But here’s my question…
Why would a postmenopausal woman want to become pregnant with a donor egg or donor embryo?
Continue reading →Category Archives: Science
Monkeys first came to the Americas on vegetation rafts
Or on spaceships. No, actually it was vegetation rafts. I kid you not: Primates came to the New World (meaning North and South America) from, we think, Africa. As improbable as it sounds, scientists think early primates crossed the Atlantic … Continue reading →
Ever hear of methane hydrate?
You will: Fracking has been attacked as an environmental menace to underground water supplies, and may eventually be greatly restricted. But it has also unleashed so much petroleum in North America that the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based consortium of … Continue reading →
Myths about electric cars
Chris Paine is pretty sanguine about the future of electric cars. In this WaPo article he lists 5 myths about them and explains why using them is easier and the outlook is better than people think. I don’t have the … Continue reading →
To be slim, you need to change your—gut microbiota?
This may seem like science fiction stuff, but it may be true nonetheless: Not only are the “gut microbiota” different in lean people and obese people, but the mix of microbes changes after an obese patient undergoes gastric bypass and … Continue reading →
Want to have sex in outer space?
It’s not been tops on my list, either. And what’s more, this article says it can be hazardous to your health. Although I must say I haven’t a clue what dangers they’re actually talking about. Can anyone decipher this?: …[E]xperiments … Continue reading →
Cartoons and me
When I was nine or ten years old I was given an individual IQ test by a family friend who was getting her PhD in child psychology, and having to administer the test to a certain number of children was … Continue reading →
John Hinderaker: fun with gun and homicide statistics
John Hinderaker points out how the latest study of the relation between gun control laws and homicide rates uses the statistics therein to make a certain policy point, and how they could just as easily be used to refute that … Continue reading →
Against Autonomy revisited
I recently wrote about Sarah Conly’s newly-released book Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism here and here, so you’d think I’d be done with the dreadful thing. But a friend sent me a video interview with the author, and I couldn’t … Continue reading →
Want to get a little perspective?
Try this for size (hat tip: Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest). The video includes a lot of new-agey political stuff, but it’s the pictures that are wonderful: OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo. Here’s an early post of mine on … Continue reading →
The big dig: Richard III
After careful sleuthing and authentication, it seems that a skeleton found in a Leicester car park in Britain is really the remains of King Richard III. Quite extraordinary; the site of the burial place had been lost, although researchers followed … Continue reading →
“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” say the obesity police. “Let’s bring back the stocks for fat people!”
Yeah, that’ll work. No, it’s not really the stocks that David Callahan, former Harvard lecturer and president emeritus of health policy think-tank the Hastings Center, is asking for. He: …calls for increased stigmatization of obese people to try spur weight-loss … Continue reading →