gregladen | February 6, 2009This is direct from Shawn Otto:
This is direct from Shawn Otto:
Several people have emailed suggestions I will share with everyone:
1. WHAT TO DO: call and email your two U.S. senators. Contact from a constituent on a wonky issue like this will have enormous influence. Calling is better than email, but do both if you can.
Go here to find your Senator, and select your state in the drop down box in the upper right hand corner.
Tell them in your own words to reject the reduction effort in the stimulus bill led by Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) when it comes to science.
Note…
gregladen | February 6, 2009UPDATE HERE
I just received this note from Sean Otto of ScienceDebate 2008:
I am writing to alert you to efforts underway this morning to zero out a large portion of the science funding from the Senate American Reinvestment and Recovery Act as a part of a $77.9B reduction effort led by Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
As you know better than most, science and technology are responsible for half of the economic development of the United States since WWII and yet, if current trends hold, some, such as the Business Roundtable, have predicted that 90% of all scientists and…
gregladen | February 6, 2009What do you eat when you are traveling the world in search of truth about the natural world? Most of the time Darwin ate pretty well...
~repost~
While traveling through the South American interior near Rio, Darwin makes note of some of the agricultural practices of the region. He is visiting farms ... plantations .. carved out of the forest.
The chief produce of this part of the country is coffee. Each tree is supposed to yield annually, on an average, two pounds; but some give as much as eight. Mandioca or cassada is likewise cultivated in great quantity.
... that would be Manihot, or…
gregladen | February 5, 2009Those of us who have been following former Sen....So it is no surprise that Norm wants to sidestep campaign finance law and use his campaign funds to pay for his defense against the FBI investigation into the charges of not reporting the gifts totaling $75,000.
A must read post at MN PP.
gregladen | February 5, 2009I became acquainted with an Englishman who was going to visit his estate ... more than a hundred miles [north] of Cape Frio. As I was quite unused to travelling, I gladly accepted his kind offer of allowing me to accompany him.
And so was the case with a number of Darwin's excursions into the bush.
~repost~
Although he organized expeditions to the interior, he also took advantage of individuals or groups traveling one place or another, such as this Englishman, in order to carry out random acts of geologizing and opportunistic biologizing.
And thus seven men, including Darwin and his…
gregladen | February 5, 2009The first time I read the following passage from The Voyage, I was reminded of my own first experience in a rain forest (in Zaire, not Congo). Evident in this passage is at least a glimmering of Darwin's appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems. Darwin could be considered the first scientific ecologist.
But enough of my commentary ... this passage very much stands on it's own ...
reposted and slightly modified
BAHIA, OR SAN SALVADOR. BRAZIL, FEB. 29TH.--The day has past delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first…
gregladen | February 5, 2009
Behold this humble passage by Darwin, which is what immediately follows his discussion of the octopus. This passage is a touchstone to several important aspects of what Darwin was doing and thinking, and is a poignant link to what Darwin did not know:
Repost with slight modifications
ST. PAUL'S ROCKS.--In crossing the Atlantic we hove to, during the morning of February 16th, close to the island of St. Paul.
Ah, sorry to interrupt. Saint Paul's Rocks are in the Atlantic roughly half way between South America and Africa. That geographical information should give you a hint of why…
gregladen | February 5, 2009When word of this study gets around, you may start to hear that voluntary vaccination "works." This would not be an accurate statement. There is a new study just now out in PLoS Computational Biology that reveals that under certain conditions, which may actually be quite rare, voluntary vaccinations might lead to the eradication of a disease (contrary to 'popular wisdom'). However, you must realize that the study has some important limitations and the results do not suggest that most (if any) current vaccination issues be voluntary rather than mandatory.
The idea that voluntary…
gregladen | February 5, 2009I want to bring your attention to a somewhat dense and possibly inconclusive (but important) paper accompanied by a very informative overview in PLoS Biology, concerning mutations in the human genome.
Mutation rates and patterns of mutation are important for a number of reasons. For one thing, the genome itself is a data set that is both broad and deep. There is a lot of information in a given individual genome (a haploid set of genes from a person, for instance) but there is a wide range of variation in that information. So, inferences or assertions regarding the nature and distribution…
gregladen | February 5, 2009Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common serious neurological disease that affects young adults, wiht about 2.5 million victims worldwide. The disease involves a loss of myelin in brain and spinal cord neural tissues. Myelin is the protective and insulating layer that covers most axons in the mammalian nervous system.
can be caused in part by a particular set of genetic variations in the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), which in turn cause significant neurological effects. There is compelling epidemiological information to suggest that there is also an important environmental…
gregladen | February 4, 2009This is why all religion should simply not be allowed. Even if the basic tenets of a religion are not too objectionable, its pieces ... which consist of brainwashed people and the powerful ideas making up the framework of a culture ... can be knitted together like household items into a pipe bomb or personal greed and gullibility into a felonious scam.
Samira Jassam of Iraq arranged for the rape of about 80 different women. She then convinced these women that, since they were raped, the best life they could hope for would involve strapping a bomb onto themselves, making themselves into…
gregladen | February 4, 2009Of his time on the Beagle (1832 - 1836), Darwin wrote, "The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career." Of the manuscript describing that voyage, he wrote, "The success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books."
Taking a cue from these reflections, I'd like to spend some time with this book, in celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday, coming up in just a few days.
(Reposted and slightly revised from last year)
An early version of "The Voyage."To begin with, it is…
gregladen | February 4, 2009And by "academy" I mean THE academy.
Comedian, economist, speechwriter and game show host Ben Stein withdrew as speaker at the University of Vermont's spring commencement ceremonies Monday after concerns arose about his opinions on evolutionary theory, intelligent design and the role of science in the Holocaust.
UVM President Dan Fogel said people on and off campus were unhappy with the university giving Stein an honorary degree and when Fogel expressed those concerns to Stein, he immediately declined the invitation to speak.
source
The most important part of this story is the following:…
gregladen | February 4, 2009The complete genome of a Neanderthal dating to about 38,000 years ago has been sequenced by the team lead by Svante Paabo. The genome will be announced on Darwin's Birthay, Feb 12.
"We are working like crazy at the moment," says Pääbo, adding that his Max Planck colleague, computational biologist Richard Green, is coordinating the analysis of the genome's 3 billion base pairs.
Comparisons with the human genome may uncover evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans, the genomes of which overlap by more than 99%. They certainly had enough time for fraternization -- Homo…
gregladen | February 4, 2009A Texas Law makes it easy for religious teachers and school administers to force kids to pray in public schools. Although this is said to be a "moment of silence" it is known that some school employees are explicit about this event being for prayer. One child was told to be quite and pray a couple years back, and this case was taken into the courts, where last year a federal district judge upheld the law.
That ruling is now being appealed, and yesterday a panel of judges from the fifth Circuit (New Orleans) heard arguments regarding the case. There has as yet not been a ruling.
Details…