Words about science and hiking
Once in a while you see an idea that is both so brilliant and so obvious that you just have to smack your head and ask “Why has no one thought of this before? Why didn’t I think of it?”. There’s a general consensus that broad-spectrum antibiotics are over-used. The consequences are many and egregious: Read More …
Scientists show high levels of hostility aggression, and conscientiousness compared to the general population, at least according to psychologists. As a scientist and a manager of scientists, I agree but would add another trait: fear of failure. Science is supposedly distinguished from other forms of knowledge by falsifiability: if a statement cannot be disproven it Read More …
I’m always glad whenever I see a microbiology theme breach the moat of the NYT and make it on to their opinion page. But I usually end up disappointed once I actually read it. That’s the case with this call to biobank the world’s human gut microbiome. It’s far from the worst idea published this Read More …
Clinical research on phage therapy is somewhere between comatose and dead. A search through ClinicalTrials.gov reveals only a few sporadic attempts at bringing PT to the clinic. Many of these are Phase 1 safety/dosing trials which have no apparent follow-up: A 2008 P1 trial of PT for venous leg ulcers found no adverse events, but no difference in outcomes Read More …