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monorealism.com
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MonoBlog - Philosophical Commentary
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A Theist Review
I came across an interesting review of The Australian Book of Atheism recently, from a Catholic perspective by Frank Mobbs. The review is thoughtful (he actually read the book!) but naturally critical. My fellow contributors can answer for themselves, but the … Continue reading →
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Yay for Us!
At school we learn about the epochs of geological time where for whatever reason, the character of the Earth changes: the Cambrian, the Jurassic, the Pleistocene etc. Some scientists are now saying that we have entered a new epoch, the … Continue reading →
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Life Extension Progress
Two recent advances have brought life extension closer to reality. First, on the cloning front, scientists have finally succeeded in generating viable human embryonic stem cells from cloned cells (nuclear transfer). There is a way to go yet as the … Continue reading →
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Rational Rioting
A recent Scientific American article on the British riots claimed that “contrary to popular wisdom, mobs are not mindless. In fact, they act rationally—a characteristic that suggests ways to prevent riots.” If you go through the reasoning, what it amounts … Continue reading →
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Suicides, iPhones and Numbers
A recent New Scientist article mentioned the problem the company that makes Apple’s iPhones etc had a while ago, where they got into trouble because of a “spate” of suicides among their workers, blamed, of course, on the company. It went on … Continue reading →
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Scientific Myopia
Science reports: Figuring Out What the Debt Agreement Means for Science As the ink dried last week on the hard-fought budget agreement between the Obama Administration and Congress that raised the U.S. debt ceiling to avert a government default, federal … Continue reading →
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Zincfinger
An essential for gene repair that fixes the problem without corrupting other genes (possibly causing cancer) is targeting the repair to the specific gene with the problem. We’ve already seen the use of “zinc finger” nucleases to repair blood mutations in … Continue reading →
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A Small World
Scientists have developed the technology to analyse gene expression in hundreds of individual cells in parallel. Technical details: it uses microfluidic devices to integrate single-cell processing and RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction). Dr. Hansen foresees the technology will have widespread applciations … Continue reading →
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Stem Cell Victory
Good news on the stem cell front, a US judge has finally ruled that federal funding for research with human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is legal. Two scientists, of all people, had sued on the grounds that funding the research … Continue reading →
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First Stem-Cell-Organ Transplant
Well, it’s just a tooth, but a tooth is actually a complex organ and it is an exciting first for scientists to have implanted a tooth made from stem cells into a mouse, where it integrated, survived and functioned pretty … Continue reading →
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