Respectful Insolence (a.k.a. "Orac Knows"): Friday dinosaur goodies

: Name: Orac; Location: The Liberator, somewhere deep in Federation space, United States

Orac is but a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. That Orac has chosen his pseudonym based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights from an old British SF show whose special effects were renowned for their early 1980's BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction for television ever produced, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.) Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful, but admittedly sometimes fails in the cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, attacks on him, very poor critical thinking skills, bigotry, and just general plain stupidity.

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Orac replied , "I am not trying to tell you anything. I am simply not interested in trying to compensate for your amazing lack of observation."

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This is a personal web log, reflecting the sometimes prickly opinions of its author. Statements on this blog do not represent the opinions of anyone other than the author. They most definitely do not represent the opinions or position of the author's hospital, university, surgical practice, or partners. The information on this blog is intended for discussion and entertainment purposes only and not as recommendations on how to diagnose or treat illnesses. Any personal medical issues the reader may have should be referred to the reader's physician. If the reader freely chooses to follow the opinion of a pseudonymous blogger like the author (who has also not done a proper history or physical examination and whose credentials cannot be verified) over that of his or her own personal physician, it is the reader's decision alone, for which the reader must bear full responsibility.

E-mail policy: All e-mail replies to Orac in response to material posted to this blog are subject to being publicly reprinted on Respectful Insolence solely at the discretion of Orac. Requests not to publicly reprint an e-mail will certainly be considered on a case-by-case basis, but Orac offers no guarantee that he will honor them (especially if the e-mail in question is obnoxious, threatening, or insulting).

Friday, March 25, 2005

Friday dinosaur goodies

PZ over at Pharyngula has blogged about a recent report in Science in which amazingly well-preserved dinosaur soft tissues were found deep within the fossilized bones of Tyrannosaurus rex. Cool. Of particular interest to me is the vascular endothelial structures that were identified. Given that my main research interest is tumor angiogenesis, most of my lab work revolves around endothelial cells. Unfortunately, I haven't received the March 25 issue of Science yet, but I'll definitely check this out when it arrives.

In fact, I can see a new grant proposal from this: Dinosaur angiogenesis, anyone?