August 18, 2008
The Shy Albatross
A study of trawl fishing in South Africa suggests that around 18,000 seabirds may be killed annually in this fishery, highlighting trawl fisheries as a major threat to seabirds, especially several species of albatross already facing a risk of extinction.
Published in the journal…
August 18, 2008
On this day in 1964...
South Africa has been barred from taking part in the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo over its refusal to condemn apartheid.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the decision in Lausanne, Switzerland, after South Africa failed to meet an ultimatum to comply with…
August 18, 2008
Wait, there's a dam in the Grand Canyon? Why don't we just leave these rivers alone!!!!
US rescue crews have airlifted some 170 people to safety from a remote village in the Grand Canyon after a dam burst following days of heavy rain.
Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said…
August 17, 2008
Continuing with our series on Boycotting the Olympics ... Have you seen the male gymnasts? Some will be disappointed that they wear boxer shorts, but that is not what I wanted to talk about. Watching them (do very badly, by the way) I recalled that the argument has been made that this is…
August 17, 2008
This is intereting, but I hate the word "The Enterprise." Unless, of course, you are talking about The Enterprise.
The OpenSource Census is here.
August 17, 2008
I find it interesting (not that I'm watching the Olympics or anything) that a) the Olympics can have totally different rules for a game than other forms of the sport and b) that the rules change from time to time. This is interesting because whenever I propose changes in sports rules, say to my in…
August 17, 2008
The beagle board, which costs only about 150 bucks, is a full blown Linux-capable computer that is so simplified and low powered that it does not need a fan. Its main method of communication (other than video output) is via USB (no ethernet). But that can work.
For a write-up about this cutie, go…
August 17, 2008
The Olympics in Beijing (pronounce) are of course being boycotted by this blog. Not only because they are in China, and China is annoying, but also because they are the Olympics, and the Olympics are Annoying. In particular, tie IOC (International Olympic Committee) is annoying.
The IOC is owned…
August 17, 2008
Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it? To learn more about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love -- and people who had just been dumped.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender…
August 16, 2008
Watching (collecting data for the boycott) men's Olympic water polo, it occurred to me that the little tiny bathing suits the men wear were absurd. Why not just skip the bathing suit and get on with it? As I was thinking this, the commentators on the TV were learnin' me something new closely…
August 16, 2008
Elvis In 1977 I drove from Nashville down to Memphis with no particular plans regarding Memphis. It was just a place to stop on the way to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I had the name of a cheap motel and a vague idea of where it was. But I kept getting lost. Every time I came to about where this…
August 16, 2008
A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.
The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff's…
August 15, 2008
But I thought I'd throw together a few of the more amazing scenes from earlier olympics.
Hey, did you see the Cuba/US baseball game? Anybody know how Nix is? Anything broken? (Boy, that was rough.... talk about the agony of rolling around on the ground bleeding....)
And now for today's…
August 15, 2008
This sweeping mosaic of Saturn's moon Enceladus provides broad regional context for the ultra-sharp, close-up views NASA's Cassini spacecraft acquired minutes earlier, during its flyby on Aug. 11, 2008. See PIA11114 and PIA11113 for the higher resolution views.
This false-color mosaic combines…
August 15, 2008
The leader of a religious group that authorities believe preys on children was released from a Pennsylvania prison Friday but won't be required to register as a sex offender, triggering outrage in the community where he plans to live.
George Feigley, now 68, was convicted in 1975 on charges…
August 15, 2008
This color image is a three dimensional (3D) view of a digital elevation map of a sample collected by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The image shows four round pits, only 5 microns in depth, that were micromachined into the silicon substrate, which is the background…
August 15, 2008
The much-anticipated Bigfoot press conference Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, Calif., revealed little more than two men -- introduced by a self-styled Sasquatch seeker -- claiming to possess the 7-foot "body" of a "bipedal creature" on ice in a secret location, awaiting an autopsy. *
Bigfoot…
August 15, 2008
Assume for a moment that I've used this DNS exploit to take control of your email account. The most obvious effect is that I can now read your mail. Also, I can read your mail and continue forwarding it to you, so that you never realize there is a problem. I can add attachments to your messages,…
August 15, 2008
The 2nd Giants' Shoulders
Oekologie # 18
Carnivals of the Vanities
Carnival of Space #67: Planets, Rockets, Books and Olympic Torches
The Carnival of Cinema: Episode 87 - BVP: Bloggers Vs. Predator
Friday Ark #204
August 15, 2008
This is an exclusive repost of this exclusive post from Gawker regarding yet another "slanty-eyed Chinese" photograph from a Spanish sports team.
Read the story at Gawker. Hattip: Phil.
August 14, 2008
Especially after seeing this unbelievable display of racism and disrespect:
Spain's Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures. The advert for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish…
August 14, 2008
What they said then:
What they say now:
I'm not sure I care. But there you have it.
August 14, 2008
Stephen Jay Gould and David Pilbeam wrote a paper in 1974 that was shown ten years later to be so totally wrong in its conclusions that it has fallen into an obscurity not usually linked to either Gould or Pilbeam. However, they were actually right in ways that they could not have anticipated.…
August 14, 2008
A remarkable find in North Africa is reported in PLoS. Information has just been released on this new archaeological site in a formerly much greener Sahara. This will provide an interesting physical unerpinning for the recent work on a "Genetic Map of Europe" (see this summary by Razib) and a new…
August 14, 2008
Finally, Bigfoot has been found.
bigfoot
It is reported that Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, of Georgia, have found a bigfoot body, over seven feet tall. They've put bigfoot into a freezer, snapped a few grainy photographs, and will let the rest of us see it some time in the future.
Bigfoot expert…
August 14, 2008
On June 29th, 2008, University of Central Florida student and student officer Webster Cook was involved in the incident that has since become known as Crackergate. Mr. Cook, while trying to leave the premises of the the school's Catholic Church with the un-swallowed bread that is believed by some…
August 13, 2008
The Four Stone Hearth #47--Unasked Questions Edition is at a most unlikely place, Almost Diamonds.
Carnival Of The Recipes is at "I've Got a Little Space to Fill"
Get scared at The Boneyard #22 at Laelaps.
The Carnival of Cinema: Episode 86 - Blogger of the Paradise is at Good News Film…
August 13, 2008
Webster Cook, the kid to made off with a Holy Eucharist from a Catholic Church (see this and links there-outwards) was acquitted after a seven hour trial, according to an email sent by Webster's friend, Ben. Details are expected to emerge later.
August 13, 2008
This just in:
A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los…
