Comments for Alan Dove, Ph.D.

Comment on The NEC-4 Security Scam by Brian

Brian — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:04:20 +0000

Paying is a more reliable link to the acquirer than anything else LLNL could ask for… N’cest pas?

Comment on The NEC-4 Security Scam by Josh Chambers

Josh Chambers — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:33:13 +0000

Alan,

Did you contact the IPO at LLNL and ask them just how they can be primarily funded by the USG and still ask for money for their output?

I thought the USG did not have the ability to copyright things. Maybe that just applies to documents, I don’t know.

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Alan

Alan — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:51:40 +0000

There are many potentially sound explanations for CCD, so your 90% confidence in GM crops as the culprit is entirely misplaced. As Marcy pointed out, there’s no evidence backing such a claim, and I can think of a lot of reasons why it’s probably not right (e.g. CCD has occurred in hives that are nowhere near any GM crops).

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Alan

Alan — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:49:23 +0000

That’s way, way out beyond what any shred of available data would tell us.

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Robin Datta

Robin Datta — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:23:55 +0000

To one way of looking at it, CCD is an example at a colony level of the loss of inhibition which at the organism level results in neoplasia. The characteristic that separates biology from biochemistry is the imperative to propagate itself: this foundational feature of all biological life is carried in the nature of nucleic acids.

Inhibiting this feature makes possible multicellular organisms, where most cells have their propagation kept in check. Lack of inhibition results in neoplasia. The same loss of inhibition at a societal level might cause worker bees to set out on their own, although unable to start their own hives for lack of the necessary biological equipment. This would explain the continued presence of the solitary queen who presumably does not have the inhibition: that being the reason for leaving the hive of origin and starting a new hive in the first place. It would also explain the absence of any bodies of dead worker bees in the vicinity of the hive.

Neonicitinoids being related to the stimulant nicotine, could perhaps act by releasing such inhibitions.

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by marcia stone

marcia stone — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:15:22 +0000

Seems unlikely –is there any experimental evidence to back your claim? (And by that I mean ‘real’ experimental evidence in a peer-reviewed journal.)

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Fany

Fany — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:16:35 +0000

sorry, i meant “GM crops”

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Fany

Fany — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:15:24 +0000

I am 90% sure that GM crops are culprit of CCD. There are cases where no pesticides were used and no other air or soil poluttion was observed. Only sudden colapse of bees. The only sound explanation for most cases is FM crops.

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by marcia stone

marcia stone — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:33:52 +0000

A number of news services are ditching ‘journalism’ in favor of ‘churnalism,’ requiring reporters to churn out so many stories daily that ‘news’ gets written from press releases by default–bad, bad. A press release is advertising –thus it’s important to go to the paper. It’s also important to get interviews from scientists in the same field to check accuracy. But when news sources give a reporter less than 2 hours to write a story and pay so little they have to write until they’re faint, eventually exhaustion takes its toll and they take the easy way out. But as you point out Alan, the easy way –not going to a published paper in a peer-reviewed journal and not interviewing– is the wrong way.

The underlying problem is money –in addition to our wobbly economy, everything on the internet is free; not accurate in most cases but sucking the money out of the legitimate press nonetheless. The answer may be to have the press subsidized and pay journalists to write real news. Press releases can be posted of course but should be identified as such. But when press releases become confused with ‘news’ something is very, very wrong.

Marcy

Comment on Colony Collapse Disorder: Dead Bees and Sloppy Science by Media Mining Digest 21 – Apr 6, 2012: Aspirin and Cancer, Apple and ATT&T, Guild Lessons, Innovative Virologist, Puscast, Canary Honeybees, Regen Medicine Trials, R/C News and IfixIt | Media Mining Digest

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 01:00:34 +0000

[...] already banned in Europe. The EPA effort has been ongoing for over a year. PS: Here’s a more scientific discussion of the topic [...]