Doctors and scientists have lost yet another battle in the war over vaccines. On 25 August, the US Institute of Medicine released a report on the “adverse events” of eight childhood vaccines. The report summarized the exhaustive evidence on the possible negative health consequences of eight vaccines recommended for children, including the vaccines that prevent […]
Month: August 2011
The best thing that ever happened to the Big Bang is its name. For scientists, the acceptance of a scientific concept depends on its explanation of existing data, its prediction of observable phenomena, the observation of those phenomena, and the duplication of those results. But for non-scientists—well, for scientists, too—the popularity of a concept can come […]
One of the well-thumbed books in our house is Gary Larson’s There’s a Hair in My Dirt!, which chronicles the adventures of a daffy maiden who sees nature through a rose-colored magnifying glass. She cuddles up to invasive squirrels, delights over frolicking fawns, and beats the heck out of a snake as it tries to […]
A little over two weeks ago, on the evening of August 10th, a young Irish heavy-equipment operator spotted what he thought was an old leather car seat jutting out of the drained fields of Cashel Bog. Jason Phelan was nearing the end of a long day on a harvester, a giant machine that slices peat […]
I just wrote a story about robots whose brains are based on the neural networks of real creatures (mostly cats, rats and monkeys). Researchers put these ‘brains’ in an engineered body — sometimes real, sometimes virtual — equipped with sensors for light and sound and touch. Then they let them loose into the world — […]
My dad and I share an obsession with endurance sports. We don’t just love to get outside and ride our bikes, we actually feel antsy and anxious if we go too many days without working up a sweat. As I’ve written elsewhere, our compulsion for exercise has a genetic basis. Dad and I probably have […]
I don’t know where you’re sitting right now, but do me a favor: zoom out to a space shuttle’s eye-view of your spot on the blue marble. Now spin the globe until you’re looking at exactly the opposite side. If you were here with me in London, our antipodal opposite would be (approximately) New Zealand. […]
I’d just sat down when the first carver approached me. It was my second evening in Iqaluit on southern Baffin Island, 2000 kilometers north of Ottawa, and all around me well-heeled bureaucrats were tucking into Arctic char and steak. But the carver, a small weathered-looking Inuk, skirted them and made a beeline toward me. In […]
