gregladen | July 19, 2008This probably happens a few times a day in Australia, but for some reason we rarely hear about it.
An Australian woman has been saved by a pet dog which leapt to her aid after she was attacked by a large kangaroo, her son has said.
The marsupial assaulted Rosemary Neal, 65, at her farm near Mudgee in New South Wales, 265km (160 miles) north-west of Sydney, her son, Darren, said.
"The kangaroo just jumped up and launched straight at her," he said.
"My dog heard her screaming and bolted down and chased him off. If it wasn't for the dog, she'd probably be dead."
Can you imagine? Dead!
Details…
gregladen | July 19, 2008More than 400 baby penguins have been found dead on beaches in Brazil, hundreds of miles from their native habitats. It is not uncommon to find the occasional penguin (dead or not) wahsed by currents far to the north of where they normally live, the number of penguins being found now is unprecedented.
Why is this happening? According to Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, this could be due to overfishing forcing the penguins to forage father asea than normal, where they encounter strong currents.
Details here.
gregladen | July 19, 2008You say tomato, I say tomalley .
Tomalley. Mmmmmm... That is the green yeck inside the body of a lobster that seems to be neither muscle or organ. But you can eat it and it tastes good. But don't eat it for now if your lobster is from Maine...
The Maine Center for Disease Control said Friday
Maine has a center for disease control? Oh, OK...
The Maine Center for Disease Control said Friday that lobster meat is perfectly safe but that people should not eat the tomalley ...
High levels of toxic algae known as red tide have been recorded along Maine's coast this summer, forcing the state…
gregladen | July 19, 2008More Computer Humor available here. Samples below:
Excerpt from "Fifty Ways to Leave your Editor:
Just press control-K, Ray,
Try double-Z, Fred,
You're still in insert, Bert,
So hit control-C.
Press meta-x, Lex,
Then type, `exit-quit-leave'
Or else just suspend, friend,
and kill(1) it with glee.
Or, in case you are missing Winter, try this Xmas Carol:
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus town
cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
santa claus town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who |…
gregladen | July 19, 2008If the difference between success and failure in your business, as the economy comes crashing down around you, is money, and you have ID demands, consider this:
With both people and companies having to squeeze a nickel's worth of good out of every penny, how long do you think people will be paying Microsoft for its imperfect operating systems and office suites? Vista Business SP1 'upgrade' has a list price of $199.95. Office 2007 Professional is $329.95. That's $529.90, or as much as a new low-end PC. Or, I could go with Ubuntu Linux for zero money down. if I wanted big business support, I…
gregladen | July 18, 2008A selection of carnivals for your blogospheric enjoyment:
Skeptics' Circle, the 91st at Sorting Out Science.
The Carnival of Education, #180 at Steve Spangler dot com.
Read about New carnival - 'Hourglass': biology of aging at A Blog Around the Clock.
And, while you are over at Clock, check out The Giant's Shoulders #1, if you have not already...
gregladen | July 18, 2008 Nelson Mandela I'll never forget the day I watched you walk out of prison.
South Africa's elder statesman Nelson Mandela is marking his 90th birthday Friday in a private celebration with his family at his home in the Eastern Cape. However, as VOA's Delia Robertson reports from our bureau in Johannesburg, the rest of the country is celebrating very publicly.
From the national cabinet to kindergartens, from hospital wards to prison cells, and shopping malls to sidewalk-sellers, most South Africans seem to be celebrating the 90th birthday of the much-loved Nelson Mandela, these days…
gregladen | July 18, 2008with a little thingie over the 'i' ... which I won't attempt in Movabletype.
George Lemaitre was the priest and scientist who proposed the BIg Bang (though it was not called that then) theory. By the way, for those of you now interested in this discussion of removing the phrase "Darwinism" from our vocabulary, you may find it interesting that "The Big Bang" was originally a non-complementary term used to describe this theory, by its detractors.
Lemaitre prenumberated Hubble's Law, and applied General Relativity to the Universe. He also did important theoretical work work with the…
gregladen | July 16, 2008... Or is it?
I just wrote an entire blog post about Sizzle, but accidentally posted it as a comment instead here. I'm actually pointing you to the comment before mine, which in turn inspired mine. Have a look.
gregladen | July 16, 2008This beats running in one of those crazy marathons...
Apparently, folding proteins is rather difficult. Or at least, the computational simulation of protein folding is processor intensive. So this is a job that has been worked up into a system that allows regular people like you and me to participate in, using our home computer to take part in curing Alzheimers, Huntington's Parkinsons, and everything.
Folding@home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every…
gregladen | July 16, 2008The Seed Magazine motto is "Science as Culture." Interesting. I think they are talking about the interaction of culture and science, and about science as a part of the broader culture. But it may also be true that science, or scientists in particular, form something of a subculture (not a perfectly bounded one, of course) that acts differently from the rest of the humans.
Randy Olson has sent around an email to the numerous bloggers who simultaneously released reviews of the movie Sizzle (see here for details of the movie, here for an interview with Randy Olson).
I've reproduced most of…
gregladen | July 16, 2008On this day in 1969, three Earthlings were launched into space with the intention of landing on The Moon. From a BBC report of the time:
On board are three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. All have already flown in space during the Gemini manned space missions, and have been intensively training as a team for many months.
They carry with them goodwill messages from the heads of the member states of the United Nations and their flags.
Let's hope the goodwill messages were well received by the Moonies. (or would that be Moonlings???)
gregladen | July 16, 2008First, let me note this new carnival that I hope gets a LOT of attention. It is currently hosted at A Blog Around The Clock and is know as The Giant's Shoulders. This is because it assimilates posts on classic papers. This is one of those motivating carnivals. People don't blog enough on classic works in this day and age (why, back when I was a whippersnapper we blogged on the classic works three times a day, dagnabbit!!!) so this carnival seeks to encourage this behavior.
The Giant's Shoulders # 1 is HERE.
Other carnivals out today include:
Reconciliation Oekologie: Special Summer…
gregladen | July 16, 2008Charles Kroll is the presumed husband of "Melanie," the person who's work email account was used to send PZ Myers a very nasty death threat. This is the death threat:
You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in.
The threat was issued via an email account from a florist that you've likely used if you've sent flowers more than a few times.
Well, a person I assume to be Mr. Melanie sent me an email this morning.
In it he takes responsibility for having written the email and explains that it is a shame…
gregladen | July 15, 2008 Chuck Chuck the Panda This is one of those dreaded blog posts when the blogger tells you what he had for breakfast.
To be honest, I'm beat. Sleep deprived, but for a good reason. My daughter, Julia, was out VERY late last night, did not get home until way after 1:00 AM in the morning!!!!! And to think on her 13th birthday!
That is because she returned from the Galapagos last night, and her flight from Miami was late. This was a trip organized and operated by my sister, Bunny, and her husband, Glen. The two of them try to arrange for a nice (although usually too short, I'm sure)…
gregladen | July 15, 2008
This is reportedly a Canadian citizen ... 16 year old Omar Khadr ... being questioned by Canadian officials regarding his involvement in the death of a US soldier in Afghanistan. Khadar is accused of throwing a greneade (in 2002) that killed the soldier. This interrogation is dated to 2003.
The footage was made public by Mr Khadr's lawyers following a Supreme Court ruling in May that the Canadian authorities had to hand over key evidence against him to allow a full defence of the charges he is facing.
One of those lawyers, Dennis Edney, told the BBC his client was seen in a distressed…
gregladen | July 15, 2008... and raise our voices in thankful prayer to God Almighty..
Because, verily (I've been using that word a lot lately) the Everlovin' God has decided to not tell Jesse Ventura to run for Senate in Minnesota.
Praise the lord...
Link
hattip: David, whom I am trusting here. I have not listened to this yet.
gregladen | July 14, 2008Sadly, Charles Lockwood of UCL died today as the result of a motorcycle accident, it is reported by John Lynch (who in turn was notified earlier today). Lockwood was a morphologist trained at Wits in South Africa with a post doc at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University (formerly of Berkeley). I think he moved fairly recently to the University College London.
Here's a recent (late last year) story in the Times on Lockwood's work.
Please read John's blog post on Lockwood.