Monday, June 9, 2014

Siri… find me directions to the killer robot conference

Image courtesy of http://catsondrones.tumblr.com

Despite a rash of positive coverage –extoling the positive possible uses of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs for short)– the image of the drone as a killer robot is back (cue the Terminator references) and with a vengeance. This week the U.N. (yes, the United Nations) is taking up the issue of a proposed ban on killer robots. As Ishaan Tharoor of WashPo points out, while Human Rights Watch and a number of other international NGOs banded together about a year ago to launch the international campaign against killer robots.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Contamination in vitro, in vivo



Contamination in vitro, in vivo
All of these journal, magazine, and newspaper headlines call our attention to a problem—a crisis even—of contamination, invasion, and toxicity.  Some of them are referring to contamination between species of plants and animals.  Others decry the contamination of human cells.  But what does it mean that when we come together to talk about cell and tissue cultures or environmental conservation, we simply can’t seem to get out of the language of invasion and contamination?

Life. Cancer. Death. Profit.

There is much buzz around the word “cancer” these days, especially when delivered in its more inspiring two-word formats, “fight cancer”, “beat cancer”, ”cure cancer”. The words conjure up heroic images of brave patients, many of them young children, fighting the noble fight against what many consider humanity’s greatest foe, an out-of-control cell growth that takes more than half a million (8.2 million worldwide) of our loved ones each year. One cannot help but feel a communal sense of pride and achievement from hearing news of the latest breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment.  “After all, we’re all in this together”, says an ad for the University of North Carolina Cancer Care.

Soda Taxes Redux



Recent propositions for the application of new taxes on sodas have reignited discussions surrounding the role of sugary beverages in the rise of obesity rates around the world, and the potential public health initiatives that hope to curtail it. While previous attempts at enacting soda taxes were defeated, most notably in New York and California, public health advocates seem hopeful that things will be different these days. 

Metaphors and Psychology


Do metaphors effect how we process information and therefore behave?  Two articles, seemingly focusing on quite different phenomenon, seem both to be suggesting that metaphors indeed do affect our behavior in pointedly emotional ways.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Knowledge Production and Justice: What counts as valuable knowledge in today’s K-12 Curricula

What counts as valuable knowledge? That is, how do we make decisions about what we should teach and not teach students in K-12 education? What is taught throughout a student’s educational trajectory delivers the message that the subjects and topics taught are worthy and crucial for developing the lens through which we see and understand the world.

Biomedical Ethics of Human Enhancement Technologies



Technologies for human enhancement aim to improve or overcome limitations of our biology. It's a brave new world, but how will we make room for flaws in a society obsessed with perfection?


Friday, May 30, 2014

Perspectives on Cannabis Reform Shape its Maturation


Perspectives on Cannabis Reform Shape its Maturation

A skim through American media outlets might catch ones attention to the very contentious issue over marijuana and scientific research. Particularly interesting is the kaleidoscopic vantage points forwarded from scientists, policy analysts, and media anchors. Each perspective obscures certain aspects of marijuana while simultaneously distinguishing others that has consequences for how we understand marijuana reform. It is crucial to be aware and reflexive of these repercussions as we move towards marijuana reform.

Words Matter…So, Let’s Talk About Vaginas

I want to talk about how people talk about vaginas… Or, more specifically, how people have been talking about four particular vaginas over the course of the past month or so. For those of you who know me, or are familiar with my research, this will not be a surprise; after all, I write about technological advances in gynecology, so when the news broke in April that a research team at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine had successfully implanted four vaginas grown in their lab from patients’ own cells, you can bet that I took notice.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Antarctica: beyond predictive value

The primary public concern regarding ice sheet retreat is sea level rise. Predictions of sea level rise would be incredibly useful to communities on the coast so that they can accommodate flooding and higher storm surges without catastrophic loss of life and property.  On May 12, 2014, scientists reaffirmed that ice loss can be expected from a particularly vulnerable region of West Antarctica, the Amundsen Sea sector.  The timescale of the loss of the entirety of these ice streams was predicted to be 200 to 1100 years.  This range does not allow us to offer very precise predictions, for the total sea level rise over this interval amounts to 1.2 m.  But this is only a small portion of the global ice volume.  The entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet is sensitive to climate change.  Now we're talking about 4.6 m of sea level rise.  

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Is Autistic the New Normal?


What makes someone autistic?  What should we do about/with/for autistic people?  Can we, should we, get rid of autism?  How do autistic people feel about themselves and about society’s view of them?  What would it be like to be autistic?  If I’m not autistic, then what am I?  Am I normal?  Why does autism exist at all? 

Moore's [Profit] Law

Topological insulators are a fascinating new class of materials that feature an insulating bulk, but metallic surfaces. This means that, although it is the same material through and through (not necessarily a multi-layered heterostructure), electrons cannot travel through the interior of the material, but can easily zoom around at the material’s surfaces. Previously, physicists have only uncovered materials that are purely insulating, semiconducting, or conducting. The discovery of a class of materials that features both insulating and metallic behavior in a single system rocked the condensed matter physics community (the folks who study electrons on periodic crystal lattices), and publications with the words “topological insulator” have increased in number almost exponentially since the early 2000s, when they first started gaining attention.