Before we get started: are you interested in applying science to baseball? Saberseminar, the conference about Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball, is back this summer for the first time since 2019!
Are you (or someone you know) interested in baseball and also a student from an underrepresented minority or historically marginalized group? Consider applying for a Saberseminar scholarship! The deadline is June 5th.
Shaping the Future of Patent Law: The Amgen v. Sanofi Decision and Bite-Sized Monopolies
I have been following Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi pretty closely because functional descriptive language was (is?) the bane of my existence. That’s not entirely true; 35 U.S.C. Section 112 rejections were among my favorites to write, and I had some pretty good functional descriptive language rejections. No, it is not the same as an enablement rejection.
Ed Silverman (Pharmalot) at STAT has a good writeup on Amgen v Sanofi as well, with less nitty gritty about patent law and more about implications for the pharmaceutical industry.
At Musk’s brain-chip startup, animal-testing panel is rife with potential conflicts
Reuters has been reporting on research misconduct at Neuralink, most notably their blatant disregard for animal welfare regulations and guidance. Their latest story discusses the members of Neuralink’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which oversees their animal research.
I previously wrote about one of Reuter’s earlier Neuralink stories.
Is it the beginning of the end for scientific publishing?
The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast on the mass resignation at scientific publishing behemoth Elsevier’s journal Neuroimage. It will be interesting to see if other editors and reviewers will follow suit elsewhere.
Related: Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
Covid-19 and domestic violence
“In the almost three years of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been marked increases in domestic violence in countries around the world—up by 33 percent, according to some estimates. In New York, the reported incidence of domestic violence has risen by 30 percent.”
This was predicted early on during lockdowns, and yet nothing was done to stop it. “Only three months into the pandemic lockdown, New York State recognized the crisis of violence was accelerating—calls to the state’s domestic violence hotline were up 30 percent in April 2020 compared to the previous year.”
April 2020: Women are using code words at pharmacies to escape domestic violence during lockdown
Caregiving costs women nearly $300,000 in lost pay over their lifetimes, Department of Labor finds
“Of the $295,000 figure, 80 percent is attributed to lost earnings due to caregiving and 20 percent is lost retirement income as a result of lower wages.”
I think this is common knowledge amongst caregivers who are doing the math on pausing their career for caregiving, but this study is the first of its kind to quantify the effect. It’s good to have numbers on this.
Menopause The Musical Link Dump
An understudied and underfunded area of research - like most research around women’s health - has been in the news quite a bit lately.
Menopause and women’s health: why science needs to catch up
This is an episode of the Nature Podcast discussing menopause and women’s health, particularly regarding two recent stories in Nature (linked below, along with other menopause links). As noted by Nature, “This article uses ‘women’ to describe people who experience menopause, while recognizing that not all people who identify as women go through menopause, and not all people who go through menopause identify as women.”
How menopause reshapes the brain
“Fezolinetant and similar drugs in the pipeline also represent a shift in thinking: from menopause as a condition of the female reproductive organs, to one that focuses on neurological causes and effects.” There is more to women’s health than reproductive organs, and it’s time to reframe menopause accordingly.
Women’s health research lacks funding – these charts show how
An interactive graphic visualization about research funding and disease burden.
The FDA Just Approved a Drug to Treat Hot Flashes—Here’s What to Know
Self Magazine on Veozah (fezolinetant).
Study Shows the Staggering Cost of Menopause for Women in the Work Force
“Menopause costs American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time per year, according to a Mayo Clinic study published this week. The paper examined how hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and the myriad other symptoms associated with this time of life affect women in the workplace.”
We shouldn’t have to discuss the economic impact of a health condition in order to direct attention, resources, and research towards it, but some people are more interested in the financial angle than the personal impact.
I Went Through Menopause At 44 And I Was Shocked By What It Did To My Body
I’m the type of person who reads and gathers as much information as they can to prepare themselves for something, anything. So I appreciate this firsthand description.
Some older pieces about menopause that I saved for one reason or another…
As Menopause Nears, Be Aware It Can Trigger Depression And Anxiety, Too
Listening to Estrogen: “Hormones have always been a third rail in female mental health. They may also be a skeleton key.”
“You must pause first, the way one must always pause before a great endeavor, if only to take a good breath.”
“The fucking menopause comes and it is the most wonderful fucking thing in the world. Yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you’re free. No longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts. You’re just a person."