Archives for March, 2008
Minneapolis Event: “Sim Simmer Latino”
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 Emetrece Productions invites you to come ‘sim simmer’ with us! “Sim Simmer Latino” A special ‘private party’ free show to thank our friends and fans! Featuring Maria Isa, The Kamillion and Omari Omari on the 1s & 2s. FREE // 9PM – 12AM // 21+ Thursday, April 3, 2008 600 Washington Avenue North
Science News Tidbits
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 Study shows the upside of anger from PhysOrg.com Here’s a maxim from the “duh” department: People typically prefer to feel emotions that are pleasant, like excitement, and avoid those that are unpleasant, like anger. [...] Despite awareness of global warming Americans concerned more about local environment from PhysOrg.com Last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown…
Express Your Opinion: Linux Desktops
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 The following is not really a poll. It is just a picture of a poll. If you click on it, you will be swept away to the actual poll. I voted for gnome but I like some of the other ones too. I don’t like KDE.
NOVA: Voyage to the Mystery Moon
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 A new NOVA is on the way. “Voyage to the Mystery Moon” is about Titan and the planet it goes around, Saturn. Chronicling a bold voyage of discovery–the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and its enigmatic moon Titan–”Voyage to the Mystery Moon” delivers striking images of these fascinating planetary bodies nearly a billion miles from Earth.…
New Homeschool History Text
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 Anne Coulter sends me emails now and then (she doesn’t know who I am … don’t tell her) so I get the inside anorexia, I mean, the inside skinny on some of the moves the hard right wing are making now and then. Astonishingly, very little of this is ever of any interest. But the…
New early human fossil
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 I have not read the paper yet, but there is a news report out. This will be in tomorrows nature: MADRID, Spain – A small piece of jawbone unearthed in a cave in Spain is the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor in Europe and suggests that people lived on the continent much earlier…
Learning the bash shell, third look
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 Time for another installment of our look at the book Learning the bash Shell (In a Nutshell (O’Reilly)). Today’s foray into Linux Land: Unix Command Substitution.
Ooops … gun goes off on commercial plane
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 An investigation is underway into how a gun carried by a US Airways pilot was discharged during a flight. No-one was hurt when the gun went off as the plane was preparing to land at Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday. A hole in a cockpit wall apparently caused by the shot is visible in photos…
Saving Science from Creationists and Framers: In support of a diligent, relentless critique
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 When you get a chance (not right now) have a look at this video. This is a piece done by Brian Rooney, a professional TV journalist with ABC News Nightline. He follows around Billy Jack and Rusty Carter, two young earth creationists who are leading a school group through the Denver Museum of Nature and…
Berry Go Round #3
Posted by Greg Laden on March 26, 2008 Welcome to Berry Go Round #3, the blog carnival deicated to all things botanical. The previous installment, Berry Go Round #2, is located here, at Further Thoughts. If you would like to submit an item to the next Berry Go Round, you may use this handy submission form. The Berry Go Round Home Page is…
Science News Tidbits
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 New findings from Tibetan Plateau suggest uplift occurred in stages from PhysOrg.com The vast Tibetan Plateau–the world’s highest and largest plateau, bordered by the world’s highest mountains–has long challenged geologists trying to understand how and when the region rose to such spectacular heights. New evidence from an eight-year study by U.S. and Chinese researchers indicates…
Saving the rare Azores Bullfinch
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 Azores Bullfinch, known locally as Priolo, is confined to eastern São Miguel in the Azores, Portugal. It has suffered through widespread loss of native forest and invasion by exotic vegetation, which has largely overrun the remaining patches of natural vegetation within the species’s breeding range. These funds will enable the continuation of crucial habitat restoration…
Tower of London Lions
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 Two lion skulls found during excavations at the Tower of London originated in north-west Africa, genetic research suggests. The big cats, which were kept by royals during medieval times, have the same genetic make-up as the north African Barbary lion, a DNA study shows. Experts believe the animals were gifts to English monarchs in the…
Clinton Ad
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 Hat Tip Gwenny Todd
PZ Myers Asteroid Confirmed
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 I believe I knew before PZ Myers did that an Asteroid had been named after him. I heard it on the radio. and much later on he confirmed it on his blog. See this post. [Correction: He knew, he was just being cool. See this.] Curiously, PZ claims that we do not know what the…
Is there a limit on the number of species in a clade?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 A “radiation” (sometimes called an “adaptive radiation”) is when a single ancestral species gives rise to a number of novel species, often in a fairly short (geological) period of time. Following this radiation event, it seems often to be the case that subsequent speciation is less common. In fact, many living clades that have only…
PZ Myers, Asteroid
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 UPDATE: Rumor confirmed. Today it was announced that an asteroid is being named after PZ Myers. Details at 11.
4000
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 Yesterday it was announced that 4000 American Soldiers had been killed, in total, in Iraq. I am not sure if this counts contract soldiers (such as Blackwater; Added: See notes below. It does not.), and I do not know if it includes American deaths since the very beginning of Iraq involvement or since the current…
Biblically Correct Tours for Home Schoolers
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 You’ve probably already seen this: it is a bunch of crazy home schooling creationists demonstrating that they are utter, incurable morons. In this video, they are seen committing child abuse. Again and again and again. I stole it from Pharangula, he stole it from Sandwalk. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO APPEASE THESE PEOPLE, PEOPLE?????? Chris…
Carnivals
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2008 Attention: Berry Go Round Submissions are technically due today. But, I’m not going to assemble the carnival until quite late tonight, so you have several hours to get them to me. Gene Genie is to be published on March 30th, so please get those submission in as well. Any time up to the 29th or…
Conservative Protestants’ Religious Beliefs Contribute to Their Low Wealth, Study Shows
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 Conservative Protestants tend to save less and accumulate fewer assets than other Americans, and their religious beliefs contribute to their low wealth, according to a new study by a Duke University sociologist. Wow. I would have thought the opposite. I would have thought that protestants saved. I mean, Jesus saved…
The Comic Guide to the Expelled Scienceblogs Kerfuffle
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 Click the pretty boys for more.
Saiga Saga
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 Take a deer’s body, attach a camel’s head, add a tapir’s snout, and you have a saiga–Central Asia’s odd-ball antelope with the enormous schnoz. Unfortunately, these animals are as endangered as they are strange looking. The problem is over-hunting. Now, according to a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) study, the saiga’s migration routes are in jeopardy…
Women-Only Science
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research is opting for more female scientists. Two hundred women-only professorships are to be created, says Minister Annette Schavan, having observed that the current 11 percent of female professors is decidedly too low. Details here if you read German, summary here if you don’t.
Arthur Clarke’s Questions
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 On March 19, the prolific British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died at age 90. At his 90th birthday party, in December, Clarke made three wishes: for the world to embrace cleaner energy resources, for a lasting peace in his adopted home, Sri Lanka, and for evidence of extraterrestrial beings. So…Which of Clarke’s three…
Code patent case
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 The [British] government is appealing against a High Court decision that granted Symbian a patent on a computer program. The ruling overturns a refusal by the UK Intellectual Property Office to give the mobile phone firm a patent. The case is being watched with interest because before now it was rarely possible to patent dedicated…
Geographic Patterns of Genome Admixture in Latin American Mestizos
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 Significant cultural and physical differences … the stuff of race and ethnicity … are prominent when people move across continents or between them. Eventually, the ponderous events of history, which involve occasional foldings in the continuum of human variation, causing apparent patchiness, are offset by the frequent events of human activities, resulting in genetic and…
The Framing Critique (Dawkins-Myers-Expelled!-Gate)
Posted by Greg Laden on March 24, 2008 Here is an updated set of links to postings on the critique of Myers and Dawkins’ response to Myers-Dawkins-Expelled!-Gate. The point of these links is to provide quick access to the critiques coming from The Intersection and Framing Science blogs, and responses to them. I’m not going to keep updating this entry, so if you…
, which is now available for the 
