Science fair projects are due Tuesday morning. Can you guess what we’re doing today?
Snail eradication (day 16).
Another slow morning for snail picking.
Like sugar packets in a diner.
The Free-Ride family enjoyed a late breakfast (although you better believe that if either of the Free-Ride offspring claims to be hungry in the next two hours, I’m calling it an early lunch) at a local diner.
While there, the elder Free-Ride offspring struggled to eat an omelette off an unstable plate. Any attempt at cutting, spearing, or spooning sent the plate a-spinning.
Snail eradication (day 15).
This morning I slept in. But once I woke up, I had to patrol for gastropods.
Death is not an option (the return from sabbatical edition).
You’re coming to the close of your sabbatical year. Probably you didn’t make quite as much progress on your research or writing project as you had hoped to, but you have enjoyed a much-needed break from the demands of teaching (and especially grading) and committee work. Whenever they see you, your colleagues comment on how well-rested you look.
And now, it’s time to reestablish contact with reality.
You’re on the phone with your department chair about your duties for the fall semester. Do you choose:
Advice on how to be ethical.
Bruce Weinstein (“The Ethics Guy” at BusinessWeek.com) offers advice on how to be ethical to the business school class of 2009.
His five nuggets of advice seem like good ones for anyone who is interested in being ethical. Two in particular jumped out at me:
Snail eradication (day 14).
This morning was relatively warm and fairly dry.
If you’ve been following the details of my campaign to control the back yard gastropod population, you know what that means:
Friday Sprog Blogging: silkworm math.
The Free-Ride offspring have been using the silkworms as a springboard for discussions of math as well as biology.
We started with 16 silkworms hatched from eggs that came home last June. They were joined, a couple weeks after they hatched, by another 15 silkworms brought home from the science classroom at school.
Friday Sprog Blogging: silkworms grow up so fast!
You may recall our dispatch last weekend when the largest of the Free-Ride silkworms indicated their readiness to pupate.
They didn’t figure it out right away.
Proposed guidelines for embryonic stem cells: applying new ethical rules to old research.
You may have heard that the Obama administration has proposed new rules for federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. (The proposed rules are available in draft form through the end of the public comment period; the NIH expects to finalize the rules in July).
While researchers are enthusiastic at the prospect under this administration of more funding for ESC research, not everyone is happy about the details of the proposed rules. Indeed, in a recent article in Cell Stem Cell [1], Patrick L. Taylor argues that there is something fundamentally misguided about the way the new rules would be applied to old research: