Comments for ex laboratorio

Comment on Bugs up close: award-winning web portal Bugscope puts SEM into the hands of kids by Ji Hellmich

Ji Hellmich — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:13:01 +0000

Excellent explanation of NGO and what it means to the beneficiaries, the community, and the public. Being employed by a bureaucracy for 25 years, the nothing is simple’ concept is completely understood. Keep up the good work.

Comment on An Interview with Kate Stoll: Science Policy by Loyd Fleishman

Loyd Fleishman — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:45:32 +0000

We achieve enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we succeed in those that may also make use of our defects.
Failure does not imply you are a failure it means you’ve not succeeded yet.

Comment on Evicting Baby: babies decide when to leave the womb. Folklore suggests gentle excouragements by lizalester

lizalester — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:19:37 +0000

Thanks for the affirmations my friends. I had doubts about the wisdom of posting extras, but decided, XXX, that’s what blogs are for.

Speaking of stimulatory—I forgot my favorite outtake. One woman waited until I turned the recorder off to remember that her husband refused sex after learning that the head was “right there.” But he “had heard”, possibly on the internets, that prostaglandins work better if you swallow them. Me: did he volunteer to help you out with that? Interviewee: Oh yeah. [In case you're wondering: no.]

Most women remember labor vividly, and that opens the tap on more general detail. Me: Did your doctor mention a technique called nipple stimulation? Interviewee: “um yes. she actually did. I thought that was the oddest thing…I remember having a conversation with my husband. He said, I’ll try that, I said, no that’s okay, I’ll do it myself. “

Comment on Evicting Baby: babies decide when to leave the womb. Folklore suggests gentle excouragements by Linda Enns

Linda Enns — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:29:58 +0000

Great article! Informative, AND entertaining. And… kind of stimulating, too. Outtakes: great idea.

Comment on Evicting Baby: babies decide when to leave the womb. Folklore suggests gentle excouragements by Bridgid Gallagher

Bridgid Gallagher — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:57:10 +0000

Love the article, Liza! The outtakes — what a great idea. I’ve found that I usually end up with tons of excess information from interviews. I love the idea of sharing it with people who want to learn more.

Comment on A scaly immortality for California herpetologist by Sarasota Elder Care

Sarasota Elder Care — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:34:19 +0000

What a great article… Its articles like these that make me feel good about going to work every day!

Comment on Scientific American critiques the American scientist-production-system by Avery Sumption

Avery Sumption — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:05:56 +0000

The cost of higher ed is ridiculous yet the government is planning to chop federal grants that are the best way people like me can afford to go to higher education.

Comment on The Arsenic-Eaters of Mono Lake by David Coil

David Coil — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:56:14 +0000

It may buy heaps of attention… but it also loses credibility for the scientific process.

Comment on The Arsenic-Eaters of Mono Lake by lizalester

lizalester — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:06:15 +0000

David, I agree that Science occasionally publishes provocative reports on sort of weak evidence—you could debate whether this case is a failure of peer review or a tactical decision—and that the report’s claims would have shaken down as usual in journals and at conferences if NASA hadn’t taken it out of the science sphere and into the public one with its marketing efforts. The title of the Science report is conservative: “A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus”. The press announcement is not. Stories in the popular press emphasized the NASA connection and the claims of a redefinition of life. (My local paper, The Seattle Times, chose to run with a story from The Washington Post: “NASA finding challenges 'life as we know it'”.) You feel the extraterrestrial connection hanging in the air between those statements, even if it wasn’t directly referenced. Stories focused on the wow-factor and often lacked quotes from scientists not affiliated with the work. I can’t determine if journalists were permitted to make this paper available to their expert sources prior to the Dec. 2nd publication. It may have been impossible for journalists to get the kind of critical review that Rosie Redfield posted on her blog before their stories went to press, because the news stories were pegged to the publication of the Wolfe-Simon paper and the press conference. Between NASA’s announcement on Nov. 29th of the press conference and the actual event, tabloid speculation raged and no one could jump in with facts because the facts were embargoed. Extraterrestrial fantasies may have bought heaps of attention for the research, but what does it buy public understanding of that research?

Comment on The Arsenic-Eaters of Mono Lake by David Coil

David Coil — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:01:50 +0000

Part of the issue here is really the hypocrisy of the NASA team. It’s all well and good to say that “scientific debate must take place in peer-reviewed journals” but *they* are the ones who held the big press conference in the first place.

Without the press conference, this is just a story of a paper presenting some interesting science, that may or may not be verified by others, and that may or may not have had adequate controls. This happens all the time. By bringing the whole debate into the public sphere, they original research team set the stage for a big mess.