According to America Online’s top searches for Spring this year, most of its users are looking for baseball players, diets, holiday destinations, wedding-related stuff, tax forms, proms, flowers, and other such matters. The nearest they get to anything academic is homework and university searches (Duke is the most popular search apparently). I didn’t see one mention of science, technology, nor computing. But, what is very worrying is that no one was looking for money off vouchers and online coupons, which is odd given the number of visitors the Sciencebase online coupons site gets each day (many of those from AOL). AOL unveils hottest searches for spring 2005, but to be honest the lack of certain subjects suggests to me that this is not a complete list by any means.
Category: Health and Medicine
Sciencebase news and views on health and medicine, including posts on Covid-19, bird flu, cancer, asthma, obesity, vaccines, and much more.
Google.org
The philanthropic wing of Google is coming soon, get your grant-writing pens at the ready: Google.org
The foundation’s aims are to use the power of information and technology to address global challenges: climate change, poverty and emergent diseases. Google is working with partners in each of these fields and investing resources as well as tapping its employees’ strengths to advance five major initiatives:
- Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE
- Accelerate the Commercialization of Plug-In Vehicles (RechargeIT)
- Predict and Prevent
- Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services
- Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)
Google’s commitment amounts to 1% (as cited in 2004, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote to prospective shareholders about their vision for the company) of equity and profits. As of January 2008, Google.org has committed over US$75 million in grants and investments aimed at the five projects listed above.
Old PCs for old
It really doesn’t come as a surprise to hear that a major UK computer seller is up before the courts accused of mis-selling second-hand computers as “shop soiled”. A friend of mine once took a machine to them for an overhaul, system cleanup, extra RAM that sort of thing. Came back to him in exactly the same condition as when he’d taken it in, they tried to charge him 150 quid for the privelege, But he easily caught them out when he showed them that the OEM security seal on the case hadn’t even been broken! Why did they think they’d get away with it. Perhaps it is because the general public is so trusting of an operator that has massive out of town stores. It would be the last place I’d go to buy anything to do with computers.
Biological fun…
Also spotted on the science writers’ discussion list I mentioned earlier, a press release came in with the subject line: “Happiness Related to Biological Fun”. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as spicey as some had hoped, biological fun, they thought, being a nice euphemism. Apparently, it was nothing more than a truncation, and the full subject read: “Happiness Related to Biological Function”. Borrrring. I linked this to to the apocryphal “a penis” story told of the de Gaulles cos it’s sort of related…ish.
What the Dickens?
The original ChavMeister, Charles Dickens, whose satirical soaps have entertained the chattering classes for decades is to get his own theme park. It’s not going to be a bit like DollyWood or even Peter Gabriel’s yet to get off the ground interactive concept park. Instead, it will be built in Chatham at a cost of 60 million quid (ish) and feature an Ebeneezer Scrooge ride, cobbled streets with a replica of the Old Curiosity Shop, and themed restaurants. Sounds great, I wonder if they’ll sell Burberry too…I have great expectations.
Antibacterial Research Should Be Focused on Facts, Not Fear
Most people will have seen the ludicrous healthscare stories that emerged when scientists discovered the almost ubiquitous bacteride, triclosan, releases small amounts of chloroform (a suspect carcinogen infamous for its anaesthetic effects in TV thrillers). I say ludicrous, because the amounts that are released are so small and presumably nothing compared to the much greater amounts of “chemical nasties” released by household air fresheners, shoe polish, bleach, etc etc. However, when you see a statement from The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), you have to wonder if they protest too much. Antibacterial Research Should Be Focused on Facts, Not Fear. Then again, I don’t think so, the mainstream media loves a scare story and this is a gift on a plate, virtually unfounded hyperbole pandering to the chemophobic multitude.
Good and bad news for chemistry texts
It was rather heartening to learn that a study by researchers at two Pittsburgh universities has demonstrated that newspaper and magazine articles do a better job of teaching students how chemists work than most high-school textbooks. But, at the same time its’s rather disheartening that if students are not reading outside the curriculum box then they are going to leave education with a very distorted view of what chemists do. Source: Chemists say high school texts fall short
MRSA on the up
According to a report in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, community-associated infection with methicillin, or multiple resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA), is now a common and serious problem. Infections usually involve the skin, especially among children, and hospitalization is common.
Scott Fridkin at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues evaluated MRSA infections in patients identified from surveillance in Baltimore and Atlanta and in hospital-lab results from twelve hospitals in Minnesota and found 1647 cases of community-acquired MRSA infection reported 2001 through 2002.
The researchers suggest that the national burden and ultimate clinical impact of MRSA remain unclear, but one thing is certain: the disease has emerged in patients who do not have the established risk factors for this potentially lethal bacterium.
Journal ups and downs
Why do publishers insist on producing new journals at every turn, weren’t we promised a paperless laboratory at least a decade ago and instant access to all the information we could ever need with a few mouseclicks? Yet, I received a press release from the RSC today announcing their new high-profile journal “Molecular BioSystems” (why the capital “S”). Do we really need another journal on biosystems with a molecular bent? But, worse still, I also hear today (via the CHMINF-L discussion group rather than a bulletin sent to RSC members, which as a member I would have preferred!) that the RSC has massively cut the budget to its own library! The juxtaposition of those two happenings is truly the most ironic* thing I’ve heard for a while.
*ferric for the pedantic.
Nuclear distance
Should we be picking on the BBC? I think so. Not content with persisting with Fahrenheit AND Celsius in their weather forecasts, they are still mixing and matching between metric and imperial distances.
This article on nuclear waste disposal discusses options for getting rid of nuclear waste under the ground at a depth of between 300m and 2km. It then goes on to tell us “on average people in Britain live about 26 miles away from one of more than 30 radioactive waste sites”, the implication being that we might be able to picture how far 2km underground is but would be less comfortable knowing that we’re just 26 miles from a waste site as opposed to the much more distant 41.8429 kilometres. Whoops…fell into the conversion trap didn’t I? Anyway, what do they mean by average? Mean? Median? Mode? We ought to be told.
For more instances of mix and match units and over indulgence in significant figures, check out the archives on our sibling tech blog.