Archives for August, 2011
The Mabus Maneno
Posted by Greg Laden on August 18, 2011 See Case Study: How a notorious spammer was brought down via Twitter for a rundown on the recent events related to Dennis Markuze a.k.a. Dave Mabus. I still don’t agree that it was Twitter that brought Mabus down. Yes, it was the medium, and a very powerful one at that, but it was carrying a…
That New Archaeopteryx Research
Posted by Greg Laden on August 18, 2011 Recently, a paper came out with research indicating that Archaeopteryx, the famous feathered fossil, may not be on the bird lineage after all. This paper was discussed briefly in the blogosphere, but I was fairly unsatisfied with the level of treatment it received. The research is a little difficult to understand unless you are a…
Our home grown racists show up at town hall to protest bedroom-community terrorists
Posted by Greg Laden on August 18, 2011 Plymouth, Minnesota plays a fairly important role in my life. It is a big suburb to the west of Minneapolis, a mainly liberal or progressive middle class bedroom community linked to first ring extra-urban commercial development based mainly on corn. Kellogs, Cargill, Mosaic, other companies that grow corn, use corn in making products, sell corn…
Spare the rod, save the child
Posted by Greg Laden on August 17, 2011 “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” -Proverbs 22:6 This is a report of a Fundamentalist Christian couple who beat thier 7 year old child to death as part of the practice of corporal punishment to which they subscribed as…
I am Iowan. I am barn.
Posted by Greg Laden on August 15, 2011 I’ve known very few real Iowans. I know people who live there now but are from the Twin Cities, but I’ve only met a handful of native Iowans. One of them is a dear friend, most are only vague acquaintances. Six of them were landlubbing pirates of no value to humanity whatsoever.1 But I’m sure…
Psychedelic octopus found in frigid waters off Antarctica
Posted by Greg Laden on August 15, 2011 Several strange creatures including a psychedelic octopus have been found in frigid waters off Antarctica in one of the world’s most pristine marine environments. Others resembled corals and shrimps. At least 30 appear to be new to science, said Julian Gutt, chief scientist of an expedition that was part of the International Polar Year research…
Dennis Markuze/David Mabus must have uttered a straw …
Posted by Greg Laden on August 14, 2011 Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus on a Television News Story … the story is inaccurate in a number of minor ways that obscures an interesting truth, but it is a moment in time worth savoring:
My New Old Blog
Posted by Greg Laden on August 13, 2011 Before joining Scienceblogs.com, I blogged independently at “Evolution … not just a theory anymore.” That was a cool name for a blog, but I didn’t transfer the name to Scienceblogs because there were already a whole bunch of blogs with “Evolution” in the name. There was a lot of stuff on that blog, mostly not…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 33: Fukushima is as interesting as it’s ever been
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on August 12, 2011 Things at Fukushima are about as interesting as they’ve ever been. We want to talk about specific problems at the reactor site, with radioactive material, cooling systems, etc. but first a few words about things happening more broadly, beginning with the largest and work towards the smallest scale. Everything we discuss here is based on…
NASA Mars Rover Arrives at New Site on Martian Surface
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 After a journey of almost three years, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet’s Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before. On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater’s rim. Opportunity drove approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) since climbing out…
Close Up Photo of Asteroid
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 3D Image of Vesta’s Equatorial Region This anaglyph image of Vesta’s equator was put together from two clear filter images, taken on July 24, 2011 by the framing camera instrument aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. The anaglyph image shows hills, troughs, ridges and steep craters. The framing camera has a resolution of about 524 yards (480…
Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 Dave Mabus is Dennis Markuze
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 I am intellectually, but not viscerally, worried about Dennis Markuze. He does not scare me in the way that scary things do, I have no limbic reaction to him, and never did. Except once, and I’ll tell you about that below. Dennis Markuze is a wanna-be terrorist* who targets scientists, atheists, skeptics, and kin. PZ…
Birders Need to More Actively Embrace Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 People who watch birds identify them, and that process is integral to what makes birding interesting. But the best practices for identifying birds appear on the face of it to conflict with evolutionary concepts of birds, and this can lead to both sloppy thinking and missed opportunities
Can a person be scientifically literate without accepting the concepts of evolution and the big bang?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 Can a person be scientifically literate without accepting the concepts of evolution and the big bang? To many scientists and educators, the answer to that question is an unqualified “no.” But the National Science Board–the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF)–isn’t sure that rejecting evolution for religious reasons automatically undermines a person’s scientific…
Alex Steffen: The shareable future of cities
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 The Internet is Very Interesting Today
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2011 Did we miss an opportunity over the last few months? For several months, since Last April, SETI has been in hibernation, not taking calls from aliens living in other worlds with radio sets. Phil Plait reports that SETI is back on line after a revival of funding. The question is, did we miss any calls?…
125 sq km of ice knocked off Antarctica by Tsunami
Posted by Greg Laden on August 10, 2011 The Honshu tsunami of March 11th (the one that caused the Fukushima disaster) caused the otherwise stable Sulzberger Ice Shelf to calve giant hunks of ice. Climate scientists call this “teleconnection.” I call it a big whopping bunch of whack knocking off a gigunda chunka stuff. Either way, this is important and interesting.
The Great Hiroshima Cover-up
Posted by Greg Laden on August 7, 2011 This looks interesting: ATOMIC COVER-UP: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and The Greatest Movie Never Made. From the author:
Among Cannibals
Posted by Greg Laden on August 7, 2011 I have lived among Cannibals, according to a lot of people who claim to know. The number of times that the “tribal” people of the Congo have been called cannibals is too great to be counted, most notably in great literature like The Heart of Darkness but most commonly, I suspect, from the pulpit or…
I will be the first to welcome our new Ape Overlords
Posted by Greg Laden on August 6, 2011 We dropped the atomic bomb on japan today (in 1945) and that caused a lot of changes in the world. The idea of a bomb like this was so outrageous that it was actually possible to keep the project secret even though thousands of people worked for months on it, at many different locations. In…
But I Can Swim!?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 5, 2011 Not wearing a life vest when you are on a recreational boat is about the same as not wearing your seat belt when driving on the highway: Perhaps 8 out of 10 water-recreation related deaths in the US in recent years would not have happened were the person wearing a life vest (as in wearing,…
Mars may have flowing water
Posted by Greg Laden on August 4, 2011 Observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. “NASA’s Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, “and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration.” Dark,…
Kalahari Green and Red
Posted by Greg Laden on August 3, 2011 I have a childhood memory of a troop of baboons, waiting among nearby rocks on a sun baked kopje, taking notice of nearby humans and watching and waiting until they saw a weakness and finally moving in for the kill, barking, grabbing, ripping livid flesh with long sharp canines, howling like wolves. And for the…
Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity
Posted by Greg Laden on August 3, 2011 What is dark matter?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 3, 2011 I’ll bet you can’t explain dark matter in less than one minute.
New Blogs
Posted by Greg Laden on August 3, 2011 In case you’ve been living in a well insulated cave, you need to know about Freethought Blogs Dot Com at http://freethoughtblogs.com/, which is where PZ Myers, Ed Brayton Digital Cuttlefish and some others are blogging. Also, Sheril Kirshenbaum has departed from Wired and has started her own blog, A Culture of Science. Check them out!
, which is now available for the 
