pharyngula

You all know that the Journal of Cosmology is complete crap, right? In addition to some of the worst web design ever — it looks like a drunk clown puked up his fruit loops onto a grid of 1990s-style tables — the content is ridiculous, predictable, and credulous. Their big thing is seeing life in…

Many of you already know that Aaron Swartz, an online activist, committed suicide earlier this week. I didn't know much about him, but now I've learned two things. One, he was a victim of depression. I've never experienced this personally — at worst I can say I've been sad and stressed at time —…

(via Smashingl Lists)

(via RENCTAS, an organization that fights wild animal trafficking in Brazil)

We're coming up on Burzynski's 70th birthday — it's a bit ironic that the man responsible for so many shattered hopes has had such a long life himself — and there is a plan to remind him of the grief he has caused. Burzynski, if you've forgotten, is the guy who claims to have a cancer treatment…

Last spring, the All England Squid Fishing Championships took place, in which hundreds of fishermen strove to catch the largest squid. Unfortunately, the weather was not conducive to good fishing, and they caught nothing. Well, except for one person who discovered this cute little guy cling to his…

(via Garden Photos)

[We are fortunate to have this transcript, taken by a company stenographer, from one of the early efforts of the resistance to instruct an army company in tactics. Although we now have more sophisticated technologies to hold these invaders in check, it is instructive too see how the American…

I am actually staying home for several weeks, and it feels so good and relaxing. So this is kind of a self-portrait, I think. (via)

I've constricted my anus 100 times, and it isn't helping! I'm still feeling extremely cranky about this story from the NY Times. Scientists intend to sequence Adam Lanza's DNA. They're looking for genetic markers for mass murder. Why? Because some scientists are stupid. Some researchers, like Dr.…

(via NatGeo)

Tom Bethell is a fellow traveller with the Intelligent Design creationists of the Discovery Institute; he often publishes on their website, and he's the author of quite a few books questioning the dogma of science. He also thinks he's a polymath: he wrote Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity…

See last week's cephalopod for context. (via r/aww)

This is a plant that uses water splatter to spread its seeds, as explained on the Australian Geographic site.

(via UNM Biology)

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This is another addition to my αEP series about evolutionary psychology. Here's the first, and unfortunately there are several more to come. By the way, people are wondering about the α in the title. Don't you people do any immunology? α is standard shorthand for "anti". I mentioned in the last…

(via NatGeo)

This is another addition to my αEP series about evolutionary psychology. Here's the first, and unfortunately there are several more to come. I have a real problem with evolutionary psychology, and it goes right to the root of the discipline: it's built on a flawed foundation. It relies on a naïve…

It's the last day of classes, after a very long and agonizing semester, and this guy looks how I feel: stressed, with gnashy tentacles and a livid complexion. I feel for any students who come to my office with questions about the final — I'm straining to be nice and helpful, but what I really want…

This is one of a series of posts I'm working on over the next few days to criticize evolutionary psychology. More will be coming under the label αEP! Recently, Bob Costas, a sports announcer, spoke out about gun control. In reply, the right wing has been in a frenzy of denunciations — he should…

With a name like the villain in a fantasy novel, you knew it had to be twisted. (via Ongzi's Secret Garden)

(via Flickr)

(via NatGeo)

I'm just making my way through this weekend, taking care of business. (via Wired)

A while back, two physicists, Paul Davies and Charles Lineweaver, announced their explanation for cancer with a novel theory, which is theirs, that cancers are atavisms recapitulating in a Haeckelian reverse double backflip their premetazoan ancestry. They seemed very proud of their idea. I was…

(via NatGeo)

One creationist claim that's commonly laughed at is this idea that 8 people could build a great big boat, big enough to hold all the 'kinds' of animals, and that those same 8 people were an adequate work force to maintain all those beasts for a year in a confined space on a storm-tossed ark. So the…

WHO IS YOUR MASTER NOOOOOOW? (via the Monterey Bay Aquarium

(via NatGeo)