December 6, 2012
The other day I reviewed a guide to using the very high end Lego Technic system. Here, I've got a book that addresses the needs of those at the other end of the Lego Spectrum: The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide
By "other end of the spectrum" I do not mean unsophisticated or easy, I simply mean no…
December 6, 2012
Whinging About Skepchick
A critique of a talk by Rebecca Watson is very likely heavily influenced by the critiquer’s membership in one group or another as defined by The Great Sorting. This not because Rebecca is a polarizing person. It is because she has been outspoken on issues that tend to…
December 5, 2012
The picture above is what the Moon would look like if you wore gravity glasses.
We've been following the Grail Mission for some time now, and new results are in. NASA has made a very detailed gravity map of the moon. The Grail mission involves the use of two space craft flying next to each other,…
December 5, 2012
Rachel Maddow can be very scary, because she's like, all truth and stuff. For example, she claims that evolution is real and the moon landing was real! Imagine that!
But seriously the question is, how can people get things like this, and lots of other things (Obama's place of birth, what really…
December 5, 2012
A large scale model of a human brain has been created by a team of scientists at the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Ontario. This is a virtual model, inside a computer, that involves 2,5 million virtual neurons structures in a pattern resembling the overall human brain…
December 5, 2012
I'm reading Disaster!: A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues, and Other Catastrophes by John Withington, who also wrote about other disastrous things such as disasters specific to London. It is a couple of years old (and thus does not include the recent Japan earthquake and tsunami). This is…
December 4, 2012
I am having a conversation with my friend, Pat. We are talking about the way we talk when we have a chance to spend some time, or the way our emails seem to go.
“I tire of being asked what I think about something only to have the conversation derailed at the first ‘bump’ in my logic, at the first…
December 4, 2012
That is the title of a book by Lars-Åke Janzon, with the subtitle "175 Answers to Possible and Impossible Questions about Animals". Oddly, that particular question appears to be evaded in the book itself, but most of the 175 questions seem to be addressed accurately. This is one of those books you…
December 4, 2012
You know about Atheists Talk because I mention it now and then. I've done several interviews on the radio show. of sciency people like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Ira Flatow, and most recently George Church. I've also been interviewed on it. And I've done the TV now and then as well.
Here's the…
December 4, 2012
Lego Technic is a Lego based technology that includes a combination of totally new kinds of Lego pieces and fancy technology that lets you build some amazing things. You can get kits that range in cost and sophistication from the LEGO 8514 Technic Power Roboriders a sort of motorcycle for robots…
December 4, 2012
I was just looking at the newly released Time Top Ten Space (science) Moments of the year. This is a little unfair, actually. The year is not over. Something could easily happen between now and January 1, 2013. Anyway, there are things on this list I didn't know, so I therefore assume that you…
December 4, 2012
Thursday, at 7 to 9 PM in Room 412 of the Science Teaching and Student Services Building on the East Bank. A few of us involved with Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories will be doing a thing called "Telling our Stories."
The event is run by the UMN Campus Atheists…
December 3, 2012
UPDATE: The pages are DONE. Good work, Miriam!
Let's try to act like a civilized society, for at least a few minutes, OK? There is a facebook page called "No respect for suicidal teens" that seems to have been put up by someone annoyed by attention given to someone who killed herself that the…
December 3, 2012
Rebecca Watson gave the following talk at Skeptcon. It is funny, well done, and critiques a Pop-Evol-Psy concept or two, which I have also addressed (Why Do Men Hunt and Women Shop?, Understanding Sex Differences in Humans: What do we learn from nature?, Falsehoods: Human Universals, A Tutorial in…
December 3, 2012
Despite rumors to the contrary, NASA actually does real, non-Parody science! And the famous press conference about Mars Rover happened today, and it was exactly as I predicted. Very, very interesting.
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze…
December 3, 2012
A study has just come out in the Journal of Sex Research comparing various psychological and lifestyle measures of women who act in pornographic films with matched sets of women who do not.
There is a pretty clear association between negative attitudes towards pornography and negative assessments…
December 3, 2012
My friend, Aslhey Miller, just wrote this thing and it is important. She has fallen in love with someone that her father does not approve of, and he, her father, has gone ahead and "disowned" her (a strange word when you think about it) for that reason. You should read this because it is socially…
December 3, 2012
As you know, NASA is planning a press conference later today, but you don’t have to wait for the big news. It was leaked, and I’ve got it.
The NASA Curiosity Mars Rover has discovered something interesting and rather enigmatic. I understand NASA will be asking your help in trying to identify what…
December 3, 2012
I might be exaggerating slightly about the ready availability of the materials...
Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves by George Church and Ed Regis looks like a futurist tome on what could happen when technology finally catches up with human imagination and…
December 2, 2012
But if you ask her for more details she'll get mad at you. Watch:
Governor Brewer, two things: First, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Second, you need to learn to govern. You are the "govern"or. Act like it…
December 2, 2012
The Carnival of Evolution is one of the few remaining carnivals. As such it is probably not so much as an atavism as another unique bloggy thing which still has a function in this world even if all of its nearest relatives are extinct. Like Aardvarks.
Anyway, Carnival of Evolution #54: A Walkabout…
December 2, 2012
This post has been moved, with a copy of the very important comments, to THIS LOCATION, otherwise known as Greg Laden's Blog.
Please click through and visit the post, and the blog!
December 1, 2012
Michele Bachmann. Photo by Flickr User Gage Skidmore.
Or, maybe just waiting for a pin to drop, to break the silence? Bill Prendergast at Minnesota Progressive Project has floated an interesting, if somewhat complicated, hypothesis. He notes that Michel Bachmann has been very silent, out of the…
December 1, 2012
... And I don't mean the good kind.
A feature of WordPress blogging software is that you can turn off commenting on old posts, older than a specified number of days. I don't like doing that because some of the most interesting comments trickle in on some of those old posts. Like this one.
But,…
December 1, 2012
I have discussed rabies before. In Attack of the Hound of Malembi. Or, “Whose are these people, anyway?” I discussed a personal encounter with a rabid dog, which killed my cat and bit six friend. In Ode to Rocky I discuss an encounter with a cute little raccoon which probably did not have rabies,…
December 1, 2012
These three things are intimately connected.
Well, OK, they're not really connected at all, but all will be the subject of discussion on the next Skeptically Speaking. I believe Desiree will be speaking on Sunday, December 2nd with James Pinfold about Dark Matter ... apparently there is new…
December 1, 2012
I've been interested in Animal Navigation for years. I've always been interested in things like orientation and maps and so on, but it was when I started working with the Efe Pygmies in the mid 1980s, and noticed that there were some interesting things about how they found their way around in the…
December 1, 2012
Does grinding your own meat make a better burger? How does adding fat to your eggs create the perfect tender omelet? Why should you have patience before carving your roast?
Discover the science behind everyday cooking with Christopher Kimball from America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated. Join…
November 30, 2012
Here's Joe being a regular guy, picking up some cookies, a pie, some kids toys, and a big-ass TV.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
November 30, 2012
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, NASA did not say that. But I do think people need to take it down a notch with this whole blaming NASA for doing their press conferences wrong. As far as I know, the Curiosity Martian Laboratory Robot recently approached a non nondescript pile of dirt, analyzed the…
