Science Journalism

Antibiotics were discovered in the twentieth century just prior to the start of WWII. Fortunately, the discovery of penicillin allowed Allied forces to leapfrog successfully from battle to battle without suffering significant losses. Post-WWII medicine ultimately rose to pinnacles of success by nearly eliminating bacterial infections. The reasons for their eventual diminishing potency is due to a multi-faceted resistance that follow the laws of evolution. One of the truly misunderstood aspects of anti-biotic resistance is the role of human-mediated evolution. Evolution for all of its misunderstandings will never change-- it is up to the individual to change their behavior to avert complete disasters that await us from total anti-biotic resistance. So, the first lesson? What is evolution... Evolution What does it mean? Evolution isn't just a theory--it is fact. The misnomer of facts as theories is sloppy thinking. Firstly, how do we change perceptions of facts versus theories?  Roug...

The earth's stewardship is the foundation that our progeny will judge us. Our stewardship will determine how the climate affects large swaths of the earth's population. The earth's climate, in recent years, has undergone changes that many experts could not have foreseen.  However, certain experts have recognized the implied issues behind a climate change for number of decades. At the birth of the environmental movement, think tanks like the The Club of Rome analyzed energy consumption and trends. Their pronouncements were published in a book, The Limits to Growth. The dire consequences predicted circa 1976 were delayed.  However, ecological challenges were exacerbated by the rampant disregard of ec stem changes iOne The arctic will have shipping lanes for all of the year--the winters in the Northern Hemisphere of the Americas subject the people of the USA to 'a polar vortex.' The extraordinary amount of extra ice and cold have brutalized parts of the USA. What is un...

 Once again the medicinal chemists make headway in treating COVID. Pfizer is said to have an oral treatment drug in Phase I clinical trials. The lead molecule was initially found in 2003. [Lead molecules are those drug candidates that showed promise in the laboratory setting.] Pfizer was said to have discovered it for the SARS outbreak almost twenty years ago. The present candidate molecule is said to attach (form an irreversible bond) to COVID enzymes responsible for reproduction in the host. It effectively shuts down the virus. Indirectly quoting from Chemical and Engineering News, scientists expect the COVID virus to stick around. How long? It is unknown. When a sizable number of the population refuses to ‘mask up,’ we could face an extended amount of time fighting the virus.  According to the article from Chemical and Engineering News, Charlotte Allerton from Pfizer’s medicine  design,   ‘“For the foreseeable future, we will expect to see continued outbreaks from...

Jesus Christ said you will find me among the dispossessed and outcasts of society. For anyone who has spent anytime with a homeless person—at times, you would be very hard pressed to see the ‘face of Christ.’ These are people—plain, ordinary people. Mother Teresa of Calcutta spent decades among the poor in India. It has been said she, at times, would fall into despair over the fact that she was overwhelmed.  I, presently, live in an area with a lot of poor and indigent people. When I say my heart bleeds—it is no lie. There are so many times when I can’t do a thing. At those times there is quite a bit of despair, and you realize these people may be mentally ill or unstable.  It has been awhile since a law was passed that gave the right to a mentally ill person to refuse their medications— it is in my estimation absolutely wrong. While being overwhelmed with prescriptions is cruel—there are some medications that would leave many people catatonic. These souls would essentially sl...

 Methane (natural gas) is found on Mars. The unusual aspect of it— there’s no scientific consensus for reasons for its presence. The first hint of methane came in 1976– the Viking landers detected methane’s presence during the landing of the spacecraft. At that time, however, NASA mission specialists couldn’t pin down origins. There was little fanfare made of its presence— was it an instrument error or earthly contamination? Many scientists now believe Martian methane is based on Martian seasonal cycles. [I first learned of Martian methane by reading the seminal book on the technique of mass spectrometry—its primary author is a pioneer in the field mass spectrometry, Fred McLafferty Ph.D. Professor McLafferty went on record by posting the NASA data from the Viking mission in his book. He stated the peaks from the instrumental read-out were from Methane—but stopped short of declaring the presence of Martian methane from the Red Planet. It was a dicey call in my opinion but sparked t...

 Sometime in the early-to-mid twentieth century there existed a Movie Studio named 20th Century Fox. It produced many hit movies. Some fifty years later, a billionaire bought the corporation and turned it into what many see as a folksy and all too chummy media conglomerate known as Fox News, Sports, and etc, etc, etc.  It has a lot of appeal. The anchors appear approachable and rather polished. They seem so approachable that some would believe they could double as family members. That last sentence is the crux of the problem. These individuals really shouldn’t interject their ‘so-called personal opinions’ into public narrative. Most would not want to be anyone else's family. I sound cruel but it is the truth. While most people are genuinely good (and don't get me wrong, many of the anchors and employees at Fox are good people). However, there is a corporate agenda that seems to cater to those in power -- especially the conservatives.  It is unprofessional and people (good...

Many of us pin our hopes on future events that are out of our control. Oftentimes, the events we can't control never had a chance in any other universe --even in those universes we could imagine.  What am I driving at? The world has changed quite a bit since the start of the world pandemic -- the freedoms that seemed immutable at the start of 2020 may never return. Travel to other countries may be predicated on proof of immunization-- and worse yet, not all vaccines are created equal. The present Johnson & Johnson vaccine is being held back until enough data can address the issue of potential blood clots. The clotting, for the most part, occurs in women of child bearing age. Pharmaceutical companies are slowly positioning themselves with newer COVID drugs and vaccines -- in the hopes that life can return to something resembling normalcy. The pharmaceutical giants hope to not lose their profitable edge by having their scientists throw the kitchen sink at the problem. In a previo...