08 December, 2011 – This Week in Science

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Arsenic Bacteria Genome, Cheap Solar, Touchy Feely Chimps And Rats, Bad Science, Thank You Video Games, Mammoth Cloning, Inheriting Worms, Old Marbles, Vaccines, Vitamins, And Much More…

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Science rewards the scientist with great personal satisfaction.
The labor of learning is a labor of love, and those that make further discovery find the greatest satisfaction in what was already a rewarding endeavor.
When first announced, new discovery can be met with tremendous resistance from the general public. Fear of the unknown presuming unknown danger, or fear of real danger, ignoring potential benefits.
This has happened often enough throughout history that we can wonder how many times fire must have been discovered by some happy inventor…
Only to have it stamped out by the feet of fearful cavemen thinking some evil spirit had been released
But as time passes the unknown becomes the ordinary.
Eventually they accept fire as fire, and move on to worshiping the shadows at the back of the cave wall
Those who benefit from the warmth and light of scientific labor know little of the long hours of work, or the great joy and triumph of discovery and so …value it as ordinary
As though all the scientific discovery of the past centuries was inevitable,
as if knowledge simply leaks out into the world through an eventual randomness of time.
But it simply is not so.
It requires the dedication and knowledge of scientists across the globe to make progress happen.
Without this hard work we couldn’t even have something as simple as…
This Week in Science… Coming up next.

Arsenic Bacteria genome?

Solar power is cheaper than you think

Chimpanzee synesthete
Empathic rats?

The worst science paper of the year…

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Video games make kids smarter

Cloning a mammoth?

Worm inheritance

Vitamin D and MS

A vaccine for Ebola

A sleeping pill for waking?

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I'm the host of this little science show.