pharyngula

Carel Brest van Kempen has extracted a few fascinating quotes from an old book he has. It's titled Creative and Sexual Science, by a phrenologist and physiologist from 1870, and it contains some wonderful old examples of folk genetics. President Bush would be pleased: "Human and animal hybrids are…

Billmon reviews An Inconvenient Truth, and its more of a lament for the fact that science and reason seem to have little compelling power to a nation raised on ranting idiots and authoritarian dogma. In my darker moments, it sometimes seems as if the entire world is in the middle of a fierce…

I was going to just restore one old post, but it linked to another, and that one linked to others, and finally I just went ahead and dragged in the whole interlinked conglomeration.

I've written about this fascinating Drosophila gene, bicoid, several times before. It's a maternal effect gene, a gene that is produced by the mother and packaged into her eggs to drive important early events in development, in this case, establishing polarity, or which end of the egg is anterior…

The guilty party has stepped forward and confessed: Carl Zimmer was the inspiration for Coulter's Giant Flatulent Raccoon. Of course, he uses that little factlet to drive home another nail in Coulter's coffin. It seems she completely mangled a Zimmer story in the NY Times, and it was her ignorant…

Intelligent Design creationists are extremely fond of diagrams like those on the left. Textbook illustrators like them because they simplify and make the general organization of the components clear—reducing proteins to smooth ovoids removes distractions from the main points—but creationists like…

Last week, I wrote a bit about maternal genes, specifically bicoid, and described how this gene was expressed in a gradient in the egg. Bicoid is both a transcription factor and a morphogen. The gene product regulates the activity of other genes, controlling their pattern of expression in the…

In my previous comments about maternal effect genes, I was talking specifically about one Drosophila gene, bicoid, which we happen to understand fairly well. We know its sequence, we know how it is controlled, and we know what it does; we know where it falls in the upstream and downstream flow of…

In developmental biology, and increasingly in evolutionary biology, one of the most important fields of study is deciphering the nature of regulatory networks of genes. Most people are familiar with the idea of a gene as stretch of DNA that encodes a protein in a sequence of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs,…

Today, we have a little something for the neuroscientists, and something for the atheists. Godless neuroscientists are especially fortunate. The Synapse 1(2) Carnival of the Godless #44 Carnival of Socialism #6

You may recall that distressing story of discrimination against atheists in Oklahoma—it worked out well in the end, but the family involved was raked through the coals first. I recently received some email that is purportedly written by the defendant in that case, Chuck Smalkowski. I haven't been…

I'm not a fan of Adam Corolla by any means, but he just had best interview with Coulter ever. This is a great tactic, and I hope more talk show people follow his example.

Like rats deserting a sinking ship…atheism is in trouble. We've lost a beloved leading light of atheism, a highbrow master of humanist ethical conduct, a highly principled representative of secularism. One of our own has converted to Christianity. Oh, how shall we bear it? The Christians will be…

So...is this you? PharyngulaBy Details > Visit DetailVisit 6,666,666     [<<]  [>>] Domain Name   comcast.net ? (Network) IP Address   67.176.112.# (Comcast Cable) ISP   Comcast Cable Location   Continent…

DarkSyde interviews Brent Rasmussen of UTI today. The interview is good, but skip the comments—they descend into the usual mush-mouthed yammering about dictionary definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist," ignoring the fact that for all practical purposes they're exactly the same, and they're both…

In superficial morphology, surprisingly little. The lizard looks a little more friendly to me. The lizard is probably a little less concerned about where other lizards put their hemipenes, though, and certainly isn't at all worried about this: Benedict, a German, has made combating a Europe of…

I've been told that there is a drop of old Dutch blood in my ancestry—that way back in the 17th century, an intrepid few Dutch immigrants mingled their seed with the mongrel mess of my father's line. I think now I sense a kindred spirit. Adriaen Coenensz, a fisherman and fish seller from…

We've received word that there have been some behind-the-scenes improvements in spam filtering, and I've gotten enough complaints about that annoying typekey thingie, that I've gotten rid of it. This is provisional, and I'm hoping I don't get a flood of spam now, but try it—commenting should be…

There are just too many pretty molluscs in the world, so today you get TWO Friday Cephalopods, this one thanks to NOAA. Benthoctopus sp. Just think, their children will be such lovely cyborg cephalopods.

If you've read this outrageous WaPo op-ed that basically says you can't expect moral behavior from scientists who are glorified baby-killers, you might appreciate this rebuttal at the Give Up Blog. The foundation of the fundiecrat anti-science article is that 1) Hwang Woo Suk was bad, therefore all…

Only this one has a real prize. Invasive Species Weblog wants a title for an article—a strange story about those wretched starlings.

These sites are completely fake, but they're fascinating anyway. Phil sent me a link to the Museum of Fantastic Specimens, a bizarre collection of strange creatures. It's all in Japanese, but Pink Tentacle has a brief guide in English. Several people let me know about this one: if you prefer…

OK, many people seem to be picking up on Coulter's plagiarism, Karl Mogel picks up on the overt sexism of Coulter's remarks*, but there's far too little discussion of the fact that Coulter's book is a tissue thin collection of lies. Her understanding of science is negligible, and she's simply…

Regular commenter Ed Darrell has started a weblog of his own now, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, dedicated to knowing US History. And really, don't you want to learn the story behind the name?

That's some kinky photo Revere has put up—and he's looking for captions. Most of mine were not fit for a Family Blog, but I'm sure you can do better. Oh, and if brain teasers are more your thing, World's Fair has a mysterious puzzle to solve.

Via Deep Sea News, here is a site for the BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition 2006: a whole collection of underwater images. It's beautiful! Sauroteuthis syrtensis Siphonophore Nereis Viperfish

Nocturnal Squid by Dany Weinberg (via Craig Clarke)

I posted a little sample of my creationist junkmail yesterday, and I've finally figured something out. The first mailing said, "Original Theory By Perry Marshall, Edited in part by D. Donohew"—what that meant was that D. Donohew had found this crap by Perry Marshall on the web, and was simply doing…

There have been these annoying glitches in TypeKey comment management in the past, and the source of the problem is inconsistency in how the different science blogs require valid email addresses in your comments. We're about to enforce a uniform standard across all the science blogs—you will all be…

While I'm announcing a few carnivals, I'll remind all of you readers in West Central Minnesota that there will be a Drinking Liberally tonight at 6:00, in Old #1 on Atlantic Avenue in Morris. Otherwise, for those of you trapped in the virtual world… I and the Bird #27 Skeptics' Circle #38