July 17, 2012
We've been talking about marriage (here, here, and here). We've established that marriage has a history, it has variability, and that it is hard to pin down a narrowly defined set of functions for it. However, I also suggested that when we strip away a lot of variants that have special…
July 17, 2012
The NASA Curiosity Rover will land on August 5th. NASA has provided a way to follow along with the show, using a special web based plugin which is set up for Mac and Windows, but not Linux.
As NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity prepares to land on Mars, public audiences worldwide can take their own…
July 17, 2012
Why can’t a baby bird just hatch out of the egg and fly away, or at least, be able to fly a little and not require weeks of constant feeding and attention? I suspect they CAN do this but just refuse to in order to steal parental investment, which is, after all, a very valuable resources. Baby…
July 17, 2012
The following letter to Secretary Clinton was released a short while ago. It will be delivered later on this week. Also later on in the week, there will be a place where you can add your comments. Also, there will be a related piece in Rolling Stone's next issue (this week). I imagine there may…
July 16, 2012
This is baby bird week on 10,000 Birds. From the intro post:
Somehow it seemed fitting that after our last theme week – Bird Love Week – that we should spend a full seven days examining what could be the results of that theme. It’s Baby Bird Week on 10,000 Birds and the adorable, fuzzy-wuzzy, itsy…
July 16, 2012
We're getting closer to the Impossible Landing that NASA is going to attempt on Mars, and the space agency has sent out a new press release.
The area where NASA's Curiosity rover will land on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT) has a geological diversity that scientists are eager to investigate, as seen in…
July 16, 2012
I want to tell you about a cool book, but first, here's something interesting about Dragonflies. Terrestrial animals (like humans) require long chain fatty acids but don't synthesize them from basic parts. Higher terrestrial plants don't make the biggest of these molecules either, but plants do…
July 16, 2012
Louisiana is preparing to spend over $11 million to send 1,365 students to 20 private schools that teach creationism instead of science as part of Governor Bobby Jindal’s new voucher program. It is time to halt the implementation of this creationist voucher program.
It is increasingly clear that…
July 15, 2012
Google and Apple, you ruined my daughter's birthday!
Well, it wasn't that bad, but it could have been. Anyway, this is a warning to anyone who uses Apple products of any kind and who uses gmail as their main mail.
Google has started putting email from Apple directly into the spam folder. On…
July 15, 2012
There are all kinds of reasons why it does not matter, apparently, that the US Athletes participating in this summer's Olympics in London will be wearing uniforms made in China. These reasons are things like "Everything is made in China" and "They don't make clothing in America anyway" and so on…
July 15, 2012
Here's a pretty good video discussing the Higgs Boson and stuff. It turns out you can't have anti-gravity. Oh well. Hat tip Nathan.
July 14, 2012
Yesterday Huxley and I were out on the porch checking out the incoming thunderheads. Then we heard thunder. Huxley immediately ran over to the door and pulled it shut.
"We don't want thunder going in the house."
Good idea. Who knows what it would do in there.
Anyway, everybody knows that when you…
July 13, 2012
Are you a Secular Woman? I am. Joined a couple of weeks ago. Kimm Rippere is the president of Secular Woman, and she'll be the guest on Atheist Talk Radio on Sunday Morning. Live, so you can call in. All the details are HERE.
July 13, 2012
Alan Cassels wrote Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease, which is all:
Why wouldn't you want to be screened to see if you're at risk for cancer, heart disease, or another potentially lethal condition? After all, better safe than sorry. Right?
Not so fast, says…
July 13, 2012
Brian Clegg, author of A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable, was the guest on Skeptically Speaking last Sunday. I'm sorry I missed it, but I was recovering from several days hanging out with the very host of that show mostly working and hardly sleeping.
It will be…
July 12, 2012
Just thought you'd like to know: Dropbox has doubled the amount of storage you get when you get Dropbox. I wonder if I can now fit my photographs on dropbox without resizing and compressing them first?
Probably. But the videos: no way. Damn you, Huxley, for being so cute!
July 12, 2012
Using a base ten numbering system. In another numbering system, it is a different numeral.
July 11, 2012
George Carlin was ahead of society. He led freethinkers, skeptics, others. Think of all those clips from George Carlin routines that we play today as reference to important, vibrant, current ideas. Those clips are always years old, sometimes decades. Something similar could be said of Louis…
July 11, 2012
Available now for download:
Skeptically Speaking #171 Ask A Pharmacist
We’re back live this week, and we’re giving you the chance to Ask a Pharmacist. Ontario pharmacist Scott Gavura is the founder and editor of Science-Based Pharmacy, and a contributor to Science-Based Medicine. He’ll be…
July 11, 2012
I am not happy with this NPR title: Will Medicaid Bring The Uninsured Out Of The Woodwork?.
Dear New York Times: The uninsured are not in the woodwork. They are in pain. They are in trouble. They are in debt. They are not in the woodwork. Cockroaches are in the woodwork. The uninsured are not…
July 10, 2012
You know Michael Mann as the scientist who described recent climate change with the "hockey stick" graph. He also wrote The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. He is talking about the McCarthyistic tactics of the climate change denialists, including crazy people…
July 10, 2012
This just in:
Former South Carolina GOP Rep. Bob Inglis, is urging conservatives to stop denying that humans are contributing to global warming.
Inglis ... will lead a new initiative at George Mason University to promote “conservative solutions to America’s energy and climate challenges" ...…
July 10, 2012
Almost three in four of Americans accept recent global warming, according to a new poll conducted for the Washington Post and Stanford University — but only three in ten agree that it is mainly due to human activity.
Asked "Do you think that the world's temperature probably has been going up ["…
July 9, 2012
A new climate change video by greenman3510:
July 9, 2012
There is a new book coming out called How We Know What We Know about Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming. Here is a description:
When the weather changes daily, how do we really know that Earth’s climate is changing? Here is the science behind the headlines - evidence…
July 9, 2012
A talk by Genie Scott of the NCSE.
Do reason and creationism ever intersect? What reasons do creationists cite in explaining their beliefs? Genie Scott examines how "reason" is misunderstood and misused by creationists. When: 4/15/2012. Where: Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne, Australia
July 9, 2012
The question has been asked: What was the sex ratio of attendees of the recent SkepchickCON Track at CONvergence, and of the panelists? To this it would be nice (and appropriate) to add the same questions for CONvergence as a whole. I have some, but not all, of that information.
I looked at the…
July 9, 2012
Debbie Goddard. Photo from CFI website.
One of my favorite people is Debbie Goddard, and she was in town for the last few days for SkepchickCON. (That is where we originally met, a few years back.) We managed to have a few longish conversations about the history and current state of skepticism…
July 9, 2012
Cute Kitteh is a Metaphor for Atheist Talk Radio.
What do all these people have in common?
Don Prothero
Ed Brayton
Eugenie Scott
Ira Flatow
Jennifer McCreight
John Abraham
John Hawkes
Lois Shadewald
Lynn Fellman
Maggie Koerth Baker
Martin Rundkvist
Massimo Pigliucci
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Peter Lipson…
July 6, 2012
We just might be experiencing the hottest year on record (can't be sure yet, but it looks like it might be) and if that is the case, I estimate it may be the hottest year (except a few unidentified and undocumented outliers) for a half a million years or so.
She's wrong about the forest fires; The…
