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Tarantula climbs walls by spinning silk from its feet

There is an old joke that if Spider-Man has the powers of a spider, he really ought to be shooting webs from somewhere less salubrious than his hands. In the films and comic books, Peter Parker is empowered with the powers of a human-sized arachnid through a spider bite. He effortlessly scales walls and ceilings and shoots sticky webs from his wrists. Now, scientists have found a type of spider that does just that. Like Spider-Man, most spiders can climb sheer surfaces and they do so with two techniques. The most obvious are small claws, called tarsi, that grip onto rough surfaces.…

Free (to you) research databases

Some of these are better than others. Some don't have nice controlled vocabularies and are a bit wonky in the free version.  Nearly all of them you can get through another interface for a fee if you need more precision in searching or to export your results. (oh, as an aside - you've got the database producer who puts the whole thing together, and then you have options for interfaces. For example, for Inspec, you can pay for access via STN, DIALOG, Web of Knowledge, EbscoHost, Engineering Village - used to be FirstSearch and Ovid, too, but I don't remember if they're still offering it.…

Shifting Seafood: Art You Can Feel in Your Mouth

Daniel Pauly gave me a copy of the February issue of Eurofish magazine, which at first had me raise my eyebrows in skepticism. But the magazine was filled with delights, particularly an article about the Estonian seafood manufacturer Kriskal. From the Kriskal website: Due to growing popularity of shrimp and crab imitation products during the '90s, a favorable situation occurred for introducing analogous products, close to natural products, to the market. Kriskal's financial bread and butter is pulverized fish--our old friend surimi turned into 'crabsticks'. An interesting element of…

Evolutionary Biology Lost in "Clerical Consolidation"

From the August 22, 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education daily news update: Educators Question Absence of Evolution From List of Majors Eligible for New Grants Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages. That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the…

Book Review: Vampire Forensics

I couldn't say why, but I have never been very interested in stories about vampires. I have never read Dracula, I have no interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or True Blood, and I think Twilight is some of the worst literary and movie cheese to come out in a while, but despite my general apathy for tales of bloodsuckers I was intrigued by Mark Collins Jenkins' new book Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend. From the synopsis is seemed like a mix of history, science, and mythology that I could really sink my teeth into. As it turned out, Vampire Forensics was not…

Friday Sprog Blogging: science fair wrap-up.

Since the school science fair is safely behind us, we can give you a peek at the projects the Free-Ride offspring presented. (We couldn't do this prior to the science fair without running the risk that the sprogs would be accused of lifting their projects from a blog post.) Here's the elder Free-Ride offspring's project board (or at least the central panel of it): Originally, the idea was just to grow different kinds of crystals and draw some conclusions on why different types of substance grow the kinds of crystals that they do. However, that was deemed not sufficiently quantitative. So…

Leakegate: On stovepiping and plagiarism

This story by Heidi Blake in the Telegraph about how Anthony Watts' findings show that surface temperature records are wrong might sound familiar. That's because it's blatantly plagiarised from Jonathan Leake's story touting Watts' report. Every element in Blake's story was drawn from Leake's story -- it's just been rearranged and reworded slightly. It looks like it would have taken her about 15 minutes to do the whole thing. To be fair to Blake, she has actually improved the story -- her version is tighter and flows more naturally, so if the Telegraph fires her for plagiarism she could…

Keep Your Gloved Hand Away From Me

I've got another pet-peeve-itch to scratch, so I'm picking up a tall glass of haterade. I'm walking down the stairwell in my building, and I encounter someone heading upstairs carrying a styrofoam container (I can't tell what's in it, but it's probably filled with ice and something worth keeping cold). We approach the door to the floor we both work on. She gets there first and extends her hand to open the door -- a hand ensconced in a rubber glove. When doing lab work, we wear gloves for two reasons: To protect our samples from contamination from ourselves. To protect ourselves from…

Perverse Incentives and Global Warming

Cass Sunstein in the Washington Post offers an excellent explanation of why an international deal on global warming is so unlikely: The obstacle stems from the unusual incentives of the United States and China. As the world's leading contributors to climate change, these are the two countries that would have to bear the lion's share of the cost of greenhouse gas reductions. At the same time, they are both expected to suffer less than many other nations from climate change -- and thus are less motivated to do something about it. And while the international spotlight has rightly been on the…

Sinabung and Etna updates for 8/30/2010

Classes starting today, so I have to be brief: Unique twin ash plumes from Sinabung in Indonesia, erupting on August 29, 2010. Sinabung The Indonesian volcano continues to experience explosions, which one last night (well, last night here in Ohio) that prompted an ash advisory for aircraft up to 6,100 m / 20,000 feet, although most reports I've seen pegged the ash column at closer to 2,000 m / ~6,500 feet. Eruptions readers have found a bevy of links for footage and information about the eruption, including a remarkable image gallery from the BBC that shows the volcano exhibiting two ash…

Do mosquitoes get the mumps?, part II

Part II. What do mumps proteins do? And how do we find out? This is the second in a five part series on an unexpected discovery of a paramyxovirus in mosquitoes, and a general method for finding interesting things. I. The back story from the genome record II. What do the mumps proteins do? And how do we find out? III. Serendipity strikes when we Blink. IV. Assembling the details of the case for a mosquito paramyxovirus V. A general method for finding interesting things in GenBank In Part I, we looked at the NCBI SeqViewer, and found a new way to check out a genome map, and learn more…

Follow-up: why did the cheating poll for frosh engineering students have those answers?

In an earlier post, I shared the responses freshman engineering students had made (via electronic clickers) to a few questions I asked them during an ethics lecture I was giving them. My commenters are pretty sure I left out options in the multiple choice that should have been included. In this post, I consider some of those other options, and I try to explain my thinking in formulating the questions and the possible responses the way I did. (Also, I'll include the questions themselves, since the Quimble polls I used to present them in the original post seem not to be working at the moment.)…

Comments of the Week #121: From the Big Bang's location to unscientific America

"...even if we don't understand each other, that's not a reason to reject each other. There are two sides to any argument. Is there one point of view that has all the answers? Give it some thought." -Alder, from Pokémon It’s been a fantastic week here at Starts With A Bang, with stories ranging from the beginning of the Universe to how we do business here on Earth in 2016. We've got a topic picked out for our next podcast on SoundCloud, on the Big Bang and what it does (and doesn't) mean, plus I'll be recording a radio show with Dr. David Livingston of The Space Show this Tuesday night!…

Rachel Goad Says...

Findings should be presented truthfully and fairly, their outcome being as independent from politics as possible. From those unbiased findings, we should make sound policy decisions. Misrepresenting science does a major disservice to everyone, and we shouldn't stand for it. Read more responses from The Rightful Place Project on Facebook

Life Science, Physical Science and Environment Weekly Channel Highlights

In this post: the large versions of the Life Science, Physical Science and Environment channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Physical Science. Thunderstorm over Toronto, Ontario. From Flickr, by krunkwerke Life Science. From Flickr, by Noël Zia Lee Environment. From Flickr, by lexdenn Reader comments of the week: In Animal Rights Extremists kill at least a dozen mink, The Evil Monkey of Neurotopia v. 2.0 laments the ignorance of a group of animal rights activists who released 6,000 mink from a fur farm; farm-raised animals, he stresses, are…

An Interview With the Bleiman Brothers

After a brief hiatus, Page 3.14 brings back the ScienceBlogger interviews. Now we hear from those clever, if odd, creatures of Zooillogix, Andrew and Benny Bleiman. (In the photo, Benny's on the left.) What's your name? Andrew and Benny Bleiman What do you do when you're not blogging? Andrew: We both work in software. I run marketing for a search engine company. Benny is in sales, so in his words he "closes deals and crushes beers." In my words, he makes 70 cold calls a day and has a bit of a drinking problem. More below the fold... What is your blog called? Zooillogix What's up with that…

Bird flu virus in the environment

There's a tremendous amount of influenza A/H5N1 ("bird flu" virus) all over southeast asia and other areas where the virus is endemic in poultry. Where is this virus, exactly? We know it's in the infected birds and in their respiratory secretions and feces. We know it occasionally infects mammals (including humans). Is it found in the environment? We know very little about this, although there is good evidence it is in water where aquatic birds like ducks spend time and likely one way the virus is spread from bird to bird. In lab experiments, the virus remains intact on inanimate surfaces for…

Troubling New Research on MRSA in Kids

For several years, health professionals have been concerned about the rise in infections from methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA - a bacteria that's resistant to several of the antibiotics generally used to treat staph infections. CDC estimates that in 2005, there were more than 94,000 MRSA infections in the US, and more than 18,000 of those patients died. The numbers are probably much higher now. A study just published in the journal Pediatrics gives us new information about staph infections in hospitalized US children and how they're being treated. The results show a…

A pause for reflection

I mentioned before that I often have my posts mostly written in my head before I ever sit down to type them out. And indeed, though I hadn't had a chance to actually sit at a computer yet, I had a science post all planned for today, based on an article I ran across last week. I think that will wait for tomorrow, though, after reading this post over at Terra Sigillata, where Abel writes about the sudden death of a 23-year-old brother of a former lab intern from a staph infection. I sometimes get asked why I "waste my time" studying infectious disease, when they don't cause nearly the…

Public Health Achievements in the 21st Century

I've written before about "Ten Great Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century," which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in 1999. Now, CDC has put together a list of ten great public health achievements from 2001 to 2010, based on nominations from the agency's public health scientists. Here are the ten achievements from the first decade of the 21st century: Vaccine-Preventable Diseases -- Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases have dropped over the past decade, and the impact of the pneumococcal conjugate and rotavirus vaccines has…

Volcanic Lightning, Eyjafjallajökull, and how it works

If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron. -Lee Trevino, golfer who actually has been struck by lightning. Today's astronomy picture of the day is absolutely gorgeous. Of course, this is the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, erupting and spewing up volcanic ash. But, of course, the most interesting part of this picture is the lightning, which looks like it both originates and ends in the Volcanic ash itself! Image credit for both images above: Marco Fulle, via helicopter. First off, I'd like to be…

IDiots, the Tree of Life, and phylogenetic trees

Shorter Luskin (comments, not in height): DIFRENT JEANS MAEK DIFRENT TREAHS TEHEREFORE JESUS!!! DIRP! You know how we always laugh at the fact Creationists dont ever have degrees in biology? This illustrates one of the many, many times it would be handy for Caseytits to have taken a couple bio classes in college. Darwins Tree of Life is a metaphor. It is very clearly a metaphor in Origin of Species: The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing…

New Hominid Fossils Reported

Today's New York Times has this interesting article about some recent hominid fossil finds. Alas, it falls into the familiar trap of reporting every mundane find as if it is a scientific revolution: Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral line to Homo sapiens. Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens -- a 1.44 million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55 million-year-old Homo erectus -- said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead…

Swimming, walking salamander robot reconstructs invasion of land

Moving robots are becoming more and more advanced, from Honda's astronaut-like Asimo to the dancing Robo Sapien, a perennial favourite of Christmas stockings. But these advances are still fairly superficial. Most robots still move using pre-defined programmes and making a single robot switch between very different movements, such as walking or swimming, is very difficult. Each movement type would require significant programming effort. Robotics engineers are now looking to nature for inspiration. Animals, of course, are capable of a multitude of different styles of movement. They have…

Hallucinations and hospitalizations: Angel's Trumpet

Toxicity reports are re-emerging in southern California this week after a dozen hospitalizations of kids using teas made from a fragrant flowering plant called Angel's Trumpet. A tea made from the plants is used to produce hallucinations, but they can progress to extremely unpleasant experiences. Moreover, Angel's Trumpet can be deadly, accelerating the heart rate and causing fatal cardiac rhythmic disturbances and bronchoconstriction that can trigger asthma attacks in sensitive individuals. Angel's Trumpet is one of a series of plants in the Brugmansia genus that make a variety of muscarinic…

A Tapeworm Mystery: Which Way Is Up?

I'm sure you'd like to pretend that you have nothing in common with a tapeworm. A tapeworm starts off as an egg which then develops into a cyst. Inside the cyst is a ball-shaped creature with hooks that it can use to crawl around its host before growing into an adult. Many species are made up of dozens or hundreds of segments called proglottids. Each proglottid may be equipped with both eggs and sperm-making organs. As an adult, a tapeworm also grows a head-like end often equipped with suckers or hooks of its own. This strange organ is called the scolex. (The shark tapeworm in this photo is…

Fish was fossil frog's last meal

The skeleton of Palaeobatrachus from Lake Enspel, Germany. From Wuttke and Poschmann, 2010. In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin said of the fossil record: For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which…

Nine million years ago, elephants invaded South America

For much of the past 130 million years South America was an island continent, and on it organisms evolved in "splendid isolation." Mammals, especially, evolved into forms not seen anywhere else, and while some mammalian immigrants made their way to South America during the past 30 million years it was not until about three million years ago, with the closing of the isthmus of Panama, that large animals from North and South America began to wander across the new landbridge and mix with the endemic faunas. This is why there were elephants in South America and giant ground sloths in North…

One lemur, two lemur, three lemur, four: Genetic study reveals the hidden diversity of Madagascar's mouse lemurs

A grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus). Image from Wikipedia. Charles Darwin's visit to the Galapagos Archipelago has been celebrated time and again for its influence on his evolutionary thoughts, but I have to wonder what would have happened if the Beagle skipped the Galapagos and visited Madagascar instead. What would Darwin have made of the animals which had been evolving in splendid isolation on the African island? Would "Darwin's lemurs", rather than Darwin's finches, be among the most recognizable icons of evolution? Answers to such questions are beyond our grasp, but the diverse…

ISEF 2008: Special awards and scenes from around the fair

As I write this, the special awards ceremony for ISEF 2008 is wrapping up. Tonight, awards are being given by professional organizations, corporations, colleges and universities, and branches of government. Almost all of the major professional societies are represented, from the American Meteorological Society to the Vacuum Technology Division of the American Vacuum Society. (Each professional society, as well as the other special awards organizations, contribute their own judges to the fair, so that's another way you could get involved. Requirements for being a special awards judge may vary…

Any advance on 3 BILLION?

In 1972 the US banned the agricultural use of DDT, but did not ban its use against malaria. Other countries followed suit. The ban on the agricultural use of DDT has probably saved many lives by slowing the development of resistance. However, Michael Crichton blames the ban for 50 million deaths: "Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. The ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler." Junkscience has a death clock that blames the ban for an impossible 90 million deaths.…

New Anthrax Scare in Pakistan

Color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph shows splenic tissue from a monkey with inhalational anthrax; featured are rod-shaped bacilli (yellow) and an erythrocyte (red) Credit: Arthur Friedlander A university professor has allegedly mailed anthrax to the Pakistani prime minister's office in October, accoding to today's The New York Times. Could this be the beginning of a new anthrax scare? Is history repeating itself? If true, any individual considering such "attacks" can no longer assume that their weapons are untraceable, as shown by the anthrax scare in 2001. Below is an excerpt…

I'M IN UR GENOME, ADAPTING UR HOST-SYMBIONT RELATIONSHIP

Eukaryotic genomes are chimeras of sequences from many different sources. There are the genes responsible for the normal functioning of the host, but there are also transposable elements (TEs), sequences from mitochondria (numts), and endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). In addition to those examples, other symbionts also infect eukaryotes and leave traces of their presence in the genomes of the hosts. One such parasite of many invertebrates is Wolbachia, a bacteria that invades the germ cells of its host and inflicts odd behaviors such as male killing, feminization of males, and reproductive…

The Origin of the Nucleus

I just read a fascinating "hypothesis" in the latest issue of Nature entitled Introns and the origin of nucleus cytosol compartmentalization. The greatest divide in the living world exists between prokaryotes and eukaryotes (yes I know, there are viruses ... but lets not get off topic!). Generally, prokaryotes are devoid of membrane-bound organelles (including the nucleus, mitochondria, the endoplasmic reticulum), and their cytoskeletal systems are quite simple. These critters' genes do not have introns (aka junk DNA) and their genome does not undergo much recombination. If prokaryotes had a…

Walking & racing to modernity

Two quantitative facts of note from When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order: From page 33: Although the passage to modernity universally involves the transition from an agrarian to service-based society via an industrial one, here we find another instance of European exceptionalism. European countries (sixteen in all)...are the only ones in the world that have been through a phase in which the relative size of industrial employment was larger than either agrarian or service employment. In Britain, industrial employment reached its peak in…

The dog as pig

There's been some buzz over a recent paper, mtDNA Data Indicates a Single Origin for Dogs South of Yangtze River, less than 16,300 Years Ago, from Numerous Wolves. This is tracing the maternal lineage, and suggests that that lineage is most diverse in southern China (just as human lineages tend to exhibit the most diversity in Africa). Here's the abstract: ...We therefore analysed entire mitochondrial genomes for 169 dogs to obtain maximal phylogenetic resolution, and the CR for 1,543 dogs across the Old World for a comprehensive picture of geographical diversity. Hereby, a detailed picture…

Another week of GW News, January 9, 2011

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Sipping from the Internet Firehose...January 9, 2011 Chuckles, COP16, COP17+, Perspectives, Harbinger?, Australia, WikiLeaks, Winter Bottom Line, Subsidies, Laws, Thermodynamics, GHE, Cook, Post CRU Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Norther Light, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food Price Index, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon…

The Buzz: Volcanic Activity at Mount Redoubt

Geologists have been keeping a close watch on the volcanic activity brewing at Mount Redoubt, the 9,000 foot (2,700 m) volcano found in Alaska's Aleutian Range. In response to the eruption at Redoubt on Thursday morning that released a 65,000 foot (20,000 m) ash column, the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised its Volcano Alert level to "Warning" and its Aviation Alert Level to "Red," both of which are the highest possible categorizations. ScienceBlogger Erik Klemetti from Eruptions is keeping close watch on Redoubt, so pop over to his blog for explosive updates! Related ScienceBlogs Posts:…

ScienceBlogs at DLD

If you've been following along with ScienceBlogs news, you might already know that we've teamed up with the German media company Hubert Burda Media to bring you ScienceBlogs' first sister site, ScienceBlogs.de. From January 20-22, Hubert Burda Media held its annual, forward-thinking Digital, Life Design Conference (DLD) at the HVB Forum in Munich. Seed CEO and Editor-in-Chief Adam Bly was there: after the jump, a few pictures from the proceedings. From the "Reality Formula" panel, moderated by Adam Bly: Matthew Ritchie, Lisa Randall, Francesca von Habsburg, Hector Parra, Adam Bly. At the…

Aggrandize

This is another fine word that I found in Richard Dawkins' new book, The God Delusion. I am still reading this book, but because it inspires so many flights of fancy on my part, I have not yet finished it, as I expected. Aggrandizing (a-grndz) [French agrandir, agrandiss-, from Old French: a- to (from Latin ad-) + grandir, to grow larger (from Latin grandre, from grandis, large)] verb. To increase the scope of; extend. To make greater in power, influence, stature, or reputation. To make appear greater; exaggerate: aggrandize one argument while belittling another. Usage: Why…

A Plethora of Interesting Science Stuff to Check Out

The 10K birds Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz! Videos of developmental trajectories in cortical thickening Japan harnesses commuters' stamping for power from PhysOrg.com Japan has found a way to harness clean energy from thousands of stamping feet that pass through one of its busiest train stations every day. [...] Fear of nuts creating hysteria of epidemic proportions from PhysOrg.com Measures imposed to reduce exposure to nuts are often based on irrational fears of nut allergies and are becoming increasingly sensationalist, according to a doctor on bmj.com today. [...] Flora not…

Blorg Muffining

What difference is there, really, between a roll, a muffin, and a croissant? So what do we have in the blogosphere today, looking near the top of my blorg muffin... You need to promise you are over 18 and an adult to visit A Blog from Hell, but if you get past the security, you can learn about Yet more evidence that right wing punditry causes brain damage. More on Armistice Day LRA: The Genocide We Missed A quick summary of A few hurricane records, considered I turns out that Barack Obama Is Not The Antichrist New Homo erectus Pelvis, and it's a girl! Some Archaeology News: Iron Age…

I

Dearest Blog-friends, Have I ever mentioned how much I love all my readers and my Sciblings? This blogging community means so much to me, I just don't even know how to express it. The amount of support I get from y'all is amazing. As evidence, on Friday, my email box contained several nice emails (and offer to collaborate on some research!) and my snail-mail box was overflowing with goodies... Wonderful, wonderful teas from my wonderful, wonderful co-blogger Alice. And a beautiful bracelet from Letmenatalya on Etsy (h/t Isis) Thank you to all my friends for your thoughtful comments, kind…

Squid Have Teeth Like Old Men

According to the Tree of Life project, Promachoteuthis sulcus is known from a single, small (25 mm ML, sex unknown) but distinctive individual from great depths in the south Atlantic Ocean. Now Benny and I are no cephalopodologists, but those chompers look a little different from the typical squid beak which we have come to know and fear. Those of you looking to find or avoid the aforementioned denture squid should steer clear of here: 36°49'S, 12°17'W off Tristan Da Cunha, south Atlantic Ocean. Captured from WALTHER HERWIG at 1750-2000 m depth (open net). Kevin Z? PZ? Other…

Beebs meets the bloggers

What drives readers away from a blog? Joyless and monomaniacal writing says James Lileks who blogs at The Daily Bleat. Mark Savage of the BBC is meeting bloggers. James Lileks, a journalist from the American Mid West, has made an art of writing very funny and entertaining pieces on everyday subjects from bin bags to bagels. His site is a brilliant example of what you can do on the internet, including his blog The Daily Bleat, a regular podcast from The Diner, home movies which you can download and a glorious collection of 1950s ephemera. His advice is simple: "You can be joyless, you can be…

Hyperbole

Sure I'm concerned over Bush's last stand against the environment, but this piece from the Environmental News Network is, simply well... you decide: In a few hundred thousand years, after all weather effects of 21st century climate change have disappeared from the earth's surface, after our quietly smoldering nuclear waste has been extinguished, two destructive impacts traceable to George Bush's policies will yet remain. The first is extinctions. Species that have died out, including the subset resulting from Bush's environmental policies, will forever deprive our evolving biosphere of their…

Video of a Meteorite Crashing over Western Saskatchewan

Incredible video of a falling meteor as seen from Edmonton: The meteor eventually crashed near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Here another video from the CBC and AP: From CTV: Hundreds of residents of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba reported seeing the bright light, which was also captured on security cameras. The stunning images show the sky light up as a bright point of light blazes into view, then disappears over the horizon. Paul Delaney, an astronomer from York University, said the object was a meteor that was "cruising through the upper atmosphere, giving us a wonderful…

MORE Videos submitted to AVoteforScience YouTube Challenge

A bunch more videos have been added to our playlist and favorites on the AVoteForScience YouTube challenge. Keep up the good work. If you are a scientist, take a moment to tell the world who you are voting for and why. We are still waiting for our first endorsement of McCain from a scientist. C'mon, I know you're out there. We want to hear from you. Here are some of the latest videos: Ed Fenimore: Rocket Scientist from New Mexico endorses Obama Ilya Nemenman: Biophysicist from Los Alamos endorses Obama Eli Ben-Naim endorses Obama citing scientists leaving the US to work in other countries.…

Cool Science News

New Fossils, Ancient Candy, and Cute Owls Md. Scientists Monitor Saw-Whet Owls from PhysOrg.com (AP) -- The high-pitched, staccato mating call of a northern saw-whet owl pierces the night and lures birds into a gossamer net that researchers have strung along the Appalachian Trail. [...] Rare great ape fossil challenges evolutionary theory: study from PhysOrg.com Archaeologists have discovered the ancient jawbone of what appears to be a new species of ape that was very close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans, a study released Monday said. [...] CentrAm…

Soufriere Hills causing flight cancellations on Puerto Rico

Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in an undated image from the Royal Navy. Just wanted to pass along this bit of news: the current eruptions at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat are prompting cancellations of over 40 flights today from Puerto Rico. This is due to the ash plumes from the current dome eruptions - the NASA Earth Observatory posted images of the recent activity showing the large, grey plume drifting to the west. What is impressive is that Puerto Rico is over 250 miles / 400 km to the west of Montserrat, so this ash must be significant enough to prompt these flight cancellations. The ash…