Posted in In The News, Opinion on Jul 31st, 2006
[Biology, DNA, Synthetic, Terrorism, Viruses, Weapons]Today’s Washington Post has an article about how synthetically-produced pathogens may become a viable means of bioterrorism. The article itself is a fairly broad overview of an immense subject, and as such lacks some important details (like who the researchers are that are working on synthetic microbes, I wanted […]
Posted in Book Reviews, Informative Articles on Jul 27th, 2006
[1491, Amazon, Archaeology, Charles Mann, Rainforest, Soil, Sustainability, Terra Preta]Rarely does one see the words “Amazon” and “sustainable” in the same sentence, let alone the same title. To the modern mind, the Amazon is synonymous with two things: astounding ecological diversity and rapacious environmental degradation. As I’m learning from Charles Mann’s masterwork 1491, […]
Posted in Opinion on Jul 24th, 2006
[Abortion, Bush, Embryonic Stem Cells, Ethics, Morality, Religion, Veto]I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about the ethical controversy in the whole embryonic stem cell debate and have come to a conclusion: there are no non-religious ethical arguments against destroying embryos. That is not, of course, to say that such an argument is invalid. […]
Posted in Opinion on Jul 7th, 2006
[1491, Anthropology, Charles Mann, Clovis, Debate, Philosophy of Science, Science]I’ve just finished reading the first five chapters in Charles Mann’s fantastic 1491 and have been simply blown away so far. But, that will have to wait until a future entry. Today I’m going to share an idea I had when reading Mann’s chapter […]
