gregladen | July 9, 2008p>Welcome to the One Hundred and Ninth Edition of The Tangled Bank, the Weblog Carnival of Evolutionary Biology. This is the LOL edition of the Tangled Bank....
Carnival business ...
The main page for The Tangled Bank is here. The previous edition of The Tangled Bank was here, at Wheatdogg, and the next edition of the Tangled Bank will be here, at Blue Collar Scientist.
And now, on with the show. ...
In Small Things Considered...
Rational redesign of bacterial signaling proteins based on amino acid co-evolution at Chance and Necessity is a bit of Peer Reviewed Research Blogging…
gregladen | July 9, 2008Welcome to the One Hundred and Ninth Edition of The Tangled Bank, the Weblog Carnival of Evolutionary Biology. This is the LOL edition of the Tangled Bank....
Carnival business ...
The main page for The Tangled Bank is here. The previous edition of The Tangled Bank was here, at Wheatdogg, and the next edition of the Tangled Bank will be here, at Blue Collar Scientist.
And now, on with the show. ...
In Small Things Considered...
Rational redesign of bacterial signaling proteins based on amino acid co-evolution at Chance and Necessity is a bit of Peer Reviewed Research Blogging, covering an…
gregladen | July 9, 2008I had promised a little more info on Scientific Linux. This is a form of Linux with a name that changes faster than my shirt when I realize I've got it on inside out. Form the Fermi LInux site:
Fermi Linux is the generic name for linux distributions that are created and used at Fermi National Accelerator Lab. These releases have gone through different names: Fermi Linux, Fermi Linux LTS, LTS, Scientific Linux Fermi, SLF. At the time of this writting, the only officially supported Fermi Linux is Scientific Linux Fermi.
But the inside story is both less and more interesting than you might…
gregladen | July 9, 2008Consider this question:
Our oil supplies are down. And with rising concerns of global food supplies, the loudly touted ethanol now seems to be a no-go, too. So, in the coming years, what do you think will become the world's most viable alternative energy solution?
Me? I question the premise. It is not necessarily the case that ethanol competes with food. That depends on how it is done (both the ethanol and the food). In addition, have "a most viable" fuel may be exactly what we DON"T want. Maybe we want to dance like a butterfly on this fuel thing .. be very adaptable.
But I digress.…
gregladen | July 9, 2008
Hourglass: A carnival of biogerontology
Carnival of the Blue is Here!
Welcome to the Green Travel Carnival.
Welcome to the Green Travel Carnival.
Linnaeus' Legacy #9 - Classifying the Classifiers
Grand Rounds, Vol 4, No 42 - The Seinfeld Edition
A virtual carnival of science: New and Exciting in PLoS One
Ill be accepting Tangled Bank submissions until about 1:00 Today Central US Time. Send 'em in.
gregladen | July 8, 2008 Do not look at his unless you've been baptized. Oh shit, too late. There are a lot of Christians that I trust, and love. But that is because of who they are. If I just know that someone is a Christian, especially if they are the sort of person to wear their Christianity on their sleeve, uttering "praise god" and telling me "bless you " and "I'm so blessed" and so on, then I tend to not trust them.
Why? Because there is a very good chance that their priorities are such that telling me, or anyone else, the truth on a day to day basis is just not as important as certain other things…
gregladen | July 8, 2008Ed Brayton (Dispatches form the Culture Wars) has this post with a video you should watch.
I have two reactions to this. First, it is absolutely fascinating to contemplate the change (assuming this guy, in the video, is accurate) in attitude i Britain, and the post-game analysis ... the extension of the "Irish Problem" by a decade and a half or more. The statement thatPhillippe Sands is making is truly astounding from the historical perspective for anyone who remembers the IRA and Britain in the 1970s and early 80s.
The second point he makes is to not call the current conflict a "war on…
gregladen | July 8, 2008 A dead Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans drowned on a longline. Photo by Graham Robertson/Australian Antarctic Division From Birdlife International:
BirdLife International presented the European Parliament with alarming data about the extent of seabird bycatch globally and in Europe yesterday. At the same time, BirdLife welcomed the long awaited first steps of the European Commission to tackle the problem by developing a Community Plan of Action on seabirds with the intention of completing it next year.
"With 300,000 seabirds, including about 100,000 albatrosses, dying annually as…
gregladen | July 8, 2008Consider this comment by Anders Norgaard of Spain, on the current Open Access discussion:
...For society and everyone who is not Nature (or other Toll-Access, high overhead journals) the framing [of the discussion as provided by Nature] does not make sense. The debate is part of a broader debate of the future of scientific publishing. And it is unreasonable to assume that a future of efficient digital publishing must be hobbled to serve to needs of businesses adapted to the past of high cost of paper distribution. Or that it must be measured by the same criteria of success (high profit from…
gregladen | July 8, 2008As I recently reported, there is an order of magnitude difference between the market share of Linux "out there" in the world, and the market share of LInux on Scienceblogs.com and on this very blog. Subsequently, I was trolled by my very own brother "... so, when is Luniux going to reach 1% market share?...." and this item has come out on ZDNet (which we all know is essentially funded by Microsoft, right?): Linux - Still chasing that elusive 1% market share.
Suddenly, it dawned on me that something is wrong with this picture.
Maybe.
Is it necessary to assume that the readers of Sb are…
gregladen | July 8, 2008 The Golden-winged Grosbeak - Socotra Grosbeak Rhynchostruthus socotranus shown in image - has been chosen as Yemen's national bird. Photo by Richard Porter The Golden-winged Grosbeak has been declared, by the Yemen Council of Ministers, to be the Yemen National Bird. This bird is endemic to the Saudi peninsula.
The national mammal for Yemen is the Leopard, and the Dragon Blood tree is the national tree. Oh, and the Aloe is the national plant.
Environment Minister His Excellency Abdul Rahman Al-Eryani issued a statement to the Yemen cabinet and the press saying: "I am proud we have…
gregladen | July 8, 2008First, an important note: According to what I've read lately the Reiser File System does have a maintainer, and should progress as a project. If you want, I can give you more details.
Now, for some breaking news just in (Hat tip: Virgil Samms)
CONVICTED MURDERER Hans Reiser led prosecutors and police in Oakland, California to his missing wife's body Monday afternoon, just two days before he was scheduled to be sentenced to prison, possibly for life.
...[he] ... reportedly agreed to show authorities the location of his estranged wife's body in exchange for a shorter prison term. Reiser…
gregladen | July 7, 2008I've noticed that the current discussion of Open Access has produced, on my site, a high ratio of comments to visitors. There are very few people actually reading these posts (relatively speaking) but lots of talking.
Passionate positions among few people.
I would like to take this moment to point out a few new items on the intertubes regarding this issue.
This item is to be found at the blog called The Scholarly Kitchen. This is a blog of the "Society for Scholarly Publishing" ... which is presumably a trade organization supporting the evil, pirate-like publishers. The piece makes a…
gregladen | July 7, 2008This:
Professor wants to observe illegal assisted suicides
Academic seeks understanding of the right-to-die movement
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, July 03, 2008
Canada's university professors are preparing to defend the right of a Metro Vancouver researcher to witness illegal assisted suicides in the name of increasing understanding of the right-to-die movement.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has formed a high-level committee to investigate claims that Kwantlen Polytechnic University sociologist Russel Ogden was unjustly denied the chance to research…