Tag Archives: Links

Where I Go For Science

Where I Go For Science

A friend of mine asked me for a few links to science sites so she could learn a little more, so I set to copying and pasting my bookmarks for her. Now I know why I lose so much time sitting at the computer. Most of these sites are life sciences, so sorry about the lack of Chemistry and Physics and such. Here’s the list. . .

Sites in my WordPress Reader, loosely arranged by subject:

Skepticism/Critical Thinking
Science or Not?
I fucking hate pseudoscience
Edzard Ernst
Why Evolution is True
Doubtful
Violent Metaphors

Brain Stuff
Neurobollocks
Left Brain Right Brain
Mind Hacks
Neurologica Blog
Wiring the Brain
Science Over a Cuppa
Gabriela Tavares
BPS Research Digest

Medicine
Science Based Medicine
Science-Based Pharmacy
Science-Based Life
Drug Monkey

Genetics/Epigenetics
Bits of DNA
Code for Life

Vaccination/Disease
Skeptical Raptor’s blog
Shot of Prevention
The Poxes Blog

Other. . .
Inspiring Science
Double X Science
Bishop Blog

Not on wordpress:

Not Exactly Rocket Science Not only a lot of interesting articles on Biology, but a weekly roundup of interesting links. (You can also visit The Loom and Only Human from here, plus some others, but these three are my favorites.)
In The Pipeline Chemistry, but a lot of it related to Pharmaceuticals.
Skeptical Medicine A critical look at both conventional medicine and pseudoscience.
Scitable Nature Publishing Group’s educational site.

Aggregators:

Phys.org
Research Blogging
Science News (limited access for free, but still a lot of good science.)
Science Seeker (you can filter what you see by checking the subject boxes to the right.)

I’m always checking for new places, especially those that would be good for people who are not scientists, but want to understand. I’ll take suggestions for anything that’s not behind a paywall or too difficult for non-academics!

Wednesday Links

Wednesday Links

genebrain

Genetic research has a meaningful place in psychiatry, as a major study has just found out. Thomas Insel of the NIMH blogs about the impact of a study on schizophrenia and explains its importance. 108 gene regions, put together, show a significant increase in the risk for the condition, and with 37,000 affected participants and over a hundred thousand controls, this is pretty big. Thank goodness several hundred million dollars have just been donated to psychiatric research.

What is complex about complex disorders? A paper by Kevin Mitchell explains what’s involved in finding the genes that contribute to polygenic disorders like ” schizophrenia, autism, depression, asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, coronary artery disease, obesity, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and probably hundreds of other conditions”. Perhaps some of these will be discovered now that more funding is available!

Is “reductionism” in behavioral genetics a boon or curse? asks if and when reductionism is a bad thing. In behavioral genetics, most scientists are looking for complex genetics behind complex traits, but they need to be careful of how their public statements can be read. The author points out, “There is a difference between methodological reductionism, a tool, and philosophical reductionism, a guiding principle.”

Evan Thompson on core theories of neurophenomenology and time-consciousness opens, “Evan Thompson, one of the authors of 1991′s The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, in 2010 authored a sweeping, dare I say even magisterial, account of how science and philosophy should understand consciousness, embodiment, evolution, and neuroscience.” The piece that follows is brief but covers a lot of ground – and makes me interested in reading the book.

An interesting neurological phenomenon is auditory pareidolia – She’s Hearing Voices talks about this symptom that’s common in certain mental disorders and how even ordinary people can be prompted to hear things that aren’t there. In schizophrenia and OCD and certain types of depression and personality disorders, this may be a magnification of what is normally an adaptive trait, IMO.

Shakespeare, Vermeer, and the “Secrets” of Genius takes the almost revolutionary position that practice does not necessarily make perfect – sometimes you have to be born with talent.

Most of Us Still Don’t Get It: Addiction Is a Learning Disorder questions the idea that we have genes or areas in our brain that predispose us to certain addictions. I read it and thought that perhaps all addiction could be characterized as a salience disorder, because it takes the position that it’s a maladaptive state of a survival trait. Just read.

Wednesday Links

Wednesday Links

Sorry this is short. Time just got away from me. Enjoy!

Why all medical professionals need to study evolution. I think everyone should, period.

Excellent piece on gender disparities in the study of Autism by Virginia Hughes. This applies to ADHD, too, and it would be nice to see something this well-written on that.

Dorothy Bishop points out the shortcomings in a neuroimaging and genetics study, and in doing so, tells you some things you should be able to find in a good one.

Continuing on the potential pitfalls of neuroimaging studies, here’s a longread that explains in detail what happens when images are taken and analyzed for study. It should give you some perspective next time you see an article claiming that scientists have found something amazing in the brain that explains a huge chunk of cognition or emotion.

There was a scientific dust-up last week in which a journal had to retract a good number of papers because of problems with peer review. Nature suggests a double-blind system. Unfortunately, this isn’t much different from what’s supposed to be happening now, and it’s flawed. Nature even makes note of the bias in the current system, so I’m wondering why they are recommending this.

Kids who are raised by same-sex parents actually do pretty well.

Biodiversity is key to our survival. Scientific American shows us maps where biodiversity exists at high levels – right in the same spots that are threatened by global warming.

I love my pets, too, but this is kind of gross: