My colleagues (generally the older ones) often ask me why I blog or podcast. They believe that I am wasting my time. After all, I am a scientist, and it is my job to carry out research. In order to do this I must publish papers and obtain grants. The grant funds are used to …
It was bound to happen: a few days after announcing its flu trends service, Google is under fire from advocacy groups which claim their information gathering violates user privacy. The NY Times has the story today. Google flu isn’t new: it uses search data in the same way that it has been used from the …
Clive Thompson (Wired article here) gets it right on why kids generally enjoy learning science: “One of the reasons kids get bored by science is that too many teachers present it as a fusty collection of facts for memorization. This is precisely wrong. Science isn’t about facts. It’s about the quest for facts – the …
I met with my textbook-writing colleagues at Princeton this past Friday, and of course the topic of the Times article on HPV vaccines came up. See my previous post for details. Three issues came up in our discussion which are worth noting. First, articles such as this contribute to the parental fervor against vaccines. This …
Today the New York Times is complaining about two vaccines against human papillomaviruses, Gardasil from Merck and Cevarix from GlaxoSmithKline. These vaccines were introduced two years ago to prevent infections that are associated with cervical cancer. The article complains that ‘cervical cancer has gone from obscure killer confined mostly to poor nations to the West’s …
Earlier today I was reading President Eisenhower’s farewell speech, in which he warns against control of government by the military-industrial complex. It’s chilling to read, especially in view of its absolute control over the policies of President Bush. In the same speech, Eisenhower warned about the control of science by the government. Here are his words: …
