Archives for September, 2011
Stroke Victim Not Evacuated from South Pole Research Station: Your Help Needed
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2011 A friend of mine send me this: This was my letter to Raytheon and the National Science Foundation To whom it may concern. I am writing on behalf of my mother, Renee-Nicole Douceur. I am trying to figure out by what standard you consider a stroke a non-emergency. Almost a month ago I received a…
Meanwhile at the X Blog ….
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2011 I want you to know that certain blogging and conversations are going on at the X Blog. For instance, we are speaking of The Things That Shall Not Be Named here and here. A little Dawkins, a little Watson. Go joint the fun. Life, Death, Teenagers and Guns. A sad story but an important topic.…
OMG, Look! My nephew is on the XFactor!!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2011 Holy crap! I was just randomly pushing buttons on the TV Remote (I never actually watch TV, of course) and there was LeRoy! He’s so talented! LEAN ON ME LEROY! Musician LeRoy Bell Very nice job, they loved you. Knocked it out of the park.
Elizabeth Murchison: Fighting a contagious cancer
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2011 How to find dinosaurs!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2011 Study hard and get this guy’s job: I love that book, but when I was a kid they didn’t have dinosaurs yet.
Moving Together After-Vid
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2011 moved
How to get rid of spiders in your house
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2011 Why are there so many spiders in my house? We had a wet spring and summer in Minnesotan. This meant that insects did quite well at the start of the season. Spiders mainly eat insects (and each other, of course) so that meant that the first generation of spiders had a higher success rate than…
Planets viewed from Earth as if they were at the distance of our moon
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2011 Cannibal, Native, Indigenous
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2011 Three words used to describe “others” in Western literature. This topic came up in a previous post, and made me wonder what Google Ngram had to say about it. I made three different graphs because the scales are so vastly different (owing among other things, I’m sure, to multiple uses of the words). Here they…
You come from Cannibals
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2011 A man “lies crumpled on the sand … Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor attempting to staunch bleeding, or even to check…
The Kindle Fire is Out and I Might Want One
Posted by Greg Laden on September 28, 2011 Damn them. The Kindle Fire is about the same price as the higher end Kindle that I bought Julia just before her trip overseas…. oh well.
Japan Nuclear Disaster: Update # 36: Sushi Recommendations
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on September 28, 2011 One of the interesting items we have this week is a study by Greenpeace in which various organisms from the sea near Fukushima were sampled for radioactive isotopes. Let’s take a closer look. The data in the table provided (see the first item in Ana’s feed for the link) show the amount of radiation (radioactive…
Bear Attacks
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2011 Animals eating1 people has always been an interest of mine, and bear attacks are among my favorite. As you know, I’ve got a few of my own stories, though I don ‘t know if I ever told this one. There were two of us canoe-camping in a state park in the Adirondacks. You had to…
Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2011 NASA to Host News Conference on Asteroid Search Findings
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2011 NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on Thurs., Sept. 29, to reveal near-Earth asteroid findings and implications for future research. The briefing will take place at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, launched in December 2009, captured millions of images of galaxies and…
Denialists of a feather stick together
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2011 NCSE’s Genie Scott in Scotland:
The vaccination does make the baby cry, so why do it?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 27, 2011 It seems like every time I take Huxley (now 18 months old) to the doctor, the following things happen: 1) Somebody says “Well, he won’t need to get stuck with any needles for a long while now …. his next scheduled immunization is [insert phrase indicating 'a long time into the future']“; and 2) Huxley…
Comparative Snorking
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2011 I don’t have the same circle Google Girl has but I do have a Circle of Shame. You want to stay out of there.
Aurora Alert!
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2011 Tonight and tomorrow, there should be auroras visible much much farther south than normal. According to Universe Today you should see Auroras in most US states north of the southern tier of states. Unless they are exaggerating. Worth a look.
A List Of Lisp and Emacs Books
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2011 Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time! is a book about lisp programming. If you are into programming for fun, artificial intelligence, role playing games, or an emacs user, you should take a look at this book. I’ve got some info on this book as well as a few…
Guess the X Blog, Win A Darwin Coffee Mug
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2011 Hurry over while the guessing is still good! A Darwin I Think Mug to the first commenter who correctly identifies the symbolism of the name “The X Blog”
Vaccination vs. Disease: Which is worse?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 26, 2011 It is very reasonable for a parent to worry about vaccines. For one thing, most of them involve sticking the baby or child with a sharp object, thus making the little one cry, and it would be abnormal to not have an automatic reaction to that. For another thing, they are drugs, in a sense.…
Sheril Kirshenbaum will be on CBS Tomorrow Morning (Monday)
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2011 It will be the Early Show at 830-9 Eastern. Details here. OK, they skipped that segment but Sheril should be on TOMORROW MORNING. 8:40 ET.
NASA Satellite Update
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2011 Oh man, this is bad ….
Balancing Acts in Science
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2011 How do you know when alternative views are real alternatives, and thus should be considered in a “balanced view” vs. when those views are not any longer valid and should be ignored? This sounds like a hard thing to do but it is not as hard as you might think. I suggest two different approaches:…
The Majority of Americans Think Global Warming Is Real
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2011 There was a poll. On climate change, 69% of respondents said that they believe that “there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades,” with 26% saying that they did not believe it, 2% volunteering that there is some or mixed evidence, and 3% saying…
Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses
Posted by Greg Laden on September 25, 2011 A paper coming out in the next issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases addresses the question of the link between vaccines and autism. This new review article examines three hypotheses linking vaccines to autism: (1) the combination measles‐mumps‐rubella vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, which allows the entrance of encephalopathic proteins; (2)…
Happy Birthday Stephanie
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2011 Today is Stephanie Zvan’s birthday. Instead of giving he the usual trinkets or consumables, a few of us got together and did something different. We pooled some resources and gave Stephanie a miniature. A miniature what you say? A miniature non profit! How does that work? Click here to find out.
How effective is the flu shot?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2011 There are several answers to this question. One was overheard the other day among a bunch of well educated people oriented towards science who were taking a break from their job. Person 1: “So, how effective is the seasonal flu shot?” Person 2: “I heard about 1%. If you get the flu shot, you’ll have…
, which is now available for the 
