Archives for December, 2012
The Golden Eagle Video Is Fake, But Not For The Reasons Given
Posted by Greg Laden on December 19, 2012 Last night Julia sent me a link to a video of a Golden Eagle swooping down into a Montreal park, picking up an infant/toddler and lifting it several feet into the air before dropping it and flying off. Since then many on the Intertubes have declared the video to be a fake while others insist…
Planet Saturn As It Is Not Usually Seen
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 
From NASA: On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun is…
Don’t be pessimistic about changing gun laws
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 A handful of us in the science-skepticism-secularism blogosphere have been saying roughly the same things for a few years now about gun ownership, regulation, and safety. (Here’s 67 posts of mine on this topic. Oh, and here’s another 60 on a different blog.) While we were busy with this issue as well as other pet…
One of the most amazing months ever in space exploration
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 Amy Shira Teitel’s video:
Kids Science Books
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 I’ve got kids ranging from zero to 12 years of age to find gifts for this season. I’ve got most of them covered, and science books have figured in this effort in a bigger way than usual this year. I’m impressed with the number of climate change choices that have become available. Know a Republican…
Donate to help Sandy Hook Elementary School survivors
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 During this time of great tragedy, American Atheists along with the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA, a SSA affiliate and University of Kansas Student Organization) and We Are Atheism, have decided to come together to raise funds for the children and their families affected by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The…
Smoking is (good) for the birds
Posted by Greg Laden on December 18, 2012 Back in the 1980s, it became popular for biologists to consider plant secondary compounds in understanding inter-species relationships and other ecological matters. I was doing my thesis research at the time, and it even affected what I was doing, as the wild world was being reconceptualized in terms of tannins and alkaloids, seed edators and…
Unless you really know what you are doing stay off the ice!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 The following is a fictionalized version of a true story recently told to me by two of the people involved. All the names of those still living have been changed. Please do not let this happen to you.
Ebb And Flow Crash Into Sally Ride!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
Ebb and Flow were the twin space craft that mapped in the Moon’s gravitational field by flying near each other, and then as the gravity of the Moon tugged on them they could suss out how much gravity that was, exactly. The gravity map of the moon, actually two of them, at two different scales,…
President Obama Speaks at Newtown High School
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 The Amazing and Compelling Story of the Tethys Sea
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
I remember finding out about the Tethys Sea and being really excited. I was just beginning my studies of Old World prehistory, Africa, and Human Evolution. What I learned about was the remnant sea separating Africa and Eurasia called Tethys, though it is much more than that (see below). Imagine a Eurasia with no Alps,…
Sandy Hook: Their Horror, Our Country, Your Guns.
Posted by Greg Laden on December 17, 2012 
Let me start with this. People talking about Sandy Hook need to stop saying that “20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 were killed.” That is technically true but misses an enormously important point and indicates that you really haven’t thought this through. All of the children who were killed were born between…
How to obtain funding from the US Congress
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2012 Watch as a master engages a hostile congressional committee and makes them melt into his hands. Hat tip: Elizabeth
Doc Dropping The Slime of the Slime
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2012 I hope you are on facebook and can click through to this list of names, addresses, phone numbers, and other personal data on one of your favorite groups of slime.
The Power of The Sea
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2012 
On June 6th, 1944, some 160,000 soldiers aboard about 5,000 boats of diverse design crossed the English Channel and carried out the Invasion of Normandy, one of the more important events in recent history. Many of the soldiers were so sick from choppy seas that leaving the boats and walking or running into German gunfire…
In Search of the Elusive Pittas: The Jewel Hunter
Posted by Greg Laden on December 15, 2012 The Jewel Hunter by Chris Goodie is the story, generally chronological, of one man’s quest to observe, in nature, every known species of a rare and typically elusive bird: the Pittas. Oh, and all in one year. For a birder, this is the rough equivalent of buying some impossible to pay for sports car as…
Guns Ownership and Control: Newtown is one more last straw in a series of many
Posted by Greg Laden on December 15, 2012 
I have been writing about this topic for years. Lately, I have been ignoring it. Last few massacres, I didn’t say or do anything. I think Gabby Gifford’s shooting was a last straw for me; I became too disgusted with our situation and I became too disheartened with the number of people who require that…
Latest on the Age of the Earth, and other matters
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 The President on Today’s Shooting
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 Climate Change Denialists Scolded by IPCC
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 But not as severely as they should have been. The IPCC, as you know, comes out with a set of reports every five years. The reports are written by groups of experts. Draft reports are widely accessible to people who register themselves as “experts” and there is no quality control in that process, in order…
Quiet down the atheists
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 When Atheists talk, people listen. Then, they tell them to shut up. David Phillip Norris of the Twin Cities recently wrote an article for MNPost called With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists. This was written as a reflection on the just finished and rather dramatic fight against an anti…
Circumnavigating the Americas in a Smallish Boat: One Island One Ocean
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 When I was in 5th grade one of my classmates announced that she and her family (they were a family of singing folksingers) planned to take a trip in a boat they had built around the continent. In that class were were all required to give talks on various topics of our choosing, and she…
Happy 50th Anniversary, Planetary Exploration!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2012 
Fifty years ago to day a space ship passed by the planet Venus. The Earthlings had named the space craft “Mariner 2″ and sent it to Venus for purely scientific purposes. Interplanetary domination was never the intention of this or any other Earth mission. And that began the story of planetary exploration as we know…
Amazingly cute new primate species in Borneo
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 
The Slow Loris (Genus Nycticebus) is a category of prosimian (primates that are neither monkey or ape) that lives in southeast Asia. Most prosimian species live on the island of Madagascar, but there are several African and Asian forms, all of which are nocturnal. The Slow Loris is special because it is the only primate…
Two Space Robots To Crash Into Moon Monday
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 
Ebb and Flow, the Twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Space Ships, which have been employed to provide detailed gravitational mapping of the Moon’s geology, have apparently served their purpose and will be reprogrammed in a few hours from now to crash into the moon on Monday. PASADENA, Calif. — Twin lunar-orbiting NASA spacecraft…
How to draw birds
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 
Tired of merely watching birds? Ever consider trying to draw them? There’s a method to do so. John Muir Laws is very good at this and he’s written a book that can help you get started, maybe even become good at it yourself: Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. In case you were wondering, Laws’ name…
Religious Politics and Secular Values
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 Why is the inclusion of creationism and “intelligent design” still a viable proposal for American biology curricula? What other secular policies are at risk of religious intrusion? NCSE board member Barbara Forrest dissects the issue with a panel of experts, including Barry Lynn, Chris Mooney, and John Shook. Where: Center for Inquiry, Washington, DC. When:…
The Hobbit and Science
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2012 
The Hobbit, the movie, opens tomorrow in a theater near you. This is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, which chronicles the adventure of Bilbo Baggins. To many, this constitutes a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which many read (or saw in movie form) before finding…
Do you know where your .emacs file is? UPDATED
Posted by Greg Laden on December 12, 2012 I just reconfigured my laptop with a new system (a form of Linux) and, almost as important, a new power brick. That second item may be more interesting than it sounds for some of you; I’ll write that up later. This change also meant trashing my emacs configuration file. I didn’t have to trash it,…
The Nile Isn’t Just A River in Egypt Any More. It’s also on the moon
Posted by Greg Laden on December 12, 2012 
But not that moon. Saturn’s moon. And it is not really the Nile. But, just as the Nile is one of the longest rivers on Earth, this new river is the longest river observed anywhere other than the earth. Yay Earth, you have the Longest Rivers known to Earthlings!
, which is now available for the 
