Being Human

MAYWOOD, Il. -- In recent years, oncologists have debated whether patients with a certain type of advanced lung cancer would benefit from surgery.

I promise not to keep posting about PZ Myers, who went from a little bit snooty when bashing Science Blog to downright nasty in bashing his fellow Science Blogs-ers Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum.

But if you are a Science Blogs reader who has gotten tired of the infighting over there, I have a much more civil alternative to suggest.

In my prior post, I included a link to the actual study. The study researched how river valleys in the United States may be produced and spelled out a mathematical formula the author created to explain the depth and width of the valleys themselves. The purpose of the study was to see if such a formula could be discovered to explain valley characteristics.

BOSTON, Mass. (July 26, 2009) -- Crack open the latest medical textbook to the chapter on type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes, and you'll be hard pressed to find the term "immunology" anywhere. This is because metabolic conditions and immunologic conditions are, with a few exceptions, distant cousins.

Name: Yefei Zhao
Gender: male
Affiliation: Department of Computer Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Degree: Ph. D. candidate
Member: IEEE student member, IACSIT Senior Member?Editor and reviewer of “Journal of Digital Content Technology and its Applications”, Technical committee member of ICCMS 2010, ICFN 2010.

A fascinating study with tremendous portent if the conclusion of the author's proves true through successive studies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090722/sc_livescience/formulafound...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Fake Internet postcards circulating through e-mail inboxes worldwide are carrying links to the virus known as Zeus Bot, said Gary Warner, director of computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Zeus Bot has been named America's most pervasive computer Botnet virus by Network World magazine, reportedly infecting 3.6 million U.S. computers.

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2009 -- American Chemical Society (ACS) President Thomas H. Lane, Ph.D., today praised the House of Representatives for supporting a $5 million increase in funding for the Education Department's Math and Science Partnership program, which he called a "critical educational program."

For the past several days the world's largest telescopes have been trained on Jupiter.

GALVESTON, Texas -- Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have identified women who are likely to gain weight while using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, more commonly known as Depo-Provera or the birth control shot. These findings dispel the myth that all women who use DMPA will gain weight and will help physicians to counsel patients appropriately.

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston say one organism discovered during their study may unlock the key to what causes colic, inconsolable crying in an otherwise healthy baby.

PZ Myers sometimes gets a bit snooty over at his well-read Pharyngula Blog. For instance, in a recent posting, he dismisses Science Blog with this description: "it's a site that simply reprints press releases. Send 'em anything, and they'll spit it back up on the web for you."

I beg to differ. And if I'm lucky PZ, in the spirit of open-mindedness, will deem this posting worthy of a link on his pages.

In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our -- multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed -- selves.

NEW YORK (July 24, 2009) -- A large attack on a major metropolitan area with airborne anthrax could affect more than a million people, necessitating their treatment with powerful antibiotics. A new study finds that in order for a response to be effective, quick detection and treatment are essential, and any delay beyond three days would overwhelm hospitals with critically ill people.

The presumption of racial profiling of African Americans systematically based on the motivation of police officer’s racial prejudice. A number of sociological theories (Engel et al, 2002; Romero, 2002; Delgado, 1995; Delgado, 2002) have explored if this presumption has validity.

Uncooked meat products enhanced with food additives may contain high levels of phosphorous and potassium that are not discernable from inspection of food labels, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a frequent complication in patients in intensive care. A new laboratory test called urine neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin (NGAL) helps predict if patients will develop acute kidney injury, reports an upcoming study in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

NEW YORK -- New data collected at Columbia University Medical Center and by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine are helping researchers understand the extent to which a certain protein -- NGAL -- can play a significant role in marking chronic kidney disease resulting from HIV while at the same time distinguishing nephropathy from more common causes such as diabetes and hypertension.

Coal dust exposure is directly linked to severity of emphysema in smokers and nonsmokers alike, according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Ozone exposure, even at levels deemed safe by current clean air standards, can have a significant and negative effect on lung function, according to researchers at the University of California Davis.