Dogged Blog

Tangled Bank Number 42

Welcome to the 42nd Tangled Bank, a bi-weekly compendium of the best science blogging.

Shortly after I started Dogged, Coturnix submitted one of my entries to Tangled Bank, and that was my introduction to this amazing compilation of great science writing. I  submitted  one of my own posts to a later Tangled Bank, and then I volunteered hesitantly to host one ... hesitantly, because I am not a scientist. I've worked as an editor and writer about medicine and health, mostly veterinary medicine, writing for a popular audience. There isn't a whole lot of love lost on the part of scientists for health writers, and really, who can blame them? Still, P.Z. Myers accepted my offer to host, and here we are. So without any further bloviation, Tangled Bank Number 42!

Of IDiocy and Darwinism

At the beginning of the universe there were no blogs. That was sad. However, there were also no proponents of "Intelligent Design" so it was a fair trade-off. Alas, that's not true any longer. The Bonehead Compendium examines the question, who exactly IS teaching science to our kids and how can they be so dumb?

One of my favorite bloggers is Mike the Mad Biologist, and he submitted  a piece that took Charles Krauthammer's dismissal of "Intelligent Design" as a springboard to write about evolutionary biology and the falsification method and the likelihood approach. It had nothing to do with animals, but he sprinkled it with cute photos of pandas and puppies napping and stuff. Way to go, Mike, suck up to the host. Nicely done.

Which leads to the question, what's so great about Darwinism anyway? Glad you asked. The editors at Seed Magazine blogged on that very topic after seeing an exhibit on Charles Darwin at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Although I was distressed to learn for the first time that Darwin thought it was better to get married than to get a dog. Wrong, Charles.

Danny Yee takes what he calls a "non-specialist's" perspective in his review of Tangled Trees: Phylogeny, Cospeciation, and Coevolution from the University of Chicago Press.

How Sick is THAT?

One of my favorite subjects is disease. I was happy to get so many submissions about sickness and plague and pestilence. It may be that I'm not a well woman, but it seems I am in extremely good company.

As a bridge piece from the previous section, a few Thoughts from Kansas, where Josh Rosenau ruminates on  trees, as well as influenza, in Ecology of Viruses.

I'm old enough to remember the world before we'd ever heard of HIV or AIDS. I suspect  Mike Rivers-Bowerman is not, but he has put together quite a FAQ on the subject over at terry (short for "Terra"), submitted by Dr. David Ng from the University of British Columbia.

A fascinating look at treating Amish kids for genetic diseases from Dr. Andy.

Amazingly, I got two separate submissions on malaria. The first comes from Ruth Schaffer at the Institute of Applied Microbiology at the Justus Liebig University in Germany, in her Biotech Weblog, where she discusses a whole new approach to treating malaria.

The second comes from Coturnix, where he shows how science SHOULD be taught, in Dr. Love-of-Strange, or How I Learned To Love The Malaria...

I forgot to ask if it's OK to present more than one post from the same blog, but after Mike the Mad Biologist used those cute puppy pictures, I'd have looked the other way no matter what. He has some scary things to say about bacterial resistance, not to drugs, but to the body's own natural defenses. And here is some medical journalist commentary: That's a really, really bad thing.

Genetic epidemiologist Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei discusses how language bias influences what studies are published internationally, and how this bias might affect what we know (or think we know) about genetic research.

Once upon a time, Mad Cow Disease, more politely known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, was the most discussed disease in the world. That crown is now worn by the bird flu, but research into prions, the nasty little infectious agents that transmit BSE and similar diseases in other species, has revealed their presence in two bodily fluids where they weren't previously thought to occur: Urine and milk. Or at least, prions have been found in mammary gland tissue, and are presumed to be present in milk, too. Since prions can remain infectious in the face not just of pasteurization and cooking but being burned to a crisp, you can see why researcher Tara C. Smith isn't really happy to see them popping up all over the place.

Of course, no compilation of blogging on diseases would be complete without a whole slew of posts on avian flu. Avian flu ties up veterinary medicine, animals, agriculture, human medicine, epidemiology, virology, public health, politics, health care issues, even evolution, in a neat package. It is actually the ultimate blogger's disease topic.

Tara C. Smith of the the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases in Iowa is looking at research on farmers and veterinarians, and wondering  how many undiagnosed cases of asymptomatic avian flu are lurking out there.

Josh Braun at ScienceG8 poses ten questions on avian flu ...

Question 1: To Cull a Coughing Bird
Question 2: Bird Flu and the Other Pandemic
Question 3: Shots in the Dark
Question 4: Reading All About It
Question 5: Corporate Politics
Question 6: Calling the Code
Question 7: Dangerous Nationalism
Question 8: Guns 'n Doses
Question 9: Triage
Question 10: Stockpiles

Susan Clubb DVM guest blogging at Vet Techs on avian flu, media sensationalism, and the fear of birds.

Politics and Medicine

The intersection of medicine and politics, otherwise known as "the health care system," is a fertile ground for blogging. Melissa Kaplan explains in words of one syllable to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt why signing up for the new Medicare drug program is NOT just as easy as signing up for cable TV or registering your car, but she makes him a fair offer:

How about if I register your next car, and get your new cable service contract squared away, while you go through the 48 plans and my prescriptions and figure out which one both covers the most of my drugs at the best price for me. Sounds like a fair trade of services to me, given how complicated registering a car and ordering cable is.

But where the heat is REALLY turned up in the politics of health care is around the issue of so-called "Plan B," or emergency contraception. Chiara at Thoughts of an Average Woman wants to know why public opinion carries more weight with the FDA than scientific research and advice when it comes to approving (or, as seems likely, NOT approving) emergency contraception.

Beastly Medicine

Chris Clarke at Creek Running North has a dog named Zeke, who is having some health problems. And in times of trouble, Chris says, he always turns to scripture to get some comfort. Specifically, an essay by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould about statistics.

We all know vets are only in it for the money, right? That and the power and glamor.

An overview of gastric dilation and volvulus (commonly called "bloat and torsion") in dogs, from the point of view of an ER vet.

Gina Spadafori wonders about the ethics of medical journalism and a proposed new veterinary "news" service, while PharmaWatch's Michael Lascelles wonders about the ethics involved in a smear campaign against an FDA official after a profitable veterinary drug is pulled off the market. And you thought pets were just cuteness and fluff, right?

Skeptico turns a skeptical eye on holistic veterinary medicine in the UK.

A veterinarian gets hot under the collar when a local pharmacist refuses emergency contraception to a rape victim, then wonders about her own "conscience clause."

The Aviary

Even excluding posts about bird flu, bird topics were high on the list of submissions. First from Living the Scientific Life:

(A) group of birds have actually accomplished what scientists had never previously been able to document; some island species doubled back and successfully re-colonized the continents from where they originated.

Birder Tom Nelson wants to believe the ivory billed woodpecker lives ... but, he says, "only if it's true." Check out an Ivory-bill Skeptic.

Ornithologist Wise Crow ponders the mysteries of the evolution of bird migration.

How Cool is THAT?

I have a friend who sends me, without comment, links to photos taken with powerful telescopes of outer space. I always look at them with awe, but never have anything to say back except, "Wow!" Some of the submissions didn't quite fit into any particular category, but these all made me go "Wow!"

For wow factor, it doesn't get much better than e. coli taking photographs, from Jim Hu at Blogs for Industry.

Jan Theodore Galkowski was mean to some Euglenoids once, and he's sorry now. And he has some cool stuff to tell you about propulsion, too.

Some might say "eeeuwww" instead of "wow,"  and apparently some did, but the Body Worlds 2 exhibit gets a thumbs up review on Past Lessons, Future Theories.

From De Rerum Natura: Developing a published scientific paper from a blog post? Blogging does pay off. And I almost put this one in the forthcoming "humor" section. Read it. Really. How can you resist anything about toxic mutators and hotheads?

The tabloid press had love all figured out. Andrew at Universal Acid sets them straight. This is Your Brain on Love.

Of course the scam was much more fun, but Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, gets to the bottom of the meteor thing. (No trucks were harmed in the writing of this blog.)

Chemist Cheryl Rofer at WhirledView exposes the dark side of daylight savings time and spreads a little sundial blogging.

From Cognitive Daily: Do you remember what really happened, or something else? And how does your mood influence your memory?

And to finish the "Wow" section with a big bang: A roundup of Everything Scientific. Take your pick of life on Titan, teaching evolution in Mexico, the effect of drought on pinon trees, and the genetic origins of farming.

Things to Worry About

Are we outsourcing science? The Mad Scientist worries about it, and not for the first time.

Jennifer Forman Orth, Ph.D. at Invasive Species Weblog is worrying about recommendations to eat smaller fish to avoid consuming toxins. Seems some young fish have higher levels of PCBs than older fish.

Orac at Respectful Insolence wonders how to cut costs in his laboratory with great humor. But scientists desperately trying to save money makes ME worry!

P.Z. Myers is worrying that one day when he whacks a mouse with a broom, the mouse is going to turn around and whack him back.

Ho Ho Ho

Since the holidays are upon us, I had to include a little seasonal selection for you. First, from Prometheus, some quirky biological holiday stories.

Coturnix debunks the debunkers at Circadiana! Does eating holiday turkey make you sleepy? Seems like a pretty straightforward question, but there's a scientific controversy.

And one that really should have gone into the Birds section, but was tagged as a holiday-themed turkey story by its author, and who am I to disagree? The Ocellated Turkey: The Other White Meat from 10,000 Birds.

Ha Ha Ha

I couldn't believe how many humorous pieces got sent my way. I don't actually remember so much funny stuff in any previous Tangled Bank, but maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Ever judge a science fair? From Bootstrap Analysis:

Maybe science would move forward more quickly if we quit trying to manipulate results or try to make ourselves look good, and instead submitted the kind of straightforward self-evaluation that this student did.

For some incomprehensible reason, Christopher Monks of The Science Creative Quarterly did not win the Nobel Prize for Science.

How about an evolutionary reflection on meditation and hunting? (Remember, this is the humor section.)

I've had a great time hosting the Tangled Bank. Thank you for visiting. The next Tangled Bank is at Rural Rambles on December 14 - you can send your entries to [email protected] or to P.Z Myers at [email protected].

My Love/Hate Relationship with Skepticism

Several friends told me I was insane to even think about hosting  the next Tangled Bank, and given that I have about six and a quarter seconds of free time in each week, they're probably right. But I'm glad I did it, because reading the submissions has been fascinating. And a few of them have set me to thinking about the concept of skepticism as it relates to science.

I tend to be tagged as a highly skeptical person by those who possess little if any skepticism themselves. I like science and facts and studies and evidence-based medicine and all kinds of things that appear to make the magical thinkers get a migraine. Someone else interested in holistic approaches to dog care once snarled at me, loudly and publicly and not at all flatteringly, that "Talking to you is like talking to an allopathic vet!", by which she meant that I didn't buy the snake oil she was peddling without asking pesky and irritating questions about how it supposedly worked and what was in it.

And I know when certain topics come up on the various holistic pet care lists I'm on, the membership groans because they know I'm going to go off on the person posting, because the emperor is, well... nekkid. I know it's going to start an avalanche of angry emails and comments, but the words "colloidal silver" come to mind here.

BUT....

I also have a problem with those for whom skepticism is not a character trait but a hobby. I truly do believe with Herbert Spencer that "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

I think there is some benefit in withholding ultimate judgment about things that seem to make no sense but  also seem to work. I don't blindly believe in all these things,  I would rarely even consider using them. But neither would I ever be so arrogant as to say that just because science cannot at this time explain something, it is impossible, wrong, disproven, or beyond eventual scientific explanation. I have seen some things I can't explain easily. I've had experiences that strike me as convincing, even while my brain is screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOO! at me.

I'll confess I'm more comfortable with serious skeptics than with blind believers. It's just the way my mind works. I like it all to hang together and make sense and fit in with the real world as I understand it.

But now and then I know I'm really an alien in the land of the serious skeptic. I'm not gullible, but I just can't fit in there, and I don't want to. Phrases like "You never know" float uninvited through my mind when I'm confronted with compelling but inexplicable ideas. 

Of course, as Bertrand Russell famously said, "When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others." The list of inexplicable things I still have an open mind on is very, very short. But it's not empty, because as he also said, "The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper, " suggesting we from time to time hang a question mark on our cherished beliefs. I think that's a good attitude to have, whichever end of the skepticism spectrum you feel most at home on.

Insert Clever Title Here

Gina Spadafori and I are doing a presentation at the annual conventions of the Dog Writers Association of America and the Cat Writers Association of America tomorrow. The events are being held in the San Francisco area, unlike the last couple of years when they were in Houston. I've been to Houston once and it was 99 degrees with 105 percent humidity. At 3 AM. I was not highly motivated to return.

The weather here, on the other hand, is a crisp and sunny 68. (Well, it was 42 when I walked the dogs at 6 AM but I live out in the country where we're tougher.)

Gina and I are going to be talking about the Internet. Imagine that.

The conventions are held in conjunction with the Cat Fanciers' Association International Cat Show, so I'll be heading over to that Friday morning. I hear there's going to be a demonstration of cat agility. I concede cats are amazingly agile, but I'm skeptical on the rest of what agility competition requirse being something a cat would deign to do. Perhaps breeders are doing more with their breeding programs than I could imagine, such as having border collie genes implanted in their cats' brains.

On an utterly and completely unrelated note, Gina is ranting about Paris Hilton and her lack of pet-sense over on Dogma. My tolerance for skanky blondes is zero, for skanky blondes who treat pets like fashion accessories  even less. I say ptooey. Gina says a bunch of much more articulate stuff.

A Bird's Eye View of Avian Flu

There are a lot of bloggers out there talking about avian flu from an epidemiological standpoint, from a homeland security standpoint, from a public health standpoint, and from a political standpoint.  Heck, even a THEOLOGICAL standpoint.

But Nancy Campbell RVT over at the Vet Techs blog has some thoughts on the bird flu frenzy from the point of view of the critters who actually get it: the birds. An essential part of the story, and one often overlooked by the policy and science wonks. Check it out.

Getting Real (Except in Kansas)

Those who don't want to teach science in science class but instead want to teach creative writing (I'm guessing that's what "Intelligent Design" would have to be called, since they SWEAR it's not theology?) went down in flames in yesterday's school board election in Pennsylvania,  and election results from another school board in  Minnesota also not so good for the IDiots. Good news, by and large.

Not so in Kansas. (I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.) And who better to tell us about it than PZ Myers at Pharyngula?

There is a straightforward body of evidence for evolution to which students should be introduced—evidence that high school curricula barely touch on as it is. Adding a collection of false and confusing claims about what scientists say is only going to diminish the legitimate science that can be taught. And teaching absurdities, such as that science deals with the supernatural, represents a load of garbage that instructors at the college level are going to have to scoop out of the brains of these poor students. At least, that is, out of the diminishing number of students who will pursue genuine science, rather than the dead-end vapor of Intelligent Design creationism.

Goodbye, Kansas. I don't expect to see many of your sons and daughters at my university in coming years, unless the teachers of your state refuse to support the outrageous crapola their school board has foisted on them. I hope the rest of the country moves on, refusing to join you in your stagnant backwater of 18th century hokum.

In closing, some thoughts on Kansas from Josh Rosenau at Thoughts From Kansas:

Welcome to the world of tomorrow. People on the street really are more moral now in Kansas. The sky is brighter, cars can fly and all our financial questions have been answered. Intelligent Accounting!

We should all move there. It sounds so nice. Here, have some nice Kool-Aid.

Awww, Poor Baby

Crossposted at Sonoma County DFA.

I admit to some serious glee waking up this morning to find that all Schwarzenegger’s propositions went down in flames. Gee, that’s gotta hurt.

Too bad it also hurt us, in the pocketbook. From today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

When all is said and done, the amount spent on Tuesday’s election in California will easily surpass the more than $241 million that John Kerry spent running for president last year, and could even top the $306 million that President Bush spent to win re-election.

You just can’t trust those Republicans with money.

Canine Lyme: What's New?

I blogged today about some new developments in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease in dogs over on Vet Techs. If you're interested, go read. Your dogs will thank you.

Think Breeding Dogs is Fun and Profitable?

I found these photos today, when I was cleaning out the memory stick on my digital camera after reinstalling the software for it. They are from my bedroom the days after my dog Rebel had surgery for urinary obstruction about a year and a half ago. Believe me, this is NOT what my bedroom usually looks like, being as how I don't sleep in a slaughterhouse.

Rebel, who lived with someone else for four and a half years, came back to me a year and a half ago with a serious genetic condition that had caused his urinary obstruction. I didn't breed him, just co-owned him, but he was my Raven's brother so of course, he had a home for life with me.

The genetic disease is called cystinuria, and it's a kidney defect. It causes dogs to form stones that can block their urethras. We don't know a lot about it, sadly, and it seems to be fairly new in Scottish Deerhounds - or if not new, then getting more common.

I'd had a dog, Skye,  with cystinuria before, and so recognized what was going on with Rebel from the first day he was here. I also knew what was coming after he had surgery to unblock him, and create a new urinary opening so he wouldn't block again. (Cystine stones can't be controlled with diet as some stones can, so the dogs will continue to form them throughout their lives. This surgery basically moves and enlarges the opening so the dogs can pass the stones more easily.)

This surgery is costly, difficult to do, and invasive. Recovery is bloody, although Rebel's was much less bloody than Skye's. You will find that hard to believe, however, when you see these photos .

Sometimes I get really really angry at other breeders, in any breed but especially in my own. I expect deerhound people to be a cut above, to love these dogs enough that they won't lie and cheat and let their egos get in the way of what's best for the breed and the dogs. But there are still those out there who act like this condition is not that big a problem.

Guess again.

In addition to being bloody, this surgery is, as I said, expensive. We (his breeder, the family he lived with before coming back here, and me) split the bill of more than four thousand dollars, and I have assumed responsibility for all his bills from now on.

So the next time you think it might be fun and profitable to breed a litter, drop me a line and we'll talk. Because this is just one of the many things that can go wrong, and it's far from the most expensive or even the worst. Rebel is, after all, still here, unlike his sister Raven who died of a genetic form of bone cancer.

This Can't Be Working?

Five to ten times a day in the last couple of weeks, a robot has phoned me.

The robots sound very nice, and they seem to share my political views. They are nurses, teachers, and union members. They want me to do what I'm already going to do: Send every single proposition championed by Arnold Schwarzenegger down to defeat in the November 8 special election here in California.

But they are driving me stark, raving insane.

That doesn't matter. Nothing could get me to not vote, and nothing could change my vote. But I'm worried about voters out there who might be less committed than I am, any undecided or lukewarm voters who might decide that this bombardment with automated campaign messages is so incredibly annoying, intrusive, and rude that they will either stay home or even change their vote.

Could this approach possibly have any benefit at all, except to the other side? Does anyone listen to these stupid messages, or if they do, would they ever listen to a second one? Surely I'm not the only one who feels livid at the impossibility of identifying who is giving you this message, who to complain to, how to make it stop? You have to listen to the whole thing (I assume, since I never have) to find out who the message is from.

Not even in the last national election do I remember getting more than one or two robotic calls. Today I'm getting two or more an HOUR. I live out in the boonies where high tech things like caller ID or call blocking don't exist, so I have no ability to know, when the phone rings, who is on the other end. I can either ignore it and let the  machine pick up, or answer.

Maybe I'm just whining, but my bigger point still stands: I can't believe this is doing any good at all, and that means it's a waste of money and possibly doing some harm.

[UPDATE]: Just now my phone rang. I picked it up. It was a robot asking me to vote "No" on Measure M, a local measure banning the farming of genetically engineered crops in our county. Before I could hang up, call waiting came in. I took the second call and it was a robot announcing herself as a schoolteacher asking me to oppose Proposition 74,  a Schwarzenegger plan to change how schoolteachers get tenure.

Tangled Bank Coming Here!

November, the cruelest month? I don't know, but at the very end of it, right after Thanksgiving, on the actual last day of the month (the 30th, for those chronologically challenged or without a calendar), I'm going to be hosting the Tangled Bank.

What, you ask, is that?

The Tangled Bank is a carnival (try, compilation) of the best blog writing about science. It is named after Charles Darwin's famous metaphor:

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.

If you have written anything with a scientific twist on your blog, blow your own horn a little and either post a link here, or if you're shy, email me. I can't put my email address on here as it is just like sending out a little note to the universe saying SPAM ME!, but you can just click here and send me a message.

Of course I'd especially love submissions relating to veterinary medicine, or really, anything to do with animals, but I welcome all science-related themes, including medicine, biology, evolution, science education, pharmacy, astronomy, chemistry, physics, etc. I especially like submissions about the politics of science and medicine.

Want to learn more about the Tangled Bank?

Want to see this week's Tangled Bank?

Now go scour your blogs for your science-related submissions, and if you want to nominate someone else's entry, that's fine too. Go turn over rocks and find those vet blogs!! I know they must be out there.