gregladen | November 19, 2012I can't believe we still have to cover this. We know how old the Earth is. The science on this is pretty darn good. It is 4.54 billion years old plus or minus about 1%.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio does not know how old the earth is. Here is what he says about it:
I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is…
gregladen | November 19, 2012A man "lies crumpled on the sand ... Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor attempting to staunch bleeding, or even to check heartbeat or pulse. Look a little closer still, and you may be inclined suddenly to reel back or to close your eyes. The man sprawled at such an odd angle beside the injured [man] has his face pressed against a gaping tear in [his] throat. He is drinking blood fresh from the wound..."…
gregladen | November 19, 2012I have lived among Cannibals, according to a lot of people who claim to know. The number of times that the "tribal" people of the Congo have been called cannibals is too great to be counted, most notably in great literature like The Heart of Darkness but most commonly, I suspect, from the pulpit or soap box by those raising money to spread this or that word. Most Europeans and Americans don't know it, but many people who live in the Congo are quite convinced that the bazunga ... the white foreigners ... are cannibals. I've listened closely to these assertions, made by many individuals, and…
gregladen | November 18, 2012Sea snakes are true snakes that look a little like eels because of their horizontally flattened rudder-like tails, and they spend a lot of time...for most species, their entire lives...in the ocean. Only one species seems to be able to move on land at all. They seem to all be venomous, some extremely so. They are all tropical or near-tropical, and there are numerous species distributed among about 15 genera.
One species is Enhyrina schistosa, known as the Beaked Sea Snake, or the Hook-Nosed Sea Snake. It lives in the waters near Indonesia and Australia. This is known to be the most…
gregladen | November 18, 2012I previously posted on a way to make a turkey that would leave you with the bulk of the bird's uncooked skeleton, and I promised some tips for how to make good stock.
Making stock involves cooking, in water, stuff that imparts flavor, such as meat and vegetables. But there are a few guidelines that will produce better stock. Here they are:
If you wouldn't eat it by itself, consider not using it in the stock either. This does not apply to things such as onion skins, which are a great addition to stock. But don't use anything that is off.
Use excellent water preferably clean tap water.…
gregladen | November 18, 2012You've got your turkey all planned out, and you've got some stock. Now, it's time to explore the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Gravy. (And maybe something to put it on.)
I will tell you how to make excellent gravy with no stress and guaranteed success. Without lumps.
I don't do recipes. I do theory. But this theoretical approach will get you through. Its very simple.
You are going to need the following:
A stick of butter or two, and an equal volume of regular flour. You can use special fancy dancy flour if you want, but that is not necessary.
Several cups of a liquid such as stock.…
gregladen | November 18, 2012First, consider cooking something other than a turkey
Cooking turkey is actually kind of a dumb idea. Most people don't ever cook turkey. Turkey is like chicken ... it's a domestic bird that is familiar to all Americans ... but it is very difficult to cook in a way that does not ruin it. So once a year, you cook this huge bird and try not to ruin it, and invite everybody that is important to you over to see if it worked.
As a result of this the truth is that many people have never had good turkey. They've only had ruined turkey. And for each of these people, what they think turkey…
gregladen | November 18, 2012Do you now the story of the Essex? It is a ship that went down to the sea in the 19th century, and the first mate survived to chronicle the story (The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex). There are a lot of reasons that this story is interesting and important. For me, there is a special level of interest because I was involved in the excavation of the shipyard where the Essex was built.
My friend Romeo Vitelli is writing a multi-part blog post on the Essex Disaster, which begins thusly:
When the whaleship Essex left Nantucket on August 12, 1819, the twenty-one men on board had no idea that…
gregladen | November 17, 2012I have 3D Sun on my iPad, and every now and then it beeps at me and tells me that something important is happening. Earlier today it beeped at me to tell me that an ENORMOUS solar eruption happened.
Notice that the update just prior to the Huge Eruption is an update daying "NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of M-flares...." Is that funny?
Anyway, when I clicked on the current notice ("Huge Eruption") I got this:
The movie mentioned in that text is HERE:
We won't be getting any effects of this on Earth because it was pointing the wrong way.
gregladen | November 17, 2012and later on podcast.
They are the stuff of horror and science fiction stories. They are the fodder for much political debate and public fear. Yet they may be our future and our salvation.
What are they? They are artificially created biological organisms. Authors George Church and Ed Regis, in their new book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Recreate Nature and Ourselves, tell us they are coming, and they tell us not to be afraid. Wary, perhaps, but not afraid.
Church is a molecular geneticist, who created many of the tools we use for genetic sequencing. He is also the founder of the…
gregladen | November 17, 2012... the perfect gaming chair, converting a Roomba into a security robot, removing a stripped screw with a rubber band, making a radio out of spare parts from your junk drawer, building your own lie detector machine, making a Steampunk Laptop, using the back of your monitor as a desktop, tricking out your bike, and making a ping pong table that will allow only YOU to win to matter how good your opponent may be.
Obviously, I'm talking about The Big Book of Hacks: 264 Amazing DIY Tech Projects, which is just now available, just in time for Christmas.
Pro gift giving tip: Bundle this book with a…
gregladen | November 16, 2012In a moment of what may have been trance induced ague, my friend John McKay uttered a few words about Twinkies and the Maya that made a certain amount of sense, but something was still missing. But then it hit me like a loaf of bread. Wonderbread. Which, in Afrikaans, means "Miracle Bread" (you probably didn't know that). Anyway, look at these two Google Image Search screen captures:
All Mayan sites have these things in them. That is how you tell they are Mayan. No kidding. The earliest Mayan site is defined, literally, as the oldest site with one of these things in it. When these…
gregladen | November 16, 2012A repost:
In a paper that is about to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers Andrew Heymsfield, Patrick Kennedy, Steve Massie, Crl Schmitt, Zhien Wang, Samuel Haimov and Art Rangno make the claim that "The production of holes and channels in altocumulus clouds by two commercial turboprop aircraft is documented for the first time. ... Holes and channels in supercooled altocumulus clouds can be the result of homogeneous ice nucleation induced by turboprop and jet aircraft at temperatures warmer than previously accepted for commercial aviation…
gregladen | November 16, 2012Do you know Burn Notice? It is a TV series on USA Network involving a spy, an ex IRA soldier, and a retired Navy Seal who end up working together to solve two problem streams: the ongoing difficulty of why (and how) the main character, Michael, was "burned" as a spy, and the novel problem that arises every episode in which the team helps some hapless innocent from getting out from under the boot of a nasty bully criminal, or something along those lines. During the process of handling these parallel problems, the crew have to MacGyver their way out of a lot of problems, and much of this is…
gregladen | November 16, 2012Just in time for Christmas. The problem with cute baby animals born in the zoo is that they grow up. The upside of this process is that you need a NEW Zoo Born every so often, and the new one is out. ZooBorns The Next Generation: Newer, Cuter, More Exotic Animals from the World's Zoos and Aquariums is ...
f"The new generation of zoo babies will reset the standard for devastating cuteness.
From the creators of the smash hit ZooBorns series of books, ZooBorns The Next Generation features full-color photos and fascinating facts on exotic baby animals from every corner of the world. Filled with…
gregladen | November 16, 2012Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories was released earlier this year. It is chock full of personal stories about the journey from some place to atheism, written by Minnesota authors such as Norman Barrett Wiik, Elizabeth Becker, Kenneth Bellew, Ryan Benson, August Berkshire, Donald L. Boese, Ryan Bolin, Jill Carlson, Justin M. Chase, Greta Christina, Linda Davis, Andrew Downs, Shannon Drury, Anthony Faust, Paul Gramstad, Mike Haubrich, Kori Hennessy, Peter N. Holste, Michelle M. Huber, Eric Jayne, George Kane, Greg Laden, Bill Lehto, M. A. Melby, PZ Myers, Robin…
gregladen | November 16, 2012The Bird Bloggers, led by Corey Finger at 10,000 birds, where I blog monthly, are asking you to sign this petition and pass it on to others:
We propose a Wildlife Conservation Stamp, comparable to the well-known Duck Stamp, to support the acquisition of habitat and the conservation of all wildlife in the National Wildlife Refuge system with an emphasis on non-game species. A Wildlife Conservation Stamp would allow birders, photographers, hikers, and other people who enjoy wildlife in a non-consumptive way to financially show their support of the National Wildlife Refuge system.
CLICK HERE TO…
gregladen | November 15, 2012For a long time I ignored the White House petitions, mostly, because their sign in system was messing with me and I spend very little time on web sites that mess with me. But they seem to have fixed that problem and now I can actually read what is going on there and participate in the process. Or not.
So, here's some ideas. First, I wonder if we should all sign the petitions for various states to secede from the Union, but only for states we don't live it. That would be funny. Like this one:
ALLOW ALASKA TO SECEDE FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL UNION.
As an American Veteran on behalf of the U.S.…
gregladen | November 15, 2012So far indeed. It is blobbish and small, but interesting.
From NASA:
PASADENA, Calif. - By combining the power of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new record for finding the most distant galaxy seen in the universe.
The farthest galaxy appears as a diminutive blob that is only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But it offers a peek back into a time when the universe was three percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years. The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, was…
gregladen | November 15, 2012The best politically oriented book of the year that I know of is without doubt Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, by Rachel Maddow. It is a must read and you will love it. A quick description:
"One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither
Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rusting nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange…