Lost in the media crush of celebrity worshipers extolling or criticizing actress Angelina Jolie for her op-ed on opting to have a double mastectomy was the science factoid that trumps everything else:99% of women do not have the BRCA1 mutation. The BRCA1 mutation is a very bad thing, it represents a gigantic increase in the chances of getting breast or ovarian...
read moreIt’s cheaper for an individual in Cuba to buy an air-conditioner overseas and pay to ship it to Cuba. People don’t want to buy them from corrupt, government-controlled stores and pay the far higher cost. The government put a stop to that by claiming those things used too much electricity and buying them from anyone but a state-run store has been illegal since 2005. But they have given...
read moreIf spending is the metric, Canadian research is in trouble.Of course, if spending is the metric, American Democrats hate science a lot more than American Republicans do, but you'd have a hard time getting science media to acknowledge that. Still, spending is at least one metric.
read moreFred Astaire is, of course, beyond compare. As a dancer, he had already set the bar for everyone and then he set it a lot higher when he appeared in 1951's "Royal Wedding" at age 52. Echoing a Voodoo shaman, he animated what most of us regard as inanimate and poked a little fun at younger competitor Gene Kelly in the process when he danced with a hat rack the way only a genius can.(1) But he...
read moreNext month, the US and Europe would like to make some progress in tearing down trade barriers, an archaic notion left over from the Colonial period in history.(1)Special trade agreements with blocs, like The Hanseatic League of the 12th century, were always common, but restrictions enjoyed a popularity boom after the collapse of the East India Trade Company in 1799 became the poster child for the...
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