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• Framing Science

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  AU Report on the Lobbying Strategy of the Nuclear Industry A case study on how to leverage influence in Washington and shape public perceptions...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  More Fake "Academic Freedom" Bills Lauri Lebo has an article at Religion Dispatches about the latest attempts in various states to pass "academic freedom" -- i.e. anti-evolution, pro-creationism -- bills. Some of the bills are still using the old-fashioned language of demanding equal time, like...

• Gene Expression

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  Goodbye Peace Dividend I got the following chart from Wikipedia, and it suggests that on a per capita inflation-adjusted basis we're spending more on defense today than we were during the Reagan build-up, or Vietnam! Is this for real?...

• February 1, 2010

• Oscillator

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  What's your state microbe? Wisconsin lawmakers just passed a bill to name Lactobacillus lactis, the bacteria that turns milk into cheese, into its official state microbe! What microbe do you think best represents your state? I think Massachusetts' state microbe should be E. coli,...

• Mike the Mad Biologist

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  NIH to Get 4.2% Proposed Budget Increase I'm feeling hopey and changey!

• Aardvarchaeology

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  Population Will Come Down -- We Choose How It's up to us to decide if it should happen through contraception and a global single-child policy or through a catastrophic die-off.

• Starts With A Bang

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  NASA needs to take responsibility for their own shortcomings I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! -Howard Beale Let me tell you a little story. Nine years ago, I was living in California, and I had a car accident. The damage to my...

• The Primate Diaries

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  Haiti: Time To Build a Just Society        Image: Gideon Mendel / The GuardianJournalist William Fisher of the Inter Press Service News Agency has just used my recent work on Haiti for his story on the need for transparency and equality in the development aid that the West...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  Breitbart = ACORN? Brad Friedman makes a very interesting argument that had not occurred to me as I've watched the fallout of the arrest of James O'Keefe. For the last few years, conservatives have made a huge deal out of ACORN employees --...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  California Mayor: Growing a Christian City Mayor Rex Parris of Lancaster, California gave his state of the city address last week, delivered before an audience of mostly pastors and their wives. In it he said: "We're growing a Christian community, and don't let anybody shy away...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  DOJ Rewrites OPR Report on Yoo Here's a very disturbing report from Newsweek that explains why the Office of Professional Responsibility report on John Yoo and Jay Bybee has taken so long to be released: It's been rewritten, its original conclusions changed. While the probe is...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  Citizens United and Foreign Corporations Ever since the Citizens United ruling came down, critics have relentlessly asserted that it opens the door to foreign corporations to buy campaign commercials and influence our elections. The president said in his State of the Union address. Gerry Hebert,...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  Videotape the Police, Get Arrested Stop me if you've heard this one before. A Toledo woman recorded a police officer making an arrest and ended up arrested herself, spending a night and part of the next day in jail for refusing to turn over her...

• Pharyngula

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  Aren't they cute when they unashamedly reveal their plans? Bryan Fischer, a host on Christian Hate Radio sponsored by the American Patriarchy Association, recently received mail from a listener appalled at his suggestion that homosexuals ought to be imprisoned. Fischer was quick to reassure his listener that yes,...

• Pharyngula

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  West Bend, Wisconsin: aspiring to be the next Texas? There is a nest of creationist fruit loops scattered across Wisconsin, and they do try to get on school boards. The latest is David Weigand, a candidate for the board of education in the West Bend school district. Seriously, do...

• Respectful Insolence

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  The martyrdom of St. Andy Antivaccine prophet Andrew Wakefield: Martyr. Or, at least, that's what his supporters would like you to believe.

• January 31, 2010

• A Few Things Ill Considered

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  Another week of GW News, January 31, 2010 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup...

• On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

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  You Forgot Obama Was Black? You're a real douchecock, Chris Matthews. Obama seduced you with the State of the Union and made you forget he was black? Dude?...

• The World's Fair

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  The Dance of the Louisiana State Science Fair, Or: Notes from the War on Science in Louisiana When the most recent LSU budget cuts were handed down by the Louisiana governor a couple of weeks ago, one of the items that went on the chopping block was the Louisiana State Science and Engineering Fair, which has long...

• Deltoid

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  Paul Sheehan spreads DDT hoax Paul Sheehan's counter perspective to "DDT ban killed millions" is "DDT ban killed thousands", completely ignoring the fact that the anti-malarial use of DDT has never been banned.

• Greg Laden's Blog

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  Amazon Dot Com IS a different kind of thing. I told you so, but most of you would not listen. Amazon has tossed an entire publishing company off its site (hat tip: H.G.) because that company would not comply with Amazon's universally imposed Kindle edition pricing strategy. That places Amazon at the decision making...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt Ted Haggard's wife appeared on the Today show this week and declared her husband 100% homosexuality-free. "Our sexuality is conditioned, and we can be conditioned in any number of ways," she told Meredith Vieira. "Ted was dealing with certain compulsions...

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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  Texas BOE: Paine or No Paine? Here's a rather amusing exchange they had in the hearings being held by the Texas Board of (Mis-)Education over their social studies standards. They've been debating which historical figures to leave in and which ones to leave out, with the...

• Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

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  Christian Wingnuts Whinging about Harry Potter This video is a report on the christian wingnuts' response to Harry Potter -- it seems this is another cult of mind-control that is unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Since today is my birthday, and I am a rabid Harry Potter fan, I will spend this entire day brushing up on my spells and wand-work by watching Harry Potter DVDs. Since alcohol will also be involved, I urge you all to watch out, lest I (accidentally?) change someone into a toad.

• Effect Measure

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  Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: Pat Robertson apologizes Sorry.

Synthetic Biology

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

“Playing God”

The Loom January 31, 2008

"Frankenstein Was Here": Synthetic Biology as Graffiti

Discovering Biology in a Digital World July 2, 2006

Build your own virus