July 26, 2011
I've spent a fair amount of time in Goma Congo (Zaire), trying hard to stay out of trouble, and I've flown around this mountain and driven around this mountain or its sister volcanoes, and the very existence of this volcano field has a lot to do with some of the research I've done. Oh, and for a…
July 26, 2011
Butter Milk Creek is a Texas archaeological site and an archaeological complex located rather symbolically a couple of hundred miles downstream from the famous Clovis site in New Mexico. It is the most recently reported alleged manifestation of a "pre-Clovis" archaeological presence. The most…
July 26, 2011
Cool Planet is a community science-oriented organization located in Edina, Minnesota which "... strives to strengthen and empower the community of Edina by providing fun and engaging opportunities for citizens to join together in local homegrown solutions to climate change."
Interesting idea. If…
July 26, 2011
Henry Reich is developing a YouTube channel for one-minute-physics presentations. Below the fold is one of the more recent productions.
Here is the minute physics channel.
July 26, 2011
Michele Bachmann doesn't really care about bullies, or if bullying leads to really bad things happening to children, because there is no bully bill in the US constittuion and it's natural anyway. Here's the audio of her senseless yammering about how an anti bulling bill could lead to the boys all…
July 26, 2011
Pop the champagne corks. The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In 14-0* vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers--and did not approve the creationist-backed…
July 25, 2011
Cut a hole in a watermelon! Brilliant!
I think Rebecca Watson makes a great skeptic and spokesperson for the skeptics community, but I think her real calling is in giving dating advice.
(From here)
You may also enjoy this bloggingheads:
July 25, 2011
President Barack Obama shut down dozens, possibly hundreds, of web sites of members of US congress moments ago when during a moving oration about the US Budget Crisis he suggested that people contact their members of congress immediately. In particular, Obama stated that it has become the norm to…
July 23, 2011
Just an idea ... not entirely work safe ... below the fold.
Imagine that Rebecca Watson, Stef McGraw, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Barbara Drescher, Stephanie Zvan, All the Skepchicks, Me, all the other bloggers, and most of the commmenters on our blogs discussing Rebeccapocalypse all worked for the…
July 23, 2011
I don't know if I should worship my backpack or drive a wooden stake through its heart and shoot it with silver bullets. For three days I obsessively looked through every pocket knowing my keys were in there somewhere, and never found them. Today, I was looking for something else and guess what…
July 22, 2011
First, have a look at this video of Huxley dancing.
Now, have a look at this email I just got from YoutTube:
Dear gregladen,
Your video, Dancing, may have content that is owned or licensed by SME.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your…
July 22, 2011
This week's featured musical artist for your enjoyment: K. Flay
No Duh
July 22, 2011
After a little messing around with interesting emacs goodies, we might as well get right on to the good stuff.
emacs uses a concept called "modes." You'll learn about that if you use emacs. For now, what you need to know is that there are "major modes" and "minor modes" and we're only interested…
July 21, 2011
An Efe forest camp is usually dark and depending on the time of day, dripping from current or recent rain. The Efe live in dome shaped huts which may be more or less complete. A half dome might be a hut that was built quickly, or it might be a hut that was built more openly because it has been…
July 21, 2011
A Hadron is a kind of particle, made of quarks. There are two kinds of hadrons, baryons (made out of three quarks) and mesons (made out of a quark and a quirky quark known as an antiquark).
The particle of interest is made up of an up quark, a strange quark, and a heavy bottom quark. I've…
July 21, 2011
I have a new post up at 10,000 Birds: How much bird is there, anyway? Please have a look and leave a comment!
Also, as a reminder, there is still time to make your opinion known regarding the proposed Sandhill Crane hunt in Kentucky: Last Gasp for Sandhill Cranes--Act Now!. And if you want to…
July 20, 2011
For now.
When it comes down to it, benevolent dictatorship resting on a perfectly anarchistic base is the only way to go. Democracy is too easily bought. Free Market Forces do not make everything all nice and efficient and stuff. Wherever information can be OpenSource and OpenAccess it should be…
July 20, 2011
Gregor Mendel is the Augustinian Monk and Scientist who developed the model of genetics that held sway all the way through the Darwinian Synthesis (when, essentially, it was introduced and integrated) and right up until recently, when it has weakened considerably compared to other conceptions of…
July 20, 2011
They won't let Pluto be a planet but it still bears the responsibility of having moons, and until just now there were three known moons of the tiny non-planet, named Hydra, Charon and Nix.
Now there are four, and the fourth one is called Essslashtwoohoneonepeeone.
They are working on another…
July 20, 2011
I've spoken about Uncanny Valley before. Here's a little write-up from Wired Science on some related brain research.
July 20, 2011
I am so happy Al is my Senator.
Ouch.
July 20, 2011
People are screaming at me over on ERV blog about not making a formal announcement that Richard Dawkins is god-like because he's donated a bunch of foundation money to a child care project. That's wonderful that he did that, but I'm not a member of JREF, was not at TAM, do not get newsletters from…
July 20, 2011
Scienceblogs Abbie Smith (ERV) will be the guest on this weeks Skeptically Speaking:
Skeptically Speaking #122 HIV and AIDS
This week, we're joined by graduate student and Scienceblogs writer Abbie Smith, to learn about the latest research on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. How does HIV cause…
July 19, 2011
Marc Hauser, whom I've discussed before a few times, has resigned from his position at Harvard. This was somewhat unexpected.
Marc Hauser, a well-known Harvard psychology professor who has been on leave since an internal investigation found him guilty of eight counts of scientific misconduct, is…
July 19, 2011
I've only got random stuff for you now, but it is all good stuff. Well, not really all good, but it is most definitively all stuff.
First, we have Chris Mooney interviewing Rebecca Watson in a Point of Inquiry Podcast. Give it a listen.
I'm happy to be one of the men who supports Rebecca.…
July 18, 2011
I want you to watch this from beginning to end. Report back.
July 18, 2011
So, I push you.
Then, you push me.
Then, I push you.
Then, you push me.
Then, I push you.
Then, you push me.
And I go "Hey, no pushing! Unfair!!!!"
Or perhaps it goes like this, a little more complicated:
Rebecca says something
Stef says something
PZ says something
A buncha people say something…
July 18, 2011
The first crane I ever saw is a bird burned permanently in my memory. It came out of nowhere and flew close by, staying in view lit by a nearly setting sun for about five wing beats. A gun was raised to shoot it but the trigger was not pulled.
I was a teenager, and the brother of a co-worker…
July 17, 2011
Technically, hurricane season has been going for a while now but I've not found any reason to start discussing disturbing weather until now. And, we have two items of interest. First, a storm is blowing up off the east coast of Florida. This is a tropical storm forming in the western Atlantic.…
