Everyday Experiments

Before someone calls me an ignorant creationist...no, I am not one of those anti-science advocates who try to discredit scientific theory for the benefit of preserving their more traditional beliefs.


A new study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, however, has identified the particular method that these people use to discredit scientific ideas. Called "scientific impotence," this method relies on discrediting a particular scientific finding - say, that humanity is causing climate change - to imply that science as a body of knowledge is impotent as a whole.

One of the many new things I vowed to do at the start of the year (or decade?) was to try my hand at writing for the web. I've met a couple of people who swear by the financial opportunities a decent writer can get online, and even know a few who actually make their living as web-based freelancers. So I did my own research on sites that accept non-US based writers and signed up for some of them.

It has been a little over four months and to date I've made around $850. That's not really too bad, considering I only spend 2-4 hours a day (or rather, at night), and not everyday at that, writing online. Here's a breakdown of my earnings so far:

(Btw, I've written a separate review of some of the sites listed here. You can read it here if you want more in-depth details about each site.)

Just came across a map showing the patient to doctor ratios in different countries worldwide. Though the map is three years old, it's still effective in showing how health care is addressed worldwide. Glaring fact: Cuba tops the doctor-to-patient ratio stats worldwide with one doctor per 170 citizens. Now this is not bad for a country that has been getting a lot of bad press through the years (actually, made me recall the scenes from Sicko where Michael Moore takes the 9/11 rescue workers to Havana to get free health care and cheap medicines). Another interesting factoid is that three of the top 10 countries with low doctor patient ratios include former Soviet states, namely Russia (230:1), Turkmenistan (240:1), and Ukraine (240:1).

A few decades (or perhaps years) from now, lab rats (at least of the murine kind) will cease to skitter, scamper, and be probed and tested in most research labs. A paper published in Tissue Engineering Methods just this quarter details how Dr. Amit Gefen of Tel Aviv University and his team were able to deduce, using fat cells, that stem cells are sufficient in creating the tissue required for most current animal tests. Once other scientists (including Dr. Gefen himself) take up this promising lead and conduct more experiments to verify this claim, this may lead to the elimination of the need to sacrifice so many mice for just one experiment on one tiny organ or system. No more cute furry little white critters to feed, grow, clean, and experiment on...

POVs can be quite confusing, sometimes you forget which POV you actually originally took on... (thanks to xkcd for the cartoon)

Starting May 1, the writing site Associated Content will start to close its doors to non-U.S. writers, except for those who qualify for its Featured Contributor program (those with "top-notch writing skills, and a strong body of work in one of our featured topic areas", and willing to submit a U.S. W-8BEN form).

Apparently, a new law passed by the U.S. Senate has affected several U.S.-based writing sites with a international, non-U.S. writers. Read more details about the issue here.

This sucks in a major, major way. Helium has just emailed me saying they're blocking users from "regions in the far east", including the Philippines, from accessing the site. And now this.

Oh, and yes, I haven't really been able to access my Factoidz account, either. I'm not sure if it's just a server problem or if they're blocking non-US I.P. addresses as well.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a possible review of the law, or a sudden decision of these writing sites to open up non-U.S. based domains.

*sigh*