Postgenomic - latest stories

Pharma giant moves toward sharing

2009-02-16T12:55:16Z

Pharma giant moves toward sharing at Open Access News

Sarah Boseley, Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pledges cheap medicine for world's poor, The Guardian, February 13, 2009.The world's second biggest pharmaceutical company is to radically shift its attitude to providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing

Arise Sir Andrew Witty (or is it Saint Andrew?) at PharmaGossip : GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Andrew Witty has outlined ambitious proposals to help improve global public health through a different approach to intellectual property, pricing in poor countries and tackling diseases prevalent in developing areas.In a speech

Satellite Smash!

2009-02-16T07:49:02Z

Satellite Smash! at Astroblog

The worst fears of the satellite community have been realised. Two satellites, Kosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 crashed into each other approximately 800 km over northern Siberia. How this happened is unclear as the orbits of these satellites were pretty well known,

Kablam! Satellite collision math, and a correction at Bad Astronomy Blog : OK, so last night I posted about satellites that collided in orbit. I mentioned that the energy created in the collision was about the same as detonating a ton of TNT. I got asked how I did that math. That’s no problem (well, a little one), but a bigger

Ringworld at Astroblog : Ringworld: Earth is ringed by around 6000 satellites, of which only 800 are operational. Image from ESA.In the light of the great satellite smash, I though it would be interesting to direct you to the European Space Agencies article on Space Debris. Lots of

Texas fireball: what’s known so far at Bad Astronomy Blog : So my blog post from earlier about the Texas fireball is now a bit of a mess from all the updates, so I thought I’d post a cleaner version of what’s going on now.1) A tremendous fireball — also called a bolide, or a very bright meteor —

Spatially carnivalistic, #90

2009-02-16T07:00:07Z

Spatially carnivalistic, #90 at Bad Astronomy Blog

This week Carnival o’ Space is at 21st Century Waves, and wouldn’t you know, it has a Valentine’s theme! I cardioid it.

Carnival of Space #90 is here. at Astroblog : Carnival of Space #90 is now up at 21st Century Waves. It's the Valentine's Day edition, so go give it some love. Oh, and there are tales of Pluto, alien civilizations, lakes on Titan and lots, lots more.

Holly Gibbs on biofuels and climate change

2009-02-16T06:45:30Z

Holly Gibbs on biofuels and climate change at Resilience Science

Science News reports on Holly Gibbs talk on biofuels and land clearing at AAAS: Two papers published last year suggested that clearing tropical forests to plant biofuel crops might actually worsen climate change, but that planting biofuels crops on “degraded”

Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction at Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. : Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.read more

Good work, Australia!

2009-02-16T06:14:29Z

Good work, Australia! at Pharyngula

You've eliminated measles in Australia.High take-up rates of the infant measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has led to the elimination of the endemic measles virus in Australia, immunisation experts say. Researchers from the University of Sydney, writing in

Wow! Measles outbreaks eliminated in Australia! at Bad Astronomy Blog : This is incredible: Australia has eliminated the risk of large measles outbreaks for the next few years. At least, this is the prediction based on past cases, and by lowering the age for children to get the second inoculation from four years old to 18 months.In

Banning Open Access

2009-02-16T05:33:06Z

Banning Open Access at The n-Category CafÃ©

On February 3rd, Dave Conyers of the US House of Representatives re-introduced a bill to repeal the National Institute of Healths public access policy, which says that research funded by this agency must be made freely available on a database called PubMed

Comments on the Conyers bill #3 at Open Access News : Here are some more comments from the press and blogosphere on the re-introduction of the Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), which would overturn the OA policy at the NIH. Also see our past collections (1, 2).From The Bioinformationista:For

Congress to repeal open access science provisions? at John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : Putting science back in its proper place, Congress has taken up a bill to eliminate the requirement that publicly-funded research be freely accessible by the public. Open access watchdog Peter Suber writes:The Fair Copyright Act ... would repeal the OA policy

New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy at Slashdot: Science : pigah writes "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act has been reintroduced into Congress. The bill will ban open access policies in federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These policies require scientists to provide public access

Podcast interview with Stevan Harnad at Open Access News : Stephen Michael Kellat, Interview on Open Access with Dr. Stevan Harnad, February 13, 2009. Abstract: In light of the recent Conyers bill that would remove the NIH mandate on Open Access, LISTen (LISNews.org) talked to Dr. Harnad about Open Access so that librarians

Breast Cancer Network of Strength joins the ATA at Open Access News : The Breast Cancer Network of Strength has joined the Alliance for Taxpayer Access.PS: If you appreciated the ATA's recent call to action to save the NIH policy and oppose the Conyers bill, think about having your organizing join as well.

Heather Joseph on the Conyers bill at Open Access News : Elie Dolgin, Heather Joseph: Q&A, The Scientist, February 9, 2009. Heather Joseph is the executive director of SPARC, and one of the four witnesses testifying at last September's hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on the NIH policy and the

AAAS: Happy Days are Here Again

2009-02-16T00:59:04Z

AAAS: Happy Days are Here Again at Nature Newsblog

Last year, we sent two people to cover the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This year, we're going back with three, so you can count on us covering a broader diversity of topics than the year before. This year's theme

Burning rainforests, melting tundra could accelate global warming well beyond current projections at Mongabay.com news : Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate the scale and rapidity of climate change, warned a Stanford University scientist presenting Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement

Pricing emissions from farming, logging could shift land use towards conservation at Mongabay.com news : Putting a price tag on carbon dioxide emissions resulting from various land use practices could dramatically change the way that land is used, including reducing deforestation and limiting agricultural expansion on carbon-rich lands, said a researcher presenting

80% of agricultural expansion since 1980 came at expense of forests at Mongabay.com news : More than half of cropland expansion between 1980 and 2000 occurred at the expense of natural forests, while another 30 percent of occurred in disturbed forests, reported a Stanford University researcher presenting Saturday at the annual meeting of the American

Science gleans 60TB of behavior data from Everquest 2 logs at Nobel Intent : Researchers ranging from psychologists to epidemiologists have wondered for some time whether online, multiplayer games might provide some ways to test concepts that are otherwise difficult to track in the real world. A Saturday morning session at the meeting

War on Science at Muck and Mystery : By the Democrats, of course, who are the most avid warriors and always have been. [C]onsider the reaction of the scientific community to Al Gores invited speech at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) last week (a video can be found

AAAS: US visa woes at Nature Newsblog : Posted on behalf of Karen KaplanA terrific session about global partnerships that's part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting this week fell a bit afoul of US visa regulations this morning. The panel presentation, "New

Happy Darwin Day at decorabilia : Seems pretty appropriate that on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, scientists have released a sequence of the Neanderthal genome.Early glimpses of the genome, which was sequenced by Svante Pbo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Ars returns to the AAAS meeting at Nobel Intent : Last year, we sent two people to cover the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This year, we're going back with three, so you can count on us covering a broader diversity of topics than the year before. This year's theme

New free computational geometry journal?

2009-02-16T00:47:40Z

New free computational geometry journal? at Ernie's 3D Pancakes

Joachim Gudmundsson and Pat Morin are discussing the possibility of establishing a new open access computational geometry journal, which would be completely free to both readers and authors. So far, there are three relevant posts at Joachim's blog:The initial

Joachim's poll on free computational geometry journals at 0xDE : After these two earlier posts on the possibility of starting a free online computational geometry journal, Joachim Gudmundsson's latest blog entry contains a poll for the community on whether this is a good idea. If this is something that would affect you,

A new open access CG journal at The Geomblog : The last few years has seen many attempts by researchers to break free from the shackles of (commercial) journal publishers. There's the whole-sale exodus that produced the ACM Transactions on Algorithms, as well as other journals, and technology aided creation

Right & wrong is not about religion

2009-02-15T22:41:50Z

Right & wrong is not about religion at Gene Expression

Pew has the numbers:The main surprise here are Mormons. I knew that they had become much more Creationist over the past 3 generations due to their identification with conservative Protestants, but I didn't know that it went this far. In The Creationists Ronald

Which religious groups are Creationist? at Gene Expression : Pew has the numbers:The main surprise here are Mormons. I knew that they had become much more Creationist over the past 3 generations due to their identification with conservative Protestants, but I didn't know that it went this far. In The Creationists Ronald

Ancestral quanta predicts phentoype?

2009-02-15T22:15:31Z

Ancestral quanta predicts phentoype? at Gene Expression

ScienceDaily has a report on a presentation Mark Shriver gave at AAAS meething this year:"We started with 22 landmarks on the faces that could be accurately located in all the images," said Shriver.These landmarks might be the tip of the nose, the tip of the

Facial anthropometry correlates with admixture proportions in African Americans at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog : If you doubt that facial measurements can be used to determine racial makeup, feel free to use my old black-or-white calculator, which determines the chance that a given individual is Caucasoid or Negroid - rather than admixture proportions as in this study.

My picks from ScienceDaily

2009-02-15T21:48:09Z

My picks from ScienceDaily at A Blog Around The Clock

High-tech Tests Allow Anthropologists To Track Ancient Hominids Across The Landscape:Dazzling new scientific techniques are allowing archaeologists to track the movements and menus of extinct hominids through the seasons and years as they ate their way across

Renowned climatologist says mass media screwing up global warming reporting at Mongabay.com news : Stanford scientist and climate-specialist Stephen Schneider has called out media organizations for the quality of their reporting on climate change and other scientific issues. "Business managers of media organizations, he said, you are screwing up your responsibility

Tommaso

2009-02-15T21:32:59Z

Tommaso at A Quantum Diaries Survivor

Last Friday at the KITP there was a celebration of Stanley Mandelstam’s 80th birthday, with talks available here, and some messages from other physicists here. Geoffrey Chew recalls how Berkeley hired Mandelstam away from Columbia, where no one was very

Too Many Topics at Not Even Wrong : Last Friday at the KITP there was a celebration of Stanley Mandelstam’s 80th birthday, with talks available here, and some messages from other physicists here. Geoffrey Chew recalls how Berkeley hired Mandelstam away from Columbia, where no one was very

Ancient Sponges May Help Humans Survive

2009-02-15T20:40:00Z

Ancient Sponges May Help Humans Survive at Al Fin

Researchers led by Moeller, of Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, found a sponge thriving in the midst of dead organisms. This anomalous life amidst death raised an obvious question, says Moeller: How is this thing surviving when everything else is dead?Chemical

Sea Sponge Extract Conquers Resistant Bacteria at Slashdot: Science : Science News has an article on research into a compound found in a particular kind of sea sponge that seems to have the ability to restore antibiotics' effectiveness against resistant bacteria. The hope is that, since the compound is not itself deadly or even

The Giants' Shoulders # 8 is up!

2009-02-15T18:58:06Z

The Giants' Shoulders # 8 is up! at A Blog Around The Clock

You can find it on Greg Laden's blog. Lots of great history of science blogging for the long weekend.Read the comments on this post...

Come enjoy the view from The Giants Shoulders at Neural Gourmet - Feed Your Brain : The eighth edition of the monthly science history blog carnival The Giants’ Shoulders is now available at Greg Laden’s Blog. There’s something for everyone here from Evolution’s Influence On Pulp Fiction to why Everybody Hates Francis

Are scientists making "misleading climate change claims"?

2009-02-15T16:51:00Z

Are scientists making "misleading climate change claims"? at The Island of Doubt

Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre, says scientists should be careful not to exaggerate the evidence for climate change:The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine

Pot, meet kettle at James' Empty Blog : Stoat got there first (he's probably not got any ume to photograph), but being a muesli-munching lefty I also saw this interesting rant by Vicky Pope in the Grauniad:Climate change scientists must rein in misleading extreme weather claimsIt seems like she's

Runaway climate change? at Stoat : Wiki has an article on the subject, created by over enthusiastic folk. I tried to kill the witch on the grounds that it had no good definition; alas that didn't fly. My best effort at a defn that fitted reality was this but it didn't last. The wiki article

'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts at Stoat : I was going to rant about Lord "I know what you should hear" Ahmed but that's just the religious suppressing freedom of speech, which is hardly news.But then along comes a much more interesting rant, from Vicky Pope, about the good old Arctic sea ice. 'Apocalyptic

Bioclipse 2.0-beta2 released

2009-02-15T15:08:21Z

Bioclipse 2.0-beta2 released at BioclipseBlog

Ola has released the second beta for Bioclipse 2.0. Things are getting along, and I will not go into details on the molecules table Arvid is working on, the 1GB+ SD file support, the validating CML editor, the support for XMPP services, or the brand new welcome

Bioclipse for CDK Developers #1 at chem-bla-ics : Ola has released the second beta for Bioclipse 2.0. Things are getting along, and I will not go into details on the molecules table Arvid is working on, the 1GB+ SD file support, the validating CML editor, the support for XMPP services, or the brand new welcome

Something We Don't Know?

2009-02-15T11:44:16Z

Something We Don't Know? at A Babe In the Universe

Happy Valentine's Day!I'm a long way from home and don't really have anyone round here to Valentine so I'm taking the liberty of asking you all to be my Valentine today. Cause, really, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Really.I did make some calls home to check in

Like You Don't Know My Name at Bitch. Ph.D. : Happy Valentine's Day!I'm a long way from home and don't really have anyone round here to Valentine so I'm taking the liberty of asking you all to be my Valentine today. Cause, really, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Really.I did make some calls home to check in

The six secrets of squid sex

2009-02-15T09:56:35Z

The six secrets of squid sex at A Blog Around The Clock

w00t! Miriam Goldstein had a piece published in Slate! The real references to that piece arehere.Read the comments on this post...

Squid Sex at Slate at The Other 95% : Tentacular "high fives" are in order for Miriam Goldstein of the Oyster's Garter! Besides being one of our favorite invert bloggers and shanty singers, she is now a Slate author. On Friday Slate posted a brilliant article by Miriam in their XX Factor section

Designer babies

2009-02-14T21:58:13Z

Designer babies at Information Processing

At its simplest, fertility medicine is about helping couples have children. But, as the old phrase “test-tube baby” suggests, the field is full of possibilities for sliding into ethical gray zones. This week brings a few reminders of that fact.A

The era of designer babies. We're there? at SciGuy : Pretty much. Here's more from The Wall Street Journal: A Los Angeles clinic says it will soon help couples select both gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment. The clinic, Fertility Institutes,...

The Fringes of Fertility Medicine: From Octuplets to Designer Babies at WSJ.com: Health Blog : At its simplest, fertility medicine is about helping couples have children. But, as the old phrase “test-tube baby” suggests, the field is full of possibilities for sliding into ethical gray zones. This week brings a few reminders of that fact.A

Louisiana boycotts science; scientists boycott Louisiana

2009-02-14T20:23:30Z

Louisiana boycotts science; scientists boycott Louisiana at Pharyngula

One of my favorite meetings is the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meetings. One of my favorite cities to visit is New Orleans, Louisiana. The two pleasures will not be coinciding at any time in the near future because of the ineptitude

Press Release: SCIB Boycotts Louisiana at The Panda's Thumb : FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / LA Coalition for Science / http://lasciencecoalition.orgNational Scientific Society to Boycott Louisiana over LA Science Education ActBaton Rouge, LA, February 13, 2009 The first tangible results of the Louisiana legislatures passage

Comparative effectiveness research

2009-02-14T18:10:00Z

Comparative effectiveness research at DB's Medical Rants

I received an email about the health care implications of the stimulus package. It included this paragraph:Comparative Effectiveness Research The conference agreement also includes $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research (CER),

Open Source Study Included In US Stimulus Package at Slashdot: Science : gclef writes "Buried deep in the details of the US stimulus package is an interesting provision that might go a long way toward helping Open Source software break into the medical area. It says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should study the

Assumptions and Limitations

2009-02-14T17:58:23Z

Assumptions and Limitations at Backreaction

The left-wing blogosphere has apparently chosen Milton Friedman (Nobel memorial prize in economics, 1976) as their target of the month.CommunistSocialistSwine copies an article by a Brad DeLong. Although it is very clear that DeLong understands the basic structure

Milton Friedman's F-twist at Lubo Motl's reference frame : The left-wing blogosphere has apparently chosen Milton Friedman (Nobel memorial prize in economics, 1976) as their target of the month.CommunistSocialistSwine copies an article by a Brad DeLong. Although it is very clear that DeLong understands the basic structure

Name the Baby

2009-02-14T14:45:31Z

Name the Baby at The Panda's Thumb

The irresistibly cute baby gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo needs a name, and the Zoo is sponsoring a name-the-baby contest. You can enter here.

Name The Baby Gorilla Contest at Afarensis : The San Francisco Zoo is holding a contest to name a male baby western lowland gorilla. If you need inspiration, you can see pictures and a video of the gorilla here.(Hat tip tip to the Panda's Thumb)Read the comments on this post...

Video: Rescue of Sam the Koala

2009-02-14T10:07:11Z

Video: Rescue of Sam the Koala at ScienceNewsBlog.com

This was the video of the rescue of a koala named "Sam." A firefighter found Sam moving gingerly on her scorched paws. Sam is now recovering at a wildlife shelter with other rescued animals. Sadly, this koala was one of the lucky ones. Millions of animals are

Spreading the love at penn : Today being Valentine's day, I thought I'd share some stories about different ways to express love. I could be all mushy and write something about my boyfriend, but he doesn't read my blog, so it wouldn't do much good.In Australia, the wildfires didn't just

A Cure for the Common Cold? Don't. . .Ah, Hold Your Breath

2009-02-14T07:00:37Z

A Cure for the Common Cold? Don't. . .Ah, Hold Your Breath at In the Pipeline

If you want a good example of the way that the popular media handle a drug discovery story, take a look at all the headlines this morning on the news of the sequencing of the common-cold rhinoviruses.There are a couple of "Cure For the Common Cold Unlikely"

A cure for the common cold? at Medical Museion Weblog : Over and over again I’ve praisedDerek Lowe’sblog ‘In the Pipeline’(see for example here). Derek deliversalmost daily insights into the world of drugresearch,from chemical lab work routines toBig Pharma management and economics.Yesterday’s

How the flu virus performs cap snatching at Effect Measure : Nature has just published another new paper on the basic biology of influenza virus. Unlike other recent papers it doesn't purport to reveal the secret of why some flu (e.g., H5N1, 1918 H1N1) is so virulent and "normal" seasonal influenza much less so. Instead

Web based Spectra Game

2009-02-14T05:30:21Z

Web based Spectra Game at Useful Chemistry

It’s been an interesting week or so in the Chemistry online world. Following on from my musings about data services and the preparation I was doing for a talk the week before last I asked Tony Williams whether it was possible to embed spectra from ChemSpider

The growth of linked up data in chemistry - and good community projects at Science in the open : It’s been an interesting week or so in the Chemistry online world. Following on from my musings about data services and the preparation I was doing for a talk the week before last I asked Tony Williams whether it was possible to embed spectra from ChemSpider

Holdren and Lubchenco sail through Senate confirmation hearing with flying colors

2009-02-14T04:36:09Z

Holdren and Lubchenco sail through Senate confirmation hearing with flying colors at ClimateScienceWatch

It was pretty much smooth sailing, with questions about climate change, climate science, and scientific integrity at the February 12 Senate confirmation hearing for John Holdren, director-designate of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,

Confirmation hearings for Obama nominees at Open Access News : U.S. President Barack Obama's nominees to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, received a confirmation hearing from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science,

Want to get involved in high level science policy? Here's what you need to know. at The Questionable Authority : If you've ever wondered what kind of knowledge base is required to become involved at high levels in science and technology policy, you might want to watch a Senate confirmation hearing sometime. Earlier today, Drs. John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco sat down

Senate Confirmation Hearings - NOAA and Science Advisor at The Questionable Authority : Due to technical problems, this liveblog of the Confirmation hearings for Jane Lubchenco and John Holdren begins in progress. Dr. Lubchenco is giving her opening statement. ....... In her opening statement, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, just announced that she'll create

Is Holdren Cabinet-Bound? at Science Progress : The science community wants John Holdrens expected confirmation to the Office of Science and Technology Policy to be followed by his elevation into Obamas cabinet.

Science Book Lovers' Meme

2009-02-13T23:48:35Z

Science Book Lovers' Meme at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

Here is a meme that I was tagged with recently by the good peeps at Science on Tap. The author writes;Imagine: YOU are asked to assign a half-dozen-or-so books as required reading for ALL science majors at a college as part of their 4-year degree; NOT technical

Everything And The Grrl at The End Of The Pier Show : I’ve been tagged by GrrlScientist who requires of me the following undertaking (pulls up crocs socks, straightens tie)Imagine: YOU are asked to assign a half-dozen-or-so books as required reading for ALL science majors at a college as part of their 4-year

Satellites collide in orbit

2009-02-13T21:39:09Z

Satellites collide in orbit at Bad Astronomy Blog

Wow: two satellites have collided in orbit, destroying both. This is the first time such a major collision has ever occurred.The satellites were Cosmos 2251, a Russian communication relay satellite that’s been defunct for a decade, and an Iridium satellite,

Satellite Smash! at Astroblog : The worst fears of the satellite community have been realised. Two satellites, Kosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 crashed into each other approximately 800 km over northern Siberia. How this happened is unclear as the orbits of these satellites were pretty well known,

U.S., Russian sattellites crash at Lubo Motl's reference frame : Soyuz-Apollo, collider editionIt's been the first time when full-fledged satellites collided. Both were communication satellites - one ton (Kozmos 2251) against half a ton (Iridium LLC, both above Siberia). The Russian vehicle won, turning Iridium into smoke,

Friday Sprog Blogging: fermentation and distillation.

2009-02-13T19:43:59Z

Friday Sprog Blogging: fermentation and distillation. at Adventures in Ethics and Science

A conversation that bubbled up at the dinner table last night, some time after the Free-Ride offspring were informed that the cassoulet they were eating had, as one of its ingredients, white wine.Younger offspring: Why do they call booze "spirits"?Dr. Free-Ride's

The Friday Fermentable: The Family Free-Ride on Fermentation and Distillation at Terra Sigillata : Like many of my readers, I am continually blown away by the parenting skills and science education abilities of my friend and colleague, Dr Janet D Stemwedel (aka Dr Free-Ride). Among her many gifts is her Friday feature with her family documenting how kids