Random Thoughts

Doing it backwards

Backwards is a nicely fitting description for how I have come to be who and what I am. This is my story. Many scientists go the traditional route of undergrad > master's/TA > Ph.D. > postdoc/adjunct > TT > tenured > retired, all the ...

Blog Post - Shannon Rapp - Jul 16 2013 - 3:23pm

Transplant Twist: Woman Donates One Kidney, Saves Both Husband And Father

Last year, Julie Stitt offered to donate a kidney to her husband, Chuck, who was in kidney failure. Julie wasn't a match for Chuck but they entered the Paired Kidney Exchange (PKE) program at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which would move ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 25 2013 - 11:35am

Congratulations Carissa Yip, Youngest Female Chess Expert In The US

9-year-old Carissa Yip is probably better at chess than you. She is certainly better than me and already better than 93 percent of the 51,000 plus players registered with the U.S. Chess Federation. She has set a goal to reach 2,100 this year; an Expert is ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Jul 29 2013 - 10:23am

Trekking in the Dolomites

The Dolomites are a mountain range in north-eastern Italy. They take their name from the mineral called dolomite, a carbonate rock which gives these mountains a characteristic pale pink colour, especially notable at sunset. Their composition is also respon ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jul 29 2013 - 10:31am

That Didn't Take Long: "Orange Is The New Black" Reaches A Psychology Journal

It didn't take long before the Netflix dramedy hit "Orange Is The New Black" made its way into Psychology of Women Quarterly, a publication devoted to peer-reviewing the feminist science. With all that humor and girl kissing and talk of bea ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 3 2013 - 1:28pm

Babes Against Biotech: We'll Exploit Women Until You Hate Science

What do anti-science groups do that science never seems to do? Trot out naked women. PETA- constantly, Greenpeace- sure, using cheescake to raise money for their corporate agenda is nothing new for groups that have neither data nor reason nor ethics. But B ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 7 2013 - 4:45pm

Placebo Buttons?

A recent article suggested that many of the buttons/toggles that we experience in our daily lives don't actually do anything, but that simply reinforce an expectation and foster a superstition. The problem with this article is that it doesn't act ...

Blog Post - Gerhard Adam - Aug 4 2013 - 3:54am

Beer: An Omics Conference That Won't Make Biologists Crazy

Omics slapped at the end of words is the latest rage. It makes just about anything sound scientific. If someone says they read an astrology journal, for example, I might roll my eyes a little, but if they call their journal Astrolomics, well... okay, I wo ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 3 2015 - 5:42pm

I Changed My Mind

I haven't been on this site in a while, and in looking at a past article it strikes me that some of my previously posted views have changed. (Congratulations, right?) Normally, this is the kind of thing I'd tuck away in some cortical sulcus, but ...

Blog Post - Clayton Aldern - Aug 7 2013 - 3:07pm

Law Vs. the Laws of Science. My observations on jury duty as compared to collaborative science.

Applying the laws of men to murky facts is almost as hard as determining the laws of nature.   In science we have clear experimental and observational data and tease out the laws of science.   In the law the facts are in question the laws are known.   It w ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Aug 17 2013 - 6:52pm