Weekend Reading Oct. 11, 2013

Got digestive issues?  Try the new Poop Pill.  [wait, what?]

http://news.yahoo.com/pills-made-poop-cure-serious-gut-infections-150405405.html

I'm just going to copy the title here.  Sometimes you just gotta punch a deep-sea squid with a toilet brush.  Now with VIDEOS.

http://deepseanews.com/2013/09/sometimes-you-just-gotta-punch-deep-sea-squid-with-a-toilet-brush/

Found a poisonous snake?  Here's what to do and what NOT to do in order to reduce your risks of a snakebite!  [EXCELLENT advice]

http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/2013/10/the-only-good-dog-is-dead-dog-why-it.html

Where entomology (study of insects) and crime intersect OR do you want to become a maggot wrangler?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/when-crime-scene-evidence-crawls-away/

A controversial look at Breast Cancer and Early Detection.  Should you be getting yearly mammograms?  Maybe, but then again maybe not!  (winner of the 2012 National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Award )

http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/02/08/komen/

What does THAT mean?

I was making lunch one day recently and looked at the bottle of mustard.

See what it says?  Right there, in BIG letters.

100% NATURAL.

What does that mean?  Produced by nature?  Like the ingredients were harvest off plants, blended and bottled?  That's what I would think.

But when I turned it over and looked at the back I saw this...

Ummm...  Distilled vinegar?  Distilled?  That's not what I would consider a natural process?  It's not like you can go to your vinegar plant and pour out distilled vinegar.

So what does 100% Natural mean?

Absolutely nothing.  There are no government regulations about putting this label on foods.  I could have The Husband (who is a Chemist) whip something up in the lab (he is certainly capable of distilling vinegar!) and label it 100% Natural.  No problem.

I think this is deceptive advertise, don't you?

Weekend Reading Oct. 4, 2013

Did I mention I have a fondness for parasite?  They may be disturbing but they are disturbing in some seriously unique and totally wicked cool ways!

http://therevscience.com/?p=1488

I guess I'm not a "real" biologist since I have yet to get a bot fly infection...

I just want to cuddle up to this cutie!

http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/09/common-cuttlefish.html

For anyone who thinks parenting is a role reserved for those of us with bones, just because mom doesn't have a spinal cord doesn't mean she's spineless!

http://entomologytoday.org/2013/09/27/can-beetles-make-good-mothers/

Great, easy read on some very early research into a pooly studied bird - the red throated Caracara, complete with video!

http://ibycter.com/2013/09/30/nest-camera-study-of-the-red-throated-caracara/

Alien intelligence?  How the octopus can educate us about intelligence, computers and possibly aliens.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/how-the-freaky-octopus-can-help-us-understand-the-human-brain/

Looking for Alien Life....

Tree Lobsters for the win!

LINK

What does the Affordable Care Act really mean?

Since I teach biology, including classes related to human health, I often get this sort of question.  I know this means lots of people have the same questions, so here's my understanding.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) means that everyone in the US must buy health insurance.  If you get health insurance from your job NOTHING WILL CHANGE except that you will have to tell the IRS that you have health insurance next time you fill our your taxes.

If you do not have health insurance you can go to www.healthcare.gov to look at your options. The government has created "exchanges" so that people with low incomes can find low cost insurance programs.

But, you say, I'm young and healthy, I don't need insurance.  Sure, unless you fall down the stairs and break your leg, or get in a car accident or grow older.  We will all need health care at some point in our lives.  The goal of insurance is that if enough people pay into the system when they are healthy, then when you DO get sick you will have to pay less.  It's a way of spreading out the cost.

But that's SOCIALISM. 

Yep.  And I'm good with that.  My husband had to have gall bladder surgery recently and his medical bills totaled over $10,000.  This was a relatively simple illness.  Could you afford to pay for that all at once?

What else do you get?

The insurance companies have to spend 85% of their income on health care.  Which limits overhead (things like CEO pay and paperwork) and profit.

If you have a pre-existing condition the insurance still has to cover you - things like allergies, asthma, or even that ankle you sprained when you were 10 and that you re-injured as an adult.

There is no lifetime maximum cap.  This means that if you are in a horrific car accident when you are 20 - something and it costs $1 million (not out of the question, sadly) but then when you are 65 you need hearth by-pass surgery the insurance company will still have to pay.  Before the Affordable Care Act they could refuse to pay for your by-pass because you had already cost them too much money.

This type of health care bring the US more in line with the rest of the "industrialized" world.  Countries where people don't have to worry about a single health care problem causing them to go bankrupt (the number one cause of American bankruptcies is health care costs!).  Countries where people live longer, healthier lives.  It may not be ideal to everyone's viewpoint but the system has been proven to work in other free countries, why don't we give it a try here?

Weekend Reading Sept. 27, 2013

If you read nothing else I ever post a link to, read THIS!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/24/mandatory_vaccinations_unvaccinated_public_school_students_face_suspension.html

Holy Guacamole, batman!  What is that frog eating?  Uh, batman?

[I'm showing my age with that joke, aren't I?]

http://blog.perunature.com/2013/09/what-heck-is-going-on-in-this-picture.html

Remember the Bobbit worm?  The 10 foot long worm that hides under the ocean floor and then explodes out to cut its prey in half?  Want to see a video?  of course you do!

http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/09/jaws-bobbit-worm.html

I'm a big fan of Anoles.  Turns out it's for a good reason.   They are much smarter than we've given them credit for.  [Read link below but videos available at this link:  http://chipojolab.blogspot.com/2011/07/chipojolab-goes-viral.html - and it sounds like there may be more interesting research being published soon!]

http://www.anoleannals.org/2011/07/13/is-an-anole-smarter-than-a-fifth-grader/

Do fire ants cause weddings?  Funny title for a post...  Click the link to find the answer!

http://6legs2many.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/do-fire-ants-cause-weddings/

Great article on wildlife in Europe that is making a comeback!

Www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24230765

Time Sink

I have been looking for some good Citizen Science Projects that I could incorporate into labs for my biology students.  Something so that they feel like they are DOING science and contributing to science and not just repeating stuff that has been done over and over by generations of students before them.

I haven't found the magic project yet but I did find the Zooniverse.

This web site has a bunch of projects that anyone can contribute to in their spare time.  I'm working on the "Snapshot Serengeti" project.  Researchers have put camera traps in the Serengeti (in Africa).  Doing this produces millions of images.  If one person had to go through them all they'd go crazy.  So instead they get hundreds of thousands of volunteers to sift through the images and try to identify animals that they see. 

Some are boring (nothing there), some are good scenery but nothing there, some are hard and others are, well, really easy.






















So next time you've got 5 minutes to waste, why not help out SCIENCE?  It's more fun than that silly fruit game.