gregladen | February 1, 2008You've heard of the movie Flock of Dodo's. ... But have you seen the out takes?
Me neither. But I do have this for you (warning: Includes PZ Myers Footage)...
(Do wait for the end. The best bit is at the end. Don't miss it!!!!!)
gregladen | February 1, 2008
NASA will no longer be making photographs from its latest Mercury probe available on the internet. Recent evidence from the nearest planet to the sun (that we know about) clearly indicates that the planet has been copyrighted. Legal experts are working on the case now, but feel that a resolution is unlikely.
Even stranger evidence has come from Mars, where it has been discovered that Martian Sentient Beings are very, very silly. See this new evidence here at Bad Astronomy.
[source of Mercury Photograph]
gregladen | February 1, 2008
You can fly, without leaving the comfort of your own computer, to Saturn and its moon Titan. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and CIT have a bit of software and data that lets you climb on board the Cassini Huygens mission.
The first time you click on the button below it will automatically download and install the needed software (a free plug-in to your web-browser) and the real Cassini mission data. The download is about 15 megabytes so it should only take a minute or two. (If you use a Mac you may need to install the software after it downloads and then restart your web-browser.) Once…
gregladen | February 1, 2008Grapes of gnash: Pomace, the residue of red winemaking, may help prevent tooth decay
Red wine has long been known to contain a substance, resveratrol, that is heart-healthy. Now research shows that both red wine grapes and winemaking residue, known as pomace, contain substances that may help prevent tooth decay.
A study published online in November in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests that specific polyphenols -- chemicals present in large amounts in fermented seeds and skins that are cast away after grapes are pressed -- interfere with the ability of bacteria to…
gregladen | February 1, 2008
Sir Ian Wilmut earned his knighthood for his major role in cloning a sheep (Dolly). (In the old days, you had to duel kill infidels and stuff to earn a knighthood, but whatever...). There is now a move, possibly quite justified, asking Queen Elizabeth II to take away the honor.
The petition originates from fromer employees of the institute where the cloning was carried out, the Roslin Institute of Scotland. Some time last year, Wilmut admitted that his colleague, Keith Campbell, played a much greater role in the cloning experiment than he did. The petition includes this language:
"The…
gregladen | February 1, 2008
... and some goggles.
But I don't want to be a rocket man if I have to do this:
(oh, the trans-vestism thing does not bother me. It's the paint and flour and stuff that I would find terribly annoying. Oh, and I don't really like to wear lipstick either.)
gregladen | February 1, 2008Below the fold is the press release (somewhat shortened). The numbers fell out at about 70-30.
In a resounding vote today, MoveOn.org Political Action's members nationwide voted to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President. The group, with 3.2 million members nationwide and over 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states, will immediately begin to mobilize on behalf of Senator Obama. The vote favored Senator Obama to Senator Clinton by 70.4% to 29.6%.
Senator Obama accepted the endorsement stating:
"In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again…
gregladen | February 1, 2008Linux Installed Base will Double This Year
The success of consumer IT products like the ASUS Eee PC will help provide the leverage needed to get hardware vendors on board with open source, according to Dirk Hohndel, Intel's chief technologist for open source.
He believes the install base of Linux-based desktops could potentially double this year, based just on Eee PC sales..
Speaking at open source conference Linux.conf.au in Melbourne yesterday, Hohndel said commercial pressure will be the incentive for traditionally Windows-centric hardware vendors to begin offering open source drivers and…
gregladen | February 1, 2008A paper just out in Genomics presents a very thorough study of cat genetics. Cat as is in kitty cat. The findings are expected, yet surprising in a few areas. The conclusion the authors draw about cat origins is very weak, in my view, but the information this study provides about cat breed genetics is excellent and will be of value to cats around the world.
Wild cats (Felis silvestris) are or were found in a roughly continuous distribution across much of Africa (not restricted only to savannas, as is often stated), the Middle East, and Europe, and possibly disjunct in Southeast Asia (…
gregladen | February 1, 2008Science ruins being a human, according to the Pope.
Speaking of cells, the Pope said:
When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure 'biological material,' how can one deny that they are being treated not as 'someone' but as 'something,"
The pope belies that undifferentiated cells are people. Each one of them, I suppose, is a person. But he does not believe that a differentiated cell that is converted by scientists into an undifferentiated cell is a person. Nor, apparently, does he think of it as a monstrosity…
gregladen | February 1, 2008An increasingly large number of K through 12 students (in the tens of thousands or more) are getting some or all of their education on line. Typically, the on line resources are provided by private corporate vendors contracting to individuals or in some cases school districts, and the target audience tends to be middle school or high school.
School districts and teachers (including unions) are typically reticent to support this shift. While such groups may be resisting online offerings because it constitutes direct competition, they also have valid complaints that online learning, like…
gregladen | February 1, 2008"My bones are almost 200 years old." Charles Darwin's bones will be 199 years old on February 12th. There will be celebrations, shipbuilding, and blogging. I'll try very hard to do something every day, including later today. Beginning tomorrow, this blog will join Charles Darwin on board the Beagle for a trip around the world.
gregladen | January 31, 2008In 1998, 13 year old Mitchell Johnson and his 11 year old buddy Andrew Golden gunned down four students aged 11 and 12 and English Teacher Shannon Wright, and wounded 10 other people, at Jonesboro Westside Middle School. They had pulled the fire alarm to bring their victims into this trap.
Johnson was released from prison at the age of 21, and his record was adjudicated, thus restoring his right to own firearms.
Two days ago, a federal jury convicted Johnson, now 23, of a weapons charge in connection with his possession of a 9 mm hand gun and a shotgun.
I think it is time for a change.
[…
gregladen | January 31, 2008Tatiana was the tiger that leaped from its enclosure in the San Francisco Zoo, killing one and wounding others.
Details of the investigation have been released, and apparently, the tiger was taunted.
One of the three victims of a San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police say in court documents.
Paul Dhaliwal, 19, told the father of Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, who was killed, that the three yelled and waved at the tiger but insisted they never threw anything into its pen to…
gregladen | January 31, 2008I wish we had more details of this story, but this is what we know so far:
The Lafayette County School Board unanimously adopted a resolution in protest of a proposed Florida Department of Education revision of the science portion of the Sunshine State Standards at a special meeting on Jan. 25.
According to Fred Ward, Lafayette County superintendent of schools, FDOE is considering new standards which would make the teaching of evolution mandatory in every school and to disallow the teaching of any other explanation about how the earth, universe, and man came into existence.
"The new Sunshine…
gregladen | January 31, 2008
Proposals to give the latter part of the present geological period (the Holocene) a new name ... the Anthropocene ... are misguided, scientifically invalid, and obnoxious. However, there is a use for a term that is closely related to "Anthropocene" and I propose that we adopt that term instead.
The pithy title of the paper making this proposal is "Are we now living in the Anthropocene" (sic: no question mark is included in this title, enigmatically).
It is not an entirely stupid idea. The paper argues that there are major changes of the type often used to distinguish between major…