Now on ScienceBlogs: Will Quantum Fusion Save the Day?
Final Winner of the "What's New in Comparative Physiology" t-shirt contest! Congratulations to Patricia Villalta, a graduate student at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, our final winner of the "What's New in Comparative Physiology?" t-shirt contest! Here are her reasons for being excited about going to this year's...
Bioethics falls for the "tell both sides" trope I thought that a solid basic understanding of basic and clinical science was a prerequisite to be a bioethicist. AFter all, the prefix "bio" is in the word "bioethicist," which implies to me that bioethicists study the ethics of biology...
CFS and K-PAX Energy As many of you know, I am a graduate student. Luckily, I am a graduate student in the biological sciences, which means that while I am going to school, I get a monthly stipend. Also luckily, I go to school...
Getting Ready for Experimental Biology 2012- part 2 Don't forget to show your pride in comparative physiology at this year's EB. If you get caught wearing something that says "comparative physiology", "Dr. Dolittle", or "Life Lines," by one of the APS staffers or members of The American...
GMO CTLs vs HIV Zerg rush HIV-1 with genetically modified T-cells. I love the future...
CEASE and desist subjecting autistic children to homeopathy Periodically, I like to make fun of homeopathy and homeopaths. I realize that to some that might seem like the proverbial shooting of fish in a barrel, but it is amusing and educational. However, it's not always amusing. For instance,...
A homeopath lectures scientists about anecdotal evidence If there's one difference between so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and science-based medicine (SBM), it's the role of anecdotes in each. CAM and SBM each take a very different view of anecdotes. In SBM, anecdotes are relegated to a...
Higher US expenditures on cancer patients do not result in improved mortality. But you'd never know that reading AEI's highly dubious contribution to the literature in this week's Health Affairs (lay Reuters...
Epigenetics does not mean that thinking makes it so You know, I really, really hate the way quacks abuse molecular biology. I know, I know. I've said it before, but certain quacks have a way of willfully misunderstanding the latest advances in genomics, molecular biology, and biology in general....
ERVs and Multiple Sclerosis, #4 Well designed experiments, rational conclusions, and a hint of cool MS/ERV clinical research to come-- I like this paper :)
"Proof" is not what most people think it is Proof. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. That thought kept running through my mind as I perused an article appearing on an antivaccine website. Another thought that rant through my...
Yet more evidence that "natural" doesn't necessarily mean "safer" Repeat after me one more time: Just because something is natural does not necessarily mean it's effective or, more importantly, safe. If there's one thing common among virtually all purveyors of "alternative" medicine, it's that they fetishize anything they consider...
Choosing Wisely when it comes to medicine Over the years, I've written a lot about overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Basically, overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of a condition that, if left untreated, would very likely never cause the patient harm. Because I'm a cancer surgeon, I've almost always written...
Escaping zombies in order to develop better vaccines As you might be aware, I'm (almost) always willing to help a blogger out, particularly when that blogger is a regular commenter here who's gotten down and dirty battling antivaccine pseudoscience in the trenches of the comments right here on...
Medicine and evolution, part 13: The fly in the ointment of personalized cancer therapy About a year ago, I addressed what might seem to the average reader to be a very simple, albeit clichéd question: If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we cure cancer? As I pointed out at...
Will Stanislaw Burzynski slither away from justice again? April 11 is a mere five days away. What's the significance of April 11? Easy. April 11 is the date when the hearing before the Texas Medical Board to determine whether Stanislaw Burzynski will lose his license to practice medicine...
A deviously clever plan to destroy Darwinism once and for all Darwin and medicine: a blast from the past.
Waste not, want not? Poultry "feather meal" as another source of antibiotics in feed Poultry feather "meal" may be re-introducing drug residues to chickens via their feed.
Super Size My Arteries Yes, thirty days of McDonald's meals causes weight gain, even heart palpitations. But what happens to your arteries?...
The Refusers prove Orac's corollary of Poe's law once again Remember The Refusers? They're the antivaccine band with the recycled classic rock sound lacking a shred of originality or chops that flooded the blogosphere with their crazy in the form of Clash wanna be songs like Vaccine Gestapo, which inspired...
Dr. Oz promotes quackery...again Note: Today's a travel day. I'm driving home from the AACR. As a result, I decided to post something that appeared elsewhere, doing a quick edit to make it a bit more "insolent." I realize that since the show I...
Global Hunger Games Hunger Games - World Food Programme. Hunger Games portrays a grim future in which the "bottom 99%" must ration their food to reduce the chance that their children will be sent as "tributes" to compete in a game to...
Donald Trump: A "monster shot" causes autism Surprise! Surprise! The Donald thinks that vaccines cause autism.
A person can drown while you are watching and you won't even notice Huxley's grandfather takes him to swimming lessons every week, and between grand-dad and mom, Huxley goes to a pool about once a month outside of "class." This has been going on for about two years, and Huxley is about two years old. I estimate that...
What's in your burger, and, what do all those NPR voices look like?
“Lying is exclusively for doctors I have to see for something once and don't trust, or don't have a relationship with. My regular docs have all the info, and I have no problem giving them all the gory details.” Staceyjw on Your daily healthy imagination question: Have you ever lied to your doctor? Why?
Orac 04.13.2012
PZ Myers 06.17.2009
Orac 04.30.2012
Tim Lambert 09.12.2011
ERV 11.26.2011
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Some engineers use cranes and steel to make their designs reality, but synthetic biologists engineer using tools on a different scale: DNA and the other molecular components of living cells. Synthetic biology uses cellular systems and structures to produce artificial models based on natural order. Read these posts from the ScienceBlogs archives for more:
Pharyngula May 30, 2007
The Loom January 31, 2008
Discovering Biology in a Digital World July 2, 2006