gregladen | January 17, 2008Science Debate 2008 people may be intereted in this effort by SlashDot:
This is your usual Slashdot reader-generated interview, except we're only going to pick five questions, not 10, and we're going to send the same five questions to all the major-party presidential candidates and publish each one's answers (in our Politics section) as soon as we get them. Please try to come up with questions the candidates have not been asked in the many interviews and debates to which they've already been subjected, all of which have been notably light on Slashdot-popular topics such as software patents,…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is "patient capital": support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses which the commercial market alone couldn't provide. The result: sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- for the world's poorest.
gregladen | January 16, 2008Efforts to save the Middle East's rarest bird have been boosted by two chance sightings of the species 1,500 miles apart.
Now, if only they could get these birds together, they would have a flock. Sort of.
Here's a press release from BirdLife International:
Northern Bald Ibises were seen last month in the Jordan Valley for the first time in 13 years, and in Djibouti, east Africa, for the first time ever, raising hopes that numbers of this species are not as low as scientists fear.
The bird was thought extinct in the Middle East in the 1990s before a colony of just six birds was found in…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Slashdot has a number of interesting technology tidbits you may want to know about:
Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it."
[source]
"IBM is molding its Jazz technology, which helps…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Fleeing Ron Paul:
I'm out of the Ron Paul campaign ...He does not believe in Evolution! If there was ever a time we need science to solve our problems of energy resources and climate control it is 2009! ... He was my last chance at returning to the GOP.
Yet another story of a rino fleeing the herd once they get the full story! Sandra's Blog
Romney Tied to Global Warming Denier Group
Aides and staffers of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are listed among the principals of a new Astroturf group set up last fall to deny the science of global warming.
The new group advertises…
gregladen | January 16, 2008People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind.
This is not that surprising, but it is very interesting research. We already knew, for instance, that people who read and write different "kinds" of languages ... pictographic vs. non-pictographic ... use different regions of their brain for this function, and thus are differentially affected by strokes or other damage.
This news comes to us from an MIT press release...
Psychological research has…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Traveling from Ecuador to Africa, Jane Goodall takes the audience on an ecological journey, discussing highlights and low points of her experiences in the jungle. She shows how progress is helping research (DNA analysis) and hurting the environment (clear-cutting). And she draws a dozen parallels between primate and human behavior, making the point that we really aren't all that different. Our big advantage, she says, is the ability to communicate with sophisticated spoken language -- yet, sadly, we are abusing this power and destroying the planet. She urges the TED audience to behave…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Black holes have a maximum speed? Not really, just the usual Cosmic Speed Limit of the speed of light. From a Penn State Press Release....
A new study using results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory provides one of the best pieces of evidence yet that many supermassive black holes are spinning extremely rapidly, according to a research team led by a Penn State astronomer. The whirling of these giant black holes drives powerful jets that pump huge amounts of energy into their environment and affects the growth of galaxies.
"We think these monster black holes are spinning close to the…
gregladen | January 16, 2008From the National Center for Science Education:
Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the new book from the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine designed to give the public a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom, is receiving wide attention -- and, what's more, praise both from the scientific community and newspapers across the country for its uncompromising endorsement of the necessity of including evolution in science education.
Stories about Science, Evolution, and Creationism…
gregladen | January 16, 2008Well, it is a good thing that I have a thick skin and a good sense of humor, or I would be very put off by Larry Moran and probably T. Ryan Gregory as well.
Apparently, I stepped into an ongoing partially ad hominem debate over "Junk DNA" centering on the work of John Mattick and his research group. In this post, I'd like to provide a clarification of my "position" on Junk DNA, and I'll spend a moment admonishing my colleagues for being dorks.
My offending post is here. This is a report on a recent paper by Mattick and others in which they provide evidence that non coding RNA does…
gregladen | January 16, 2008The world's thinnest computer is coming out officially in a couple of weeks, but apparently you can get it now. It's a Mac, it will cost about 1,800 bucks US, and it is said that you can "fit it into an interoffice mailing envelope."
I strongly recommend that you do not put this computer into an interoffice mailing envelope.
The MacBook Air also features a built-in iSight webcam and a full sized MacBook-style black keyboard. The keyboard is backlit, similar to MacBook Pros, and has an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness. The trackpad is also capable of recognizing…
gregladen | January 15, 2008Texas higher education officials announced today that they have postponed action on a Bible-oriented group's proposal to offer a master's degree in science education.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board had been scheduled to consider the proposal by the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research at a meeting Jan. 24.
But Eddy Miller, dean of the institute's graduate school, said in an e-mail to the coordinating board Monday that the school needs more time "to do justice to the concerns you raised," according to a news release issued by the coordinating board. Miller asked the…
gregladen | January 15, 2008
This is a virtual keyboard, just a laser image on your desk. See the others in the list of 10 Strange Keyboards, here.
gregladen | January 15, 2008It's pretty easy to get stuck without a bottle opener ... But you've always got a chainsaw handy....
gregladen | January 15, 2008If there's a sense of déjà vu permeating a rather massive corporate campus in Redmond, Washington right now, it wouldn't be surprising. The European Commission, which regulates competition for the European Union, today announced a brand new antitrust investigation against Microsoft.
Read about it here.
gregladen | January 15, 2008From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:
A church-produced evangelical Christian movie is aimed at evangelism and is inappropriate for public schools, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told Alabama educators.
After receiving complaints, Americans United has urged officials at Tuscaloosa City Schools to stop showing the film "Facing the Giants."
"This movie is not educational; it's evangelistic," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "Parents and taxpayers expect our public schools to teach, not preach."
In a Jan. 15…
gregladen | January 15, 2008Minnesota is, as my cousin from Colorado was telling me the other day, one of the irrelevant states in the current presidential primary process. Maybe so. But the process is not irrelevant with respect to other issues at hand. Everybody I know is tired of our senior Senator, Norm Coleman, but we also like the guy. We like the guy so much we want to send him into retirement.
And replace him with Al Franken.
So you should vote for Al, send money to Al, tell your friends to vote for and send money to Al. But you can do more than that, and I would suggest caucusing for Al.
I have no…
gregladen | January 15, 2008The Latest Political News from key sources such as PZ Myers and Jon Stewart.
Huckabee is a raving lunatic
He wants to change the constitution to match better with the Bible. This guy is dangerous. Jump into the fray here at Pharyngula.
The South Carolina Debate
Hat tip: Evolving in Kansas
Deep Thoughts by Newt Gingerich
I'll give you one simple test. Tomorrow morning, will more people try to sneak into the U.S., or sneak out of the U.S.? What strikes me, if millions of people are trying to sneak into the U.S., we don't exactly have an image problem overseas.
Go see the Newt himself…