Tag: science

Unknown vs. Hawking? Seriously? I mean, I’m not looking to Hawking for faith lessons but not looking to Tyson either. #YAFPRBE

Just got this press release by email that pits a new author Scott Tyson against Stephen Hawking in some sort of “religion vs. science” debate.

PR Contact: Ginny Grimsley:

Why Hawking Was Wrong
To Discount Life After Death
Award-Winning Physicist Chastises Scientist
For Decrying Religion

Scientists make terrible theologians.

That’s the opinion of physicist and researcher Scott M. Tyson, who thinks colleague Stephen Hawking was wrong to dismiss the concept of life after death. Hawking recently explained in a newspaper interview his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.

“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years,” Hawking told The Guardian. “I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

But Tyson believes that Hawking’s comments may serve to do more harm than good for both people of faith and people of science.

“I think that people in general believe that scientists don’t believe in God, and that’s just not true,” said Tyson, author of The Unobservable Universe: A Paradox-Free Framework for Understanding the Universe (www.theunobservableuniverse.com). “History is filled with scientists who were also men of faith, from Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton to Einstein. Now, I do also believe that there are other scientists who would like to prove that God doesn’t exist. These scientists might want to rain on everyone else’s parades with respect to God really, really badly. The problem is that one of the limitations of science is that science simply cannot prove the non-existence of objects and phenomena over the full spectrum of possibilities. So, while scientists may be able to prove in a scientific framework that there is no life after death, they cannot, nor should they even attempt to, prove it in a theological framework, which is the territory of faith. To do so creates unnecessary divisiveness that can serve no beneficial purpose. And that’s the line Dr. Hawking crossed – he essentially discounted the idea in both frameworks, and nothing good could come of that.”

Tyson’s concern is that Hawking’s comments deepen the rift between the scientific and religious communities, erecting hurdles that only diminish the prospects for potential good that science could do for humanity.

“Dr. Hawking is probably one of only a handful of scientists in the world who is a household name,” he added. “In many ways, he’s the captain of the team, he’s the quarterback, so when he speaks, millions of people believe he is speaking for scientists everywhere. That’s part of the weight of his celebrity on the scientific community as a whole. His comments are out of line and further complicate complex issues like stem cell research, in which faith effectively blocks the use of scientific discoveries that could heal people and ease their suffering – a concept not inconsistent with the tenets of most organized religions,” Tyson added. “But science oftentimes becomes blocked politically and socially not because the science contradicts religion, but because the argument is framed in an ‘us versus them’ context. We inadvertently challenge people to either believe in science or to believe in God, at the exclusion of the other. It’s an unreasonable and unnecessary position in which to place anyone.”

What’s worse, according to Tyson, is that people who believe in both science and faith get left out or, worse, placed into the difficult situation of needlessly choosing sides.

“Millions of people practice their faith but then also believe in the veracity of Darwin’s evolution,” he said. “Many in the scientific community view science through their faith, rather than in spite of it. When scientists discount theology in a wholesale fashion, they not only insult the faithful who discount science, but also the faithful who embrace it. It discourages and further polarizes the dialogue between the two disciplines and increases the challenges that science must overcome in its quest to better comprehend the nature of our world for the betterment of society, goals that I and many other scientists will continue to embrace.”

About Scott M. Tyson

Award-winning physicist, engineer, scientist and researcher, Scott M. Tyson graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an engineering degree, and then embarked on a career that included working at IBM’s VLSI Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Westinghouse’s Advanced Technology Laboratory. Responsible for the implementation of new microelectronics approaches for space, Tyson also served as an advisor to the Office of the Secretary of Defense on space computing technology development and planning, as well as for congressional delegations to accelerate the advancement of meaningful and effective space electronic solutions.

To interview Scott M. Tyson or request a review copy of The Unobservable Universe contact Ginny Grimsley

Ginny Grimsley
National Print Campaign Manager
News and Experts

Now – mind you – I am not a big fan of the “science is the only way of thinking” crowd and I am sympathetic to a diverse set of view points.  But I do not wear my opinions about this on my sleeve, so to speak.  Regardless of where I stand on some of these discussions, what I cannot stand is bad arguments on any side.  And the arguments in this PR piece are pretty bad I must say.  
For example, the PR states at the beginning “Scientists make terrible theologians.”  Certainly, some do.  But then the PR argues that scientists who discount religion leave out all the scientists who are religious and that that is not fair.  So – I guess scientists who are religious make good theologians while scientists who aren’t religious don’t?  I am lost here on the logic flow.
What really gets me here is the attempt to diss Hawking for misusing his fame as a great scientist but to then use the names of other great scientists who supposedly believed in God.  Which is it?  Is it OK to use fame / notoriety as a great scientist to support a point of view or not?
Another thing that gets me is the attempt to somehow elevate the author of this book into Hawking territory.  Hawking is referred to as a “colleague” of Tyson, like they routinely work together or something.  And Tyson is an award winning physicist.  What awards would that be (look here – I could not find any).  Out of curiosity you might ask – has Hawking actually won any awards?  Well, lets see – Wikipedia lists a few: 
  • 1975 Eddington Medal
  • 1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society
  • 1979 Albert Einstein Medal
  • 1981 Franklin Medal
  • 1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander)
  • 1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
  • 1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
  • 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics
  • 1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord
  • 1989 Companion of Honour
  • 1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society
  • 2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University
  • 2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society
  • 2008 Fonseca Price of the University of Santiago de Compostela
  • 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States

Are we really trying to compare the two here?  Colleagues?  Seriously?   Hawking is a brilliant brilliant brilliant man.  Does that mean his thoughts should count for more than other people’s?  I don’t know.  But there is no doubt something he says will get my attention more than something Tyson says.  Doesn’t mean I think Hawking is right about everything.  But you have to give respect where it is due.  And he deserves it.  If Hawking announced that the color red was inherently better than the color blue I would want to know why he thought that.  He has earned that.  Tyson hasn’t really earned much of anything.  Not discounting his ideas per se.  But to try to take down Hawking while elevated himself, that kind of bothers me.  Makes me think that Tyson’s ideas may have trouble standing on their own merit.  If they were solid, he wouldn’t need to start off with an attack.

Again, this post is not about how I feel about religion and science or religion vs. science (I think the science vs. religion debate is unnecessary personally – but that is all I am going to say about it here).

This post is about how I feel about badly thought out arguments and YAFPRBE (Yet another press release by email).  I am sick of publicists sending me these emails.  Especially when they seem fundamentally flawed.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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A very simple suggestion for scientists to increase their interactions w/ people in the humanities

Well, I have been inspired recently by some of my interactions with people in the humanities. In general I think that there need to be more professional interactions between scientists and people in the humanities. So here is a simple suggestion, that could be taken up by scientists.

When you go to give a talk at another place, and your hosts ask who you want to meet with, include someone from outside the sciences. Either find someone yourself or asks your hosts to do it. I am going to do this for all my future visits to other campuses. Not only might it help in terms of interactions across fields, but I know my brain hurts after a full day of meeting with only scientists, so this has got to be better …

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Quick Tip: if you want someone to share job ads, announcements, etc, send links to web sites not attachments

OK I have had it. I have had it with people who send me job ads and meeting announcements and other things they want me to “share” with colleagues or students. I got six such requests today – two for job ads, two for course announcements and two for meeting announcements.

But this rant may not be what you think. I am not annoyed that they want me to share something. I actually like doing this. What I am annoyed with is how people do this. 95% of the time people send these email requests with an attachment and expect me to forward this on to all who might be interested. And much of the time these attachments are big files, sometimes written in programs that only some people can open.

Does this work some of the time? Sure. Do I sometimes forward these on? Sure. But that approach is so 2005. Here in 2010 there are better ways than email blasts to people who mostly just click delete. In my opinion, the best way to get someone to share something like this is to post your announcement on the web somewhere and then send people a link to the web site. Include a brief summary in the email you send around and if people want more information they can go to the web site. Not only does this save some bandwidth and not clutter up peoples email servers, but it also allows those of us who share via Twitter and Friendfeed and Facebook and so on to more easily send the announcement around. I am sure many people prefer the attachments, but I for one get 50+ attachments a day, almost all of which do not get looked at.

UPDATE 9/23/2012
So – the post above was written two years ago, almost to the day.  And not much has changed.  Excepted perhaps the way people share links (I mention Friendfeed above — I guess I that could be replaced by Google+).

What is an easy way to post a document and then send people a link?  There are many ways to do this including

  • Post as a Google Doc/Presentation in Google Drive and send the link
  • Upload to Dropbox or another such site and, well, share the link
  • Post as a blog post (if you have a blog) or friggin start a blog and post it there
And of course many many other ways.  But please please please stop sending all these files around.  For a while I was posting them to my blog (I can autopost by forwarding email messages to the right address).  But I am sick of doing this for other people and am going to stop.
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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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If a picture=1000 words, what is sound worth? #burrowingowls

Well, my brother Matt is visiting and he has in one fell swoop opened my ears to a whole new world.  We went for a walk on this trail near my house in Davis, CA where a massive number of burrowing owls live.  I have spent the last few months, on and off, trying to take some good pictures of these amazing owls.  Here is a slideshow of some of my favorites.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Anyway, while going on this walk, Matt brought an extensive collection of giant strange looking sound equipment.

 You see, he is a sound engineer in his spare time and this is, well, what he does. And when we found some owls he told us to mosey on down the trail so he could record. And here are some of his recordings – completely changing my view of these owls.

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fmattrglenn%2Fburrowing-owls&secret_url=false Burrowing Owls by mattglenn

He has more detail about this on this blog.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Scientists getting antsy over possible salary reductions/furloughs at University of California

Just got this via email – a letter circulating at UC Santa Cruz about the possibility of furloughs/salary reductions at the University of California. Basically the issue is that UC is having some major financial trouble due mostly to getting less money from the state of California (due to California’s financial problems). And the UC has circulated a memo saying that they are considering 4-8% pay cuts or furloughs that will reduce salary by 4-8% for ALL UC personnel.

This is a bit off putting to many since some personnel get their money from government grants not from the UC budget, but apparently to try and avoid inequality (which of course already exists) or to avoid hard decisions or for other reasons, UC is planning to have these cuts apply to everyone, even if that does not save UC money. I do find it strange that most of the people who work for/with me will get pay cuts which will lead to having extra $$ in my grants to spend. The extra weird thing is, if I cannot spend the money save from salary reductions, then UC loses money due to getting less indirect costs. I personally accept that the budget is in the toilet right now and UC needs to do some drastic things, but I am not sure if this across the board cut makes sense.
Anyway I thought the letter would be of interest to some.

We in the biomedical research community at the University of California, Santa Cruz are writing to express serious concerns about the salary budget cuts proposed as of 6/17/09. This letter represents the concerns of technicians, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and fellows, research specialists, and project scientists in the departments of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, Chemistry, Biomolecular Engineering, and Computer Engineering. We generally fall into the category of “staff”, and thus we understand that any staff salary cuts instituted in the future will affect all of us. However, it is important to understand that nearly all of us are paid by funds that do not come from the state of California, but rather from federal grants awarded by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and grants awarded by many other public and private agencies. In many cases, the grant has been awarded to a Principal Investigator, and then is used by the Principal Investigator to pay us for our research work. In other cases, the grants are awarded directly to us to cover the salary necessary for our scientific training. So, as the majority of our salaries are not provided by the California state budget, a mandatory salary cut for our staff will not ease the University budget crisis, while it will indeed make our day-to-day living more difficult. Other effects of a mandatory reduction of our salaries are that: 1) This will actually reduce the amount of money the University receives in indirect costs from grants. 2) This will decrease the amount of income tax we pay to the state of California, further exacerbating the existing budget crisis. 3) The depletion of the funds coming into the University of California due to these salary cuts will make it increasingly difficult for the University to support its employees. 4) Lastly, the salary cut propos al may, in the longer-term, undermine confidence in the University of California system and lead talented people to move to states that are able and willing to support higher education and scientific research.

In summary, we strongly urge that no salary cut be instituted for University of California-affiliated personnel like ourselves whose salary is independent from the California state budget. Below you will find our signatures along with those of our supporting staff and Principal Investigators. Sincerely, The biomedical researchers of the University of California, Santa Cruz

See also

Plus here is a note from UC explaining their approach on reductions/furloughs:
Here is a communication from UC about the furloughs:

June 18, 2009

UC Furlough/Salary Reduction Plan Options – Questions & Answers
A summary of options for systemwide furloughs/salary reductions was sent to the UC
community on June 17, 2009. Following broad consultation, President Yudof intends to present
a specific option for approval to The Regents at their July 2009 meeting. To date, no decisions
have been made as to which option will be implemented. Below are answers to questions about
the proposals. Additional information will be added throughout this process as answers to other
questions become available and as the University approaches a decision on this issue.

Are these furloughs/salary reductions intended to be permanent?
No – the intent is for these actions to be temporary or short-term in nature, to help the University
through the current budget crisis. As indicated, the proposed duration for all three options is
August 1, 2009 through July 31, 2010 unless extended by the Regents.

Will furloughs/salary cuts apply to all employees, including faculty and represented
employees?
Yes. In order to ensure equity across the University, whichever option is chosen would apply to
all faculty and staff, except student employees. The Academic Senate has been closely involved
in consultation on these options. Implementation of the final plan is subject to collective
bargaining for represented employees. The President may recommend a hybrid Plan that
achieves the eight percent reduction in slightly different ways for the various employee groups.

If my salary is not supported by state funds, will I still have to take a furlough or salary cut?
Yes – participation is not based on the source of salary funds. Each of the options would apply to
UC employees whose salaries are funded by contracts and grants, clinical income and other
auxiliary activity, and general funds.

Will the proposed reductions apply to employees at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory?
The intent is for whatever option is selected to apply to all UC employees, including LBNL
employees. Since LBNL is funded by the Department of Energy (DOE), UC will comply with
all contractual obligations with the DOE.

W ill this be additive for the senior leaders who have already taken a five percent pay cut?
The senior UC officials who voluntarily agreed to have their salary reduced by five percent will
have their salaries reduced by a total of at least eight percent under these options.

How will the furlough/salary reduction impact vacation and sick leave accruals, UCRP service
credit and benefit calculations, and other benefits?
Under each option, the intent is to protect benefits and leave accruals to the extent possible. This
may not be possible in all situations. This issue continues to be evaluated and no final decisions
have been made yet. Approval from the Regents is required to protect UCRP benefits from being
impacted by a furlough/salary reduction plan.

I volunteered to participate in START to help the University manage the budget situation. Will
I have to take further reductions if a systemwide furlough or salary reduction is implemented?
How these options impact/relate to the START program is currently being analyzed. More
information on this issue is expected soon.

What’s the difference between the three options?
All three options are intended to achieve the same budgetary savings and have the same impact
on employee pay — each option is closely equivalent to an eight percent pay reduction. Option I
is a straight pay reduction with no changes to work hours. Under Options II and III, employees
will be scheduled to work fewer days and a number of holidays will no longer be paid holidays.

In Options II and III, will I be able to schedule the unpaid day at a time that’s convenient for
me and my department, or will the days be pre-scheduled?
This is still being looked at. The unpaid days would include a combination of University
holidays and additional days, but the precise mix of holidays vs. additional days has not been
determined. The additional days may be pre-scheduled by the University in order to manage
critical operations, for example to ensure patient care at a medical center.

For unpaid days, can I “make up” for the lost salary by using my vacation leave, sick leave, or
compensatory time off?
No. The objective of these options is for the University to achieve budgetary savings. Accrued
vacation, paid time off (PTO), comp time and/or sick leave all are forms of paid time off and
thus may not be substituted for unpaid days.

Will furloughs or salary reductions affect the health of the UC retirement plan?
The potential impact of the options on the funding status of the UC retirement plan is being
analyzed by the Plan Actuary, and this will be taken into consideration as decisions are made.

also see Friendfeed comments

http://friendfeed.com/treeoflife/0abcffe1/scientists-getting-antsy-over-possible-salary?embed=1

——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

——–

HHMI early career scientists

HHMI has announced a new list of anointed ones (HHMI News: HHMI Gives 50 Early Career Scientists a Jump on Their Next Big Idea).

A few comments.

First, it is really really surprising that they are so low on females here (41 men, 9 women by my count). Given that this is for early career scientists and that women have on average sometime more challenges in the early career than men, it would have been nice to see this the other way around.

That being said, they did pick some good people in this list (shocking, I know). Here are a few I want to highlight as they are related to things I tend to write about here:

Rob Knight, at U. Colorado at Boulder who has been developing computational methods to study microbial diversity and has developed lots of cool methods.
Harmit Malik, FHCRC, who does some great stuff on genome evolution.
Michael Laub, MIT who works on Caulobacter development.
Martin Cohn, U. Florida who has done some very cool work on evolution of development in vertebrates.
Neil Hunter UC Davis. UCD’s first HHMI awardee. And a good one to pick. He does some cool work on recombination.
Molly Przeworski, U. Chicago, who works on population genetics on a genome-wide scale.
Aviv Regev, Broad Institute, who has done some interesting work on regulatory networks.

I love the idea of finding people not projects. Too bad there is not more of this type of thing from Federal Agencies. We would probably save money in the long run — review people once every few years and give them some money to do work. Not that competitive grant programs should be eliminated, but funding people more would reduce the # of grant proposals and panels and would probably save $$ in the long run by allowing people to focus on doing work.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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NSF looking OK in revised stimulus bill

Just downloaded what I think is the current bill that the House just passed for the stimulus.  And it looks like the National Science Foundation is coming out OK.  It says

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
NSF is directed to submit to the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations a spending plan, signed by the Director, detailing its intended
allocation offunds provided in this Act within 60 days of enactment of this Act.
RESEARCH AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

For research and related activities, the conference agreement provides a total
of $2,500,000,000, to remain available until September 30,2010. Within this
amount, $300,000,000 shall be available solely for the major research
instrumentation program and $200,000,000 shall be available for activities
authorized by title II of Public Law 100-570 for academic facilities modernization.
In allocating the resources provided under this heading, the conferees direct that
NSF support all research divisions and support advancements in supercomputing
technology.

EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCES
The conference agreement includes $100,000,000 for education and human
resources, to remain available until September 30, 2010. These funds shall be
allocated as follows:
Robert Noyce Scholarship Program …………………….. .
Math and Science Partnerships …………………………… .
Professional Science Master’s Programs ……………… .
$60,000,000
25,000,000
15,000,000
MAJOR RESEARCH EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES CONSTRUCTION
The conference agreement includes $400,000,000 for major research
equipment and facilities construction, to remain available until September 30,
2010.
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
The conference agreement includes $2,000,000 for the Office of Inspector
General, to remain available until SeptemberJO, 2013.

“
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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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McCain Palin going after fruit flies

As if scientists did not have enough reasons to vote against McCain-Palin who seem to have decided that Bush was overly supportive of science. Now Palin is attacking of all things “fruit-fly research.” Lovely. Proof that they are both clueless (not knowing what a fruit fly is probably) and anti-science at the same time. For more on this see:

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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$ 700 billion will buy a lot of taq, LB, submarines, and other things

I know, my research tends to be expensive as I work on deep sea organisms and do genomics and such. But for $700 billion, a lot could get done in my work areas. Here are some things one could get for that amount of money that directly relate to my work (this was inspired by a conversation with Drew Endy Friday)

  • 1,400,000 Roche 454 Sequencing Machines (for $500,000 each). If you had money for reagents, that would get you a lot of sequencing.
  • 70 million bacterial genomes (at $10,000 each for the shotgun sequencing)
  • 280,000 liters (yes that is right, liters) of Taq polymerase (at 100$/40 ul)
  • 29.16 billion liters of sterilized LB broth (from Sigma at 12$/500 ml). That is one big vat of LB. It is also about 11,666 olympic swimmings pools worth of LB.
  • 7 billion copies of my Evolution textbook
  • 7 million people years of computational biologists to analyze data (at $100,000 per person year)
  • 538 million open access fees for publishing in PLoS One (at $1300 each)
  • 116.67 years of the National Science Foundation’s Budget (at current costs of $6 billion per year)
  • A fleet of 32,407 Alvin submarine replacements (at 21.6 million a pop). Think of all of the deep sea work that could be done
  • Registration fees for 350 million people to go to the AGBT meeting in Marco Island
  • 28 million special guest appearances by Craig Venter (assuming he charges a 25,000 speaking fee, which is probably a bit high)
So it goes. I was always thinking of writing this type of blog about the money spent on the Iraq War. But this “bailout” $$$ got me thinking again.
And please post your own lists of what else this $$$ could buy.
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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Punctuated equilibrium of my blog … and a look at an old science rap

Well, with my new role in PLoS Biology as Academic Editor in Chief, I had planned to start blogging more about PLoS and PLoS Biology. And I will. However, I am going to have to do a half effort on this for at least a week or two as I have a lovely ailment called trigger finger which is making typing rather awkward. So in lieu of a detailed blog I simply have to make a brief comment on one of the articles in this months issue

The article in which I am interested is a nice primer on mutational meltdown in mammalian mitochondrial genomes by Dave Rand. This is in relation to a paper by Stewart et al. in this issue. But enough about science. For those who do not know, Dave Rand published what I believe was the first rap in a scientific article. In an article in Genetics he presented a rap about repeat induced point mutation (something known as RIPPING). This RAP about RIPPING I think was presented at the Evolution meeting in Berkeley (I think I was at the talk where he did the RAP but I am not sure — I could have, like Andy Pettite, misremembered the whole thing).

And well, here it is:

Yo! you’ve got my DNA and you think it is a-RIPping,
Your dog is so excited her saliva is a-dripping,
She seems to think the polymerase is doing some a-skipping,
But then again, you never know, she might just be a-quipping.
Are you sure induction by repeats did make it happen?
If it’s just associated, why not call it RAPpin’?
What motifs are necessary to keep the strands a-snappin’?
I don’t know and I don’t care, but something did some zappin’.

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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