inkbluesky

Math + religion = Trouble offers up an intriguing look at the history of mixing of mathematics and religion. There’s a very concise skip down natural history lane that includes some very bright people such as Baruch Spinoza who was excommunicated for claiming that mathematics were instruments of the divine. Relatively few modern mathematicians are theists, though slightly more then biologists. Nobel winning physicist Steven Weinberg has a fair handed if curmudgeonly summation of the matter “With or without religion, good people will do good, and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that takes religion.”

snow, rock and leaf

Researchers seek animal test alternative

Bailey agrees that in vitro chips hold the most promise, but said the chips still need to be validated before companies can have more confidence in them. He noted that chips have limitations when it comes to risk assessment, such as determining if particular doses of a substance pose a cancer risk.

The product developed by Dordick and Clark consists of two glass slides. The first, called the MetaChip, has rows of little blots containing human liver enzymes. The other slide, the DataChip, contains an identical array of blots which, depending on the test, could be live human bladder, liver, kidney, heart, skin or lung cell cultures. Sandwiched together, the two chips mimic the human body’s reaction to compounds.

If the cells die or stop growing, it’s a sign that a toxin was present.

This doesn’t mean the end of animal testing when it comes to the newest mascara, but closer to using fewer animals to make sure societies newest vanities don’t cause a rash.