Senate slams AP over bias for Gore’s movie

Here’s an interesting tidbit. No sooner has the President finished lambasting the New York Times for aiding the enemy, the Senate comes out to accuse AP of biased reporting about Gore’s new movie. I like it. At the same time, it’s too bad this is even necessary – that is, it’s [...]

Militarization of biology: non-lethal weapons

A report from the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project highlights research activities as of 2005 in a variety of non-lethal technologies including tasers, millimeter wave systems that heat the skin, acoustic systems that cause ear pain or nausea, laser weapons intended to cause temporarily blindness, and biochemical “calmatives.” BNLWRP questions the legality and the [...]

OBJECTIVE: Ministries web site

Check out the web site for “OBJECTIVE: Ministries,” to include the creationist science fair and the “4kidz” page – make sure you mouse over the lamb’s head (hold on a minute, I’m having a wave of nausea).
At first I wondered if this was serious, but that would mean people really could be that crazy, so [...]

kuru still providing clues to vCJD

An article just out in The Lancet, “Kuru in the 21st century — an acquired human prion disease with very long incubation periods” (sign-in may be required for this link) is being reported widely in the media today. Kuru is a brain wasting disease that was discovered as a devastating epidemic 50 years ago [...]

ABthrax to help lower mortality in event of anthrax attack

Seen at the Nuclear Threat Initiative site this week: As a part of Project Bioshield, the U.S. will spend $165 million on 20,000 doses of an experimental anthrax infection treatment to add to its emergency stockpile of WMD countermeasures. The deal doesn’t go down until 2008, so bioterrorists, please hold off attacking until then.
ABthrax [...]

Overview of synthetic biology

I was thinking about writing something about the issues surrounding synthetic biology, when I discovered a very nice article by Jonathan Tucker and Ray Zilinskas that covers the basic overview (citation below). BTW, I’ve met Tucker a couple of times at workshops, and to add credit to his excellent publications on chemical & biological weapons [...]

unscientific quiz says I’m more scientific than emotional

Well, duh. I saw this quiz on another blog and of course I had to take it too, so here are my results. Ok, the quiz turned out to be on a dating site but I only went there to take the quiz, so don’t give me any crap! You hosers. [...]

the Hawking plan for perpetuating the species

Just a blurb in the news today, Stephen Hawking has announced his Doomsday plan: get the hell outta Dodge. He says the risk of Armageddon is increasing here at the old homestead, and we need to think about the Moon and Mars as alternatives.
I have to agree that it seems like there are more [...]