With the national debate over the HPV vaccine Gardasil and whether it should be mandatory for girls going into sixth grade, I invited Dr. Rosanna Gray-Swain onto my show this afternoon. She’s an ob-gyn at Barnes Jewish Hospital, who explained why this is a public health matter and how effective the vaccine is in preventing […]
It sounds like the movie “Armageddon” — an asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, and we have to stop it before it smacks into the planet and causes massive destruction. Turns out that astronomers have their eyes on one such asteroid that will come close — in space terms — in April, 2036. However, unlike the […]
Lots of debate today about Ashley, the 9-year-old severely mentally and physically disabled girl whose parents have stunted her growth to keep her a more manageable and portable size. After discussions with medical ethicists at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, the parents decided to have Ashley have a hysterectomy and large doses of hormones to stop […]
Phil Plait returned to my show today to talk about NASA’s plans to put humans back on the moon by 2020 and set up a permanent base there by 2024. He explained the science that can still be done there, whether the base could be self-sufficient (rather than constantly having to bring food and supplies […]
My pal Phil Plait takes on Katie Couric for her boneheaded criticism of NASA on the CBS Evening News. First, Ms. Couric: NASA’s requested budget for 2007 is nearly 17 billion dollars. There are some who argue that money would be better spent on solid ground for medical research, social programs, and in finding solutions […]
Has the White House been suppressing science again, particularly about global warming? This afternoon , I talked with Paul Thacker of Salon.com, who investigated and found evidence of that at NOAA. Listen to the conversation here. During the discussion, I invoked the name of George Deutsch, the 24-year-old political appointee who was forced to resign for […]