What we're talking about 
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Fracked Over for Natural Gas
Study: High levels of endocrine-disrupting activity found downstream from fracking disposal site
The Pump Handle April 15, 2016
Lead isn’t the only toxin threatening the safety of community drinking water. A recent study on water located downstream from a West Virginia fracking disposal site uncovered levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals high enough to adversely impact the aquatic animals living there. And that means human health could be at risk too.
Study: Fracking wastewater wells more likely located near communities of color and poverty
The Pump Handle March 5, 2016
During the years that community health researcher Jill Johnston lived and worked in San Antonio, Texas was experiencing an explosion of fracking. She and the community partners she worked with on environmental health issues had a strong hunch that most of the fracking wastewater wells were being located near communities of color. So, they decided to dig a little deeper and quantify the pattern.
New fracking study finds link between proximity to gas wells, negative health symptoms
The Pump Handle January 21, 2015
As more research is emerging on the potential health effects of fracking, a new study — perhaps the largest to date of its kind — has found that people living near natural gas wells may be at increased risk for adverse health impacts, including skin and respiratory conditions.
Channel Surfing
Life Science
As promised in the last catch-up post, a set of pictures less devoted to cute-kid shots. 213/366: Zone Defense The Pip has been making one of his preschool teachers draw superheroes for him. At some point, he cut these out with scissors (or possibly made Kate cut them out), and hung them up in different…
Pharyngula
Friday Cephalopod: Somebody’s been watching The Shawshank Redemption a few too many times
The guards should have known. Inky had just been biding his time, planning patiently. And then he scurried down a sewer pipe late at night, to freedom! If I’d been guarding him, I would have been suspicious of that poster of Ursula from The Little Mermaid that he’d requested, too, and would have regularly checked…
On Pharyngula, PZ Myers doesn’t just want cut your grass—he wants to tear it out by the roots and leave it to rot in the sun. He quotes J. Crumpler on The Roaming Ecologist, who calls lawns “sterile, chemically-filled, artificial environments […] that provide no benefits over the long term; no food, no clean water,…
Physical Science
“This is the plan. Get your ass to Mars, and go to the Hilton Hotel and flash the fake Brubaker I.D. at the front desk, that’s all there is to it. Just do as I tell you.” –Total Recall Every two years, Earth passes Mars in orbit, as the inner, faster world overtakes the outer…
“Not going to the Moon and banging on it with my own hammer has been the biggest disappointment in life.” -Gene Shoemaker, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Don’t fret about your taxes here at Starts With A Bang; I’ll continue to bring you the Universe for free! (Although I do take donations, and one reward you’re sure…
As promised in the last catch-up post, a set of pictures less devoted to cute-kid shots. 213/366: Zone Defense The Pip has been making one of his preschool teachers draw superheroes for him. At some point, he cut these out with scissors (or possibly made Kate cut them out), and hung them up in different…
Environment
mt has a nice post pointing at an article by Ray Pierrehumbert, How to decarbonize? Look to Sweden. mt and I both like the article, though we choose to emphasise slightly different aspects of it. I offer you: In my experience, inaction on restraining carbon dioxide emissions does not stem from insufficient understanding of the…
As promised in the last catch-up post, a set of pictures less devoted to cute-kid shots. 213/366: Zone Defense The Pip has been making one of his preschool teachers draw superheroes for him. At some point, he cut these out with scissors (or possibly made Kate cut them out), and hung them up in different…
Or at least a certain corner of Canadian politics. For some definitions of “blow up.” For those not followong Canadian politics, our more-or-less socialist party, The New Democratic Party, recently held a policy convention where they also held a leadership review vote. The current leader, Tom Mulcair, lost the vote and as a result the…
Humanities
The Pump Handle
Worth reading: Reckless executives, avian flu, and the relationship between money and life expectancy
Recent pieces address a reckless executive finally going to jail, the complex relationship between money and life expectancy, the looming threat of avian flu, and more.
This week I have another problem from Milan Vukcevich for you. It was published in 1998. The position below calls for white to move and mate in five. White has two main ideas in this position. One is to move his bishop to f4, with the plan of giving mate on d6. The other is…
As promised in the last catch-up post, a set of pictures less devoted to cute-kid shots. 213/366: Zone Defense The Pip has been making one of his preschool teachers draw superheroes for him. At some point, he cut these out with scissors (or possibly made Kate cut them out), and hung them up in different…
Education
One of the cowboy science teams (or cowgirl science team – see photo) that I was able to spend some time with at McMurdo Station is the Weddell Seal Research Team under the direction of Dr. Jenn Burns of the University of Alaska. This multi-faceted science team spends virtually every single day during their field…
Discovering Biology in a Digital World
Teach Biology? We want to learn about your use of computers in the classroom
Computers, biological data (molecular sequences, structures, and other data), websites, and databases are integral to modern research. Innovations like precision, or personalized medicine, expect a certain level of patient participation, and our future food and environmental sustainability will require that society can access a multitude of computer-based resources. Thus, higher education has an important role in…
USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog
At Festival Expo 2016, Discover Why the Department of Defense is a National STEM Leader!
As the nation’s largest federal employer of scientists and engineers, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has always been at the forefront of innovative and groundbreaking science and technology. DoD scientists and engineers have played a leading role in some of the world’s most advanced and life-changing technological breakthroughs, including the Internet, the Global Positioning…
Politics
There is almost no way that Donald trump will get to the Republican National Convention with anything less than a fairly strong majority of pledged delegates. But can he get there with the 1237 delegates needed to lock the nomination on the first ballot? I made a list of upcoming contests and estimated for some…
As you know, I’ve been applying a model to predict the outcome of each of the Democratic Primary contests, and have done pretty well at predicting results. All of the future contests are primaries, not caucuses. It turns out that the two modes have very different patterns. Many have suggested that this has to do…
Or at least a certain corner of Canadian politics. For some definitions of “blow up.” For those not followong Canadian politics, our more-or-less socialist party, The New Democratic Party, recently held a policy convention where they also held a leadership review vote. The current leader, Tom Mulcair, lost the vote and as a result the…
Medicine
I often describe “integrative medicine” as integrating quackery with medicine because that’s what this inadvertently appropriately named branch of medicine in essence does. The reason, as I’ve described time and time again, is to put that quackery on equal footing (or at least apparently equal footing) with science- and evidence-based medicine, a goal that is…
Healthcare workers are the most assaulted workers in the US. A report from the Government Accountability Office provides the numbers, notes which states have laws on the books to address the problem, and highlights the modest actions taken to-date by federal OSHA.
The Pump Handle
Study: High levels of endocrine-disrupting activity found downstream from fracking disposal site
Lead isn’t the only toxin threatening the safety of community drinking water. A recent study on water located downstream from a West Virginia fracking disposal site uncovered levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals high enough to adversely impact the aquatic animals living there. And that means human health could be at risk too.
Brain & Behavior
Today was the final day of the meeting. Dr. Joe Thompson (Franklin and Marshall College) spoke about oblique striated muscles, which get their name from the diagonal pattern formed by the location of the Z-lines. This type of muscle is common among cephalopods, nematodes, tunicates, molluscs, etc. Dr. John Whiteman (University of Wyoming) gave a…
This year’s August Krogh Distinguished lecture, the highest award given to an accomplished Comparative Physiologist from the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section of the American Physiological Society was awarded to Dr. Jon Harrison, Arizona State University. Dr. Harrison gave an outstanding seminar in which he reviewed some of his major research discoveries. His work has…
Still going strong…here are the highlights from several sessions held on Day 4: John Eme (California State University, San Marcos) presented data testing the effects of varying temperatures mimicking overwintering conditions on embryonic development of Lake whitefish. He found that indeed exposure to variable incubation temperatures between 2-8 deg C resulted in increased mortality. Moreover, the embryos hatched…
Technology
Today was the final day of the meeting. Dr. Joe Thompson (Franklin and Marshall College) spoke about oblique striated muscles, which get their name from the diagonal pattern formed by the location of the Z-lines. This type of muscle is common among cephalopods, nematodes, tunicates, molluscs, etc. Dr. John Whiteman (University of Wyoming) gave a…
I just got my new Semogue 1305 Superior Boar Bristle Shaving Brush. It is the one on the left. I like it. I prefer boar because I don’t want to kill badgers and because the bristles are stiff and it basically works better. I got the old one decades ago, and it was decades old…
For the chess fans, the big candidates tournament begins in Moscow tomorrow. Eight of the top players in the world will be competing for the chance to face Magnus Carlsen in a match for the title. As it happens, the US has two representatives: Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Going strictly by ratings, they are…
Information Science
Or at least a certain corner of Canadian politics. For some definitions of “blow up.” For those not followong Canadian politics, our more-or-less socialist party, The New Democratic Party, recently held a policy convention where they also held a leadership review vote. The current leader, Tom Mulcair, lost the vote and as a result the…
Confessions of a Science Librarian
Friday Fun: To Life, Death and Beyond: The Music of Magma — Crowdfunding the Strangest Band of All Time
Magma, the strangest rock band of all time, needs you to help finance a documentary film about their life and work. So here goes. Up until a year or so ago I’d never heard of the French prog rock band Magma, or at least their music had never penetrated my consciousness. But last year while…
Confessions of a Science Librarian
My new project launching today: The Quisling Qourner: A group blog on the library/publisher relationship
Reader Beware: Please note the date of publication of this post. It’s been really gratifying over the last year to see how my DSCaM scholarly communications empire has grown. From it’s small beginnings, Dupuis Science Computing & Medicine has craved out a small but important niche in the discount APC publishing community. And I really…
Jobs
Healthcare workers are the most assaulted workers in the US. A report from the Government Accountability Office provides the numbers, notes which states have laws on the books to address the problem, and highlights the modest actions taken to-date by federal OSHA.
The Pump Handle
Not an “accident”: Joshua Halphin, 25 suffers fatal work-related injury in Springfield, MO
This week’s snapshot of just one work-related fatality in the US. This one occurred on Thursday, March 24 in Springfield, MO.
Reveal investigates fraud in California’s workers’ comp system; workers face unnecessary hazards in the recycling industry; anger over union exemptions in Los Angeles’ new minimum wage law; and two miners win their retaliation case against Murray Energy.
