gregladen | October 2, 2010Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation across populations are interesting and, in fact, seem to conform to expectations (in a "we don't' really care about statistical significance" sort of way, for now) regarding human social organization.
~ A repost ... because effective polygyny is…
gregladen | October 1, 2010The Jaguar C-X75 (not to be confused with te Siemens CX75 cell phone) will go almost 70 miles on its battery pack, using one 145kW electric motor attached to each wheel, accelerate faster than most hot cars, and reach top speeds that are greater than most fast cars. You can plug it into you wall and thus fuel it off of your local coal burning plant or nuke (yes, folks, plug-in electric cars are terribly inefficient because the electricity is made miles away from where it is used) or, for more efficiency than most (or perhaps any?) hybrid, the car has two internal microturbine engines that…
gregladen | October 1, 2010Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur -- a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator -- were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period).
~ A repost, because it is still an amazing dinosaur ~
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Aerosteon riocoloradensis is that it demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Indeed, the…
gregladen | October 1, 2010By now you've heard of the Pew research poll testing American's knowledge of religion. You may not have learned about the poll's evolution and creationism questions, as they've gotten much less press. In the poll...
[r]espondents were asked, "Which of these people developed the theory of evolution by natural selection?" and offered the choice of Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Clarence Darrow. Seventy-one percent of respondents selected the correct answer of Darwin, 6% selected Freud, 3% selected Darrow, and 20% said that they didn't know. (In a 2009 survey conducted by the British…
gregladen | October 1, 2010A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the Pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.
The request is an incremental - and long shot - step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against a Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.
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gregladen | October 1, 2010In the latest version of Ubuntu, the development community decided that they needed to look more like a Mac, so they randomly decided to move the window controls (to close, maximize, minimize etc.) a window, to the left (incorrect) side of the window rather than the right (correct) side of the window.
In order to fix this "feature" here's what you do.
Run gconf-editor (enter that phrase into a terminal). Find apps, then metacity, then general, then within that find "button_layout". Double click on that.
It will say "close,minimize,maximize:menu"
Change that to "menu:minimize,maximize,…
gregladen | October 1, 2010The old man crouched slightly as he took small tiny steps forward towards the woman's ass. I didn't see what was in is raised right hand, it was hidden from my view by his body draped with a colorful sarong. He crept closer, still crouched and still silent. She didn't see him coming, but when he finally struck the woman hardly seemed to notice. His hand, it turn out, bore what looked like a hand broom of the type used to sweep the dirt floors of the mud huts and open barazas, but smaller, cleaner, and cut somewhat differently. He used it to strike a fly off her bottom and when the surprised…
gregladen | October 1, 2010Nobel physicist George Charpak died on the 29th. From Teh Wiki:
In 1992, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber". This is the last time a single person has won the physics prize.
gregladen | September 30, 2010I've heard of "carrion beetles" but this is more like a "carry-on beetle":
Amanda and I were outside the cabin in Cass County, Minnesota last week, cutting pieces of plywood for sub flooring, and we saw this creature among the debris. At first I thought it was some kind of wasp covered with tiny spiders, but on further investigation it turned out to be a beetle covered with mites. When we first saw it, there were many more mites than in this photo, and they were virtually roiling on the insect's surface. It looked almost as though the insect was foaming.
We captured it for later…
gregladen | September 30, 2010And let's start with some inspiration, fear, and loathing:
Bwahahaha!!! Patriotic Amerikans don't Demonize Fox Nooz!!!
Can Obama Pull a Victory in the Midterm?
Will the Tea Party Sink the Republican Party?
Here's what it looks like when a Democratic politician commits .... politics:
gregladen | September 30, 2010And Delaware's Tea Party O'Donnell caught in major resume education lie.
More on Paladino:
gregladen | September 30, 2010It was Blasphemy that led me to Atheism by a somewhat circuitous yet in the end well marked path. This is the story of my first step on that path.
It was the lies they kept telling me.
You can do whatever you want, god will forgive you if you ask for it. That did not seem logical or fair.
If you watched a Jewish ceremony at the temple you would turn into a skeleton. The nuns actually told me that.
If you even go near a Jewish Temple you will be cursed. One of our favorite places to play (because we pretended the star in the window meant it was the Marshall's office like in Gun Smoke)…
gregladen | September 30, 2010Fisher-Price recalls more than 10 million items
Fisher-Price is recalling more than 10 million tricycles, toys and high chairs over safety concerns.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday that two of the products being recalled involved injuries.
In the recall of about 7 million Fisher-Price Trikes and Tough Trikes toddler tricycles, the agency is aware of 10 reports of children being hurt. Six of them required medical attention.
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"First, the baba juice is recalled, now this! Who put these people in charge!" complains namesake of Darwin's Bulldog.
gregladen | September 30, 2010Read this blog post ONLY IF YOU DARE!!!!
I was just reading the latest edition of "Ripley's Believe It or Not! Enter If You Dare!" which was sent to me by the Ripley people to have a look at. Let me tell you right away that if you are a skeptic, you have to get a hold of this book and try to debunk every item in it. Well, not ever item, but many. Some of the strange things the book includes are not really all that strange, but are merely interesting, like certain geological formations and other phenomena. Others are simply physical abnormalities of humans or various non-human animals or…
gregladen | September 30, 2010Except Atheists and Jews. They know stuff. Watch Penn Jillette take a quiz on religion:
I love this quote: "I gave my daughter a bible. That's how you make atheists."
gregladen | September 30, 2010According to Goldman Sachs puppet California Republican and eMagnate pro-CEO gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who apparently ... well, you can guess...