Regulating genetic testing, understanding probabilities, and knowing the future
Should we regulate people’s access to their own genome data?. More on the issue of regulating personal genetic testing, by Ars Technica‘s John Timmer. The headline is a bit misleading, since the issue is more about whether the “Direct-to-Consumer” (DTC) genetic testing industry should be regulated like any other medical tests or not. Definitely worth […]
This Is How Your Drinks Look Under the Microscope
This Is How Your Drinks Look Under the Microscope. Apparently the above image is a margarita magnified 1000x. Wonder what it’ll look like after a few margaritas? Click the link above for a gallery of all your favorite alcoholic beverages. [Via Gizmodo]
Bad Astronomy and some drawbacks to personal DNA testing
A few quick things that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while: I’ve added a link to the Bad Astronomy blog by one of my favorite astronomers/debunkers of pseudoscience. Always an enjoyable read, and another example of how to run a good blog. And today’s post mentioned the Amazing Randi, with some links […]
Out of Elements
I worked on one of my favorite articles and infographics for the June 2010 issue of Popular Science, on the elements that we couldn’t do without. It brought back memories of high-school and college chemistry, and the infographic itself involves a periodic table. It was interesting to even think of the fact that we do […]
Best Visual Illusion 2010
Check out this visual illusion, winner of this year’s Best Illusion contest. What’s amazing to me is that it’s a real, 3-dimensional object that someone built, not just an animation or picture. The tricks the mind plays are quite fascinating 🙂 See all 10 finalists, as well as brief explanations of each illusion. [Best Illusion […]
PopSci and Ars Technica feature parasite I did my PhD on!
Gold Nanoparticles and Lasers Kill the Brain Parasite That Causes “Crazy Cat Lady” Syndrome | Popular Science. I never thought this would happen, but PopSci had an article on Toxoplasma, the fascinating parasite that I spent 6 years studying during my PhD. The article itself is about a fairly futuristic-sounding technique to use gold nanoparticles […]
4 articles in the March issue of Popular Science
No wonder I’ve been busy…the March issue of Popular Science just came out, and it was a busy one for me, I had 4 articles in there. There was a Megapixels, which I’ve done before, but all the other sections were totally new for me – 2 Headlines stories and 1 How it Works. Was […]
Back from AAAS! (where I heard Ron Howard and Kal Penn speak…)
Spent the weekend at the AAAS annual conference in San Diego, my first time there. It was an interesting experience, especially because I registered as a freelance reporter, and it was my first time with a Press badge! I got access to the newsroom (with free coffee – I guess journalists drink a lot of […]
Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena
Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena. A great collection of optical illusions by Michael Bach. What’s great is that he actually explains why it happens, and you get to play around with the animations and see how that affects the illusion. Saw this first on  Carl Zimmer’s blog where he points to a particularly trippy optical […]
2009 Photo Contest Winners Gallery – National Wildlife Federation
2009 Photo Contest Winners Gallery – National Wildlife Federation. 2009 Photo Contest Honorable Mentions – National Wildlife Federation. Just came across these photos of the winners and honorable mentions from the National Wildlife Federation‘s 2009 photo contest. See the links above for all the images, there’s 32 winners (across several categories) and 60 honorable mentions, […]