Math, Risk, and Cancer
Here's a good article from Slate on the new mammogram recommendations. The article asks, Why can we discuss sports in an intelligent, statistically--savvy way -- but not health?
Here's a good article from Slate on the new mammogram recommendations. The article asks, Why can we discuss sports in an intelligent, statistically--savvy way -- but not health?
Labels: current events
The Boston Globe's "Big Picture" is usually fantastic. They just did Mars. Go.
Via Bad Astronomy.
Back in July, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took amazing photos of the landing sites of the Apollo missions. You could clearly see the footpaths made by the astronauts, and little bumps of the left-behind lower stage of the lunar module.
LRO has now taken much better photos of the Apollo 11 landing site. As usual, Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy does a great job of explaining them. The big white blob is the lunar lander. The four dots around it are the landing legs. The dark streak above and to the left is made by human footprints -- space travelers.
Labels: crude spaceflight
Catching up on legislative action: two weeks ago Congress passed the "Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act". Last Wednesday President Obama signed it into law.
The law expands the 1969 federal hate-crime law to include a victim's real or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. This is big:
Labels: current events, politics, queer rights, trans rights
Good news from DC on Friday: President Obama announced that the government would lift a 22-year ban on entry into the United States for people who are HIV positive. The change takes effect Jan. 2010. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," the president said.
The HIV+ travel ban has been embarrassing and counter-productive -- it's prevented the US from hosting major HIV/AIDS conferences, and it's prevented foreign HIV+ activists from speaking in the US. Almost no other countries have such a travel ban.
From CNN: "Today is a great day for human rights and for people living with AIDS, their friends and their families," said Frank Donaghue, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights. "The HIV Travel Ban made the United States a pariah in human rights circles, and harmed our reputation as a world leader of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
Labels: current events, politics