voltagegate
Posts by this author
July 11, 2007
I started this series of posts almost a year ago, incorporating some basics about taxonomy, evolution, and a little genetics while exploring my fascination with the Chelicerates. I'll be reposting the series, which is included in the Basic Concepts list, this week and next.
Perhaps nothing will…
July 11, 2007
Here are two neat sites I've been meaning to link for a while. One is called The Miniature Earth, a flash vid of statistics revealing the cultural composition of humans if the world's population was proportionally reduced to 100 people. For example, of the 100, 61 would be Asian, 13 African, 12…
July 11, 2007
Found this on Google Vids this morning. It features all the regulars in the discussion - Miller, Dawkins - but to me, this doc is valuable and distinct because it features David Attenborough opining on ID and the neocon's dismissal of science, a man who has, for the most part, kept his opinions…
July 9, 2007
It's been six months or so since the last time, when I reviewed some enlightenment science history, and the time for Tangled Banking has come again.
I'm thinking Greek or Roman history this time around. I'll theme, you meme. Send your best to me: thevoltagegate [at] gmail.com.
July 9, 2007
I've been playing a relatively obscure SNES Squaresoft title for the past few days, Bahamut Lagoon. The art is reminiscent of FF6, but it plays like a hybrid of FF Tactics and Shining Force (two of my all time favs), where you have units on a battlefield who can cast spells on enemy units from a…
July 4, 2007
Science fiction has been the "buzz" in the past few days, starting with PZ's post on how biology gets snubbed by SF authors and followed by thoughts from Chad, Razib, Rob and Janet. The consensus? Science in general gets snubbed by most SF authors.
Why? As many of the commenters correctly point…
July 1, 2007
The scientifically esteemed Natalie Portman (at least by Jake) led a troupe of celebs in a baby gorilla naming ceremony/fundraiser at Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park the other day, trying to raise awareness to both the conservation of the critically endangered primates and Rwanda's attempts to…
June 28, 2007
"You can't always sit in your corner of the forest and wait for people to come to you... you have to go to them sometimes."
-Winnie the Pooh
June 28, 2007
It's been slow around here this week, and it's all his fault.
Heather and I have been talking about getting a dog for some time now. I caught her on Petfinder every now and then, perusing the local shelters for dogs. I finally broke down the other day. We applied for a bull terrier mix named Lexie…
June 28, 2007
The tropical dry forests of Madagascar are notoriously fragile. The plants and animals inhabiting these areas are highly endemic; 48% of the genera of plants in southern Madagascar are unique to the island. Clear cutting of these forests has escalated with the expansion of agriculture since 1970.…
June 27, 2007
PETA's prez sent Michael Moore a letter last week calling him a hypocrite for being fat while promoting his new film, SiCKO, a documentary criticizing the US healthcare system. Let the fat jokes begin!
Congratulations from PETA on the reviews for SiCKO. Although we think that your film could…
June 25, 2007
"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
-Charles Darwin
June 25, 2007
This post was from last July, when I suppose I felt like siphoning some science history into a blog post after reading a great post from Carel. Early 20th century paleontology was exciting stuff.
Tangled Bank # 59 is just itchin' to be read at Science and Reason.
My highly subjective pick of the…
June 22, 2007
I've been brutally tagged by Brian, who seeks to infect my mind with a blog meme that demands eight random facts as an offering to the blog gods:
1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8…
June 22, 2007
Sheril's going to South Africa to join the "Indiana Jones of Conservation Biologists" at the SCB conference.
Looking forward to the travel diary...
June 22, 2007
But not in the way you might think.
Bay Area CEOs think global warming is a threat to local business, according to a survey from the Bay Area Council.
The survey, released Thursday, said 77 percent of Bay Area chief executives who responded think that environmental warming is a serious threat to…
June 21, 2007
Glaciation opening new niches? The bushbuck, Tragelaphus sciptus, is sure to fill them.
I finally had the chance to this paper on molecular biogeography, an interesting method of analyzing the biodiversity of widespread populations of organisms, their core habitats and their interconnectivity. The…
June 21, 2007
A very important, ground breaking survey was released today, revealing shocking news... about which words spawned from the internet were the most "irritating":
Wikipedia already has thousands of people logging on at their homes and offices. "Blog", "netiquette", "cookie" and "wiki" have been voted…
June 20, 2007
Found this on ECOLOG this morning:
Dear Colleagues:
We are writing to invite your participation in a survey of wildlife
responses to climate change in the Rocky Mountains. Results of this
important project will help frame policy decision making, media reports to
the public, and the direction of…
June 19, 2007
It's about damn time. If their first single is any indication, Icky Thump will be less folky than their last release. And I love this line:
Well Americans want nothin' better to do, why don't you kick yourself out ,you're an immigrant too? Who's usin' who? What should we do? Well ya can't be a pimp…
June 19, 2007
"I am glad that the life of pandas is so dull by human standards, for our efforts at conservation have little moral value if we preserve creatures only as human ornaments; I shall be impressed when we show solicitude for warty toads and slithering worms."
-Stephen Jay Gould
June 19, 2007
From ScienceDaily/Press TV:
The ancestor of today's giant panda really was a pygmy giant panda, says Russell Ciochon, UI professor of anthropology. Ciochon is a co-author of an article published in the June 18-22 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS…
June 19, 2007
For an important mission to Earth?
Their spaceship will comprise a series of interlocked modules in an research institute in Moscow, and once the doors are closed tight, the volunteers will be cut off from all contact with the outside world except by a delayed radio link.
They will face simulated…
June 17, 2007
"The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand nature's transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a force to feared our subdued."
-Thomas Kuhn
June 16, 2007
From the ESA blog:
All of this research is needed. But where is the balance? It is the ecologists who know about primary productivity, about the effects of harvests on biodiversity, and about designing sustainable systems. We know about fluxes of greenhouse gasses. We study the effects of…
June 16, 2007
"Mythology is popularly defined as 'other peoples' religions' ...but actually religion is misinterpreted mythology"...
-Joseph Campbell
June 16, 2007
Greg Laden has a newspaper style carnival of the best ecology and environmental science posts from the past month. A lovely brain snack for the weekend.
June 15, 2007
Bora (and many others) reviewed the paper I've been meaning to get to all week, on climate change and land use impact projections on bird populations based on the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment. He has all the details and the links.