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Sexual refuge for krill in the abyss?

You are a giant swarm of Antarctic krill migrating daily from sunlit surface waters down to the 4500m in the abyss. Some portion of your population is bound to get hungry by the time you reach the bottom. Whattya gonna do? Wait for food to rain down from above? Not according to a new article in Current Biology, that illustrates the behavior of Euphausia superba krill that dive into the sediment in deep-water, kick up particles, and scavenge a meal of fallen algae from the seafloor. Secondary production occurs within the benthic boundary layer, in this case, rather than raining down from…

Something to look into

A few years ago, a number of small children got sick from E. coli infections; the bacteria were traced to petting zoos. Ms. TfK and I both thought that a smart Congresscritter could win the suburban mothers' votes by requiring better scrutiny of hygiene at petting zoos. Little did we know that within years, we'd be seeing similar problems emerging from our spinach and green onions (and undoubtedly other veggies soon). The Baltimore Sun dug in and discovered the FDA complaining that it's research on food safety had stalled: Recurring outbreaks of food-borne illness from contaminated produce…

Monday Musings: Marianas eruption, Yasur disruptions and the Guatemalan double whammy

Quick news on Memorial Day (in the US at least): Ash soaked by rain from Tropical Storm Agatha on the roofs of homes in Guatemala after the late May eruption of Pacaya. Sixteen scientists were evacuated from islands in the northern Marianas due to the eruption of the unnamed submarine volcano south of Sarigan Island. The eruption is continuing to be monitored closely by the USGS and National Weather Service as the plume - which is most steam with minor ash - could disrupt air traffic in/around Saipan. The latest USGS CNMI update: Seismicity at a single nearby station on Sarigan Island…

Thursday Throwdown: Eyjafjallajökull update, VPOW and the weekly SI/USGS Report

Grading grading grading! A webcam capture of the eruptive plume from Eyjafjallajökull on the morning of May 6, 2010. News: A quick update on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption: The volcano has been producing an impressive ash plume over the last day (see image above). The current ash plume is reaching 5.8-6 km height (19-20,000 ft) - and causing some trouble over Ireland and Scotland. However, much of airspace closed yesterday has reopened (for now). You can see two new images of the ash plume over at the NASA Earth Observatory. As for the continued fallout from the ash plume from April,…

Eruption at Gaua

A 1995 photo of Gaua volcano in Vanuatu. A few weeks ago I mentioned that there were signs that Mt. Garet, part of the larger Gaua volcano in Vanuatu was potentially showing signs of a eruption - the first since 1982. It turns out that the rumbling and sulfur odors reported by local residents were correct and it appears that Gaua did indeed erupt. The latest report from the Geo-Hazard section of the Department of Geology, Mines and Water Resources in Vanuatu: After the assessment of the Geohazards team on Gaua volcano from 3-7 October 2009, it is confirmed that Mont Garet volcano is going…

Redoubt sets a pattern and how to tell if you have juvenile magma in your eruption

Redoubt seems to be setting its pattern for this part of the new eruptive period. There was another small explosion this morning that produced at 15,000 foot / 5,000 meter ash column that moved to the NNW. The seismicity has settled down since the early morning eruption today (3/25) as well. These types of explosions producing plinian and subplinian eruption clouds that will likely lead to dome building - the same pattern seen at Mt. Saint Helens in 2004-2008 and the previous Redoubt eruptions in 1989-1990. These explosions, producing ash columns that reach tens of thousands feet, will likely…

Ashkenazi Jews are more European in ancestry

Dienekes posted some abstracts of the ASHG 2009 meeting. This one is in the category of facts we assumed but weren't totally sure of: Abraham's children in the genome era: Major Jewish Diaspora populations comprise distinct genetic clusters with shared Middle Eastern ancestry Here, we present population structure results from compiled datasets after merging with the Human Genome Diversity Project and the Population Reference Sample studies, which consisted of 146 non-Jewish Middle Easterners (Druze, Bedouin and Palestinian), 30 northern Africans (Mozabite from Algeria), 1547 Europeans, and…

I get email

One frequent motif recurs in creationist email: they may believe in god, but they don't believe in paragraphs. This one also hits another frequent theme: the racist creationist. Oh, and an obsession with incest. The following story is what I believe to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the Bible and Evolution. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth and all the animals upon the earth. Then he created a Garden of Eden in which he created man from the dust. And he called this man Adam. Then God saw that Adam was lonely so he put Adam to sleep and he…

GHB in Kids' Toys?

It's not like there's a quality control problem with Chinese manufacturing or anything: Australian officials ordered a popular Chinese-made children's toy pulled from the shelves after scientists found it contained a chemical that converts into a powerful "date rape" drug when ingested. Three children have been hospitalized over the past 10 days after swallowing beads from Bindeez, named Australia's toy of the year at an industry function earlier this year. The beads in the toy, sold by Australia-based Moose Enterprises, are arranged into designs and fuse together when sprayed with water.…

Scientific Evidence: UFOs and the Argument from Ignorance

tags: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, UFO, space aliens, argumentum ad ignorantiam, appeal to ignorance, AMNH, streaming video The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance"), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true. The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one…

Friday Fun: Lines from The Princess Bride that Double as Comments on Freshman Composition Papers

Personally, I find it inconceivable that any writer could come up with such a wonderful list. Lines from The Princess Bride that Double as Comments on Freshman Composition Papers. Here's a few to refresh your memory: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." "At a time like this that's all you can think to say?" "Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has." The Princess Bride (memorable quotes) is one of my favourite films and I'm sure it's one of yours. There are no doubt lines from other films that could be re-purposed as essay comments or…

Welcome

The story of the pump handle is familiar to any first-semester public health student: During the London cholera epidemic of 1854, John Snow examined maps of cholera cases and traced the disease to water from a local pump. At the time, the prevailing theory held that cholera spread through the air, rather than water, so Snow faced criticism from others in the science community â not to mention resistance from the water companies. He finally convinced community leaders to remove the pumpâs handle to prevent further exposure Weâve created The Pump Handle blog to serve as a gathering place for…

Win in Ohio!

Oh yeah, baby--Richard has the dish over on Panda's Thumb: Ohio is no longer on the Disco Institute's list of favorite states for pilgrimages. Late this afternoon, by an 11-4 vote, the Ohio State Board of Education stripped out the intelligent-design creationist "critical analysis of evolution" benchmark, indicator, and lesson plan from the 10th Grade Biology curriculum. Tthe resolution had four main parts: 1. Eliminate the "critical analysis of evolution" benchmark and indicator from the Science Standards. 2. Eliminate the "Critical Analysis of Evolution" model lesson plan from the Model…

Monk-e-Mail

Similar to the animation that I previously linked, this will keep you distracted while you are supposed to be working. But this is different (click image) because not only do you get to choose your own monkey from a cast of three possiblilities, but you also can dress your monkey up. As you can tell from this picture, my receptionist monkey has quite an eye for fashion. Anyway, as true for the previous animation, the monkey's head and eyes will move to track your mouse and then you can also have your monkey say things from the prerecorded messages, or from text that you've entered, using…

Using the MRSA database to teach students about data analysis and public health

There's no question that the ability to work with information is one that will be required and valued for a long time to come. I think it's imperative for teachers to have students practice this skill whenever an opportunity comes about. The problem for many teachers is finding the time to identify good data sets. MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a serious problem for hospital patients. Six of out seven people who become infected with MRSA, get it from some kind of health-care facility. In 2007, the CDC issued a report claiming that 18,000 people die every…

It's On The Tip on My Tongue, Really!

tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day Common Pink, also known as the Dianthus, Dianthus plumarius. Photographed on Manhattan's Upper West Side near the corner of West 81st street and Central Park West. Image: GrrlScientist, 11 June 2009 [larger view]. Can anyone identify this cultivated flower? Dianthus is a genus of flowering plants with roughly 300 species in the family Caryophyllaceae. These plants are endemic to Europe and Asia, with a few species extending south into northern Africa. One adventuresome species, D. repens, has even managed to…

Very cool map of rising sea levels

From NASA JPL's Global Climate Change website, here is a very cool map of sea level rise around the world. Despite what one might think at first, sea level, and sea level rise, is not uniform around the world. Local sea level is a surprisingly complicated function of wind, currents and temperature and globally sea levels can vary by up to 2 metres. The largest factor is the temperature in the local water column, thermal expansion from warming is the greatest contrubutor to sea level changes. Measuring sea level rise can be even more difficult due to the masking or amplifying effects of…

Interesting new book on the Obama Stimulus

First this, from a blogpost by David Firestone: On the most basic level, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is responsible for saving and creating 2.5 million jobs. The majority of economists agree that it helped the economy grow by as much as 3.8 percent, and kept the unemployment rate from reaching 12 percent. The stimulus is the reason, in fact, that most Americans are better off than they were four years ago, when the economy was in serious danger of shutting down. But the stimulus did far more than stimulate: it protected the most vulnerable from the recession’s heavy winds. Of…

Free Chapter from New Global Warming Book

There is a new book coming out called How We Know What We Know about Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming. Here is a description: When the weather changes daily, how do we really know that Earth’s climate is changing? Here is the science behind the headlines - evidence from flowers, butterflies, birds, frogs, trees, glaciers and much more, gathered by scientists from all over the world, sometimes with assistance from young "citizen-scientists." And here is what young people, and their families and teachers, can do to learn about climate change and take action.…

Meal Remains From Castles: 2016 Osteology Reports

Supported by a grant from the King Gustavus Adolphus VI Foundation For Swedish Culture, osteologist Lena Nilsson has analysed the bones we collected during excavations last year at two Medieval strongholds. Two weeks with 19 fieldworkers at Birgittas udde produced only 0.4 kg of bones, because the site has no culture layers to speak of and the sandy ground has been unkind. But from the following two weeks at Skällvik Castle we brought home 32.7 kg of bones! And now Lena has looked at them all. Here are her reports: Birgittas udde 2016 Skällvik Castle 2016 The reports are in Swedish, but the…

Thursday Fabulous Bedhead Blogging 033111

SteelyKid has extremely fine hair that doesn't grow very quickly. While this leads many people to mistake her for a boy (that, and the fact that a lot of her play clothes are from the boys' section at Target, because lots of girl-toddler outfits are ridiculously impractical), it does lend itself to spectacular bedhead: She's actually admiring her own crazy hair in a mirror (out of frame to the right) in this shot. She liked it enough that she insisted on keeping it that way, so that her friends at day care could admire it. And, of course, it wouldn't be Thursday without the traditional Appa-…

Swedish Skeptical Anthology

My friend Jesper Jerkert has edited a volume of skeptical essays, most culled from Folkvett, the Swedish skeptic quarterly we both help co-edit. This handsome book is just out from the Stockholm publishing house Leopard, whose head hombre Dan Israel is an officer of Vetenskap och Folkbildning, the Swedish Skeptic Society, just like Jesper and myself. Don't say we're not doing our bit for the Skeptical Conspiracy for World Domination! The book's 21 contributions cover themes such as humanistic psychology, Freudianism, parapsychology, stage magic, alternative medicine, computer screen rash,…

14th Century Shipwreck Off Swedish West Coast Possibly From England

Bohuslän province on the west coast of Sweden is known internationally for its many and varied Bronze Age rock art sites. But its archaeology is rich regardless of what period you look at. My maternal great-granddad's people came from Tanum and Kville parishes, so I'm sort of a Bohuslän aborigine. The discovery of a Medieval shipwreck off the Bohuslän coast was recently announced. Or rather, the wreck has been known for centuries, and local tradition held it to date from the grim early-18th century reign of warrior king Carolus XII. Now maritime archaeologist Staffan von Arbin from the…

Throwback Thursday: The Science Of The Cosmic Microwave Background (Synopsis)

“The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to -271.3°C, not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.” –Stephen Hawking Imagine you traveled out into empty space. Away from any and all planets, stars, galaxies, and matter in general: normal or dark. Would you simply find yourself immersed in an empty, energy-free abyss? Not so! You'd still be bathed in radiation: not just from distant starlight, but from the afterglow of the Big Bang itself. Image credit: ESA and the Planck…

Ceres' bright spots are salts; likely due to subsurface water (Synopsis)

“Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?” -Job 38:16 When NASA’s Dawn spacecraft discovered the existence of bright, white spots inside one of Ceres’ largest craters, the speculations ran wild, from water to aliens. Instead, it was determined that these highly reflective features are salts, likely deposited on Ceres’ surface fairly recently in this deep, less-than-100-million-year-old crater. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, converted from Nature Publishing Group press’s YouTube channel. But new data, mostly in the infrared,…

What Gravitational Wave Astronomy Will Teach Us About The Universe (Synopsis)

“If the imprint is really due to gravitational waves from the big bang, then this is the type of cosmological discovery that comes along perhaps once every fifty years.” -Kip Thorne Now that LIGO's successfully detected it's first gravitational waves — from two merging black holes — we know that we will find them in a variety of circumstances if we look in the right way. Illustration of a fast gamma-ray burst, previously only thought to occur from the merger of neutron stars. Image credit: ESO. While LIGO and its successors will be great for exploring high-frequency events like small black…

The President Of the United States Announces That He Will Resign

On this day in 1974. It was Richard Nixon. I remember it like it was yesterday. Richard Nixon has announced he is stepping down as president of the United States - the first man ever to do so. He has announced his departure in the face of an imminent impeachment trial - and possible removal from office - over the Watergate affair. The president broke the news of his resignation in a television broadcast from the White House on Thursday at 2100 local time. It will take effect from noon tomorrow. Mr Nixon, 61, said initially he had believed it was his duty to complete his term of office…

Ronald Herberman warns of cancer caused by cell phones

Ronald Herberman is the director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Despite the fact that no published study indicates a clear link between cell phone use and cancer, Herberman has warned his staff at the cancer institute a memo warning them of possible risks from cell phones, based on unpublished data. Isn't that interesting. From the BBC: He said children should use mobiles in emergencies only and adults should try to keep the phone away from the head. ... Dr Herberman said his warning was based on early findings from unpublished data. "We shouldn't wait for a definitive…

Oh, Im not a doctor.

My response: Patient: Are you sure youre a doctor? Me: Oh, Im not a doctor. If you are a regular reader of ERV, one of the Big Ideas I hope you take away from this blog is 'Viruses are not Bad Guys' (more, more, this list isnt exhaustive, Ive written about this a million times). Yes, we tend to notice them when they make us sick. But the fact of the matter is, they are super little creatures who have been evolving on this planet for millions and millions and millions of years, and have figured out how to do fantastic things that we can take advantage of for research and treatment purposes.…

Slate Indexes Palin's Book

Sarah Palin's new book does not contain an index. So Christopher Beam, writing at Slate made one for her! Not that you were planning to read the book anyway, but this will save you the trouble. If for some reason you want to know more about the book, have a look at the review in The New York Times. For example: Elsewhere in this volume she talks about creationism, saying she “didn't believe in the theory that human beings -- thinking, loving beings -- originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In…

Chocolate Improves Your Math

Regular blogging will not resume until the end of the semester, but I couldn't resist emerging from my hidey hole to call attention to this article, from The Times of India: Bad at maths? Gorge on chocolates before you attempt your next examination. A new study has revealed that eating chocolate could improve the brain's ability to do maths as well as boost your energy level. Researchers have carried out the study and found that flavanols, compounds found in chocolate and part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, actually work by increasing the flow of blood into the brain. According…

A battle for the desert

Pogonomyrmex maricopa (at left) tussles with an Aphaenogaster albisetosa at the Aphaenogaster nest entrance. While in Arizona, I chanced upon a set of ant fights that I'd observed several times previously.  Single workers of the maricopa harvester ant Pogonomyrmex maricopa would approach a nest of their competitor, Aphaenogaster long-legged ants, and spend a few minutes drawing heat from the guards before wandering off. Same thing, but different individuals (note differences in limb wounds from the previous photo) The interaction is common enough that it really couldn't be just a chance…

Darwin as consciousness-raiser

Absent anything original to add to the millions of words that have been written about Charles Darwin, on this Darwin Day I'm going to quote from one of his acolytes, Richard Dawkins. In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins runs with, rather than away from, the notion that a proper understanding of evolution through natural selection prods the reader closer to a secular, rational view of the universe. In other words, the fundamentalists are right: Darwinism can lead to atheism. From page 116: Natural selection not only explains the whole of life; it also raises our consciousness to the power of…

May Der Zirkle be unbroken ...

Remember Tony Zirkle? He’s the Indiana Republican who cavorted with Hitler-worshippers at the Saddest Birthday Party Ever and claimed that he didn’t "know enough about the group to either favor it or oppose it." Well, May 6th saw his defeat in the Republican primary. But get this, he got 16% of the vote. Strangely, Zirkle sees his defeat as a victory and steals some rhetoric from the Discovery Institute playbook: However, with respect to the social issues, when it comes to who was most successful in placing their ideas on the public record, I can claim an incredible victory. I, myself, have…

Questions

Have fellows of the Discovery Institute been caught plagiarizing? You decide. Does the Discovery Institute lie? You decide. Does Behe get owned by a grad student? You decide. Bad week for the cdesign proponentsists by the looks of it. Oh, and when’s the last time there was any science coming from these guys? Instead we have yet another version of Pandas from Dembski and Wells, a popular book from Behe (one which appeared still-born), and nothing from Paul Nelson. Remember two and a half years ago when he stated Bill Dembski and I have been working on a shorter article, with some of the…

DRAMA AND FIREWORKS AT SOCIETY OF ENVIRO JOURNALISTS' PANEL ON GLOBAL WARMING: Senate Staffer Repeats Inhofe's Hype About the Media; But Andrew Revkin of the NY Times Gets Kudos from American Spectator For Putting It All in Context

Over the weekend, I appeared on a stellar panel at the National Association of Science Writer's meetings in Baltimore that featured Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Dan Vergano from the USA Today, and Juliet Eilperin from the Washington Post. I will have more to say about this panel later, but apparently, while few fireworks flared in Baltimore, smoked filled the room at the Society of Environmental Journalists meetings in Burlington, VT. (Excuse the strategy/conflict frame.) The panel featured Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, Bill Blakemore of ABC News;…

Derek K. Miller is dead

Another atheist exits with grace and dignity. Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote--the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive. If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of…

Having pets can reduce risk of developing allergies and obesity

Photo by Donnie Ray Jones from Flickr creative commons. A recent study published in Microbiome from researchers at the University of Alberta shows that babies from families with pets had nearly two-fold increases in the amount of two specific microbes in their guts, Ruminococcus and Oscillospira. These particular microbes are associated with reduced risks of developing childhood allergies as well as obesity. According to study author Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj, “There’s definitely a critical window of time when gut immunity and microbes co-develop, and when disruptions to the process result in…

First known case of zebra shark switching to asexual reproduction

Photo of one of Leonie's hatchlings from Tourism and Events Queensland. The story begins in 1999 when Leonie, a zebra shark (aka a leopard shark in Australia), was captured from the wild. In 2006 she was transferred to Reef HQ Aquarium in Queensland, Australia where she met her mate. By 2008, she had started laying eggs and the pair had multiple litters of offspring through sexual reproduction. After her mate was removed from the tank to prevent further breeding, she has shared the tank with one of her offspring, a female named Lolly who, since reaching sexual maturity herself, has never…

Polygamous deer mice have faster sperm

Image of a deer mouse from Seney Natural History Association, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29576617 Deer mice are known for being quite promiscuous. In fact, it is not uncommon to find a litter of deer mice with multiple fathers. Dr. Hopi Hoekstra and colleagues at Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology discovered that the tail of deer mice sperm have longer midsections than found in monogamous mice. What this means is that their sperm can swim better and faster, thereby reaching an egg sooner than sperm from other…

Things that are currently making me feel old

Today, as I was driving around and flipping through the radio stations, I heard a song from late in my college days....on the classic rock station. (At least it wasn't the oldies station?) I've recently been friended on FB by friends from waaaaay back....and they are all posting hideous photos from junior high and high school. (There should be a law against this sort of behavior.) Toddler Jane's upcoming birthday....she'll be 2!! 2!! How did this happen? I'm having to explain more and more of my cultural references to my students. Today I had to explain what I thought was a pretty…

Anal Evolution

No, no. This isn't from the tasteless blurb on the cover of a Creationist book. This is about research on the evolution of anus published at Nature Magazine. "The very simple question is how to get from one opening to two," says Detlev Arendt, a researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. The question may be obvious, but it is not easy to answer. Punching a new hole on the opposite end from the mouth is unlikely from an evolutionary standpoint, says Arendt. So he and others have suggested that over time, the mouth elongated and then separated into a mouth…

And the T-Shirt Winner Is...

October has come and gone, and the Scienceblogs Donors Choose Challenge is over. You helped TSZ raise $1500 of a total $54,335 from all Scienceblogs challenges. That plus the $15,000 matching funds from Seed brings the total amount raised for Donors Choose to $69,335!!!! Over 155 classroom projects have been fully funded, and thousands of children affected by the generosity of Scienceblogs readers. I promised you at the beginning of October that everyone who donated to my challenge would be entered in a raffle for a special TSZ t-shirt that reads "Zuska Says: Don't Make Me Puke On Your…

Brain-Harvesting Scam Netted $150K

This is just strange. How did it go on for so long? An investigation of suspected brain harvesting within Maine's medical examiner's office has ended without any criminal charges, state and federal prosecutors said Wednesday. At least 99 brains were sent from the medical examiner's office to the Stanley Institute, which uses its brain bank for research on the causes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, from 1999 to 2003. More than a dozen families have sued, alleging the brains were removed without their consent. The lawsuits in Maine target the Stanley Institute; Dr. E. Fuller Torrey,…

More Little League Pics

From the proud papa. First, the league's best right fielder: He hasn't let a ball past him all year. Granted, no balls have been hit to him this year, but that's neither here nor there. Next up, at the plate. Notice the bent knees, with the elbow up. That's pretty good form for a beginner (his Dad taught him that). That picture is from his second at bat. In his first, he walked after looking at a 3-2 pitch in the dirt. That landed him on first (I don't think the first baseman is very happy with him): From there he made it to second on a single, just beating out the throw from the center…

Sights and Sounds from the Montreal Jazzfest

We spent the weekend up in Montreal where we caught some of the many shows at the Jazz Fest. If you've never been, here's what you're missing: That's Marsh Dondurma from Israel - a friend of ours has a cousin in the band. Below the fold, I posted a couple of other clips from that same set. Another band worth mentioning to you is Nomo. I wasn't able to record 'em due to the lack of memory in my camera and the level of alcohol in my blood - here's a vid from Youtube: And you might be wondering, what type of person goes to the Montreal Jazzfest? Here's some examples: As the day turn to…

New England RNA Data Club Today!

Wow, what a week. I finally submitted my paper to PLoS Biology and we finally got our RNA Data Club up and going. This event/series was conceived in a drunken state at a happy hour about 1&1/2 months ago and now has become bigger then anyone of us originally imagined. When we pitched this idea around there was much enthusiasm followed by fears from some who were worried that many research groups would not want to share their data due to the fact that the RNA field (and RNAi in particular) is so competitive. Well after we sent out a call for prospective presenters (postdocs and grad…

Blogger challenge 2008 sprog thank-you art: cats.

Another generous donor (who prefers to remain anonymous) made a contribution to my challenge and requested some artwork from the sprogs. The requested subject matter, cats, is one about which the Free-Ride offspring are pretty enthusiastic (perhaps because I'm allergic to cats and can't live with them). So, send in the cats: From the younger Free-Ride offspring: From the elder Free-Ride offspring: Thank you for your generous contribution, donor! If you'd like sprog art (or poetry, or other goodies) of your own, take a look at some of these worthy projects, make a contribution,…

Bogus crime rate comparisons

Jonathon Dursi details the spread of a bogus comparison between crime rate in US in Canada from John Lott to David Frum to Alan Gottlieb: So here's the path of the lie as far as I can see it: Aug 2005: Lott claims violent crime is twice as rampant in Canada as in the US; this is untrue, and comes from fallaciously comparing two different statistics from different countries. Oct 2005: Lott makes other claims about Canadian crime rates in the National Post, equally cherry-picked. Jan 2006: Frum play the same game in the National Post, comparing incommensurate `Total Specified Crimes'…

Bloody Vikings

Robyn Williams has written a book debunking Intelligent Design. Tim Blair's reaction (endorsed by Glenn Reynolds): He doesn't see anything wrong with Intelligent Design, but why didn't Williams write a book on the flaws in Fundamentalist Islam?. Similarly Blair thinks people shouldn't write about global warming, but should write about the threat from global terrorism instead. And you shouldn't write about the danger of obesity, but about the danger of Islamic extremism. I think that if Blair had his way, this is what it would be like at breakfast: "What's in the paper this morning?" "Well,…