Blond Melanesians: what else are we missing?

05 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by sedeer in Evolution, Genetics, Humans

Tags

biology, Blond, diversity, Europeans, Genetics, Genome, Melanesians, Popular science, science, science and society, Science in Society, Solomon Islands

On the Solomon Islands in the south-eastern Pacific, it’s not uncommon to come across Melanesian children with dark skin and remarkably blond hair. While most people might take this unusual trait as a sign of European ancestry, Sean Myles wasn’t convinced. Curious to understand how the darkest skinned people outside of Africa could also have the highest frequency of blond hair outside of Europe, he led a team of scientists to unravel the genetics behind this mystery. The striking results of their research should serve as a note of caution about what we’re learning from the rapidly growing field from human genomics.
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What did we actually learn about GM foods and tumors?

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by sedeer in Genetics, Mammals

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

animals, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified maize, GMO, Monsanto, Popular science, Roundup, science, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society, Statistics

There’s been a great furor recently about a study which purports to show that rats fed GM corn develop more tumors than rats fed regular corn. I’m actually a bit late to this party; scientists and science writers across the web have already picked apart the flaws in this study, from shoddy statistics to poor design, and Carl Zimmer has called the whole thing “a rancid, corrupt way to report about science“. I don’t have much to add to the chorus; what I’d like to do with this post is to make clear to the layperson what we mean by “bad statistics” and why that makes the study unconvincing.

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Petition for Open Access

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by sedeer in Links

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Funding of science, Journals, Open Access, Petition, Research, science, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society

At the moment, many of the studies I write about on this blog are published by journals retain the copyright and charge access. (A notable exception is the PLoS family of journals.) The fee charged by these journals is significant, meaning people are unlikely to have access to this research except via an institute such as a university. This is problematic since much of the research that went into producing those articles was publicly funded: why should the taxpayer have to pay once to support the research and again to access the results? Why should the private publishing companies reap massive profits from publicly funded research? One solution, which I’ve mentioned before, is Open Access, the unrestricted publication of publicly funded research results online. The people at access2research have started a “We the People” petition to get the Obama administration to address this issue. They need to collect about 7,000 more signatures before June 19, so if you agree with the idea of open access to the results of taxpayer-funded research, please head over and sign the petition.

Five common biology myths (or “Science in the service of the anthropocentric patriarchy”)

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Evolution, Humans, Mind

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

bias, biology, culture, Education, interaction, Popular science, science, science and society, Science in Society, society

In these “enlightened” times, people often try to use science to justify their social, political or ideological positions. While the influence of scientific research on our world view is commonly recognized, the converse dynamic gets far less attention. Cultural factors shape the sort of questions we ask and how we choose to interpret the answers; for example, despite the claim that the idea of evolution has radically altered our view of ourselves, it also often serves to reinforce existing social and cultural norms. Here are five commonly accepted biological “facts” which are untrue but are used to justify our conception of ourselves and our place in the world.

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Hello, world!

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Science communication, Science in Society

It’s taken a while, but I’m finally starting a science blog! I’ve been talking about it for some time and thinking about it for even longer; now I’ve actually done it. Hesitation, more than procrastination, has kept me from taking this step before — launching a blog represents a commitment, not only to write, but (hopefully!) to interact with readers and other bloggers and become part of a community, all of which takes time and effort. I finally realized that there would never be enough time; I would simply have to leap into it and make the time. So here I am! Although writing about science is a reward in itself (since it combines two of my passions), I hope this blog will grow beyond that to also include lively conversations with (and questions from) readers.