Science 2.0

Samhain, All Hallows Evening. Hallowe'en, Halloween. The name has changed but the world’s fascination with a day of spooks and scares has never wavered. Except it has also always been about harvests and farming and food.

It may seem odd to lump together food and ghosts but that is Halloween in a cultural nutshell; a confusing mash-up of cultures and beliefs. That is actually a good thing. It is evidence for how creating melting pots of people who become one community is better than a salad bowl where no one wants to include outside groups in their customs.

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In 1956, prize-winning puppeteer Shari Lewis appeared on the Captain Kangaroo children's show and debuted a new...well, it was basically a sock with eyes.(1) She called it Lamb Chop, though, and her ventriloquism was a big hit with kids.

Imagine what she would think if she knew Lamb Chop toys were a big hit with dogs.

It's a science mystery why, but dogs love them. Dogs who like to cuddle are obsessed with it, as are dogs who want to destroy things. They like the squeaks, the softs, and perhaps that it almost resembles an animal. Dogs get obsessive-compulsive a lot, according to a new paper.

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Are kids walking at night on Halloween safe? What's the physics of ghosts? How many toxic chemicals are in that organic pumpkin I bought? Is there a Secret Sadist out there putting razor blades in candy?

You can find out the answers to all those questions and more in Halloween Science 2.0. It covers the history of the holiday, of course, this is Science 2.0, not a textbook, through the lens of biology, anthropology and more!

Conventional genetic analysis methods for genotyping of brain tumors usually require one or two days to obtain results but a new method can determine optimal resection margins during surgery in just a few minutes.

The ability to accurately detect genetic mutations in a brain tumor was demonstrated with isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) and telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoters, which are markers for diagnosis of diffuse glioma—the most common type of brain tumor. Their system uses a Polymerase Chain Reaction device in combination with their own protocol and it enables DNA extraction using only heat incubation. 

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With this post I would like to present a short update of my personal life to the few readers who are interested in that topic. You know, when I started writing online (over 20 years ago!), blogs used to contain a much more personal, sometimes introspective, description of the owner's private life and actions. Since long, they have been substituted by much more agile, quick-to-consume videos. But the old-fashioned bloggers who stuck with that medium continue to have a life - albeit certainly a less glamorous one than that of today's influencers; so some reporting of personal affairs is not out of place here. 

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A recent study found the first evidence that sperm microRNAs act as carriers of epigenetic information, enabling the intergenerational transmission of paternal exercise capacity and metabolic health, thereby exerting profound effects on offspring development.

The bad news if you want an excuse for your poor fitness is this is epigenetics and only in mice, which means it is only EXPLORATORY. Mice are not little people and epigenetics lacks the same biological foundation as actual evolution and genetics.

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A new cross-sectional analysis estimates that asthma inhalers contribute the same carbon emissions as 530,000 cars each year. That's over over 2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases annually from the three types of inhalers approved for asthma or COPD during the years 2014 to 2024. 

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Surely you’ve noticed that many countries are subsidizing births – and others are banning abortions – even as tech lords lament the number of “useless people” in the world. You’ve noted the contradiction, and you’ve asked yourself, “What’s going on here?” Cool Hand Luke might say, “What we have here is a failure (of the two factions) to communicate.”

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We definitely need to DOGE nonsense like acupuncture out of the NIH and use that money for science but I don't want to live in a culture where children's theater doesn't want to have a play about "the ups-and-downs of a lovesick zombie who can’t find a date inthe land of the living."

It may not sound all that kid-friendly but this was a children's theater in Oregon and a stroll down any street in Portland exposes children to a lot worse things than lonely zombies.

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Information freedom is a good thing but there is no question it has been weaponized. Many scientists have been ruined by activists and their trade groups who use Freedom of Information Act rules to find a sentence in correspondence with corporations or trade groups, remove it from context, and claim science is a corporate conspiracy. Then they publish it thanks to politically aligned schools like UC San Fransisco, where Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, will help any attorney wanting to sue companies.

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