The Microbiome and hospital infections….

Nature Magazine has a really excellent report on how our understanding of the human microbiome may have big payoffs in the clinic, here.

Something very cool is happening in biotech…..

Life scientists are extremely well trained in technology these days…from coding, to hacking instrumentation. And that’s in addition to their deep understanding of genomes and cell biology.

All of this is starting to pay off I think…in a new generation of biotech startups that seem to be short-circuiting the usual angel, venture capital process. FT has a good story on the phenomenon here.

Just the facts please….

For loyal readers who look to the raw data, here [pdf] are the proposed EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Money quote:

Nationwide, by 2030, this rule would achieve CO2 emission
reductions from the power sector of approximately 30 percent
from CO2 emission levels in 2005. This goal is achievable because
innovations in the production, distribution and use of
electricity are already making the power sector more efficient
and sustainable while maintaining an affordable, reliable and
diverse energy mix.

Pushback against The Internet of Things….

From Economist’s Babbage, here. His term? The Internet of Nothings…clever yes, but I think perhaps he’s onto something as far as Silicon Valley fads go.

This happens in science also by the way….in my own field of molecular signal transduction, various enzymes called kinases have come in and out of favor (as measured by number of publications)…

The skinny on the House NSF authorization bill…(it’s not pretty)

Story from ScienceInsider is here. Short version: Congressional authorizers want to shrink what appropriators have already passed–a world turned upside down.

At the swimming pool….in Pyongyang!

Absolutely mesmerizing…photographer Aram Pan brings back HD video from North Korea. Enjoy!

Symbiotic mutualism at the level of genes….

Mathew and Lopanik’s really interesting report from the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, here. The Journal has a long and significant interest in the biology of symbiosis–this is a particularly intriguing example and I’ve pulled it out from the paywall for our readers who aren’t at academic institutions with subscriptions.

Unequal allocation of research resources in science R&D….

From the same special issue of Science, here’s a very interesting Policy Forum piece by Michigan’s Yu Xie about what some call meritocracy in science funding. Worth as much as all the words is the first graph of research university Gini coefficient that I’ve ever seen.

Science Magazine goes all Piketty this week….

In what may have been challenging timing given the FT’s recent revealing of problems with Thomas Piketty’s data on inequality, Science Magazine’s current special issue focusses on the subject, here.

For more detail on Gile’s problems with the Piketty data see here.

For loyal readers who haven’t been paying much attention to economics, here is the Amazon site of the actual tome.

I’m still slogging through Chapter 2….

N.B. (added later): Piketty himself has a review in the Science Magazine issue and it’s here.

Space discord….

And not the kind involving laboratories….story in today’s FT here.

I think the big questions ahead are:

1) What’s the future post ISS?

2) What will be the role of the new private sector players such as SpaceX?

3) Will Space become contested and increasingly militarized?

My hope is the answer to (1) is significant manned presence beyond low earth orbit. For (2), I’d like to see a thousand flowers bloom. And for (3), would be a very bad outcome.