jlynch
Posts by this author
May 31, 2006
This
is a marmot - essentially a giant squirrel - which eats grass, leaves, flowers, fruit, grasshoppers, and bird eggs. Apparently, they are overrunning Prosser (Wa), and people are worried about their pets: "Can you imagine what they'd do to cats?" asked resident Dick Bain.
Yes, Dick, I can.…
May 31, 2006
Here I answered out overlord's question of the week, namely:
Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies?
This press release is therefore particularly apt:…
May 30, 2006
Don't really know what to make of this. National Review Online has unleashed its "top 50 conservative rock songs of all time" featuring such noted conservative thinkers as The Who, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, and Blink 182. By the time I read “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash (#20), the sound of Joe…
May 29, 2006
The mothership asks:
Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies?
I reply:
No. Every two years the NSF publishes its Sciencen & Engineering Indicators (…
May 28, 2006
What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
You will sink in a mire. You like to think you're normal, but deep down you really just want to strip off your clothes and roll around in chicken fat.Take this quiz!
Sinking in a mire is what I do every grading time, I fear.
Via the Grrrl who…
May 28, 2006
Apparently Bill Frist has decided that constitutional ammendments against flag-burning and gay marriage are vital to national well-being. Speaking on Faux News, Frist was asked:
HOST: Are gay marriage and flag burning the most important issues the Senate can be addressing in June of 2006?
Below…
May 28, 2006
Last night I watched Richard Linklater's movie Waking Life (2001). Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed, especially when it featured a chemist (Eamonn F. Healy of St Edwards University) spouting on about evolution. This piece, by Robert Solomon (Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin), on the…
May 27, 2006
PZ and Grrrlscientist are doing it, so why not. If you compare our graphs, you can detect the elements we all share due to Sb's site design.
[Websites as Graphics]
May 26, 2006
About twenty-five years ago, I read Gerald Durrell's book My Family and Other Animals (1957), an account of his early life in Corfu. One part made a distinct impression on me - his account of watching geckos on the walls of his house. To me, as a teenager in Ireland, this was the height of the…
May 25, 2006
The Department of Education has issued its National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005 science assessment noting that "[t]he national results show an increase in the average science score since 1996 at grade 4, no significant change at grade 8, and a decline at grade 12." The report is…
May 23, 2006
In twelve days, I turn 38 - something I'm happy about considering I had a heart attack at the age of thirty two. As of today, my age is apparently equivalent of a dog that is ~5.428 years old and I am thus still chasing cats. Such is life.
May 23, 2006
Lloyd Bentsen died today at the age of 85. You will remember that Bentsen, while running as Democratic VP candidate, countered Dan "Potatoe" Quayle's self-comparison to John F. Kennedy with, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you'…
May 22, 2006
What does Sonic Hedgehog on the left have to do with whale evolution? Nothing. However a soon-to-be-published study will argue that the gene Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) played a part. The abstract reads:
Among mammals, modern cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) are unusual in the absence of hind…
May 22, 2006
OK, I'm going to get grouchy here, but ...
I don't understand the fuss about Barbaro, the horse that broke a leg at the Preakness on Saturday. His survival chances after surgery are the third story on Yahoo News, and ESPN this afternoon were acting like they wer reporting surgery on a President or…
May 21, 2006
Henry Rollins on ID:
The breathtaking stupidity of irreducible complexity is only outweighed by the complete lack of science involved. it is just intellectually lazy and cannot be tested or challenged. You can't get God to come down to the lab and prove a fucking thing. You just have to believe,…
May 20, 2006
Growing up in Europe, one couldn't avoid the annual ritual that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Embarassingly, Ireland has won the contest more times (7) than any other county. Responsible for unleashing ABBA on an unsuspecting world in 1974, the contest also has to be blamed for "Riverdance". The…
May 18, 2006
The mothership asks
If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I answer ...
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone…
May 18, 2006
In today's New York Times, A.O. Scott has a wonderful review of The Da Vinci Code which is described as "Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence". The review features a number of observations that you don't read every day, for example "…
May 18, 2006
Ed linked to a set of 45 "SIgns you might be an ID supporter" and this caught my eye:
35. You resent the implication that ID assumes the Designer has to be supernatural. After all, He could have been a space alien, right?
34. You believe that the laws of Nature, the fundamental constants of physics…
May 17, 2006
This little guy is Brachylagus idahoensis (Merriam, 1891), the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, the smallest rabbit species in North America, and found in Douglas County in north-central Washington.
Sadly, the species is doomed. The last male purebred rabbit died March 30th, leaving just two females…
May 16, 2006
The mothership asks "Will the "human" race be around in 100 years?"
I answer, yes.
I'm not really too taken with the question, hence my brevity.
May 16, 2006
Interesting research coming out of Arizona State University:
Researchers believe that dynamic regions of the human genome -- "hotspots" in terms of duplications and deletions -- are potentially involved in the rapid evolution of morphological and behavioral characteristics that are genetically…
May 14, 2006
I've been away for a while, visiting friends in San Diego and wont be back in circulation in meatspace for a few days. However, I hope to resume regular blogging in a day or two. In the meantime, you could do worse than checkout Jason Rosenhouse's blog EvolutionBlog which has joined us here at…
May 7, 2006
On CNBC, Bush has claimed that actions of the passengers on UA 93 "was the first counter-attack to World War III."
World War III ... didn't he get the memo from Podhoretz. World War III is so 1980's.