Monthly Archives: December 2018

Links 12/16/18

Posted on December 16, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Links for you. Science: The selective fashion of going extinct – do we only protect the beautiful? ‘From Nothing to Gangbusters’: A Treatment for Sickle-Cell Disease Proves Effective in Africa Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected Who … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on Links 12/16/18

A Modest Proposal: Enforce All The Laws

Posted on December 16, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

This week, in response to the murder of a woman who was killed by a panhandler she was trying to help, a really rich guy wrote an op-ed arguing that police should enforce the panhandling laws: Baltimore City has a … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Ethics, The Rule of Law | 3 Comments

Links 12/15/18

Posted on December 15, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Links for you. Science: Today in Hawks around Town – Catfish “the size of a small dog”! Bees Get Stung by Decision to Scale Back National Monument Why Hospitals Should Let You Sleep New tick species capable of transmitting deadly … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on Links 12/15/18

In Case You Missed It…

Posted on December 15, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

…a week of Mad Biologist posts: The Rent Is Too Damn High Yellow Vests, Gas Taxes, And Getting Serious About Global Warming The Ongoing Crapification Of Public Goods Unwilling To Truly Combat Global Warming: The WaPo Transit Edition Our Looming … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on In Case You Missed It…

Links 12/14/18

Posted on December 14, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Links for you. Science: The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day Four small cities may have played an outsize role in spreading deadly flu What humpback whales can teach us about alien languages Want to Name a New … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on Links 12/14/18

D.C. Can Hold A Lot More People

Posted on December 14, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Around 800,000 more. It appears D.C. developers want to build more housing–that is, denser housing–in the wealthier parts of Northwest D.C. (aka ‘west of the park’). Needless to say, the remnants of the District’s Republican Party attempted to go full … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Links 12/13/18

Posted on December 13, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Links for you. Science: Puritan Tiger Beetles, ‘Vicious Predators,’ May Soon Hunt Again High throughput ANI analysis of 90K prokaryotic genomes reveals clear species boundaries Adapting flatfile parsers for GenBank’s new accession formats CNN Lets ‘Food Babe’ Spout Pseudoscience on … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on Links 12/13/18

Our Looming Bacterial Transposon Crisis

Posted on December 13, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

For the non-biologists, a bacterial transposon is a region of DNA, usually five to twenty thousand bases (‘letters of DNA’) long that can move around (transposition). Many bacterial plasmids–mini-chromosomes that can move from bacterium to bacterium–carry transposons. In bacterial, transposons … Continue reading →

Posted in Microbiology | 1 Comment

Links 12/12/18

Posted on December 12, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

Links for you. Science: Another diplomat was diagnosed with ‘Havana syndrome.’ Here’s what we know. Drilling in the Arctic: Questions for a Polar Bear Expert Scientists, ethicists slam decisions behind gene-edited twins How to Prevent Nasty Stomach Bugs This Winter? … Continue reading →

Posted in Lotsa Links | Comments Off on Links 12/12/18

Unwilling To Truly Combat Global Warming: The WaPo Transit Edition

Posted on December 12, 2018 by mikethemadbiologist

While this Washington Post editorial would appear to be about a minor transit issue, it represents the kind of failure that we must end if we’re serious about stopping climate change (boldface mine): WHEN GOV. Larry Hogan (R) last year … Continue reading →

Posted in DC, Global Warming, Housing, Transportation | Comments Off on Unwilling To Truly Combat Global Warming: The WaPo Transit Edition