razib
Posts by this author
A friend of mine has a new weblog, Low Carb Art and Science, which some of you might be interested in (or not). I do think it is ironic since this is an individual who presumably is in favor of a diet of red beans & rice. If you want a more eclectic range of posts on diet you might want to…
A new version of FireFox is coming out today. You can already test drive the latest pre-release already. I've been using Chrome since last year for 95% of my browsing needs because of the speed. I miss plugins, and there are also pages that render a bit idiosyncratically and AJAX apps which get…
Arnold Kling highlights this section from a Scientific American article, The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts:
But behavioral economics experiments routinely show that despite similar outcomes, people (and other primates) hate a loss more than they desire a gain, an evolutionary hand-me-down…
I don't post much on contemporary politics, mostly because I don't have much value-add, but also because so much of it from the blogosphere is simply a critique of the mainstream press. In fact I think the mainstream press is essential and invaluable in many domains. The current crisis in print…
Why should government welfare mean less religion?:
This was a question that Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde tackled by in 2004. They analysed the data from a range of countries, and found that the greater proportion of GDP that was spent on government welfare, the more non-religious people there…
Richard Wrangham has done a podcast over at World Science (see my review of Catching Fire). You can ask questions in the forum, Wrangham will be participating all week.
She's trying to leave New York for Antarctica. What you have to do to make it happen is vote for her essay.
I was out and about doing errands when a friend called me to tell me that Michael Jackson had died. My first reaction was to utter an expletive. I wasn't sad, I didn't think this was a false report. I didn't know how to react. It's as if a friend calls you and tells you that the Rocky Mountains had…
I saw the newest Transformers movie today. In terms of the cast, there were really only two who I felt were necessary in any way to the development of the film. Optimus Prime and Megan Fox.*
Slate has a spoiler filled review which hits many of the aspects which I think are relevant. I don't watch…
Mark Gimein defends Google Books over at The Big Money. New technology can be misused, but in general I tend to agree with Gimein. Along with Amazon's Search Inside feature Google Books is an excellent resource to look up and cross-reference obscure facts and data. With the utilization of Google…
Geoscience enrollments up; supply lags demand
Brazilian Megafauna: hard to hunt or to chew?
What's wrong with Steve Jobs, revisited
Dinosaurs provide clues about the shrunken genomes of birds
Influenza season, part 2
Related to yesterday's post,The neural bases of empathic accuracy:
Theories of empathy suggest that an accurate understanding of another's emotions should depend on affective, motor, and/or higher cognitive brain regions, but until recently no experimental method has been available to directly test…
Obesity May Have Offered Edge Over TB:
Over the course of human evolution, people with excess stores of fat have been more likely to survive famines, many scientists believe, living on to pass their genes to the next generation.
But these days, obesity is thought to be harmful, leading to chronic…
Social Competition May Be Reason For Bigger Brain:
"Our findings suggest brain size increases the most in areas with larger populations and this almost certainly increased the intensity of social competition," said David Geary, Curator's Professor and Thomas Jefferson Professor of Psychosocial…
Why are most genetic associations found through candidate gene studies wrong?
What Darwin Said - Part 2: Mechanisms of Evolution.
So claims a researcher whose work will be published in the Journal of Zoology, Dinosaurs shed a few tons in science makeover:
"We have found that the statistical model is seriously flawed and the giant dinosaurs probably were only about half as heavy as is generally believed."
The research does not…
Over the past week the political events in Iran have saturated the news. But the reality is that Pakistan still has an enormous refugee problem, right next door to Iran in fact. It's striking though that there is little news coverage of this at this moment, at the same time that the public and…
A few weeks ago I commented on Richard Wrangham's discussion with Robert Wright. Though most of the conversation was given over to the arguments in Wrangham's latest book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, I focused on the older Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. One…
Due to the nature of following current international events I've been checking out YouTube more than I usually do, and one thing led to another and I ended up on a video of prayer services at a Zoroastrian temple in Yazd. Watching the prayers (go to 1:30) I was struck by how Muslim they seemed to…
Netherlands: Caught in World Wide Web:
Two men who robbed a 14-year-old of cash and a cellphone in September were arrested after the victim spotted them in a photo on Google Maps, the Dutch police said Friday. The victim contacted investigators in Groningen in March after he found a photograph in…
Regular readers know that hot sauce and chili peppers are important to me. Currently I've taken to using dried habaneros instead of hot sauces, powders or fresh peppers. The last taste the best, but they don't always keep, and sauces are a mess. As for powders, there's always the problem of…
My friend Joel Grus has a book out which some readers might be interested in, Your Religion Is False. You can get it on Amazon. FYI, Joel is responsible for the banner on this weblog, which he cooked up in an hour in the spring of 2002.
20 years ago Jeffrey Schwartz published The Red Ape, making the case that humanity's closest extant relatives within the animal kingdom were orangutans, not chimpanzees. This was contemporaneous with the media hullabaloo around African Eve, so either you could say that Schwartz's timing was perfect…
Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back?:
Instead, he suggests, a core exercise program should emphasize all of the major muscles that girdle the spine, including but not concentrating on the abs. Side plank (lie on your side and raise your upper body) and the "bird dog" (in which, from all fours, you…
Common problem with loci presumed to have psychological or behavioral effects, Report on Gene for Depression Is Now Faulted:
The original finding, published in 2003, created a sensation among scientists and the public because it offered the first specific, plausible explanation of why some people…
The End of the Line: a must see
Non-rational lines, empathy, and animal research
Mt. Saint Helens: Supervolcano?
Francis Collins "upbeat" about impact of common disease genetics
The NAS and Geoengineering
Must see Frontline documentary on the circumstances and aftermath of the Bank of American & Merrill Lynch merger.
Darwin Killed Off The Werewolf:
From the late 19th century onwards, stories of werewolf encounters tailed away significantly, says Regal. "The spread of the idea of evolution helped kill off the werewolf because a canid-human hybrid makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view," he says. "The…