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LED Lighting Update

I've long been a fan of href="http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/SSLWhat.htm">LED lighting, thinking that it holds a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16135&z=318&p=1&ch=nanotech">lot of promise for reducing electricity demands.  Early on in the development of light emitting diodes, it became apparent that they produced a lot of light and not a lot of heat per watt of energy used. There have been two persistent problems, though.  One problem is that the light from LEDs comes out in only one color.  The second problem is the cost.    The…

Freshman 3.63 Kg

More headline comparisons: href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/15823690.htm" id="r-1_0">College kids add on pounds past 1st year San Jose Mercury News,  USA - 15 hours ago AP. BOSTON - The "Freshman 15" is more like 5 to 7, but it is followed by the "Sophomore 2 or 3," say researchers who led two of ... id="r-5_0">Freshman 15: Weighty Issues Earthtimes.org - 1 hour ago Although the proverbial 'freshman 15' may be a slight exaggeration, researchers have warned that this could be followed by a 'sophomore 2 or 3' signaling a ...…

Cooking & Science with Ferran Adria: Webcast Tuesday Dec 9th 6:30PM

Here is some info: The world acclaimed chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adria, will discuss the fascinating relationship between modern science and modern cuisine. Adrià, called by Gourmet "the Salvador Dalà of the kitchen," will trace the birth of molecular gastronomy, manipulating the physical and chemical processes of cooking, and then discuss his own adventures in what he calls "molecular cooking." In particular, he will explore the use of hydrocolloids, or "gums" that enable a delicate fruit puree to be transformed into a dense gel, and deconstruct techniques like sferificacion, creating a…

Tired of all the crap from the tube

Joe Biden. How do I feel about the pick? It's okay, nothing to get excited over. At least when Biden attacks McCain, the media will echo it. So we spent the day packing and listening to all the "pundits" on all the MSM websites. It is amazing how vacuous all these shows are. Not one iota of useful information. All sound bites that mean nothing. Listening to all this crap can really fry your brain. Is this why after such a disastrous 8 years McSame is only 2 points behind Obama? And what's up with all this Clinton supporters who are leaning on the fence towards McCain. I know that PP and Gwen…

Guidelines on Memory and the Law

As I mentioned last month, the British Psychological Society (BPS) recently commissioned a report into the implications of memory research for the legal profession. The report, written by the Memory and Law Working Party, a research board established by the BPS and chaired by cognitive psychologist Martin Conway of the University of Leeds, has now been published. The BPS has just issued a set of recommendations based on the report. These guidelines, which are available as a PDF, are intended to inform those who work in criminal and civil law - for example, the police as they try to extract…

Repost - Leading edge localization?

I'm gone camping. Late last week I preprogrammed my blog to repost all these entries on microscopy. Enjoy! I read far too many papers where the author claims that their favorite protein "localizes to the leading edge in migrating cells". Then they show a pretty picture like this one: The problem is that the cell thickens right at the leading edge. So if your protein is freely floating around, there will ALWAYS be more of it (in absolute terms) at the leading edge then in the nearby lamella. To underline this point, the image above is of fluorescent dextran microinjected into the cytoplasm…

Repost - Immunofluorescence - why is color bad

I'm off camping - so this week I'll be posting some old entries on microscopy, enjoy. OK here's a post geared mostly to cell biologists. My big pet peeve about reading the scientific literature is ... colored fluorescent images. Why do people insist on pseudo-coloring their images? I know that you want pretty pictures and as every kid knows the more colorful the picture the more adoration one gets from approving parents ... but we're talking about data and instructing/convincing your fellow peers about new findings. So why is color bad for data presentation? Your eyes are better at…

Nature Precedings and Scintilla

Nature has been busy diving into the "web 2.0". Now it looks as if the folks at Natiure have two new projects for the science masses: - Nature Precedings, a website where people can dump all their spare data, unpublished manuscripts, powerpoint slides, posters, images and where readers can leave comments and even vote on a submission (I think the voting sounds too corny). It looks as if there is minimal peer review. From the site: Submissions are screened by our professional curation team for relevance and quality... The focus is on biology, medicine, chemistry and earth sciences. As an…

Nice Story

From the Metropolitan Diaries section of today's NYTimes: I boarded the 57th Street crosstown bus at York Avenue and, as usual, inserted my senior citizen transit card incorrectly. The driver very kindly took it out of the fare box slot and reversed it before handing it back to me to reinsert. I sat down wondering why I could not master this simple procedure. True, I didn't use city buses regularly, but still ... My seat overlooked the bus entrance, where I could observe boarders doing it right the first time without assistance. The large black bar went on the right, the cutoff corner on the…

Leading edge localization?

... don't bet on it! I read far too many papers where the author claims that their favorite protein "localizes to the leading edge in migrating cells". Then they show a pretty picture like this one: The problem is that the cell thickens right at the leading edge. So if your protein is freely floating around, there will ALWAYS be more of it (in absolute terms) at the leading edge then in the nearby lamella. To underline this point, the image above is of fluorescent dextran microinjected into the cytoplasm of a fibroblast. Dextran is a molecule that is certainly not a marker of the leading…

Short List for Larry Summers' Replacement

From today's Boston Globe: Harvard has whittled down hundreds of nominees for its next president to a small list, including internal candidates and presidents of some of the nation's top universities, according to a source familiar with the process. The source would not give a specific number, but said the university is considering a smaller group than the 30 names that the presidential search committee presented to Harvard's Board of Overseers on Sunday. So who's on the list? On the list of 30 candidates presented to the overseers were three Harvard leaders who worked for Summers: provost…

How proteins cross the Nuclear Pore Complex

Over this past summer I saw Dirk Görlich give a talk about how the multitude of FG repeats found within the nuclear pore complex (NPC), form a gel like matrix. This "elastic hydrogel" acts as the major barrier within the NPC. Although the gel can prevent the passage of most large molecules (>30kD), it is permeable to nuclear transport receptors (NTRs). Note that all this "story" was published in the November 3rd edition of Science Magazine (link). In that paper there's a nice diagram in the that explains it all: An "FG repeat" is a long stretch of amino acids that form non-covalent…

Eye Candy

I gave lab meeting yesterday and I'm exhausted. Here something I presented. (First the images then the explanation) Image 1: Image 2: Signal sequences are short stretches of protein that are recognized by the signal recognition particle and direct the protein to be inserted into the endoplsmic reticulum (ER). Similarly there are protein stretches that target newly synthesized proteins to mitochondria. Signal sequences are hydrophobic, while mitochondrial targeting sequences are amphipathic helices. What is an amphipathic helix? Poly-peptide chains tend to either line up next to each other…

Sharks Scare the @#$% out of Seals

How does fear drive a marine food web? That's right I said fear, as in blood-curdling-scream-I-think-I-just-wet-my-pants fear. Sharks just swim around and intimidate the hell out of other animals. What if a utopia state existed where sharks weren't invited and a society developed of peace, love, and understanding? What would that society look like? In actuality we are not too far from that state as shark populations continue to decline. Frid and colleagues publish a model this week in the journal Oikos addressing the impacts of shark declines and "fear-released systems". The model is…

A New Paradigm For Hydrothermal Vents

I am really surprised a new paper in Nature did not receive more press given its potential to create a shift in how we view hydrothermal vents. The new work by Tolstoy et al. (Columbia University's Earth Observatory in New York) reports on data gathered from seismometers placed over a 4 square km area in the East Pacific Rise, about 800 kms (500 miles) southwest of Acapulco. Through seismic data, tremors were intriguingly clustered around where the cold water entered the rock, the team was able to construct an image of how water circulates though vent systems. Old Hypothesis: The pressure of…

My friend the Tiger Shark

Hello again. Sorry to be absent from posting at DSN lately, but I was all wrapped up in a diving expedition to Saba Bank in the Netherlands Antilles. You'll hear more about it as we assemble the material and results, but first thing's first. Let's get to the good stuff! This here 8' tiger shark below circled me and Dr. Juan Armando Sanchez twice as we collected gorgonians in 25m of water over a flat rubble landscape on the Saba Bank interior last week. We didn't get really nervous until the animal turned to approach us. Juan was fearless enough to snap off 3 or 4 great shots with his Sony…

Field Rated Flash Drive

Corsair generously sent along their 8GB Survivor Flash Drive midsummer for me to field test at the behesting of this post. Over the last few months I have done everything I can to beat this flash drive to hell. The flash drive comes in its own CNC-milled, anodized aircraft-grade aluminum case. In its case an EDPM o-ring makes the case resistant to 200m. The drive has a molded shock dampening collar that prevents vibration from impact being transmitted to the drive. Here is a list of all the things I have done to the drive and it still works. Ran over it with my 2 Ton Jeep Wrangler...no…

Have Giant Indian Catfish Developed a Taste for Human Flesh?

Researchers have been dispatched to the Great Kali river in India to study whether a form of giant catfish called goonches have taken to preying on humans. The Indians traditionally burn their dead in the river, which, according to local lore, has led in two ways to the fish attacking humans: #1 - because the fish have dined on a steady diet of corpses they have grown unusually large; #2 - eating dead humans has resulted in their developing a taste for flesh which may be leading them to see live humans as a viable source of food. Biologist or redneck? You decide! The first supposed incident…

Baby Cuttlefish Spot Prey Before They're Born

New research published in the journal, Animal Behavior, has shed light on an extraordinary adaptation of unborn cuttlefish: the ability to visualize prey while they are still in their egg casings. Even more astonishing is the findings that embryonic cuttlefish who were exposed to crabs preferred crabs as their meal-of-choice after they hatched. This is the first known evidence of embryonic visual learning by any creature in the world. Learning to kill... Cuttlefish- a close relative of squids and octopuses -are known for... ...their ability to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings by…

Killer Raven Swarms Attacking Farm Animals

Across the U.K., ravens, once peaceful scavengers, have taken to attacking livestock in huge murderous storms. Scottish and Welsh farmers have recently reported flocks of ravens descending on lambs and literally pecking them to death. Kind of like the movie The Birds! just more sensationalized by the British media... Beware! Poor metaphors and juvenile symbolism ahead! Jimmy Mills, a farmer from the town of Stratherrick claims to have lost seven lambs in the last two weeks. In this article in the Daily Mail, he said "The lambs are born at... ...1pm and by four o'clock they've been taken to…

New Frog Discovered, Sans Lungs

Deep in the heart of the jungles of Borneo a new frog has been found that is rocking the very foundations of frog biology the world over. Why? Because, for God's sake, it has no lungs. Instead, it gets all the oxygen it needs by absorbing it through its skin. Can you do me a favor real quick and blow cigarette smoke on me. The frog- Barbourula kalimantanensis -was actually discovered 30 years ago, but only one known specimen had been collected, and no one thought to dissect it. The speedy, little, two inch-long, creatures proved... ...very difficult to find and catch. With a team of eleven…

Bill Donohue goes gaga

Bill Donohue was looking awfully silly demanding that the Empire State Building celebrate Mother Teresa's birthday, so I guess he needed a new cause. He found one. The Catholic League is outraged by Lady Gaga's new video. Lady Gaga is playing Madonna copy cat, squirming around half-naked with half-naked guys, abusing Catholic symbols--they're always Catholic symbols--while bleating out "Alejandro" enough times to induce vomit. Dressed occasionally as a nun in a glossy-red habit, the Madonna wannabe flashes the cross, swallows a rosary and manages to get raped by her S&M boyfriends. Hence…

The science fair conundrum.

The elder Free-Ride offspring, having entered fourth grade this year, will be participating in the school science fair in the spring. The elder Free-Ride offspring is very enthusiastic about the whole science fair thing. Meanwhile, I'm having a very hard time. I'm very committed to the idea that a science fair project is the kind of thing a kid should control, from start to finish -- conceiving the project, formulating some clear questions and some promising strategies for answering them, doing the experiments and making the observations, adjusting the strategies as necessary, setting up…

Garden update: day 8.

For those of you following the chronicle of my raised garden beds, here's the first update. I planted the seeds in the garden beds on July 20. As of today, July 28, a bunch of the seeds I planted have sprouted. First up, as expected, were the radishes. Those of us who get impatient should always plant radishes. Not only can they be counted on to sprout in about 5 days, but they also grow to maturity in about a month. Pictured here are the daikon radish sprouts. Assuming that vermin do not get to them, we'll probably use some of the daikons we harvest in salads and we'll probably pickle…

Classroom teachers: get a jump on the school year (and your DonorsChoose proposal)!

Sure, we still have about a week of July left, but those days are getting shorter and soon the classrooms will be filling up again. Which means that it's a pretty good time for public school teachers (in the U.S.*) to start thinking about what they'd like to accomplish in those classrooms, and whether submitting a classroom project proposal to DonorsChoose could help them secure the funds to make exciting ideas into real educational experiences. Before the students are lining up outside the classroom, check out the DonorsChoose blog, which includes: Tips for putting together successful…

Friday Sprog Blogging: graphic content.

At 6.5 and 8.5 years of age, the Free-Ride offspring sometimes seem more comfortable expressing their understanding of various ideas with drawings rather than just with words. I sometimes wonder where they pick up their visual vocabulary. For example, the younger Free-Ride offspring provides a picture to accompany the discussion of mutants posted two weeks ago: Here's a closer look at the drawing of the genes: Those are pretty unmistakably double helices! How do first graders know this stuff? It can't be simply from playing on stretches of DNA can it? It's also a pretty good rendering…

Celebratory end-of-semester meme.

The grades are filed! I have officially dodged the bullet of delaying the family's get-away with my incessant grading (since it turned out to be cessant, I guess). It seems only right to mark the occasion with a meme -- the "seven random things about me" meme, for which I have been tagged twice. Here are the rules: Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog…

Year-in-review meme.

When I partook of this last year, I thought it was a one time thing. But by golly, John Lynch seems to have established this meme as an annual tradition, and I kind of like traditions. The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month. January: Don't update your blog for a few days. February: I simply cannot accept the final judgment in Bravo's Top Chef (season 2). March: The inaugural edition of Scientiae, the new women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics blog carnival, has been posted at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. April: In case you somehow missed…

Blogger Challenge progress report (day 11) plus prizes from Seed!

I know it's been quiet here (I've been grading papers), but I wanted to give you a quick glimpse at the ScienceBloggers' progress to date on the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Here's the bar graph: You'll notice that two blogs (Deep Sea News and Retrospectacle) have exceeded their goals and one (The Questionable Authority) is tantalizingly close. And then there are the rest of us. Do you suppose some additional prizes for donors would help? As it happens, Seed is offering some! In addition to the $15,000 in matching funds that Seed is putting up for the challenges themselves, donors to…

How big a risk is my laser printer?

On the basis of this article about emissions from laser printers, our department administrator came by this week to take my HP 1200 series LaserJet away. I said I wanted to keep it. The worry is that the particles of toner emitted when printing with a laser printer may be just as bad for human health as secondhand cigarette smoke. But ... I like my laser printer! It yields a higher quality printout than the inkjet printers I've used. And it's still working really well. And it's not like I'm printing stuff on it all day, every day. There are some days when I don't print anything at all.…

That's what susceptibility to peer pressure gets me, I guess.

SInce John took it, and Chad took it, I figured I'd try the Brutally Honest Personality Test too. Oh, how very glad I am that I did: Loser- INTP 33% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 46% Judging Talked to another human being lately? I'm serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn't become apparent to you... Nerd's a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn't care less about the different definitions of the word and why you're actually more of a geek than…

A panda's-eye view of the PSA.

Guest Blogger: Prof. Steve Steve My esteemed Panda's Thumb colleague John Wilkins invited me to attend the PSA meeting in Vancouver. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I agreed. Last evening started pleasantly enough. I met Wilkins, John Lynch, Ben Cohen and David Ng, and Janet Stemwedel (from whose blog I am writing to you now) for refreshments. Yes, there was a bit of confusion when it turned out that the hotel didn't have an ice machine on every floor. As well, there was the puzzle of how properly to utilize the fresh limes for beverages in the absence of a knife. (The…

Which comes first?

This morning, I finished making the slides for a talk I'm giving at the BCCE at Purdue next week. (Any of you chemists or chemical educators in the audience planning on being there?) I feel very proud of myself for having the slides written and ready to use days before I even board the plane. I'm even sufficiently enthusiastic that I may just start writing a paper-version of the content I'll be giving in my talk. That brings me to my question for academics and others who work in the media of "paper" and "presentation": Which do you typically write first? Do you write a paper first and…

The Poison of Stress and the Middle-East

After reading articles like this (or this or this or this), I can't help but wonder what's happening to the brains of Iraqis, Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese. After all, neuroscience now knows that chronic stress is toxic. When your brain is constantly suffused with stress hormones (usually glucocorticoids), neurons die and aren't replaced. Dendritic growth slows down. You have fewer synaptic proteins. Your hippocampus begins to wither and shrink. Even if you are just a baby in your mother's belly during the war, you are still born with reduced levels of neurogenesis. The worst part of…

Cure Drug Addiction

This week's question is what scientific field I would study, "if time and money were not obstacles." Since I'm not a real scientist - just a science writer - I'm not quite sure how to answer this. I worked for several years in a neuroscience lab, and if I hadn't studied neuroscience I probably would have ended up trying to understand RNA. (Why RNA? Because it does so many inscrutable things, and has been second fiddle to DNA for way too long...In fact, the whole field of epi-genetics strikes me as ripe with promise.) But I'm going to interpret this question a little differently. I'm going to…

Americans for Medical Progress names two Hayre Fellows in Public Outreach.

Today Americans for Medical Progress has announced two recipients for academic year 2010-2011 of the Michael D. Hayre Fellowship in Public Outreach, designed to inspire and motivate the next generation of research advocates. This year, I'm especially wowed by their project. From the AMP press release: Two Ph.D. candidates in neuroscience have been selected by Americans for Medical Progress as the 2010-11 Michael D. Hayre Fellows in Public Outreach.  Elizabeth Burnett and Scott Dobrin are in the Neuroscience Program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North…

Boston dispatch #2.

The torrential rain stopped (at least temporarily), so I got a chance to walk around a little. Having met my high school friend in Kenmore Square, I walked on Comm Ave (toward the Boston Commons) and hung a left on Mass Ave. I decided I needed to check the functioning of the Harvard Bridge. See, when I was a college student, the distinguishing feature of the Harvard Bridge was not that it provided a convenient way to get across the Charles River between MIT and the Back Bay. Rather, it was that the weather walking across the bridge was always significantly worse than the weather on either…

A warning for the herpeto-unctuous.

It seems that some people respond to public concern about swine flu and its spread by trying to sell you stuff. This stuff is not limited to face masks and duct tape, but includes products advertised to prevent, diagnose, or treat swine flu, but whose claims of safety and efficacy do not have a basis in evidence. In other words, snake oil. Now, some will take the P.T. Barnum view that separating the gullible from their money is a good living (and perhaps a good incentive for people to be smarter). The FDA, however, regards at least some snake oil peddlers as criminals -- and the agency is…

Looking for Jesus in all the wrong places

I have a soft spot for pareidolia, as regular readers know. It amuses me to no end to see Jesus and Mary popping up on freeway underpasses, tacos, toast, pieces of sheet metal, Lava Lamps, and the like. I thought that I had seen it all--until now: His image has been seen on rocks, windows - even a tortilla as recently as Ash Wednesday. Now, in the days leading up to Easter Sunday, it appears yet another strange image of Jesus has emerged. Erika Scheldt, 24, claims she photographed a stingray with a glistening depiction of Christ on its back after it washed ashore a South Carolina beach on…

All is as it should be again

Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to get my flu shot. So that's just what I did yesterday. I decided to brave that evil, toxin-laden, mercury-infused nastiness, all in order to protect myself and my patients against influenze. As you might recall, last year, when I was off to get my flu vaccine, I pointed out that our cancer center required the flu vaccine for all employees who deal with patients, whatever their capacity, from physician to nurse to medical aide to receptionist. Refuse to get the flu vaccine, and you get to wear a mask any time you are in teh presence of a patient. It's…

A press conference touting "proof" that vaccines cause autism and that the government has admitted it?

I can hardly wait to see what the "proof" is this time: Investigators and Families of Vaccine-Injured Children to Unveil Report Detailing Clear Vaccine-Autism Link Based on Government's Own Data Report Demands Immediate Congressional Action Directors of the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy (EBCALA), parents and vaccine-injured children will hold a press conference on the steps of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (717 Madison Place, NW in Washington, DC) on Tuesday, May 10 at 12:00 PM to unveil an investigation linking vaccine injury to autism. For over 20 years, the federal…

It's almost that time again: The Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching!

Speaking of skepticism and critical thinking, recall that I mentioned earlier today that I had been interviewed for The Skeptics' Guide for the Universe. Despite branching out into a different medium, rest assured that I haven't forgotten about my primary responsibility, blogging. Nor have I forgotten that the latest edition of the blog carnival that's been entrusted to me, The Skeptics' Circle, is fast approaching. In fact, it's less than four days away and due to land on Thursday, July 5! That means that you--yes, you! (if you're a blogger, that is)--have only three days to submit your best…

I'm waiting to hear Dr. Egnor whine about this...

A few days ago, I posted a note of congratulations to Gregory Simonian, a 10th grader at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, for winning the Alliance For Science essay contest, for which the topic was Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution? At the time, the winners had been announced, though, the actual essays hadn't been published yet. Now they are. Head on over to the Alliance for Science website and read Greg's essay and the other three winning essays; they're each only two or three pages long, and it'll be well worth your time. (I'm only disappointed that none of…

The winner!

The winners of the Alliance for Science essay contest that I mentioned a couple of months ago, where high school students were asked to write an essay of 1,000 words or less about the topic Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?, have been announced. My only question is why the actual essays aren't posted on the Alliance's website. I did find, however, that the winner, Gregory Simonian, has a blog, where he describes his struggle to write the winning essay: I'll give you some behind-the-scenes commentary. I had a super tough time cutting that essay within the word limit. I had…

Contemptible ghoul #2: Evolution and atheism are to blame for the school shootings at Virginia Tech?

PZ Myers has identified contemptible ghoul #1, Debbie Schlussel, who has decided that it must have been a Muslim terrorist who carried out the horrific school shooting today at Virginia Tech (and is now backing off as more information comes out, as she claims that students should have been allowed to have guns on campus). Here's contemptible ghoul #2, Ken Ham over at Answers in Genesis, who blames the evil of the school shooting on atheism (of course!) and--wink, wink, nudge, nudge--evolution, even though he "isn't saying that," if you know what I mean: We live in an era when public high…

A dictionary for the 9/11 "truth" movement

Heh. Although it's apparently been making the rounds over the Internet, I had never seen this list before until Andrew over at Flavor Country posted A Dictionary for the 9/11 "Truth" Movement, which, if you've ever read the comment thread (223 comments!) after my one major foray into discussing the true idiocy that is the 9/11 "Truth" Movement, you will immediately realize to be pretty darned close to the truth. A few key examples: Alternative theory: Something so wacky that even Twoofers don't give it much credence (e. g. holographic planes, pods). Brainwashing: non-conspiratorial thinking,…

The September 11th Quran Burning is Cancelled, and No Mosque will be Built!

Everyone who went out and purchaced Islamic Holy Books for the big burning on September 11th needs to just take it down a notch, put the Qurans on the book shelf next to the Bhagavad Gita and that copy of Catcher in the Rye you've always planed to read and switch to plan B for celebrating the defeat of Western Culture by the Mossleman bin Laden. (No relation.) Because the nutjob in Florida who caused all this fuss has backed down. According to "Reverend" Terry Jones, the Islamic Center Rec/Mosque to have been built at Ground Zero will not be built on that site, and according to Jones, these…

Actual Hurricane Season Finally Underway

Here's a pretty picture from the Atlantic: That, dear reader, is what an active hurricane season looks like. The stuff you see on the left, near Louisiana and across Florida to the Atlantic, is is just crappy weather. Near the middle of the picture, you can see a very nicely formed hurricane, and that's Danielle. Danielle is a strong hurricane, Category Four and is getting stronger. Sustained winds are near 135 MPH (214 KPH) with higher gusts. By tomorrow at this time, if not later today, Danielle could become a Category Five storm. Bermuda will be experiencing dangerous surf, and…

Women have more sex than men, and iPhone using women have the most sex

... which begs a number of different questions that I will think but not say out loud. This surprising 'result' (which you should not take seriously as stated) comes from a fascinating bit of on -line research and reporting in which Christian Rudder qualitatively tested photographs taken with various technologies and stuff by asking a zillion people "which of the following individuals would you chose for a date" when shown two photographs. Rudder demonstrates and makes the claim that more complex devices such as digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras produce more date-worthy photographs…

Climate Denialists Smear, Taunt Liberal Blogger

Steve Andrew dared to tickle the dragon's tail and now he is paying for it. The dragon in this case, is Climate Denialists in the Right Wing Media. Andrew posted something about the recent, very alarming news that global warming seems to be cutting back significantly on the supply of oceanic plankton. The worst case scenario of this sort of process is, actually, mass extinction and everybody dies. There are less severe scenarios as well, but none of them are very much fun. So yes, even as the climate chickens come home to roost, the denailists can't keep their bought and paid for (by the…