I’ve been busy over the past week, so some of this may not be quite so recent, but it’s all worth a mention:
A baby was effectively cured of HIV. I say “effectively” because this was done via some new treatment or pill or shot. The baby was given the usual cocktail, but it received doses far earlier than is generally considered safe. The result, though, is a happy one. I’ll be interested to know if it’s possible for the child to pass on any remnants of the virus that are virtually hidden within it when it becomes an adult.
There has been an outcry over a study linking decreased housework to greater waistlines among women. Basically, researchers made a simple correlation between women getting less exercise by virtue of moving from housework to white collar jobs. It was in no way sexist or suggesting a regress to the days of Laura Petrie. It was science. And it was a descriptive claim, not a normative one. All we should take from it is that a lot of people really need basic philosophy courses.
Political Figure Antonin Scalia called the right to vote a “racial entitlement”. I think Rachel Maddow said it best in a recent interview on The Daily Show when she called Scalia a troll. The guy wants nothing more than to get people riled up at his idiotic, legally incoherent views. The day he retires or dies will be one of the best days this country has ever seen.
Richard Dawkins will be on The Simpsons this Sunday. It’s unclear what his role will be, but the plot revolves around Ned Flanders, so hopefully there will be an interaction between the two of them.
A federal judge is taking a look at Michigan’s bigoted state constitutional amendment against marriage equality. If it turns out that the correct interpretation is made and such amendments at the state level are found to be a violation of the U.S. constitution, then the end of discrimination in marriage may be closer than I think anyone ever thought.
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For the Sake of Science 