tangled bank 19

Tangled Bank #19

It is my great pleasure and honor to host the first Tangled Bank of

this year. The best blog writing on science, nature and medicine is

here after a brief hiatus for the winter holidays (for past issues go

here: The Tangled Bank., ). We are back in full strength with a large

number (largest so far - the last record was 14 entries) of excellent

contributions, many from new contributors. Initially, I attempted to

organize the entries according to some classification scheme (ah, we

button-sorters and bottle-washers!), but due to the great diversity of

entries I ended up just having a separate category for each post,

something that looked like Borges' Chinese Classification of Animals.

So, I was forced to abandon the entire scheme and present the articles

in no particular order, though I did not go to the pain of using the

Table of Random Numbers, so the order is not officially random. There

is something for everyone, enjoy the wonderful writing, and look

around all these blogs - surely you'll find some worthy of bookmarking

and blogrolling for future reference.

1) We start off with Andrew from Universal Acid and a thoughtfull

article on ethics of reproductive cloning: Who's Afraid of

Reproductive Cloning

2) Jennifer Forman Orth delights us once again with an invasive

species. This one may not extinguish all of US agriculture in one fell

swoop but, boy, does it smell bad: That Stinks

3) Josh Rosenau has some Thoughts From Kansas. And although Kansas has

been scientifically proven to be smoother than an IHOP pancake,

evolution has been having some rough spots and uphill battles there

recently. So, it is appropriate to hear about the court battles from

someone who is right there at a source, particularly as his thoughts

were prompted by a trip, a child, and some shark teeth: Evolution in

Schools

4) Richard Meisel from Evolgen is a lucky guy. He got to go to the

meeting in honor of Ernst Mayr's birthday and hear a lot of good

talks. He was especially impressed by a talk about

niche-construction...but then, is there anyone who is not impressed by

niche-construction: Evolution of Genotype and Phenotype

5) May the Creationists recoil in horror. Carl Zimmer from The Loom

kills two of their favourite "case-studies" in a single post: The

Whale and the Antibody

6) Two thought-provoking posts from Reason Founder at Fight Aging

blog. About the first one he says: "The flashy stuff in medical

science gets all the press, but upgrading the infrastructure makes

just as much of a difference. Curing cancer should make you drool, but

so should cutting the costs of obtaining, moving and processing

medical data by a thousand": Those Unromantic Infrastructure

Improvements

7) Here, Reason Finder believes "that actively working to prevent

medical research is morally equivalent to actively preventing sick

people from traveling to buy an available cure. Those who deliberately

set out to block the advance of science bear responsibility for deaths

caused by delays in making therapies available.": The True Cost of

Delay

8) Wesley R. Elsberry from Austringer reports on some cool (and

jealousy-inspiring) dolphin research he was a part of: Biosonar and

Behavior

9) Orac from Respectful Insolence (aka Orac Knows) sent two related

posts on alternative medicine that will make you run to your real

doctor. First is about the way alternative medicine is sold:

Understanding alternative medicine "testimonials" for cancer cures

10) The second Orac's post is about the way alternative medicine is

bought (by some) - bait, hook and sinker: What is an "altie"?

11) Certain to engender (bad pun intended) an emotional response, Joe

Dunkley on EvoWiki comments on the fallacy of the Nature vs Nurture

dichotomy in: The Gay Gene

12) From the Mad House Madman of Chronicles of a Medical Mad House

(I'm not telling what it is about - go and read, you'll love it): My

Future Intern (Part 1)

13) My fellow North Carolinian, Bigwig from Silflayhraka (which, if

translated from Lapine into Serbo-Croatian language means "Jedi

govna") does some impressive detective work on an Ebola-like virus in

Africa: Hunting The Elusive Marburg

14) From the Girlscientist comes a thorough wake-up call about the way

people construct their own doom, or is it niche-construction again:

Tsunamis and Mangroves: The Shrimp Connection

15) If you did not think that science can mix with poetry and art, you

must have missed the work of Matt Celeskey and Ray Troll from the

Hairy Museum of Natural History: The Evolutionist's Prayer

16) And we have more beautiful poetry today. Anan from ...and there

was the time... wrote:

In The Great Fields

17) When smart people design new equipment, they often have no idea

how some other smart people may put it to a really different yet cool

use. Here, Sumerdoc describes how radiologists solve archeological

mysteries using CT scans: MSCT unwraps mummy's mysteries

18) Saint Nate analyzes the recent news that butterbur can be used to

prevent migraine and gives a numerical reason why you should not buy

any from the alternative medicine vendors who pop up when you search

through Google: Butterbur Buzz

19) From PZ Myers at Pharyngula, cool science as always, a story about

the role of a specific class of mutations in generating morphological

diversity in dog breeds: Tandem Repeats and Morphological Variation

20) Gaw3 from the Keats' Telescope talks about the ability of bacteria

to grow almost anywhere, and specifically the recent publication of

the genome of a bug which can eat chlorinated organics: Mighty Motes

21) Mike from 10000 Birds sent a two-parter. First, a look at a bird

that is currently garnering a lot of attention: The Greater

Sage-Grouse

22) Next, what the fuss is all about, a saga of political expediency

and selective science, the decision to keep the grouse off the USFWS

Threatened and Endangered List: Grouse Decision Not Sage

23) Socar Miles at Ratty's Ghost says: "it's about my big fat rat, who

really likes to bite me. On the day in question, she bit me seven

times, and probably would've gone for an eighth, if I hadn't locked

her in her cage.": ...And Then a Rat Bit Me!

24) This one is from Syaffolee. It's about bacterial suicide. Does not

involve microscopic Colt 45s. Nuff said: Death In Vitro

25) Radagast from Rhosgobel covers the big noise over the new FSU

School of Chiropractic in: FSU Chiropractic?

26) Good timing is essential for a good joke. Chris from Mixing Memory

applies cognitive science to both humor and time-perception. It is up

to you to make the connection between the two in the deep recesses of

your Brain and see if, perhaps, your timing is a little off: Time

Perception, part I and Time Perception, part II

27) And the humorous part is here: Cognitive Science of Humor

28) While we are on the subject of time, Sean Carroll of Preposterous

Universe wrote an (what he calls "semi-philosophical") article about

memory and the arrow of time: What we know, and don't, and why

29) Still talking about time, from a third perspective, my own article

on biological, technological and social aspects of sleep, posted on my

other blog, Circadiana: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About

Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)

30) And if you do not get enough sleep, as when you are working

endless hours at the hospital, strange things happen. From The

Examining Room of Dr.Charles: Ode to Residency, Part 2

31) I hope the last two posts did not put you to sleep. Of course,

while you are here you should take a look around Science and Politics,

but first read my official entry for The Tangled Bank, the

meta-blogging look at science blogs, a purposefully polemical piece I

hope will start a lively discussion: Blogs and the Future of Science

Thank you all for coming here. The next edition will be hosted at

JasmineCola