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Wednesday, November 16, 2016

When innovation precedes knowledge

One theme raised in our STV 202 class is that acquisition of information may precede practical knowledge of what to do with that information.  This issue is especially noticeable in health, where it has become very easy to track people's vital statistics but not so easy to know how to use the results to benefit them.

Think of any commercial fitness tracker you can name.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Essentialism and obesity

The Internet has recently brought forth some news about research on  so-called "obesity genes".

Obesity is an increasing problem (no pun intended, of course).  Why it occurs and how it might be mitigated are hot topics in medical science.  One such area of research concerns the genetic contribution to obesity.  Is there an obesity gene or genes and, if so, what might be done about it?

Monday, September 12, 2016

High-tech curling brooms banned

Sweeping restrictions have been announced by Curling Canada, the national regulator for the sport of curling.  That is, Curling Canada has outlawed certain sorts of curling brooms that support novel kinds of sweeping.

The move follows controversy originating in the previous season with the introduction of brooms designed to allow sweepers to significantly change the trajectory of a curling stone after it has been thrown.

Friday, August 12, 2016

CRISPR will give us wings!

CRISPR refers to short repetitions in DNA, the study of which has produced technology to edit DNA with great precision.  The prospect of being able to edit DNA nearly at will has led to a lot of breathless commentary about how we may change the world—for better or worse—through employing it.

A video recently posted on a YouTube channel called "Kurzgesagt" (German for "In a nutshell") falls into this category: