gregladen | December 12, 2007One of our more cunning spies, who shall be known only as "RD.", made his move yesterday to slip under the Christian Radar screen, in a stunningly brave, very public move:
[RD], who has expressed hopes of converting religious believers to atheism through his international bestseller [deleted], made the comments while fielding open questions on religion and debating with conservative MP Mark Pritchard.
...
"This is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims," Oxford biologist [deleted] said on…
gregladen | December 12, 2007
Dec 12
E.G. Robinson born, 1893
Dec 12
First wireless message sent across Atlantic by Marconi, 1901
Dec 12
Independence Day in Kenya
Dec 12
Debian GNU/Linux 1.2 alias ``rex'' released, 1996
Dec 12
N'oubliez pas les Chantal !
Dec 12
Nachrüstungsbeschluà des NATO-Ministerates, 1979
Dec 12
ÐÐµÐ½Ñ ÐонÑÑиÑÑÑии
Dec 13
Apollo 17 leaves the moon, with "last" men to walk on moon aboard, 1972
Dec 13
Dartmouth College chartered, 1769
Dec 13
Geminid meteor shower (look south)
Dec 13
Republic Day in Malta
Dec 13*
Parashat Va-Yishlah
Dec 13
Ted Nugent, the motor city madman,…
gregladen | December 12, 2007This time, it comes from the side effect of the Mars Rover getting the Martian equivalent of a flat tire...
NASA's Spirit Mars rover has been dealing with [a] right front tire [that] went bad nearly two years ago. It didn't go flat, but it's quit turning forcing NASA to move the rover around in reverse ever since, trailing the stuck wheel behind.
But nearly a year later, [it was noticed that [r]uts carved by the bad wheel last May churned up a bright spot in the rover's wake.
Rover guiders turned the craft back to the colorful streak for a closer look and discovered that the rock contains…
gregladen | December 12, 2007Scientists studying ancient fish bones in Scandinavia have discovered that warm-water species like anchovies and black sea bream that once thrived in Danish waters during a prehistoric warm period are now returning. Some cold-water species, such as cod, were also abundant during this period, having benefited from a lower fishing effort.
[source]
gregladen | December 12, 2007He's trying so hard to be Ronald Regan that it makes me throw up a little bit inside my mouth. You have to just see it to believe it.
gregladen | December 12, 2007This time, it comes from the side effect of the Mars Rover getting the Martian equivalent of a flat tire...
NASA's Spirit Mars rover has been dealing with [a] right front tire [that] went bad nearly two years ago. It didn't go flat, but it's quit turning forcing NASA to move the rover around in reverse ever since, trailing the stuck wheel behind.
But nearly a year later, [it was noticed that [r]uts carved by the bad wheel last May churned up a bright spot in the rover's wake.
Rover guiders turned the craft back to the colorful streak for a closer look and discovered that the rock contains…
gregladen | December 12, 2007There is quite a bit of activity in the blogosphere about this initiative. Have a look...
Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock has worked his encyclopedic magic to make a magic encyclopedia of related posts, here.
Denialism Blog is not in denial about the importance of this initiative, as can be seen here and here.
The Los Angeles Times has this:
Whether the issue is global warming, embryonic stem cell research, ballistic missile defense or the future of the world's oceans, the same bass line thumps in the background: Sound political decision-making relies, more than ever before, on…
gregladen | December 12, 2007A new hypothesis for how life got started has been proposed, by Helen Hansma, of UC Santa Barbara.
Mica.
Here's the essential problem. Cells work because they have membranes surrounding them. These membranes protect the cells from nasty outside things, keep the stuff that is supposed to be working together in the cell in one place, and also, provide a communication and transport boundary for what goes in and out of the cell (various molecules as well as information).
However, a lot of the mechanisms involved in cells involve making, maintaining, and using this membrane. It is all very…
gregladen | December 12, 2007Starting with Los Alamos, repeated atomic explosions altered the isotopic composition of the Earth's atmosphere in a way that is easily seen in historic proxyindicator records such as ice cores, lake cores, tree rings, and so on.
Recently raised cores from the Himalayan ice fields, when analyzed, failed to show this global signal. This strongly suggests that these ice fields have not grown during the last fifty years, or more.
The ice fields provide an important buffer in the headwaters of major rivers relied on today for agriculture and other uses by a very large number of people.…
gregladen | December 12, 2007Some of the base pairs in a given genome are strung together into templates that code for proteins or RNA molecules. These are the classic "genes." Other base pairs probably have little or no function. Among the DNA that is not in classic gene-templates, however, there is a lot of important information, including "control regions."
How much of each "type" of DNA exists in a particular genome varies. A recent study suggests that the currently used methods for scanning DNA for regulatory sequences may systematically m miss more than half of that information.
Looking specifically at the DNA…
gregladen | December 12, 2007From Austin Cline.
What are the Christmas Wars?:
In his infamous tract "The International Jew," Henry Ford wrote "The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and other Christian festivals, and their opposition to certain patriotic songs, shows the venom and directness of [their] attack." The John Birch Society complained that the "Godless UN" was conspiring against Christmas. Today, conservatives claim that secularists and liberals are trying to replace Christmas. The enemy changes, but it's still the same conspiracy story.
Foot soldiers in the war on Chrismas, you must…
gregladen | December 12, 2007 want us to believe that their "theory" is part of science, but of course, it is really a form of creationism, and has no place in Texas schools. This position is shared by more than 100 professors in Texas, who have weighted in on this debate:
"Intelligent design is a religious idea that deserves no place in the science classroom," said assistant professor Daniel Bolnick from his lab on the University of Texas campus. "I really just want to communicate to the state board that we're keeping an eye on the quality of evolution education, and that there's no justification for watering it down…
gregladen | December 12, 2007The Florida Citizens for Science asks:
Since the holiday season is upon us, why not spread an educational message along with your Christmas cheer?
A Call to Action
gregladen | December 12, 2007This could be the proof of god:
The assertion made by the "Does God Exist" people is that a pattern must be designed, and that patterns don't occur in nature. But it is possible that there is another way to look at this.
Like, the Fibonacci sequence is the natural outcome of common aspects of additive growth, or of packing.
Plants do not know about this sequence - they just grow in the most efficient ways. Many plants show the Fibonacci numbers in the arrangement of the leaves around the stem. Some pine cones and fir cones also show the numbers, as do daisies and sunflowers. Sunflowers…
gregladen | December 12, 2007This from the National Center for Science Education:
As Florida continues to consider the draft of a new set of state science standards, there are reports about mounting creationist lobbying against the inclusion of evolution and for the inclusion of creationism. Writing in the Miami Herald (December 9, 2007), Fred Grimm summarized: "For the past 11 years, the biology curriculum in Florida schools has ignored the one great organizing principle of biological science. Darwin's theory was blackballed, never mind that his work has been bolstered by 148 years of scientific inquiry. ... Or so it…
gregladen | December 12, 2007This just in:
Days after its publication, a largely positive review of The Golden Compass that appeared in Catholic newspapers across the country was retracted this week by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The bishops, who could not be reached for comment, offered no explanation for the decision. But Catholic groups, including the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, have urged moviegoers to boycott the film, saying the film and the book on which it is based are anti-Catholic.
"... there was all kinds of speculation from the day it went up...as to…