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Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave mistakes if he ignores these two great truths of population zoology: (1) no two individuals are alike, and (2) both environment and genetic endowment make a contribution to nearly every trait.
Ernst Mayr
A complex regulatory network in a diploblast
Chance and regularity in the development of the fly eye
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Category: Local
Posted on: February 17, 2006 7:00 AM, by PZ Myers
It's -16°F (-26°C) out there, with 15-20mph winds…so we've got a windchill of about -40°. It's about time we had some bracing brisk weather around here.
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Comments
That's for sure. Middle of Feb. and winter finally decides to make an appearence. Just wish I had more snow on the ground in St Paul.
Posted by: gravitybear | February 17, 2006 7:29 AM
About the same down here in Missouri. It was 13 degrees (F) when I drove in to work this morning. My hope is that all of the chiggers that thought spring had arrived will be frozen and will not pester me this summer as I stumble through the woods.
Posted by: pablo | February 17, 2006 7:56 AM
Man, that must be rough. We're looking at a high of 78F today in Tampa. Too bad...I was hoping to be able to walk to class without breaking a sweat!
Posted by: Will | February 17, 2006 8:22 AM
Did you omit the (unnecessary) scale from the -40� deliberately?
Posted by: Chaz | February 17, 2006 8:26 AM
Gah! This cold is horrible. I hate having icicles in my beard.
Posted by: Jesse | February 17, 2006 8:32 AM
It's supposed to be chilly here today too...we're only going to have a high of 63F.
Enjoy the windchill, PZ. I don't envy you at all.
Posted by: The Disgruntled Chemist | February 17, 2006 8:44 AM
Er, oh yeah, I'm in Southern California.
Posted by: The Disgruntled Chemist | February 17, 2006 8:44 AM
Now this is much more like it! Just the weather for going out for a brisk walk. Feeling the hairs in my nostrils freezing solid with the first breath and any exposed skin giving painful warnings of incipient frostbite. What I don't understand is the wimpish weather service giving out these wind chill advisories.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | February 17, 2006 9:01 AM
Its cold here in central wisconsin too. Yesterday we recieved what has to be the most snow we've had all winter. And the temp is down in the single digits; negative with the wind chill. "The cold, it bites the bones". Wonderful weather. Finally, winter is getting going, two months late.
Posted by: Discordo-Pastafarian | February 17, 2006 9:17 AM
We've got the wind, the cold, and the SNOW here in the SE part of the state. It actually looks like Minnesota in February. The Mississippi River is at last freezing over (about a month and a half late).
My high school earth science teacher had us sing "Minus 40 is minus 40 the whole world around." Of course this had no connection to reality for us as residents of Houston, Texas, but it did stick with me.
Posted by: Melanie Reap | February 17, 2006 9:23 AM
PZ, how in the hell do you get college students to come to class in weather that cold?! You must be a great teacher!
Posted by: Will | February 17, 2006 9:31 AM
We've had plenty of snow since early December. Although it's been warmer than usual, it hasn't risen above freezing long enough to do a substantial thaw. I'm always surprised at how bare it is farther east when I drive to Minneapolis.
Alas, I don't think the students come to class because they love me. I'm teaching at 8AM, they're hardly awake, but they know they need to learn the stuff or they'll fail.
It helps that it's a small campus, too -- not far to walk. You can also get to the science building via underground tunnels from the student center.
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February 17, 2006 9:38 AM
Right now, it's 69.2((F), 20.7(C)). It's supposed to get into the middle 70s, today, then start cooling off, again. I hate warm weather in Winter.
Posted by: Steve Sutton | February 17, 2006 10:19 AM
We finally got some snow here, in Madison, WI, for the first time this year. While we don't have as cool an air mass as PZ does it is deliciously fresh at 10 F (-3 C). I love winter when it snows.
Posted by: Dlanod | February 17, 2006 10:30 AM
I am so jealous PZ. I really miss those Minnesota winters. Massachusetts winters, even the real ones, are pathetic.
Posted by: Buridan | February 17, 2006 10:31 AM
I think all electric cars will have a hard time catching on in Minnesota. Where will they get the power to heat the car and drive at the same time?
Posted by: Ronald Brak | February 17, 2006 10:35 AM
Yeah, I can relate, out here in the San Francisco Bay Area, they're saying it might freeze tonight... :-)
(Actually, they're saying we might have a fluke snowfall here. It hasn't snowed here since 1976.)
Posted by: george cauldron | February 17, 2006 10:55 AM
Uff da! You might need a jacket.
Posted by: Dr. Squid | February 17, 2006 10:57 AM
I know, it was soooo refreshing to have my eyeballs almost freeze as I walked the 30 yards across the parking lot to the grocery store this morning.
Nonetheless, these are the days I appreciate the human habitrails known as the St. Paul Skyway system.
Posted by: MNObserver | February 17, 2006 11:30 AM
Last week here in So. Cal. the highs were the mid eighties. The highs have cooled down to a more seasonably correct mid seventies this week though.
Posted by: Troy Britain![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 17, 2006 11:49 AM
Hey Troy, I'll have you know that Pasadena got down to a frigid 39°F last night.........
Posted by: Andy Groves | February 17, 2006 1:33 PM
Californians. "Cold" weather just means those visits to the beach are more titillating.
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February 17, 2006 2:01 PM
I am so envious! Here in Northern NJ we were blessed with a huge, wonderful snowfall on Sunday (Mother Nature gave me a superb birthday present), but now the grass is almost totally bare. Cross-country skiing was good for two days, goodish for one, then--phffft!--gone.
Alas, alack.
So, if I were to move with the intent of having a good snowy winter, where should I go? (Canada thinks I'm too old to be a good candidate for immigration.)
Suggestions welcome.
Posted by: jawbone | February 17, 2006 2:13 PM
Some years ago, I and two associates, all So. Cal. residents, were in Cambridge (England) on a fool's errand in January. We had no transportation, pretty much walked everywhere.
One vicious morning, with the wind blowing in off the North Sea, dressed in everything we owned, we were walking up the tow path beside the Cam, trying to detect sensation in our fingers and toes, when we met one of our local contacts coming the other way. He was wearing a topcoat, scarf, and no hat. His damn pink Limey cheeks were radiating cheer as he waved and chirped out, "Lovely morning! Bracing, what?"
So we threw him in the river.
My advice to you, Buster, is watch what you say.
Posted by: D. Rifkind | February 17, 2006 2:53 PM
Winter weather like that is sure fun when you're warm and well fed. Not so much if you're hungry and have got to live in it. Feathers and fur are great insulation, but -40 just isn't fun for anything; they endure it or die. For all it's problems (and there's whole bunch) it's still good to be a human being in the 21st Century.
Posted by: Carl Buell(OGeorge) | February 17, 2006 2:58 PM
For all its problems (and there's whole bunch) it's still good to be a human being in the 21st Century.
Plenty of people lived in Minnesota and even, dare I say it, Manitoba long before the advent of insulation, modern heating, cars, or Gore-tex. And the climate was even worse for much of that time. As to how they survived this for thousands of years, I couldn't imagine.
Posted by: george cauldron | February 17, 2006 3:02 PM
It stayed in the 40s all day here in Austin, TX. That's pretty brisk for us. Nice to have at least a little winter weather, though.
Posted by: Eclogite | February 17, 2006 9:48 PM
Here the temperature is 26 C/79 F, as usual, and humidity is about 90%. I have no idea when it last snowed here, but I widely suspect it was at latest thousands of years ago.
Posted by: Alon Levy | February 17, 2006 9:56 PM
Bitter cold is something that you don't appreciate until you miss it. But people around here have been complaining that it's not safe to drive cars on the lakes.
I think that wind-chill calculations are underestimated. Minus 3 with wind seems considerably worse than minus 15 without.
Posted by: John Emerson | February 18, 2006 6:31 AM
During their Russian campaign, the Mongols launched some of their attacks during the winter. The same winter than defeated the Swedes, French, and Germans helped the Mongols. (Everything is relative: in hardiness, French
Posted by: John Emerson | February 18, 2006 7:17 AM
French are weenier than Russians who are weenier than Mongols.
(I used less-than carets which were interpreted as fucked-up HTML).
Posted by: John Emerson | February 18, 2006 7:40 AM