Illumination 2.0

In the 100th episode of Talking Biotech Podcast Chis Barbey interviews me about my research, outreach, scicomm and next steps.  Click Here to Listen

Agricultural Alchemist and Cosmic Plumber Nixed from Scientific Conference  Kudos to the science fans that raised awareness of David Avocado Wolfe being invited to address a scientific conference.  The Biohacker Conference in Helsinki removed him from the proceedings after a substantial outcry by science enthusiasts in social media.  Wow!  Special shout out to @Sarah_Zhr and Sebastian Cocioba for bringing this to my attention! This is an example of the need for continued surveillance. Charlatans are invited to scientific events either by accident or because they create their own sections of the conference and organizers don't notice.  Keep paying attention to the lineups of such events. Keep in mind that they never invite scientists to pseudoscience events, so we should never invite pseudoscientists to a scientific event! Nice work, science community.  More about what happened here . 

Domestic cats evolved from wild cats that found utility in human association.  They would benefit from protecting stored human food from rodents, and humans benefited from their grain stores remaining unmolested.  This week's podcast speaks with Prof. Eva-Maria Geigl from the Jaques Monod Institute and the University of Paris Diderot.  She is part of a team that has examined the DNA isolated from the mummified remains of cats, and draws important conclusions about their evolution and history.   

I actually did a spit take last night, snirked a perfectly good vodka tonic out my nose. It was induced by a Triscuit commercial .  The new Triscuit commercial extols that it is now "non-genetically modified"-- which it never was, as there is no GM wheat It is the familiar deceptive advertising that caters to fear to make a buck, and shame on Triscuit and Nabisco for doing that.  Yes, they'll sell a few more crackers to science-fearing conspiradorks, but they also propagate fear of food, vilify farmers and pass higher prices onto the poor.  The commercial ends with the actress saying, "I'm not genetically modified."  Someone better notify the vegetative propagule she budded off of.  She probably is a genetic amalgam, a hybrid of mom and dad, two genomes slammed together in unprecedented ways. That's a pretty radical genetic modification!  But this is not about science, this is about fear mongering to sell a product.  There is no GE whea...

The Brookes and Barfoot report is a dense, annual study of biotech crops impacts. Dr. Brookes summarizes the 2017 report on this week's podcast.  Click here to listen , or download from iTunes .

This week’s podcast is a discussion with Dr. Christine Lattin, a postdoctoral researcher in the Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Center at Yale University. Dr. Lattin examines stress responses in house sparrows using live imaging so that birds can be studied over and over through time. However, Dr. Lattin has become a target of activists that have engaged malicious, personal attacks against her and her research.  The harassment has intensified into very personal acts of defamation and intimidation for this early career scientist.  We discuss the extreme measures she takes to ethically conduct her research and how her own personal reconciliation of how animals are important to research.  We then discuss what it is like to be the subject of an activist defamation campaign and personal attacks, and how to not just survive it- how to turn it into something positive. The discussion is powerful and emotional, and hopefully will stir further awareness of how scientists...

Twitter can be a great tool for rapid review and dissemination of thoughts, criticism, and media.  However, about six months ago Twitter revised the program so that the @usernames did not count against the 140 character limit.  At that point a culture of strategic, well worded posts between a few users changed.  Twitter went from useful to intolerable.  Now there are threads with 40 users involved, sparring endlessly about issues like GMO, vaccines and climate. These are now good science allies arguing endlessly with people known to be disruptive agitators with no interest in actual science.  Please stop entertaining them.  I've blocked the trolls, so now I sit and watch well-intentioned people that have the science right pop up on the thread one after another, arguing with trolls.  I see one side of the argument, but that's all I see.  Hundreds of posts, one after the other.  Now I'm missing valuable messages that I want ...