One of the courses I teach regularly at my university is “Ethics in Science,” a course that explores (among other things) what’s involved in being a good scientist in one’s interactions with the phenomena about which one is building knowledge, in one’s interactions with other scientists, and in one’s interactions with the rest of the world.
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Feed SubscriptionTraces of Elusive Species Sought in Bloodsucking Leech DNA
By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine Bloodsucking leeches are offering the best hope of finding one of the world's rarest animals. [More]
Read More »World Governments Establish Biodiversity Panel
By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Governments from more than 90 countries have agreed to establish an independent panel of scientists to assess the very latest research on the state of the planet's fragile ecosystems. [More]
Read More »Birthday Dentures for an Ancient Elk
It’s easy to to be impressed when you walk the halls of museums by the quality and quantity of specimens on display, but it is only a fraction of what institutions like the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and other comparable institutions have in their collections. This year, the Academy celebrates its 200th anniversary and to mark the occasion, has created a year-long exhibit titled The Academy at 200: The Nature of Discovery
Read More »Closing in on Dark Matter: Another "Tentative" Step
A galaxy cluster with the distribution of dark matter marked by purple overlay. Credit: NASA, ESA, E. Julio (JPL/LAM), P.
Read More »Transplantable Blood Vessels Woven from Lab-Grown Human Tissue
Image courtesy of iStockphoto/adventtr More than 382,000 people with kidney disease in the U.S. are on dialysis, a painful procedure that can wreak havoc on blood vessels due to constant jabs from large needles. During dialysis, a patient’s blood is filtered out of their body and through a machine that performs the work normally done by the kidneys.
Read More »Joy Comes with Discovery: A Conversation with Linda Buck, PhD
A series of graduate student conversations with leading women biologists, at the Women in Science Symposium at Cornell April 2-3.
Read More »Arctic Ocean Releasing "Significant" Amounts of Methane
The surface waters of the Arctic Ocean may be releasing "significant" amounts of methane into the atmosphere, researchers reported yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience . [More]
Read More »Pixelating the Genome
Genomes are complicated. Even the concept of a “gene” isn’t as straightforward as you might expect.
Read More »What Gives Solar Superstorms Their Power? [Video]
In the past few months, you might recall warnings of incoming pieces of the sun. Called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), these energetic solar-storm particles can trigger amazing displays of auroras .
Read More »Science Will Never Explain Why There’s Something Rather Than Nothing
When predicting something that science will never do, it’s wise to recall the French philosopher Auguste Comte. In 1835 he asserted that science will never figure out what stars are made of
Read More »Ted Williams, Diamonds and How to Wring an Extra $20 out of a Used Car
A slightly used car. Image: Flickr/JoiseyShowaa cc license Ted Williams entered the final two games of the 1941 season batting .39955. If he d sat them out, the average would ve been rounded up to .400, making him the only MLB player in the modern era to bat the milestone
Read More »How Do Painkillers Buffer Against Social Rejection?
How do painkillers buffer against social rejection? [More]
Read More »Cheap Fracked Gas Could Help Americans Keep on Truckin’
A different kind of truck stop is coming soon to Atlanta. Greg Roche, vice president for infrastructure at Clean Energy Fuels , is presently scouting locations to build one of the California-based company's natural gas fueling stations for long-haul trucks by the end of this year
Read More »Experimental Biology Blogging: Using a chemical from slime mold to stop cancer spread
For day 2 of Experimental Biology, I found an interesting poster on a new chemical, found in slime mold, that might have therapeutic potential for breast cancer treatment! Enjoy! We are always looking for new cancer treatments. Each type of cancer is different, from breast cancer to lung cancer or pancreatic, and there are also different subtypes of cancers within each type of cancer. Your breast cancer can be estrogen receptor positive or negative, and this can drastically effect what kind of treatments may work best.
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