Sputnik orbited fifty years ago today–a tremendous accomplishment. But, let’s not mistake the meaning here. The Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite was both a fantastic technical achievement and a profound threat. If the Soviets could launch a new moon they could also hurl an atomic bomb across the globe. In the context […]
… to triple drug therapy for HIV. While the new therapy started in 1996, it was on September 11th 1997 when the first report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Here is a lovely manuscript–a proper randomized double-blind and controlled study. The trial patients were grouped by CD4 T cell counts, and […]
The University of Washington was selected by the NIH as one of two national centers for human embryonic stem cell research. The purse? Ten million dollars in federal funds spread over five years. Hurray for us! (Full disclosure time: I was a small contributor to the grant, including preliminary data, experimental design and writing. The […]
Vegetarians: outsource your meat eating. Venus fly traps can go vegan, if with a shortened and miserable life. Hybrid drivers: stop duping yourselves and others. Hybrids are no more environmentally friendly than a small regular car, and maybe even a bit worse. Want to be sanctimonious? Ride a bike. Bus riders: time does slow down […]
See if this makes sense to you: Weight is an intrinsic trait, determined mostly by our genes. Yet, globally the number of obese people has nearly doubled since 1980–faster than alleles can redistribute in the population. The amount we eat is strictly controlled by regulatory systems. Each of us is endowed with an energy set-point; […]
Last night I got around to watching No End in Sight, the interesting if flawed documentary on the unraveling of the Iraq war. The pieces the documentary presents are nothing new: A rush to war, minimal plans for the aftermath, too few troops, no martial law, looting, imperial rule, de-Ba’athification, disbanding of the Iraqi military, […]
Dear John, On the Washington Post’s election blog, you managed to make an ass of yourself. Many religious conservatives, including President Bush, oppose the scientific use of embryonic stem cells because the cells often come from aborted fetuses. (emphasis added) This is objectively false. Many religious conservatives, including President Bush, oppose the scientific use of […]
(from Jökull Másson) Did you know the Northern Lights are occasionally visible from Seattle? We’re at magnetic latitude 52.7, high enough to see some Aurora when the sun is raging. When the POES activity level hits 9 or 10, or the estimated planetary Kp gets above 6 and the night sky is clear, we should […]