Philosophy

Danger of continuous information flow

Nassim Taleb points in his black swan book (p181 in the German edition 2008) towards the “toxicity” of continuously added information. He is citing experiments from the 1960ies where students were offered increasingly sharp pictures of water pipes. Students in the group with slightly inceasing sharp pictures had much more problems to recognize the pipe in constrast to the group being offered the same picture without any interim pictures. Together with the experiments of Stuart Oskamp it seems more difficult to discover real breakthroughs when being too deeply involved (and obsessed by getting the complete literature in a particular field). This even questions my daily Pubmed alerts; I will change them now to monthly update.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Genetics

Forget about genes III

Here is another opinion from a widely read German magazine (Spiegel online, 25. Mai 2009, Jörg Blech, Wahrsager im Labor) about our too great expectations in genetics:

Während die einen noch mehr und noch größere Vergleichsstudien fordern, halten Skeptiker wie Goldstein dies für reine Zeitverschwendung: “Wenn man 30.000 Patienten mit Diabetes Typ 2 untersucht hat, dann halte ich es für sinnlos, die Zahl auf 60.000 oder 100.000 zu erhöhen.”

good bye to the “common variant hypothesis”!

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

I am a scientist

Widely cheered in the blogosphere, Science magazine asked if we as scientists “are ready to be become a number”.

So, in general, I think there’s plenty of agreement that this sort of author ID system is past due. It can do everything from ease the process of manuscript submission to help researchers mine the existing volume of scientific data.

Sure, a unique DOI like ID Continue reading I am a scientist →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

Die Aerzte sind die Kranken

Life expectancy of physicians is lower in most countries – an argument why Karl Kraus may be right:

Was ist’s mit den Analysen? Kann da ein Zweifel bleiben? Die Methode ist bewiesen an jenen, die sie treiben. Daß man mit euch nur scherzte – welch törichter Gedanke! Im Gegenteil: die Ärzte sind Kranke.

While just recovering from an orthopedic procedure (see picture below) my impression is that the quality of medical care has very much approved during the years. The performance of a surgeon can be always immediately verified ;-)
screenshot3

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy, Theology

Ill will, good will – free will?

Neuroscientists largely see the “free will as an illusion” – according to a recent essay in Nature. As the author of this interesting essay, I have a major problem to give up the idea of a “free will” (mainly for theodicy reasons that needs a free will of humans). Maybe our will is being influenced by many factors, it is not always a conscious decision and it can of course be altered by chemicals or diseases. Nevertheless the subjective, sudden and not anticipated impetus to do something – for example writing a blog about free will – is a symptom of free will even with all existing antinomies, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics

Forget about genes II

Blood pressure seems to have a complicated regulation according to a recent nature medicine editorial

If you ask a physiologist what organs are involved in blood pressure regulation, you will probably be told the kidney, the brain or the blood vessels. The kidney is responsible for handling sodium … The brain integrates afferent signals from peripheral sites such as the kidney … systemic vascular resistance is elevated in almost all adults with hypertension, suggesting that arteriolar vasoconstriction has an important role in this disease.

The editorial accompanies a new mechanistic report how a high-salt diet leads to interstitial hypertonic Na+ accumulation by activation of tonicity-responsive enhancer binding protein (TonEBP) binding the promoter of the gene encoding vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C). As far, as good, Continue reading Forget about genes II →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy, Software

Science flies

Still in the spirit of the last few posts, here comes something exciting: sciflies.org aims at

We look forward to receiving your application for funding of initial proof-of-concept STEM research projects in the range of $5,000 to $12,000. To participate in this unique online grassroots-funded opportunity, please complete the questionnaire about your project, including details of its possible outcome/impact and profiles of the researchers or research team.

but, sorry, I have to warn you – the website does NOT save your project – it took me 20 minutes to figure that out.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy, Theology

In-tui-tion, In-tui-fiction and educated guess

During my recent lecture series on science and religion, I tried to make clear that science includes many beliefs in addition to hard facts while religions encompasses hard facts in addition to many beliefs.
So what about the fuzzy approach of intuition or educated guess in a prototypical biological experiment? If this is not just a dose or time variation from a previous experiment, it will always involve an extrapolation from somewhat related facts believing that the next experiment will be better than the last Continue reading In-tui-tion, In-tui-fiction and educated guess →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy

IL17- Jekyll and Hide

We will probably submit our IL-17 paper next week – so it was of interest to read a new paper in NJ that

demonstrate a protective function for IL-17 and identify T cells as not only the source but also a target of IL-17 in vivo

for inflammatory bowel disease. Asthma may, however, present a different situation.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Vitamins

(1S,3Z)-3-[(2E)-2-[(1R,3aR,7aR)-7a-methyl-1-[(2R)-6-methylheptan-2-yl]-2,3,3a,5,6,7-hexahydro-1H-inden-4-ylidene]ethylidene]-4-methylidene-cyclohexan-1-ol

or briefly vitamin D3. There seems to be another vitamin D /allergy abstract at the forthcoming EAACI congress from the KOALA study. The authors find

Risk for AD was highest for children in the fourth quintile of maternal 25(OH)D level [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 2.08; 95%CI 1.07-4.03] compared to those in the third quintile; P for trend over the quintiles 0.03]. Continue reading (1S,3Z)-3-[(2E)-2-[(1R,3aR,7aR)-7a-methyl-1-[(2R)-6-methylheptan-2-yl]-2,3,3a,5,6,7-hexahydro-1H-inden-4-ylidene]ethylidene]-4-methylidene-cyclohexan-1-ol →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

Grant preparation costs may exceed grant given

FYI – a citation from “Accountability of Research”

Using Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) statistics, we show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every qualified investigator a direct baseline discovery grant of $30,000 (average grant). This means the Canadian Federal Government could institute direct grants for 100% of qualified applicants for the same money. We anticipate that the net result would be more and better research since more research would be conducted at the critical idea or discovery stage.

Will that be ever read by our governments? Nay, nay.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Vitamins

T_S_L_P

SPQR (is not necessary to be remembered) but certainly TSLP – at least if you are interested in allergy research (see the discussion here 2 years ago) when we knew from a PNAS paper that topical vitamin D3 induces thymic stromal lymphopoietin and triggers atopic dermatitis (in mice). Now there is an update – TSLP even mediates the progression to experimental asthma

vitamin D3 … not only triggers AD as we previously reported but also aggravates experimental allergic asthma induced by ovalbumin sensitization and challenge. Our study, which provides a mouse model to study human “atopic march

will be continued after Continue reading T_S_L_P →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025