gregladen | May 22, 2009Consider attending the Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner Fund Raiser for Minnesota Atheists on Sunday, May 31st
Details here.
gregladen | May 22, 2009Mat Nisbet's Framing Perspective: Interview w/ The Scientist on Ida's Media Strategy
Creationists react to Darwinius masillae at Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge.
Google co-opts Ida. Thus creating Gidagle.
Creationists freak out over Darwinius
(In case you have not seen, here's my non-meta straight-up science writeup: Ida the Fossil Primate)
gregladen | May 22, 2009"Bonk" author Mary Roach delves into obscure scientific research, some of it centuries old, to make 10 surprising claims about sexual climax, ranging from the bizarre to the hilarious. (This talk is aimed at adults. Viewer discretion advised.)
gregladen | May 22, 2009
The Mars rover Opportunity has explored Victoria crater, a ~750-meter eroded impact crater formed in sulfate-rich sedimentary rocks. Impact-related stratigraphy is preserved in the crater walls, and meteoritic debris is present near the crater rim. The size of hematite-rich concretions decreases up-section, documenting variation in the intensity of groundwater processes. Layering in the crater walls preserves evidence of ancient wind-blown dunes. Compositional variations with depth mimic those ~6 kilometers to the north and demonstrate that water-induced alteration at Meridiani Planum was…
gregladen | May 22, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI has entered the world of social networking sites and smartphones with a Vatican portal that includes Facebook and iPhone applications.
The Pope2You Web site was launched Thursday and allows Facebook users to send virtual postcards with photos of Benedict. An application for iPhone and iPod Touch gives surfers video and audio news on his travels and speeches, as well as on Catholic events worldwide.
The new portal is the latest update in the Vatican's efforts to broaden the pope's audience... bla bla bla
source
I understand that the first facebook picture the holy father…
gregladen | May 21, 2009For those of you who have never seen Wisconsin, have a look at my friend Elizabeth's blog to get an idea. Really; It pretty much looks like this everywhere I've been in the state, and I used to live there.
gregladen | May 21, 2009James Hrynyshyn points us to the Waxman-Markey bill and tells us where to learn more.
gregladen | May 21, 2009I was quite dissapointed this morning to hear the Minnesota Public Radio station interview a guy who had kept medical treatments from his son several years ago withoiut asking some of the truly critical questions that would be needed in this kind of situation. In that case, the father claims, doctors claimed that the boy had cancer, but the parents somehow knew that he did not, kept him from treatment, and he was fine. There was no great interest on their part in "alternative treatments" ... just a disbelief that the doctors were competent.
Which may well have been the case ... I have no…
gregladen | May 21, 2009
Probably not, but not for the reasons suggested by the subject of this excellent post by Sheril Kirshenbaum.
gregladen | May 20, 2009... almost.
This is the Solar Birdhouse. The idea is that the bird house sits there and collects energy from the sun all day and stores it in a battery, then at night, there is a kind of nightlight that lights up the perch on the front of the birdhouse.
According to the ad that was mailed to me:
Why would only humans make use of eco-friendly technology? Studio OOOMS designed a birdhouse with a solar panel on it's roof. During the day sunlight feeds the solar panel , charging a small battery inside. At twilight the transparent stick will light up and cast a tiny light on your garden.
This…
gregladen | May 20, 2009You probably know that there is a new primate fossil, nicknamed "Ida," and that there is quite a buzz about it.
Darwinius masillae, aka Ida
Ida comes from fossil deposits in Germany, and was originally excavated in two different parts by private collectors, and only recently rejoined and recognized for the amazing fossil it is. This is considered to be a new genus, and is named Darwinius masillae
...holotype skeleton in right lateral view...
Ida is a 47 million year old adapid primate of outstanding, unprecedented state of preservation that seems to have some very interesting and…
gregladen | May 20, 2009... tbooks. (get it?)
Josh Rosenau, of the National Center for Science Education, has a piece in Seed online:
The National Center for Science Education, in Oakland, CA, where I work, has tracked hundreds of attacks on evolution education in 48 states in the last five years. In the last two years alone, 18 bills in 10 states have targeted the teaching of evolution. These bills, like the flawed science standards approved by the Texas Board of Education in March, don't ban evolution outright. But they do authorize teachers to omit evolution or include creationism at their whim. "These bills…
gregladen | May 20, 2009It's hard to stand up to brilliant people!
This guy is OTT. I was waiting for him to explode the whole time. Ouch ouch ouch ouch. My brain hurts now.
gregladen | May 20, 2009I really have nothing against homeschooling, but it must be admitted that among the homeschoolers, there is a disproportionate share of crazy people that should not be allowed near children. And, the way homeschooling operates politically, the children of homeschooling families are less likely to be rescued from their abusing parents (when there are abusing parents) than other kids. That is a simple fact, and all the homeschoolers who are not abusing their own children but who maintain that society must simply turn away are part of the problem, not the solution.
In this context it is not…
gregladen | May 20, 2009... Number 91 - Eine kleine Nachtlesung, is now up and running. Visit the special foto-genic edition of this important blog carnival!
gregladen | May 20, 2009If this is a typical installation of Scientia Pro Publica, then Scientia Pro Publica is the best science carnival out there. Good job Grrrrlllll Sccccientissst..... for creating this carnival.
Go to this link at Nature Network and read the Primate Diaries version of Scientia Pro Publica ... #4, the "In Memory of Stephen Jay Gould" edition.