gregladen

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Greg Laden

Greg Laden is a biological anthropologist and science communicator. His research has covered North American prehistoric and historic archaeology and African archaeology and human ecology. He is an OpenSource and OpenAccess advocate. Greg's wife, Amanda, is a High School biology teacher, his daughter Julia is a world traveler and his son Huxley is 2.

Posts by this author

Planets In the Making
April 8, 2008
Planets are formed when a disk of dust orbiting a newly minted star condenses into blobs. The beginning and end of this process has been observed, but the intermediate steps have only been modeled. However, a team of astronomers now reports observations of this process in the intermediate stages…
Did sexist white males cause the extinction of the woolly mammoth, or was it climate change?
April 7, 2008
Ever since 3,599 years ago humans have been asking the question "Why did our furry elephant go extinct?" What caused the woolly mammoth's (not to be confused with the also-woolly mastodon) extinction? Climate warming in the Holocene might have driven the extinction of this cold-adapted species,…
Creationist Pop Up Book
April 7, 2008
Oh, no, wait, I read that wrong... .... "Creationist Book Pops Up .... In Scotland..." Remember Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, the lavishly illustrated Islamic creationist book that first turned up in Turkey, then France and other European countries and prompted a disapproving resolution by the…
The Smithsonian Institution Is Not Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
April 7, 2008
Fifth grader Kenton Stufflebeam is smarter than the Smithsonian Institution. Since 1981, the Tower of Time exhibit has indicated that the Precambrian is an "era" ... when in fact it is not an actual era. The student informed the museum, and now the Smithsonian is working on plans to paint over…
Solar System Doppleganger Located
April 7, 2008
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun. Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding…
Stephen Hawking: Asking big questions about the universe
April 7, 2008
In keeping with the theme of TED2008, professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe -- How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? -- and discusses how we might go about answering them. Stephen Hawking's scientific investigations have shed light on the…
Are You in a Book Club?
April 7, 2008
Our Overlord, Virginia Hughes, has just posted a new reader poll concerning book clubs. Web Poll Powered By MicroPoll More information on the book club concept here.
The Meaning of Life
April 7, 2008
I have a theory that cinema and other forms of fiction often arise not from pure creativity, but from prescience. It is not the case, when this happens, that "life imitates art" but rather, that art predicts life. It is only a matter of figuring out which so-called 'creative' manifestations are…
Google Earth and Your Privacy
April 7, 2008
One of my students mentioned the other day that she was mortified when she found her house in Northeast Minneapolis on Google Earth. Just for fun, she was flying around on Google Earth and decided to stop in and see her own crib. It turns out that the local photograph of her home on Google Earth…
Women in Science
April 7, 2008
Remember the Science Diversity Meme? We had fun coming up with the names of women in science. Well, the meme has now mutated into a summary of itself. Here.
Should you feed the birds?
April 7, 2008
It is a little ironic that all nature enthusiasts know that it is "bad" to feed the animals ... they become dependent on the food, and in some cases will become a nuisance or dangerous, prying open cars or breaking into homes to get more food. Then the animal has to be put down or moved to a new…
It is OK to be an atheist, as long as you don't ... well, actually, it is NOT OK to be an atheist. In Illinois.
April 7, 2008
Following up on our discussion of how it is OK to be an Atheist as long as you know your place, we find a classic example of the kind of thinking that rationalist non-believers encounter all the time, even if it is not spoken out loud. This time it is spoken out loud: This is a conversation…
Hedgehog as a weapon
April 7, 2008
Police said William Singalargh, 27, had hurled the hedgehog about 5m (16ft) at a 15-year-old boy. "It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane. It was unclear whether the hedgehog was still…
Louisiana Academic Freedom Act
April 7, 2008
Louisiana now has an Academic Freedom Act in the works. Academic Freedom Acts are right wing ploys to force specific issues ... or more commonly, specific politically or religiously motivated version of issues ... into the classroom at various levels. Academic Freedom Acts also typically are…
The Boneyard XIII
April 6, 2008
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.... Welcome to the Lucky 13th Edition of The Boneyard ... the Web Carnival about Bones and Stuff. "The Boneyard is a blog carnival covering all things paleo, from dinosaurs to pollen to hominids and everywhere in between. It's held every two weeks (the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the…
The Dick-E Dawkins Rap
April 6, 2008
We all know Genie Scott is hot, but I never knew she was THIS hot! And isn't if funny that all those singers with British Accents don't sing (or in this case rap) in British Accents? Hat Tip: PZ Myers
Atheist Dad, Catholic Mom, and the Kentucky Constitution
April 6, 2008
Catholic Ex Wife looking rather holy.The players: Dad. David Ryan, atheist. Plaintiff, represented by Ed Kagin of American Atheists. Mom. Susin Bisig, Catholic (That's her in the photo, wrapping herself around the cross, it would appear.) Kid. Michael. The question: Where does Michael…
Whence "Blue Blood?"
April 6, 2008
If you came here with the question "Is blood blue" or "Is blood ever blue" or "Is the blood in our veins blue?" then please visit this post: "Is Blood Ever Blue, Science Teachers Want To Know!" Here, we look at the question "What does the term "Blue Blood" mean? A "Blue Blood" is an upper classer…
It is OK to be an atheist, but not an uppity atheist
April 6, 2008
When you get a chance (but not right now, only when you have absolutely nothing whatsoever else to do) have a look at Matt Nisbet's latest thinly veiled attack on PZ myers*. It is the usual crap. Atheists are not allowed to express annoyance, disgust, or anger, or to vilify, sillify, or nullify…
Quote
April 6, 2008
"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." -Carl Sagan
Elephants Are Not Ethnic-Blind
April 6, 2008
I have had this experience. I've traveled literally hundreds of kilometers by foot together with Efe (Pygmy) hunters in the Ituri Forest. We see very few animals. The few we do see are attacked, killed, and eaten. Well, a lot of them actually get away, but that is the idea. But I've also…
Charlton Heston Dead
April 6, 2008
Charlton Heston, Ben Hur, friend to future apes, Moses, English King, has died at the age of 84. In the words of Michael Levine, Heston's agent: "If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore, Heston's face would be on it" Here some footage of Heston getting stoned: (... and meeting his ape-anthropologist…
Call For Submissions: The Boneyard
April 6, 2008
Quick! Send me your submission for The BoneYard! I've got a bunch of good ones, but there is still time for more. I'll finalize it tonight.
Quote
April 5, 2008
"A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life." -Erasmus Darwin
Is Blood Ever Blue? Science Teachers Want to Know!
April 5, 2008
There is an updated version of this post here: "Is Blood Ever Blue, Science Teachers Want To Know!" According to one of the leading experts on the human circulatory system, blood flowing through veins is blue. I'm not going to mention any names. All I'll say is this: A person I know visited a…
Amazing DNA
April 5, 2008
Great enunciation in this one:
Ick
April 5, 2008
Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
April 5, 2008
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment.…
Quote
April 4, 2008
"I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory." "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." -Marie Curie
Mammals and the KT Event
April 4, 2008
A very important and truly wonderful paper in Nature described a tour-de-force analysis of the Mammalian Evolutionary Record, and draws the following two important conclusions: The diversification of the major groups of mammals occurred millions of years prior to the KT boundary event; and The…