Greg Laden's Blog

Alas, poor blog.

Category: Blogging

I hate it when people go on and on about why they didn't blog today. I'd rather hear what someone had for breakfast .......

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:36 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Academic Freedom Bills on Talk Radio

This Sunday, on KTNF AM 950 Minneapolis Atheist Talk Radio, Host Mike Haubrich will host the 9:00 AM talk show. His special guest, speaking about Academic "Freedom" bills and related matters, will be Me. Details here....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 3:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Linux vs. BSD

Category: Technology

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Posted by Greg Laden at 1:00 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Finally. A remake worth re making

Category: Film

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Posted by Greg Laden at 9:39 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Installing Ubuntu vs Installing Microsoft Vista

I recommend partitioning your hard drive so that you have a small partition for the system and a large partition for the /home directory. Now, for a point of comparison, how to install Windows Vista... ... how well this goes will depend on the...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 7:22 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Orangutans Are Amazing

This is a photograph of a male orangutan attempting to spear a fish....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:39 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Poll Expelled! By Ben Stein

Expelled!, the so called documentary, has a web site on MySpace. Recently they ran a poll asking if Intelligent Design should be taught in schools or not. The results of that poll overwhelming indicate "no" ... with 420 thousand "nay" votes and fewer than one...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 5:37 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Carnival

Category: Carnivals

The Dessert Course of the (second) Soup To Nuts Progressive Dinner Blog Carnival is Here at Fear and Loathing......

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Posted by Greg Laden at 3:46 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Francisco Ayala Proflied in NYT

An evolutionary biologist and geneticist at the University of California, Irvine, he speaks often at universities, in churches, for social groups and elsewhere, usually in defense of the theory of evolution and against the arguments of creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design. Usually he...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 3:43 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

The Homeschooler Mind Set

Home schooling is probably a really good idea for a lot of people, but only for a certain (unknown) percentage of people who actually do it. And, among those who do manage to home school, I would guess that the effectiveness of home schooling varies...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 11:58 AM • 77 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Hans Reiser Convicted of First Degree Murder

Hans Reiser, who developed the Reiser File System, was convicted yesterday of First Degree Murder. He was accused of killing his wife, who's body was never recovered. The Reiser Filesystem is thought to be one of the best journaling file systems available for Linux computers....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:09 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Louisiana Moves Towards Creationism Law

The Louisiana Senate Bill SB 561 has been renamed as SB 733 and HB 1168 are the Academic Freedom Act bills in the Louisiana State Legislature. The Louisiana Senate appears to have passed their version of the bill with 35 votes in favor, zero opposed...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:58 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Florida House Academic "Freedom" Bill

The Florida House yesterday voted to require teachers to criticize evolution when teaching the subject in Florida public schools. The house version of the bill will now, most likely, travel back to the Senate (where a similar bill, was recently passed). Governor Charlie Crist is...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:35 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

The First Commandment of Scientific Investigation: Being Honest Matters

Second commandment: Try not to be a moron. (FYI: observed instances of speciation) Hat Tip: TUIBG and Julia...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 7:10 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

PC vs. Mac: Upgrading

Category: Technology

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Posted by Greg Laden at 1:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

How To Escape Flashing Ad Annoyance

Maybe you have an ad blocker. There are reasons, though, to NOT use an ad blocker. One reason might be that they don't work for you, for some reason. Another is that you use Windoze, and every now and then you have to totally wipe...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:09 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Cambrian Food Webs

Food webs --- the network of trophic (eating) interaction among the many species sharing a habitat or biome -- is a much studied aspect of ecology. Food web and other similar phenomena such as dispersal syndromes are epiphenomena of evolution, resulting from the negotiation of...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:08 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Darwin's Flower Experiments

Darwin did a LOT of stuff. It is amazing how often one can trace some basic bit of modern scientific knowledge to an observation or experiment Darwin while travelling on the Beagle, later on in his bathtub, or in his back yard. The NYT has...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 7:12 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Nature and Conservation News

Category: Earth Science

Canadian panel: Climate change is threat to polar bears from PhysOrg.com (AP) -- A scientific committee that advises Canada's government on endangered species said Friday that climate change is a threat to the survival of the polar bear, but the species does not face...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:09 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Ubuntu Hardy Heron: The Movie

From Linux Journal...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 5:09 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Philippines Rat Returns From Century of Being Extinct

Category: rodent

It is always nice when an extinct animal shows up and announces that rumors of its extinction were exaggerated. In this case, we have the dwarf cloud rat just discovered by an international research team....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 4:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Cyclone Nargis, Bay of Bengal

Category: Climate

... is expected to reach Cat-4 status before making landfall somewhere. Watch The Intersection for details....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 3:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

What is the most compelling science movie?

... and why. The Page 3.14 readers poll asks this question, with a selected number of choices. The choices given in the poll are interesting, but I think one could add quite a few more. In part, this would depend on why one thinks a...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 3:14 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

New Scienceblogs.com Blogger!

Please welcome our newest blogger, ERV, who is ... ...a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. I also study epigenetic control of ERVs...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 2:54 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Unsurprising link between anti-gay and anti-science education policies emerges in Florida's academic freedom frey

This is described in UDreamOfJanie: Ronda R. Storms is a Florida sate senator (Republican) who has spearheaded efforts against Planned Parenthood, against her local LGBTA community, and so on, is now linked to the Discovery Institute in regards to her latest project, the Florida "Academic...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 1:10 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

I understand they are building one of these beneath downtown Minneapolis as we speak.

Category: Robots

[hat tip: Geekologie]...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 1:09 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Pile on!!!

Category: Politics

Don't miss your chance to join the Pile On over at "Ethics and Science" ... Greg Laden, it turns out, is not only not funny but he is a sexist bastard with no credentials....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:18 AM • 50 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

PC vs Mac: networking

Category: Technology

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Posted by Greg Laden at 9:12 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

The Big Picture

Category: Cosmos

And by this, I mean really, really big... This was sent to me by my colleague Christian Reinboth in Germany. Christian explains that this... was created by some math students in the US. It shows a massive zoom (315 times) into the famous Mandelbrot set....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:55 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Flock of Dodos

With all this talk about Expelled!, the creationist movie, I thought it was about time to resurrect the review I wrote many moons ago of Flock of Dodos by Randy Olson, along with some updated information. Flock of Dodos is a much better film than...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 11:18 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Actifest!!!!

Actifest promotes student political involvement and civic engagement by providing students and community members alike with a wide range of free events supporting different causes during a one-week span....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 11:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Ernest Madu

Category: Health

Dr. Ernest Madu runs the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica, where he proves that -- with careful design, smart technical choices, and a true desire to serve -- it's possible to offer world-class healthcare in the developing world. Listen for some...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

"Quote-Unquote"

Category: Other

My friend Matt says that when he gets up in the morning, the first thing he does is to reach his hands skyward, extend to first and second fingers on each hand, and produce two synchronized rapid curling motions with these fingers. In so doing,...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 9:58 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Teach Creationism in the Classroom

This page is designed for teachers, pastors, youth leaders and organizations to provide useful tools and resources to promote the ideas surrounding this highly anticipated film. You can get Expelled! movie clips to show in your life science class. This site has many movies designed...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Enigmatic Sex Ratio in a Nearly Extinct Bird

Pterodroma magentae is the Magenta Petral (also known as the Chatham Island Taiko). There are between 8 and 15 breeding pairs in the New Zealand home range of this species. Indeed, this bird was thought extinct for quite some time before it was rediscovered in...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 7:05 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Carnival

Category: Carnivals

The Cabinet of Curiosities: Edition #6 is at Bioephemera now. This is the best thing on the blogosphere this weekend, no doubt....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Ancient Soft Parts: Dinosaur and Elephant Tales

Some of my colleagues are downplaying the recent paper in science showing a: that mastodons are elephants and b: that birds and dinosaurs ... in particular Tyrannosaurus rex and turkeys ... are related. (See here and here, for instance) Yes, it is true that these...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:00 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Trends in Inequality of Mortality in the U.S.

Inequality in mortality is the most poignant reminder of persistent, often multi-generational differences in socioeconomic status (SES). Poor people are more likely to get sick and die than rich people. As a society develops over time, one would hope that this disparity would be reduced,...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 5:07 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

PC vs. Mac: camera

Category: Technology

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Posted by Greg Laden at 4:00 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

List Of Least Influential Americans

Category: Other

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Posted by Greg Laden at 2:36 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Atheist Soldiers Threatened with Legal Charges and Discharge By Insane Christian Officer

When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending. But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:07 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

One of those days.... Where nothing ever seems to ... whatever ...

Category: Time Travel

... Until you get it just right.... {Hat Tip: Jelena}...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:30 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics

Category: OpenSource

Law professor Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. By disrupting traditional economic production, copyright law and established competition, they're paving the way for a new set of economic laws, where empowered individuals are...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 11:07 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?

Category: Cosmos

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 9:50 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Felton, California, will go Totally Linux

On July 4th, a significant percentage of Felton, Calif., will go Microsoft-free for one week...maybe an entire month. Maybe for good. The arrangements have been made and the news is going forth in Felton. Businesses and home users alike are excited about one of their...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:06 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

The Ultimate Blogging Pants

Category: Technology

Designer Erik De Nijs, has stitched together this eye catching pair of "Beauty and the Geek" jeans. These "modern shaped trousers which are often worn by youngsters.." are the perfect solution for Googling quick exits while running from the fashion police. Built into the knees...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 4:09 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

New Mars Photographs

Category: Cosmos

Click the crater....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 2:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

New Hominid Fossil from Tanzania

One of the most important evolutionary transitions in human prehistory was the rise of modern humans (Homo sapiens) from earlier hominids. A newly reported fossil from Tanzania provides an important new data point necessary to understand this transition....

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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:04 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

Meltdown at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

The Chernobyl Meltdown happened on this day in 1986. On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:40 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the Soviet Union near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume...

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Posted by Greg Laden at 10:03 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks

PC vs. Mac: The Party is Over

Category: Technology

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Posted by Greg Laden at 1:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks