pharyngula

We need to appreciate beer more. Alcohol has a long history in human affairs, and has been important in purifying and preserving food and drink, and in making our parties livelier. We owe it all to a tiny little microorganism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which converts complex plant sugars into…

Here's a small taste of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a sweet story about a poor boy and his visit to an amazing candy factory…you've probably heard of it, since the new movie is getting a lot of press. Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit…

The Pagan Prattle has an article about the infection of the UK with a rather American sounding version of creationism/ID. It sounds as if the response has ranged from dismissal to dithering avoidance, so it doesn't seem to be a big threat (yet—these nasty little strains can expand into chronic…

Awww. Take a look at the nice photography of adorable little frog embryos. The rest of the site also has some lovely photos of Australian fauna…I'd like to know what kind of camera/lens was used for those close-ups of frog embryos.

Hox genes are metazoan pattern forming genes—genes that are universally associated with defining the identities of regions of the body. There are multiple Hox genes present, and one of their unusual properties is that they are clustered and expressed colinearly. That is, they are found in ordered…

Oh, sure…Sean Carroll has Richard Feynman's desk. But I have PZ Myers' office and desk (I moved in right after the building was finished, so there's no history to speak of in here.) I think the burden of living up to my furniture's standards is a lot lower for me.

I'm going to be a bit distracted for a while, with some upcoming travel and various other bits of busy work, but I was listening to this lecture by Ken Miller (in which Carl Zimmer was in attendance, too) as I was puttering away on a lecture of my own . It's pretty much the same talk he gave in…

Since Friday's cephalopod was a repeat (sorry, it's such a lovely picture that it caught my eye again), here's another to compensate. Sepia pharaonis Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

In case you haven't been following the vivisections of Wells' horrid book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, I thought I'd mention that there's more online at the Panda's Thumb. Wells' book is a collection of anti-science propaganda, brought to us by those…

Do not be shocked and dismayed. I'm going to criticize a decision by NBC to strip "god" references from a kid's show. Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber always had a moral message in their long-running "VeggieTales" series, a collection of animated home videos for children that encourage moral…

Where were you guys? You missed it. I kept looking for you, but only the usual locals showed up. It was a great evening, but you disappointed me. If you're still on your way, OK…there's still plenty of beer left, and a couple of bottles of wine, and even some food. And, of course, you can help with…

The British seem to have good taste. Look who is at the top of the UK bestseller list: I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith? Aside from that, though, it's impressive that The God Delusion has shot to the top so quickly. When I looked at the list of…

Oh, boy…Boingboing mentions something squid-related and everyone sends me email. Should I mention that I brought up Squid Soap back in August? (Hah! That Doctorow fellow thinks he's so cutting edge. Poseur.) However, Craig Clarke just sent me some information on a holy cruciform-shaped scrub brush…

Y'all come on down—we're having a party at my place tonight. Everyone bring something to eat or drink, hang about, talk, listen to some music… All you need is hate The Delgados Black Cadillacs Modest Mouse Viktorin Hedningarna Lullaby The Cure Thunder Road Bruce Springsteen Skinfakse (…

I have found the Lord. I pray that I won't have to witness him "speaking", though. Thank van Kempen for leading me to my salvation.

Hey! Go read these! You can talk about anything you want in the comments! Animalcules #2 Friday Ark #105 Carnival of Education #85 Next week's Tangled Bank will be hosted at OK so I'm not really a cowboy. Send your links directly to indiancowboysblog-at-gmail.com, or to host@tangledbank.net, or…

It's time for another edition of that popular game where I browse through the mailbag and see what peculiar images people have sent to me, prompted by my peculiar reputation. It's not all flabby, slimy squid this week! Click on the images to go to the source. Why would the plaintiff have brought…

Sepia pharaonis, male on the left, female on the right Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Check it out: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is an Anglo-American secular charitable organization that is in the process of being set up. They have a long list of causes they will support—science and education on the top of the list, but also many other traditional charitable…

The Christian group that spread the initial rumor that Steve Irwin had been "born again" shortly before his death has retracted the claim. But as encouraging as it might be for Christians to know they may share heaven with Irwin, the group now concedes there is reason to doubt the conversion. The…

Don't be too grossed out, but the University of Wisconsin Madison has put a whole series of high-quality videos of human dissection online. It's extremely cool, but not for the squeamish—there's more than just the sight of a cadaver getting hacked up, and the sound of a saw on bone or a chisel…

ID advocates are prone to brag about their self-professed expertise, which all too often relies on some respectable knowledge of engineering or other fields irrelevant to biology. DaveScot, the raving mad anti-scientist at Uncommon Descent, is a perfect example…but even in their own domains of…

It is so predictable that Michigan candidate for governor Dick DeVos is a Republican and a Christian. "Lots of intelligent people can disagree about the origins of life. In the end, I believe in our system of local control," he said in a news release Wednesday afternoon. "Local school boards…

First I reported that Palaeos was lost, and then that it might be found, but now it looks like we can safely say it is being reborn. The old version of Palaeos has been at least partially restored, but the really important news is that a Palaeos wiki has been set up and people are working on…

This is what I like to see: high school science teachers blogging. Particularly when, in this new blog, Beautiful Biology, the teacher stands up for good science. That's exactly how it should work. Biology teachers should teach evolution unapologetically, and when clueless parents protest, they…

I can't tell if this is funny or not, because even humorous presentations of GW Bush make me want to snarl. I leave it to you to judge.

These six medical professionals: Ashraf al-Hajuj Valya Chervenyashka Snezhana Dimitrova Nasya Nenova Valentina Siropulo Kristiyana Valtcheva were working at the al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Banghazi, Libya in the late 1990s. A year later, about 400 children were diagnosed with HIV; the doctors…

Say hello to Selam, or DIK-1-1, a new and very well preserved member of the family discovered in Dikika, Ethiopia. She belongs to the species Australopithicus afarensis and is being called Lucy's little sister. She was only a toddler when she died about 3.3 million years ago, and from the teeth…

Whoa…faux-Seussian poetry, fairly nice animation, all in the service of a dumb, dead idea: The Watchmaker. It's a rather elaborate setup for Paley's watchmaker argument that starts with an imaginary animated analogy of glass and metal condensing to spontaneously form a watch, and then compares the…

Wheee, I'm going to zip into New York again next week. I'm flying in on Monday to talk at the Inspiration Festival on Tuesday. I'm on the Seed slate with: Chris Mooney - Washington Correspondent, Seed Magazine Lisa Randall - Professor of Physics, Harvard University Natalie Jeremijenko - Design…