After some agonising, I’ve decided to go with the easy route. Confused? See Pt 1 for an explanation of what this is all about :) So, here’s the full thing, in two formats: 1) Future Timeline - visual (a webpage, sorry about some of the mashed formatting. Time mutter grumble grumpy grumble) 2) A PDF (see […]
Medically-related
Future Timeline - a visual representation Pt 1
Future Timeline is an extremely interesting site. Calling itself a “speculative timeline of future history”, it has page upon page of really interesting content. Some of it is very much based on fact, while others is based more on supposition and hypothesis. It’s an excellent exercise for casting one’s mind forward. Unfortunately, however, the structure […]
A Perfectly Archetypical Title for This Journal
Wow, the weather’s foul. And it’s enfoulenating the moods of many, I imagine. So a brief, funsy Friday frivolity :P From the Pipeline column, a list of The Perfect Papers For Each Journal. Some of my favourites include: For Science: “People Only Read One or Two Papers Out of Any Issue of This Journal, and […]
The danger of science denial
This, ladies and gentlemen. THIS. Journalist Michael Specter gives an impassioned TED Talk on the danger of science denial. A brilliant talk, and something to be shared as widely as possible. _Especially_ with the anti-science people you know! Vaccine-autism claims, “Frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public’s growing fear (and, often, […]
Marvellous MRI music vid
Hooray for CNET! not only do I use them whenever I’m looking at new tech to buy, but they’ve also pointed me at an extraordinary music video. British musician Sivu (James Page) spent 2-3 hours holed up in an MRI machine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London for his new single, ‘Better Man Than He’. […]
Beer’s bitterness and your health
Yay, more beer-related science! This time, it’s around the chemistry involved in that lovely bitterness in beer. As it turns out, this bitterness is provided by a class of chemicals* called alpha acids, which are to be found in the resin of mature hops. For those living in New Zealand and enjoying the local craft […]
A very kitchenesque CT scanner
From awesomely-educational website Hack A Day comes a particularly wonderful, if oddly gruesome, piece of science/tech hacking. Mad chap Ben Krasnow has built a ‘build something mad on your kitchen table’-type version of a CT scanner. CT scanners, as you will remember, take X-rays of an object and then put them all together to […]
How will the End of the World affect clinical trials?
Yes, sure, my first response was also ‘not well - dead patients are often difficult test subjects on which to continue clinical trials’. Thankfully, however, the Canadian Medical Association Journal has looked more deeply into this most pressing of issues. In fact, as the paper’s introduction states: There is a great deal of speculation concerning […]
More fraud behind paper retractions than you might have thought
A subject that’s come up in discussion with my friend a couple of times recently has been the increase in retractions of scientific papers from journals. I’ve always staunchly defended allegations this might be due to naughty scientists. I am now having to make my own retraction about that. According to research (as yet unretracted) […]
UnderSkin, the Tube and schematic mapping
A beautiful piece of medical art has cropped up and being doing the rounds again the last few days. Titled ‘UnderSkin’, and made in 2010 by illustrator/designer Sam Loman, UnderSkin shows the human anatomy in the style of the very famous London Underground map. I must say, it’s a beautiful piece of work, […]