gregladen | January 13, 2009OMG it is 17 degrees this morning!
(Below zero F, needless to say)
There is a six mph westerly wind. That is not too bad, but it puts our "feels like" (the index formerly known as wind chill) at about negative 32. Even in Minnesota, on a morning like this some cars will not start, some schools will have kids showing up late because the school buses will take an extra hour to warm up. (In some districts they never turned the buses off yesterday, knowing they would not be able to start them today).
It is expected to warm up, though! The high point will be Five! (Below.) As they say (…
gregladen | January 12, 2009A study recently published by Irva Hertz-Picciotto and Lora Delwiche of the M.I.N.D. Institute, UC Davis, addresses the question of an apparent rise in the frequency of diagnosed autism in California.
This study is quickly becoming the focus of attention as the various factions with an interest in autism square off on assessing its validity. In the mean time, the study itself is rather modest in what it attempts and what it concludes.
Let's have a look.
To date, there are three kinds of explanations given for this rise in Autism rate:
1) There is some artifact in the system such as…
gregladen | January 12, 2009Popular blogger and author Christian Lander will discuss his book, Stuff White People Like, on Monday, January 26 at 4:00 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Bookstore in Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E. Minneapolis.
Lander decided early on that he did not like white people who did not watch the TV show "The Wire." His thoughts soon focused on what white people were doing instead of watching the show and thus his widely popular and provocative blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com was born. Now after nearly 30 million visitors, Lander has compiled some of his best thoughts…
gregladen | January 12, 2009Homeschool Showcase (Formerly The Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers) #15 is up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I've got an item listed in the carnival, which is typical (I often send potentially useful science content material to the homeschooling carnivals.)
While you're studying Earth science, you may want to check out Nature's Evolutionary Gems posted by Greg Laden at Greg Laden's Blog. It's up to you whether you use it to teach evolution as fact or as a teachable moment as you discuss God's creation. I know how we'll be using it. ;-)
Wink wink indeed!
gregladen | January 12, 2009California's sevenfold increase in autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors' diagnoses and most likely is due to environmental exposures, University of California scientists reported Thursday.
The scientists who authored the new study advocate a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on potential factors in the environment that babies and fetuses are exposed to, including pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.
Scientific American
gregladen | January 11, 2009One of the most interesting and exciting stories in science is that of the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas was a climate event that had important effects on human history, and that has been reasonably linked to some of our most important cultural changes, and ultimately some evolutionary changes as well. That is one reason why it is interesting. In addition, the Younger Dryas was a pretty big deal ... a climate change or something like a climate change that caused massive changes all around the earth, and fairly recently. But the cause of the Younger Dryas is at present unknown, although…
gregladen | January 11, 2009Americans, take note:
Prince Harry has apologised for using offensive language to describe a member of his army platoon.
The News of the World has published video in which the prince calls one of his Sandhurst colleagues a "Paki" in commentary he made over filming.
bbc
Now, help me out here, citizens of the UK and colonies and former colonies: How bad is this?
I had always assumed that "Paki" was a slur. I have seen the word used mainly in novels in which Brits or Americans were speaking distainfully of the Pakistanis, usually in spy novels and such, but I never knew if "Paki" was…
gregladen | January 11, 2009Been there:
visited 37 states (74%)Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project
Hat tip: Mike.
Obviously I have a few gaps to fill.
visited 25 states (11.1%)Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project
gregladen | January 11, 2009If you don't know who Larry Wall is then never mind.
Here's a sampler:
"Doing linear scans over an associative array is like trying to club someone to death with a loaded Uzi."
"Hubris itself will not let you be an artist."
"Real programmers can write assembly code in any language."
The rest are here. But I warn you. I've shown you the only ones that are not inane.
gregladen | January 11, 2009It is a travesty when the lives of young people doing little more than trying to make a point are tossed aside in order to make the likes of federal prosecutors, FBI agents, state investigators, and the occasional mayor and governor feel like they have larger than average dick. Which is pretty much what happened in Saint Paul in relation to the RNC last year. Shame on them.
Eventually it had to come out in the trials for alleged crimes at the Republican National Convention(RNC) that the so called "anarchists" of the RNC Welcoming Committee were being influenced by provocateurs. Basically…
gregladen | January 11, 2009.... via his court challenge of the recount that places Al Franken ahead are assessed by Eric Kleefeld:
The complaint ignores the existence of counter-evidence, employs one maneuver when it is self-benefiting and opposes the same maneuver when it goes against them, attacks not just the recount but votes that were counted for Franken all along, and overall throws everything against the wall to see what sticks.
Which is what I've been saying all along.
Have a look at Eric's point by point analysis.
gregladen | January 11, 2009I have had a lot of students of whom I'm very proud because of their accomplishments both in research and generally. One of these students is Mark Foster, who is one of a very small number of undergraduates to engage in significant research at some of the key East African chimpanzee research sites. Unfortunately for me, I can't take a lot of credit for Mark's excellent research, because I played a much smaller role in working with him than did others, but I am still very happy with his successes.
I've got a peer reviewed paper by Mark that I'll be reviewing soon. In the mean time, have a…
gregladen | January 11, 2009Just as unexpectedly as when the last swarm started, and just as unexpectedly as when the last swarm stopped, there is a new swarm. Verifying my initial statement: At least at some levels, the experts don't have much of a clue about these things. Not their fault. It's just that there is not that much data and there has not been enough study.
After a few days of relative quiet, a new earthquake storm has started up in Yellowstone Natioal Park.
According to the Island Park News:
A modest swarm of earthquakes began in the northeast corner of the Yellowstone Caldera Friday, the Yellowstone…
gregladen | January 11, 2009
So the other day, my sister and brother in-law were visiting from California, and at one point got talking about these people who were dressing in "squirrel suits" and jumping off buildings and some of the cliffs out there.
So, I imagined what I would think most people imagined. Crazy people dressing up as giant squirrels (maybe some of them dressed up as chipmunks or rabbits or whatever) and climbing around and jumping off things. Like squirrels do.
But apparently they were talking about something else. Something that you have to be a bit squirrelly to do, but not exactly squirrel-…
gregladen | January 11, 2009And Public School Administrators, too.
There is a message being sent out, by the Discovery Institute (a non profit creationist 'think' tank) encouraging creationist students and teachers to "Suit Up, Sign Up, Show UP, Act Up and Start Up" (whatever that all means) on February 12, which of course, is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday.
As my friend and colleague Mike Haubrich says, "Fight for your right to be ignorant!"
The Discovery Institute is, obnoxiously, calling Darwin's Birthday "Academic Freedom Day," and encouraging a general uprising in life science classes throughout the country.…
gregladen | January 9, 2009I think of her now as the Tea Lady, because she was drinking tea when I met her and had an English accent to go along with her English colonial outfit. She was one of the first native white South Africans I had met on my very first trip to that country. And now the Tea Lady, who was in fact a volunteer for the local historical society of a small town a couple hours drive north of Pretoria, was chugging her way up this steep, gravelly mountain path with the rest of us trailing behind gasping for breath.
This is the view looking up the Mwaridzi Valley from the eastern
entrance of Historic…
gregladen | January 8, 2009Have you noticed that Rachel Maddow, the newly en-scheduled MSNBC Cable News Show host, has a lot of interesting and rather endearing mannerisms of speech and presentation? Of course you have. But have you also noticed that Rachel also has a large and growing influence on the manersisms of others on both radio and TV? She is a trend setter in this regard.
There is a woman who has a radio talk show on Air America (as does Maddow) who has stolen all of Maddow's mannerisms. If you tune her in, you'll think it is Rachel Maddow. Lately I've begun to notice TV anchors and presenters emulating…
gregladen | January 8, 2009The TV told me to "youtube" the Australian leader Rudd's Parliamentary statement tearing Howard a new one in regards to his statement about Obama and the American Democrats. So I did, and I thought I'd share it with you. Kinda fun:
Mr Howard later lost the election to Mr. Rudd. Oh, and Obama and the Democrats won in the US. And we all lived happily ever after.
gregladen | January 7, 2009Hey I won in the Hippos category!!!!!
Other categories include "Best Blind Date," "Best Spike Lee Joint," and "Best Use of Ritalin."
Have a look. There are a lot of great blog posts linked to here. Like a super mega meta anthro carnival. Enjoy!