During the Obama administration, he was concerned about vaccines causing autism and it showed when it came to guidance about swine flu vaccines. His administration banned multi-use vials because of his party's insistence that preservatives caused the disorder.
The New Cosmetic Surgery Journalism Prize will be awarded by DDr. Heinrich for outstanding reporting on New Cosmetic Surgery techniques.
That's right, journalists. You can win a prize from a cosmetic surgery company if you simply write about the techniques used by their cosmetic surgery company. Sure, it's like being a public relations flack but since it's a prize rather than a paid puff piece you won't feel dirty. They want your contribution to be be well-researched and include general legal disclaimers and information, like that cosmetic surgery is not actually taught in public hospitals for a reason.
Scientific Blogging fave Greg Critser has a new book out, Eternity Soup: Inside The Quest To End Aging(available at fine retailers everywhere, or at that link if you want us to make a nickel) and in celebration he has put together a short quiz to find out what you know.
'Invisibility' has long been a staple of science fiction. The ability to go unseen has benefits, mostly involving mischief, but there are some ways where being invisible need not involve the optical realm - it could involve the physical. In a poor country like Haiti, where it would be impossible to retrofit all of the buildings to withstand an earthquake, it may soon be possible to make earthquakes simply pass them by.
Sure, Christmas is a religious holiday and science and religion share common people but not often common ground. That doesn't mean we can't all join together and share some Christmas science ... and an awesome electric car (5 MPH!) I assembled for my youngest kids last night (picture to come later). Like Rock'em Sock'em Robots, even adults think miniature cars are cool. If you're the environmental type, I am basically teaching my kids to like a Prius - and it goes about as fast. So thank me by reading some of the terrific science below:
Tuesday began as a day like any other. Rolled out of bed at 10AM, read some awesome science blogging (here, where else?) over coffee, then went to the office where I was looking forward to a round of golf and a nap before playing some X-box before going home.I arrived at the office and remembered I hadn't eaten breakfast; golf would have to wait. "Hey Bloggy," I said, "want to go to Mels? It's biscuit and honey day."No answer. I looked over at where Bloggy would usually be boring into me with his wee beady eyes, making sure work gets done, but it was empty. Instead there was just a note. It read:
You've heard of the Discovery Channel - if you want to learn about sharks, they're the place to go. Heck, they even whacked me this summer as part of their promotional campaign.Unfortunately, if you want to see more than you can stand about the Shroud of Turin, that's also the Discovery Channel. Animal Planet on the one hand and Jon&Kate Plus 8 on the other. There's no question Discovery Channel is successful, in large part due to the efforts of Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav, former chief of NBC Universal's cable effort.When most cable companies are concerned about declining viewers, Discovery Channel was up 10.4% this last quarter. Revenue: $3.48 billion
It's World Series time, which means it's time to talk about physics and baseball once again. This season, among other things, we've covered the farthest homerun ever hit and how fast a pitcher really can throw (1) and today we're going to cover the curveball. But that's more that just physics, it's also vision.
I had relatives visiting from out of town and, because they had never been to Las Vegas, we took a two day, one night, short plane trip over the mountains. Naturally, I won some money. Is that because I am a mathematical genius? No, everyone except the truly elite is going to lose money in a casino by knowing just enough probability to be dangerous while the truly stupid are going to be the foundation of any gambling town.
When Republicans were told, as part of a recent study, that diabetes results from social factors that mitigate personal responsibility, like a lack of neighborhood grocery stores or government-funded places to exercise, they were not inclined to want to enact legislation to rectify that - but Democrats reacted better to a government approach when culture was to blame rather than individuals.Both were equally supportive when diabetes was presented in terms of genetic factors.Was the lesson that framing is bad and science is good? Well, no, though personally I am inclined to think that way.
A new type of rocket propellant made from a mixture of water and nanoscale aluminum powder could be manufactured on the moon or Mars or any place remnant ice may exist, say researchers from NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Purdue and Pennsylvania State University who believe their aluminum-ice, or ALICE, propellant could be used to launch rockets into orbit from Earth as a pit stop for long-distance space missions. Since it's greener than current propellants it will also be acceptable to those of you concerned about universal global warming(1).
Men suffer noise-induced hearing loss more than women, it seems. Guys just rock out more, you might think. Better to burn out than fade away, and all that. But it's primarily married white guys who can't turn the volume down, which means our families will have the next 70 years of repeating everything twice, and louder, because, let's face it, guys with rock star fantasies won't wear hearing aids. What's to be done?Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a preventable though increasingly prevalent hearing disorder that results from exposure to high-intensity sound, especially over a long period of time. Thanks, iPod. Now turn down the Journey, gentlemen. If you haven't stopped believin' by now, you never will.
Did you even know there was a discipline called paleomagnetics? Probably not.(1) It isn't easy to find a category on this site to put it in, that's for sure.But a discipline it is and it even has its own controversies, as all science must; namely, the nature of Earth's magnetic field 1.1 billion years ago.The Earth's magnetic field in two sentences: it wraps around the globe and helps shield us from cosmic rays - lest we all burst into flame or turn into orange rock and say things like, "It's clobberin' time!"
