Archives for November, 2012
Joe Biden goes to Costco
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2012 Here’s Joe being a regular guy, picking up some cookies, a pie, some kids toys, and a big-ass TV. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
NASA Press Conference Will Announce Voyager Captured by Alien Craft!
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2012 
I’m kidding, I’m kidding, NASA did not say that. But I do think people need to take it down a notch with this whole blaming NASA for doing their press conferences wrong. As far as I know, the Curiosity Martian Laboratory Robot recently approached a non nondescript pile of dirt, analyzed the bejesus out of…
First Dog Inspects Holiday Decorations
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2012 Hat Tip: Becky Crew
Is Bullying A Feature Or A Bug?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2012 This looks interesting: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. This is the description of the book: The No Asshole Rule was awarded a Quill Award as the Best Business Book of 2007. When Robert Sutton’s “No Asshole Rule” appeared in the Harvard Business Review, readers of this staid…
Taking Lego to the Max
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2012 
Huxley’s Aunt and Uncle have given him, as Christmas and Birthday presents, various kits to make Imaginarium style train setups. Imaginarium is like Brio and Thomas the Tank Engine, but generally available as a Toys R Us Brand. He has enough cool bits and pieces to make a kind of double figure eight layout, but…
Major weather in the American West?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 
There are these things called “Atmospheric rivers.” They are big long things up in the air that are loaded with water vapor, and much of the rain and other precipitation we experience comes out of them. This is notable when one of these rivers is extra wet, and there is an extra wet one out…
First close up of DNA ever
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 
When Bill O’Reilly said that you “can’t explain tides” I laughed. Why did I laugh? Because if he wasn’t such a dumb-ass he could have EASILY named a dozen thing that science claims to “know” that a reasonably good rhetorician could convince the average Tea Bagger that science really can’t “know” because it can’t really…
Ice Loss at Poles Is Increasing, Mainly in Greenland
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 
From NASA: PASADENA, Calif. – An international team of experts supported by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) has combined data from multiple satellites and aircraft to produce the most comprehensive and accurate assessment to date of ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica and their contributions to sea level rise. In a landmark…
How to blog: Text Workflow on an iMac
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 If you are thinking about starting a blog, you should first watch this episode of the PBS TV Kids Show, “Arthur” in which Muffy decides to start a blog, and all hell breaks loose. If you spend any time at all on the blogsophere, you will find this episode both familiar and frightening. The point…
Using ScreenFlow and the Reverse Classroom
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 
Next Fall, I will probably try something new in teaching an intro Biological Anthropology course: The Reverse Classroom. This is an idea that is being increasingly applied in High School settings. The simplest version of this idea is that classroom lectures are converted to an on line resource that the students access on their own…
The Great Transition: Triassic Life on Land
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2012 
Let’s see … The Triassic is about here: (You can also look it up in this PDF file supplied by the USGS. It is situated between two major extinction events, and is especially interesting because it is during this period that modern day ecological systems and major animal groups took a recognizable form. The preceding…
Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 
You all know Don Prothero. He is an active member of the Skeptics and Science Blogging community. He is the author of several books, one of which you are totally supposed to own and if you don’t it’s kinda lame: Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, which I review along with some…
Who Are the Commitee Chairs in The New GOP House
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 
Apparently a bunch of white guys. And, now that I have your attention: I apologize if your comment was in “moderation” for a long time. The Scienceblogs backend stopped sending me notices when something was being held in moderation, so I did not see a build up of moderated posts happening. They should be free…
New CDCOTW Video on Sandy and Superstorms
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 Climate Denial Crock of the Week gives us this new video. Details here. We are not yet where we need to be with this “when did you stop beating your wife” question sometimes in the form of: “Can you REALLY attribute ANY storm to Global Warming, really? No? Then is global warming really real? Really?”)…
National Geo’s Birding Essentials
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 Are you interested in birding but don’t really know much about it? Did you just put a feeder outside and noticed that birds are interesting, or did you finally get around to stopping at that wildlife refuge you drive by every week on the way to the casino and realize that walking down to the…
Manspace
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2012 In an old colonial-looking restaurant that served ten kinds of steaks, I met up with an experienced explorer and a local farmer, to have dinner and discuss plans for an upcoming research project that would be managed by The Explorer and that would partly be on The Farmer’s land, which adjoined a rather extensive and…
New Evidence that the Bible is Wrong on Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 I find the following bit of video to be very interesting. The letter itself, which they read at the beginning, is instructive of why many people are creationists or otherwise anti-science. They are afraid to go to hell. The idea that a person will go to hell for believing in science is something you have…
What is the best digital PHS camera?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 
After a couple of months of testing, the results are in.
Correlation and Causation: Single Mothers and Violent Crime
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 The phrase “Correlation does not imply causation” has developed in to a Falsehood, as I discuss here. This is in part because people often use the phrase to argue that a particular correlation has no meaning, which is a false argument. It is, of course, true that a correlation does not in and of itself…
How to be a better birder
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 There are several things you need to do to be a better birder. Some of these things can be handled by just tossing money after the problem. Better binoculars, more books, that sort of thing. If you use those tools well they will improve your abilities as a birder. But the most important thing you…
Latest Bigfoot News
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 
Robin Lynne of DNA Diagnostics has put out a press release indicating that …A team of scientists can verify that their 5-year long DNA study, currently under peer-review, confirms the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called “Bigfoot” or “Sasquatch,” living in North America. Researchers’ extensive DNA sequencing suggests that the legendary Sasquatch…
Why Do Men Hunt and Women Shop?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 The title of this post is, of course, a parody of the sociobiological, or in modern parlance, the “evolutionary psychology” argument linking behaviors that evolved in our species during the long slog known as The Pleistocene with today’s behavior in the modern predator-free food-rich world. And, it is a very sound argument. If, by “sound”…
Try standing at the edge of knowledge for a while. You’ll like it.
Posted by Greg Laden on November 26, 2012 Alternate titles for this post: “It turns out, it is a little like a priesthood.” “Join us. Join us. Join us. Braaainzzzzz” “Imma gonna let you finish, but first I think you need to get your Wellies wet.” …
Update Your Southern African Bird Guide Collection
Posted by Greg Laden on November 26, 2012 When traveling and working in South Africa, I’ve always used Newman’s guide to the birds of Southern Africa, and more recently, I found the Sasol guide to be helpful as well. (I discuss both briefly here.) Now, I’ve got on my desk a copy of Princeton’s Birds of Southern Africa: Fourth Edition by Ian Sinclair,…
Understanding Sex Differences in Humans: What do we learn from nature?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 26, 2012 Nature is a potential source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane decisions such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast. When it comes to airplanes, you’d better be a servant to the rules of nature or the airplane will go splat. When it comes to…
Feederwatch: A course in art focusing on birds
Posted by Greg Laden on November 25, 2012 Here is the website, here is the Facebook page, and here is the writeup: Feeder Sketch is an 8 week free one line casual course. You can come and go as you please. No requirements, and any level of participation is welcome (from just seeing what it is, to drawing 2 times a week for…
Why Human Brains Vary
Posted by Greg Laden on November 25, 2012 Many people assume human brains vary genetically and genetic variation maps to races. But the races are not real and genetic variation can’t explain brain differences. Because, dear reader, brains don’t work that way. Let’s look just at the brain part of this problem.
Skeptics: How do you know what to “believe”?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 25, 2012 It is not possible for anyone to understand every policy-important aspect of scientific knowledge at the level of detail necessary to accept that knowledge as valid, or to defend it against the evil anti-science denialists. So what is a skeptic to do?
Scratch: A kids programming environment that is easy and works!
Posted by Greg Laden on November 25, 2012 Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games is a book designed for the youngest kids who can read comics and basic text who want to learn to program. The prgramming environment, Scratch, will be familiar to those who have experimented with Logo and Squeak. Especially Squeak. Scratch is a very easily…
My baby was designed by god just like a banana
Posted by Greg Laden on November 24, 2012 When my baby nurses from his mom, he can see her face and bond with her because he was designed to do so by god. Like how a banana is designed by god to fit comfortably in the hand for eating, or maybe just carrying around. What am I talking about?
, which is now available for the 
