via Respectful Insolence, check out this vaccine PSA:

Listen to the Evil Balls and get vaccinated. Or should I say, Inoculated?

PZ Myers just alerted me to a new organization taking up the mantle of watching over science education in the great state of Wisconsin: Behold Wisconsin Citizens for Science. I’ve already signed up, and if you’re in WI, especially Madison - its home base - I recommend adding yourself to its roster! There is little information up on the site yet, nor any indication of agenda items to watch, but in time I’m sure there will be plenty of that. But they have just announced today that their membership is now up to 72 - pretty good for just starting out!

In the same thread, I also learned of the Madison Skeptics society. No familiar faces in the pictures there yet, but Madison is a big place. Yet also quite small.

Now PZ is suggesting that Wisconsin is behind the times: just now organizing to help with science education in the schools - and that his home state of Minnesota is way ahead. Heck, even the Dakotas get higher marks from him. Now I don’t know about you but I think he’s got his numbers backwards. Kansas was the state that started it all - with Kansas Citizens for Science. Kansas was arguably the worst state when it comes to evolution in science education - and it trickled down to states with fewer problems. So doesn’t that suggest that by coming in last, that there isn’t as much of a problem here as in other states, like our puddly neighbor to the West?

I’ll try to help spread the word about the first meeting, when it comes.

In Star Trek, Jean Luc Picard made a risky maneuver in battle. Rather than relying on sub-light-speed impulse engines and thrusters in a hopeless battle on board a ship known as the Stargazer, he decided to use the ship’s warp engines to move faster than light to strike. The idea, which would be very interesting if possible, is that your ship is now right in front of your enemy, opening fire, while they still think that you are a distance away. While the light from the ship’s original position is still arriving at the observer, they will see two ships. Who are you shooting at? I’m over here!

In the Star Trek realm, advanced ships also had faster-than-light sensors, which would foil anyone attempting to repeat it. Nevertheless, it was a successful strategy for the young Picard, catapulting him to Captain-hood.

Circumstances have dictated that I, too , must execute my own warp speed maneuver. I can’t give any details as of yet, but suffice to say I’m going to be in the lab late tonight and very very early tomorrow, attempting the fastest turnaround for a particular procedure than I have ever attempted. It may become a frequent feature of my life for the next two weeks, but if I can achieve faster-than-daylight pipetting, it will be worth it.

And if successful, I’ll have to call it the Haro von Mogel Maneuver. What are you amplifying over there? I’m right here!

Maize may be monoecious, but

Like dioecious hops it is split in two,

But roses and lilies are perfect,

And so is the flower that is You.

Today is the 200th Birthday of one Charles Darwin, Huzzah! It also marks 150 years since he published On the Origin of Species.

Well the internet community has got something really special in mind for ol’ Chuck: A pile of us joined a facebook group to spread the word about his Birthday. The goal was to have 200,000 members by tomorrow. Err, today. It’s 2 am here in Madison, and the membership count just passed 200,000. 200,030 to be exact:

There’s still time to join in on the big party! Go here to join the Facebook group.

You know, I sometimes get really annoyed at facebook. All those little applications that want a piece of your data, and spread from one person to another. Ghosts from the past trying to contact you, all sorts of weirdness. BUT, I have noticed that science bloggers have been using Facebook for some killer networking. I guess it’s not all bad.

Now the count is at 200,159. Send it to the roof!

This morning I taught my first class. My adviser skipped town this week to go to a big important meeting, and asked me to teach his plant breeding & biotechnology class for 50 minutes. I gave a lecture on flower biology, pollination methods, and how the former dictates the methods used to do the latter. I got to use some of my videos, and in the big crunch before the class, we got two more pollination methods videos near to completion! I expect that we’ll be uploading them about the end of the month.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing the lecture, and while walking out of the room I thought, you know, I could see myself doing this on a regular basis in the future…

Recently radio host Jeni Barnett went on the attack against vaccinations, revealing her utter ignorance of the relevent facts, and the logic required to analyze the issue. It would have gone unnoticed for me, and probably the rest of the internet, except when Ben Goldacre of Bad Science posted an mp3 of the show to display the wonton idiocy, Jeni’s radio station went after him, threatening to sue over copyright infringement. Jeni herself attempted to defend herself on her own site, admitting that she did not know her facts, and calling a nurse who corrected her on the air “vicious” while playing the victim.

As a result of this whole affair over the last couple days, a group of science bloggers got together, passed around the mp3, and transcribed the WHOLE THING. Take a look, but before you do, you have to hear how it sounds, so Get the mp3 from WikiLeaks while you still can!

My favorite part: Read More…

In science you always.

Always.

Always use controls.

That is the very basis of science, for without a control running next to your experiment, you have no isolated variables, no conclusions that can be drawn from it, and no theories that it can support.

So when I was reading the Ethicurean, as I regularly do, I was simply flabbergasted at this post: Mercury in HFCS. Apparently, a research paper came out proclaiming that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)-containing products had detectable levels of mercury. The explanation given was that HFCS is made using alkali soda, from plants that use mercury in the process of synthesizing it. (Except this has been for the most part phased out)

I took a look at the paper, and the first thing that I noticed was Read More…