a D-I-Y online test for depression. The test is hilariously obvious, so much so that it reminded […]
Read MoreImmortal? It can get kind of lonely, can't it? Bringing together small minorities is something the Web does well and the "terminally challenged", or "TCs" as I shall refer to them, are no exception. There is now a Web community where the mortally disadvantaged can go to discuss eternal life with others. If you are […]
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