gregladen | February 14, 2008The woman or or representatives were not allowed to attend the trial. Her conviction is based on a written confession to which her fingerprints are attached. She is illiterate and could not read the confession. There are indications that this "conviction" is actually a crime of retribution by a man who is impotent, and who blames his impotence on this woman. A higher court has overturned the conviction, but other courts have intervened and re-sentenced her to death on the grounds that it is in the public interest that she be killed, presumably, beheaded, which is the usual way in Saudi…
gregladen | February 14, 2008You probably already knew this, but in case you've been living in a cave (as I have):
Striking Hollywood writers will be back at their keyboards Wednesday after voting overwhelmingly to end a 100-day walkout that essentially shut down the entertainment industry.
Details
gregladen | February 14, 2008On Wednesday the Bay District School Board voted to sign a resolution saying it does not agree with the proposed science standards as they are currently written.
The new proposed standards adjust language for life science that would move Florida schools into modern, 21st century thinking regarding the role of evolution (as central) in life science. The Bay District School Board has rejected this modernization, opting instead to allow the teaching of creationism along side evolution in public schools. This decision, if enacted, would be a violation of well established case law. If the Bay…
gregladen | February 13, 2008Update every single piece of software on your computer, including your system, by:
Click once on a little orange button,
Click on the button that says "Install Updates"
Enter your security code.
Sit back and have a beer. Or, if you like, keep using your computer.
Later, you'll get a message that it is all over. that's it.
Unlike, say, Windows Update, this applies to all of the software that is installed on your system,* regardless of vendor, system vs application, etc.
Here is what does NOT happen when you do he updates:
You are not asked to close ANY software. None. Zero. ZIp. Nada…
gregladen | February 13, 2008As Raleane (Rae) Kupferschmidt lay motionless in her hospital bed, family and friends said their final goodbyes and the funeral home was called.
But just as the grieving began in her Lake Elmo home, Kupferschmidt woke up from her coma.
"There's no medical explanation for what happened to my mother,'' said Kupferschmidt's daughter, Lisa Sturm, who is a surgical technician at Regions Hospital. "It's a miracle."
I'm sure Mrs Kupferschmidt's daughter is totally correct. She has ruled out any naturalistic, medical explanation based on her years of experience in related research fields and…
gregladen | February 13, 2008What would happen if the Discovery Institute view of Darwinism was True:
Hat Tip: War on Error
gregladen | February 13, 2008In a previous discussion on home schooling and athletics, this idea, surprisingly, did not come up:
Some senators worry a bill that passed the Senate this morning might allow student to cheat their way into playing sports.
The bill allows home schooled students to join public school sports teams and other exrtracirricular activities. But their academic performance must meet certain standards. But how do home schoolers establish academic standards? Some argue that they can't.
Today's vote followed a heated discussion in the Senate Monday over whether to amend the bill so public schools…
gregladen | February 13, 2008Bats; Signaling in the Rain Forest; Sumatran Tiger Body Parts; Humans in the New World 20,000 years ago.
Bats are funny. Funny strange, not funny ha ha. There are two kinds of bats, microchiroptera and megachiroptera. The micros are smaller, the megas larger, by and large. and the micros have bat-sonar, while the mega's don't The micros tend to eat insects, the megas tend to eat fruit. Micros are more global in their dsitribution, mega's are more tropical.
It is not the case that all of the evidence regarding bat evolution clearly indicates that the common ancestor of both kinds of…
gregladen | February 13, 2008Can you believe this guy? Check it out:
The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss once proposed that humanity began with cooking. [a Twin Cities anthropologist] says love may have begun with cooking, as well.
...
The earliest human ancestors, some kind of chimp-like apes, were living off raw plant foods and probably doing a bit of hunting like chimpanzees do now.
And then, somebody discovers the ability to control fire. Everybody argues about when this happened. We're saying it happened about 2 million years ago. Suddenly, all this food that was previously poisonous or indigestible…
gregladen | February 13, 2008Paul Abramson founded and runs "creationism.org" ... a creation science web site. It is one of those sites that provides parents and students material to use in harassing their life science teachers and generally making an obnoxious nuisance of themselves.
Paul is now seeking the Republican Party's nominiation for congress, with which he hopes to challenge sitting congressman Brad Ellsworth (Democrat).
[source]
gregladen | February 13, 2008And good luck to them, they will probably do a pretty good job!
This missive from Birders United comes to us via 10,000 birds.
In November 2008, birders, united in a voting bloc, can determine who will be the next president of the United States.
There are 15 million or more voting age Americans who have a serious interest in the welfare of birds. United as a voting bloc, birders could have a major say in who is our next president. Politicians in Britain think twice about opposing positions advocated by the million-member Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In this country, birders…
gregladen | February 13, 2008Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required.
The Parana and Uruguay Rivers meet in the Atlantic estuary known as Rio de la Plata. On the north side of this huge body of water is Montevideo, Uruguay, and on the south side, the northern coast of Argentina. There is an interesting story linked with early European exploration of this area. A Spanish ship is the first known European craft to explore La Plata. The ship's captain and a small crew went inland, and never came…
gregladen | February 13, 2008OK, here's a quiz for you. You have a tube that is fixed in space. You cannot move it. It is too small for you to get your hands into it, and there is a peanut in the bottom. You want the peanut. How do you extract the peanut?
Have a look at how this chimp did it:
gregladen | February 13, 2008 As Europeans plied the seas in search (and ultimately management) of colonies and conquests, they learned the practical geology they needed to find their way and avoid wrecks. Everyone knows that Charles Darwin's opportunity to spend several years on the Beagle ultimately rested on the British Admiralty's need to improve navigation maps, especially along the South American coasts. The near shore conditions change, some of the existing maps were not adequate, and the size of ships was increasing so once-safe passages no longer necessarily were. The Beagle's Captain Fitzroy had a reputation…
gregladen | February 12, 2008One of the most compelling argument that the story of Noah's Ark is made up is the implausibility of having animals like tigers and lions together with animals like lambs and deer on the same boat for very long. The big carnivores would eventually eat the little cute furry things. The bunnies would be the first to go. But new evidence, shown on the Miracle Pet Show disproves this objection.
So, if it is god's will, or if people just darn try hard enough, anybody and anything can get along with anything and anybody. Put that on an inspirational poster and hang it, I say!
Or is there…
gregladen | February 12, 2008A Cafe Scientifique by Yours Truly ....
.... details below the fold.
Cafe Scientifique
Evolution, Cuisine and Romance
Tuesday, February 19, 7 p.m.
Bryant-Lake Bowl, Uptown
$5-$10 (pay what you can)
Were the opposable thumb, an upright stance and a large brain 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…
gregladen | February 12, 2008SCIENCE is useful but that is not all it is. Science can be uplifting, thrilling, life-enhancing. Originally broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 in 1996, Break the Science Barrier follows the Oxford Biologist Richard Dawkins as he meets with people who have experienced the wonders of science first-hand. We meet the astronomer who first discovered pulsars, the geneticist who invented DNA fingerprinting, a scientist who discovered a protein that causes cancer, and others. Dawkins interviews famous admirers of science such as Douglas Adams and David Attenborough, and asks them why science means so…
gregladen | February 12, 2008I'm not big on holidays, so I'm not doing anything special today. But I am big on Darwin, so I am doing something special All Month! And this consists of posting several things on Darwin, in particular, a series of post on the Voyage of the Beagle. You can get a current list of the posts HERE