science

Interesting and somewhat expected results of giving teenagers free birth control: Pregnancy and abortion rates go down and teens choose newer, more effective birth control.

Eight tons of HF were released in South Korea. HF can be absorbed into the blood stream and catalytically dissolve bones. It’s treatable but very painful. As an undergrad, I worked in a lab that had a 20L rusted and decaying canister of HF gas. Taped next to that canister was a page ripped from a physician’s reference. The page indicated that the recommended treatment for a patient that had more than 70% dermal exposure was a steady stream of morphine until the patient succumbed to the exposure.

I disagree with this article from Discover Magazine.1 We have to be careful, though. This exploratory, quasi-scientific approach to the world doesn’t last if adults teach kids to do something else: Kids will let adult instruction override their natural curiosity. Here’s a little secret: Almost everyone already thinks like a scientist.2 We generate hypotheses based on known data and previous results. We test hypotheses and evaluate results. Adults do it and kids do it.

I guess Michael Stipe is pouting a bit more than usual today. The shiniest living thing on the planet is gorgeous. Please commercialize it.

As a kid, I was fascinated with science. I was bored by the mundane and typical science projects like baking soda volcanos or the fluid dynamics of starch. What I really liked was the absurdly abstract ideas like how atoms form bonds and what it would be like inside a black hole. Unfortunately there were few lessons that covered that material for a 12 year old kid.1 One of my all time favorite books was Mr.

A Cardinal that is half male and half female. Awesome.

Kyle Hill at Scientific American: Yes, if Nye’s video was meant to be evidence for evolution, then it was off the mark. But it wasn’t. Nye was intimately stating his stance on the evolution/creationism debate. The viral-nature of the video is a testament to the fact that it did two simultaneously effective things: it roused a base of people who support the science, and challenged those who do not.

Amazingly bad ad for one of the best rotovaps I’ve ever used. It still blows my mind that companies that sell scientific equipment always have ads with dry ice and colored water. That stuff makes real scientists cringe. Show me a yellow crudy looking oil foaming out. That’s how we’d use it in real life.1 By way of In the Pipeline Ok, the creepy sexist dude is pretty spot on.

No improvement in life expectancy from a 25 year study on caloric restriction. Derek Lowe asks a good question: Note that line about “benefits”. The problem is, as far as I can see (Nature’s site is down as I write), the two groups of monkeys appear to have shown the same broad trends in cardiovascular disease. And cardiovascular outcomes are supposed to be the benefits of better triglyceride numbers, aren’t they?

If you’re not a chemist, you can ignore most of this great post at In the Pipeline and still appreciate the premise. The phrase “Black Swan event” comes from the writings of the statistician and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The term derives from a Latin metaphor that for many centuries simply meant something that does not exist. But also implicit in the phrase is the vulnerability of any system of thought to conflicting data.