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08 Jan 2012 11:44

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Politics: “No Child Left Behind” turns 10, education experts want to leave it behind

  • It is time to acknowledge this failure and adopt a more effective course for the federal role in education. Policymakers must abandon their faith-based embrace of test-and-punish strategies and, instead, pursue proven alternatives to guide and support the nation’s neediest schools and students.
  • A policy assessment written by Lisa Guisbond, Monty Neill and Bob Schaeffer • Suggesting that No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era education law passed under bipartisan circumstances, should go the way of the dodo. The policy, now seen as an example of ineffective government overreach by many, celebrates its 10th birthday today, and politicians who once supported the law — including Rick Santorum, who voted for it and tried to push an intelligent design amendment into the bill — no longer do. Guisbond, Neill and Schaeffer’s report, which suggests revisiting the law based on the lessons learned from the past decade, is available to read over heresource

20 Sep 2010 12:39

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U.S.: Next up for carnivores: genetically-engineered salmon

Who wants genetically engineered salmon? If approved by the FDA, it would be the first genetically modified animal given a thumbs-up. source

18 Jul 2010 10:23

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U.S.: Oil spill: BP says the cap is working so well, it’s gonna stay on

  • good Over a couple of days of testing, BP has found that the well hasn’t leaked any oil since the cap was put on.
  • better Rather than removing it, they’re going to leave it on for testing until they have a permanent solution. Hooray! source

27 Mar 2010 11:03

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U.S.: Hey, heart pill user: Your nitroglycerin probably wasn’t tested

  • 80% of prescribed nitroglycerin had no FDA testing source

19 Mar 2010 17:12

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Tech: What if you could take a pill to stop damage from smoking?

  • good New research suggests a protein, GM-CSF, controls lung damage from smoking and can be turned off with the use of a pill.
  • bad The effects (for now) have only been tested short-term. Also, there’s still no cure for cancer, so it’s not a perfect solution. source

05 Mar 2010 21:22

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Music: Awesome: Broken Bells have kids review one of their songs

  • One of these four kids has a future as a music critic. The other three seem like they would’ve liked anything that James Mercer and Danger Mouse played for them.

20 Nov 2009 10:39

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U.S.: Cancer screening for the ladies just got a whole lot more lax

  • The government says that women need fewer mammograms and self-breast exams. People get angry and confused. source
  • The government says that women need fewer pap smears and cervical cancer tests. People get angry and confused – again. source
 

14 Oct 2009 11:10

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U.S.: Standardized math scores suck: Children left behind en masse

  • 39% of fourth-graders scored proficiently on a national math test source

12 Oct 2009 09:32

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World: Morning guys. Here’s North Korea’s latest wakeup call.

  • 5 short-range missiles were fired off this morning source

24 Sep 2009 08:24

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U.S., World: More on the HIV vaccine: What’s next and what’s possible?

  • Tests will have been done to verify that the difference is unlikely to have occurred by chance and I have no trouble believing the figures.
  • Dr. Adriano Boasso • An HIV expert at Imperial College London, on whether or not the findings mean something. According to Boasso and others, they mean a lot. While it’s possible the results come down to chance, the release of the full trial data will go a long way in confirming exactly how successful the drugs really were. The BBC has an informative Q&A which should answer some of the big questions on how it was done (a cocktail mix of a primer vaccine and a booster vaccine) and whether or not it’s ready for prime time (at 31.2%, no, but it’s a start). • source