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Descended From Darwin

Joe Cain and Michael Ruse have edited a volume, Descended from Darwin: Insights into American Evolutionary Studies 1925-1950, that has been published by the American Philosophical Society. Thanks to a grant from the APS, the complete volume is available for free at Cain's website. Some really interesting papers from a bunch of folks I know well. As Cain notes: This volume began at a conference, held 22â23 October 2004 at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. The main focus was on evolutionary studies in America before, during, and after the famous âevolutionary synthesisâ…

Higgs Bosons from the future are messing about at LHC

They are already here, they are amidst us, they zip through our heads affecting LHC funding, they come from future and cunningly prevent their production at LHC by affecting the present. Meet Bosons from the future. So, this in short, is the paper by two physicists discussed in this NY Times article. Dr. Nielson said of the theory, "Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God." It is their guess, he went on, "that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them." This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States…

Leaving Africa

Africa, as we all know, is a wild continent that tugs at our existence. The people are wonderful and warm. The art is stunning. But I can't help closing my trip to Africa, which this time consisted of meetings, meetings, meetings, with a passage from Doug Adams about his visit to the Congo documented in Last Chance to See. I fear Adams' sentiments are still relevant--not to me so much as to the researchers operating in those countries who face daily challenges to their work and its advancement. Like most colonies, Zaire had imposed on it a stifling bureaucracy, the sole function on which…

Fungi and Fun Girl: Why I Love Mushrooms

I don't eat fish (as has been established) or any meat so I find I get served a lot of mushrooms, which I don't mind. I recently enjoyed some hand-foraged chanterelles from the B.C. forest at Vancouver's Pair Bistro so much that I asked myself: Why? I think this is the reason: mushroom and fish are the two last wild food sources consumed with any regularity by Westerners. I don't eat the latter, thus fungus is my only source of savage food. Like most things, the U.S. is also eating more mushrooms. U.S. per capita consumption of mushrooms has quadrupled since 1965 while per capita seafood…

From Wall Street Journal: Rich, Not Poor, Are Crowding Emergency Rooms

It seems that the rise in ER use comes not from the poor uninsured but from a much more affluent income sector. From the Wall St. Journal Health Blog: Rich, Not Poor, Are Crowding Emergency Rooms: This is the conventional wisdom: Priced out of health insurance, ever more Americans are crowding into emergency rooms because they can’t afford a trip to the doctor. Yes, ERs are getting busier. But it’s not because of poor people or the uninsured, according to this analysis in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The study is based on national surveys conducted between 1996 and 2004. During that…

Exhuming castrati to determine the obvious

Is this really necessary? Castrati played heroic male leads in Italian opera from the mid-17th to late 18th century when the bel canto was the rage in Europe. Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi in 1705, was the most famous of them all, in a stage career lasting from 1720 to 1737. Carlo Vitale of the Farinelli Study Center in Bologna said they had recovered the bodies on Wednesday of the singer and his great-niece, who moved his body from a first grave destroyed in the Napoleonic wars. His final resting place in Bologna's Certosa cemetery was only recently discovered. "They are in a middling state…

Look Out for Cyclone Favio

According to the latest advisory from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, this storm, currently passing south of Madagascar and entering the Mozambique Channel, is a strong Category 3 (105 knot or roughly 120 mph winds) possibly on its way to Category 4. What's troubling about that is the projected track for Favio, shown below in an image from Tropical Storm Risk. If the part of the South Indian ocean conducive to cyclones were a football field, then Madagascar would be the twenty yard line and Mozambique (where Favio seems headed) would be the end zone. In Storm World, I discuss the…

Hillary's New Message: 'Yes We Can!'

On the political spectrum, regular readers know I'm pretty nonpartisan. Call me old fashioned, but the America I want to be a part of looks something like the vision of Marlo Thomas from 1974. I'll vote for a candidate supporting freedom, a green country, and a shining (healthy) sea. And most of all, I'd like a leader who fosters cooperation and encourages our children to grow up to fulfill their potential. The Democratic party has chosen Barack Obama for the 2008 presidential election and I'd like to welcome him to North Carolina this morning as he kicks off a two-week tour around the…

Updike on the implications of evolution

While reading the New Yorker yesterday I came across this gem of a quote from the late John Updike, which eloquently expresses one of the ideas I was reaching for in my own Darwin Day post. The non-scientist's relation to modern science is basically craven: we look to its discoveries and technology to save us from disease, to give us a faster ride and a softer life, and at the same time we shrink from what it has to tell us of our perilous and insignificant place in the cosmos. Not that threats to our safety and significance were absent from the pre-scientific world, or that arguments against…

GOP crowdsourced priority #1: dammit, Jim, dolphins are fish!

Apparently the Republicans learned nothing from Change.gov and the White House's problematic experiments with crowdsourcing, because they've now invited web-based public input to shape their 2010 party platform. According to Dana Milbank, so far, the suggestions include such gems as "A 'teacher' told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story." Mmmmkay. Unless the commenter uses a giveaway pseudonym, it's tough to tell if such…

Intelligent Design and Education Paper

Some of you might be interested in this short article from the February 2006 issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences: Lombrozo, T., Shtulman, A., & Weisberg, M. (2006) The Intelligent Design controversy: lessons from psychology and education. Trends in Cognitive Science, 10(2), 56-57. Here's the first paragraph, to whet your appetite: The current debate over whether to teach Intelligent Design creationism in American public schools provides the rare opportunity to watch the interaction between scientific knowledge and intuitive beliefs play out in courts rather than cortex. Although it is…

Life from Radioactivity

Art Z over at href="http://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/2006/10/22/bacteria-use-radioactive-uranium-instead-of-energy-from-the-sun/">Cheerful Curmudgeon links to an interesting story about subterranean href="http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4229.html">bacteria that derive energy from radioactive uranium.   "What really gets my juices flowing is the possibility of life below the surface of Mars," said Tullis Onstott, a Princeton University geoscientist and leader of the research team. "These bacteria have been cut off from the surface of the Earth for many millions of years, but…

The science of sound in action

I'm probably going to catch some crap for this one, but it's kind of amusing. So what the heck? From Australia: Officials think the "Mandy" singer's music will keep teens from hanging out and revving their engines in parking lots. Officials in Rockdale, Australia will pump the music of Barry Manilow through speakers in their town to keep hooligan kids from loitering and revving their car engines in neighborhood parking lots. They hope that the "daggy" (slang for unhip) music will send kids fleeing. "Based on reports...daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area because they can't…

Polyethylene Terephthalate (What's it to You??)

PET is an ubiquitous plastic. You've heard it referred to as "dacron", "mylar," or just "polyester." It it produced by (among other methods) the condensation of terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol: PET is all over, from soft drink bottles to fabrics. Perhaps the neatest use is as mylar; an oriented form of PET. Back in the fifties we stumbled across it and we haven't looked back. There aren't many applications for a plastic mylar hasn't found its way into. Awhile ago, my friend sent me a link to the Prelinger Archives, an amazing public-domain repository of gee-whiz video from the past…

Phylogeny Friday - 19 May 2006

As I mentioned previously, I'm busy preparing some data for a meeting next week. I don't have much time to devote to Phylogeny Friday, so I'll be sharing some of my own data with you. This data is nothing special; it just happens to be the data I finished analyzing a few minutes ago. It's open, I could build a tree, and I'll show you that tree below the fold. This tree contains a scant three sequences. The two closely related sequences both come from Drosophila pseudoobscura and the outgroup is a gene from D. melanogaster. This gene was duplicated along the D. pseudoobscura lineage. In the…

Gene Regulation and Evolution

Kevin White (aka, Mr. Drosophila microarray data) has a paper coming out in tomorrow's issue of Nature. The paper (which is not available on the Nature website yet) compares the expression of over 1,000 genes from humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhesus monkeys. From a news write up of the findings: When they also looked for human genes with significantly higher or lower expression levels, they found 14 genes with increased expression and five with decreased expression. While only ten percent of the genes in the total array were transcription factors, 42 percent of those with increased…

Junk on Junk

I've recently come across two articles on junk DNA. The first one, from New Scientist, includes a pretty thorough coverage of recent studies that have identified functions for non-protein-coding regions of the human genome ("Why 'junk DNA' may be useful after all"). The article is set up as if it will present the demise of junk DNA, but it paints the accurate picture that a large portion of the human genome is non-functional. And TR Gregory like the article too. The second article tries to do that, but fails. It's from The Scientist and entitled Junk Worth Keeping: Is it time to retire…

Twin Cities Evolution Event

Let's go visit the Twin Cities Creation Science Science Fair at Har Mar Mall on Feb 13. We'd meet up at the local bookstore cafe in the mall around 10:30 to 11 or so, visit the science fair exhibits and look around, then around 12:30 to 1:00 we'll have lunch. There is a facebook event. (Check my facebook wall. If you are not my facebook friend, why not? If you are not a member of facebook, HELP GET ME OUT OF HERE.... but you can come anyway. Har Mar Mall. If you don't know what or where that is then you are probably not from the Twin Cities. But if you are from the twin cities and want…

Colbert Links

Yes it's the speech that has gone around the world via email. Reality has a well-known liberal bias And did you see that Colbert thanked Bill Kristol for helping him write the address? I personally got 7 emails with links to the ifilm's compendium of Colbert's little gig at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. And someone very dear to me has fallen in love with Colbert and his young dshing looks. Here are various blog entries on the subject. Mike the Mad Biologist and comments on Richard Cohen's OpEd (another comment on Pharyngula) Dispatches From the Culture Wars Strange Fruit I and II…

On Geography and the Biomedical Sciences

I had one interesting thought about the Seed dinner that I've been wanting write about for a while - the isolation of biomedical sciences from the rest of the scientific academic community. This fact was apparent at the Seed dinner - of the dozen people from Harvard or MIT, I was the sole representative from the Longwood campus. For those of you that are not familiar with Harvard, the Biomedical Sciences are all located in Boston's Longwood area, which is a stone throw away from Fenway Park. With all its hospitals and research centers, the Longwood campus is about the size of Harvard main…

Squids May See with Organ as Well as Eyes

A new study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has shed some light (oh... ZING!) on how squids may use another organ, along with their eyes, to see. Some squids have a light organ on them which they use to camoflauge themselves from predators below them. The organ is filled with a luminous bateria that the squid can activate to light up. The idea is that the squids can illuminate their organs to match the light coming from the surface of the water, thus confusing a rising, hungry fish or giant crab monsters recently loose from attacking deep sea oil drilling stations. By studying the…

Pick Me to Go To Mars!

This map depicts a hypothetical Mars with oceans. The view could represent a stage of terraforming (not an early Mars, since the ocean areas do not correspond to such hypotheses). The base map is from the USGS Flagstaff web site, with oceans added based on elevation data from a USGS map at Solar Views and a cloud map modified from one at Visible Earth. Map centered on 180° longitude. The good ol' red planet may have been blue. New research in Nature suggests that massive oceans once covered a third of its surface. What is the evidence? Ragged, km high features on the planet's…

Coral References In the Bible

Given the comments on the last post, I thought it time to give almost-a-religion-major Craig a work out. The origin of the word coral is traced to Greek korllion and Latin coralium probably both derived from the early Hebrew goral meaning "small pebble". In the Torah goral occurs in reference to small stones used in casting lots (Num. 33:54; Jonah 1:7). The word also may have denoted "a portion or an inheritance (Josh. 15:1; Ps. 125:3; Isa. 17:4), and a destiny, as assigned by God (Ps. 16:5; Dan. 12:13)." In English translations the specific word coral also occurs: Ezekiel 27:16 (text from…

GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for June 16-22, 2010

The latest news from the world of volcanoes, brought to us by the Global Volcanism Program, USGS and the Smithsonian Institution. They are also brought to us by Sally Kuhn Sennert - and if you have a question for her about her job at the GVP preparing the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report and all things volcanic (and hopefully it won't end like another recent volcanically-mitigated interview). Some highlights (not including Gorely and Sakurajima): Ioto (aka Iwojima) in the Volcano Islands of Japan produced an ash plume of unknown height. The volcano has frequent phreatic eruptions and abundant…

The latest USGS/SI Update (plus pictures from Soufriere Hills)

Before we get to the latest SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report (WVAR), I wanted to draw your attention to some nifty NASA Earth Observatory images from the current activity at Soufriere Hills in Montserrat. After a few puffs last week, the volcano is now releasing a relatively constant stream of ash and steam, this after ~10 months of quiescence. The two images, one on October 12 and one on the 13th, suggest there is a lot of a variability, day to day, in the plume. See the latest WVAR for more info on Soufriere Hills. On to the Report! Highlights this week (not including Soufriere Hills…

Llaima eruption from space

Llaima in Chile, taken on April 9, 2009. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. The NASA Earth Observatory (currently celebrating its 10th year) has posted a number of great images of the current eruption of Llaima in Chile, taken from Earth Observing-1 and Terra Satellites. They show both the ash plume of the eruption and the lava flows associated with it (above). The image here is a false-color image of Llaima, where the bright red/orange is the lava flow from the volcano, along with the dark brown of the ash/rocks from this and previous eruptions. The eruption itself might continue…

Kasatochi now an island of ash

The eruption of Kasatochi was a bit of a surprise to volcanologists who study the Aleutians, to say the least. The volcano itself has been quiet for likely over 100 years, but with relatively little warning, the volcano erupted over the summer, blasting ash (and a large amount of sulfur dioxide) into the atmosphere. We finally have some images of the destruction wreaked upon the island, and from the looks of it, the island is blanketed in grey ash from the eruption(s). Biologist who have worked on the island prior to the eruption think a significant number of auklets may be buried in the ash…

George W. Bush, Randian superman?

This whole conversion story in Afghanistan has been in the news recently. The Christian Science Monitor attempts to put the issue of conversion from Islam to another religion in an international perspective. I am cautious about making large generalizations without qualifications, but I will offer that as a civilization, "Dar-al-Islam," has particular issues with conversion when set against "Hindu" or "Christian" civilization. Though the difference is quantitative, not qualitative, some facts are so naked that caveats can not truly cover up the shame. There are "Muslim" nations where…

Cell Phones and Cancer - Scaremongering from the Independent

The Independent has yet another hysterical article about the potential link between cell phones and brain cancer. And I've been asked, what are we seeing here? Is this the early reporting of a potential public health threat? Or is it just more nonsense from a newspaper that wouldn't know good science if it sat on it's head? Both Ben Goldacre and I have felt the need to take on some piece of nonsense from the Independent, and their previous writing on "electrosmog", a repeatedly disproven piece of crankery, diminishes their credibility on this issue. And guess what else diminishes their…

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Optical Molasses

`Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--' `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; `they'd have been ill.' `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.' -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 7 As an undergrad, I did my senior…

Joe Mercola plays the religion card against vaccines

Remember Helen Ratajczak? A few months ago, CBS News' resident anti-vaccine reporter Sharyl Attkisson was promoting Ratajczak's incompetent "analysis" of evidence that she views as implicating vaccines in the pathogenesis of autism entitled Theoretical aspects of autism: causes--A Review (which is available in all its misinforming glory here). I applied some not-so-Respectful Insolence to the idiocy contained within Ratajczak's article. One aspect of the article that I mentioned was how Ratajczak claimed that DNA from "aborted fetal tissue" in vaccines correlated with the rise of autism. The…

Origin of Native America

The origin and early history of Native American people has always been an issue of debate and contention. There has never been a moment when all, or even most, interested parties agreed on anything close to a single story. New research published in the Open-Access journal PLoS Genetics tends to support a very traditional (among archaeologists) view of a single relatively simple migration from Siberia across the New World, more or less from north to south. Studies of genetic variation have the potential to provide information about the initial peopling of the Americas and the more recent…

Beauty and the antivaccine beast

The last couple of days have been very busy, as you might have guessed from my brief (for me) post on Tuesday and my—shall we say?—appropriation of a post to use for yesterday. Today's going to be the same, but for more pleasant reasons than having had to go out to dinner with a visiting professor and being out until 10:30 PM and slaving away at grant applications. Last night an unexpected surprise arrived. Well, it wasn't a surprise that it arrived; it was a surprise that it arrived yesterday, as I hadn't expected it until today, and a couple of weeks ago I hadn't expected it before the end…

Sen. Allen (R-VA) Plays to the Republican Base...

...and calls a dark-skinned man of Indian descent a monkey. When viewed with his other forms of sociopathy, I'll ask once again: can the Republicans please nominate a presidential candidate who isn't cracked in the head? (Just in case). From a historical perspective, a VA congressman once referred to Chain Bridge which connects VA and DC as "the longest bridge in the world, since it goes from VA to Africa." That was a few decades ago though. George Allen: he wants to party like it's 1959. Update: Atrios points out that "macaca" is a nasty slur directed at North Africans. Who knew…

Links 8/15/11

Links for you. Science: Universal Flu Vaccine Another Step Closer, But Still Far The annotated apocalypse: Anthropologists tackle 2012 Drug Resistance in Food -- Coming from Aquaculture? Other: I blame the British government for the riots (I think everyone who prattles on about the 'culture of poverty' should read this) It's the Political Economy, Stupid! The Great Splintering "Hop on the Welfare Wagon" (from 1932. Things change, not always for the better) Rick Perry's Unanswered Prayers The Hijacked Crisis Every single GOP 2012er would walk away from a 10-to-1 deficit deal on spending and…

Religious people are less intelligent

At my other weblog Jason Malloy points me to Half Sigma who crunches the data from the GSS and finds that yes, religiosity is a predictor of lower intelligence. One of the most googled postings of mine from years back is where I showed that there is a positive trend for mean national IQ to predict mean national religiosity. Of course, by the numbers, most high IQ people are still religious, they are simply less religious than those of lower IQ. Anyway, here is a follow up rant from Half Sigma. Of course, another fact is that the non-religious also probably like confirmation of the fact…

Why, Thank You! We Like the Times, Too.

Flattering news from elsewhere on the web: The New York Times has just launched a beta version of My Times, a personalizable homepage feature that allows users to mix their favorite Times content with widgetized utilities and news and entertainment items from around the internet. One of the niftiest features is the Times Journalists' Selections—recommended web content from beloved Times reporters and columnists. It would be nifty even if the Journalists' Selections didn't include a handful of ScienceBlogs. Times science reporter Kenneth Chang likes Good Math, Bad Math and Pharyngula; science…

LOL Creationists III

Ok, here is my final thread on LOL creationists (see the previous entries). Anti-evolution brings us some entries, this is my favorite (below the fold - it's a tad dirty). From Dustin: I also like the DaveScot and Sal Cordova mockery with a denialist tinge (from Farland): Someone's going to have to explain this one to me: We have an excellent explanation for why T-Rex wasn't allowed on the ark: This is a great entry from a reader who wished to remain anonymous: Tyler DiPietro's entry Ok that's it. If anyone has more genius ideas leave them in the comments. It's time to put this meme…

Life in the Aphotic Zone

tags: Life in the Aphotic Zone, animals, marine life, marine biology, bioluminescence, benthic zone, abyssal zone, streaming video This fascinating video captures a glimpse of the weird and wonderful animals that live in the aphotic zone. The aphotic zone (aphotic from Greek prefix á¼- + Ïá¿¶Ï "without light") is the portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight. It is formally defined as the depths beyond which less than 1% of sunlight penetrates. Consequently, bioluminescence is essentially the only light found in this zone. Most food comes from dead organisms sinking to…

Dom Sankt Bartholomäus (detail), 1

tags: Dom Sankt Bartholomäus, St Bartholomew's Cathedral, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, photography Dom Sankt Bartholomäus (St Bartholomew's Cathedral), Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Image: GrrlScientist, 14 April 2010 [larger view]. This gothic-style cathedral was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the foundation of an earlier church from the Merovingian time. Some of these ruins are still visible. Dom Sankt Bartholomäus is the main church of Frankfurt and it has some historical significance. From 1356 onwards, kings of the Holy Roman Empire were elected in this church, and…

Patricia Brennan on bird genitalia

News from SCONC: On Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m., the Zoology Department at NCSU will host a seminar from Patricia Brennan of Yale University entitled "The Biology of Avian Genitalia: Form and Function." Brennan's work on the genital anatomy of waterfowl has revealed the existence of a "sexual arms race" between males and females. Unlike 97 percent of bird species, male waterfowl have a phallus, and it can range "from a half-inch to more than 15 inches long." The seminar will be held in 101 David Clark Labs. Refreshments will be served in the lobby at 3:45. Related: Friday Weird Sex Blogging…

Science grants for two local schools

Good news for two local schools: Two Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools have received grants to fund school projects. Carrboro High School received a $5,950 grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Science teacher Robin Bulleri applied for the grant to fund a biotechnology project at Carrboro High. Smith Middle School received a $5,000 Lowe's Toolbox for Education Grant from the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation. Teachers Kelly Sears and Melinda Fitzgerald received the grant to fund a proposal entitled, "Sediment Rangers: 8th Grade Stewardship and Outdoor Classroom Project."…

Jonessssssson - a happy ending

Jason Jones' quest for a Modern Valkyrie ends Comedy Show's great two part visit to Iceland reaches its dramatic conclusions For your viewing pleasure. The similarty to a committee meeting I just attended is eerie... somethings are just universal. It is funny. when Jason went to her apartment, he of course showed everyone where she lives - just down from one of my aunts, and about 3 block across from one uncle and a couple of cousins. And about a block from the apartment we stayed in the other summer (though Herdís must have been either in Brussels or Baghdad at the time). Hm, I wonder if…

Open Thread

I know the cookie bug is still afflicting some commenters-- the folks who make Movable Type are aware of the bug, and it will be fixed with the next release, whenever that is. You can get around the bug by either deleting cookies from scienceblogs.com, or by logging out from TypeKey, if you have a TypeKey identitiy, and have logged in. Other than that, if there's anything I ought to be aware of-- bugs with the site, articles on other sites, nifty tricks involving magnets-- you know where the comments are. UPDATE: the developer for ScienceBlogs recommends the "zap cookies" tool from this…

Carnival of Space: Artists Edition

Space, if nothing else, is an awfully pretty place. This week over at Space Cynic lies the 53rd Carnival of Space. Some of the highlights of this weeks Carnival include the following: Cosmic Chocolates -- Japanese chocolates designed on the Planets. The Space Elevator -- We're still a long way away from this one. The Earth from other worlds -- See what the Earth would look like from Saturn or Mars. Private Space Tourism -- You've seen Virgin Galactic's plans, now see the Russian plan that will certainly be ready to go much sooner! Have a great weekend, and don't forget to read and comment…

11th Century Viking Silver Hoard Found

Swedish island-province Ãland's second-largest silver hoard ever was found recently. Dating from the 11th century and consisting mainly of about 1000 German and English coins, it also has some Islamic ones, one from Sigtuna and even one from India, a very rare occurrence. Some hack silver as well, and a piece of gold rod unless I'm mistaken. The droning noise at the start and end of the above newsreel is a Bronze Age trumpet that had been lying in a bog for almost 2000 years at the time when the hoard was buried and would spend almost another 1000 years there before it was unearthed. Nice…

I Miss The R.U. Sirius Show

The R.U. Sirius Show is/was a great weekly counterculture podcast that aired 88 episodes until about a year ago. Then it went on unannounced hiatus. I miss the show! Can anybody offer information on what R.U. is up to, and whether he has any plans to recommence his podcasting? The latest interview with Sirius that I've been able to find dates from February. There he offers no comment on his silence. Update 10 February '09: In an interview on the Right Where You Are Sitting Now! podcast from June '08, R.U. Sirius explains (about 10 minutes from the file's end) that his podcasting halted…

The Weirdness Event Horizon Approaches

The truly remarkable thing about the BaconCat incident is not that John Scalzi taped bacon to his cat (as you can tell from his wife's reaction), or that he got a bazillion hits from Fark for it (which is what the Internet is for, after all), or that he made a motivational poster about it (because, really, it takes firearms to keep Scalzi away from PhotoShop). No, the remarkable thing is that the fake blog someone set up for John's cat currently has a Technorati rank in the top 1.6% of all blogs (848,635 out of 54 million, at this writing). Really, there's just no way you could make this shit…

Alumni News Update

At my 15th class reunion this past June, I agreed to become the class secretary for the next few years, writing up little news updates for the Cult of the Purple Cow Quarterly, so my classmates can read about the achievements of their fellows. In that spirit, I feel I should note an accolade that won't be likely to appear in the next Alumni Review: Yes, that's right, William Bennett (Class of 1965, and a rugby player, to boot) was dubbed "Alpha Dog of the Week" by Stephen Colbert, for having the balls to mock intellectuals. This, from a man with a BA from Williams, a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and…