gregladen | February 19, 2008Greg Is Doing a Cafe Scientifique...
"Evolution, Cuisine and Romance"
This Tuesday at the Bryant-Lake Bowl
February 19, 7 p.m.
The Bell Museum Blurb says:
Were the opposable thumb, an upright stance and a large brain were the most important evolutionary events in human history? According to Anthropologist Greg Laden, these and other traits are only the byproducts of the truly important evolutionary transitions for our species: the rise of romance and the evolution of cuisine. Join Laden for a discussion about the co-evolution of diet, sexual strategies, and society during the last five…
gregladen | February 19, 2008
Fallback foods are the foods that an organism eats when it can't find the good stuff. It has been suggested that adaptive changes in fallback food strategies can leave a more distinct mark on the morphology of an organism, including in the fossil record, than changes in preferred food strategies. This assertion is based on work done by the Grants and others with Galapagos Island finches, by Richard Wrangham and me with hominids, and by Betsy Burr and me with rodents.
The reason for this is simple. There is a rough correspondence between how much energy one can obtain from a food type and…
gregladen | February 19, 2008Comparing living chimpanzees to living humans, in reference to the species that gave rise to these two closely related species, is one way to frame questions about the evolution of each species.
Generally, it is useful to address evolutionary questions by comparing two living species with the reconstructed "last common ancestor" (LCA) of those species. All of the similarities and differences between the LCA and the living form, in each lineage, represent evolutionary "stories" (that could even be worked out as hypotheses). Similarities indicate important, long-maintained adaptations, and…
gregladen | February 18, 2008Charles Darwin wrote a book called Geological Observations on South America. Since Fitzroy needed to carry out intensive and extensive coastal mapping in South America, and Darwin was, at heart, a geologist more than anything else (at least during the Beagle's voyage), this meant that Darwin would become the world's expert on South American geology. Much of The Voyage is about his expeditions and observations. Part of this, of course, was figuring out the paleontology of the region.
Bahia Blanca is a port at the northern end of Patagonia. Chapter V of The Voyage begins:
THE Beagle…
gregladen | February 18, 2008Science Debate 2008 always was a liberal, Democratic Party leaning effort, but it might be the case that it has now become a perfectly partisan past time with no further relevance. I hope not, but I fear this may be true.
Science debate 2008 is an effort by a number of scientists and friends of scientists to get the presidential candidates to engage i a meaningful debate about science. This came to partial realization at the AAAS meetings in Boston, when a representative of the Clinton and Obama campaigns agreed to engage in a joint presentation and Q&A about science issues. Of course…
gregladen | February 17, 2008The fair was this weekend. I was in the vicinity of Har Mar, but only briefly, and I did not have time to stop in this weekend. But The Lorax did, and he has blogged about it here.
Here are a couple of my earlier posts on this event, including last years:
Twin Cities Home Schooling Creationist Science Fair Photos
Some Sick Atheist Demeans Kids ... Photographic Evidence Destroyed
If you are eating or driking something now, don't read this.
gregladen | February 17, 2008Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action -- and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group. As he points out, humans have been banding together to work collectively since our days of hunting mastodons.
gregladen | February 17, 2008We are only a tiny ways through the voyage. Need to hurry up! So, let's skip ahead a bit and hit the Gauchos.
Well, you don't really want to hit at Gaucho ... they hit back rather hard....
The Gauchos are the cowboys of the so-called Southern Cone and Pampas. The Gauchos are a Latin American version the horse mounted pastoralists that emerge wherever four things are found together: Grasslands, horses, people and cattle. Like all horse-mounted pastoralists, they have been known to have certain cultural tendencies or traits. These include being incredibly good horse riders. It includes…
gregladen | February 17, 2008According to Newsmax, The Telegraph is outlining a scenario by which Al Gore becomes the Democratic Nominee for President.
In the unattributed report from Newsmax (meaning I can't give you a link), Gore comes into play after Clinton regains enough momentum in March to deflate Obama's current surge.
The Clinton camp reportedly believes that if Obama doesn't deliver a knock-out blow before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Hillary could win those races and regain the momentum, with many superdelegates uniting behind her to preserve party unity.
That could lead to bitter battles at…
gregladen | February 17, 2008This man supplied some of the weaponry used in two major college mass murders. He is eager to continue supplying these weapons in the hopes that someday a good guy will shoot a bad guy. Eric Thompson, owner of Topglock.com, is the goto guy if you need guns, especially the widely loved Glock handgun. The gentleman who killed a half-dozen people at NIU got some of his supplies at Topglock. The guy who killed all those kids at Virginia Tech last year also got some of his armaments at Topglock.com. Topglock: Your specialist in tragedy.
We're having a motto contest for Topglock.com. Here'…
gregladen | February 16, 2008Two fun things to do on Sunday:
1) Listen to Atheist Talk at 9: AM on KTNF, with Minnesota Atheists.
Then, when you are done with that, stop over at Har Mar Mall in Roseville Minnesota for the Twin Cities Creation Science Association Home school Science Fair. Details here.
I'm not sure if I can make it, so if you go and get a photograph or two (and don't have your own blog), send them on to me and I'll put them up. I'm sure people would love to see them.
Here's the photos from last year. Sort of.
gregladen | February 16, 2008For the Tangled Bank Web Carnival, by Wednesday, please. You can send it here.
gregladen | February 16, 2008<-- If you can tell me what this thing is, I'd be much obliged.
The Boneyard. This is approximately the 13th installment of The Boneyard Web Carnival, dated February 9th, plus or minus a week or so. In paleontology, we do not concern ourselves with trifles such as exact dates.
The Boneyard web carnival is about fossils, and bones, paleontology and taphonomy. It is about anything boney except actual boneyards, although actual boneyards would be of interest as well because we are a morbid, bone loving bunch.
The previous edition of the boneyard was at The Dragon's Tales. Check the…
gregladen | February 16, 2008Does that change your opinion about Macs, or about Limbaugh? (Or neither)
This is what Limbaugh was recently quoted as saying:
Mr. Jobs, please help me. I know we don't agree on anything. You love Al Gore -- and by the way, I've got no problem with him now, but can you put me to somebody that can get this going, because I know it's gotta work for most people. What am I doing wrong? [My producer] said, "You don't understand it. Jobs has you tagged. He's making sure your computers don't work. If you put out this appeal to Steve Jobs and ask him to help, his reply is going to be, 'Mr. Limbaugh…
gregladen | February 16, 2008Yet another group of slack jawed yokels in some backwater school district want to force their religious beliefs on children in their local school district. This time it's Nassau County.
"The theory of evolution falls short here since it cannot be observed, hasn't been repeated and cannot be tested," Marjorie Ramseur told School Board members. "I applaud you for taking a stand on this issue. If you're going to teach evolution, please teach all of it."
[source]