mssv

  • Melbourne

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    3–5 minutes

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    1 comment on Melbourne

    Continuing my epic journey around the globe to Contact all Culture listees that are the furthest away from me (despite having not met most of the guys in London) I spent a fun day going around Melbourne with Claire. First up was the ScienceWorks museum outside the city centre. I’ve made something of a hobby…

  • GM

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    1–2 minutes

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    No comments on GM

    A comment of mine on MetaFilter expressing my views on genetically modified crops.

  • Human Gene Therapy

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    1–2 minutes

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    No comments on Human Gene Therapy

    Gene therapy ‘to be expanded’ – good news from the BBC; the UK government is going to significantly increase funding for gene therapy. If things continue like this, the US may get left behind, along with its irrational fear of many other new biological techniques.

  • The TEDMED3 Experience: Day 1

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    23–34 minutes

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    2 comments on The TEDMED3 Experience: Day 1

    A review and summary of the presentations given on the first day of the TEDMED3 conference in Philadelphia.

  • What are you thinking?

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    1–2 minutes

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    2 comments on What are you thinking?

    Following on from my fMRI scan a while ago, I’ve just received a image of a structural MRI scan of my brain; in other words, a picture of my brain! It’s quite neat (thanks Bhisma!)

  • Biononsense

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    2–3 minutes

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    No comments on Biononsense

    After reading this article about human genetic engineering, I have to comment on something that’s been bugging me for a while now. The article is inoffensive enough, but it uses the term ‘biogenetics’. I’m sorry, but there is no such field as biogenetics; it’s either genetics or nothing, and there’s no use in trying to…

  • Alive and well

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    1–2 minutes

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    2 comments on Alive and well

    Some utter fool has written an article in the Times (part one, part two) on the failure of psychology. My views are reflected quite accurately in this Metafilter thread which I contributed to. Psychology is alive and well, and if you want to attack the strawman of psychoanalysis and outdated views of early 20th century…

  • Making the extraordinary seem ordinary

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    1–2 minutes

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    No comments on Making the extraordinary seem ordinary

    A couple of days ago over dinner, I was having one of those typical university conversations about whether the Internet had really changed the world. As was pointed out, “We’re still not buying all of our groceries over the web.” I replied with something about delivery of large perishable goods and how in fact the…

  • SARS

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    1–2 minutes

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    2 comments on SARS

    A lot of people aren’t worried about SARS. They say, well, it’s only killed a few hundred people, that’s a drop in the ocean compared to malaria, AIDS, influenza, car accidents, smoking, etc. etc. So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that you do not measure the threat of a disease merely by…

  • About the Matrix

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on About the Matrix

    This article about the science of the Matrix (from /.) is interesting enough from a fan-fiction ‘well, it could work!’ perspective, but it is way off on some of the hard issues, namely the whole ‘quantum mechanics microtubules’ nonsense. It might be convenient to explain away consciousness because of magical quantum ‘fairy dust’ interactions, but…