When I started attending departmental faculty meetings in 1987, there was an emeritus faculty, Harold Katzman, who went to most of the meetings. He rarely said anything, but he did make the effort to show up, perhaps out of personal loyalty. Dr. Katzman was the first graduate student of our department’s founding chair, Dr. Edward […]
We’re seriously considering a hybrid for our next car. One species of the hybrid genus is the “plug-in hybrid,” which seemed appealing to me, both from the standpoint of gas economy and to reduce our carbon footprint. Caveat emptor: “In one study from the ICCT published in 2022, researchers examined real-world driving habits of people […]
If you or your loved one had successful brain surgery, you can probably thank my colleague, Dr. Richard Bucholz, Professor of Neurosurgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Dr. Bucholz pioneered and invented the image-guided surgery navigational system marketed by Medtronic as the “Stealth Station.” It is standard equipment in nearly every neurosurgical suite […]
Kevin Drum has a post up showing that EV sales have plateaued recently in the US. It’s not clear to me whether that’s all EVs or just Teslas, but since Teslas remain the dominant EVs in the US, that’s a distinction without a difference. I’d be happy to see more EVs on the road. But […]
Our first car was a Mazda GLC. We bought it new in 1981, after living without a car for four years. It was a stick shift, front wheel drive ICE car. It got about 32 mpg in town and about 38 mpg on the highway, driving at 55 mph. Since then, we’ve owned four other […]
When I was in high school and college in the 1970s, marijuana was (a) illegal and (b) plentiful. I may or may not have inhaled, but people I knew were certainly growing, drying, selling and buying dope at the time. From a public health standpoint, marijuana is more benign than alcohol and tobacco. I’m happy […]
I seldom eat at chain restaurants, and I’ve never set foot in a Red Lobster. So the latest bankruptcy of Red Lobster doesn’t affect me personally, but it does serve as yet another illustration of pernicious consequences of vulture capitalism. When the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital bought Red Lobster, the chain was already […]
Some history: For the longest time Michigan districts were gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. Since the 1980s, Republicans had control of the Michigan Senate. On and off, Republicans had control of the House for 22 times. A trifecta in favor of Republicans was in place 14 times. It was not until voting districts were decided […]
Let’s be very clear: in vitro fertilization (IVF) results in far more zygotes than will ever be implanted. Further, pre-implantation testing means that some zygotes will be rejected. In the end, this means that millions of fertilized eggs will be discarded. That was always baked in the IVF cake. For reasons that escape me as […]
My dissertation research was published in 1983 in a two-author paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. JBC is the house journal of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. After your referees and the editor approved, the manuscript was published with the payment of “page charges,” to cover the journal costs since it […]