Society of Systematic Biologists

Amid the news of Congress and the president expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, another SCHIP move went largely overlooked this week: Obama issued a memo to HHS lifting some controversial enrollment rules imposed by the Bush Administration

Nadeem Esmail Says Nationalized Health Care Will Cost Us Pain and Suffering - WSJ.com at GruntDoc : Nadeem Esmail Says Nationalized Health Care Will Cost Us Pain and Suffering - WSJ.com ‘Too Old’ for Hip Surgery As we inch towards nationalized health care, important lessons from north of the border.By NADEEM ESMAILPresident Obama and Congressional

Pfizer and Eli Lilly, both of which now have drugs approved to treat fibromyalgia, are spending heavily on marketing to raise awareness of the disorder, whose very existence is debated in medical circles.As we’ve noted before, fibromyalgia is controversial.

It's this kind of stuff that gives pharma a bad name: selling fibromyalgia at Terra Sigillata : I know that many of you have seen this article by Matthew Perronne since it was picked up by the majority of AP outlets this morning:Two drugmakers spent hundreds of millions of dollars last year to raise awareness of a murky illness, helping boost sales of

February 12, 2009, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. In celebration of Darwin Day, science educators around the world are organizing evolution-themed lectures, parties, and other events. You can learn more and search for events in your

Darwin Day with Carl Zimmer - and a mini-ScienceOnline09 at A Blog Around The Clock : As you may remember, this week we have a special guest here in the Triangle - Carl Zimmer is coming to enjoy NC BBQ and, since he's already here on the 12th, to give the Darwin Day talk at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh (directions):"Darwin

This is an important discussion that has been going on in disparate places, but primarily at the moment is on theOpen Science mailing listmaintained by the OKF (seeherefor an archive of the relevant thread). To try and keep things together and becauseYishay

More on open data licensing at Open Access News : Rufus Pollock, Comments on the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, Open Knowledge Foundation Blog, February 9, 2009. Here I briefly comment on the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data as the protocol strongly advocates

If this list is Google’s idea of the history books we might want to read on our mobile phones, Amazon can breathe easy. Five books are listed. One purports to be the memoirs of Napoleon; two are by those well known historians Washington Irving and Ralph

Biweekly links for 02/09/2009 at Michael Nielsen : RealClimate: On ReplicationCreationism Slips Into a Peer-Reviewed Journal | NCSE“A strange thing happened in the scientific literature recently. A pair of creationists, who have seemingly legitimate scientific credentials, attempted to publish some creationist

Google launches Book Search for mobile phones at Open Access News : Viresh Ratnakar, Guillaume Poncin, Brandon Badger, and Frances Haugen, 1.5 million books in your pocket, Inside Google Book Search, February 5, 2009. ... Today we are excited to announce the launch of a mobile version of Google Book Search, opening up over

Viresh Ratnakar, Guillaume Poncin, Brandon Badger, and Frances Haugen, 1.5 million books in your pocket, Inside Google Book Search, February 5, 2009. ... Today we are excited to announce the launch of a mobile version of Google Book Search, opening up over

Biweekly links for 02/09/2009 at Michael Nielsen : RealClimate: On ReplicationCreationism Slips Into a Peer-Reviewed Journal | NCSE“A strange thing happened in the scientific literature recently. A pair of creationists, who have seemingly legitimate scientific credentials, attempted to publish some creationist

Not long after I posted my comments about textbook prices, I went to a panel discussion on teaching, where a social scientist made an interesting observation about the ways different disciplines interact with books.In the humanities, the whole point of the

Biweekly links for 02/09/2009 at Michael Nielsen : RealClimate: On ReplicationCreationism Slips Into a Peer-Reviewed Journal | NCSE“A strange thing happened in the scientific literature recently. A pair of creationists, who have seemingly legitimate scientific credentials, attempted to publish some creationist

So, heres a question for you: just how long is Roche going to keep their offer open for Genentech? They left their friendly-in-retrospect offer on the table for quite a while, until it was clear that nothing was going to happen. So how long are they prepared

Tip for Roche: Use Non-Cash CVRs to Buy Genentech at SeekingAlpha Biotech Stocks : In an unhappy reminder of January 2008, deals continue to collapse or see reductions in price. After the trouble at Rohm & Haas (ROH), the acquisition of Genentech (DNA) by Roche is another large deal officially on the list of downward revisions in price.

I’m trying to work out whether I’m a bad science journalist or not…scary thought. If I am, then I’ve wasted the last 20 years of my life.I started out specializing in chemistry, that was my field. But these days, I cover science much

Why good science journalists are rare? at A Blog Around The Clock : Science coverage in New York Times is good because they can afford a whole stable of people, each expert in one field only. If Carl Zimmer was forced to cover, on a daily basis and without time to research, everything from astronomy and physics to archaeology

Just ask Richard Mullens, who has not said he is an atheist, but was suspected of being one…and lost his job as a teacher for that reason.

Fired for Being an Atheist? at Dispatches from the Culture Wars : Liz Ditz writes about a teacher in Texas, Richard Mullens, who says he was fired for being an atheist and a liberal. You can read the teacher's statement on the situation at Democracy for America and, if the allegations are true, they're pretty disturbing.

It must be tough to be an atheist in Texas at Pharyngula : Just ask Richard Mullens, who has not said he is an atheist, but was suspected of being one…and lost his job as a teacher for that reason.Then on January 7th, a student in my classroom in second period left my class, went to the Principal's office, and

Carnival of Space #89 is now up at at the Moon Society. There's gravity mapping, space strategies, do it yourself pod-casting, cartoon Lunar history, Mars beach front property, the newest exoplanet and much, much more. Put on your Moon-Bathing togs and head

Carnival of Space at Bad Astronomy Blog : The latest Carnival of Space is now live at The Moon Society Blog. The Moon, Mars, exoplanets and nebulae loom large this week, so take a look and see what grabs your attention.

A few brief comments on the first iteration of the polymath project, Tim Gowers’ ongoing experiment in collaborative mathematics: The project is remarkably active, with nearly 300 substantive mathematical comments in just the first week. It shows few

Making sausage at The Geomblog : No, not that kind.By now, many of you have probably heard of the massively collaborative math experiment being conducted by Timothy Gowers on his blog (with offshoots on Terry Tao's blog). The idea is to mount a serious attack on a conjecture in combinatorics

There is an interesting meta-discussion going on in a variety of places at the moment which touch very strongly on my post and talk (slides, screencast) from last week about “web native” lab notebooks. Over at Depth First, Rich Apodaca has a post

Dont consolidate, distribute at business|bytes|genes|molecules : Image via WikipediaThe Realm of Organic Synthesis talks about the creation of a knowledge database in a recent blog post throwing down the gauntlet to fellow geeks (thanks to Egon for the pointer). My own biases are more along the lines of Egon’s thoughts,

Dont consolidate, distribute at business|bytes|genes|molecules : Image via WikipediaThe Realm of Organic Synthesis talks about the creation of a knowledge database in a recent blog post throwing down the gauntlet to fellow geeks (thanks to Egon for the pointer). My own biases are more along the lines of Egon’s thoughts,

What are the services we really want for recording science online? at Science in the open : There is an interesting meta-discussion going on in a variety of places at the moment which touch very strongly on my post and talk (slides, screencast) from last week about “web native” lab notebooks. Over at Depth First, Rich Apodaca has a post

There is an interesting meta-discussion going on in a variety of places at the moment which touch very strongly on my post and talk (slides, screencast) from last week about “web native” lab notebooks. Over at Depth First, Rich Apodaca has a post

Dont consolidate, distribute at business|bytes|genes|molecules : Image via WikipediaThe Realm of Organic Synthesis talks about the creation of a knowledge database in a recent blog post throwing down the gauntlet to fellow geeks (thanks to Egon for the pointer). My own biases are more along the lines of Egon’s thoughts,

What are the services we really want for recording science online? at Science in the open : There is an interesting meta-discussion going on in a variety of places at the moment which touch very strongly on my post and talk (slides, screencast) from last week about “web native” lab notebooks. Over at Depth First, Rich Apodaca has a post

Well, when you've got a captive audience....LONG BEACH, Calif. - "Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said, 'Not only poor people should experience this.'"That was the post by Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin on social

Selection of My Twitter Favorites, Edition 39 at Clinical Cases and Images - Blog : Twitter is a microblogging service where people answer the question "What are you doing?" via 140-character messages from their cellphone, laptop or desktop. You can select the messages (called "tweets") that you find useful, amusing, or both. Here is the 39th

Now I really, really like Bill Gates at Mystery Rays from Outer Space : From MSNBC:“Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said, ‘Not only poor people should experience this.’”That was the post by Facebook’s Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin on social networking site Twitter.The

Bill Gates, bioterrorist wannabe at John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : Well, when you've got a captive audience....LONG BEACH, Calif. - "Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said, 'Not only poor people should experience this.'"That was the post by Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin on social

Troy writes "I'm a high school math teacher who is trying to assemble an extra-credit reading list. I want to give my students (ages 16-18) the opportunity/motivation to learn about stimulating mathematical ideas that fall outside of the curriculum I'm bound

Mathematics Reading List for High School Students at Cosmic Variance : Via Slashdot, I came across the following questionTroy writes:“I’m a high school math teacher who is trying to assemble an extra-credit reading list. I want to give my students (ages 16-18) the opportunity/motivation to learn about stimulating mathematical

At TED 2009, now halfway through the near-weeklong binge of activities and presentations, Juan Enriquez energized and perhaps terrorized attendees with his brief look into the future of human affairs, and indeed, of the human species. What made Enriquez' presentation

We are becoming a new species, we are becoming Homo Evolutis at Nobel Intent : At TED 2009, now halfway through the near-weeklong binge of activities and presentations, Juan Enriquez energized and perhaps terrorized attendees with his brief look into the future of human affairs, and indeed, of the human species. What made Enriquez' presentation

I just don't believe it. The "moderate" senators trying to whittle down the stimulus package to avoid a filibuster in the Senate really are suggesting that NSF funding be cut, presumably b/c of the silly porn-viewing incident.

Science and the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act at THE ART OF TEACHING SCIENCE : The US Senate is working on the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment bill, and as of today, it appears that it will be approved in the Senate, perhaps on Tuesday.However, Shawn Otto has been in contact with citizens that are members of the ScienceDebate2008.

Oh Jesus Christ, they want to cut the science and education funding out of the stimulus package! at The Chem Blog : Alright. If you were a good student, you read in C&E News that the stimulus package had a huge windfall for science. This was good - America needs to reinvest in science something fierce after barely keeping funding at inflationary levels. Now, Senator

moosino at chi c'e' in ascolto : Under attack from the republicans there is now word that substantial funds for education will be slashed from the stimulus bill. Unfortunately there is also word of slashing funds for science and this is another huge error.Efforts were underway this morning

Terry at What's new : I came across the following news item today which might be of interest to many of the readers of this blog: as part of a bipartisan effort (headed by Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE)) to reduce the size of the U.S. federal government stimulus package

AAAAAAAGGGH! at nanoscale views : I just don't believe it. The "moderate" senators trying to whittle down the stimulus package to avoid a filibuster in the Senate really are suggesting that NSF funding be cut, presumably b/c of the silly porn-viewing incident.

I have no idea why Roger Pielke chose to bring up James Hansen's old 2006 El Nino forecast again just recently, but since he did, and it generated some hot air in the blogosphere, I might as well add my view.1. Hansen originally said in a draft paper:We suggest

Flailing at Stoat : Stoat, always first with the news. Too busy with real work and the pub, sorry. Yes, its the RP teacup.Life is too short to wade through the full skewed mess. Read John Fleck for the summary and Coby Beck for pages more detail. Or better still, don't.Part 2

I tend to use Facebook only occasionally, but the existence of more and more evolution-related groups there has me thinking about logging in more frequently. Here are just a few. If you use Facebook, maybe stop in and see if any are of interest to you.National

Don't Call It "Darwinism" at Sandwalk : Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch have written an article for the latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach in which they urge everyone to talk about evolutionary biology but Dont Call it Darwinism. Using Darwinism as synonymous with evolutionary biology