June 26, 2009
There are two ways to go to Antarctica. One is like my friend Elle, who is at this very moment in an underground bunker at the south pole with a broken limb and inadequate medial attention, where she is working on a NASA scientific expedition where they thing somehow it is a good idea to spend the…
June 26, 2009
The coroner's preliminary report has come out, and it is vague.
Rather than reporting, for instance, a simple heart attack/stroke, the coroner indicates that there is no obvious cause (some physical, visible thing) of such a thing, and that actual 'cause of death' will be specified only after…
June 26, 2009
I have my own theory, but for now have a look at this discussion at Quiche Moraine.
June 26, 2009
Biologist Robert Full studies the amazing gecko, with its supersticky feet and tenacious climbing skill. But high-speed footage reveals that the gecko's tail harbors perhaps the most surprising talents of all.
June 26, 2009
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's long-lived Mars Odyssey spacecraft has completed an eight-month adjustment of its orbit, positioning itself to look down at the day side of the planet in mid-afternoon instead of late afternoon.
This change gains sensitivity for infrared mapping of Martian minerals by…
June 26, 2009
Actual missionaries As you may have noticed, I have written a series of posts about missionaries in eastern Zaire in the 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on my own personal experiences. These seven posts represent only a small number of these experiences, but they are more or less…
June 26, 2009
As I've mentioned previously, the study site I worked in was beyond the Peace Corps Line. It was beyond the Blender Line. And it was beyond the Beer Line. Out here in this arguably very remote area, we were never short of remoteness. Every year the study site become more and more remote, as…
June 26, 2009
The new study identifies 27 loci that have rare copy number variations, where there are more or fewer repeated DNA segments than expected, common to the genomes of several children with autism spectrum disorder. These variations are not present in controls without autism spectrum disorder.
The…
June 25, 2009
I have only one Michael Jackson story.
Michael Jackson was an international pop icon for a very long time, because he started his career so early. He was also African American. Bob Marley predated Jackson, and was Afro-Caribbean. For these and various other reasons, the face of Bob Marley and…
June 25, 2009
LA Times:
[Updated at 3:15 p.m.: Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times.]
June 25, 2009
Not many details available, but it sounds like he was found 'not breathing' and rushed to hospital. UPDATE: The word is that Jackson may have been not breathing and unresponsive at the time the paramedics arrived.
He was taken to UCLA medical center. This happened 2.5 hours ago, and there are…
June 25, 2009
In an unprecedented move, former vice presidential candidate and intellectual leader of the Republican Party, Sarah "my daughter can have your baby" Palin has ruthlessly attacked a blogger who was being funny.
From an official Palin office email:
Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a…
June 25, 2009
The current I and the Bird blog carnival (it is about birds) goes into extra innings. This is a particularly good version of the carnival, which is always good anyway. Check it out here.
June 25, 2009
Eight to one? Any guesses as to which of the nine supreme court justices think it is OK to get a 13 year old girl to strip down and shake out her underwear so you can see if she has TWO ASPIRIN ON HER???
The Supreme Court said Thursday school officials acted illegally when they strip-searched an…
June 25, 2009
... At age 62. Updated:
Of cancer, details here.
She was a pop/cultural icon who invented an entire hair do. Her image was so caught up in one of her main roles as an actress that her other work, including health care related work, has been somewhat ignored.
(That role was in Charlie's Angels…
June 25, 2009
It was a rare day that I was at the Ngodingodi research station at all ... usually I was off in the forest with the Efe Pygmies, up the road excavating an archaeological site. It was also rare that Grinker, my cultural anthropologist colleague, was at the research station. He was spending most of…
June 25, 2009
I have friend who has been trapped in a mostly underground research facility at the South Pole since early winter. She recently broke her foot, which is just tough luck because nobody gets out of there until spring, which is, I think, in October.
This will remind you of the stroy of Dr. Jerri…
June 24, 2009
Surgeon and inventor Catherine Mohr tours the history of surgery (and its pre-painkiller, pre-antiseptic past), then demos some of the newest tools for surgery through tiny incisions, performed using nimble robot hands. Fascinating -- but not for the squeamish.
June 24, 2009
Hat Tip: Rob
June 24, 2009
This is what I got on the Internet for my Birthday.
June 24, 2009
"So take this and fill it out," he suddenly said, thrusting a small square of paper in my general direction, a piece of paper that looked like a postcard on one side and a form to be filled in on the other. "As soon as you can. Do it right now."
So my boss had just forced me to join the Columbia…
June 24, 2009
In an BBC article describing a Royal Society paper on the rate of mutation in warm vs. cooler climates, the BBC made this statement:
DNA can mutate and change imperceptibly every time a cell divides and makes a copy of itself.
But when one of these mutations causes a change that is advantageous for…
June 24, 2009
First he was, I dunno, in the bathroom. Then he was, perhaps, down in the parking lot waxing his car. Then he was home working on his stamp collection or something. Then he was hiking the Apalachian Trail. Now, it turns out, supposedly, that Republican South Carolina Governor Sanford was in…
June 24, 2009
A couple of "missionary" posts back, I intimated that we got to stay at the missionary stations while visiting various cities or en route between points in return for our work giving out medicine and such at our research camp. In truth, the arrangement was a bit more complex and subtle than this,…
June 23, 2009
Background:
The Finding Coral expedition set sail June 8th in search of deep sea corals on in Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin. Two Deep Worker manned submarines will be piloted by our blue ribbon science team, traveling to depths up to 500 metres to document evidence of corals,…
June 23, 2009
Near the end of the earth there are lines one might not cross for fear of falling off.
OK, you won't really fall off, but you will become scared and lost.
The area of my research in the Ituri was, by many standards, one of those places near the end of the earth, with the lines that have…
June 22, 2009
In light of the recent assassination, by a member of a right wing Christian anti-abortion cabal, of a physician who specialized in late term abortions, it may be worth having a look this medical phenomenon.
Well, my blog colleague Monado contacted me a week ago or so and we discussed this, and I…
