Archives for December 18, 2007
Teachers: Don’t let this happen to you!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Science News Tidbits
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Male Semen Makes HIV More Potent More than 80 percent of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are transmitted via sexual intercourse. And researchers may have discovered at least one reason why. According to a new study published in Cell, a component of human semen may facilitate the spread of the virus by targeting immune system…
Science News: Ancient Climate Change and Modern Macroevolution
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 I’m putting this bit of human biogeography under the “species coming and going” category: Greenland DNA could hold key to migration mysteries: researchers from PhysOrg.com Danish researchers are to sieve through human and skeletal remains on Greenland in a quest to explain an enduring enigma over the island’s settlement over thousands of years, one of…
My Linux Calendar
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Dec 18 Konrad Zuse died in Hünfeld, 1995. Zuse was an engineer and a pioneer in the computer field. He developed the world’s first functional program-controlled computer, the Z3, in 1941. He also designed the first high-level programming language, Plankaklul in 1948, although the langauge was never implemented during his lifetime. He also founded the…
Atheists are smarter
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Statistically, atheists have a higher intelligence than people with a strong religious faith. The difference is 5.8 points, according to a new study by the Danish professor of developmental psychology, Helmuth Nyborg. Read all about it here.
Don’t be fooled … this is just more robots, and other matters
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Before I sign on to this, I want to know what happens when the vehicles become self aware and take over the planet: Vehicles That Talk to Each Other Know What Lanes They’re In from PhysOrg.com A standard GPS receiver has an average 2D-positioning accuracy of about 13 meters. While this precision is high enough…
The knature of knowldge
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 I wanted to point out two interesting posts both having to to with the nature of knowledge, or as we call it here in Minnesota (where the “k” in “Knute” is proudly pronounced).
Encephalon #38
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 The Blog Carnival, is here.
Saudi Rape Victim Pardoned; Slave Couple Convicted
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 You will recall this story about a woman raped in Saudi Arabia and convicted of her crime of being a victim. There is an update.
Cooking and Human Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 From Scientific American, a piece on the “Cooking Hypothesis” (which yours truly helped develop some years back). Our hominid ancestors could never have eaten enough raw food to support our large, calorie-hungry brains, Richard Wrangham claims. The secret to our evolution, he says, is cooking Cooking does indeed turn a lot of stuff that is…
Updates on the War on Christmas and Other Matters
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 How much influence to key religious leaders have in the White House?; Is Borders Books insensitive to Christians?: What are the Western Colorado Atheists up to?
The E-Word
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Pursuant to a discussion here regarding the use of the word “evolution” in various scholarly contexts, consider the article in PLoS: Evolution by Any Other Name: Antibiotic Resistance and Avoidance of the E-Word The increase in resistance of human pathogens to antimicrobial agents is one of the best-documented examples of evolution in action at the…
The Democrats and the Media vs. The Republicans
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 This video has been removed becaus, I assume, THEY did not want you to see it… So how about this one instead:
Where The Cooties Go To Die
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 OK, so you are vacuuming the house, and along the way, you suck up a couple of spiders, some spier eggs, a beetle or two, and as the cat or dog walks by, you figure you’re probably sucking up some fleas and flea eggs, and so on and so forth. SO you know all these…
Tunguska Modeled: There’s good news and there’s bad news
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 The good news is that the object that hit the earth at Tunguska 1908 was much smaller than previously thought. The bad news is that the object that hit the earth at Tunguska 1908 was much smaller than previously thought. In other words, if such a small object can do so much damage, then the…
Open Source Wins and Woes
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Owing to public presure, the BBC iPlayer is now going to support Linux. But if you are a student in Newville, Pennsylvania who is into OpenSource, you may serve detention! (or NOT, see update below)
More Hype on Highway 35
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 I knew there was something holey about this road that I drive on every day. And all this time I thought it was the potholes. (see this for earlier post on this topic)
Global Orgasm for Peace
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Finally, some spirituality I can live with… I was a little disappointed with the online store, though.
Neanderthal Childhood. Did it happen?
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2007 Every few years a paper comes out “explaining” short stature in one or more Pygmy groups. Most of the time the new work ads new information and new ideas but fails to be convincing. This is the case with the recent PNAS paper by Migliano et al. From the abstract:
, which is now available for the 
