January 26, 2008
In an exclusive preview of his new book, The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker looks at language, and the way it expresses the workings of our minds. By analyzing common sentences and words, he shows us how, in what we say and how we say it, we're communicating much more than we realize.
January 26, 2008
Sorry, embedding disabled... but you can see it here.
January 26, 2008
As PZ Myers reminds us, it is time to start planning for the Twin Cities Home Schooling Science Fair at Har Mar Mall, in Roseville, Minnesota.
Before we go any further, I want you to understand that Roseville is not a bastion of crazy creationist yahoos. In fact, the Roseville School District,…
January 26, 2008
This is a repost of an item from my old blog.
The Twin Cities Creation Science Fair association usually posts "random" photographs of the children's exhibits on their web site after the fair is over. You can go and see them for the last few years. (Don't look for a place to click on this post,…
January 26, 2008
This is a repost of an item from my old blog.
The Twin Cities Home Schooling Creationist Science Fair at Har Mar Mall in Roseville, Minnesota happened last month. The organization that (at least partly) sponsors this event (Twin Cities Creation Science) usually posts photographs of the science…
January 26, 2008
This is a repost of an item from my old blog.
The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.
Proverbs 1:7
This is an Absodoodly-don't miss event!
Har Mar Mall, Rosedale District
Roseville Minnesota
Feb 17 and 18 2007
Exhibits must be set up between 8:30 and 10:00 am Saturday and will remain…
January 26, 2008
I'm serious. You can't see this post until you put down your coffee and make sure your airways are clear. Then you can click on the heading and laugh, and cry, and everything...
This is a repost of an item from my old blog.
OK, I think this is fake, it can't be real. This was spotted on…
January 26, 2008
New York Times tech columnist David Pogue is back with a satirical mini-medley that explains the legal and social history ofmusic and media on the Internet in 4 minutes.
January 26, 2008
Yes, even serious topics like Open Access can be funny.
From Vimeo, moments from the SPARACRL forum. You will laugh, you will cry.
SPARC Forum: The Flip Side from Matt Agnello on Vimeo.
January 25, 2008
Nudibranch ...
January 25, 2008
"This is the story of a battle between faith and knowledge..."
The first in a series from the BBC
Next in the series
January 25, 2008

Did humans wipe out the Pleistocene megafauna? This is a question that can be asked separately for each area of the world colonized by Homo sapiens. It is also a question that engenders sometimes heated debate. A new paper coming out in the Journal of Human Evolution concludes that many…
January 25, 2008
China Spacewalk; India bird flu outbreak spreading; Pollution and diabetes linked?; Cryptosporidium; Controversial theory of Alzheimer's
China may broadcast first spacewalk live from PhysOrg.com
China may broadcast its first ever spacewalk live when it launches its third manned space mission…
January 25, 2008
Speaking of Hagfish, check out this pig:
Ick.
This bizarre-looking piglet has been nicknamed Cyclops because one of its three eyes is in the centre of its head.
And the little pig was also born with two mouths, one on each side of its head. It also has two noses and will have two sets of teeth…
January 25, 2008
From the NCSE newsroom:
At least nine county school boards in northern Florida have adopted resolutions calling for the state board of education "to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science such that evolution is not presented as fact, but as one of several theories," according to a…
January 25, 2008
UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko…
January 25, 2008
You can say whatever you think, or believe, or want to think or believe, about the importance of Clinton's whiteness, Obama's blackness. and Edward's southern whiteness. As the primaries move south of the Mason Dixon line, race has become the only issue of importance.
Why do I say this? Because…
January 25, 2008
Jan 25
Robert Burns born, 1759
Jan 25
Virginia Woolf born, 1882
Jan 25
W. Somerset Maugham born, 1874
Jan 25
Conversion of St Paul
Jan 25
First U.S. meeting of ALGOL definition committee, 1958
Jan 25
Passing of Gandalf
Jan 25*
Parashat Yitro
Jan 25
Bob Dylan plays the second "…
January 25, 2008
Frank Gehry wanted to be a scientist when he grew up. But after blowing up a part of his house, at age 14, he decided against it. He's gone on to create some mindblowing buildings, including the Guggenheim at Bilbao and LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall. This wildly entertaining conversation with…
January 25, 2008
Remember this post on chimpanzee food sharing? Over a PLoS, where the original paper is published, you can get involved in a discussion of the paper. I posted something over there in response to someone else'
Go have a look, here.
Access to the discussion is on the right side bar.
January 25, 2008
... and I've finally got it down. Have a look:
January 25, 2008
The Hagfish, or Slime Eel, is said to be an aphrodisiac. Hard evidence that hagfish can enhance sexual prowess is lacking, but this fish can get evolutionary biologists very hot.
A recently published paper, reviewed here, on Pharyngula, addresses the interesting evolutionary question. In…
January 24, 2008
Pasteurella multocida is a bacterium often called Avian cholera (though it is a different organims than the disease that affects humans). It is estimated that about 15,000 birds have died over the last few weeks in the Great Salt Lake, in Utah. A similar epidemic occurred in 1994, killing 10,000…
January 24, 2008
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, photojournalist James Nachtwey talks about his decades as a war photographer. A slideshow of his photos, beginning in 1981 in Northern Ireland, reveal two parallel themes in his work. First, as he says: "The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live…
January 24, 2008
A hopeful monster is a mutant born with a genetically determined and large novel trait (compared to its parents) which confers enhanced fitness on that individual. This enhanced fitness increases the likelihood that the new mutant gene that determines this trait will be passed on and spread…
January 24, 2008
... #67: Let's all go on a birding holiday is here.
January 24, 2008
... is here.
January 24, 2008
The amount of ice lost to the sea from Antarctica has increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years. This is the result of an increase in glacial flow. It had previously been thought, and perhas was the case, that Greenland ice loss outpaced the Antarctica. This is no longer the case.
An…
