Reading Time: 7 minutes I’ve loved Margaret Mead ever since first reading her classic Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. I read it more than 50 years ago as a clueless college sophomore. There was something seductive about this diminutive, headstrong, homely, strikingly honest young woman, intrepid enough to will herself […]
biology
Posted inScience
Alzheimer’s latest drug and science journalism’s memory problem
Reading Time: 6 minutes In July, the medical community was rocked by a disappointing reminder of science’s weakest link: the humans doing the work. The journal Science had shared that its six-month investigation supported the findings of whistleblower Matthew Schrag, who first noted altered images in a high-impact paper on Alzheimer’s, published in Nature in 2006. That paper is […]
Posted inBiology
On brain cells, Pong, and a major problem with science journalism
Reading Time: 9 minutes Everything old is new again, in the world of mainstream reporting on scientific progress. That’s why you can be forgiven for déjà vu if you read this week about cells trained to interact in an environment mimicking the video game Pong. Wait a second, you might have told yourself: Didn’t we do this already? And […]
Posted inBooks
Let’s talk humanist science fiction: An interview with writer Ray Nayler
Reading Time: 15 minutes In North American literature, strict boundaries are often propped up between fiction and nonfiction, along with “literary” and “genre” prose. These are useful for commercial purposes, but out of step with our history. Speculative fiction might even be considered our oldest literary form: a realm of play and exploration, and a way of reaching deeper […]
Posted inNews
Living synthetic embryo, made from stem cells, grown without a uterus
Reading Time: < 1 minute On Monday, Cell published the results of embryonic experiments carried out by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, which has been studying the potential of stem cells to give rise to entire embryonic structures. Its latest findings reveal the capacity to culture mouse stem cells to the state of an 8.5-day-old embryo—without the use […]
Posted inBooks
Adam the Ape: A thought-provoking middle-grade book for science-loving readers
Reading Time: 2 minutes Humans have been paired with chimps in movies, television, and books as far back as I can remember. I’d assume that’s mostly due to the similarities we share with these great apes—how we can see ourselves in them and undeniably realize our link to them, despite also being indoctrinated elsewhere into the idea that humans […]
Posted inScience
How science cheats women
Reading Time: 2 minutes Women have made many great scientific achievements, despite the sexist attitudes that tried to hold them back.
Posted inBiology
Uterus 101: On menstruation, miscarriage, and mifepristone
Reading Time: 10 minutes When my Grade 5 class went through Ontario’s reproductive health curriculum in the mid-1990s, the boys and girls were separated, and received remarkably different lessons. Along with the basics of our changing bodies, I and the girls were shown how to use condoms through a banana demonstration, and told how important protection would be when […]
Posted inPsychology
Semantic paraphasia: The things we can’t help
Reading Time: 5 minutes I often mis-say specific words. I know the word I want and I’m thinking of the right thing at the time, but the wrong word consistently pops out. It turns out there’s a term for this situation: semantic paraphasia. Today, Lord Snow Presides over our brains — and the stuff we literally can’t help sometimes.
Posted inGeneral
Myxozoa: Pushing the Limits of Definitions (LSP #214)
Reading Time: 5 minutes The sheer mind-blowing facts of our world never end. These rabbitholes we explore turn into warrens full of information for the curious to devour — and each new twist and turn in the warren only leads us to more questions we want to answer. At no time in human history has it been easier to learn and grow — and best of all, to share what we’ve found with others.