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Why Do Republicans Like Cracked in the Head Candidates?

When Senator George "Macacawitz" Allen of Virginia was still considered a viable presidential candidate, I asked this question: Can we please have presidential candidates who are not psychological basketcases? ... Is it possible for the Republicans to nominate someone who is not cracked in the head? Please? Just in case. If the support for Giuliani is any indication, the answer is definite "no": First way: Rudy genuinely doesn't realize that taking a phone call in the middle of a speech is rude. But this suggests a lack of emotional intelligence so stunning that even I don't think Rudy is…

Some Sunday Links

Happy Belated Evacuation Day! Here are some links for you. The sciency stuff: There's been some interest in a guy named Michael Egnor who said some silly things about evolution. The Mad Biologist chimed in too. Afarensis used Egnor's IDiocy to have a very nice discussion about tooth decay. Octopus eyes: learn all about 'em. RPM discusses a new phylogenetics term: the clan. Are drug prices too high? ScienceBlogling Abel Pharmboy wonders what we can do about that. Revere defends open-access publishing. Here's a neat post about Soay sheep, one of the cooler ecological model systems out…

We Need Journalists, but Not These Journalists: The Bartiromo-Medicare Edition

I'll have more to say about the first part of the post header tomorrow (hopefully), but this exchange between Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, a proponent of a Medicare-for-All public option, and CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo is mind-boggling: At one point, Bartiromo was critical of the government-managed health care system in the United Kingdom. "How do I know the quality [of health care in the United States] is not going to suffer" with a public option? she asked. Rep. Weiner reminded her that there already is government-managed health care in the United States -- namely, Medicare,…

Action Alert: HR 669 Fact Sheet

tags: HR669, pets, exotic animals, invasive species, politics [larger view] Feel free to download, email, print and distribute or post this fact sheet among your friends, colleagues, and the pet stores that you patronize. The text of this poster states: HR 669 prohibits what YOU can do with your pet bird (or other exotic animals). You may NOT take your pet bird (or other exotic animals) if you move to another state [Section 6(a)(2)] or country [Section 6(a)(1)] You may NOT travel across state lines on vacation with your pet bird (or other exotic animals) [Section 6(a)(2)] NOTE:…

"Reefer blindness"

The US public just doesn't get this terrorist threat business, according to John P. Wlaters, the President's drug czar: The nation's top anti-drug official said people need to overcome their "reefer blindness" and see that illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety, as well as to the environment. John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties. Walters made the comments at a Thursday press…

Science---the only way to view reality

Science is the investigation of reality. Reality is, by definition, everything. It is all we can see, all we can measure. It is, for all practical purposes, a god; it is omnipresent, omnipotent. The only tool that successfully measures and describes reality is science (including mathematics). So why the desire to placate theologians and theocrats in scientific discussions? What can religion offer the exploration of reality? The only thing it has to offer is a potentially consistent moral code; and that isn't unique to religion. Religion can offer beauty, song, art, poetry, fellowship…

I was right!

People with good reasoning skills don't fall for stupid things like spun arguments and advertising. I always suspected that if we taught a basic reasoning class in public schools in which kids were taught about logic and critical thinking it might lead to a decrease in the efficacy of advertisement. Reasoning abilities are influenced by intelligence and socioeconomic status, but they are also skills that can be learned and honed with practice, says a "decision scientist" at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Many people are affected by the way that information is framed, marketed or…

Next Science Cafe Raleigh: Think Globally - Eat Locally

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A Location: The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 833-8898 Think Globally - Eat Locally How much do you know about the food you eat? Were pesticides applied? Do you know where it was grown and how far it traveled to get to you? How much did its transportation contribute to global warming? What can we do to bring about the revival of locally produced foods and all the benefits they bring - better taste, nutrition, stronger local economies and relationships with local farmers, reduced…

open access at Harvard

Will Harvard junior faculty publish first author Nature papers now? I have to confess that with the experience of arXiv.org I am continually bemused by the fervour over open access in the rest of academia. Now, I gather, Harvard has passed a faculty resolution mandating open access for all faculty scholarly publications - with faculty being asked to deposit PDF files with the library which will provide open access (I hope they are sensible and buy the arXiv archiving tools). So what? In astronomy, physics and math this is a non-issue, since essentially all journals that matter grant arxiv.org…

InCROIable conference coverage!

Scientific conferences are so cool :-D It s bunch of really smart people getting together to pow-wow about a common interest, sharing their newest data, brainstorming new ideas, trouble-shooting, arguing, finding new collaborators-- its just so friggen cool :-D Unfortunately, us smaller labs can only budget for one/a couple of these a year, so I am missing out on the 2011 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections :( Its also kind of a downer that Average Joes/Janes arent really allowed to come, not that most people could take a week off work to attend anyway. Lucky for us…

Make the Hugos Better

Worldcon is less than two weeks off, which means that it's time once again for the SF part of blogdom to explode with complaints about the quality of the nominees. There are some reasonable reactions, but it's mostly slightly over-the-top broadsides. It's worth emphasizing again that the source of the problem is also the solution to the problem: the Hugo Awards are voted on by fans. This means that they tend to skew to the middlebrow, true, but it also means that they can be fixed, in a way that, say, the Oscars really can't. If you don't like the stuff that gets nominated for the Hugos, buy…

Links for 2009-12-12

Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border Boing Boing With information on how to donate to his legal defense. (tags: canada sf law blogs crime US stupid) The Good and Bad of the New Hubble Image : Starts With A Bang Earlier this week, I showcased the newly-released Hubble Ultra Deep Field in the infrared, and compared it with the older image of the same region taken in visible light. As many astute readers noticed, the newer image looks blurrier than the old one! This is true, and there's a good reason for this. (tags: science astronomy galaxies…

Death by chocolate

If you've been following the wars in Africa, you already know that there's at least one other powderkeg besides Libya — Côte d'Ivoire, which is struggling with a disputed succession and roving gangs of angry young men with guns. The Nation has an excellent summary of the problems in Côte d'Ivoire, and unfortunately it's all about chocolate. Also unfortunately, although American bombs have been involved in the Libyan conflict, Côte d'Ivoire has also been afflicted with American intervention — in this case, by the corporate power of agribusiness, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). At the…

Back again (from Africa no less) - and apologies for the absence.

Just saw the tally on the blog, and it seems that the last time I wrote here was well over two months ago. Well, most of that has to do with a trip to Ibadan, Nigeria, and an extended bout with jet lag, but I'm back into the blogging mood again. To start with, I thought I'd have a hand at a Harper's Index type post, detailing some of the things I saw and discovered at my trip. Also take a gander at some of photos I took below. - - - Some points to consider. Topic of workshop delivered by author of post (and his colleague Joanne Fox) - Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics; Number of…

Kellermann's case-control study on gun ownership and homicide

Edgar Suter writes: Dr. Kellermann's subsequent research "finding" that a gun in the home increases risk used a method that cannot distinguish between "cause" and "effect." Kellermann's illogical conclusion would be like finding more insulin in the homes of diabetics and so concluding that insulin "causes" diabetes. Interestingly Kellermann's own data show that when a homeowner is killed only rarely is the "gun in the home" the instrument of the homeowner's death. Untrue. See table 1 of the paper. How then can the gun "cause" the death? Does the gun magnetize murderers to the homeowner's…

The PharmacoScientific Creation of Well-Being

Neuroskeptic offers an elegant unpeeling of a study seeming specifically designed to find a marketing-friendly distinction for a drug -- Abilify -- otherwise undistinguished. Suppose you were a drug company, and you've invented a new drug. It's OK, but it's no better than the competition. How do you convince people to buy it? You need a selling point - something that sets your product apart. Fortunately, with drugs, you have plenty of options. You could look into the pharmacology - the chemistry of how your drug works in the body - and find something unique there. Then, all you need to do is…

Skepticards for the hopeful godless

Those fine folks behind Skepticon are already planning ahead to the next event, and have begun fundraising so they can keep the convention cheap to attend. They are smart people. However, the way they're trying to raise a little cash now is by selling Valentine's Day cards. Don't they know that godless skeptics are heartless, cold, unfeeling people who don't know what love is? Anyway, if you choose to buy some for amusement — you know, so you can aloofly ponder in a detached, intellectual way the strange rituals of these emotional hu-mans — you know where to go. You can put custom messages in…

An ethical dilemma!

It's hard not to crack a cheerful smile at this story, but do try to take it seriously. A coven of Westboro Baptist anti-gay kooks went off to protest outside a soldier's funeral in Oklahoma, and returned to their car to find their tires slashed. When they drove into town on the flat tires anyway, to try and get them repaired, they were refused any help at all. There's a grim part of me that feels a kind of satisfaction at that, I'll admit. But I think it was wrong. Don't harm the WBC cretins no matter how awfully they prance. Do not vandalize their possessions. Don't even threaten them. Even…

Only government approved labs can do experiments, see?

A retired chemist has had his home lab confiscated in Maryland because a government official was scared of it. Sayeth Robert Thompson: Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for Marlboro, stated, "I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation." Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman's words into plain English: "Mr. Deeb hasn't actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don't like what he's doing because I'm ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I'll abuse my power to steal his…

The "Party" of Fiscal "Responsibility"

It has been a party, sure enough; more like an exercise in Bacchinalian debauchery.   href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201653.html?hpid=topnews">Changes Spurred Buying, Abuses By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page A01 ...Congress created the GSA's buying program in 1949 to make it easier for the burgeoning federal bureaucracy to buy furniture, office supplies and other products. The government sought to leverage its position as the world's leading buyer to get the…

Danielle is back UPDATE

Danielle is a hurricane again. Not real well organized but showing signs of getting its act together, Danielle will likely continue to strengthen for a couple/few days, remain a hurricane for a couple of days, then start weakening in about five days. This is all going to happen out in the middle of the Atlantic, which is, of course, where Bermuda is. But, there are no coastal warnings in effect now. The other system that has been forming A number, "7", has been given to the system that has been developing in the vicinity of the Cape Verde islands is getting better organized and will…

Five Questions About Health Care Reform - with Answers

Have five minutes to spare? Then read on: If you are interested in the reform of health care funding I recommend this article by the economist Arnold Kling. I don't agree with all of his ideas, such as citizens petitioning a "compensation fund" (run by government workers, I assume - yikes!) for reimbursement of medical expenses related to what Kling calls "tragic medical conditions." As Kling writes: In determining the size of the lump-sum payment, the compensation fund would take into account the typical cost of treating such a person. However, other factors also would come into play.…

Lança-perfume (Resistoleros, Carnival, inhalants, and why your airplane glue stinks)

Inhalants are ubiquitous illegal drugs of abuse and a public health problem worldwide. Most lipophilic solvents have some kind of neurotoxicity (some gas anaesthetics, in fact, work based mainly on their lipophilicity, and are only special because of lower toxicity). Unavoidably, we find these in glue and, memorably, spray paint. As far as I know, in the States, you have to be 18 just about anywhere to buy spray paint (because of graffiti, as well as inhalant abuse) and solvent-based glues (because of inhalant abuse). One thing you'll probably cover if you ever take a business ethics class is…

The end of the deCODEme personal genomics service?

This piece in Newsweek is a neat summary of the rise and fall of Icelandic genomics giant deCODE Genetics. Regular readers of Genetic Future will be aware that the company has been steadily bleeding capital ever since its launch over a decade ago, and recently declared formal bankruptcy. Since then the company has been bought up by US-based company Saga Investments. (For an excellent analysis of the implications of this sale, see Dan Vorhaus' post on Genomics Law Report.) A reader emailed me to point out that buried towards the end of the Newsweek article is an ominous paragraph for…

The Original Jocks

by Katie the Lowly Intern You might recall this gentle soul who got her face gnawed off by a chimp in February. I won't even begin to sift through the big ball of bizarre that story is, but it does lead to an interesting discussion concerning exactly where apes get enough strength to go around mauling humans. Biologists agree that a great ape's muscle structure is better, faster, stronger than our measly muscles. However, Alan Walker, a professor of Biology at Penn State just published an article in Current Anthropology that looks at another possible contributing factor. He makes the…

Will Rock Band and Guitar Hero Foster New Musicians?

Well, at least Stevie Van Zandt and Britain's Youth Music seem to think so. A recent article in The Times refers to research by Youth Music indicating that the games have prompted upwards of 2.5 million children to take up musical instruments. I'm skeptical. No doubt the games are a lot of fun for people who can't play a musical instrument and they're probably preferable to your average shoot-em-up. Further, it's a decent wager that they do pique interest to the point where the kiddies bug mom and dad to buy them a guitar or a drum kit. But these games, while they mimic real instruments, are…

McCain on autism

Shorter John McCain: I'm such a great advocate for special needs kids that I think autism is the same as Down syndrome. Actual quote: "parents come with kids, children -- precious children who have autism. Sarah Palin knows about that better than most." The rest of John McCain's debate performance roughly matched that level of sensibleness. Bonus shorter McCain: Barack Obama is being disrespectful to veterans in questioning the morals of my supporters who call for Obama's political assassination. In other news, John McCain didn't have the courage to either repeat the claim that Obama pals…

A systematic approach to melanoma mutations

Metastatic melanoma tumors. Left exhibits low or absent expression of RASA2 and reduced survival, typical of about 35% of patients. The sample on the right exhibits high RASA2 expression and increased survival Rates of melanoma are increasing, even as the rates of other common cancers are decreasing. According to the Melanoma Research Alliance, it is the most common cancer diagnosis in young adults 25-29 years old in the United States, the second most common cancer in young people 15-29, and its incidence has tripled in the last 30 years. What are we doing about it? The Weizmann Institute’…

TEDxLibrariansTO Countdown Questions: Day 3: On humbleness

Following on from the last two days, here are my answers for today's TEDxLibrariansTO Coundown Questions: Question 1: How can experience of failure contribute to making an effective thought leader? Failure is useful for a thought leader in the same way that it's useful for everyone. We can learn a lot from our failures: how to dust ourselves off and start over, how to rethink what we've done before and learn from our mistakes, how to put what we do in a larger interpersonal, organizational and social context. After all, just as we rarely succeed alone, we also rarely fail alone. Sure, the…

Iranian HIV doctors victims of witch hunt

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure Last week we alerted you to a gross miscarriage of justice involving two doctors in Iran. Many of you responded by calling the Mission of Iran at the UN and signing a petition. I wish I could report good news in this update, but so far what we have heard is not encouraging. From an email from Physicians for Human Rights USA: I wanted to send you an urgent update on the case of Drs Kamiar and Arash Alaei. We still do not have a verdict in the case, but have released a press statement this evening in response to reports out of Iran today that are very…

Geronimo's Skull & Bones

It's funny sometimes being a Yale graduate with my upbringing--a blue-collar, middle-class kid from rural America. One thing in particular I just never quite got was the whole secret society thing. As such, it's been a bit amusing to see all the attention they've gotten in the years since my graduation. The Skulls came out in 2000, trading on the name of Yale's most prominent "secret" society, Skull and Bones. A few years later, a classmate wrote Secrets of the Tomb, an exposé of Skull and Bones. And then, of course, the Skull and Bones memberships of both George W. Bush (and his…

Clifton Leaf: "a legal frenzy that's diverting scientists from doing science"

It's Sunday morning on the US East Coast and I really need to put the computer down to get out for a hike in the crisp, autumn air. Sunday morning is a great time to catch up on long-form writing but I won't be the one providing it for you. Instead, I encourage you to take 15 minutes this morning to read an "old" (2005) article in Fortune magazine entitled, The Law of Unintended Consequences, by Clifton Leaf in Fortune magazine. This article details the impact of a 1980 amendment to US patent and trademark law put forth by Senator Bob Dole and the senior Senator Bayh, Birch. The Bayh-Dole…

4S Day One

It's always strange to go to a conference outside of your own primary research area. This conference had a lot of historians and philosophers as well as social scientists in every other category including media studies and information science.  I was in a couple sessions in which the presenter read from a marked up paper, clutched in their hands in a bundle.  I understand that's the norm in some fields, but there's no way I'm going to waste my time listening to someone read aloud when I could read the article for myself in half the time. There were some real highlights of the day.  A couple…

Welcome, visitor number 13,986!

I completely missed it: a rather momentous occasion in the life of this blog. The ScienceBlogs.com version of Terra Sigillata just passed the traffic volume of the old site on Wednesday, 20 Sept at 9:14 pm EDT with a visitor from Arlington, MA, USA. Visitor 13,986 must be a regular reader because they came directly here, not even through the ScienceBlogs frontpage from which I derive almost 20% of my traffic. So, while it took just over nine months to reach almost 14,000 visitors at the old blog (although I haven't had a new post there since June), we got to 14,000 here in the new digs in…

Everything at once, or, one thing at a time?

Untitled (Everything at once, or one thing at a time?), 2004 oil, paper, and printed matter on board Robert Van Vranken Commissioned by the National Academy of Science This is my favorite artwork at the National Academy of Science - a trompe l'oeil window of reclaimed architectural elements, peering into a scientist's study. Artist Robert Van Vranken includes books, globe, tools, diagrams, a light bulb, a comfy chair, and a panoramic view - this is a cluttered mind as much as a laboratory/studio, and to think about "everything at once or one thing at a time" is the eternal dilemma of the…

Dodgy News Limited survey

A news.com.au story asserts "Australians would re-elect Prime Minister John Howard in a landslide if votes were cast purely on policy - not personality or party loyalty - according to the first results from a "blind voting" tool developed by NEWS.com.au." Almost 35,200 of the 72,300 participants who have completed the Vote-a-matic were matched with the Coalition, compared with 28,700 participants who were identified as a fit with Kevin Rudd's Labor Party. A further 6700 participants have been matched with the Democrats, while around 1700 went to the Greens and 175 to Family First. The trends…

Maybe He Was Talking About Ducks

A mini furor erupted this weekend, when republican Senate nominee Todd Akin defended his position of denying abortions even to victims of rape, because in the case of "legitimate rape," women have biological defenses that prevent pregnancy: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The liberal blogosphere went nuts, and the story was picked up by all the national media outlets, and even Mitt Romney decided…

The Vision of Scienceblogs

Did you know that Scienceblogs has a vision statement? It might be hard to find. You have to scroll alllllllll the way down to the very bottom of any page on the network, and click About Scienceblogs. Here is what it says: Science is driving our conversation unlike ever before. From climate change to intelligent design, HIV/AIDS to stem cells, science education to space exploration, science is figuring prominently in our discussions of politics, religion, philosophy, business and the arts. New insights and discoveries in neuroscience, theoretical physics and genetics are revolutionizing our…

I need a little rock help

Maybe this isn't that mysterious. However, quite some time ago my daughter found this rock in the backyard. First, you must understand that this is an odd occurrence. In this part of Louisiana, there really aren't any rocks, just dirt. When she showed it to me, I readily dismissed it as some lava rock from someone's garden. That was the end of the story until a year later when she found it again. This time, I held it and realized it was way too dense to be a a normal lava rock. Holding it up to a magnet, I found that there was some interaction. Skip forward a little bit of time. I had…

The "Last Three Books" Meme

Via Tor.com, a meme that I thought looked really interesting. What were the last three genre books that you purchased? Why did you purchase them? And do they feel comfortable together? Daniel Abraham,The Price of Spring (The Long Price Quartet): This is the conclusion to Abraham's Long Price Quartet, which is a wonderful set of novels. Each volume of the quartet is a self-contained story - but the pieces also fit together into a larger story-arc. The volumes each take place over the course of a season, and each is separated by about 20 years. It's fantasy with very rare but…

Annals of peanut butter: from Texas to Colorado

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure The plant in Blakely, Georgia that was the apparent source of the salmonella peanut butter outbreak didn't make peanut butter for retail consumption. It made bulk peanut butter and peanut butter paste which became an ingredient in many other products. The number of products is now around 2000, the largest product recall in US history. So if you bought peanut butter retail you're safe, right? Not so fast. The Peanut Corporation of America (RIP; filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Friday) owned another plant in the Texas panhandle. Maybe you didn't know…

The Year in Music

It's that time of year again, when everybody who has the slightest interest in pop culture starts making "Year's Best" lists. I'm usually at a major disadvantage when it comes to this sort of thing, as I can never really remember when any particular album was released, and I buy a lot of stuff that isn't new, so I end up associating all sorts of songs with a given year that aren't really eligible to be the best of that particular year. Technology has come to my rescue, though, in the form of iTunes, which lets me sort songs by rating and year of release. It's not foolproof (somehow, it claims…

Global warming insurance

One of the best ways to illustrate the growing societal consensus on global warming is the reaction of businesses. An alliance of conservation groups, car makers, utilities and industrial manufacturers is backing a system of cap and trade which would reduce allowable carbon emissions over several years, and create a market in efficiency and carbon reduction. The new owners of a utility in Texas scrapped plans for new coal plants and will replace those plans with low-emissions plants which will sequester carbon dioxide and extract energy from coal more efficiently. Other Texas utilities are…

Outrunning the Boom

As you can probably imagine, Eric sometimes has more than a bit to put up with being married to me. One of the things that bothers him the most is that I'm absolutely no fun at movies. If you remember the show MST3K, I'm them - all the time. And just because the movie is supposed to be high art, well, that never did stop me. Early in our marriage we realized that we were both happier if we limited our joint film time to one of two categories - truly great movies, which we both enjoy, or ones bad enough that Eric doesn't mind pitching in on the commentary. There are, of course, far more…

The curious case of broccoli and health reform

by Kim Krisberg Broccoli. A nutritious green veggie of the cabbage family? Or a symbol of the federal government's over-reaching power grab? Like most things in life, it all depends on your perspective. I've been thinking about that word -- broccoli -- since last month's Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of provisions within the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Specifically, I've been pondering this comment from Justice Antonin Scalia during arguments on the ACA's individual insurance mandate: SCALIA: . . . could you define the market -- everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so…

AASA on Religion in Schools

The American Association of School Administrators has devoted an entire issue of The School Administrator to the issue of what is and isn't allowed in terms of religion and public schools. They've invited folks like Charles Haynes to write articles on the subject. Haynes' article contains much good advice: When school leaders ask how they should handle religion in public schools, religious liberty attorney Oliver Thomas begins his answer with this advice: "The time to buy the fire truck is before the fire." As simple as that may sound, it's actually a tough sell in many school districts…

And I, for one, welcome my new Linden overlords

It's been a few days. I was out in West Virginia last weekend watching my cousin get married. After driving back Monday, I started the new job with Linden Labs, and that has been occupying most of my focus. I've spoken at length before (in that and other posts) about why, despite how much I loved the science and the teaching, it was time for me to leave academia. I have asserted, however, that my new job isn't just "rebound" (i.e. me saying, ak! I'm sad! Find me something else!), but actually something that I'm really looking forward to. Why? (Before I go further, I should underscore what'…

Too Much Pink? or, What Should I Be Doing?

My fellow SiBling Dr. Charles has written a post about women and breast cancer that is a gift. Skip the pink ribbons and read what he's written. That dude can tell a story. Dr. Charles quotes Audre Lorde from The Cancer Journals on women with breast cancer as warriors; the patient he's examining has read Lorde and has foregone reconstructive surgery or a prosthesis after her mastectomy. The post ends this way: Regardless of whether a woman replaces that which has been taken from her or decides to go without, she is a noble warrior, tragically drafted into a bitter war. A good war, worth…

My Evolving Corner of Paradise (Values, part III)

When I last left off, I was describing the relationships between values and matter, and how they fit together to form information or a three-dimensional thing. But something seemed missing. Do we really live in something as simple as a three dimensional world? As I mentioned earlier, the string theorists don't think so, and neither do I. For one, things change. My study of Colorado history has given plenty examples of that. Look at Church Ranch, then versus now, or Lillybridge's studio, and the freeway that sits there today. What makes the difference in forms of these places? Time, naturally…

Free Energy From Air? Sorry, no.

After href="http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/the_real_bozo_attempts_to_aton.php">the fiasco that was my flame against the downwind faster than the wind vehicle, you might think that I'd be afraid of touching on more air-powered perpetual motion. You'd be wrong :-). I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself if I stand a chance of learning something in the process - and in this case, it's so obviously bogus that even if I was afraid, the sheer stupidity here would be more than enough to paper over my anxieties. Take a look at this - the good part comes towards the end. What this…