Tag Archives: Science

Blog to accompany Vlog 330, 3/14/2021

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I made a video about the bio-engineered pig heart transplant. When my wife and I were talking about it a month ago, the patient was still alive and we were really rooting for him, and that inspired the comic (thanks to Cygnus Design for the artwork). It’s too bad the poor guy died in the mean time, but he made a real gift to science by participating in the experiment.

In case you didn’t know, people used to use pigs to hunt truffles in the wild (the fungi, not the chocolates). But the pigs badly want to eat the truffles, so you have to fight the pig every time you find some. People have moved on to using dogs.

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Luciferase is not Satanism in biotech

Comics: First – Previous – Next – Last

I made a video about luciferase. Some conspiracy theorists think they THEY are putting LUCIFER-ase in the vaccines. I think it’s just a misunderstanding of a paper like Schlake et al. (“Developing MRNA-Vaccine Technologies.” RNA Biology 9.11 (2012): 1319–1330. https://doi.org/10.4161/rna.22269). I have been trying to end videos with some kind of call to action, but in this case I’ve been coming up blank. There are people who apparently believe the name luciferase means bioscientists are satanists and are dropping little “hiding-in-plain-sight” hints about it. What can we do about people who are that deep into conspiracy-theory cult-think?

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Pretty Pictures of Nature, touching grass, microscopy

I went for a walk and took some pictures of nature today at a bunch of scales. Microscopes, macro lenses, and I even saw a couple of mallards. Just fun to get out and see some tiny bits of the world. I made a video version of this little outing on youtube.

I don’t have quite so many links, videos and articles to share this week. But I took a bunch of pictures, check them out below the fold.

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Video on the Authority of Science, Stuff I’ve enjoyed

A few weeks ago, I made a video about hydra, the little freshwater creatures, not the mythical beast or the Marvel villains. I got people up in my comments talking about a conspiracy theory I’d never heard of. According to this theory, “THEY” are adding HYDRA to the vaccines (along with NANOCHIPS with NANO-ONIONS)! My cat is more wise than i am with regard to YouTube comments (in that he has no idea they exist).

So, I started reading about what the best practices are for talking with conspiracy theory believers and science deniers. And that led to the video I uploaded last weekend.

I was inspired by this talk by Naomi Oreskes called “Why Trust Science?” Dr. Oreskes wrote a book about that topic that was published before COVID-19. It is especially relevant now, thanks to all of the anti-science talk on social media. She asks a simple but important question: why should we trust science, and more practically, why should people trust scientists?

Ultimately, scientists are people. Science is a human endeavor. There will be problems. But scientists are accountable to reality. Scientists are accountable to experiment. Scientists are accountable to observation and data. That’s the final, highest authority.

On a mostly unrelated note, here are two terrible aquatic creature jokes I made up:

  • What do you call a baby frog caught in a storm? A SQUALL-iwog.
  • What’s a jellyfish’s favorite exercise? Pull Ups (polyps).

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Cocktail Inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune

I posted a video with some thoughts on Dune and Nootropics. I also came up with a cocktail inspired by the book. I am in love with this cocktail. The 2021 film is coming out soon on HBO(!) so if you want to make this for your screening, here’s the recipe:

Spiced Tequila Sour Of Shai Hulud (May His Passing Cleanse the World):

Assemble in a shaker with ice:

1.5 oz Corzo Silver Tequila (for the memory of the desert sands of Dune)
0.75 oz ginger syrup* (to stimulate the mind)
0.75 oz fresh lemon juice (it gives its body’s water that the tribe may survive)
Two dashes cinnamon bitters (for the Spice must flow)

Shake

Place a large, clear ice cube in a glass. Add one bar spoon of blue curacao (for the blue within blue eyes of the fremen). Strain the drink over the cube and serve.

*To make ginger syrup: Assemble 0.5 cup sugar, 0.5 cup water and ~4 ounces of sliced fresh ginger in a pot, heat over medium heat while stirring until the sugar dissolves and the mixture just starts to bubble. Strain into a bottle for storage.

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