Health literacy -- a crucial issue in health care

The Importance of Knowing What the Doctor Is Talking About - New York Times

This article by Jane Brody of the New York Times (a Cornell alum and very proud of it!) shows how critical "health literacy" is for good health, and gives some practical suggestions for how to ensure patients understand what their doctors tell them.

Are all journals equal?

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: Fossil Dealers Launch Research Journal -- Stokstad 315 (5810): 313 -- Science

In class, we've talked about different kinds of journals. Here's a story about a new journal that is controversial. Major fossil researchers say they will not publish research on fossils that are privately owned, because the fossils won't necessarily be available for others to study. Now the people who sell fossils to private collectors are starting their own journal, since many excellent fossils are in private hands. That leads to controversy about the control of knowledge, control of nature, trust in other scientists, etc. The articles gives a nice summary of the issues.

Interaction of popularizing and creating knowledge

WILLIAM K. HARTMANN PROFILE: Renaissance Man of the Solar System -- Kerr 315 (5810): 326 -- Science

This profile describes a scientist who helped developed our current understanding of how impacts (such as with comets and meteoriods) affect planetary surfaces (including, perhaps, the creation of the moon out of impact debris from the Earth). More interesting for this class, he is also a painter and popularizer, and describes his painting helps shape his SCIENTIFIC understanding of what's happening. "Hartmann sees a productive interaction between 'the painter's eye versus the scientist's eye.' For instance, sometimes he understands planetary photometry--the interaction of light and surface--'experientially' by noting how the color of a terrestrial dune he's painting changes with changing sun angle. And trying to paint an alien scene not yet visited by a lander 'forces you to ask what we actually know.' "

Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity - New York Times

Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity - New York Times

The story begins: " Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story."

Here's a great example...of something. The story itself is about science journalism, but of course it's also about the science itself. And it's about how scientific information flows. Notice especially the interaction between information in a scientific journal, information in a press release about the article in the scientific journal, and then the more public discussions that happen as a result.

The Cavendish Laboratory and structural biology (March 2003) - Physics World - PhysicsWeb

The Cavendish Laboratory and structural biology (March 2003) - Physics World - PhysicsWeb

Yes, it was the Cavendish where Watson and Crick did their DNA work. The link above gives a brief history of the lab and the work. Other related links:

The original DNA paper, with its famous "it has not escaped our notice..." ending. [link]

Who was Henry Cavendish? [link]

Superconductivity and the Y/Yb episode

Peers under pressure : Nature, Nature 413, 102-104 (13 September 2001) | doi:10.1038/35093252

As I mentioned in class today, the high-temperature-superconductivity case in the late 1980s involved a (probably deliberate) typographic error. The article above describes the incident in the context of a general discussion of peer review. The link below provides additional evidence.
[Letter to the editor elaborating on the Y/Yb episode, Nature 414, 393-394 (22 November 2001) | doi:10.1038/35106722]

Do You Believe in Magic? - New York Times

Do You Believe in Magic? - New York Times

We have a prelim scheduled for Friday, 13 April. I even made a comment about it being Friday the 13th in the syllabus. Now there's an article about how even scientists something think in superstitious ways!