Mike the Mad Biologist

Reprints: An Interesting Way of Looking at Sharing Science-Related PDFs

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:52:49 -0500

One of the things I can't stand about non-open access publishers is that federally-funded scientific results (federally subsidized in multiple ways) are locked behind a publisher's for-profit firewall. Given the high prices of journals and universities' need to cut expenditures, library budgets are getting slashed.

So what's a scientist to do? Have a colleague whose institution has a subscription send her the pdf of the article.

Needless to say, this upsets the non-open access publishers greatly. UR STEALIN TEH SCIENTISMZ!! Over at Ars Technica, John Timmer makes a good analogy to reprints that some of us old timers (who remember such things) will appreciate:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Good News About Flu Production

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:30:11 -0500

One of the problem with influenza vaccine production (as well as some other vaccines) is that the vaccine is made by injecting into chicken eggs--infecting chicken embryos--and then harvesting and killing the virus for use in the vaccine. This is a very time-consuming process that takes months. A holy grail of influenza vaccine production has been a cell-culture based production method, since this would allow much faster production of virus (and thus vaccine).

It sounds like this will soon become reality:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Friday Links

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:01:15 -0500

Thank the Intelligent Designer it's Friday; I've had a long week. Anyway, here are some weekend links for you. Science:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Who Will Be the Fall Guy for TEH SWINEY FLOO!!!?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:02:49 -0500

A couple of days ago I was talking with a long-time reader who couldn't understand why those Democrats who favor healthcare reform weren't beating the drug companies over the head with the failure to produce enough swine flu vaccine. After all, if you're a drug manufacturer, you should be able to produce drugs. Said reader made an argument (albeit more colorfully) similar to Steve Benen's (italics mine):

Taken together, it seems the president immediately recognized the seriousness of a public health issue, mobilized officials, launched a public information campaign, and ordered the creation and distribution of a vaccine. The White House sought out all the right advice, from all the right people, and acted quickly. This isn't my area of expertise, but it sounds like the White House has been responding to the H1N1 problem exactly the way it should.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Obama's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Is Not Hopey or Changey

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:03:54 -0500

Over at BoingBoing, we read about the leaked version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a copyright treaty (so much for the Obama Administration's commitment to transparency. Maybe it's something in the White House water?). Two items caught my eye:

•That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
•That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

This shows a complete lack of understanding of the internetz.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

All of Senator Hatch's Gall Is Divided Into Two Parties

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:20:31 -0500

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah doesn't want Democrats to pass a successful healthcare bill because then people might think Democrats do helpful stuff. Then people would vote for Democrats. Then...TEH SOCIALISMZ!!:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

What Is Driving the College Tuition Bubble?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:55:29 -0500

It's not a failure of monetary policy, but fiscal policy.

Over at The Quantum Pontiff, ScienceBlogling Dave Bacon asks if college tuition is a bubble:

But what I find interesting, and what I've never been able to figure out, is the larger trend (ignore the last two years, please). Why are tuition prices increasing at such a fast rate for four year colleges? For example, see slide 5 of this presentation where one sees that over the last three decades, the inflation adjusted price of college has more than tripled at public four year universities and gone up nearly as much a private four year universities....

My own theory is that we are in the middle of a leverage driven bubble. Okay, yeah, its a stretch, but its fun to look at the numbers.

I think Dave is right that the continuation of the ludicrous increases in college tuition is due to funny money--just as the final stages of the ridiculous run up in housing prices was due to 'ninja loans'*. To explain what I mean, let's first think about what putting two kids through private college entails (and remember that rising private college tuitions allow public institutions to raise tuitions and still seem like a bargain).

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Monday Links

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:44:20 -0500

Sunset in Boston is at 4:36pm today, which means, if you're in Boston and reading this, it's dark out. Anyway, to chase away the darkness, here are some links. Science:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

And the Mad Biologist Endorses...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:09:07 -0500

There's an election Tuesday in Massachusetts, and here's who the Mad Biologist endorses.

U.S Senate: This is tough. Both Rep. Mike Capuano and Attorney General Martha Coakley have strengths and weaknesses. Both are reliable liberals, but they have different emphases. Capuano has very good constituent services, and he understands the importance of scientific research to the MA state economy. He does, however, have some shady fundraising associations with Rep. Murtha. Coakley has a very good record as Attorney General, including bringing successful suits against Wall Street firms for fraudlent practices. She would also be excellent on civil liberties, including abortion. Given her experience to date though, it's hard to know what her stands on economic policies are. Early on, I was a Coakley supporter, now it's a toss up.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Sunday Sermon: It's the Humanism, Not the Secularism That Really Bothers the Theopolitical Right

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:24:19 -0500

Some thoughts on the Theology of Jerks. Earlier this week, there was some minor amusement over Christian scholar Richard Beck's claim, at his blog Experimental Theology, that Christians (presumably he means fundamentalists) are lousy tippers:

Take, for example, how Christians tip and behave in restaurants. If you have ever worked in the restaurant industry you know the reputation of the Sunday morning lunch crowd. Millions of Christians go to lunch after church on Sundays and their behavior is abysmal. The single most damaging phenomenon to the witness of Christianity in America today is the collective behavior of the Sunday morning lunch crowd. Never has a more well-dressed, entitled, dismissive, haughty or cheap collection of Christians been seen on the face of the earth.

We can snicker all we want, but Beck does make what I think is a pretty radical statement for a lot of self-identified* Christians (italics mine):

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Abstinence-Only 'Education' Withering

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:46:01 -0500

"If the president's [budget] proposal is enacted similar to what he recommended, it will have a chilling effect on abstinence education across the country...We're in a race against time to keep these people in business"

So says Leslie Unruh, rightwing nutjob extraordinaire (and a driving force behind this). I'm not sure why anyone in the Coalition of the Sane should care, in light of these results of abstinence-only misinformation (italics mine):

In the beginning, the public-health community was open to the programs. The United States did, after all, have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the developed world. "There was open-mindedness then, that it might work" says John Santelli, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "Everyone is willing to give new ideas a trial period." By 1999, one study estimated a third of American students were receiving an abstinence-only education. But as funding grew, so did a body of research showing that abstinence didn't change the sexual behaviors of students; pregnancy and STD rates did not go down, the age of initial sexual activity did not go up. "Each evaluation came along ... and each showed it didn't work," says Santelli. The articles appeared in peer-reviewed journals, many in the Journal of Adolescent Health, and in government-commissioned reviews. In 2007, a federally funded study of four abstinence programs found its students no more likely to abstain than those in a comprehensive program. At the same time, comprehensive programs that discuss contraceptives and their use received better, although by no means perfect, marks. Researcher Doug Kirby's 2008 review of 48 studies of comprehensive curriculums found that two-thirds either reduced frequency of sex or number of sexual partners. By time Obama cut Title V abstinence-education funds from his budget, 25 states had already begun rejecting the money, 16 because they didn't agree ideologically or weren't seeing results, the others for administrative reasons.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Friday Links

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:07:39 -0500

Merry Friday. Here are some links for you. Science:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

How Anti-Abortionists Are Screwing Healthcare Reform

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:06:26 -0500

Congressman Bart Stupak has helped tank the Medicare +5% reimbursement plan and single payer (italics mine):

The problem with an amendment strategy [for Medicare +5% and single-payer] is that the House leadership will likely not allow many, if any, amendments to be offered on the House floor. The reason is because of Bart Stupak, who is trying to defeat the entire bill by rounding up 40 House Democrats to demand that none of the insurance plans receiving subsidies in the exchange are allowed to cover abortions. If such an amendment passes--and the leadership believes that it would if offered on the floor--then the entire bill goes down to defeat, since it will lose the votes of dozens of pro-choice Democrats. As such, the leadership is going not going to allow any amendments, and make Stupak's only move to try and prevent the bill from going to the floor at all. It is unlikely he will succeed.

Thanks for nothing, asshole.

Read the comments on this post...

Science Explains Why Boston's Red Line Sucks So Badly

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:03:20 -0500

One of the enduring mysteries of Boston's transit system is why is the Red Line always fouled up. I can understand why the Green Line is squirrelly: parts of the Green Line run above ground and intersect with traffic, the above ground stops take much longer at the stations (to prevent people sneaking on without paying, only the front door of each car opens), and, inbound, there are four different Green Lines that merge into one. In other words, the Green Line is a guaranteed clusterfuck.

But the Red Line has none of these problems. So why is it almost always screwed up, even when it doesn't break down? (equipment failure is a topic for a separate post--I've been following this and there are roughly two delays every day due to equipment failures).

Thank goodness WE HAZ TEH SCIENTISMZ!!

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

About That Anti-Pit Bull Legislaition, Can We...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:43:21 -0500

...put down bad owners instead? From Boston's Universal Hub:

Boston Police report seizing a pit bull on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester Tuesday morning after its owner allegedly tried to sic the animal on the young daughter of a neighbor with whom she's been feuding.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...