Monthly Archives: February 2010

test tube babies

Last weekend I wrote a blog post for ScienceNOW about whether “test tube” babies are healthy. Answer: Basically, yes, but the oldest one is only 31, so there’s no way to know about health effects that show up later in … Continue reading

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research vessel tourist

On Thursday, I met up with Brandi Murphy, one of the technicians on my icebreaker trip in the Bering Sea last year. Brandi works for the University of California – San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She’s at their Nimitz … Continue reading

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la brea blog

Check it out – a blog about the excavations at La Brea tar pits, by one of the paleontologists working on it. (I was there the other day.)

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museum tourist: getty center

I stuck around in Los Angeles for an extra night to see the Getty Center. It’s an art museum. It’s on a hill. It didn’t rock my world, maybe because of the sporadic rain, or maybe because nothing could measure … Continue reading

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museum tourist: la brea tar pits

I’ve been hearing about the La Brea tar pits forever, so I was pretty darn excited when a friend suggested we go see them while I was in Los Angeles. The tar pits were – are – naturally-occurring tar seeps … Continue reading

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music, language, and the brain

Yesterday I went to a session at the AAAS meeting about the links between music, language, and the brain. I was particularly impressed by a study on Musical Intonation Therapy. Sometimes people who have had their speech knocked out by … Continue reading

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southern california

It’s kind of lame being in a conference center all day, but I can’t really complain when the way to the press room has views like this:

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science of superheroes

I started the AAAS meeting right Friday morning by going to a session on the science of superheroes. A couple of scientists were joined by two writers from the TV show Heroes and one of the screenwriters on the movie … Continue reading

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museum tourist: san diego natural history

Every year during the AAAS meeting, there’s an evening reception where some big science journalism awards are presented. This year, the reception was Friday night at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. I caught the first shuttle … Continue reading

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get your meteorites right here

For something I’m writing, I needed to double-check that you can buy meteorites (or pieces of meteorites) on eBay. Of course, I turned to Google. Look at the shopping results: –> Note that they’re all used meteorites. What do you … Continue reading

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