Science

Spook is the third of Mary Roach’s books that I’ve read this summer. As with her other two books, Spook examines the scientific approach to the paranormal phenomena, such as hauntings and psychics. The history of paranormal investigation is fascinating, including exposure of mediums at the turn of the century. Some of the claims made (a woman giving birth to rabbits?!?) read like Weekly World News headlines.

Mary tackles the topic from the perspective of genuine curiosity, not blind belief or rigid skepticism, which I appreciate. She explores possibilities, such as the effects of infrasound and electromagnetism on human perception. While Bonk is still my favorite of her books, Spook is a pretty good read.

John Hawks, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, has a recent review of Spook as well.

I ran across labmeeting.com earlier this week.  The site is a cross between LinkedIn and Endnote:

Labmeeting is a tool for scientists. It was created to help with those things that make doing science needlessly difficult. These include:

• Finding someone at Wisconsin who works on aging in yeast
• Remembering whether the paper about helix bundles was 8753.pdf or science.pdf
• Moving journal club to Tuesday
• Finding out the next time someone gives a seminar on spectroscopy

… and, above all, sharing one’s interests, expertise, and discoveries with others.

With this tool, you can also upload your Endnote libraries (and associated articles), so you have access to your “paper collection” from anywhere. Sharing references with colleagues is a breeze, and there’s even a place to upload lab-specific protocols and post lab events.

Now, I’m off to invite the rest of my lab to join and start uploading papers!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

It’s that time of year again.  The Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting the annual Science Idol Cartoon Contest to raise public awareness of political interference in science in the US.

Independent investigations have documented the suppression,
manipulation, and distortion of federal government science
before it ever enters the policy arena. Censorship of scientists
has become pervasive, public access to scientific information
has been curtailed, and subtle yet dangerous systemic changes
have sidelined science from the policy-making process.

These are real issues with serious consequences. We have been
successful in raising awareness about the abuse of science,
holding those who misuse science accountable for their actions,
and pushing for widespread changes that will restore scientific
integrity to federal policy making.

This year’s cartoons have less of an evolutionary focus, examining government policy and the effects of politics on the scientific enterprise instead.  I’ve already cast my vote, now it’s your turn.

This was one of my Half-Price Books finds that had been gathering dust in my to be read pile for several years. I had tried reading it once, got bored, and put it away. But when I picked it up at the end of the semester, I really couldn’t put it down.

The Lost King of France tells the story of the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Louis-Charles, who was imprisoned in the Temple along with his parents and older sister during the Revolution. The tale is similar to what happened to the Romanovs in Russia at the turn of the 20th Century, but was one I had never heard. I knew, of course, that King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette had been beheaded by Robspierre’s government, but not that their children remained imprisoned for years after their parents’ deaths.

Their daughter, Marie-Therese, was released (and exiled) in 1795, but her brother had been secluded years before, and rumors ran riot that he had been smuggled safely out of the Temple. As with the Romanovs, there were pretenders to the throne, which Marie-Therese never openly acknowledged, due in part to the official record stating that the dauphin had died in the Temple in 1795. But no one was really sure what had happened to him. That is, until 2000, when geneticists analyzed a tissue sample from a child’s heart, reportedly taken from the Orphan in the Tower during the autopsy by the attending physician.

This was a great read, engaging, and combining two of my favorite subjects, history and genetics. Better still, it demonstrates how genetic analysis can be used to answer historical questions, unequivocally.