The new coronavirus has now killed 9 out of 15 victims. It has moved into the UK, and person-to-person transmission seems likely. Will this be a new pandemic? Is the world prepared for it? More on de-extinction: is bringing back the dead a dumb idea or really, really cool? And can the associated reproductive technologies make a lot of money?
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A baby was cured, probably, of HIV infection. But this excellent event is probably not world-changing, despite the hype. Will HIV evolve to become less harmful, like feline immunodeficiency virus? TODAY, live-streaming of an all-day meeting on cloning extinct organisms: Wooly mammoth, passenger pigeon, American chestnut. Please sign the petition against Daylight Saving Time. A new roundup at Cocktail Party Physics. SciO13 videos online!
Steven Brill goes through hospital bills and finds greed. Is this the beginning of the beginning of the end of the current US health care system? The New York Times abandons its Green Blog and the Washington Post makes changes in its environmental coverage too. There's general agreement that this bodes ill. German physicists, American physicists, and the atom bomb.
Dan Fagin explores the tragic impact of toxic industrial pollution on residents of a small New Jersey seaside town. A prize-winning environmental journalist, Fagin directs the New York University Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. "The reporting took longer than I ever imagined it could," Fagin writes, "requiring nearly 200 interviews plus extensive historical research and lots of Freedom of Information requests."
So, what is the Brain Activity Map? Herewith, some speculations and even possible answers. The emphasis seems to be on neuroscience technology that can monitor large groups of neurons simultaneously. Also: Download the Universe's birthday, more on Obamacare, the Mediterranean diet, and, best of all, free online MIT bio course taught by Eric Lander & Co..
The moral of the Jonah Lehrer story: Science writing is impossible because of the human brain. Nevertheless, lobbying for the Brain Activity Map. The Darwin finch genome project. Obamacare news: the Republicans are bringing us socialized medicine.
As you probably know, Jonah Lehrer again. Lehrer gave a Fat Tuesday talk explaining away his plagiarism and other sins against science journalism. The reviews were terrible. The Knight Foundation paid him $20,000 for the talk. The reviews were terrible for that, too.
Richard III's bones have (probably) been found — underneath a parking lot. mtDNA studies of Richard's family descendants confirm that the remains are Richard's, but so do several other types of evidence. Still, there's controversy over what the mtDNA reveals and whether peer review should have come before press conference. Meanwhile, a Freedom of Information Act request has laid bare Science's peer review process for that now-disproven #arseniclife paper.
Scientist and science communicator Ainissa Ramirez expands her 2012 TED talk, with a plan for boosting children’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math: "In Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists, I spell out my plan for how to make science more fun again, and how to make sure that everyone has access to STEM educational opportunities."