Category Archives: Uncategorized

Skeptically Speaking: Don't miss these shows

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I hear things are pretty busy in the Upper Upper Midwest of Alberta, Canada, and I suppose because of that, Skeptically Speaking has two off-air productions, one with the podcast just out, the other, this week’s show, coming out next week. Both are really interesting to me, and I’m sure to you as well. Here are the details:

#169 Play Reality

… we’re looking at the intersection between science and play time. Guest host Julieta Delos Santos talks to Dr. Jayne Gackenbach and Teace Snyder, about their book Play Reality: How Videogames are Changing Everything. And we’ll listen back to “The Petri Dish,” a panel discussion by kids for kids (and parents), about getting kids interested in science, recorded live at LogiCON 2012.

The podcast is available now, here.

#170 Infrastructure and You

This week, we’re taking a break from live recording. Guest host Marie-Claire Shanahan spends the hour looking at the infrastructure that makes our modern, increasingly urbanized lives possible. She’s joined by journalist Scott Huler, author of the book On the Grid: A Plot of Land, an Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make our World Work. And she’ll speak to environmental journalist and urban design critic Tim De Chant, about his population density blog Per Square Mile.

The podcast of this episode will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, July 29.

Details, and eventually, the podcast, HERE.

Art Imitates a Video Game

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I’ve been watching old World War II era movies lately. I just watched The Last Escape starring Stewart Whitman and a cast of dozens. The plot: A British unit (sort of) led by an American is trying to sneak a German rocket scientist out of Germany as Russian units move into the area. It turns out the Russians are also after the rocket scientist and his colleagues.

There are two things about the movie that were interesting, one of which anyone will understand, the other for a select audience.

The first thing: Most of the scenes were of the English and American soldiers and the Germans that were with them. In these scenes everyone spoke English. But there were extensive scenes with the Germans, with lots of activity and conversation, and those scenes were all in German. And there were a few scenes with the Russians with dialog and action, and those were all in Russian.

There were no subtitles. You kinda had to know all three languages.

The second thing: Near the end of the movie is all became a chase scene with large strange looking trucks, tanks, and guys on foot with bazookas. And it looked exactly like one or two of the challenges in Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

Is science on the verge of curing retinal degenerative disease?

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We can’t say how long the ‘verge’ is. Certainly years. But is it years-years or decades-years? Quite possibly sooner than many might have guessed just a few years ago. I like to be cautious about predicting breakthroughs that have not happened yet, but the results reported a few days ago at a major conference seem to have solved or significantly advanced solving some of the key problems in using stem cells to grown eye tissue.

There had been a lot of promising news over the last few years, and one of the most astonishing finds was reported from Japan just a few days ago at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Yokohama, Japan. Research Yoskiki Sasai has produced a proto eye from stem cells. This is different than previous stem cell results in three very important ways:

1) This is a three dimensional structure, mirroring normal eye structure, unlike earlier stem cell work which has produced a much less useful two dimensional structure;

2) The lab-grown biological structure is anatomically complete having both rods and cones in proto-form. Previous work only produced usable rods. This structure would, if it worked, produce an “eye” or a “retina” (or some transplantable thing) that would see color and see well.

3) Stem cell produced products seem to have latent stem cells embedded in them, often, which is one of the risk factors for cancer as an unintended side effect. According to the report provided a few days ago, this method should not have that problem.

Also of interest, the researchers have developed a way of packaging the grown retinal tissue for shipment and storage.

We should be impressed and we should be thankful that the Japanese have continued to fund and carry out research that was illegal in the US for so long. Had this work been funded at the levels that US based research tends to be funded, we’d probably have packaged up retina replacements ready to go in eye clinics by now. Depending on how politics works out in the US over the next few years, this produce will probably not be available here anyway. Retinal transplants will probably only be done overseas in countries without Republicans.

There is much more to the story than this, having to do with findings about how cells differentiate, which perhaps we can cover another time. Read all about it here in a reproduction of an article from Nature. The original report is cited below.

Main source: Cyranoski, David. 2012. Biologists grow human-eye precursor from stem cells: Achievement raises hopes for optic repair in the clinic. Nature. 15 June 2012.

See also: Restoring sight with wireless implants: A combination of video goggles and photovoltaic retinal implants could make vision restoration more practicable.

Maggie Koerth Baker, A writer’s writer on “The World’s Shittiest Secret Society”

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Maggie Koerth Baker, whom I am so very happy to know and count as a friend and sort of neighbor, has written an essay that is clearly one of the the most important and powerful essays regarding the topics of miscarriage abortion that you will ever read.

Someone said the other day somewhere out there in the intertubual space, quoting someone, that “You know you’re a writer when you suffer a painful injury and think, ‘great, now I can write about pain from personal experience.'” At this very moment, the ink is still wet on Maggie’s essay which is meant to do exactly that, to discuss miscarriage and abortion and many of the things that go along with these things from a very personal perspective.

Holy crap, Maggie. I want to see you soon and give you a hug or something.

Everybody, give yourself a few minutes and click here.

Creationism News

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Cringing in Kansas

The renewed complaints of a few members of the Kansas state board of education about evolution is making Kansans cringe, according to the editorial board of the Lawrence Journal-World (June 15, 2012). As NCSE previously reported, when the board heard a presentation about the current status of the Next Generation Science Standards on June 12, 2012, Ken Willard, a member of the board, distributed a letter arguing that the draft standards ” ignore evidence against evolution, don’t respect religious diversity, and promote secular humanism.”…

Read the rest here.

NCSE’s Newton on creationism and climate change denial

“What do creationists and climate change deniers have in common?” asks NCSE’s Steven Newton, writing in the May 2012 issue of the American Geoscience Institute’s magazine, Earth. “The answer to the riddle is that creationists and climate change deniers have a lot in common — most especially..

Read the rest here

JREF Welcomes New Communications Director

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The James Randi Educational Foundation, which does important work on behalf of skepticism and education, has been without a communications director for a while now, but has just announced the appointment of Carrie Poppy to that position. From a blog post by DJ Grothe:

I am pleased to share some exciting news straight from the James Randi Educational Foundation, and to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Carrie Poppy. After months of searching and interviews, we are thrilled to have Carrie join us. She has been involved in the non-profit world for several years, and has worked on many successful campaigns in LGBTQ rights, animal protection, and skepticism, a cause about which she is especially passionate. I asked Carrie a few questions from our brand new offices in the heart of Hollywood, California. (Open house details to be announced in the weeks ahead; stay tuned!)

The rest of the post is an interview with Carrie.

Everything I’ve heard about Carrie Poppy is pretty positive, often glowing. The PETA link is interesting; if you’ve followed my commentary on “animal rights” you’ll know that I have a very pro-animal rights mixed with anti-animal rights set of views. And in between. Maybe that’s a topic we should bring up again in the near future.

Best web cam, Best good but cheap mike

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Hi folks

We did a google hangout thingie yesterday which went very well (you can see it here) but my webcam apparently sucked. Even though I changed the tagline under my name several times to various very funny comments you can’t read it, and this is presumably because the resolution of the web cam was low so the whole thing got messed up.

(Compare my part with other people who had better resolution.)

The folks who made this video are passing around notes on what seems to work but I thought I’s start a thread here to discuss it as well.

What are your recommendations?