gregladen | January 2, 2010Nyamuragira, just now erupting, is one of the numerous Virunga Volcanoes, which form a large cluster of volcanoes spanning the border of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, between Lake Ex-Edward (a.k.a. Lake Rutenzege) and Lake Kivu. The largest population center is Goma, on Lake Kivu, along the southern margin of the lava fields from these volcanoes, and made famous in recent years as the site of numerous excursions of warfare, refugee movements, and volcanic lava flows. I've written about Goma and a little about the Volcanoes in the Congo Memoirs.
Have a look at the following map:
This map is…
gregladen | January 2, 2010Bora has put out a list of SoTen participants as a twinter .... thing. A list or something.
Do you follow me on twitter? Are you my facebook friend?
gregladen | January 2, 2010Mount Nyamulagira, 25km (16 miles) from the eastern city of Goma, erupted at dawn on Saturday, sending lava into the surrounding Virunga National Park.
About 40 endangered chimpanzees and other animals live in the area.
But the country's famous critically endangered mountain gorillas are said to be safe as they live further east.
source
These are very special chimpanzees. I believe I've blogged about them elsewhere, but I'll write new something about them soon.
I've driven though this range of volcanoes, and flown over them as well.
Erik has details here
gregladen | January 2, 2010One of the world's oldest plants turns out to be a 13,000 year-old scrub oak (Quercus palmeri, or Palmer's Oak) in Southern California. Apparently this tree has survived for so long, despite the fact that it was born in the ice age and there have been numerous climate changes since then, by cloning itself, hiding in a crevice, being small, and growing slowly. Luck was involved as well, almost certainly.
The plant was actually discovered more than ten years ago during a survey of plant diversity in the Jurupa Hills of Riverside County, and it was noted at the time that this tree was utterly…
gregladen | January 2, 2010Go Vote for somebody in this poll:
Who was the most influential female atheist of 2009?
...here's a poll focusing just on the female voices of atheism. Who do you think was the most influential female atheist of 2009? ...
HERE
I'm having a very hard time as this list includes some friends, some colleagues, some of my blog readers, and others what I think deserve to be voted on. Greta Christina has a great blog and is a frequent commenter here. I think she's actually winning. There are some big institutional names like Annie Laurie Gaylor and my long time friend Genie Scott. Rebecca…
gregladen | January 1, 2010Four Stone Hearth #83 the totally cool "The Avatar Edition" ... is manifest at The Primate Diaries.
gregladen | January 1, 2010Well, yes. But the question raises some interesting points.
Does a person endorse near slavery, horrific working conditions, the purchase of moral "indulgences" by the privileged, and the manipulation of the population with religious woo-woo when appreciating the architecture of a medieval European cathedral? Because that bad stuff is what happened to make that cathedral exist. If you visit the Sistine Chapel or Notre Dame in Paris you endorse all that is connected to the creation of these edifices. You might as well have personally carried out the inquisition! Especially if you pay to…
gregladen | January 1, 2010Not everyone can go to SoTen, but the participants in this upcoming bloggy/onliney conference are tying to keep the discussion broad and involve readers and commenters. The latest effort along these lines is by Ed Young who has posted a post (linking to other posts) pursuant to a panel on science journalism in the age of the web. So you may want to go to his post and poke around.
You may also want to take a look at the whole SoTen program, here. The session I'm involved in, organized by Stephanie Zvan, is to be on trust and critical thinking, and a description of the session and a set of…
gregladen | January 1, 2010is a new organization designed to direct charitable contributions towards atheist/humanist projects.
Find out about it here.
gregladen | January 1, 2010Selected Peer Reviewed Blogging posts of continuing from previous Junes and Julys:
Morning Sickness is not a sickness!
The American South, Urban Areas, People of Color, Native Americans ... In short, the poor and disadvantaged ... suffer greatly from poverty-caused neglected diseases
The Origins of the Evil Eye and Horticultural Fertility Cults?
The Poison in the Leaf: Macro Evolutionary Patterns in Plant-Herbivore Co-Evolution
The Evolution of Cats: Sabertooth vs. Regular
gregladen | December 31, 2009In ten seconds:
9
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
OK, everybody back to work, party's over.
gregladen | December 31, 2009Rush Limbaugh Loses it all the time. Glen Beck loses it all the time. In the left, Kieth Olbermann loses it about one a week. Chris Matthews is constantly on the verge of losing it. That guy from Court TV lost it too often and he lost his show.
Now, Rachel Maddow loses it. And, as we expect, she does it better than the rest of them times 106
You have to wait until after the parrot mates with they guy's head.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
You are being shagged by a rare parrot!
gregladen | December 31, 2009Ginkgo biloba has failed -- again -- to live up to its reputation for boosting memory and brain function. Just over a year after a study showed that the herb doesn't prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a new study from the same team of researchers has found no evidence that ginkgo reduces the normal cognitive decline that comes with aging.
Details.
gregladen | December 31, 2009HP asked me to look at a couple of posts discussing Avatar. I did.
SEK at Lawyers, Guns and Money writes of Avitar:
...the film is racist. Its fundamental narrative logic is racist: it transposes the cultural politics of Westerns (in which the Native Americans are animists who belong to a more primitive race) onto an interplanetary conflict and then assuages the white guilt that accompanies acts of racial and cultural genocide by having a white man save the noble savages (who are also racists)
This is true but there are redeeming qualities worth noting. For example, in the end .... the…