January 18, 2008
Two hundred pound robot lumbering along on tread mill, doing the bidding of a monkey several thousand miles away.An international and interdisciplinary team of scientists have developed a robot that will carry out physical activities in imitation of the activities of a monkey. The monkey and the…
January 17, 2008
[Thanks, Analiese, The Anthropologist]
January 17, 2008
Jan 17
Benjamin Franklin born in Boston, 1706
Jan 17
Justice Dept. begins IBM anti-trust suit, 1969 (drops it, January 8, 1982)
Jan 17
Fellowship reaches Lorien
Jan 17
Led Zeppelin's first album is released, 1969
Jan 17
Aujourd'hui, c'est la St(e) Roseline.
Jan 18
Grey whale migration,…
January 17, 2008
Hey, Ben, you were born in 1706.
January 17, 2008
Every time I put this video up, You Tube eliminates it. So look quick before it goes away again.
January 17, 2008
The Materials Research Society has an annual competition called "Science as Art." There are some pretty spectacular images on their web site, here.
Hat tip: Canned Platypus
January 17, 2008
In the talk that opened TEDGlobal 2007 ("Africa: The Next Chapter"), South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo sets the scene, framing the conversation that would unfold over the four-day event. "What's the worst thing you've heard about Africa?" he asks. After fielding call-outs of "famine," "…
January 17, 2008
Things are just not like what they used to be. You know this. You know that the Age of Dinosaurs, for instance, was full of dinosaurs and stuff, and before transitional fossil forms crawled out of the sea to colonize the land, all animals were aquatic, etc. But did you know that from a purely…
January 17, 2008
Science Debate 2008 people may be intereted in this effort by SlashDot:
This is your usual Slashdot reader-generated interview, except we're only going to pick five questions, not 10, and we're going to send the same five questions to all the major-party presidential candidates and publish each…
January 16, 2008
Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is "patient capital": support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses which the commercial…
January 16, 2008
Efforts to save the Middle East's rarest bird have been boosted by two chance sightings of the species 1,500 miles apart.
Now, if only they could get these birds together, they would have a flock. Sort of.
Here's a press release from BirdLife International:
Northern Bald Ibises were seen last…
January 16, 2008
Slashdot has a number of interesting technology tidbits you may want to know about:
Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the…
January 16, 2008
Fleeing Ron Paul:
I'm out of the Ron Paul campaign ...He does not believe in Evolution! If there was ever a time we need science to solve our problems of energy resources and climate control it is 2009! ... He was my last chance at returning to the GOP.
Yet another story of a rino fleeing the…
January 16, 2008
People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind.
This is not that surprising, but it is very interesting research. We already knew, for instance, that people…
January 16, 2008
Traveling from Ecuador to Africa, Jane Goodall takes the audience on an ecological journey, discussing highlights and low points of her experiences in the jungle. She shows how progress is helping research (DNA analysis) and hurting the environment (clear-cutting). And she draws a dozen parallels…
January 16, 2008
Black holes have a maximum speed? Not really, just the usual Cosmic Speed Limit of the speed of light. From a Penn State Press Release....
A new study using results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory provides one of the best pieces of evidence yet that many supermassive black holes are…
January 16, 2008
From the National Center for Science Education:
Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the new book from the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine designed to give the public a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its…
January 16, 2008
Well, it is a good thing that I have a thick skin and a good sense of humor, or I would be very put off by Larry Moran and probably T. Ryan Gregory as well.
Apparently, I stepped into an ongoing partially ad hominem debate over "Junk DNA" centering on the work of John Mattick and his research…
January 16, 2008
The world's thinnest computer is coming out officially in a couple of weeks, but apparently you can get it now. It's a Mac, it will cost about 1,800 bucks US, and it is said that you can "fit it into an interoffice mailing envelope."
I strongly recommend that you do not put this computer into…
January 16, 2008
This guy is getting scarier and scarier.
hat tip: Bore me to tears.
January 15, 2008
Texas higher education officials announced today that they have postponed action on a Bible-oriented group's proposal to offer a master's degree in science education.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board had been scheduled to consider the proposal by the Dallas-based Institute for Creation…
January 15, 2008
This is a virtual keyboard, just a laser image on your desk. See the others in the list of 10 Strange Keyboards, here.
January 15, 2008
It's pretty easy to get stuck without a bottle opener ... But you've always got a chainsaw handy....
January 15, 2008
If there's a sense of déjà vu permeating a rather massive corporate campus in Redmond, Washington right now, it wouldn't be surprising. The European Commission, which regulates competition for the European Union, today announced a brand new antitrust investigation against Microsoft.
Read about it…
January 15, 2008
From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:
A church-produced evangelical Christian movie is aimed at evangelism and is inappropriate for public schools, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told Alabama educators.
After receiving complaints, Americans United…
January 15, 2008
Minnesota is, as my cousin from Colorado was telling me the other day, one of the irrelevant states in the current presidential primary process. Maybe so. But the process is not irrelevant with respect to other issues at hand. Everybody I know is tired of our senior Senator, Norm Coleman, but we…
January 15, 2008
The Latest Political News from key sources such as PZ Myers and Jon Stewart.
Huckabee is a raving lunatic
He wants to change the constitution to match better with the Bible. This guy is dangerous. Jump into the fray here at Pharyngula.
The South Carolina Debate
Hat tip: Evolving in Kansas
Deep…
