pharyngula

Bad timing! On Wednesday morning, I have a meeting at the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, and then I have to drive to Madison to pick up my son…so I don't think I can possibly be back in time for this: The Ecology Evolution and Behavior seminar on Wednesday, May 10 (4:00 p.m. in 335 Borlaug Hall on the…

One of the hallmark characters of animals is the presence of a specific cluster of genes that are responsible for staking out the spatial domains of the body plan along the longitudinal axis. These are the Hox genes; they are recognizable by virtue of the presence of a 60 amino acid long DNA…

There are quite a few genes that are known to be highly conserved in both sequence and function in animals. Among these are the various Hox genes, which are expressed in an ordered pattern along the length of the organism and which define positional information along the anterior-posterior axis;…

Weep for poor persecuted Kent Hovind. They've shut down Dinosaur Adventure Land. County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county's actions. "Scripture also says 'Render unto Caesar…

The Cambrian vendobiont S. psygmoglena, gen.sp.nov., composite photo of part and counterpart to show both upper and lower surfaces. From the pre-Cambrian and early Cambrian, we have a collection of enigmatic fossils: the small shellies appear to be bits and pieces of partially shelled animals;…

With charts and a zombie!

These darn philosophers—how dare they make you think, even when you disagree with much of what they say? Peter Singer is one of those infuriating people who sometimes sounds so silly, but still makes a strong case. He has an interview in Salon—if you don't want to fuss with their ads, I've put an…

Maybe he's just matching my cynicism, but Tom Tomorrow has been perfect lately.

If you've been wondering where I am today, I'm dyin' here, man. I've been grading freshman essays and quizzes all day long—my eyes are fiery red orbs and my brain is liquefying, but I've only gotten about halfway through the massive pile. This is going to be an agonizing week, I can tell…and it…

You know you've got an interesting blog post when one of your sentences begins, "Two of my favourite corpses…" It's got cute pictures of dead things, too. My favorites were actually collections rather than individuals. One set was in a barn loft owned by my aunt and uncle; apparently, the previous…

Bill O'Reilly is upset that little kids are using profanity, and he has a ludicrously sentimental vision of small town America. OK. That happens every day, all day in the public schools here in New York City. And I know it happens in Chicago and Los Angeles and Boston and Washington, D.C. In any…

I mowed my lawn today. It's the first time this year in what will be the coming weekly ritual. I hate it. Every time, I fantasize about never mowing again…let's rip out this ghastly generic middle-class turf and sow it with wildflowers and the Big Bluestem. This should be prairie, dang it, and it…

Our Seed Overlords have asked a question (our answering is entirely voluntary, if you were wondering, and we're only answering because it is an interesting question): "if you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?" Several…

Julia Sweeney has a new play, "Letting Go of God", and describes her path to atheism. It's different than mine—she was drawn to religion by mystical feelings, and rejected it on intellectual grounds after inspecting it up close, while I've never found any appeal in the mystical or supernatural—so…

Because they can see hacktacular wingnuts as a black hole of insanity.

This is a war between two worldviews, which Skip explains nicely. Here's the short summary. Wisdom Ignorance Biologists love boobies, beavers, and the weenus! Creationists fear boobies, beavers, and the weenus. Which side would you rather be on?

I just noticed…I got a favorable link from Susie Bright! Now I'm going to be insufferably full of myself for a while.

Nice shirt! Unfortunately, it doesn't mean what you think it does. Actually, it's kind of insane.

Watch this short film of Terry Bisson's well-known short story, They are made out of meat. I like the idea, but it was a little off-putting that they used actors made out of meat to play the main characters. There is no shortage of non-meat actors, you know, and there are some CGI functions that…

Yarrgh, but I hate that thing—that animated collection of whirling poop-flecks that the History Channel has inflicted on us with that ad on the right. It's supposed to only show up every 12 hours, and it's supposed to be disabled on browsers where it causes conflicts (like Safari, where it disables…

Octopus maya ¡Viva el Cinco de Mayo! Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Uh-oh. Those Catholic creationists had better watch out: the Vatican thinks they're pagans. Believing that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday. Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in…

Noooooo! I'm a proud graduate of the University of Oregon, and I think Eugene is a wonderful place…and now I learn that damned dumb creationists were drooling stupidly in the student union. Three creationists lectured on their nonsense there. There was Tom Alderman. There is "a mountain of evidence…

Another Tangled Bank is coming up next week at Science Notes. Send those links to science-related blog posts to Mona Albano, me, or host@tangledbank.net by Tuesday! In the meantime, while you're waiting for the Tangled Bank, you can read these other fine carnivals. Animalcules 1.7 Carnival of…

The following missive was slipped over my transom in the dead of night. It reveals a dark secret, a clandestine society that has been working for years to hide their origins and true purpose. It begins with a murder and wends its way through a series of codes that are, as it turns out, reducible…

I suspect Coturnix knew I'd be unable to resist this test, even though once I started answering the questions I found most of them kind of dopey. Even so, I squeaked past his score. The Ardent Atheist The results are in, and it appears that you have scored 76%... You are an atheist, pure…

You know I'm no fan of Richard Cohen. He's not the person I'd go to for some sharp insight or even for the ability to recognize humor, so it should be no surprise that he failed to see the humor in Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Comedy is a…

Various science-deniers at the ID websites were unhappy with me because I said belief in ID was an indicator of incompetence, and that I wouldn't vote to to support tenure and promotion for one of their guys. I think they ought to adopt Florentino Floro as a cause. "They should not have dismissed…

Christopher Hitchens is one of those guys who sometimes takes your breath away with his strong writing, but then a moment later you want to retch as he goes haring off on some sodden militaristic crusade. It's with some sadness that I see that he deserves to be minced by Juan Cole. Although when…

Speaking of too incredibly stupid to be believed, here's a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of the fine state of South Carolina. "I think everything ought to be taught ... and let people decide for themselves. There is no science to support trans-species changes, in other words, a monkey becoming…