Archives for May, 2011
Louisiana Repeal Effort SB 70 Fails in Committee
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 Louisiana Senate Bill SB 70 would have repealed Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1, which in turn imposed the inappropriately named Louisiana Science Education Act which, as Barbara Forrest recently noted “was promoted only by creationists. Neither parents, nor science teachers, nor scientists requested it. No one wanted it except the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), a religious…
Zack Kopplin on Hard Ball
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 Zack Kopplin, the high school senior who led the fight to repeal the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) on MSNBC: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
How much carbon is stored in the tropical rain forests?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 This much:
DrugMonkey + ActualMonkeys + Google =
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 This is funny. Have you noticed that lately there has been some interesting synchronization between ads on Scienceblogs.com and our blog posts? Just now, DrugMonkey wrote a blog post concerning discussions in the professional community of scientists who use animals in research. Here is a screen shot of the blog post showing the banner ad…
Wild angry baboons on the high cliff
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 We three had somehow wound our way down into the canyon without experiencing any really steep slopes, but having walked for several miles in the sandy dry riverbed, Trusted Companion, Young One, and I were now looking rather hopelessly at unsafe-to-climb cliffs on both sides, covered with imposing vegetation of the kind that sports a…
Dennis Hong: Making a car for blind drivers
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 Using robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS and smart feedback tools, Dennis Hong is building a car for drivers who are blind. It’s not a “self-driving” car, he’s careful to note, but a car in which a non-sighted driver can determine speed, proximity and route — and drive independently.
Anti-Vax Paranoic Police State Shenanigans: Skeptics visit AutismOne Conference
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 You must go read the chilling and amusing account of Jamie Bernstein and Ken Reibel’s visit to the AutismOne Conference in the Chicago area. The story has all the elements. Horror: (that’s what they were forced to eat); Police Absurdity (though not brutality); Screeching Breathless Paranoia; Jenny McCarthy; and Chemical Castration. The story is told…
Crazy Church Lady will Likely Run for President
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 Her statement: Well, every decision that I make I pray about as does my husband and I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling and that tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do and because it’s such a momentous decision, not only for myself, my husband and our 28…
How to be a good suburbanite
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2011 I see the brown streaks and spots and blotches all across your lawn, every brown area exactly like every other in its tone and hue, because all were caused by a single event, that being your misapplication of high-nitrogen fertilizer, as part of your misguided effort to make your lawn look like a golf course,…
Ed Boyden: A light switch for neurons
Posted by Greg Laden on May 30, 2011 “Monkeys on our backs” by Richard Tokumei will not even make good toilet paper
Posted by Greg Laden on May 29, 2011 Richard Tokumei has written a book that is so bad he is ashamed to put his own name on it. “Richard Tokumei” is the pen name of a ‘writer/editor in Southern California [with] degrees in Humanities and Phychology from the University of California Berkeley” and he has produced a book designed to anger everyone who…
Free Darwin Beer! Cheap Gas! No Traffic Jams! AGW No More!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 29, 2011 Back in my days wandering around in Harvard Square, I used to look at the beautiful churches and think ….
Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling
Posted by Greg Laden on May 29, 2011 Global Water Dancing is Imminent
Posted by Greg Laden on May 29, 2011 It happens on June 25th. This is going to be a little like the Rapture but it’s not the end of the world and it really will happen ….
If your toddler falls from your window, will it necessarily die?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 29, 2011 No! A surprising number of toddlers who manage to get their way through a window opening to fall to the pavement below live. Something just over three thousand toddlers do this every year in the US.
“Choice In Dying,” Eric MacDonald on Atheists Talk #117
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 Wake up early on Sunday and catch “”Choice In Dying,” Eric MacDonald on Atheists Talk #117″
Help Keep Atheist Talk Radio On The Air
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 Atheist talk radio is a live AM talk show based in the Twin Cities and run by the Minnesota Atheists. As an occasional guest or interviewer of the show, I support it with countless hours of thinking of stuff to say. You can make your own contribution to keeping this important show on line by…
Ladies, the guys didn’t get their jet packs, but you’all got your electronic catalogs!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 Wow. And no keyboards! OK, gotta go. You wouldn’t believe how many messages I have to deal with on my electronics correspondence machine thingie. What really happened …
The 2011 Summer Reading Recommendation List
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 It is Memorial Day Weekend, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for this year’s Summer Reading Recommendations List! Unlike the Summer Readings Suggestions: Science list, these books are primarily (but not entirely) fiction. Since I’ve not read very much fiction over the last year, I polled my facebook friends and assembled their advice…
Is it wrong to be gay in a restaurant?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 ABC has a show called “What would you do?” that can be rather fun to watch, in which some sort of uncomfortable scenario is faked in a public place, and the reactions of the people exposed to it is filmed. At the end, the host of the show and the hidden camera crew comes out…
“The Revolution will Not be Televised” Scott Heron Died Friday
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2011 Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949. He spent his early years in Jackson, Tenn., attended high school in The Bronx, and spent time at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University before settling in Manhattan. His recording career began in 1970 with the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which featured the first version of “The Revolution…
Want a brain, Moran?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 27, 2011 It is easy to make fun of other people with whom we disagree, but when it comes down to it, how do we really know when we are being smart about something vs. getting it all wrong? Gut feeling? Our friends agree with us? Some smart person tells us what to think? This is a…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 25: Elderly could build cooling system; radiation release and exposure concerns; fuel storage tank may collapse.
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on May 26, 2011 It is possible that the bottom will fall out of the Fukushima Reactor 4 spent fuel tank. Efforts are being made to shore up the concrete structure. There is no longer any doubt that those mysterious holes hypothesized, seen or not see, in some of the reactor vessels are for real. It is now established…
Aaron Koblin: Artfully visualizing our humanity
Posted by Greg Laden on May 26, 2011 No Way Home
Posted by Greg Laden on May 26, 2011 When wildebeest, such as those famous for crossing the Mara River in Tanzania during their annual migration, run into a crocodile or some other danger it is often the first time they’ve seen that particular thing. This is because most wildebeest don’t live very long so many are on their very first migration. One wonders…
NASA will probe moon
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 NASA is going to send two probes to the moon, later this summer. They are called “GRAIL” which stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. They will orbit the moon in an effort to determine the structure of its interior. They will be launched by a Delta II rocket some time between early September and…
Bird Migration and Global Change
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 I’m going to have more to say about this topic and this book at a later time, but I wanted to get a notice of it out for Migration Week. Bird Migration and Global Change by George W. Cox addresses the issue of impact on bird populations under conditions of global warming. This is an…
Motivation, IQ, and the great intelligence debate
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 Congratulations for Almost Diamonds and Quiche Moraine blogger Stephanie Zvan for her brand new Guest Post at Scientific American. The Politics of the Null Hypothesis … Nothing about the field of IQ studies is free of political influence. It’s naive to believe that any kind of research on a purported measure of individual merit could…
Are all these tornadoes being caused by global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 People are asking me: Is the recent spate of tornadoes caused by global warming? The usual answer to that question is that you can’t answer the question because a tornado is not caused by climate … it is cause by weather … and global warming (which is real, and which is cause by humans) is…
It is done: Spirit will RIP on the Martian surface
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 The last communication from the Mars Rover Spirit was on March 22, 2010. A few moments ago NASA announced that there would be no more attempts to contact the space robot after a transmission that will end on May 25th. It is suspected that Spirit’s internal circuitry was damaged by very low temperatures experienced during…
, which is now available for the 
