gregladen | February 12, 2008"Disease" is a big word. I'd like to address this question by focusing on the difference, or lack of difference, between a poison, a disease, and a yummy thing to eat. It turns out that they may all be the same. Yet different.
Phenylketonuria (fee-null-keet-o-noo-ria), mercifully also known as "PKU" (pee - kay - you) is a disorder in which the amino acid phenylalanine is not broken down by an enzyme (phenylalanine hydroxylase) and thus accumulates in the body as phenylpyruvic acid.
This is bad because phenylpyruvic acid interferes with normal development of neural tissues.
In western…
gregladen | February 11, 2008I and the Bird #68 - Winter Doldrum Edition ... the blog carnival, is here, at Biological Ramblings.
gregladen | February 11, 2008Who doesn't? Well, for one, all the people who have sipped the Kool-Ade of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office is adware.
Or at least, this is the arugment made by OpenOffice.orgNinja, and by the way, something I've been saying for years.
Is Microsoft Office adware? Wikipedia defines adware as "any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used."
Ninja then goes on to demonstrate that this is true.
It goes beyond that, to the level of malware, in that malware…
gregladen | February 11, 2008Or your dog, or favorite house plant, or whatever.
Via Bad Astronomy, we have learned of the Name That Satellite Project at NASA. NASA is trying to reverse the mistake of naming a sattelite "GLAST."
This appears to be the beginning of a new policy of satellite naming.
Go here to name the satellite.
gregladen | February 11, 2008... according to some.
The Veteran's Administration (hospitals) maintains chapels in their facility. In 1953, the VA initiated a policy regarding chapels that states: "Chapels will be appointed and maintained as places for meditation and prayer for members of any faith group or denomination." Apparently, this policy has been widely ignored, but is now being addresses, to the consternation of some.
In Beckley, West Virginia, there is a cross hanging in the VA chapel. Other religious iconography has been removed from this chapel, but the cross is kind of built-in, and even if it wasn't, it…
gregladen | February 11, 2008In the classic science fiction novel, Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout, the question of how intelligent life evolved (at many different locations) in The Universe is raised, and pursued by the novel's protagonist. As the novel ends, it turns out that the origin of intelligent life across the universe is ...
SPOILER WARNING ... END OF THE BOOK IS BELOW THE FOLD
... closely linked to cockroach shit.
So now you know how it ends, but you've really got to read that book anyway.
Well, once again, real life imitates fiction (how does it do that???) as it has recently been discovered…
gregladen | February 11, 2008It is no secret that shark videos are very, very popular. So, it is not surprising that Mark Powell at Blogfish has posted this rare and unusual footage of shark-human interaction.
gregladen | February 11, 2008There is an updated version of this post here: "Is Blood Ever Blue, Science Teachers Want To Know!"
Why ask the question, "Is blood ever blue?"
According to one of the leading experts on the human circulatory system, blood flowing through veins is blue.
I'm not going to mention any names. All I'll say is this: A person I know visited a major research center last year and saw a demonstration of organ removal and some other experimental stuff. A person also visiting asked the famous high-level researcher doing this work "Is blood ever blue?" What he said was not recorded in detail, but it…
gregladen | February 11, 2008Cornell Lab or Ornithology has always had a lot of good stuff on the web. Now, they have a new site called Living Bird. Go check it out.
It's basically an online journal with a lot of cool articles, including some science, birding advice, etc. ... and outstanding bird pictures.
Hat tip: Biological Ramblings.
And, speaking of Birds in the News, have a look at this particularly interesting Birds in the News post over at Living the Scientific Life. Here.
gregladen | February 11, 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 10, 2008
Michael Behe made a guest appearance in Beaver County the other day to engage in a debate on intelligent Design vs. Real Science. He got interviewed by a local reporter, who posed questions to both Behe and his antagonist. Here I provide a few excerpts for your amusement.
First, you may be wondering where Beaver County is. The Beaver County Times Online, like most local newspaper, does not mention where it is. Do you know how much time we bloggers have to spend figuring out where these dumbass local stories come from? You have to use odd clues and make guesses. For instance, the…
gregladen | February 10, 2008This is your best chance to own a pristine copy of a Virgin Carnival, on it's very first round on the internet.
Berry Go Round is a carnival about plants, and you can find the first installment here, at Seeds Aside.
gregladen | February 10, 2008Science Debate 2008 got a writeup in Business Week.
When most of the Republican candidates for President proclaimed that they did not believe in evolution during a debate last year, astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss was one of many who were aghast. The Case Western University professor and best-selling author was even more upset when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee shrugged off concerns, saying that he was running for President, not writing a middle-school curriculum. "How could being scientifically illiterate be perfectly acceptable?" Krauss asks. "No one would accept a candidate who,…
gregladen | February 10, 2008What?! Is Florida totally full of morons, or what?
The Bay District School Board will vote on Wednesday on a resolution that waters down the proposed state standards for life science education. Please go to the Channel 7 web site where this story is posted and add your comments along side some guy from New York who is the first to chime in (in favor of rational thinking). If you are from one of these states mainly known for slack-jawed yokels who prefer to marry their siblings but will take a cousin in a pinch, and are NOT one of these morons, please, it is especially important that you…
gregladen | February 10, 2008Vague reports are circulating that Ron Paul is quitting his bid for president. He wrote this letter to supporters.
The way I read the letter, Paul is cutting back his campaign but intents to remain a thorn in the side for McCain. But Wonkette has a different take:
It is a tragic day for the Ron Paul ReLOVEution or whatever they call it. Late Friday night, Dr. Congressman Ron Paul posted a letter to his fans basically saying it's over, but he will continue talking about his message, and plus it would be completely embarrassing for him if he also lost his congressional seat. Gather the…
gregladen | February 10, 2008Secret information available only on, well, major news outlets, seems to indicate that Microsoft has backed off a recent attempt at a hostile takeover of Yahoo.
Many outlets are echoing a subscribers-only report in the Wall Street Journal that Yahoo's board has decided to reject Microsoft's takeover offer. The NYTimes offers the only other independent reporting so far confirming this claim. The report says that Yahoo will formally reject the offer in a letter on Monday, since they believe it "massively undervalues" the company. Microsoft offered $31 per share, a 62% premium on the stock…
gregladen | February 10, 2008The provocative title of this post is the title of a new book, by Ken Ham (founder of the absurd Creation Museum, in the woeful state of Kentucky) . Charles ware is co-author.
The book came out in November, 2007, but is receiving beefed up publicity, presumably to coincide with Darwin Month and Darwin's upcoming birthday.
This is a little like publicizing a book denying that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Lincoln's Birthday (which, by the way, is the same as Darwin's Birthday).
This issue has been addressed before, but since the publishers of the book have chosen to…
gregladen | February 10, 2008When reading The Voyage it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong stomach were not all that was required to think up Natural Selection and his other theories, or the Origin of Species would have been written dozens of times by dozens of grown up kids.
In the following passages, Darwin is still along the Atlantic Coast, in "The…