Winter’s Haven

From Mike the Technobuddist:

Although my blog has undeniably just hit a new low, I actually feel very liberated. No matter how wrong or inane my future posts may be, I’ll always be able to cling to the fact that at least they won’t be L0Lcats.

Contrary to what I stated in the previous post, it is completely incorrect that DDT bans have prevented its use for vector control in third-world countries. Bug Girl, an entomologist, thoroughly debunks that claim. The agricultural use of DDT has been banned in many places (partly because more widespread use of insecticides causes insects develop [...]

The Economist has a fascinating series of articles (one, two, and three) on biochemists’ newfound recognition of the importance of RNA in the life of the cell. Scientists are already using this new understanding of RNA to develop drugs which can disrupt the production of harmful proteins, and, more generally, manipulate cellular processes in a [...]

Rachel Carson was born a hundred years and a few days ago. The New York Times science column has an excellent overview of how Silent Spring’s claims regarding the dangers of pesticides compare to state of scientific knowledge.
The short version: in light of the best scientific knowledge available at the time the book [...]

Ordinarily, small things must expend a lot of energy to swim. At small length scales, the the ratio of inertial to viscous forces (the Reynolds number) decreases, and friction becomes a big problem for small swimmers. If you were the size of a bacterium, moving through a fluid would feel more like burrowing than swimming. [...]

Although I do not condemn hunting on ethical grounds (I’m no vegan), I am nonetheless seriously annoyed by people who refer to hunting as a “sport”. Shooting deer with telescoped rifles is about as sporting as a football game in which only one team is given armor. Anyone who really wants a “sporting hunt” should [...]

I’ve been watching the X-Files, and several episodes involve parasites which take control of humans, usually causing the host to do violent things to further spread themselves. These episodes were quite good, but I never thought that the phenomenon was especially plausible.
It turns out I was wrong. As reported by the New Scientist the protozoan [...]

As reported by the BBC, a recent study surveyed scientists and health experts in the UK on the comparative health risks of different recreational drugs. The study concludes that the health risks of the drugs are totally uncorrelated to their legal status. (US drug laws are broadly similar to those in the UK.)
Among the study’s [...]

Our first publication on the dynamics of Langmuir domains made it to print in the January issue of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and we submitted a second paper to Physical Reviews E. Also, I made a very pretty movie which shows off the striking agreement between observation and the simulation’s predictions.
Last but not least, [...]

The rain falls hard. Watch it hit the asphalt. Relax your eyes and see the illusion of motion: like hundreds of ants flitting to and fro.
I wonder just where this aliasing enters into the brain’s visual processing.