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A true conservative supports abortion rights over nanny state control of reproductive choice. A true conservative supports LGBTQ choice and gay marriage over nanny state meddling in the private lives of citizens. There are a number of issues (not as many as some think) that philosophically separate liberals from conservatives, but not these. It's only the right-wing radicals in the GOP and the MSM that use these issues to divide America. I'm glad to see that liberals and conservatives are joining hands at the polls to help secure these fundamental rights. "New Yorkers for Equal Rights said the groups were inspired by the success Michigan Democrats saw in the midterms when voters were presented with a ballot initiative that would codify abortion rights into the state constitution. The amendment passed, Democrats secured a trifecta for the first time in four decades and many vulnerable Democrats held onto their seats. “We’ve learned a ton from our colleagues around the count...

  Affirmative action in college admission I see where a majority of the SCOTUS overturned stare decisis again, this time on affirmative action in college admission. My prediction is that this will have little effect. Universities are chock full of clever and resourceful people who can figure out ways to achieve racial (and gender) balance without being overt about it. Both Harvard and UNC, the universities about which this opinion was delivered, have top law schools that can guide their admissions programs. Having spent over 36 years as a medical school professor, I've had a ring-side seat to watch how post-Bakke medical school admissions can achieve ethnic balance while staying within the law.

As I’ve posted here before, the evidence shows that in humans, the traits of high intelligence and good judgment are unlinked. There are many such examples; viz: • Kary Mullis, who won for co-inventing the technique behind PCR testing, went on to deny that HIV causes AIDS, helping to sway South African president Thabo Mbeki into rejecting antiretroviral therapy, costing hundreds of thousands of lives; • Linus Pauling went from two-time Nobelist to full-time quack, a brilliant peace activist and investigator of chemical bonds who became convinced that everything from colds to cancers should be fought with vitamin C; • James Watson co-discovered DNA’s double-helix and turned out to be irreparably racist; • William Shockley co-invented the transistor and became an ardent eugenicist. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, another smart but deeply foolish voice was heard. Michael Levitt, a Nobel Laureate and self-styled viral epidemiologist predicted: • there would be no more th...

"Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a recording of him talking about sensitive military documents amounted to just “bravado” and claimed he did not show off anything classified when he said on the tape that he was handling “highly confidential” and “secret information” in front of guests." So the Access Hollywood tapes were just "locker room talk," and the classified Iran invasion plan documents were just "bravado." So when all the other excuses fail, Trump says "don't trust what I say." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-bravado-classified-documents-recording_n_649b6ddee4b0cd6f7df0c169

The real news here is the three Supreme Court justices (Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch) actually went along with this cartoonishly stupid theory. A unanimous ruling was the only acceptable outcome. The SCOTUS is completely broken. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-independent-state-legislature-reject

People often ask me "Can you freeze fruit flies?" My answer is "Sure, but when you thaw them out, they're dead." Now, a couple decades back, a couple of research groups developed a cryopreservation technique that enabled successful recovery of fruit fly embryos after freezing. The yield was poor, but at the time, it made flies the most complex organism to undergo this process successfully. As the link below describes, successful cryopreservation of human organs would be transformative for organ transplantation candidates. Hooray for science!! https://www.iflscience.com/organs-have-been-frozen-thawed-and-transplanted-for-the-first-time-69496?fbclid=IwAR1_VmmMgsKa-szCOAUjFP0HMLD-jJRvTWzqU0ai894aofLA4NbTOMhRLmY

Several years ago, I got my genome sequenced at 30-50 fold coverage. For the base price of $199, I got a report that included ancestry and held no surprises. For an additional $100, I got my variant call file, and a friend annotated it, so now I can search for any variants associated with disease risk. Again, so far no surprises. The most common surprise people encounter with personal genomics is the discovery that their custodial father isn't their biological father. Depending on the population, this can be 2-5% of the time. Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to, peeps! https://www.iflscience.com/woman-discovers-father-parents-fertility-doctor-through-ancestry-dna-test-47008?fbclid=IwAR0gg67IgO18IstJNhf9N5xN7xTib7h9Vy3tptVEG9j3j7IN99OzL2bjhQw