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

November 29, 2007
There are still climate change deniers out there, and if you are one, I'd like to take a moment to annoy you with the following story: Nearly 300 cases of chikungunya fever, a virus that previously has been common only in Africa and Asia, were reported in Italy - where only isolated cases of the…
November 29, 2007
I have a lot of problems with some of the verbiage he uses. But it is all done with a nice English Accent, so he must be a smart guy...
November 29, 2007
HELLO GREETINGS I NEED YOUR URGENT HELP TO DISTRIBUTE 12.5M USD.TO HUMANITARIAN AND OPHANS.AS I'M WIDOW AND CANCER WOMAN. THIS MY MAIL MIGHT COME TO YOU AS A SURPRISE ANDTHE TEMPTATION TO INGORE IT AS UNSEROUS COULD COME INTO YOUR MIND BUT PL'S CONSIDER IT AS DIVINE AND HELP OUT. THANKS SERENA…
November 29, 2007
"His cell phone was found in his shirt pocket with its battery severely melted and his chest burned and fractured." Ouch. Details here.
November 29, 2007
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records. The…
November 28, 2007
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 (5 - 25) are distinctly different and contradictory origin stories. The biblical origin story represented in this text has long been known to resemble a set of Sumerian stories that mainly deal with a multitude of gods interacting (some of these gods are converted to…
November 28, 2007
Are there really open source colleges? Not really, but there are regular colleges that offer some degree of OpenSource learning. For instance, you can take a LOT of science courses from MIT, or Physics from Tufts, or Molecular Computing from Tokyo. Here is a list of OpenSource college…
November 28, 2007
... when you can have an Exoskeleton! [hat tip: Geekologie]
November 28, 2007
This is a web site dedicated entirely to the collection of photographs of animals with gaping maws. Worth a look. But not too closely.
November 28, 2007
The origin and early history of Native American people has always been an issue of debate and contention. There has never been a moment when all, or even most, interested parties agreed on anything close to a single story. New research published in the Open-Access journal PLoS Genetics tends to…
November 28, 2007
...rapid judgments of competence based solely on the facial appearance of candidates predicted the outcomes of gubernatorial elections, the most important elections in the United States next to the presidential elections. In all experiments, participants were presented with the faces of the winner…
November 28, 2007
It may be nothing more than slinging shit, but when you run out of shit: Wild gorillas have been seen using "weapons" for the first time, giving a new insight into how early man learned to use sticks and stones for fighting and hunting millions of years ago. Researchers observed gorillas in the…
November 28, 2007
well, he got his own name right, at least... I think he also mispronounced "people" ...
November 28, 2007
Asked if he would ever nominate a Muslim for his cabinet, he replied: "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my…
November 27, 2007
Blind Watchmaker Video
November 27, 2007
Uncle Jay Explains the News
November 27, 2007
Creationism disproved, again:
November 27, 2007
RAIDs (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive [sic] Disks) are considered pretty handy for a number of things. This is an example of productive and practical use of a RAID. Granted, this project does not have the archaic grandeur of a Floppy Disk RAID, but then again, the capacity and performance of this…
November 27, 2007
As a child in Catholic school, and later in public school and being sent off to "release time" religious instruction, I had the opportunity to read most of the Old and New Testaments of the standard bible. Later, in junior high school, I became interested in comparative religion, and read it all…
November 27, 2007
Ohio State University geologists and their colleagues have uncovered evidence of when Earth may have first supported an oxygen-rich atmosphere similar to the one we breathe today. The study suggests that upheavals in the earth's crust initiated a kind of reverse-greenhouse effect 500 million years…
November 27, 2007
It could be called the Vista Bounce. Here is how it works: First, you have to understand that a good desktop computer costs about $3,000 and always will. A good laptop costs the same. If you believe differently either you have been believing the ads or you do not know what a "good desktop" or a…
November 27, 2007
A French businessman tells AFP his company is working on putting TASER stun guns on a flying saucer that would zap protesters, evil-doers, and anybody else that authorities there don't like. [source]
November 27, 2007
Genes determine basic behavior, like the behavior associated with being a predator. Or avoiding being eaten by a predator. This we know to be true because millions, zillions, of years of evolution must have shaped genes ... especially in mammals with with their whopping big brains and all ... to…
November 27, 2007
Check it out: (click on the bird)
November 27, 2007
Diceros bicornis. Africa has two species of rhinoceros, the "black" and the "white" rhino. Experts disagree on the origin of the two names, and there has been an effort to change these colloquial terms to something else. This is because the "black" rhino is dangerous and shifty, and the "white…
November 27, 2007
But not a lot worse. Just as we are hearing that the current hurricane season, just winding down, was not as bad as it could have been, we also have this: More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study that…
November 27, 2007
We are told that "the Million Book Project has exceeded its goal of digitizing one million books by 2007. " Well, I can think of a million books that I'd never want to look at, and I can think of a million books that I would give up my life to preserve. Or your life, at least. Which million…
November 27, 2007
I almost drank one of these things once (accidentally):