For a person on the fence about a scientific issue, especially a personal one like GMOs, fluoridated drinking water, or vaccines, a seed of doubt is often all it takes to push them over the fence on the side opposite the scientific consensus. That’s why internet memes touting the dangers of these issues can be so effective — those against them only have to make you wonder “what i... »
I’m doing a bunch of staining experiments at work right now. That means that, hopefully, in the next couple weeks I’ll get a bunch of pretty pictures to analyse. It also means that I had the good fortune to spend much of yesterday at the cryostat (basically a meat slicer designed to make incredibly thin, frozen, sections – or slices). Sectioning is a zen experience for me, much a... »
We recently had a fun science experiment at our school here (have I mentioned that we homeschool?). We used bubbles to measure our lung capacity; depending on how big the outline of the bubble was when it popped, tells you how much air your lungs can take in. We didn’t have any bubble solution around the house, so I searched the internet for a recipe. I found a really simple bubble solution ... »
There is a pervasive, systematic campaign to take the achievements of hard working and psychologically twisted engineers away and credit them to the demented scientific research community. Too often are death rays and killer robots attributed to a lunatic scientist when they truly belong to a deranged engineer. No more will the crackpot inventors of the world toil under this oppressive misrepresen... »
Sometimes it seems like the “Age of Synthetic Biology” is actually the “Age of Writing Great Works of Literature Into DNA”. While the tools of synthetic biology increase the potential of genetic engineering by letting us finely control the genomes of experimental organisms, many of the demonstrations of how minutely we can write out DNA sequences have more to do with the we... »
Today’s installment of Random Acts of Art is inspired by a custom order I just finished. I was asked to create some ceramic coasters with a representation of the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes in mammalian cells. So I did. I enjoyed doing the drawing so much, I created a few extra. Click on the second link here to see a video of Listeria in action and google Listeria to learn more! »
College Humor posted a video a while back parodying Gotye’s Somebody I Used to Know. They came up with a great title, but I was disappointed that it was about not using specific knowledge from high school education rather that what it should have been about: Mass-media misrepresentation of scientific findings. OBVIOUSLY I have corrected their mistake and, in the motif of showing off our ugly... »
With all of the controversy surrounding Texas schools teaching Creationism (including Young Earth Creationism which teaches that the Earth is only 6,000 years old), and Texas Governor Rick Perry stating “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution,” when he was asked a question by a young boy during his campaign, scientific-minded Texans have cause for alarm. But even in the bible belt there... »
