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For years now, I've been following the story of the bioprecipitative relationship between bacteria and rain. There's increasing evidence that rain is not a purely physical process—that it occurs in tandem with, or perhaps because of, the behaviors of vast bacterial colonies. It's possible that rainfall occurs when and where it does because that's when and where bacteria choose to spread, linking the cloud ecosystem to the land ecosystem to the ocean ecosystem to the freshwater ecosystem. The evidence right now is too limited to draw such a conclusion, but there's also nothing ruling it out, and that's a pretty amazing possibility.
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Pfizer took in nearly a billion dollars on Bextra, a drug that they illegally marketed for uses for which they couldn't prove it had any benefit. But in 2007, the Bush administration decided not to file any charges against Pfizer. Why? Because companies convicted of major health care fraud cannot take part in Medicare or Medicaid. They're too big to charge. So, instead, they allowed Pfizer to create a shell corporation for the explicit purpose of filing charges against. The shell corporation was convicted and barred from taking part in Medicare…not that it ever had, or would. Pfizer paid out just over a billion dollars in fines, basically making the whole thing a wash. That'll show 'em.
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I've been wondering why the Smithsonian is named the Smithsonian. It's named for James Smithson, who established it with a bequest. Smithson was a mineralogist, chemist, and apparently a clever businessman, since he was worth a fortune as of his 1829 death. His money was to go to "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men" in Washington DC, despite that he had never been to the United States.
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As if synesthesia weren't already adequately amazing, there's also a form pertaining to the passage of time. Time synesthetes map time as space, and perceive the movement of time as having particular shapes and positions relative to their own bodies. I guess it's no coincidence that David Hockney, Richard Feynman, Duke Ellington, and Richard D. James are all synesthetes.
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Yet another study that shows that we enjoy experiences more than stuff. Taking a trip makes us happy at the time, and that happiness actually increases over time. Buying an object makes us happy at first, but it fades fast. But I'm still buying an iPad.
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I'm so relieved to see this court decision. Previously, people were allowed to patent human genes. Which is just crazy. Women who worry that they're genetically predisposed to breast cancer could only have those genes tested by one company—the patent holder—because that company would sue any other company that dared test for the same gene. And if you want a second opinion? You're out of luck. Judge Robert Sweet has ruled that it's totally illogical to patent something that was created by nature. The bizarre thing is that it took this long, and that it even required a court. Are patent examiners really so foolish?
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This group is calling for university alumni magazines to suck less. Yes, please. Virginia Tech's alumni magazine is bad, although probably no worse than any other alumni magazine. I should really look forward to it. That should be one of my favorite magazines. Instead, I have to goad myself into reading the thing. UMagazinology's proposals for improvement sound like a solid star.
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You should take a trip to buy your iPad somewhere fun.
I posted this in the thread below on accident since I was commenting on one of the stories there. For the sake of organization, copy/paste:
And the rainmaking bacteria, it’s interesting, but as the article states, a lot more research needs to go into it. Similarly, we know dust/sand storms redeposit sand particulate across the globe. I would imagine bacteria adhere to that particulate. But the thought that the bacteria is driving the water cycle? I don’t know.
I, for one, welcome our new, stratospheric, bacterial Overlords.
I can’t believe I missed that golden opportunity to work in a seminal Simpsons reference. Jay wins. :)
Probably I don’t win. I don’t watch TV and have never seen the Simpsons. I did not know the cultural reference, I just have always liked that phrase since I first heard it. Odd how TV permeates culture even if you don’t watch it.
So why did Smithson pick the US? That seems so odd in the modern era. Maybe it was because we were still cleaning up the mess from that rematch with the British. “Here’s a nice sum to build a school in your charred Capital, sorry for the hassles”