Posts in category Biology

Feb 26, 2018 in Biology, Ethics, Literature, Philosophy

Book Review: The Righteous Mind

I - Summary

The Righteous Mind follows an argument structure I learned in high school debate club. It tells you what it’s going to tell you, it tells you it, then it reminds you what it told you. This made it a really easy read and a welcome break from The Origins of Totalitarianism, the other book I’ve been reading. Practically the very first part of The Righteous Mind proper (after the foreword) is an introduction to its first metaphor.

Imagine an elephant and a rider. They have travelled together since their birth and move as one. The elephant doesn’t say much (it’s an elephant), but the rider is very vocal – for example, she’s quick to apologize and explain away any damage the elephant might do. A casual observer might think the rider is in charge, because she is so much cleverer and more talkative, but that casual...

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Jan 28, 2018 in Advice, All About Me, Biology

Not Making That Mistake Again: A Quick Dive Into Vegetarian Nutrition

The first time I tried vegetarianism, I ended up deficient in B12. Since then, I’ve realized just how bad vitamin B12 deficiency is (hint: it can cause irreversible neural damage) and resolved to get it right this time.

I’m currently eating no meat, very little milk, almost no eggs, and a fair amount of cheese. I consider clams, oysters, and mussels to be morally (if not taxonomically) vegetables, but am too lazy to eat them regularly. To figure out what this diet put me at risk for, I trolled PubMed1 until I found a recent article arguing for a vegan diet, then independently checked their nutritional recommendations.

Based on this, I’ve made a number of changes to my diet. I now take two vitamins in the morning and a slew of supplements in sugar-free...

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May 13, 2017 in Biology, Politics

Medicine, the Inside View, and Historical Context

If you don’t live in Southern Ontario or don’t hang out in the skeptic blogosphere, you will probably have never heard the stories I’m going to tell today. There are two of, both about young Ontarian girls. One story has a happier ending than the other.

First is Makayla Sault. She died two years ago, from complications of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She was 11. Had she completed a full course of chemotherapy, there is a 75% chance that she would be alive today.

She did not complete a full course of chemotherapy.

Instead, after 12-weeks of therapy, she and her parents decided to seek so-called “holistic” treatment at the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, as well as traditional indigenous treatments. . This decision killed her. With chemotherapy, she had a good chance of surviving. Without it…

There is no traditional wisdom that offers anything against cancer. There is no...

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Aug 18, 2016 in Biology, Falsifiable, Science

Skepticism About X-Risk: Viruses and Prions Edition

There are a lot of living things that are quite good at killing humans. Tigers, anthrax, lions, cows, bears, and other people do away with thousands of us each year.

There are a few non-living things that are also quite good at offing us. Good old water manages to take quite a few. In good years, we don’t lose anyone to the nerve gasses sarin or VX (Unfortunately, the last few years haven’t been good ones in that regard).

What about those liminal critters though? Viruses and prions aren’t really alive in the traditional sense. They can replicate, they can even evolve, but they lack the hallmarks of life, foremost among them the ability to reproduce. Both of them find ways to hijack the machinery of living organisms and use them for their own ends.

These self-replicating patterns and their potential to wipe us out are the subject of this...

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