tqa | March 26, 2009
As many of you probably know by now, Alaska's Redoubt volcano has been erupting for several days now. If you're interested in the details, head over to new SciBling Erik Klemetti's Eruptions blog. If you're interested in the latest in really cool pictures, here's one for you:
(Source. Click for full size version)
The picture comes from the Alaska Volcano Observatory (aka place where "something called volcano monitoring" gets done). The ash plume from the eruption is the clearly visible dark smudge near the center of the picture. The image was taken by a weather satellite in…
tqa | March 26, 2009
Some of you might be familiar with the work of Walter ReMine. He's been around the fringes of the online creation-evolution thing for quite a while now. His typical schtick involves the relentless self-promotion of his self-published book The Biotic Message, which he claims represents a revolutionary new origins theory of some sort.
It's been a while since ReMine was last on my radar screen, but he's posted a couple of items over at Uncommon Descent recently. These are advertised as the first two parts of a multiple-part essay of unspecified length. He promises that this essay will…
tqa | March 25, 2009
The Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch is one of the only reality shows I can watch without rooting for the painful demise of 2/3 of the cast, preferably before the first commercial break. I genuinely enjoy the show, not just because it looks at an interesting job, but because it seems to capture some insights into genuinely interesting people. As someone who is interested in science and how science is used in public policy, though, I'm sometimes a little frustrated that the show doesn't take the opportunity to really get into any of the science or policy issues that are involved in our…
tqa | March 25, 2009
Yesterday, I went off a little on David Dobbs. He wrote an article on PTSD in Scientific American that I was somewhat less than impressed with, and I made my displeasure fairly clear. There were points raised by Dobbs that I do agree with, and which I think deserve much more discussion than they've received so far. One of the most important of these, I think concerns the extent of the psychiatric cost of war.
For many - possibly most - of you, I suspect that "PTSD" was the first thing to pop into mind when you read "psychiatric cost of war." It certainly seems to get the lion's share of…
PTSD, Mental Health, and the Military: Problematic Reporting at Scientific American and ScienceBlogs
tqa | March 24, 2009
Author (and fellow ScienceBlogger) David Dobbs has an article on PTSD in the latest Scientific American, and has several related posts on his blog here at Sb. Dobbs' primary argument seems to be that PTSD is being widely overdiagnosed, in part because the condition itself is poorly defined, and in part as the result of various social and economic factors. At least a couple of other bloggers enjoyed his writing on the topic. Personally, I'm not so sure.
As many of you know, I've got some fairly significant ties to the US military. My wife has deployed twice, and has had close and personal…
tqa | March 23, 2009
Back in 2005 and 2006, I wrote a few posts about the insanely arbitrary decision making process that the FDA was pretending to use to justify its obviously pre-determined conclusion to restrict the availability of the Plan B "morning after" pill as much as they thought they could get away with. The FDA ultimately decided to deny applications to fully move Plan B to over-the-counter status, but finally accepted a request to waive the prescription requirement for patients 18 years old or older. That was in August of 2006, and that's been the status quo ever since. Until this morning.
Earlier…
tqa | March 23, 2009
Tonight's entry in Conservapedia Foolishness is my favorite kind of entry to write - one where someone else did all of the work.
Over at Religion, Sets, and Politics, Josh Zelinsky has a fantastic - and amusing - look at a Conservapedia discussion thread where Andy Schlafly apparently redefines "liberal" to mean "less conservative than him", and says that his main problem with a British political party that his own website describes as "Neo-Nazi" is that the party also supports universal health care.
tqa | March 22, 2009
Reeve 078948-36, originally uploaded by otisarchives1.
Another picture from the Walter Reed collection. This one comes from a series of really cheesy military issue anti-VD posters.
tqa | March 21, 2009
If you're looking for a good read this morning, I suggest you pop over to the Washington Post's Opinion pages. Scibling Chris Mooney has an excellent op-ed in there today, in response to George Will's recent climate change denial escapades.
tqa | March 20, 2009
Casey Luskin is once again hard at work in the Discovery Institute quote mines. In his latest effort, he tries to make the case that a recent review article by Kevin Padian and the Panda's Thumb's own Nick Matzke contains "veiled threats" designed to intimidate cdesign proponentsists. Casey dives into the quote mines in the first paragraph of the post:
It's always amusing how evolutionists continually proclaim, and then re-proclaim, the apparent demise of intelligent design (ID) (i.e. 'no really, this time ID actually is dead!'!). We're pretty used to that, but then it gets a little creepy…
tqa | March 20, 2009
The 2009 State of the Birds report, released yesterday, is not a happy read. Over the last 40 years, bird populations in the United States have not been doing well, as a whole. There are a few hopeful signs here and there - some populations have recovered - but almost 1/3 of the species in America are endangered, threatened, or show signs of significant population declines. That's not good.
As bad as the situation on the US Mainland may be, it pales compared to the situation in Hawai'i. At the moment, 31 species of native Hawaiian birds are Federally listed as endangered or threatened.…
tqa | March 19, 2009
Those of you who followed the recent (and prolonged) saga involving thed anonymous holds that were blocking confirmation of John Holdren (the President's nominee for Science Adviser) and Jane Lubchenco (the NOAA Administrator nominee) will no doubt be relieved to learn that the drama has officially come to an end. The New York Times is reporting that both nominees were confirmed by unanimous consent of the Senate this evening.
Thanks again to everyone who stepped forward to help when politics got in the way.
tqa | March 19, 2009
Update 2: PTWC has cancelled the regional warning. A tsunami was in fact generated, but the waves have been measured and are very small (about 1.5 inches in height).
Updated: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center states that a tsunami was generated by this earthquake. The size of the tsunami is not yet known, and the warning has not been extended to other areas of the Pacific. (Remember,tsunamis can be very small.)
An earthquake tentatively measured by the USGS at magnitude 7.9 has struck Tonga in the South Pacific. It's unknown at this time if the quake has generated a tsunami, but given…
tqa | March 19, 2009
Denyse O'Leary is nattering on over at Uncommon Descent - and several other places - about some sort of connection between "Darwinists" or perhaps "Darwinism" and the recent and tragic case where a pet chimpanzee attacked and mutilated one of the owner's neighbors. A large portion of the various posts seems to revolve around Denyse's love of the tautology "only people are people." The rest seems to consist of an attempt to find some way to blame the attack on the scientific community as a whole, or at least on "Darwinists."
Frankly, I'm having an even harder time understanding O'Leary than…
tqa | March 18, 2009
One of the pictures in a Walter Reed Army Medical Center collection of historic photographs is a simple, black-background shot of what we can only assume is some sort of scientific equipment:
The question is, what is it? According to the caption, it's a 1984 picture of a "mouse-tail wash table". My guess is that it was used to wash the tails of mice used in scientific experiments, presumably after said tails had been removed from their original owners. Exactly which lab used the device, and for what sort of research, is not so clear.
(HT: Wired Science)
tqa | March 18, 2009
Update: My praise for Charlie Rangel in this post was, sadly, premature. Politico is now reporting that Rangel has gotten behind a 91% tax bracket for AIG bonuses.
When it comes to the AIG bonuses, I'm about as angry as any other taxpayer who has been paying attention. This morning, I was absolutely undelighted to read that quite a bit of the "retention" money is going to people who have, in fact, not been retained. The look I just took at AIG Chariman Edward Liddy's opening statement for today's Congressional hearing did absolutely nothing to improve my mood. When he says, "I share that…
tqa | March 17, 2009
As you may know, there's a special election campaign going on in the 20th Congressional District in NY. Jim Tedisco is the Republican candidate for the seat. He's running against a Democrat named Scott Murphy. Initially, Tedisco was considered to be the strong favorite for the seat. The Representative who vacated the seat, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a Democrat, but the district is quite conservative, and Tedisco has much greater name recognition in the area than Murphy.
At the moment, polling suggests that Tedisco's once formidable lead has been cut to four percent. His problem, apparently, is…
tqa | March 16, 2009
Below the fold, you'll find a picture taken from an earlier post on this blog. In the image, you'll see three very different locations. These three locations have at least one biogeographical feature that they share and that relates to today. What is it?
tqa | March 16, 2009
I've been going back through some pictures I took last month, trying to identify the birds in the pictures. I've found one gull that I'm having problems with. I've got a couple of shots I'm going to share with you, and then I'll give my current thoughts and reasoning.
The picture was taken on 23 Feb 09, on the grounds of Naval Air Station Pensacola. The gull on the right is the one I'm having difficulty with. The next picture is a closer view of that gull.
I'm reasonably certain that the gull on the left is a Ring-Billed Gull, and the gull on the left definitely seemed to be just a…
tqa | March 16, 2009
As one of the smaller, lower-traffic bloggers here, I don't have PZ's fame and fortune. But I also don't have his problems. Today, I'd settle for one of the problems. In classic lemonade from lemons fashion, PZ just found a solution to dealing with annoying commenters that makes me almost wish I had enough loons to try it out for myself.
Sadly, there just aren't enough irritating commenters who regularly appear here.