Collins and the NIH

Francis Collins, of the Human Genome Project, is the rumored Obama appointee to head the NIH, the National Institutes of Health.

After the last eight years of science-bashing religionistas, do we really need more people who can't separate their personal superstition from science?

Pharyngula says No:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/dis-appointment.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/holier_than_thou.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/more_on_what_we_can_expect_fro.php

I agree.

{BTW: Blogger is annoying....}
Read More...

Great News, Again!

NASA announced Thursday an $18.69 billion budget for fiscal year 2010 to advance Earth science, complete the International Space Station, explore the solar system and conduct aeronautics research. The budget request represents an increase of $903.6 million, or 5 percent, above funding provided in the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. All totaled, an additional $2 billion has been added to NASA's 2009 and 2010 budgets under the Obama administration.

read on at:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_09-102_FY2010Budget.html
Read More...

Choice: Vaccinate or Murder

It really is that simple. Vaccinate yourself, and your children, or you could murder someone.

Bad Astronomer and President of the JREF, Dr. Phil Plait, has a post up on his blog about a recent Australian News story. A 4 week old girl died of Whooping cough in a region of Australia where only 1 in 3 children are vaccinated. The girl, who would normally be protected by herd immunity until she could receive the vaccination herself, was 1 of 3 children in a month with such severe whooping cough that she had to be air lifted to another hospital- she was the only one of the three who died.

Whooping Cough isn't Ebola, it doesn't kill every person who gets it; it's not even Marburg. But Whooping Cough can kill, and those deaths are entirely preventable. The anti-vaxxers- those people opposed to all or some vaccinations- are killing children with ignorance, stupidity, and fear mongering. Notice, in the video below, how the anti-vaxxer Meryl Dorey claims that whooping cough and measles don't kill people, and cause Autism. Except the whole thing is about how whooping cough killed that poor baby, and as the Doctor points out there are absolutely no links between vaccination and autism. (Measles can kill)(Autism rates have spiked due to an expanded understanding and definition of Autism; and better, more intensive, efforts to identify people with it.) (And let's not even get started on how horri-bad Polio is!)

Read the original article, by the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, at his blog Bad Astronomy, and/or watch the video below. Then share this story with anyone you know who thinks vaccinations are optional.



For further, informed, reading about Vaccinations, I recommend the Science Based Medicine Blog. It's written by doctors, and contains this funny little concept I like to call: science. This link takes you to all their posts on Vaccines.


-or-

Displayed to EVERYONE...

Hidden, except for interested readers.
Read More...

26 Seconds

Cool:


(And something we should all have known, understanding fluids and densities and buoyancy, but probably hadn't put together)

(Spotted over at BoingBoing)
Read More...