Archives for June, 2012
I was almost abducted by aliens
Posted by Greg Laden on June 30, 2012 
Every now and then a news story comes along that makes me want to repost this particular thing I wrote a long time ago. And it has happened again. First, the news story: National Geographic Channel has run a poll in which they found that 36% of Americans “believe UFO’s exist.” This is in line…
Sea Level Rise Animation
Posted by Greg Laden on June 30, 2012 
From the folks who brought us all those animations:
I Am A Secular Woman
Posted by Greg Laden on June 30, 2012 
Secular Woman is a organization that just formed, and is currently filing for 501(c)(3) status. I just joined it and you should to. Here’s the mission statement: Mission The mission of Secular Woman is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. Vision Secular Woman envisions a future in which women without supernatural…
Testing Thunderf00t’s Hypothesis
Posted by Greg Laden on June 29, 2012 Over on Freethoughtblogs, Thunderf00t makes the following assertion about the subject matter addressed by that blog network: The disproportionate amount of attention [is given] to sexism compared to other issues. He does not assert this as a hypothesis, but rather, as a fact. But, Imma turn it back into a hypothesis and assail it with…
Forensics of Race
Posted by Greg Laden on June 29, 2012 Just came across this snapshot of an exhibit panel from the Science Museum of Minnesota’s exhibit on race.
Turns out, Obama totally stole the idea of Obamacare!
Posted by Greg Laden on June 29, 2012 … the hazzards of sickness … should be provided for through insurance. This should be [charged to] the industries the employer, the employee, and perhaps the people at large … Wherever such standards are not met by given establishments, by given industries, are unprovided for by a legislature, or are balked by unenlightened courts, the…
Ant Gecko Taphonomy
Posted by Greg Laden on June 29, 2012 This is very very cool. A little gruesome of you are not used to this sort of thing. I wonder if it had ant insurance.
OMG this is NEVER going to work!
Posted by Greg Laden on June 29, 2012 
On August 5th, NASA will attempt to do what may be the dumbest thing they ever did. Or, possibly, the most brilliant thing they ever did. Hard to say.
How old does a toddler have to be before it stops trying to kill itself?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 
This looks like one of those questions that pops up when you start typing a query into a Google Search Box, but it is really a question asked rhetorically by Claudia Sawyer on my facebook status where I made mention of the fact that toddlers will put anything you give them in their mouth (even…
Sirens of Titan Less Impossible than Previously Thought
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 
Just so you know, scientists do not seem to be able to detect the difference between a 3 foot and a 30 foot deformation of the surface of a planetoid body that is about one and a half billion kilometers away, and we know this because NASA’s Cassini space ship had to actually go all…
President Obama on Obamacare
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
What do trolls eat? You.
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 Here is a valuable discussion about the following video and related topics.
Waldo Canyon and Other Colorado Fires
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 
We expected increasing wildfire activity with global warming, and we’ve got it. The Waldo Canyon Fire has been burning since June 23rd and as of this writing is essentially out of control, with about 5% of it “contained.” Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated. A friend of mine is on house watch as…
Antonin Scalia pulls a cdesign proponentsists goof
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion for today’s Obamacare decision; the majority opinion upheld the Affordable Care Act. But, it appears that Scalia thought he was in the majority at the time he wrote the opinion, used terminology appropriate to that situation (referring to the other opinion as the dissent) and then forgot to change…
Really scary thing seen in space
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 
This is like an episode of Dr. Who. A star erupted and vaporized the atmosphere of a nearby planet. Holy crap. Details: JUNE 28, 2012: An international team of astronomers using data from the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made an unparalleled observation, detecting significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond the…
Obama Care Was Not Trashed By SCOTUS
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2012 UPDATE: Here’s the full text of the decision. Amy Howe of the SCOTUS Blog writes: In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce…
Power, Sex, Suicide
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2012 Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. From the publisher: If it weren’t for mitochondria, scientists argue, we’d all still be single-celled bacteria. Indeed, these tiny structures inside our cells are important beyond imagining. Without mitochondria, we would have no cell suicide, no sculpting of embryonic shape, no sexes, no menopause, no aging.…
A Maasai Marriage
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2012 
A young woman, “of age” but unmarried, appeared out of the forest near the base of the hill, a few of her relatives and friends staying in the woods while she headed alone up the well worn path. Before she had taken a dozen steps, six or seven women, of her age or a bit…
Downfall
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2012 
I finally watched Downfall. That’s the movie about the last days of the Third Reich, a couple of scenes from which form the basis for all those Internet Memes where Hitler is talking about how much meat there is in a meal from Taco Bell. It is actually quite a good movie. If you were…
There is now a puffincam!
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2012 
A lot of animal cams suck. The angle is bad, the lighting is poor, the animal is usually not there, etc. etc. But this puffin cam is actually pretty darn good. When the bird pecks at the camera you want to duck. Check it out. It’s from Audubon. Here’s some text from the press release:…
EPA Climate Action Upheld by a federal appeals court
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2012 This is coming from a few different sources none of which are really linkable so I’ll just copy and paste this press release from the Environmental Defense Fund: *** BREAKING *** BREAKING *** BREAKING *** … Moments ago, a federal appeals court upheld EPA’s climate pollution emission standards, rejecting four legal challenges that had been…
Ruh Roh. Universe may not be what we thought it was.
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2012 
Astronomers have discovered something that should not be there. It is an arc of light. The arc is the effect of gravitational lensing which happened as light passed by a massive galaxy about 10 billion years ago in space-time. In other words, in this universe, but very far away and a very long time ago,…
MRI of Baby’s Birth
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2012 This is the first and only one of these. There really ought to be a sound track.
Should the Flying Spaghetti Monster Rear his Awesome Noo-Noo?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2012 
Matt Lowry, whom I hope to be seeing in a couple of weeks, has written an article on his blog and republished on the JREF web site, called Is It Time To Call Creationists’ Bluff And Push For “Teaching All Views”? The idea is this. There has been a recent change in strategy among creationists…
Is intelligent design a valid scientific “philosophy”?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2012 
In this video, Genie Scott dissects the claims, the tactics, and the methods being used to confuse the public about what is science and what isn’t: __________________ photo of Darwin by kevinzim
Cabin At The Lake Tip # 3342
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2012 
When installing a “porch light” (to light the entrance way ans any stairs, and the immediate area outside the cabin) do not place the light near the door as is often the custom. The light is meant to be used at night. Out in cabin country, when you turn that light on at night, 22…
Marriage
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2012 
I am going to write a bunch of blog posts about marriage. You should regard my opinion about marriage to be valuable; I’ve had several of them. And in this way, I may be more like a hunter-gatherer than a “modern” Westerner, as the practice among the former is to treat marriage as very important…
Lonesome George c. 1912-2012
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2012 
It has just been reported that Lonesome George, the Galapagos Tortoise who was considered to be the last of is kind, has died. the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old. Lonesome…
A sense of proportion
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2012 
Despite the fact that we observe the world around us everyday, for many common phenomena we have a very poorly developed sense of the important variables of size, shape, position, and motion. As I sit here by the side of the lake and look around numerous examples come to mind. One example arises from a…
Dana Hunter and the Big Blast
Posted by Greg Laden on June 23, 2012 Are you aware of Dana Hunter’s current project? The author of En Tequila es Verdad, the blog that always makes me want to take a shot, is writing detailed essays that track events connected to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. She’s writing them as part of her blogging over at Scientific American, but…
, which is now available for the 
