jlynch
Posts by this author
May 25, 2007
Blame Mark Hoofnagle for the idea and Glenn Branch for the inspiration. Clickie for biggie.
Update: Also see LOLDembski
May 25, 2007
In this photo released by Melynne Stone, Jamison Stone, 11, poses with a wild pig he killed near Delta, Ala., May 3, 2007. Stone's father says the hog weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. If claims of the animal's size are true…
May 25, 2007
Events
1925 - John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution.
1961 - Apollo program: U.S. president John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the end of the decade.
Births
1860 - James McKeen…
May 24, 2007
Rob mentions LOLcats (of which I am a fan - more here). I give you LOLpresidents.
May 24, 2007
Births
1544 - William Gilbert, English natural philosopher
1794 - William Whewell, English scientist, philosopher, and historian of science
1803 - Alexander von Nordmann, Finnish zoologist
Deaths
1543 - Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer
1734 - Georg Ernst Stahl, German physician and chemist…
May 23, 2007
I was wondering to myself what posts from 2006 still get significant views. After poking around in the statistics, here is what I found (in order of visits as of May 22nd): pictures of polar bears & mutant beasts from Maine, penis parasites from Grey's Anatomy, Ann Coulter as dashund (I was…
May 23, 2007
From 1788:
"I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. I wish somebody would indicate one to me. But if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I should have fallen under the ban…
May 22, 2007
As, no doubt, many will be posting today, Linnaeus (the "father of modern taxonomy") was born 300 years ago. It's a pity a tiny minority of taxonomists still dont get the genius of what he achieved under the guise of "complet[ing] the Darwinian revolution".
May 22, 2007
Births
1707 - Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist
1718 - William Hunter, Scottish anatomist
1734 - Franz Anton Mesmer, Austrian physician/hypnotist
1887 - Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician
1893 - Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist
1908 - John Bardeen, American…
May 22, 2007
AP is reporting:
Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo.
The joint Northern Ireland-U.S. research, being published Wednesday in the Royal Society's peer-reviewed Biology…
May 22, 2007
You’ll probably have noticed that I have returned from Boston and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole (above, looking across Eel Pond on the day before it started raining … a lot) where I was for a break with friends and a workshop for the past eleven days or so. Fun was had and perhaps…
May 22, 2007
Today is the International Day for World Biodiversity, a favorite holiday of the Bush White House.
Events
1906 - Wright brothers are granted patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
1969 - Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.
Births
1911…
May 22, 2007
Headline at Uncommon Descent:
The Chronicle says of Gonzalez "a clear case of discrimination"
Actual sentence in Chronicle article:
At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination. (emphasis mine)
Wow. Just, wow.
May 9, 2007
This evening was the convocation for our honors students and featured the largest graduating class ever from our College. Tomorrow I prepare to head off to Woods Hole for the MBL-ASU History of Biology Seminar. While I will have access to the Intertubes while there, I'm going to probably take a…
May 8, 2007
Births
1927 - Manfred Eigen, German biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Deaths
1931 - Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1950 - Esteban Terradas i Illa, Catalan mathematician, scientist, and engineer
May 7, 2007
Ah, makes you want to move to Alaska, doesn't it. (Courtesy of this Fark thread).
May 7, 2007
Events
1794 - Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.
Births
1842 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist
1859 -…
May 6, 2007
Events
1895 - Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates the first radio receiver.
1952 - The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
Births
1896 - Pavel Sergeevich Alexandrov, Russian mathematician
1939 - Sidney Altman,…
May 5, 2007
Births
1769 - Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician
1856 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist
1871 - Victor Grignard, Chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1872 - Willem de Sitter, Dutch scientist
1916 - Robert H. Dicke, American physicist
1929 - Paul Lauterbur, Nobel laureate in…
May 5, 2007
I used to be a semi-serious birdwatcher back in Ireland. When I came to the US, I (for some unknown reason) didn't keep up the hobby and have only in the past year begun keeping track of the species I see (and even then only sporadically). Today, I saw a pair of Zone Tailed Hawks (Buteo…
May 5, 2007
I'm sure PZ will comment on this, but I couldn't help but highlight this statement by George Gilder:
The notion that "the whole universe contains no intelligence," Mr. Gilder said at Thursday's conference, is perpetuated by "Darwinian storm troopers."
"Both Nazism and communism were inspired by…
May 4, 2007
Events
1925 - John T. Scopes (above) is served an arrest warrant in violation of the Butler Act.
1961 - Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 - Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes.
Births
1921 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American…
May 3, 2007
Events
1675 - King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Births
1733 - Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor
1825 - Thomas Henry Huxley, English scientist (above)
Deaths
1566 - Luca Ghini, Italian…
May 3, 2007
As an ex-student of mine remarked, "It's as though Pakistan lost a highly radioactive family pet." All very weird. More details here.
[Tip O' The Hat to Bryant K.]
May 2, 2007
Births
1713 - Alexis Clairault, French mathematician
1768 - Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and industrialist
1860 - John Scott Haldane, Scottish physiologist
1860 - Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician
1874 - V. Walfrid Ekman, Swedish oceanographer
1892 - George Paget Thomson, English…
May 1, 2007
Births
1802 - Heinrich Gustav Magnus, German chemist and physicist
1939 - Sumio Iijima, Japanese physicist
Deaths
1683 - Stjepan GradiÄ, Croatian philosopher and scientist
1927 - Ernest Starling, British physiologist
1979 - Giulio Natta, Italian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1997 - John Carew…
April 30, 2007
And since "mission" is "accomplished" -
Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up more than 25 percent last year, killing 40 percent more people than in 2005, particularly in Iraq where extremists used chemical weapons and suicide bombers to target crowds, the State Department said Monday.
(source)
April 30, 2007
Four years ago on this day, Bush declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
In the following three years, over 2,150 US troops died. That's ~716 per year.
On this day last year, Scott McClellan, when asked whether the mission has been accomplished, replied "We are on the way to…