pharyngula

Any other fans of the Phasmatodea out there? For years, we kept a collection of stick insects — they are extremely easy to raise, and although they aren't exactly dynamos of activity, they're weird enough to be entertaining — and so I perk up when I notice a paper on them. The latest news is the…

Really. This is painfully sad: a young woman enters a water-drinking contest to win a video game console for her kids, and ends up dying of water intoxication.

Just a reminder that I'll be at MoonBase ConFusion at the Detroit-Troy Marriott in Troy, Michigan this coming weekend. I don't think it's too late to get a room, and you can definitely still sign up to attend! I'm committed to do a reading Friday evening, panels on "Remaking Humanity" and "…

I couldn't resist. Shakespeare's Sister has a satirical post on the female reproductive tract as a source of gay rays, and evolgen chimes in, noting the similarity of her diagram to the nematode vulva (it's true—if mammalian vulvas are radiating gayness, nematodes are even more common; Ben Shapiro…

Q: What unique organ is found only in mammals, but not in fish, amphibians, reptiles, or birds? The title and that little picture to the left ought to be hint enough, but if not, read on. A: The vagina. Aren't we lucky? There's an old joke going around about poor design: what kind of designer…

Doonesbury hits one out of the park today—don't trust science, it's just too controversial. I like the definition: situational science is about respecting both sides of a scientific argument, not just the one supported by facts. The Discovery Institute ought to etch that on their front door,…

The beginning will seem a little cryptic, and you'll wonder what those little glimmering points of light in the deep might be, but be patient—all will become clear. (hat tip to the Science Pundit)

I could have spent it building a scale model of the Battle of Helms Deep out of candy. Maybe next year…

That clever fellow John (Chris) Walken has proposed a useful idea—that we put together simple descriptions of basic concepts in our fields of interest for the edification of any newcomers to science. He picked the magic word Clade to write about first; I don't know why he didn't pick "Species",…

I know some of my students read Pharyngula, so I'll mention this here: if you're taking Biology 3101, Genetics, the course web page and syllabus are online. Get the textbook and start reading chapter 1!

The heathen at IIDB are talking about squid—it's infectious, I tell you, and the godless seem especially susceptible—and in particular about this interesting paper on squid fisheries. Squid are on the rise, and are impressively numerous. We can get an idea of the abundance of squid in the world's…

Usually that bible book is vague, which means the Christianists get to interpret it in whatever wild and wacky way they want. They really need a bible that is a bit more explicit to convince me, I'm afraid.

…and he's as much of a fool as you'd expect. Paszkiewicz is theteacher who told his students they deserved to go to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus, among other things, and he has now written a letter to his regional newspaper. The letter is about as you'd expect. It's a long-winded example of…

I really don't know whether to believe this story or not. It's a diary of a sailing trip that reports an encounter with a fellow sailor who had experienced serious difficulties. We reported last time that Shigeo's trip from the Galapagos to the Marquesas had been terrible -- after about 1000 miles…

Hey, I'm the wild-eyed creationist smasher in this family. So why are all the lame creationists doing their stupid act in my daughter's blog? She's actually getting comments like this, intended to refute evolution: why is it that nothing today is evolving and why is it (if we did come from apes)…

Awww, poor William Dembski is puzzled by the data that shows that acceptance of evolution rises with education level. I'm sorry, guy, but that's what the evidence shows: better educated people tend to support good science more than poorly educated people, and Intelligent Design creationism derives…

Here be carnival announcements and news, and an opportunity to blather about whatever you want in the comments. The Tangled Bank will be at The Voltage Gate on Wednesday. Send your links to thevoltagegate [at] gmail.com, host@tangledbank.net, or me Now you can go read these: Friday Ark #121…

One other important thing about using ridicule to combat your opponents: you have to be on very solid ground yourself for it to be effective. An excellent case in point is Michael Fumento, a rather deranged lawyer by training with negative experience in science (i.e., paying too much attention to…

What's a philosopher doing writing about science? Willikins has a short article on the idea that bioturbation was a major factor in the Cambrian explosion. I can go with that: the Cambrian and pre-Cambrian seem to have been times when the sea floor was covered with algal mats, and the successful…

Shelley started it. Make your own!

And Federal Way is feeling its sting right now. The kooks who promote foolish ideas are one target for ridicule, and this Frosty Hardison character is a prime example. He's got a reply to the Seattle PI article that exposed him; it's a MS Word file that doesn't help his case. It starts off with a…

Grrlscientist asked me for a blue cephalopod the other day, and what do we all think of when blue cephalopods come up? Blue ringed octopuses, of course. So lovely, and so deadly. Hapalochlaena Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

This will blow you away. Watch the video and spot the octopus—it's like magic. (via Skeptic News)

Science magazine has just published a graph of data taken from a general social survey of Americans that quantifies what most of us assume: a well-educated liberal who is not a fundamentalist is much more likely to accept evolution than a conservative fundamentalist with only a high school…

This is a concrete image of biology's future under the Intelligent Design creationists: it would be dissolved by fiat. If I ever became the president of a university (per impossibile), I would dissolve the biology department and divide the faculty with tenure that I couldn’t get rid of into two new…

I reported on this survey of people's attitudes towards evolution, in which the US was second to the worst. We beat Turkey. The point was to emphasize the poor shape of US education, but it unfairly made fun of Turkey … imagine, though, how awful it would be to be in their shoes. This week's issue…

Gary Farber of Amygdala is in a crisis, both financially and in his health. This is such a waste: Gary is one of the all time great online raconteurs with a long history of bloggy productivity and the respect of swarms of other internet personalities. If someone were setting up a weblog franchise…

I remember Federal Way! It was just up the hill from where I grew up, and although it was never a destination of interest, we would pass through its majestic strip malls on the way to Dash Point or Saltwater State Park. Now Federal Way is in the news as a haven for a few wingnuts. I can't say I'm…

One of the lesser diaries on Daily Kos is calling for a boycott of Scienceblogs and is asking readers to email the gang at Seedmedia and tell them to spank one of our colleagues here. All this because Dr Charles thinks John Edwards is a piss-poor presidential candidate. Now I happen to disagree on…

The Kansas Board of Education is going to be re-evaluating the anti-science standards the formerly overwhelmingly right-wing crazy board had approved—they've since elected more moderate members—and the creationists aren't happy about it. When reading the stories, there was this name that kept…