April 29, 2008
Second commandment: Try not to be a moron.
(FYI: observed instances of speciation)
Hat Tip: TUIBG and Julia
April 28, 2008
Food webs --- the network of trophic (eating) interaction among the many species sharing a habitat or biome -- is a much studied aspect of ecology. Food web and other similar phenomena such as dispersal syndromes are epiphenomena of evolution, resulting from the negotiation of competitive and…
April 28, 2008
Darwin did a LOT of stuff. It is amazing how often one can trace some basic bit of modern scientific knowledge to an observation or experiment Darwin while travelling on the Beagle, later on in his bathtub, or in his back yard. The NYT has a nice piece on one example of this.
IN 1860, while…
April 28, 2008
From Linux Journal
April 28, 2008
It is always nice when an extinct animal shows up and announces that rumors of its extinction were exaggerated. In this case, we have the dwarf cloud rat just discovered by an international research team.
Lawrence Heaney, team leader and curator at the Chicago-based Field Museum of Natural…
April 28, 2008
... is expected to reach Cat-4 status before making landfall somewhere. Watch The Intersection for details.
April 28, 2008
This is described in UDreamOfJanie:
Ronda R. Storms is a Florida sate senator (Republican) who has spearheaded efforts against Planned Parenthood, against her local LGBTA community, and so on, is now linked to the Discovery Institute in regards to her latest project, the Florida "Academic Freedom"…
April 28, 2008
And by this, I mean really, really big...
This was sent to me by my colleague Christian Reinboth in Germany. This video was created by Mike (Metafis), a retired PC support guy, who has also been kind enough to comment below.
.... It shows a massive zoom (315 times) into the famous Mandelbrot…
April 27, 2008
With all this talk about Expelled!, the creationist movie, I thought it was about time to resurrect the review I wrote many moons ago of Flock of Dodos by Randy Olson, along with some updated information.
Flock of Dodos is a much better film than Expelled!, and explores the same issue, with…
April 27, 2008
This page is designed for teachers, pastors, youth leaders and organizations to provide useful tools and resources to promote the ideas surrounding this highly anticipated film.
You can get Expelled! movie clips to show in your life science class. This site has many movies designed for Christian…
April 27, 2008
Pterodroma magentae is the Magenta Petral (also known as the Chatham Island Taiko). There are between 8 and 15 breeding pairs in the New Zealand home range of this species. Indeed, this bird was thought extinct for quite some time before it was rediscovered in 1978.
A recent study indicates…
April 27, 2008
Some of my colleagues are downplaying the recent paper in science showing a: that mastodons are elephants and b: that birds and dinosaurs ... in particular Tyrannosaurus rex and turkeys ... are related. (See here and here, for instance)
Yes, it is true that these phylogenetic findings are wholly…
April 27, 2008
Inequality in mortality is the most poignant reminder of persistent, often multi-generational differences in socioeconomic status (SES). Poor people are more likely to get sick and die than rich people. As a society develops over time, one would hope that this disparity would be reduced, but in…
April 26, 2008
One of the most important evolutionary transitions in human prehistory was the rise of modern humans (Homo sapiens) from earlier hominids. A newly reported fossil from Tanzania provides an important new data point necessary to understand this transition.
Homo erectus/ergaster probably gave rise to…
April 26, 2008
The Chernobyl Meltdown happened on this day in 1986.
On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:40 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the Soviet Union near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive…
April 25, 2008
Did you ever notice how when there is one earthquake in the news, more follow right away, often leading to the impression that earthquakes come in clusters? Well, maybe they do come in clusters, but if they do, it is not the cluster you are observing on the news. That is entirely an effect of…
April 25, 2008
"Teaching Creationism in Schools," the second in a series of videos produced by NCSE, debuted at expelledexposed.com on April 23, 2008. The brief video presents three incidents in which NCSE helped concerned citizens to resist assaults on the integrity of evolution education. In the video, NCSE'…
April 25, 2008
A new poll asks "Do you think the thoery of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system? Respondents to this on line poll were given the options: Yes, No, Not Sure, and What is it?
The results show that nearly 90 percent of respondents oppose teaching ID in schools.
Almost no…
April 25, 2008
The world's rarest great ape has found a safe haven in the mountains of the west central African nation of Cameroon. With guidance from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Cameroon's prime minister, Ephraim Inoni, has created the world's first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla…
April 25, 2008
The Bell Museum, in Minneapolis, has some fun stuff planned.
The Bell Museum's Seeing Climate Change Film & Video Festival is taking
place this weekend.
Don't miss a special breakfast edition of Cafe Scientifique this Sunday
at the Red Stag Supper Club. You can make reservations by calling
612.…
April 25, 2008
Pharyngula exhorts us to crash a poll on Intelligent Design. It is here. down on the lower left side. About eight hours ago, when PZ discovered the poll, the pro-intelligent design vote was overwhelming. Now, for some reason, the anti-intelligent design vote is overwhelming. So your vote is…
April 25, 2008
Why wait. You can vote for Obama now.
April 25, 2008
Life is complex. The way a living system works can be described in a series of increasingly refined models, each fleshing out details of the previous model. Typically, description at one level raises questions about what is happening at the finer level. These questions induce hypotheses which…
April 25, 2008
Washed-up sea snake rescued in New Zealand from PhysOrg.com
A highly venomous yellow-bellied sea snake that washed up on a New Zealand beach was recovering Thursday at an aquarium.
[...]
Researchers recommend ways to fight lake trout invasion in Glacier National Park from PhysOrg.com
Natural…
April 24, 2008
Skeptic's Circle #85: Looking under rocks
The Carnival of the Fraudless: Spoofing & Exposing the Cult of Scientology
Carnival of Space Week 51
Carnival of the Liberals #63
April 24, 2008
You can pay someone to throw a pie in PZ Myers' face. And you won't get in trouble. Well, I think if I did it, I might get in trouble. But you can do it.
Sign up HERE.
April 24, 2008
5 Mos. In Prison For Terrorizing Gay Neighbors
A British court has sentenced a woman to 150 days behind bars and her daughter to 24-months of supervised probation for a terror campaign against the gay couple who lived next door.
The court was told that the pair began harassing Michael Harris and…
April 24, 2008
No, really. Woo.
