pharyngula

This is hard to do: Now there are some unanswered questions. Can he scale it? Does it have to be on a vertical surface? Can he find the center? Can he draw a square with the same area?

I'm back home! I'm tired! I have to go take care of flies and fish! If you want to read some science, though, my cavefish article for Seed is online, so you can do that while I try to recover from all the traveling. But of course, you all already subscribe, so you probably read it last week. I just…

There's an important phenomenon in development called neurulation. This is a process that starts with a flat sheet of ectodermal cells, folds them into a tube, and creates our dorsal nervous system. Here's a simple cross-section of the process in a salamander, but in general outline we humans do…

I'm teaching a course in neurobiology this term, and it's strange how it warps my brain; suddenly I find myself reaching more and more for papers on the nervous system in my reading. It's not about just keeping up with the subjects I have to present in lectures (although there is that, too), but…

Critics of the godless have a powerful weapon at their disposal: prayer. I know I dread the possibility that some clever opponent might counter my arguments by dropping to their knees and mumbling at an imaginary friend.

Janet says it is National Delurking Week 2007— if you've been reading Pharyngula but haven't been making comments, this is the thread where you're supposed to make your existence known and say hello. The rest of you chatterboxes should sit back and let someone else have a turn saying something.

Let's see…what did I do today? I met with a whole bunch of people at Seed. They were cool, but they won't notice that I mentioned them because they never read my blog. I also had dinner with Niles Eldredge, James Watson, Adam Bly, and Laura McNeil (big guns at Seed). It was an engrossing evening,…

If you've seen BladeRunner, you know the short soliloquy at the end by one of the android replicants, Roy, as he's about to expire from a genetically programmed early death. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams…glitter in…

At least I freely admit it…so here, for your viewing pleasure, a brief musical interlude:

The Intelligent Design creationists keep trying the same old tactics of making their case with phony PR, but I don't think it's working so well anymore. For example, take a look at this op-ed from Richard Buggs of "'Truth' in Science"; he makes a futile attempt to throw out some of the usual…

I think I had a better day than any of you readers out there, and I have to gloat somewhere. So…lunch with John Brockman. An afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art. A conversation with Niles Eldredge. Dinner with Benoit Mandelbrot. I should do this kind of thing every day. By the way, I really…

Greg Laden makes a simple analysis of what triggers comments on Pharyngula: it turns out the least interesting subject is me (my self-esteem is being battered lately), with science close on my heels, but that you love to chatter about creationists and godlessness. Now I wonder how strong the…

This doesn't apply to me, of course, since I get to frolic on the streets of New York and visit Seed and MoMA. (via Minnesota Stories)

Jim Lippard continues to present his reports on creationist finances, and this time he shows the Discovery Institute's balance sheet. They brought in $3.5 million in 2004, almost all of it in the form of donations. That sounds like a lot of money, but to put it in perspective, you could take a look…

As we are so often reminded by proponents of Intelligent Design creationism, we contain molecular "machines" and "motors". They don't really explain how these motors came to be other than to foist the problem off on some invisible unspecified Designer, which is a poor way to do science—it's more…

Talk among yourselves, or savor the expression of ideas at these fine compendia of articles that I find copacetic: Carnival of the Godless #57 Skeptics' Circle #51 Carnival of the Liberals #29 Friday Ark #120

Chris Clarke (whose blog sure is a lot prettier all of a sudden) has revealed that the Koufax award nominations are now open. Go nominate your favoritest blogs! I do not want anyone to nominate Pharyngula, and if nominated in any category I'll ask to be removed. You see, I've already got one. It's…

To my great relief, I've made it to the big city without a hitch (last time I came out here, I spent more time sitting on a runway in Allentown). Now it's just a busy, busy couple of days visiting with some very cool people—this time I'll actually get to visit Seed Central—and then back home on…

I've got to work on my image. Here's another report about meeting me that says I "turned out to be a more low-key guy than I expected". Maybe I've got to try and reverse expectations. It's true. I make Mr Rogers look like a bomb-throwing anarchist. I walk into a room and people fall asleep. If I…

RJ Eskow has a set of 15 questions he wants us "militant atheists" to answer. Apparently, we've been blaming every problem in the universe on religion and religion alone, and we need to eradicate faith in order to inaugurate our new world order of peace, prosperity, and reason. That isn't really…

I'm about to hop on a plane and fly off to New York for a few days, and now it seems like everyone is sending me op-eds from all over the place that are screaming against the "new atheism". We must be effective to inspire such denunciations, and we must be striking deeply to cause so much obvious…

A few of us infamous bloggers met at a pleasant party at the home of Jim and Kat Lippard, and here we are: From left to right, the hospitable Jim Lippard, inscrutable Brent Rasmussen, elusive GrrlScientist, me, and that strange Irish guy. At last, someone has accurately reported on my awe-inspiring…

Rather than burning out, I decided I just needed a happy fun day at the SICB meetings, so I put away the notepad and flitted about from session to session to check out a semi-random subset of the diverse talks available here. So I listened to talks on jaw articulations and feeding mechanisms in…

Richard Dawkins sure does a fine job of placing sticks of dynamite under people's chairs and blowing them up. I've been out of town and I haven't even had net access for the past day, so nobody can blame me for this latest round of anti-atheist outrage going on in these parts. Dawkins' latest op-ed…

Everyone can stop now, my brain is full. Seriously, this is a painful meeting: my usual strategy at science meetings is to be picky and see just a few talks in a few sessions, to avoid burnout…but at this one, I go to one session and sit through the whole thing, and at the breaks I look at the…

Yes, I did, although it was tough going. Grrl Scientist was more personable than I was, and Lynch was always sniping at me cruelly. I had to be the cranky old guy up there. Oh, well...we did get lots of questions, and it went smoothly enough; Diane Kelly, the moderator, had the easiest job in the…

einen Pazifischen Riesenoktopus

I see that the temperatures back home are hovering around freezing—unseasonably warm for Minnesota, but still, I get to post this picture taken outside my hotel here in Phoenix. What's that? Palm trees, blue skies, and it's warm enough that I could run around naked (they're comparative biologists…

Here's some happy news for all you warriors against creationism: Mark Isaak's Counter-Creationism Handbook(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), that wonderfully indispensable and entirely portable version of the Index to Creationist Claims, can now be purchased in paperback for less than $15. It was previously…

Here's what I heard this morning. Wonderful stuff, all of it, and I'm having a grand time. This is a quick summary, and now I have to rush back to the meeting for more. S. Kuratani: Craniofacial evolution from a developmental perspective. This was a lamprey and hagfish talk, comparing them to…