gregladen | December 27, 2008 Minnesota Atheists' "Atheists Talk" radio show.
Sunday, December 28, 2008, 9-10 a.m. Central Time
Exploring Your Inner Zebrafish
Listen this Sunday to Geneticist Dr. Perry Hackett and Evo Devo Biologist PZ Myers as they discuss the Top Life Science Stories of 2008.
Big genome stories were everywhere in 2008. The cancer genome, the woolly mammoth genome, the synthetic genome revealed their secrets. Inexpensive genetic tests hit the market and new data on understanding human ancestry. Biologists also made headlines with high speed sequencing, pluripotent stem cells, RNA regulation, copy number…
gregladen | December 26, 2008We went out to cross country ski this morning. Never got to ski because it got to warm and rainy, so we went instead downtown and eventually to the Walker to appreciate some modern art.
People do not go to the Walker museum of modern art in Minneapolis to appreciate the art as much as to affect the appearance of understanding the art. Which they don't. Because you can't, and the sooner you understand that, the quicker you will enjoy it and the less annoying of a person you will be. But I digress.
The point is that the cookies, I suspect under armed guard, arrived and were there on my…
gregladen | December 26, 2008This post arose as a convoluted experiment in internet perception, curious motivations, and blogging ethics. Almost none of the objectives of this post were met, but it does include three photographs of sexy naked ladies, so you probably do not want to go there. Don't. Click. Here.
gregladen | December 26, 2008Children from low-income families in the US and Britian are disadvantaged in school, according to research just now coming out from the University's Centre for Market and Public Organisation. From a press release:
...According to the study, children from low-income backgrounds are raised in environments that fail to promote their cognitive, social and health development adequately and, as a result, they are more likely to begin school with deficits in their learning ability and social behaviour.
The key findings of the research are that:
The poorest fifth of children in the UK are equally…
gregladen | December 26, 2008This is one of those cases where our language gets the logic of biology backwards (or otherwise wrong) and at the same time potentially causes inappropriate human responses. Also, this approach to "morning sickness" is dripping with adaptationism. Which is good. Got a problem with that?
Have a look.
gregladen | December 26, 2008One of my most widely read posts became widely read mainly by being linked to by a very popular blog. I'm not normally including such posts in this retrospective Year in Review, for obvious reasons. However, in this case, because I think this post is good for you, I am going to send you there for a few minutes of edumication. Have a look at How to be more keyboardy
gregladen | December 25, 2008This Year in Review item was not written by me, but rather, Guest Blogger Stephanie Zvan of Almost Diamonds.
...Once again, we discover that there are differences between bloggers. What hasn't been borne out is the idea that writing about things other than science requires that there be less science content in a blog. In fact, prolific science bloggers tend to blog prolifically about science as well....
gregladen | December 25, 2008"I don't mind that they work over at the factory, but I don't want one of those lactose intolerant people moving in next door..." or "Some of my best friends are lactose intolerant. But I sure don't want my sister marrying one...."
Say what? (this is a Year in Review post)
gregladen | December 25, 2008An out of this world Year in Review item:
One day, the Emperor sentenced a man to be beheaded, and the man was executed immediately. However, it was not entirely clear that this was an act of justice or an act of anger. The historian recorded the event:
"The Emperor, on becoming angry at so and so, had his head cut off, seemingly unjustly."
The Emperor, on reviewing the writings of the historian that day, became angry and insisted the historian change the record to reflect the emperor's belief that the act was just. The historian duly noted in that day's journal that the Emperor insisted that…
gregladen | December 25, 2008Another Year in Review Item:
"I don't think creationists are stupid. I wish people would not attribute that to me, because I simply don't believe it. In fact, most of the active creationists are pretty darn smart."
Who said that?
gregladen | December 25, 2008Did you get a gift card for a bookstore from Santa? Consider this new item (Thanks Virgil Samms for the tip!): Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book: Revived and Illustrated
A cookbook based on notes by Charles Darwin's wife is to be published.
Mrs Charles Darwin's Recipe Book features more than 40 dishes from her personal cookery notebook, which is housed in Cambridge University Library.
Turnip cresselly, broiled mushrooms, cheese straws and baked apple pudding all feature in the Victorian notes. ... (bbc)
gregladen | December 25, 2008There IS a conspiracy ...
If you analyze the language that is bandied about by the creationist children and parents, it is clear that they are all on the same page. They are getting their information from their local creationist group, or their pastor, or particular internet sites. If fighting evolutionary biology in schools was ever determined by the courts to be a political act (which it is) there are probably a lot of churches that would have their IRS tax status yanked!
This Year in Review post is one of my favorites, and indeed has been passed around among US Public School teachers and…
gregladen | December 24, 2008From whence the humble chicken? Gallus gallus is a domesticated chicken-like bird (thus, the name "chicken") that originates in southeast Asia. Ever since Darwin we've known that the chicken originated in southeast Asia, although the exact details of which one or more of several possible jungle fowls is the primal form has been debated. The idea that more than one wild species contributed to the early chicken has been on the table for a long time, though perhaps not as long as the chickens themselves have been on the table.
Not only is this Year in Review story about the origin of the Chicken…
gregladen | December 24, 2008It is common knowledge that most Americans are creationists, and prefer creationist stories of human origins and evolution in general over the findings of evolutionary biology. But this is only true if you ask the questions a certain way, and a new study shows very different results.
Year In Review: This story, which you can read here, is one of the top stories of the year. These Year in Review stories are the most read excluding certain stories that were too timely to repeat or entirely about PZ Myers.
gregladen | December 23, 2008I like to cook, and I am good at it and know something about it. So I therefore am somewhat attracted to certain information streams including, for instance, Lynne Rossetto Kasper's "The Splendid Table" on National Public Radio. (Although this show comes out of the Twin Cities, Kasper and I have only crossed paths a couple of times, and very uneventfully. Some day I'd love to actually talk to her. I have some questions about garlic.)
But I have some issues related to cooking and elitism. Gourmet cooking is an elitist activity, and a large share of the cooking enterprise in general in the…
gregladen | December 23, 2008It has long been known that incest is not as bad as you think. Anti-cousin marriage laws are like prohibition laws and blue laws. They arise from a Christian conservative movement that swept Western Civilization from the late 18th century through the 19th century, up to about the time of the repeal of Prohibition.
Sure, marrying, or just plain having sex with, your sibling is disgusting. I mean, think about it. No, wait, don't even think about it. But cousin marriage? That depends. Your cousin may be kinda cute, you never know.
But seriously, anthropologists have long known of ... and…
gregladen | December 23, 2008This is from a news report of a paper I've not yet seen:
More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist.
"In a dramatic way, it illustrates that under certain circumstances people will act in very surprising and disturbing ways," said Burger.
The study, using paid volunteers from the southern San Francisco Bay area, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience…
gregladen | December 23, 2008Most of the work related to the ongoing recount in the Minnesota Senate race ended week when the canvassing board went through almost all of the challenged ballots, assigning them to either Franken, Coleman, or "other." Many ballot challenges issued earlier by one campaign or the other were withdrawn but for clerical reasons could not be considered yet. In this way, the week ended with Franken ahead by over 250 votes.
The challenged-then-withdrawn ballots have been re-entered into the count unofficially, and the canvassing board will verify those data today and adjust the count…
gregladen | December 22, 2008The following is actually a Facebook group, but now I'm turning it into a sort of internet meme. I believe this is an accretitive list: People have added to it. You can tell by some of the redundancies. I myself have edited it slightly.
I was born and raised in Upstate New York, but lived in "Boston" so long that I became an honorary Bostonian. But now I've lived in Minnesota long enough that I call this home and in fact a large part of this list applies to me. I believe that for the most part, where this list does not apply to a person who lives here, that is true for people who have…
gregladen | December 22, 2008Last night, I had a horrible dream... and no, this isn't the famous "I Had a Dream" speech. Frankly, I think that one could use a rest.
No, in my dream it was 12 noon, so naturally I tuned in for my daily dose of conservative news and commentary from the greatest political talk show host in the history of radio.
As I imagined one half of a giant brain being tied behind a familiar back, just to make it fair, the familiar bass notes from "My City Was Gone" throbbed, and the announcer's voice boomed...
"Ladies and gentleman... in accordance with Fairness Doctrine broadcasting regulations...…