retrospectacle | January 30, 2007Nancy Pelosi apparently had a Q&A session with a few dozen bloggers after being sworn in as House Speaker, and has hired a full-time staff member who's job is blogger outreach!! This is big--the Speaker of the House is conferring a sense of legitimacy to bloggers as a news source and important voice to woo in "new media." Even if no science bloggers were included (hey, we care about politics too!), it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Pelosi is also launching a blog of her own.
"They've gone from an initial writing blogs off, then moving to skepticism, then moving to, 'OK, maybe…
retrospectacle | January 29, 2007A law and economics professor at Vanderbilt, Dr. Joni Hersch, has recently published an interesting paper comparing the incomes of 2,084 legal immigants to the USA to their skin tone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, persons with lighter skintones were found to make more money on average than darker-skinned persons; in fact, 8-15% more. Taller immigrants made more than shorter ones, with a 1% increase in income for every extra inch of height.
Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin,…
retrospectacle | January 29, 2007I was in kindergarten when the Challenger......"happened." Its hard to know what to say to describe it: "malfunctioned" sounds so mechanical and impersonal, "exploded" sounds vulgar......what then? As a 6 year old, I certainly didn't know or comprehend, and 21 years later I really haven't come up with a better answer. Sure, there's *explanations,* the government has proffered the faulty O-ring as culprit. But, the end of the Challenger was a bigger event akin to Kennedy's death and 9/11. People remember where they were, how they heard, how they felt, what they saw. It was one of those rare…
retrospectacle | January 29, 2007If you won a million dollars, what would you do?
This is a common and fun daydream to have which represents freedom to most people--being independently wealthy is the American dream. Would you share that wealth or hoard it greedily? I think most people would like to believe that if they received a sudden windfall, they would share some. But actually, this altruism is probably just an illusion, as demonstrated by a series of experiments by American and Canadian behavioral researchers recently published in Science (Vohs et al 2006). While being wealthy reduces feelings of dependence on others…
retrospectacle | January 26, 2007This weekend at UM Neuro, we're getting our first group of interviewees to the PhD program. I usually volunteer to host a "recruit" because, not only do you get to meet interesting people, you get a slew of fancy dinners all paid for by the program! Woohooo! It is a bit intensive for the host though, the trips to the airport, and taking home of leftovers, the free hockey tickets. One catch though, the department won't pay for booze. I suppose its completely reasonable, I mean federal funds and all that. And we wouldn't be wanting to make those major decisions, oh like where to go to grad…
retrospectacle | January 26, 2007 AIDS groups are complaining that Viagra promote unsafe sex, but I wonder what they'd think about these official NYC condoms? What seems like a funny concept is actually part of Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to reduce the spread of STDs by giving free condoms. And we *all* know that its the packaging that really matters in deciding on your choice of free condom!
New York hands out 1.5 million free condoms each month, or about 18 million a year. Hundreds of organizations get free condoms from the city and distribute them at health clinics, bars, restaurants, nail salons, nightclubs and even…
retrospectacle | January 25, 2007This is just strange. How did it go on for so long?
An investigation of suspected brain harvesting within Maine's medical examiner's office has ended without any criminal charges, state and federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
At least 99 brains were sent from the medical examiner's office to the Stanley Institute, which uses its brain bank for research on the causes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, from 1999 to 2003. More than a dozen families have sued, alleging the brains were removed without their consent.
The lawsuits in Maine target the Stanley Institute; Dr. E. Fuller Torrey,…
retrospectacle | January 24, 2007
Japanese marine biologists came across a rare frilled shark, which was sick and had moved to shallow waters. These sharks are considered "living fossils" as they haven't changed much for millions of years. They usually live around 2000-3000 feet deep, and this is the first time a live one has been caught on tape since being discovered in the 19th century.
Observation: this is the second very rare, undocumented sea creature that Japanese scientists have videotaped, along with the Giant Squid a few weeks ago.
An interesting factiod:
Reproduction is not well understood, but like many other…
retrospectacle | January 24, 2007
The first time I went to SFN (Society for Neuroscience meeting), I was in awe of the "rep section" in the enormous conference center. An area the size of a football field was filled with over-educated salespeople trying to entice researchers to peruse their wares: the newest microscope, RNAi technology, custom-made antibodies. They were all set up, amidst the research posters, a veritable smorgasbord of free crap bearing company logos. Sometimes this stuff was really nice: I've acquired some decent pens, bags, single issues of journals, laser pointers, and sundry other bric-a-brac from these…
retrospectacle | January 23, 2007In case you haven't heard, the north and midwest has been hit by a frigid ice storm which has covered the entire city with thick layers of ice. A bit dangerous, but really beautiful to look at if you have the misfortune to be outside. The below pictures are a few that my friend Jenni took (thanks!).
(More below the fold....)
retrospectacle | January 23, 2007
If Kazakhstan wants to clean up its image (remember how much they protested about "Borat"?), they might want to curb the rampant parrot-smuggling-by-Audi practices going on.
Kazakh border guards arrested a man trying to smuggle 500 parrots in his car from neighbouring Uzbekistan, media reported on Tuesday.
"Border guards discovered a live cargo of 500 parrots in his car," Kazakhstan Today news agency quoted a KNB security service official as saying.
It was unclear how the parrots fitted into the Kazakh man's Audi. Trade in wild parrots is banned around the world, according to the U.N.…
retrospectacle | January 22, 2007Its a bit overdue, but I wanted to address the second point in regards to "An Inconvenient Truth"---whether or not carbon off-sets do any good and whether Al Gore is hypocritical for using jets (which pollute) to attend meetings, etc. This issue was first raised over at my SciBling's blog Stoat, during his review of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." During that review he said:
How would we stop global warming? Since Gore fervently believes in it, clearly we should - emulate his lifestyle! Yes thats right, fly around the world and visit all kinds of interesting places. Um. Maybe not so…
retrospectacle | January 22, 2007I once had a friend who's dog, Cuddles, *loved* beer. Cuddles would beg and whine if anyone had a cold tasty brew in the room. You can imagine how that scernio usually ended up: "Hey guys, watch what Cuddles can do!" It always seemed like a waste of good (or even bad) beer to me, but apparently a lot of people in the Netherlands don't think so.
After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold bottle of beer.
So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt.
"Once a year…
retrospectacle | January 22, 2007Hillary Clinton is a smart, capable politician. Yet, she also is the cause for quite a bit of division. There's not a lot of people who are lukewarm on Mrs. Clinton, most people either love her or hate her. She's got the positive connotations from her husband's presidency on her side, yet that comes with baggage as well. She's says she's in it to win, but America might not be ready for Hillary. Either way, Hillary Clinton will have made history, as this is the closest any woman will have gotten to being President. I give her much kudos for her guts and determination.
So how's she doing next…
retrospectacle | January 21, 2007Previously I've blogged about transfat (see this for a summary of the fat), trying to consider whether a ban on the fat in New York was a question of liberty. Also I attempted to highlight just how awful this food-additive really is for your health. Another serious health concern tied to transfat consumption had now been linked to reduced fertility in women seeking to become pregnant.
In the study, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston looked at 18,500 women trying to conceive and found 438 cases of ovulatory problems.
The scientists found that those who took two per…
retrospectacle | January 19, 2007While reading a cute (but poorly-written) human interest piece on an African Grey named Valentine, something caught my eye. The author touched upon a particular behavior that Valentine was exhibiting: babbling.
Valentine is the color of an overcast day. His tail is scarlet. He recently started mumbling, whispering to himself, which means he'll be saying words and sentences soon.
People of all ages, from elderly women with permed hair to teens with attitudes and ripped clothes - all say the same thing: "Well, helllloooo. Aren't you a pretty bird? Helllloooo. Hello. Say 'hello.' "
Valentine…
retrospectacle | January 19, 2007So, I went to the Detroit Auto Show last night, which was awesome! The Auto Show is perhaps one of the coolest things about living near Detroit (and there's not many), so I usually try to go during the two weeks its open to the public. I'm a big car enthusiast, and while that interest is 99% geared towards car manufactured pre-1970, that other 1% keeps me drooling over the chromiest, vroomist rides the big D has to offer. Now, when I walk into the show, the first thing on my mind is "Ok, where's the Mustangs??" I usually make a beeline for the Ford setup, giggle and clap my hands over the…
retrospectacle | January 18, 2007 What's a kakariki? Other than an incredibly cool-sounding name, its a kind of parrot that lives in New Zealand and thereabouts. Apparently, the red-crowned kakariki is an extremely rare subspecies, one of which has recently been spotted on the island of Maungatautari. It was once believed to be extinct, outside of aviaries.
Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust chief executive Jim Mylchreest said he had received reports of possibly several of the birds on the mountain.
"We've got an excellent photo of one of the birds and we had another report that three of the birds were seen up there…
retrospectacle | January 18, 2007I came across a fascinating post over at Econobrowser about the striking correlations between a) and area's wealth and its proximity to oceans and rivers and b) an islands wealth and the time it spent as a European colony. Needless to say, both are positively correlated. Below the fold is a map of "global weath" as a function of GDP per kilometer. Interesting stuff, and very telling about the burgeoning economies of several notable "developing" nations. But how does this line up with global pollution?
(Click below the fold to view global wealth map and pollution map.)
This map assigns a…