Author Archives: admin

Blogger Challenge 2008 thank-you poem: ethics.

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Reader Patrick made a generous donation to my challenge, and wrote:

I want to thank you for the posts on Ethics. It is a subject that I feel is mostly neglected during a scientist’s formal education. We end up learning by example (not always good), but it should be a required course for everyone with an advanced degree.

Patrick requested a haiku on ethics … but so far, I’ve been having trouble putting something meaningful into 17 syllables. So, I am hopeful that a villanelle about ethics will suffice.

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Random question for the hive mind.

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The other day, my better half and I were discussing scratching. Predictably, in the course of the discussion, I became aware of every itchy square millimeter of skin I might possibly possess.
I wondered whether scratching actually works — that is, whether scratching ever acts to make an itch go away, or even to reduce it.
“Of course it does,” my better half opined. “Why else would we do it?”
“Because we’re poorly adapted?” I ventured.
So, here’s the question*:

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Blogger Challenge 2008 sprog thank-you art + poem: memory.

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Ewan made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge and, as he did last year, he requested a poem illustrated by the sprogs on the subject of memory.
It turns out that drawing “memory” is pretty challenging! However, the sprogs worked out some ways to represent the concept of memory more concretely. So, we offer a poem, some illustration, and our thanks to Ewan:

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Blogger Challenge 2008: funds from Seed and a chance to vote on which propsal should get the money.

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By now you’ve probably seen the news that Seed has kicked in $15,000 to fund projects in our Blogger Challenge slates. We are, as always, thrilled at our Overlords’ generosity.
This year, though, rather than applying the money at the end of the drive, we have a situation where each blog with an active challenge has been given control of a $715 giving credit at DonorsChoose. In other words, we get to decide how to use this windfall to help fund classroom projects … and to get more readers involved in funding them.
So I’m going to see if I can get some audience participation from you on where to direct these funds.

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Conditions for ethical therapeutic use of a placebo.

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Jake has a great post up today about the frequency with which American internists and rheumatologists prescribe placebos and the ethical questions this raises. Jake writes:

For my part, I don’t think I would be comfortable deceiving my patient under any circumstances. I see my role as a future physician partly as a healer but also as an educator. Patients — particularly patients with intractable chronic illnesses — want to understand what is happening to them. I almost feel like in deceiving them, I would be denying them that small measure of control — that small measure of dignity — that is vital to feeling like a complete person, even in the face of a life destroying illness. The ability to make decisions for yourself is an empowering feeling. You only take that away if you are absolutely convinced — as in the case of dementia or severe mental illness — that someone is completely incapable.

The whole post is well worth reading. But I’m wondering whether there couldn’t be some conditions under which use of a placebo wouldn’t violate a patient’s dignity.

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Friday Sprog Blogging: what big kids know.

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A conversation from the sidelines at the elder Free-Ride offspring’s soccer game:
Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, what are you drawing?
Younger offspring: Stars.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmmm.
Younger offspring: I know they don’t look like the way they teach you how to draw stars, but real stars don’t look that way.
Dr. Free-Ride: You have a point.

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After school experiment: avocado mayonnaise.

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Given that today is Mole Day, it seemed only fair to follow up on our earlier experimentation with avocados. You may recall that, in discussing our efforts to dissolve avocados, we said:

One further experiment we’ve decided to try at some future point is to investigate whether we can make mayonnaise substituting mashed avocado for some or all of the oil.

That future point? Now a past point.

ThreeBowlsOMayo.jpg

Before I report the results from our kitchen, let’s talk a little about mayonnaise.

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