Archives for January, 2013
Suicide (and sometimes murder) on the Gun Range
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2013 
Sometimes, a person shows up at a gun range, checks out a gun ostensibly to use in target practice on the range, but instead uses the gun to commit suicide. In one case not long ago, a woman brought her teenage son to the range, and checked out two pistols. They took turn shooting for…
Greg Laden, liar.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2013 
I know, right? Anthony Watts, of the science-denialist Whats Up with That blog, has got his shorts in a knot because of a post I wrote indicating that he is a boob. He is upset because in a screen shot of him talking about a totally absurd pseudo-scientific claim that should have been rejected out…
23 Steps Toward Reducing Gun Violence
Posted by Greg Laden on January 16, 2013 President Barack Obama has signed 23 Executive Orders intended to reduce gun violence in the United States. This alone will not be sufficient–Congress must pass new laws to address this problem as well, and the citizens of the united states have to make some cultural adjustments–but it is a start. Republican Tea Party Congressman Steve…
What’s up with that?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 15, 2013 
You may know the blog What’s Up With That. It is Anthony Watt’s anti-science blog, dedicated to climate change denialism. A current post reports the finding of life forms from another planet, in a meteorite. This looks to be a huge story, the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, if it holds up…. This is from…
“We Live In Little Houses Made of Beans”
Posted by Greg Laden on January 15, 2013 
We were discussing insects. What about eating insects? When it comes up that I’ve lived in the Central African Rain Forest, certain questions often come up, and one of them is: “Did you eat bugs?” Every one has seen those National Geographic specials where some natives somewhere are eating insects, and of course, Westerners who…
Seven Lessons To Learn In Order To Save The Planet (Updated)
Posted by Greg Laden on January 15, 2013 
I was a graduate student in Harvard’s Anthropology Department, which meant I had no funding. I was in the final writing stage of my thesis, and the problem I had was that teaching interesting biological anthropology (which I could do full time if I wanted) was too distracting from the mundane yet mentally challenging task…
On that catfish that eats pigeons
Posted by Greg Laden on January 15, 2013 Usually, it’s “Bird eating fish” but here we have a case of a “Bird-eating fish.” The Wels Catfish, Silurus glanis, is the second largest fish in its range, which covers much of Europe and parts of West Asia. In parts of Western Europe, it is considered to be “exotic” because it has been introduced, possibly…
An Assessment of Climate Under Global Warming
Posted by Greg Laden on January 14, 2013 
A Draft National Climate Assessment has been released by the “National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee.” You can download it here … warning: it is a PDF file way over 100 megabytes The report affirms that climate is changing and that this change is primarily caused by human activities, mostly the release of fossil…
How do you turn off unneeded processes on an iMac?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 13, 2013 
Short answer: You don’t. More interesting answer: You only think you want to do that, what are you, some kind of a Microsoft Windows user or something? Actual answer: You probably don’t, but if you do, it is a rather fun and interesting thing to try. But really, mostly, don’t. I recently discovered a nifty…
No place to sit down (or, why do the Efe let some insects live?)
Posted by Greg Laden on January 13, 2013 
I knew a couple who had spent a lot of time in the Congo in the 1950s. He was doing primatology, and she was the wife of the primatologist. And when she spoke of the Congo or Uganda, where they spent most of the time, she always said “The thing about Africa is that there’s…
So, is global warming stopping all of the sudden? (No)
Posted by Greg Laden on January 12, 2013 
The UK Met Office, a climate agency, released some information about the immediate future, based on modeling. Briefly, it notes that natural cooling effect may temporarily ameliorate the increase in temperatures caused by global warming in some locals; it does not say that global warming is attenuated in any way whatsoever. It is more of…
Should I Get A Flu Shot?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 11, 2013 
It is Influenza Season in the Northern Hemisphere. So, this is a good time to talk about the flu. Three years ago we had an unusual flu season, with a nasty variant about that seemed to be threatening a pandemic, and that’s the year Huxley was born (in November) so we faced the problem of…
Like the tree that stands beside the water …
Posted by Greg Laden on January 10, 2013 
We shall not be moved. …” Fifty five of us jammed in a bus designed to hold fourty people plus a driver, rolling down Highway 90 from Upstate New York to Chicago. As a teenager (just turned 15), I was thrilled to be going to Chicago to attend the Fight Back Conference, a thinly disguised…
Very interesting things and a quiz.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 9, 2013 
The Best Argument to Eliminate the Tenure System comes from Atlantic University, Florida, where Professor James Tracy has asserted that the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut either did not happen or were staged. Asking if the deaths, if they happened, were part of a training session, he further asks “Was this to a certain degree…
Fighting Over Hobbit
Posted by Greg Laden on January 9, 2013 
The Hobbit is a book by JRR Tolkien, a just released blockbuster movie, and a hominid from Indonesia. Here, we are speaking about the hominid from Indonesia. A while back I wrote a review of a book by Dean Falk, for American Scientist. You can find that review here, and you can find a different…
NOAA: 2012 Warmest Year on Record for the US 48
Posted by Greg Laden on January 9, 2013 
Looking just at the contiguous 48 states of the US, NOAA has determined that 2012 was the warmest year on record. It was also ranked second in “extreme” weather events including fires, major storms, and drought. Tornado activity was less than average. The report came out yesterday and states: In 2012, the contiguous United States…
Debunking climate change denialism
Posted by Greg Laden on January 9, 2013 
Climate change science denialism has pretty much run its course. We’ve been experiencing a large number of climate change related events (see this list for a brief summary) lately. It may well be that the number per year of such alarming events will go down and up over time. It may be that we will…
Happy Birthday Alfred Russel Wallace
Posted by Greg Laden on January 8, 2013 
Alfred Russel Wallace was born on this day in 1823 (he died in 1913). You know of him as the other guy who invented a theory of Natural Selection which was very like Darwin’s; they published the theory together. He also spent considerable time traveling around on boats in the tropics, like Darwin did, and…
Australia’s BoM no AGW, Tasmanian Fire Video, and a Koala. #BigAussieHeat
Posted by Greg Laden on January 8, 2013 
First, a word about the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s position on climate change, heat, and fires. It has been suggested (by a commenter here) that the BoM is claiming that the current heat wave is not related to climate change, but rather, a matter of natural variability and a late arriving monsoon. But that is…
The Australian Heat Wave
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
Australia is experiencing a heat spell. The Climate Information Services of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has issued a special statement (I’ll provide some details below). This is not unexpected, since over the last few years global warming due to the human release of large amounts of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere has been heating…
What the heck is Vocal Fry?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know what the heck Vocal Fry is. Apparently some people have gotten really annoyed about it, as it is a speech mannerism that has emerged among young folks, who are always annoying, and especially females, who are always annoying. Apparently. (I also did not know that until…
Global Warming Moves South #BigAussieHeat
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
Summer is coming on strong south of the Equator, and in Australia this has meant unprecedented record high temperatures, and in the state of Tasmania, severe brush fires that have destroyed numerous homes, adding to the bad news from fires in the southeastern mainland. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said “And while you would not put…
Stories from the field: Jon Kalb’s Newest Book
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
People who do a lot of field work end up with interesting stories to tell, especially if the fieldwork is diverse and the conditions are adverse. Often, the sort of thing people want to know about is very different from the repertoire of available stories, but as long as the expectations of the audience is…
Is Greenland’s Ice Melting Way Fast, and Why? You can help.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 6, 2013 
You know about Albedo. No not Libido, Albedo. Sunlight is to varying degrees reflected off the surface of the earth more or less back into space. That is Albedo. The vast regions of snow and ice covered glacial surfaces in the northern and southern Polar regions contributes to a good amount of the Earth’s Albedo.…
Aquatic Ape Theory: Another nail in the coffin
Posted by Greg Laden on January 6, 2013 
I just want to say that Huxley is pretty bad at swimming. I quickly add, for a 3 year old human, he’s pretty darn good at it. Amanda’s family is very aquatic, as tends to happen when everyone spends several weeks per year (or longer) on the edge of a lake. They can all ski…
Palaeowomaen: Barbara Isaac, Women in The Field, and The Throwing Hypothesis
Posted by Greg Laden on January 5, 2013 
Following on discussion arising from this post, here is a revised discussion of throwing in human evolution. The question of diversity in science, and more specifically, success for women, is often discussed in relation to bench or lab oriented fields. If you read the blogs that cover this sort of topic, they are very often…
The Irony of the Projectile
Posted by Greg Laden on January 4, 2013 
The evidence from palaeoanthropology suggests that in the past humans were about the stature they are now, with more sexual dimporphism than now, with similar or larger brains than they have now, and used technology at the same level of sophistication as many later humans. Scientists argue over the degree to which modern day language…
Hurricane Sandy’s New Political Math
Posted by Greg Laden on January 2, 2013 If Earth was your mother, she’d hold you under water in one rocky hand until you no longer bubbled
Posted by Greg Laden on January 1, 2013 
A collection of videos … that you will enjoy. BBC Wonders of Life Trailer: Climate 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists: Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed: Kathleen Dean Moore at Nobel Conference 48 on the greatest violation of human rights ever seen: With all due respect to the introducers, the talk actually…
Happy New Year, and A Year End Review of Blog Posts
Posted by Greg Laden on January 1, 2013 Happy new year. Did you know that this is the first year in many that all four digits of the year (in this case 2,0,1,3) are different from each other? Can you name the last year this was true? Can you name the next year in which this will be true? Had you been following…
, which is now available for the 
