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I spent my entire research career working on animals. In this case, the animals were Drosophila melanogaster, or “fruit flies.” I dissected tens of thousands of larval salivary glands because their giant polytene chromosomes afforded a relatively high resolution map of the genome. I made over 100 transgenic lines to gain insight into gene function. I screened tens of thousands of flies in mutagenesis screens to identify mutations that answered questions about genetics. And of course, much of my research rested on a literature of science using flies. Now I understand that some folks consider flies to be vermin. Their status as invertebrates places them beneath the notice of the NIH rules on animal care. But much of our lifesaving vaccines, drugs, devices and surgical techniques relied on research using vertebrate models, rodents and primates in particular. Yes, I know we’ve cured cancer in mice hundreds of times in ways that didn’t translate to cancer in humans. But I wouldn’t take a va...

Musk’s Tesla brand is becoming toxic. The unsold cyber trucks are accumulating in large lots. Sales of Tesla sedans have slumped, partly because Musk himself is a toxic brand and partly because of competition. Looks like Musk is crying “uncle.” “Elon Musk, who turned an upstart electric vehicle maker into an industry-changing powerhouse, is pulling the plug on the two models that helped get him there, as he struggles with another quarter of declining profits and car sales. “He announced the end of production of two models – the Model S and Model X, among the company’s most expensive models, on a Wednesday earnings call. Instead, the company will use that factory space to build humanoid robots instead. “ And he seemed to suggest that selling electric vehicles, which Tesla helped to introduce to the global mass market, would soon be an afterthought for the company.” Musk says Tesla will pivot to robotaxis: “Musk predicted the Cybercab, a two-seat self-driving “robotaxi” vehicle with no s...

There’s certainly some Schadenfreude to be had by the underbussing of Gestapo Greg Bovino, but he’s just one ring in the ever-mutating three-ring circus that is the Trump Administration. As David Kurtz over at TPM cogently observes: “But Bovino, while a problem, is not   the   problem. Stephen Miller, while a stain on American history, is a mere henchman. Switch out Bovino and Miller and Kristi Noem and whoever else is most deserving of your repugnance, and you’re still left with a mad king in the White House, who replaces Bovino in Minnesota with new muscle: the villainous Tom Homan.   “In Donald Trump’s reality-TV addled brain, his underlings are merely a rotating cast of characters. He gloms on to some of them very hard, but they are all expendable. Once their plot line runs its course, Trump is on to the next hook. He’s not invested in them or a particular plot point or in anything really. He’s looking for the next spectacle, the next distraction, the next provocation...

I’m opposed to allowing private citizens to carry guns in public unless they are hunting on public land. The 2 nd  amendment explicitly links “bearing arms” (nobody “bears arms” into a 7-11) to membership in a well regulated militia, Antonin Scalia notwithstanding. If you believe you need a gun to protect yourself in your own home, fine. I’m also opposed to concealed carry. If we’re going to allow people to carry, it should be conspicuous carry. All civilian firearms should be orange, the same orange as a hunter’s vest, so I can spot them from a distance and avoid the company of ammosexual amateurs. Alex Pretti was packing legally. He had a concealed carry license. He was the proverbial “good guy with a gun.” But he was murdered by the government, giving the lie to the juvenile notion that guns in the hands of civilians will stop government oppression.  The NRA and other gun manufacturer lobby organizations have long defended the proliferation of deadly force under the control...

It looks like senators who voted to end the last shutdown are lining up for another government shutdown on 30 January unless DHS funding is stripped from the minibus bill, or unless major changes in ICE practices are codified in law. Stripping funding is meaningless: “ . . . if the government or DHS shuts down, ICE will keep running. That’s because of an unprecedented $75 billion boost in funding the agency received from Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed unilaterally last year.” What are Democrats doing? “Democrats who oppose the funding bill include several centrists who voted to end last year’s government shutdown, the longest in history. “The abuses of power we are seeing from ICE in Minneapolis and across the country are un-American and cannot be normalized,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), one of eight Senate  Democrats  who sided with  Republicans  in reopening the federal government in November, said in a statement on Saturday. “No one wa...

If you look up the word “eccentric” in the dictionary, you’ll see an image of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Not just because he performed sitting on a sawed-off chair with his eyes nearly level with the keyboard and with a flat-fingered style. Not just because, like Keith Jarrett, he would sometimes vocalize while playing. No, it was mainly because of his iconoclastic interpretations. I have his notorious 1956 recording of the Goldberg Variations. I’m not sufficiently versed in Bach performance style to critique the recording, but it has certainly elicited strong reactions among the Bach performance critics. I also have Keith Jarrett’s harpsichord recording. I like them both for different reasons. I’ve owned an LP recording of Book 1 by Anthony Newman and Book 2 by Wanda Landowska. Both are harpsichord performances. Of the two recordings, the Landowska is by far the most eccentric—not only because of her decidedly romantic stylings, but because it’s performed on a Pleyel instrument...

ICE murdered an ICU nurse in cold blood. I would love to see ICE completely defunded and disbanded. Do we need immigration and customs enforcement? Sure. But this program isn’t doing that. It’s simply being used by the Trump Administration as a provocation to justify martial law. At the end of January 2026, the only lever of power Democrats have against the lawless Trump administration is the budget. But even if it were possible to line item veto the ICE budget, it would make no difference. “ Top Democratic appropriators who will support the package argue that a shutdown triggered by opposition to ICE would not actually stop ICE operations, but would instead hurt other agencies and programs funded under the DHS bill, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Disaster Relief Fund, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and more.   “ICE received $75 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In the event of a lapse in funding, ICE w...

My dad, an MIT-trained chemical engineer, was a practical man. He was scornful of efforts to rescue cats out of trees. His response was: “Look around; how many cat skeletons do you see in trees.” Setting aside the merits of the cat rescue argument, the larger point is to use critical thinking to assess whether ambient reality justifies your fears. In the case of vaccine safety conspiracy theories—vaccines kill or cause RFK Jr voice—the fact is that billions of humans all over the planet have been vaccinated. So where are the bodies? How come everybody I meet—including me—doesn’t have the creaky RFK Jr voice? Look, vaccines ± thimerosal and ± aluminum adjuvants have been given to billions of humans by now. Hundreds of millions of pregnant women have taken acetaminophen during pregnancy. If these things cause autism, everybody you know, including you, would be autistic. Can I “prove” that vaccines *can’t* cause autism or JFK Jr voice? No, I can’t. But that’s the wrong question.  (a) ...

RFK Jr sounds weird. I don’t mean his ideas about vaccines and contagious disease. I mean that when he vocalizes, it sounds . . . creaky. RFK Jr has a condition called “spasmodic dysphonia.” It’s known to have a genetic component. But this is RFK Jr, so of course he blames vaccines. “In an interview with the outlet, Kennedy said he took annual flu shots until the mid-1990s, then stopped in 2005 "when I began looking at the side effects."   "I was preparing litigation against some of the flu shots several years ago and one of the entries that was listed on a lot of them was spasmodic dysphonia, which is an injury I have to my voice. That's why my voice is so screwed up," Kennedy said.   "That turns out to be a vaccine injury," he continued. "Do I know it was caused by the annual flu shot? I have no idea."   “When pressed by the interviewer, who asked if he suspected it was caused by the vaccine, he said it's "a possibility."   ...

I still see folks claiming that Congress “stole” Social Security, that SS is a Ponzi scheme and that SS is bankrupt or will be soon. All myths. Here are some core truths about SS that everyone needs to know. • SS is separate from the general fund. SS doesn’t affect the federal deficit or national debt. Those who claim we must cut SS in order to balance the budget are lying; • By law, unexpended SS taxes must be invested in US treasuries. That means that, just like your passbook savings account, the money isn’t sitting around in a box, nor has it been “stolen.” Treasuries are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government;   • There is no account with your SS payments in it, like your savings account or your 401k. Your SS payments were/are being used to pay the benefits of current retirees. Future taxpayers will pay for your retirement. Thus has it ever been;   • Your SS benefit is calculated based on the top 35 earning years. If you haven’t paid in for 35 years by th...

If you want to understand Donald Trump, follow the money. That includes foreign policy. Kidnap the president of Venezuela for the oil. Take over Greenland for the minerals. And Gaza? Certainly not for the Palestinians or Israel. “Countries on   Donald Trump ’s “Board of Peace” for   Gaza   will be asked to contribute $1 billion in order to keep their membership for more than 3 years, according to reports.     "Each Member State shall serve a term of no more than three years from this Charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the Chairman," a draft document first reported by   Bloomberg News   shows.   “It adds that the three-year term “shall not apply to Member States that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first year of the Charter.” Where does this billion dollars/country go?   “ The draft also reportedly suggests that Trump would control the money himself.” So it’s not about peace...

In an effort to extort Greenland from Denmark, Trump has ordered a 10% tariff on goods from EU nations that have opposed the US expropriation effort beginning in February. He has threatened to raise that to 25% if they don’t capitulate. A couple of points: • The tariffs are mostly a nothingburger for EU economies: “ At face value, a 10% tariff rising to 25% would have minimal economic consequences, Capital Economics chief economist Neil Shearing said in a note Sunday, estimating they would reduce GDP in the targeted NATO economies by 0.1-0.3 percentage points and add 0.1-0.2 points to U.S. inflation.” • Europe owns a lot of treasuries, which helps keep America’s debt service low. “European countries own $8 trillion of US bonds and equities, almost twice as much as the rest of the world combined,” Saravelos pointed out. “In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play th...

While Elon was out slashing jobs and programs, Trump and his family continued to grift on the taxpayer dime. Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago alone have cost millions this year alone. Imagine the government efficiency if he was forced to live in the White House! Then, there are the bills racked up by his family. “The documentation does not specify which hotel the agency has booked, but   taxpayers laid out nearly $28,000   for [Eric Trump’s] Secret Service detail to stay at the Trump-owned property while accompanying him to Doonbeg on a 2017 business trip. When President Trump visited Doonbeg in 2019, his hotel   billed the Secret Service more than $10,000   for agents’ lodging during the two-day trip, and that same year   charged taxpayers over $15,000   to house then-VP Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail for two nights.   “Eric   once claimed   that the family business let the Secret Service stay at their hotels for free or at cost. However, ...

The privileged elitists on Trump’s cabinet can’t help themselves. They broadcast how, like Trump himself, they’re out of touch. “ Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made waves this week with claims that the Trump administration’s   revamped food pyramid   leaves plenty of room for Americans to maintain a healthy diet for as little as $3 a meal.   “In an interview Wednesday with News Nation, Rollins said her agency came up with plenty of low-cost meals that conform with the new dietary guidelines, which call for Americans to eat more red meat and butter, and less processed food. “Are we asking them to spend more on their diet? And the answer to that is no.”   “She said the agency ran “over 1,000 simulations” and found that “it can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, a corn tortilla and one other thing.” How big a “piece.” What is “one other thing?” Here’s a reality check: “ “Is it possible to cook one healthy meal for $3? Yes...

“ President Donald Trump said he intends to sign an executive order that would give an exclusive four-hour broadcast television window to the Army-Navy Game. “Under my Administration, the second Saturday in December belongs to Army-Navy, and ONLY Army-Navy!” he wrote on Truth Social Saturday. “I will soon sign a Historic Executive Order securing an EXCLUSIVE 4 hour Broadcast window, so this National Event stands above Commercial Postseason Games. No other Game or Team can violate this Time Slot!!!” Oh, honestly. Why is the Trump nanny state seizing control of football broadcasting? Look, I’ve never seen an Army-Navy football game, either in person or on tee-vee. But I’m fine with people who enjoy that sort of thing. Why does the POTUS need to commandeer broadcast time to support a form of entertainment? Could he be soliciting bribes from competing sports networks? https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/18/business/trump-plans-executive-order-army-navy-game-broadcast/  

Two “deadlines” have come and gone for the SCOTUS to rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s tariffs. Meanwhile, Trump is throwing brush-back pitches. He bleated on social media: “ "If the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!" So the tariffs aren’t to enforce fair trade practices, they’re a “National Security bonanza?” What does that even mean? Since when was national security about bonanzas? “ The court heard arguments in early November. Both conservative- and liberal-leaning justices asked skeptical questions of the method by which the president imposed his most sweeping duties. Trump imposed his tariffs by invoking a 1977 law meant for national emergencies.” A favorable outcome in a national emergency isn’t a bonanza. A bonanza is a windfall profit. Trump is admitting that his intention was money-making, not national security. Look, if the SCOTUS overturns the national emergency justification, it will b...

The Islamist Republic of Iran is in deep doo-doo, much of its own making. It has few allies among the Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. Recently, internal dissent has led to street protests and a violent state response. Now, Trump proposes to attack Iran to promote regime change. It’s unlikely to work. US attacks will allow the Ayatollahs to rally Iranians to their government. Hermann Goering understood this: “ Naturally the common people don't want war . . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” And not just for Hitler and Nazi Germany. It worked for Stalin to deflect from the failures and violence of Bolshevis...

I just finished reading “Zbig:   The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet” by Edward Luce. Brzezinski was born in Poland between WWI and WWII, but he spent most of his life in North America, first in Canada and then in the US, where he eventually became a citizen. He was very successful as a scholar and academic, but the lure of practicing international politics drew him into government. Much of this book is taken up with the Carter years.  Brzezinski was Carter’s national security advisor, and the two men held a life-long admiration for one another. With the Cold War, the decline of the Soviet Union, the Arab-Israeli conflicts and the Iranian revolution, there was no shortage of challenges.   The first presidential election I voted in was in 1976 when I was in college. While Watergate and the Vietnam war drove my personal interest in American politics, my formal training in world history and government was weak. So, while I was aware Brzenzinski, I ...

Look, here's the thing about money: it isn't real. It's all about belief and trust. I've been invested in equities and money markets for over 40 years. I've ridden the ups and downs. Money means what people say it means, neither more nor less.   Alfred North Whitehead coined the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness." He was referring to the reification of abstract concepts. That fallacy applies to money and property (libertarians notwithstanding).   So, the big reason that Trump's attacks on Powell and the Fed are dangerous is because they will call attention to the fallacy that the Fed and its objects of concern are concrete. They aren't.    The dollar emperor has no clothes. Once the world stops believing in the dollar, it will cease to be the world's reserve currency. The treasury will have to stop minting money with computer key clicks. The borrowing rate for the national debt will increase. International investors will turn to the euro. And ...

The anti-vaxxers and anti-climate change fanatics treat science like it’s a religious orthodoxy. Like they’re the Protestants fighting the Roman Catholic Church. Scientist here. That’s not how it works. Science is based on facts and evidence. Science doesn’t deal in proof; it deals in the weight of evidence. It certainly doesn’t rest on the assertions of long-dead iron age authors. Scientists are eager consumers of new evidence. We thrive on debate. Got data to disprove anthropogenic climate change? Share it. If you’re right, you’ll be in line for a Nobel Prize in Physics. Got evidence that mRNA vaccines kill? Share it. Show us where those hundreds of millions of bodies are buried. The trials would make the Nurenburg trials look like a picnic. In science, you gotta bring the evidence. Just being a podcaster with tens of thousands of subscribers doesn’t confer scientific authority.  Wanna play in the science sandbox? Bring the data. Science isn’t based on how noisy you are, it’s bas...

According to press reports, the Trump Administration is considering military attacks on Iran. This act of war, like all wars, is likely to have unintended consequences. The myth is that such foreign attacks free domestic opposition to topple the regime (see, e.g., the Bay of Pigs). More often, they only serve to rally citizen support for the home government.   Like nearly everything else the Trump regime undertakes, the US appropriation of Venezuelan oil also looks to have unintended consequences. As Iran’s government struggles under the weight of sanctions, high inflation, internal oppression, a weak economy and climate change, it looks like the diversion of Venezuelan oil could help bail out the ayatollahs, at least for the short term. “ Siyi Liu and Florence Tan at Reuters   report that since Trump plans on diverting 2 million barrels a day of Venezuelan petroleum to the United States, the former buyer, China, will need to replace it. Most likely, it will replace it from Ir...

Things were looking grim for federally funded science earlier this year: • Trump proposed an overall cut in science funding from $198 to $154 billion, a reduction of 22% that would have been the largest reduction in federal science spending since World War II: • Trump proposed that the National Science Foundation budget be slashed from $8.8 billion to $3.9 billion, a drop of 56%. Now, it looks like the House and Senate are converging on a far more modest reduction in science spending. “So far, the House’s moves on this year’s science budgeting add up to an estimated total of $185 billion -- close to the Senate figure of $188 billion, and putting the two chambers not far apart for negotiations on a final budget.” Of course, Trump could veto the budget, but that would almost certainly lead to another unpopular government shutdown. It should be mentioned that that the effects of even modest budget cuts are magnified by the effects of inflation. So, two cheers instead of three. St...

I grew up Roman Catholic at the time of Vatican II. I do remember Latin mass with the priest facing the altar, but only a few years later, the mass was being said in English and the priest was facing the congregation. My church held a series of presentations from representatives of other faiths: Protestant (I don’t recall which denominations), Jewish, Muslim and Hindu. Ecumenism and tolerance were in the air. I don’t recall any intolerant words among the Catholics I knew until I attended mass at UT-Knoxville. During mass, someone offered a prayer for the Catholic Church’s ministry to gays, and afterwards, a woman in the music group expressed outrage. I found this odd, since Jesus was silent on the topic of homosexuality. That marked the beginning of my awareness of an intolerant, right-wing strain of Catholicism. It only took another couple of years, early in grad school, when I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t really believe in Church teaching, I only was going to mass out of h...

  A pediatrician’s thoughts on the new vaccine schedule The other day, I was getting my semi-annual cleaning at the dentist office. When the hygienist asked what I did before retirement, I told her I was a medical school professor. That touched off a 15-minute interrogation about childhood vaccination. She has an infant daughter. While she’s gotten all the recommended vaccines, she was plainly distressed by the Trump Administration anti-vax agenda and all the bogus anti-vax propaganda on the internet. I tried to answer her questions and put her at ease about her embrace of modern medicine over conspiracy theory, and she thanked me. Although I know something about infectious disease, immunology and vaccines, I’m not an authority on vaccines and I’ve never practiced medicine. So I’ll hand the microphone to Ken Haller, MD, a friend and former colleague. “Really, how many kids does  #RFKjr  want to kill? It's a valid question considering his reckless death-dealing In the disa...

“In an  interview with The New York Times  published Thursday, Trump was asked whether there were any constraints on what he could do on the world stage, following the U.S. military operation that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and amid renewed rhetoric from senior Trump administration officials about the United States potentially taking control of Greenland. ““Yeah, there is one thing,” Trump replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”   “I don’t need international law,” he added.” This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “morality.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-limits-to-his-power_n_6960aa14e4b088e2524e3775?origin=home-latest-news-unit

There’s been a lot of crowing by Trump about how he’s seizing Venezuelan oil to hand it to American oil companies and skim profits for the United States. What oil, and how much? “ According to figures widely cited throughout the media and the oil industry itself, Venezuela is sitting on around 300 billion barrels' worth of "proved" oil, meaning barrels that have, in theory, been confirmed as commercially viable by conclusive testing or actual production.” *snip* “ This is a self-reported figure, however, and is published — but not verified — by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. Holistic and conclusive evaluations by independent experts have never been conducted. “And up until 2007, Venezuela's self-reported proved reserves sat at around 100 billion barrels, according to data reported by OPEC. By 2013, that figure was updated after a reclassification of fields controlled by the country's state-run P...

I vividly recall a meeting when I was a young assistant professor and all the other male faculty, all MDs, were wearing white coats. The topic of “evidence-based medicine” came up. It was the first time I’d heard the phrase, so I asked the white-coat next to me (sotto voce, of course): “As opposed to what, magic-based medicine?” He replied, with more courtesy than I deserved: “As opposed to tradition-based medicine.” It hadn’t occurred to me before that there would exist any standard for medical practice other than evidence. Now I know better. The MAHA brand has become a mockery under RFK Jr and his minions. On the one hand, they’ve discovered that eating a healthy diet is a good idea, which is like discovering water at the bottom of the ocean. On the other hand, they’re promoting policies that are already making America sicker. Chief among them is the anti-vax agenda, which has led to an explosion in cases of measles and whooping cough, both deadly and preventable childhood diseases. ...