gregladen | February 19, 2009From the people who brought you the Tree of LIfe:
You can click on a node and get the info on the date of that node. Here.
gregladen | February 19, 2009If Arnold was a bovine, he'd look like this.
Now, the lady cows say that they find this disgusting, but all the boy cows don't believe that and are intimidated nonetheless.
But seriously, this looks to me like a mutation that we've known about for some time, and published versions of mice that look like this cow (but with cute little ears and a different tail) are also out there somewhere. Imagine this mutation in a human. Would that be a Neanderthal? Sort of?
Story here.
gregladen | February 19, 2009Diatoms are algae with hard parts. They make up a major part of the plankton found in fresh and salt water environments. Usually, diatoms exist as single celled free floating organisms, but they can also be colonies of several single cells. Their tiny little 'shells' are made up of silica (these shells are called "fustules").
The fustules have a characteristic shape that goes with each species, and since these are hard (essentially, made of glass) they are often well preserved in sediments. Thus, diatoms actually provide an excellent, even if very tiny, fossil record. In addition, since…
gregladen | February 19, 2009Well, not really, but she did mention that we are Running Out of Rich People!!!11!!!!
This first bit below is from a few days back is just full of gems. I'm giving you the whole radio interview here. Below, is an annotated version that may be more enjoyable. Either way, shoot up some Valium first.
She gets giddy over Acorn, and at just under nine minutes declares that we are running out of rich people. She also mentions that any Republicans that don't vote as she wishes are not really Republicans. And considering how ICKY she is, it's pretty amazing that she can't pronounce the "ic…
gregladen | February 19, 2009In Washington. That's the idea of newly proposed ballot measure.
This measure would prohibit state use of public money or lands for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe, including textbooks, instruction or research.
The Supreme Being. Stop Denying Him/Her.
If I was living in Washington, I'd be very tempted to vote yes on this. I'd also be lobbying to make sure the language gets cleaned up so that it can't be struck down on the grounds of some dumb-ass technicality.
Eventually, not long into the future, this act will be struck…
gregladen | February 19, 2009I asked our vet this morning whether she thought our pets somehow understood that we thought we were doing them a kindness when we brought them into the vet to be euthanized. I thought it was mostly a rhetorical question at the time, a way of stalling, a way to avoid crying, which I hadn't thought I was going to do but did anyway, and a way, maybe, to beg for absolution.
... at Quiche Moraine, guest post by Heather Rosa.
gregladen | February 18, 2009Nature, the publishing group, not the Mother, has taken Darwin's 200th as an opportunity to play the race card (which always sells copy) and went ahead and published two opposing views on this question: "Should scientists study race and IQ?
The answers are Yes, argued by Stephen Cici and Wendy Williams of the Dept of Human Development at Cornell, and No, argued by Steven Rose, a neuroscientist at Open University.
I would like to weigh in.
The real answer, as is so often the case, is "You dumbass, what kind of question is that? Think about it further and rephrase the question!"
But I don't…
gregladen | February 18, 2009The Kennedy School of Government had banned all smoking within the building, but had not yet banned smoking just outside the doors facing the Charles River, to the south of the complex. An African American woman, about fifty years of age, took a light from me, and we stood in the falling snow enjoying our smokes. That was a heavy year for snow. It seemed that every day about the same time the two of us would be standing here in a blizzard.
I never knew her name, but I knew she worked in the cafeteria. We talked about a wide range of topics, including (and possibly mainly) the weather. A week…
gregladen | February 17, 2009First, I want to tell you that I think I might have accidentally broken facebook. It is going to be a while before this becomes apparent, but I think it might be true. Then, I've got some cool links for Linux Lovers.
Here's the story with facebook. I get a form from the University's Central Administration every semester or so asking "WTF is going on with certain students, because they seem to have a lot of credits and we just want to make sure they have a plan to finish soon." However, my students never need to have a form sent from Central because they are always good. So I get this…
gregladen | February 17, 2009Just who does this comet think it is? The comet Lulin, discovered last year by a Chinese teenage amateur astronomer, has never been here before. This is its first pass around the sun. It will, owing to a number of different poorly explained by science journalists effects, fly at the sun backwards, spewing green gasses. Only first time comets spew the green gas. Then it will fly around the sun and back out into the far reaches of the solar system. The comet will actually capture enough energy from this one single trip around the sun to escape the gravitational space time warp of our…
gregladen | February 16, 2009The incident just reported an hour or so ago is unusual, but not unexpected or unheard of.
A 200-pound chimpanzee kept as a pet and once used in commercials was shot and killed by police Monday after it mauled a woman visiting its owner and later cornered an officer in his cruiser, authorities said.
Stamford police Lt. Richard Conklin said the injured woman was hospitalized late Monday in "very serious" condition at Stamford Hospital; her identity was not immediately released. Conklin said she suffered "a tremendous loss of blood" from serious facial injuries.
source
gregladen | February 16, 2009Slashdot is reporting that Satellite junk (from the recent collision) is falling on Texas, but he very latest (as of moments ago) from Bad Astronomy is that it is not.
UPDATE:
But then, there's this.
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON KY
1145 PM EST FRI FEB 13 2009
...POSSIBLE SATELLITE DEBRIS FALLING ACROSS THE REGION...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN JACKSON HAS RECEIVED CALLS THIS EVENING FROM THE PUBLIC CONCERNING POSSIBLE EXPLOSIONS AND...OR EARTHQUAKES ACROSS THE AREA. THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION HAS REPORTED TO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT THAT THESE…
gregladen | February 16, 2009So Amanda and I arrive at some public building in a largish Midwestern city. I'm a scientist, here to sit on a panel for a public discussion related to science and education. The building, a library, is not open yet but is scheduled to open in a few minutes. There are two groups of people standing in the flurries and chilly wind waiting for opening. The larger group is pressed against the door, seemingly anxious, and I (incorrectly, it turns out) attribute this anxiety to the cold. I'm thinking they want to go inside because it is cold. All but two people in this group are brown to dark…
gregladen | February 16, 2009So, yesterday Afternoon, 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.
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. (UPDATE: PZ has this.)
To begin with, this was a pretty full room (a hundred or so?) and almost…
gregladen | February 15, 2009This is interesting, from a National Geographic press release:
TORONTO, Feb. 12, 2009 - A York University researcher has tracked the migration of songbirds by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks - a world first - revealing that scientists have underestimated their flight performance dramatically.
"Never before has anyone been able to track songbirds for their entire migratory trip," said study author Bridget Stutchbury, a professor of biology in York's Faculty of Science & Engineering. "We're excited to achieve this scientific first." Songbirds, the most common type of bird in…
gregladen | February 15, 2009Apparently there is an argument among spaceologists as to how long satellite debris floating around the earth will stay "up there." The difference in opinion ranges from decades or a century or so on one hand to ten thousand years on the other hand . Details here.
gregladen | February 15, 2009I have a cousin in law who tells this story: Her youngest child found out about sex. Then he made the connection that if he existed, his parents must have had sex. So he confronted the parents with this, and mom was forced to admit, yes, of course, this is how babies get "made" and this is simply how things are. The child did not seem too concerned.
Moments later, the child noticed his sister playing in the other room. A thought occurred to him ... a light went on, as it were. He turned back to his mother with an expression somewhere between accusation and perplexity.
"You did it twice…