Blog Archives
Movember 2011 – sponsorship links
It’s Mo-vember again and the facial foliage is taking shape. It also just happens to be mid-way through right after the November 2011 session Biology exams. A perfect time to launch an appeal for sponsorship from teachers and students who have used this site in their studies.
My MoVember page
Movember is simple – grow a mo’ for the month of Movember to raise money and awareness of oft-ignored men’s health issues, such as testicular cancer, prostate cancer and depression.
November sessioners (and others), here is a chance to pay it forwards by giving to something seasonal and topical: please make a donation at my MoSpace page! Please get on board or show your support for all the free resources posted here by making a small donation.
In other appeals so far, i-Biology has raised around GBP300 for various charities through my Biology4Good donations page.
Here’s a curriculum link for good measure: 2.5 Cell Division (tumours and cancer).
Mo yeah.
……….o0O0o……….
Movember videos:
First up – some of the real impacts made by Movember fundraising – with real science.
And here are the rules of Movember:
Fighting a Contagious Cancer (and the Guardian Facebook App)
Today’s Guardian has a profile of Elizabeth Murchison on the Grrl Scientist blog. Murchison’s TED Talk explains the work of her team trying to prevent the extinction of Tasmanian Devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) due to a contagious facial cancer, spread by biting.
Scary stuff, with some – very – graphic images.
She mentions the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is responsible for cervical cancer. Their first thought was that the source of this cancer was similar – viral, but that is not the case. In fact, the cells are implanted into other devils through biting – where they colonise and run rampage.
App
Also this week, the Guardian released their Facebook app. You can ‘like’ it into your feeds, as well as the different streams (Science, environment, data, education and more).
With all the apps and fan pages out there, you too could turn your facebook into a feed reader.
Cell Division (mitosis) and Tumours
The presentation has been updated to include a lot more information on tumours – though it is not all essential for the exams, it is a good health class and an introduction to some degree-level cellular biology concepts. There are loads of links to videos and animations if you click on the shadowed images.
Essential Biology 2.5: Cell Division (mitosis)
Here’s a lovely mitosis video:
Facebook gives you cancer and infantilises the population. Ahem.
“There is no evidence because it would be hard to prove…” Aduh.
BadScience hero Ben Goldacre and Jeremy Paxman take on Baroness Greenfield, The Daily Mail (always a good target) and Aric Sigman in this interview from Newsnight. For a bit of background this is all a response to this story from the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html
If you’re in my class, the page you need to comment on is here.
The Daily Mail reports Sigman is claiming (without any real evidence) that time on the computer takes you away from real people. This makes you isolated and lonely and means you are not producing the right hormones and your genes will act up – potentially leading to cancer, immune problems and impaired mental function. That’s a far reach for a newspaper article to be making, but these kind of shock headlines sell papers, or get more traffic on their website.
In this debate we see the importance of peer-reviewed research before making public claims. We see that correlation does not necessarily imply causality and we see that poor reporting of sensitive issues can lead to gross misunderstandings. If we remember, the Daily Mail was central in the reporting of the MMR vaccine scare.
When you watch this interview and read the article, can you think of responses to these questions?
– Are there parts of Sigman and Greenfield’s claims that might sound plausible?
– What kind of evidence would you want to see to support these claims?
– What is the significance of Goldacre’s comment “… you can make anything look dangerous if you are selective in which evidence you quote” ?
– Sigman makes a comment “The paper weas supposed to be a one-sided provocative feature article for The Biologist to make people think more carefully about where society is going.” How does he feel about the media attention that his words have attracted outside this publication?
– Central to Sigman’s claims were that internet use increases social isolation. He had no peer-reviewed work after 1998 to support this, yet Goldacre pointed out all these references that suggest otherwise.
– Sigman tries to re-state ‘social networking’ as a phrase meant for real-life interactions between people rather than internet-based interactions. How has his interpretation of the term led to confusion in the wider public? Who do you think is responsible for this confusion and how could it be rectified?
– Sigman tries to distance himself from the headlines and the conjectures of Greenfield and returns to his concern that internet use is having a direct and negative impact ont the lives of children. Take this opportunity to discuss the benefits and potential negative impacts of the internet with regard to childhood use.
– Goldacre makes a comment that it woudl be bad for research to prioritse what research is done based on the headlines in the newspapers. Do you agree/ disagree? Why?
– How do you think the precautionary principle might relate to the decisions parents make based on this issue?
How would you like to see this story develop? What further research would convince you of the harms or otherwise this debate?
i-Biology 