gregladen | January 30, 2008This is a very interesting guest post at Remote Central:
All species vary through time and space. You don't necessarily look the same as any one of your ancestors. Therefore "like begets like" but each individual can be a bit different. It is impossible for a sperm whale to evolve from a bowl of petunias, or a duck from a dandelion, as some creationist and Intelligent Design supporters accuse evolutionists of believing. But over time it is possible for a cow to evolve from something like a camel, or a human to evolve from something like an ape. Evolution doesn't proceed in a straight line…
gregladen | January 30, 2008Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York's MOMA, wants to spread an appreciation of design, in all shapes and forms -- and to remove any stigma of it being considered mere decoration. She takes the TED2007 audience on a whistlestop tour of some design exhibitions she has organized, including "Mutant Materials," "Workspheres" and "Safe."
gregladen | January 30, 2008Color is funny. Anthropologists have long known that different cultures have different relationships, linguistically and in day to day practice, to the color spectrum. For example, the Efe Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers of the Ituri Forest describe things as white, black, or red, and that's it. They live in a world of green. Going with the model for "Eskimos" having a hundred words for snow because snow is so important in their environment, one would expect that the Efe would have a hundred words for green. On the other hand, the Efe Hunter-Gatherers must have a fairly primitive culture,…
gregladen | January 30, 2008... according to news reports flying around the airwaves.
It will be interesting to see what happens to those currently supporting him. It is likely that if Edwards does not endorse anyone, his supporters would drift to Clinton, since it is believed that Edwards has been collecting the whiter among the white votes (those who would never vote for a black man). On the other hand, those individuals may also never vote for a woman, especially a Clinton.
So, perhaps many of Edward's supporters would drift to out of the primary race entirely, and then go for the Republican nominee during the…
gregladen | January 29, 2008A Biology News Browser; Green Porno; Naked Mole-Rats and Chili Pepper; 3D from 2D; New View of Middle Earth Stuff
From Science Buzz:
A great biology teaching resource can be found at biologybrowser.org. Both the Biology Browser home page and their search engine are subdivided into:
- organism (animals, plants, viruses)
- subjects (biodiversity, botany, genetics)
- geography (Africa, Asia, North America)
To experiment, I entered the term "turtle" in the search box which resulted in 369 hits (the MN DNR web page entry, Turtles of Minnesota was #6).
Green Porno:
[hat tip: Bug Girl]
Naked…
gregladen | January 29, 2008The Torch is the world's brightest and most powerful flashlight.
It is capable of melting plastic, lighting paper on fire within seconds, and if you like, fry an egg or a marshmallow on a stick.
[source]
gregladen | January 29, 2008This is the first time I've seen this argument made, in a letter to the editor in LJWorld of Lawrence, Kansas:
Senior citizens are concerned about rising property taxes due to education and a needless golf course.
With more private schools [and] more home schooling ... , why is additional funding needed? The enrollment for public schools only went up by 169 students this year.
Why do we keep ... closed schools used for storage? Sell them. The "1 percent for the arts" should be deleted from the budget as well as the Sister City program, if it is dependent on taxes. ...
...
Mary Ann Kieffer…
gregladen | January 29, 2008You may not want to miss this (Feb 13th) episode of Wife Swap:
a theologically liberal high powered corporate executive mother with a stay-at-home husband swaps lives with a born again Christian mom who believes women are created to be men's help-mates ...
... the Childs are born-again Christians who interpret the bible literally and use it as a guide for life. In the Childs' family constitution, God comes first, husband Christopher comes second. The family have to serve God at all times with a cheerful heart, and they follow the words of scripture to the letter. Lee-Ann is a stay-at-home mom…
gregladen | January 29, 2008Lee Salisbury, a former evangelical preacher, comments on evolution and creationism.
He starts with this:
Creationism seems to be gaining credence far beyond its actual influence in the world of science. Even American presidential candidates, lest they offend the religious right, reject evolution in favor of creationism. Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Mit Romney endorse creationism.
And ends with this:
Creationists are quite explicit in their stated goals, and there is little room for doubt their true intentions. The true mission of creationism is theocracy. Thus exposed, the need to fight…
gregladen | January 29, 2008UC Berkeley biologist Sheila Patek gives a wide-ranging talk on the effort to measure the hyperfast movements of peacock mantis shrimp heels using high-speed video cameras recording at 20,000 frames per second. She and her team slowed down the movements of these amazing animals and showed they had the fastest known feeding strike in the animal kingdom. (In 2006, Patek's team announced an even faster animal part: the mandible of the trap-jaw ant.)
gregladen | January 29, 2008And neither does a lot of proprietary technology. But the possibility that ads will show up on either type of technology is obviously very different.
Now, we are about to see add supported P2P services.
At the Midem conference in Cannes, France, Qtrax and its parent company Brilliant Technologies Corp. announced deals on Sunday with all four major labels that would make it the first free and legal ad-supported P2P service with major label music.
By allowing users to share DRM-protected files with label approval, Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz said he expected the service to offer over 25…
gregladen | January 29, 2008You've probably already heard that a US spy satellite known as USA-193 is no longer able to keep itself up because the software on board has failed. This is a secret spy satellite so we don't at present know what the software was (any guesses?). It is big enough to not totally burn up in the atmosphere, and there are concerns that the satellite has nasty toxins on board. But again, since it is a secret spy satellite we can't know this either.
The expected date of entry is late February or early March.
Here is a source of info and a picture of the satellite.
gregladen | January 29, 2008Ecuadorean officials are investigating the slaughter of 53 sea lions from the Galapagos Islands nature reserve, which were found with their heads caved in.
[source]
Thanks, Coturnix, for the tip.
gregladen | January 29, 2008Larry Craig, or as we call him in Minnesota, Happy Feet Larry, stepped in where Michelle Bachmann could not perform, in an overt act of erotic love with the President of the United States, George Bush.
I starting watching the That Big Speech by George Bush just before midway last night. In time to hear him say that he wants to be the first President of the United States to usher in legislation specifically outlawing (rather than simply not funding) several entire areas of scientific research, at the same time doubling funding on research on nuclear power. Oh, and he also wants to be the…