Now on ScienceBlogs: "Investigative science journalism" and books I like to read [All of My Faults Are Stress Related]
Evolution, Life Sciences, Science Education, Human Evolution, and Stuff
Welcome to Greg Laden's Blog.
February 29, 2008
According to a poll this week, approximately 31 percent of surveyed Americans believe Roger Clemens is telling the truth about never taking performance-enhancing drugs. This is about the same percentage of Americans who believe in creationism, and still insist George Bush is doing a good...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:13 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
That is the title of the First Place science fair project from a baptist science fair. The description of the project: Cassidy Turnbull (grade five) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:16 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Carnival of Education # 160 Friday Ark # 180 Carnival of the Liberals #59...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:27 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Archaeology
From whence the humble chicken? Gallus gallus is a domesticated chicken-like bird (thus, the name "chicken") that originates in southeast Asia. Ever since Darwin we've known that the chicken originated in southeast Asia, although the exact details of which one or more of several possible...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:48 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
are here: HIV infection at Wissen schafft Kommunikatioin Other cellular stuff (an oldie but a goodie) at WeiterGen!...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Health
At this moment, there is a guy laid up in the hospital in Vegas with ricin poisoning. A stash of ricin has been found in his hotel room/apartment. His dog is dead (not sure why but probably due to lack of water and food) and...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Cosmos
Science educator Roy Gould and Microsoft's Curtis Wong give an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope -- a technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and weaves them together holistically to build a comprehensive view...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:19 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It turns out that there are TWO (not just the previously reported Barney Maddox) distinct threats to the delicate pro- vs. anti-science balance on the Texas School Board. I had earlier alerted you to trouble brewing in Texas, with Full Blown Creationist Nuthead Barney Maddox...
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
Microsoft Execs Struggled with Vista Emails show Microsoft's Vista problems from PhysOrg.com E-mails suggest Microsoft executives struggled to make Windows Vista work on their own computers after it was released, a published report said. [...]...
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:10 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Archaeology
... it was time to skip town. I'm going to Mayaland in a few weeks. I know nothing about Mayan archaeology, even though I attended graduate school at one of the world's premier locals for the study of Mesoamerican archaeology. Since I was working towards...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:55 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Janet Stemwedel provides an interesting and well reasoned reaction to the recent criticisms from BlaBlaBlog about the insularity and generally evil nature of Scienceblogs.com. Janet is merely a puppet in this case. We had a big meeting last night in the secret clubhouse and decided...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:51 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogospherics
Janet Stemwedel provides an interesting and well reasoned reaction to the recent criticisms from BlaBlaBlog about the insularity and generally evil nature of Scienceblogs.com. Janet is merely a puppet in this case. We had a big meeting last night in the secret clubhouse and decided...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:44 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogospherics
This has existed for a while (a couple of weeks?): A new scienceblogs.com feed for blogs addressing peer reviewed research. You can see the feed here at the Sb RSS feed page (from which you can subscribe or whatever you do with your feeds). So,...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:41 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 28, 2008
Category: Blogging
So, maybe scienceblogs is special after all......
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As usual. Along with seabirds, owing to decisions made by the US government. The US Government has auctioned leases to drill for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska, putting at risk internationally important concentrations of seabirds, and a number of threatened bird...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:16 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Historical records indicate that 130 years ago, the white-tailed jack rabbit was abundant in the Yellowstone vicinity. The last confirmed sighting was in 1991. What happened? This apparently remains a mystery, according to Rabbit Expert Joel Berger....
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:48 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is caused by a coronavirus that is now believed to have originated in bats. In 2004, thousands of palm civets (a cat like carnivore) were killed off in China because it was believed that they were the main reservoir of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:27 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Or is it just that they are more often recognized. Or more sensationally reported. A recent study suggests that "emerging" diseases such as HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus and Ebola are more common....
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Rare Birds Yearbook 2008: The World's 189 Most Threatened Birds is, according to BirdLife International, proving to be a great success. Last year's Rare Birds Yearbook photo competition was a huge success with more than 1,000 images being submitted and the best were presented in...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Thousands of sick and dying bats are being found in caves in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts. These are mostly Myotis lucifungus (the fairly common little brown bat) but at least three other species, including the endangered Myotis sodalis (Indiana bat) are affected as well....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:16 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
... is up at Archaeoporn...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A flourishing wetland on Kenya's northern coast is under serious threat from plans to grow vast amounts of sugarcane, partly for biofuel production. Developers want to transform nearly 20,000 hectares of the spectacular Tana River Delta, into sugarcane plantations with other parts of the Delta...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Almost half of the world's oceans have been ruined to some degree ... often very severely ... by human activity. You've heard a lot on the news and in the blogosphere about this lately. This increased interest is in part because of the recent production...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:16 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolutionary Biology
More Life After Darwin Parts 9 and 10 exist, and may be found on YouTube, but the versions that I've looked at are broken (no sound). Sorry!...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Across Africa, and to some extent Asia, existing large parks and preserves are being combined into very large parks in order to serve several important functions. One is to make the parks so large that there will be interior areas that are impractical for most...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is a photograph of wild western lowland gorillas copulating in, sort of, the missionary position. This shot was taken in the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I've seen wind turbines from a distance, and they looked big, but I had no idea how big they were until I was as the State Fair (Minnesota) last year, and saw a single blade, mounted vertically like an enormous sculpture, extending gracefully so high...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A DNA phylogeny based on over 200 species of lemurs and related species is now available....
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:16 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
BirdLife International has welcomed the measures announced by New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton to reduce the number of seabirds killed in New Zealand's fisheries. This follows an incident last year where a single longline vessel fishing in the Chatham Rise area of New Zealand...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 27, 2008
You have probably heard that the current flu vaccine matches the current flue strains in the US very poorly, perhaps at about a 40 percent rate. Flu and the vaccine mismatch is a post at Effect Measure that will update you on this important issue....
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Bablab blog.... We have a confession. You have all been part of an experiment in social engineering. This has been in the planning for a while now. But let me step back and explain the purpose of our experiment before we analyze the results. ........
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:04 PM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolutionary Biology
More Life After Darwin...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:13 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birthdays
I have like 50 friends on facebook (I just joined). Facebook tells me who's birthday it is. So, two days ago it was Brian, today it's Janet. They both happen to be Scienceblogs.com bloggers. Janet blogs here. So happy birthday Janet! Two scienceblogger's birthdays in...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:46 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I don't do much instant messaging, although I have found it useful for communicating with colleagues overseas for free. But, in the ongoing quest for the answer to the question "Right, but can I do that in Linux?" I offer the following link on Three...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:13 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
OH, and this... "If all goes IBM's way, it'll soon constitute patent infringement if Bennigan's gives you a free lunch for being inconvenienced by a long wait for your meal. Big Blue is seeking a patent for its Method and Structure for Automated Crediting to...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:16 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Polluted prey causes wild birds to change their tune from PhysOrg.com Considerable attention has been paid to the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals in aquatic environments, but rather less attention has been given to routes of contamination on land. A new study, published in...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Other
William F. Buckley has died. William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:13 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bennett Gordon has a post on the Har Mar Science Fair: ...Every diorama in the Home School Science Fair, which took place inside a shopping mall in Roseville, Minnesota, had a biblical quote attached to it. A young woman whose project involved teaching her dog...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:49 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
The European Commission has fined US computer giant Microsoft for defying sanctions imposed on it for anti-competitive behaviour. Microsoft must now pay 899 million euros ... after it failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it took part in monopolistic practices. [Source: BBC]...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:42 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
Because the Garmin GPS system ... ... is leading some drivers ... straight into a dead end. ... The electronic maps don't show a gate that separates residential and industrial areas. It's only opened for a couple hours on weekdays in the northern New Jersey...
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:20 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brain and Behavior
In this open access publication in PLoS it is ...suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:17 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I've been avoiding discussion of the patent issue. This is partly because I don't know enough about it, and partly because I am terribly annoyed by it. Yes, yes, I blog about stuff that annoys me all the time, but these are topics that I'm...
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:16 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
Google Summer of Code 2008 is on! Over the past three years, the program has brought together over 1500 students and 2000 mentors from 90 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. We look forward to welcoming more new contributors and projects this year....
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Robots
Professor Noel Sharkey of Sheffield University is issuing warnings about the threat to humanity by robots. From this urgent press release:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:00 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
I hate when people tell me what to blog (and not blog). I blog what I want, you read what you want. When the two coincide, wonderful. Bayblab, which is apparently some kind of science blog mostly written by anonymous bloggers, has a post critical...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:52 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Robots, in a bald-faced effort to induce warm feelings in humans, are now offering the Robotic Breast Massager....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:31 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 26, 2008
Wilberforce vs. Darwin; A disgusting Display; Pew Report on Religion; Science in the schools....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:16 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
... And Mike Huckabee is not standing for it......
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:46 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Archaeology
MAS has played a key role in regional archaeology since its formation, and is one of the oldest and most established avocational and professional groups in archaeology in the US: Since 1939, the MAS has studied the people whose cultural legacy is within the lands...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Organisms
Go here, to the Behavioral Ecology Blog to learn about this problem. I'll bed you didn't know that Berkeley even had a hyena colony. But it is world famous among people who are interested in such things....
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:16 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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