On 2 March 2008 the New York Times ran an article entitled "More Families are Shunning Inoculations". With states requiring more immunizations, parents are using religious exemptions to refuse the vaccines. And why would these parents wish to risk that their children contract potentially fatal diseases, such as polio, measles, ...

From the February 29 2008 issue of Science comes yet another article on the H5N1 strain of influenza virus. This is the strain that is quite virulent in birds, and which has infected some humans, causing concerns about an imminent pandemic. Not all scientists believed the bird flu hype. As ...

From the January 2008 issue of Microbe: "Well more than 99% of microbes from the environent do not thrive in culture and, historically, remain uncharacterized". This is an astounding statistic. We only work on what we can propagate, naturally. But many microbes could be adapted to grow in culture, given ...

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." --Albert Einstein During the holiday season, you might think it insensitive to post such a quotation. But as the end of the year approaches, I cannot help but remember all the stupid things my ...

I just started reading The Drug Trial, about Canada's biggest science scandal. In the first few pages, the author, Miriam Shuchman, talks about the moral code of science. She lists three examples: Don't lie about your work. Don't steal someone else's work and claim it's your own. Report your findings, ...