gregladen | August 13, 2008From Sex, Genes and Evolution, a story of publishing in PLoS Open Access Journal:
My lab has taken its initial journey on the PLoS ONE train.
Yesterday, our paper entitled "An Expanded Inventory of Conserved Meiotic Genes Provides Evidence for Sex in Trichomonas vaginalis" was published in PLoS ONE. It's a updated and detailed report on the ongoing work in my lab to generate and curate an "inventory" of genes involved in meiosis that are present across major eukaryotic lineages. This paper focuses on the protist, Trichomonas vaginalis, an organism not known to have a sexual phase in its life…
gregladen | August 13, 2008A giant inflatable dog turd brought down a power line after being blown away from a Swiss museum.
The artwork, entitled Complex Shit, was carried 200 metres on the night of 31 July, reportedly breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again.
The sculpture, by American artist Paul McCarthy, was equipped with a safety system that should have deflated it.
The fake faeces has been returned and will remain on display at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern until October.
More details, if you really need to know them, here.
gregladen | August 13, 2008Unspoilt Amazonian rainforests covering an area almost as large as Texas have been provisionally earmarked for oil and gas exploration.
A new report reveals that the area has been divided into 180 "blocks" designated for exploration by governments of countries that own the land on the western fringe of the Amazon. Their intention is to lease the blocks to oil and gas companies for exploration and extraction, taking a cut of any revenues as a royalty. About 35 oil companies are vying for the contracts.
More information here.
gregladen | August 12, 2008There is a constant battle between conservatives (aka Republicans, or stoopid people) and liberals (aka Democrats, or smart people) as to how to regulate industry. Republicans say "don't regulate industry at all." Why? because they are paid by industry to say this. If you think there is anything else going on here you are not even a tiny bit as smart as you think you are and should go back to school.
Each Republican congress tries to remove regulation, and each administration tries to weaken the existing regulation. Currently, the Bush Administration is planning to remove all the…
gregladen | August 12, 2008I remember standing at a somewhat fancy reception, for a rather hifalutin program at the University, speaking with the director of the program, when the University Mascot (the largest Spermophilus specimen I've ever seen) came over to us and stood there waiting for us to .... to what exactly? I have no idea. Goldie is not allowed to talk, so we at first ignored it (Goldie is not allowed a gender, either) until finally the director became annoyed, turned to the ridiculous rodent who was just standing there gawking, and said "You are not supposed to be here. Go away," or words to that effect…
gregladen | August 12, 2008This from JPL:
"Shorty after 9:03 p.m. Pacific Time, the Cassini spacecraft began sending data to Earth following a close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. During closest approach, Cassini successfully passed only 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the surface of the tiny moon.
Cassini's signal was picked up by the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, and relayed to the Cassini mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"We are happy to report that Cassini's begun sending data home," said Julie Webster, Cassini team chief at JPL. "The downlink…
gregladen | August 11, 2008You will recall a review I wrote some time ago of a book called "Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments" by Robert Bruce Thompson, and published by O'Reilly. I liked the book a lot and strongly recommended it for homeschoolers and hobbyists who were serious about chemistry.
Now, we have a news report of someone who appears to be a chemistry hobbyist (no, not cooking meth or making bombs) in Marlboro Massachusetts, who has had his lab dismantled and confiscated by local authorities.
This event is summarized and criticized by RB Thomson, author of the afore mentioned book.…
gregladen | August 11, 2008... declaring them to be wimps, prudes, and possibly chicken-poop racists.
If you're moderately literate, you've probably heard of The Jewel of Medina, the scandalous book about Aisha, the child bride of Muhammad, which Random House pulled from their publication schedule ... The book had reached the stage of galleys without anyone at Random House batting an eyelash, as far as can be told. The author, Sherry Jones, a journalist, requested that Random House send a review copy to Denise Spellberg, Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies and the author of one of the…
gregladen | August 11, 2008I find it interesting that people are suggesting that the Georgian move on South Ossetia a few days ago occurred when it did because the Olympics are on and no one would notice because they would all be watching the sports. Meanwhile, at this particular moment, the highest ranking story regarding the Olympics on the BBC news feed is 15th in line. It seems to me that this year's Olympics are not exactly the hottest thing going. There are probably a few reasons for that.
In any event, "Why boycott the Olympics?" you say?
Well, if I was a country, I would be unlikely to boycott the Olympics…
gregladen | August 11, 2008Cyberattacks on Georgian Internet and continued fighting within the country. News below the fold. Meantime, here's a map:
Hackers, perhaps affiliated with a well-known Russian criminal network, have attacked and hijacked Web sites belonging to Georgia, the former Soviet republic now in the fourth day of war with Russia, a security researcher claimed on Sunday.
Some Georgian government and commercial sites are unavailable, while others may have been hijacked, said Jart Armin, a researcher who tracks the notorious Russian Business Network (RBN), a malware and criminal hosting network.
"Many…
gregladen | August 10, 2008Myungwan Kim was beaten by the MoGo computer system by 1.5 points in a nine stone game.
"It played really well," said Kim, who estimated MoGo's current strength at "two or maybe three dan," though he noted that the program - which used 800 processors, at 4.7 Ghz, 15 Teraflops on borrowed supercomputers - "made some 5-dan moves,"
Read the horrific details here.
gregladen | August 10, 2008I am hearing things from within Georgia that are best not repeated until a day or so has passed, but genrally my understanding is that the situation is primarily one of confusion. The Georgians have declared a cease fire (some 24 hours or so ago) and claim to have stopped fighting. The Russians claim that this is not the case, and they continue to move troops and carry out bombing runs. The international airport near Tblisi has been bombed, and a Geogian naval ship has been sunk. People are fleeing not only South Ossetia but other regions including around Tblisis as well. This sitution…
gregladen | August 10, 2008This is kinda cool. It is a flash (I presume) doohickey that presents a detailed interactive timeline of internet memes.
Click here. Pass it on. To everyone you know.
gregladen | August 10, 2008With all the talk about the theory regarding animal rights, AR activism, animal research and terroristic attacks on scientists, this bit of news in the aftermath of the recent California firebombing may have been missed:
Law enforcement officers Thursday raided the same Riverside Avenue house that was searched after a UC Santa Cruz researcher's home was targeted by animal-rights activists in February.
Police ... wouldn't say what the federal search warrant sought, what was taken from the house ...
At least four agencies were involved in the search, including Santa Cruz and UCSC police and the…
gregladen | August 9, 2008It is not so funny that the Georgian Army is accused of attempting ethnic genocide in southern Ossetia, that the Russians have been bombing cities in Georgia, that the Georgians or somebody have shot down two Russian fighter planes, and that things seem to be escalating. Dozens, maybe hundreds, by some reports thousands dead. This was especially unfunny a couple of hours ago when my daughter came to be in tears having heard the latest news ... her mother is currently in Georgia trapped in a region that is not seeing any fighting, but it is a small country. (Julia is very rarely this upset…
gregladen | August 9, 2008Two security researchers have developed a new technique that essentially bypasses all of the memory protection safeguards in the Windows Vista operating system, an advance that many in the security community say will have far-reaching implications not only for Microsoft, but also on how the entire technology industry thinks about attacks.
In a presentation at the Black Hat briefings, Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. will discuss the new methods they've found to get around Vista protections such as Address Space Layout Randomization(ASLR),…
gregladen | August 9, 2008
Four Stone Hearth #45 - Caves, Graves and Audio-files Edition is at Remote Central.
I and the Bird #81 is at The Marvelous in Nature.
The glorious 46th ed of 4SH is at Testimony of the Spade.
Aggregator of news about infectious diseases
The Carnival of Cinema: Episode 86 - Blogger of the Paradise is at Good News Film Reviews
Carnival of the Recipes - Harvest Recipes is at Lisa's Cookbook.
gregladen | August 9, 2008Technically, Nisbet did not say that. He simply showed a picture of PZ Myers ... a rather funny picture of PZ that is not what I would call a glamor shot ... and made the statement paraphrased as the title of this post in reference to all atheists who have strong views and who are, well, not appeasers of religion.
I've been getting private emails from friends and colleagues asking me if I can talk to Nisbet .. and convey a message to him (I won't repeat the messages here). What I want you to understand is that just because I am a Sbling, etc., does not mean that I'm in touch with the guy.…
gregladen | August 8, 2008Check out this podcast from the Institute for Humanist Studies.
In this month's audio podcast we are dedicating the entire program to one story. During the 1970s, P. Thomas Carroll read and transcribed hundreds of Charles Darwin's personal correspondences for research purposes. Carroll shares his story of becoming intimately familiar with the great 19th century evolutionary biologist over the course of several years and 14,000 letters.