pharyngula

I saw the movie Contagion last night — it's good, but chilling. You are at the mercy of viruses that are evolving far faster than we are, and our lives depend on the luck of our genetics, the random permutations of recombination in pathogens, a bit on our efforts in hygiene and social practices,…

It's a conference, in Oregon, and it's about The Future of Evo-Devo, all wonderful things, and it's on 10-12 February — right in the thick of the traditional Darwin Day hoopla, the days when I'm like a big egg-laying bunny at Easter. I'm already booked for Pullman, Washington, then Florida, then…

Ever want to look at the recurrent laryngeal nerve in a giraffe? Now you can. Richard Dawkins Demonstrates Laryngeal Nerve of... by blindwatcher (Also on FtB)

It's hard to believe, but yes, there are Christians who are even worse than Ken Ham, and even more ignorant. Here's one: Pastor Don Elmore of Union, Kentucky. He's written a revealing screed against Answers in Genesis. It starts gently enough, chatting about their rapid growth and praising AiG for…

Remember when Facebook started censoring the pages of breastfeeding women? They were removing photos that showed…nipple. It was a violation of the TOS! If they didn't hold the line on nudity, they were on a slippery slope to open pornography. Think of the children! And most importantly, they were…

There was one in Indianopolis, and snarky people attended. I would think that at best they'd have a succession of people standing up at a lectern, looking shamefaced and confused before shrugging and sitting down with nothing to say, but apparently it went on for days. This description of one…

(Also on FtB)

…and the prize goes to Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman for their work on the innate immune system, the components of resistance that are evolutionarily older than the adaptive immune system (antibodies, T cells, all that stuff). The innate immune system includes all the…

I think this new birth control method will face the same problem they all do: the wacky abstinence-only crowd will reject it. But then I had a brilliant idea: instead of making it with a homeopathic dilution of fetuses, I'm going to market a birth control pill made homeopathically from…

Seriously, half the time I don't know where I am. I got a call last night from this madman, Scooter of KPFT, asking if I'd be available to do a radio show in Houston on Thursday, and I said, "Thursday? I'm not going to be in Texas this week, am I?" and he says, "Yes, you are" and I go "Huh? Whuh? I…

I'm afraid Ben Cochran is one of them. He's a nursing student who wrote a column in a newspaper because he was upset at the time it took for the emergency medical services at his local clinic to help him with his sneezy, phlegmy cold (which, I would have told him, is going to put a low priority on…

(via GrindTV) (Also on FtB)

It's all about geeky mathy sciencey love, the finest kind of them all. And of course Fourier transforms are fantastically beautiful! (Also on FtB)

Among the many joys plaguing me recently is learning that I get to teach, for the first time for me and for the first time at my university, I get to teach a course in cancer biology this spring term. I'm not totally unprepared for this — I was on a cancer training grant for about 5 years, got some…

(via National Geographic) (Also on FtB)

I am so bogged down in work…I'm clinging on to the faint hope of liberation as all my deadlines are past next Tuesday (and they will be met! They must!), but until then, I'm thoroughly tied up and sweating over a gazillion things that have to be finished right now. So blogging will be light for a…

Brilliant! This will balance the budget…and leave me unemployed. (Also on FtB)

The Nobel Prizes start getting awarded next week, so now is the time to make your predictions in a contest to win an iPad2. I'm afraid, though, I've already got a lock on it: I'm predicting that Walt Brown and Bob Enyart, the most brilliant scientific minds ever, are going to win it this year.…

Steven Pinker has a new book coming out next week, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It is titled The Better Angels Of Our Nature: How Violence Has Declined, and its premise is that humans have been becoming increasingly less violent over time. I'm very sympathetic to this view: I think…

We've got another chittering weasel of a creationist raving in the comments, a fellow going by the name YesYouNeedJesus. He's also sending me email. PZ, I first heard about you on Bob Enyart's radio show about the fact that you turned down an offer to debate Bob. I must say that my first impression…

(via National Geographic (Also on FtB)

You can download the app today for £9.99…and the price of your iPad, of course, but all the cool kids have one of those already. Dang, I was feeling so special because I had the book on Friday and the rest of America wasn't going to have it until 4 October, and now it turns out I was only 3 days…

Good news, everyone! The dire predictions of the IPCC about the effects of CO2 have been found to be wrong. (I expect that's all the denialists will tell you.) The bad news is that the actual observations are showing that the IPCC predictions were too conservative, and that the pace of climate…

This is the way to help save endangered species: encourage humans to reproduce less. The Center for Biological Diversity is distributing Endangered Species Condoms as part of their 7 Billion and Counting campaign to increase awareness of the effects of overpopulation. More non-procreative…

This is some unbelievably obtuse commentary on creationism from Andrew Brown. After noting that the proportion of creationists in the population is very large, and that many people will assent to the proposition that the earth is around 10,000 years old, he proceeds to place the blame. This is…

They are utterly adorable, and I feel the stirrings of the maternal impulse deep in my mantle. The way their little bodies bob as they swim…awww, for cute. (via Deep Sea News) (Also on FtB)

(Also on FtB)

What a curious phenomenon: this is a video of the notorious Fox Effect, in which an actor pretended to be an expert and babbled fluff and nonsense at an audience of psychiatrists, and they sat and swallowed it and came away with an impression that the speaker was competent. I knew the content was…

Tonight, at 8pm ET, the cast of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe will be bracing themselves with caffeine for their overwhelming plan to saturate the world with a non-stop 24 hour live program. I think it's a kind of anti-homeopathy: they'll be delivering a super-concentrated dose of an…

The court-required month-long psychiatric evaluation of Dennis Markuze is complete, and the diagnosis is "Bi-polar, compounded by alcohol and substance abuse". He is now in a substance abuse rehab center, with another court date scheduled for 2 December. It sounds like he was a bigger mess than I…