Pharyngula
Archives for September, 2006
Kip Hawley is an idiot
Posted by PZ Myers on September 30, 2006 Don’t you dare diss Kip Hawley! He’s head of the Transportation Security Administration, and he’s awfully touchy, you see. His minions also take it personally when you say unkind things about him. P.S. Kip Hawley is an idiot. Spread the word. Let’s see that phrase spread all across the blogosphere.
Cool data!
Posted by PZ Myers on September 30, 2006 Nick Matzke has compiled all the data on hominin cranial capacities into a single chart: I think I can see a pattern there, can you? He also has data on body size and brain size over there, take a gander at it. It looks like a simple and obvious example of evolutionary change in our…
You must be kidding, Mr Unwin
Posted by PZ Myers on September 30, 2006 Here’s another review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It’s unbelievable, as if the critic hadn’t actually read the book. Here’s the hed/dek: Dawkins needs to show some doubt Scientists work in a field full of uncertainties. So how can some be so sure God doesn’t exist? asks Stephen Unwin Uh, what? Two things immediately come…
I feel an urge to rearrange the pantry
Posted by PZ Myers on September 30, 2006 Charity and art come together in a project to create structures out of canned food, which are then donated to food banks. I fear I don’t have a big enough supply of canned food to pull this off at my house, though, and I don’t think we have the space, either.
Hox complexity
Posted by PZ Myers on September 30, 2006 Here’s a prediction for you: the image below is going to appear in a lot of textbooks in the near future. (click for larger image)Confocal image of septuple in situ hybridization exhibiting the spatial expression of Hox gene transcripts in a developing Drosophila embryo. Stage 11 germband extended embryo (anterior to the left) is stained…
Flock of Dodos
Posted by PZ Myers on September 29, 2006 Earlier this week, I had a chance to talk with Randy Olson about this business of communication good science to the public. I’ve had some disagreements with his strategies before; I think we resolved them a bit. What I had interpreted as a call to dumb down science to get it to the people is…
Marine giants
Posted by PZ Myers on September 29, 2006 The work of Craig McClain (of Deep-Sea News) is written up in Science Daily—it’s cool stuff. Also notable is that it is illustrated with a photo of a giant isopod…one of those creatures Kent Hovind calls a trilobite, and uses to support his contention that the earth is only 6000 years old (Look! Trilobites still…
UMM is going to hell
Posted by PZ Myers on September 29, 2006 Note the headline on our student newspaper. It refers to the fact that our football team played Trinity Bible College’s and beat them by a damnable 67 to zip…and that we’ve probably got a smart-ass heretic on the newspaper staff.
Cellular responses to alcohol
Posted by PZ Myers on September 29, 2006 Forgive me, but I’ll inflict a few more zebrafish videos on you. YouTube makes this fun and easy, and I’m going to be giving my students instruction in video micrography next week, so it’s good practice. This is a more detailed look at what’s going on in the embryo. Using a 40x objective, we zoom…
Carnivalia, and an open thread
Posted by PZ Myers on September 29, 2006 We’ve harvested a fine collection of links this week: Circus of the Spineless #25 (there’s a tattoo parlor I want to visit!) I and the Bird #33 Carnival of Education #86 Skeptics’ Circle #44 Friday Ark #106 Carnival of the Liberals #22 Comment on whatever you will!
