Voters in San Francisco — the city that has probably suffered from AIDS more grievously than any other in America — may soon vote on whether to ban a safe, one-time procedure that protects against the virus that causes AIDS almost as effectively as the annual flu shot protects against the flu. Millions of dollars and years of research have thus far failed to overcome the diabolical obstacles to making an HIV vaccine. No doubt exists, however, that another treatment provides protection so effective that health experts have called it a "surgical vaccine." Unlike a flu shot, this protection ... Read More
Taking High-Speed Trains into the Future
August 16, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
On March 11, 2004, at the height of the morning rush hour in Madrid's stately Atocha train station, 10 improvised explosive devices, like those used in Iraq and Afghanistan, ripped apart four commuter trains, killing 191 people and injuring some 1,800 in the worst act of terrorism in Europe since the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland in 1988. Today, the Atocha station feels about as removed from that horror as one could imagine. Much of the spacious, high-ceilinged waiting area has been transformed into a walkable, indoor forest, with giant ferns, palms and lily pads; famed ... Read More
Make Health Care, Not Birth Control, the Priority
August 12, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Imagine that you are a young Chinese woman of, say, 21, who accidentally becomes pregnant by her fiancé. When the local birth control official discovers your condition a few months later, she declares your pregnancy to be "illegal" and orders you to report for an abortion. In desperation, you point out that the father is your fiancé, and that you plan to marry as soon as you reach the minimum marriage age of 23. You argue that you are currently childless, and that you should be allowed, even under the one-child policy, to bear your first and only child. None of this matters, the official ... Read More
The Real Science Gap
June 14, 2010 • By • 111 Comments
For many decades, and especially since the United States attained undisputed pre-eminence in science during World War II, a parade of cutting-edge technologies has accounted for much of America's economic growth. Countless good jobs now ride on whether the Next Big Thing — and the several things after that — will be developed in America and not, as many fear, in China, India, the European Union, Japan, Korea or another of the powers now producing large numbers of scientists and engineers. Brilliant advances and the industries they foster come from brilliant minds, and for generations ... Read More
Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines
April 20, 2010 • By • 9 Comments
They call it "vitamin I." Among runners of ultra-long-distance races, ibuprofen use is so common that when scientist David Nieman tried to study the drug's use at the Western States Endurance Run in California's Sierra Nevada mountains he could hardly find participants willing to run the grueling 100-mile race without it. Nieman, director of the Human Performance Lab at Appalachian State University, eventually did recruit the subjects he needed for the study, comparing pain and inflammation in runners who took ibuprofen during the race with those who didn't, and the results were ... Read More
Soft Measures
August 21, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Whenever I evaluate a school, my first stop is the boys' bathroom because, without an unflushed urinal of doubt, it is every school's least common denominator. Its sticky floors, calcified wads of toilet paper and juvenile-yet-timeless graffiti ("Here I sit broken hearted...") are generally not what a principal shows off. Then again, I once visited a school run by the Knowledge is Power Program — which focuses on preparing students in underserved communities for college — and found fresh cut flowers next to an automatic recycled-paper-towel dispenser. At another school, there were toilet ... Read More
Breaking the Minority Attorney Drought
August 18, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Sonia Sotomayor may be the first Hispanic female nominated for the Supreme Court, but she's unusual in another way: She's a minority who made it past the law school gate. The American Bar Association's Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity reported that in 2000 (the last year statistics were compiled based on U.S. Census data), only 9.7 percent of attorneys in the U.S. were minorities; that breakdown showed 4 percent of attorneys were African American, 3.3 percent Hispanic and the remainder of the minority contingent Asian American. These rates were starkly lower than for other ... Read More
Keystone Cops at the Police Lab
June 18, 2009 • By • 7 Comments
When CSI became the most popular drama on television earlier this decade, forensic scientists employed by police departments emerged from anonymity. Discerning viewers seemed to understand that real-life police laboratory personnel (filling a job description officially known as "criminalist") do not solve murders and rapes within an hour. Still, the glamorization generated by television drama had begun, increasing exponentially with the spinoff shows CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. Many criminalists indeed serve justice well, conscientiously analyzing evidence found at crime scenes, including ... Read More
May It Diminish the Court
June 15, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
The country has certainly witnessed politicized Supreme Court nominations in recent times, from Justice Samuel Alito — whom Democrats tried to brand as hyper-conservative — to Justice Clarence Thomas, who characterized his Senate confirmation hearings as "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves." At some level, every nomination to the court is politicized given the stakes involved in controlling its ideological path. President Obama's nomination of federal appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor is unlikely to be an exception to this rule. As ... Read More
