Saturday, January 8, 2011

What is hot on 8 January 2011

Science Friday
Paul Offit On The Anti-Vaccine Movement
In his new book, vaccine researcher Paul Offit contends that some parents' decisions not to vaccinate their kids are harming others. Offit discusses the anti-vaccine movement, and weighs in on a new report calling a 1998 study linking autism and vaccines an "elaborate fraud."
(review, feed)

The Memory Palace
Episode 36
Six scenes in the life of William J. Sidis, wonderful boy
(review, feed)

New Books In History
Ian Sample, “Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science”
You’ve probably read about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It’s the biggest (17 miles around!), most expensive (9 billion dollars!) scientific instrument in history. What’s it do? It accelerates beams of tiny particles (protons) to nearly the speed of light and then smashes them into one another. That’s cool, you say, why all the smashing?
(review, feed)

Philosopher's Zone
Nietzsche and the will to power
Friedrich Nietzsche was the son of a preacher who came to despise Christianity. He was a scholar of the Greek and Roman classics who became better known as a philosopher. And he was a philosopher whose ideas -- rejecting the idea of pity, embracing the will to power and the ideal of the superman -- cast long shadows over the twentieth century. This week, we take a sympathetic look at this troubling, and troubled, thinker.
(review, feed)

KQED's Forum
Prescription Drug Abuse
Prescription drug abuse is on the rise. A new report says emergency room visits due to prescription drug abuse have doubled over the last five years, while the number of people seeking treatment for prescription drug use is also on the rise. We examine what some are calling the nation's fastest growing drug problem.
(review, feed)