Medical News Week

Somehow termites convert to wood into energy to power their festering hordes, and now a group of scientists and engineers–representing a consortium of government and corporate institutes–intends to learn how humans can do the same to power our Ipods. The November 22nd issue of the science journal Nature discusses this new, novel approach to producing biofuels.

Ok, ok, so power plants of the mid-2000s might not be filled to the brim with writhing piles of termites as implied by the title of this article, but it’s still kind of interesting. Really, the scientists are hoping to break down the wood-digesting microbes inside of termite’s stomachs, and sequence their genomes.

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One good reason to subscribe to the New York Times is that they have what I consider far above average science reporting for a newspaper. Their Tuesday Science Times section is a must read for me pretty much every week. Over the last three weeks I’ve been keeping track of the stories that were run in Tuesday’s science section. By my count, three weeks ago there were two stories which might be considered as articles about physics, one of which the categorization is a stretch (swarm models have been studied by physicists, but I doubt many physicists would consider this physics), and since two weeks ago, not a single article on physics has appeared. So the question is whether the reason for this is (1) not much is happening in physics that is newsworthy, (2) physics is, after many years of being hailed as achieving great public relations, losing its public relations touch, (3) biology and medicine are much more important, interesting, and newsworthy, (4) the New York Times hates physics, physicists, and even physicist’s children, or (5) none of the above?

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The first half of Maryland’s 69-61 win over Illinois was as ugly a half of basketball as you’d ever want to see. It actually resembled our lunchtime pick-up games in some ways– lots of really clever passes being throw to guys who weren’t ready, weren’t able to catch the ball, or just weren’t on the same team as the guy throwing the ball. Basketball is a simple game, and when you complicate it unnecessarily, it gets ugly, fast.

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The term “radical” is a very loose term. It basically means “something that differs wildly from the consensus” in ordinary usage. So I hope David Williams and Malte Ebach won’t take offense if I say that they have a radical interpretation of the nature of classification. In a couple of recent posts - one on Adolf Naef, and one on Molecular Systematics - they have presented some views on classification that do, indeed, differ from the received consensus. So, I need to blather a bit…

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common type of arthritis. On the other hand, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is recognized as the most crippling or disabling form of arthritis. How do OA and RA differ? What causes OA and RA? What symptoms point to OA or RA? How is OA and RA diagnosed? How is OA and RA treated? Read about the significant differences between the two arthritic conditions in Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis - What’s the Difference?

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Black cohosh is an herb used for hot flashes, mood swings, night sweats, and other symptoms that can occur during menopause as well as for other conditions affecting women. Learn more about what black cohosh is and about the possible side effects and safety concerns. What is Black Cohosh?

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Our alternative sponsor for November (arriving very late in the month) is a Tom Meyer cartoon.

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