gregladen | September 3, 2010Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design is a must read for those interested in the Evolution - Creationism controversy. In particular, this volume is an essential part of the personal library of every science educator, for reasons that I will describe below. If you know a Life Science Teacher, this is a perfect birthday present. If you have a child in the public K-12 education system in the US, or the analog somewhere else, donate a copy of this book to the appropriate life science teacher!
In this important book published by Oxford University Press in 2004, Forrest…
gregladen | September 3, 2010A little over a year ago, there was a meeting of the Minnesota Atheists that included a one hour panel discussion of evolution, creationism, science education, and so on. The panel was moderated by Lynn Fellman, and included (in order from right to left as the audience gazed on) Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, Jane Phillips, Greg Laden, and PZ Myers. I thought it would be interesting to repost a description of that event for Back to School Month.
There were several ways in which this discussion was interesting, and I'll tell you a few of them here. Presumably PZ will have something as well…
gregladen | September 2, 2010As Earl bears down on North Carolina and environs (well, slides by rudely if not bears down) I'll be stepping back from regular discussions of the Tropical Weather situation as I engage in labor day weekend activities. Meanwhile, have a look at this post at the NASA web site with more interesting and sometimes freaky views of Earl's Eye.
gregladen | September 2, 2010As you know, I often write blog posts that are reviews or evaluations (or, often, just English translations) of Peer Reviewed Research. Those blog posts, and all the other ones written by dozens of bloggers around the world, are aggregated at Research Blogging Dot Org. It is a great place to get unfettered expert opinions and enlightened elaborations of current research in all fields of science.
Anyway, every now and then Researchblogging.org, on their own blog site, makes "Editor's selections" of their favorite peer reviewed reviews. It is roughly like getting an Emmy or an Oscar. Very…
gregladen | September 2, 2010At this very moment, PLoS Currents is expanding. Here is the information from PLoS:
PLoS (Public Library of Science) is expanding PLoS Currents with the launch of two new sections, one on Huntington disease produced with support from CHDI Foundation, Inc., and the other entitled Evidence on Genomic Tests in collaboration with CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Another section called the Tree of Life (focusing on new phylogenetic analyses) is coming soon.
PLoS Currents was launched in August 2009 ... as "a new and experimental website for the rapid communication of research…
gregladen | September 2, 2010This is interesting: Drupal has released a new code of conduct for their community. It has five points:
* Be considerate
* Be respectful
* When we disagree, we consult others
* When we are unsure, we ask for help
* Step down considerately
The fucker stole the whole thing from Ubuntu, as it turns out. How dare they!!!!111eleventy!!!
Gmail just got like skype, sort of.
Five days after the announcement of Voice and Video Chat service in Gmail for Debian-based Linux distributions, Google unveiled a Gmail phone call service for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Rather than having…
gregladen | September 2, 2010If you teach biology, you probably get to hydrogen bonding pretty early in the term. Here's an inspirational video for you:
hat tip: Bora
Hydrogen bonding explains everything!!!!
Why does water hold so much heat? Why does ice float? How does a water bug not sink? Why does a dog smell everyone's butt?
gregladen | September 2, 2010An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill.
A commercial helicopter company reported the blast around 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.
The Coast Guard said initial reports indicated all 13 crew members from the rig were in the water. One was injured, but there were no deaths.
details
gregladen | September 2, 2010I lifted this from the fourth in a series on "why we vaccinate" from Elyse the Skepchick's blog. The first one is here.
gregladen | September 2, 2010My old friend, colleague, suaboya, and educator extraordinaire, Jay Phelan has written what many believe will be the next Campbell. The name of the book is What Is Life?. There are two versions: one regular, and one with extra physiology. And both are based firmly on and integrated thoroughly with excellent evolutionary biology.
The text is fully modernized, using inquiry based learning (called "Intriguing Questions" or "Red Q" Questions. For instance, "Why doesn't natural selection lead to the prodution of perfect organisms?", "Why is it easier to remember gossip than physics equations…
gregladen | September 1, 2010As predicted, Gaston has emerged from from the ITCZ as a named tropical storm in the eastern Atlantic. Unlike Fiona, Gaston will reach hurricane status, and in fact, there is a pretty good chance that Gaston will be a major hurricane. What matters, of course, is where it goes. In any event, formation of a hurricane and nearing land will not happen until Labor Day or later.
Meanwhile, Earl, which during the night Thursday and early morning Friday will be turning with 100 knot winds off the coast of the Carolinas, is getting some special attention from NASA. Here's a picture NASA…
gregladen | September 1, 2010No, not that Cedric. This Cedric.
A Tasmanian devil named Cedric, once thought to be immune to a contagious facial cancer threatening the iconic creatures with extinction, has been euthanized after succumbing to the disease, researchers said Wednesday.
The death of the devil -- previously heralded as a possible key to saving the species -- is another blow for scientists struggling to stop the rapid spread of the cancer, which is transmitted when the furry black marsupials bite each other.
"It was very disappointing indeed," said scientist Alex Kreiss of the Menzies Research Institute in…
gregladen | September 1, 2010Blogs and schools often don't mix. Many blogs are free ranging entities untethered to an institutional or editorial framework. In public discussions of Scienceblogs.com, the fact that every blogger is editorially independent of each other and of the hosting organization, Seed Media Group, is mentioned without fail, and is often the central topic. Non-Sblings (we scienceblogs.com bloggers call ourselves Sblings) readily accuse us of being under the influence of each other or this or that evil empire, and we just as readily deny it. And it's true ... we are beholden to no one.
As a result,…
gregladen | September 1, 2010Natalie Munro (UCONN) and Leore Grosman (Hebrew University) have reported an interesting site dating to about 12,000 years ago in northern Israel. It is interesting because it seems to be the remains of feasting, a specific activity that any cultures around the world engage in. I'm actually writing something about feasting and related activities, so this is quite interesting to me. From the abstract:
We found clear evidence for feasting on wild cattle and tortoises at Hilazon Tachtit cave, a Late Epipaleolithic (12,000 calibrated years B.P.) burial site in Israel. This includes unusually…
gregladen | September 1, 2010North Carolina will receive hurricane warnings (a significant notch above watches) within a few hours, as the forecasted path for earl shift a bit to the west than previously thought and b) becomes less certain.
From NOAA/Hurricane Prediction Center:
Hurricane Watch:
North of Surf City North Carolina to Parramore Island Virginia including the Pamlico and Albermale Sounds
Tropical Storm Warning for San Salvador
Tropical Storm Watch for North Carolina Coast from Cape Fear to Surf City
You can expect, approximately, for the first of these watches to be upgraded to a warning soon.
Thursday…
gregladen | September 1, 2010When I go to meet the teachers or administrators at my daughter's school, I whisper these words to each of them:
"I just want you to know that I'm involved in a number of organizations that seek to protect the quality of science education in our public schools. If you ever need any support, if you are ever getting any trouble from parents, administrators, whatever, you can rely on me to help, to put you in touch with whom you should speak, to talk to anyone you'd like me to talk to, or anything else you need."
This recieves a nod and a side long glance that I try very hard to interpret but…
gregladen | August 31, 2010First, go read this homeopathic web comic, and when you're done, like in ten minutes, come back.
Then, this:
A study in Michigan to learn why Bald Eagles are not recovering post-DDT exposure as fast as expected has discovered that nestlings are ingesting flame retardants and pesticides via their food.
Read the rest here
Will AI surpass human brain power in a few years? One can only hope. But it is probably mere hope.
Ask Surly Amy where to get your next Homeopathic Vaccine!
Archaeological study shows human activity may have boosted shellfish size
gregladen | August 31, 2010... similar diets, similar physiology, and they are even very intelligent ...
They say a lot of stupid stuff.