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The Impacts of California’s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production

California’s hottest and driest drought in recorded history has shifted the sources of electricity with adverse economic and environmental consequences. The Pacific Institute has just completed and released a report that evaluates how diminished river flows have resulted in less hydroelectricity, more expensive electricity from the combustion of natural gas, and increased production of greenhouse gas emissions. The current severe drought has many negative consequences. One of them that receives little attention is how the drought has fundamentally changed the way our electricity is produced.…

Life Science and Physical Science Weekly Channel Update 9-15-08

In this post: the large versions of the Life Science and Physical Science channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Physical Science. A lever of the first class. From Flickr, by zaxl4 Life Science. Rhopalaea Crassa, a fluorescent colored sea squirt. From Flickr, by CybersamX Reader comments of the week: The purported first pictures of a wild okapi in almost 50 years made big news last week, with most of the Life Science blogs covering it and the ScienceBlogs staff making it the the Buzz for September 13th. However, In Okapi: More lies than Sarah Palin!!!…

DNA: it's in your blood

Did you know small fragments of DNA are circulating in your blood stream? These short pieces of DNA are left behind after cells self-destruct. This self-destruction, or apoptosis, is a normal process. In the case of fetal development, certain cells in our hands die, leaving behind individual fingers. Immune system cells leave traces of DNA behind after they’ve tackled invading microbes. DNA can also appear in the blood when people have cancer. I had the good fortune, last Monday, to hear Matthew Snyder describe this cell-free DNA in a fascinating talk and learn why DNA in the blood can be a…

Physical chemistry in the kitchen

How do you use science outside of the lab? People say that transferring knowledge and skills from one subject to another represents one of the highest levels of learning. They also say that it hardly ever happens. Perhaps this explains some of the more astounding things that we hear from Nobel Prize winners, like when Francis Crick proposed that Earth was settled by sperm from outer space, or when Watson, well, we'll leave that subject alone for now. I admit, I don't always think to apply my scientific training to things that happen outside of the lab. When those moments do happen, I relish…

Bird flu in Indonesia: "these negligent guys"

If you want a good snapshot of how poorly prepared Indonesia is for coping with bird flu, look no further than the Letter column of The Jakarta Post: On Aug. 26 I found a dead wild bird in my yard. I am living in Bali near the area where bird flu related deaths have occurred. Since I was worried about the possible risk connected with dead birds, I tried to contact some authority to guide me on how to handle this situation. I tried to reach the main hospital in Bali, Sanglah, and the answer was to go there if sick but they do not know anything regarding dead birds or chickens. Next I tried to…

Infecting your computer with swine flu malware

Frequent readers here know we are fascinated with the similarities between computer viruses and real viruses. Both use their unwittingly infected hosts (computers or host cells) to make copies of themselves and in the process can cause varying degrees of sickness. It's hard to give any solid criteria which will differentiate one as qualitatively different than the other (except perhaps one is purely carbon based). But now you don't have to choose. You can have both at once: A new malware campaign uses faked e-mails that appear to inform of H1N1 vaccination programs from the Centers from…

Fireworks!! foe, not fun for veterans with PTSD

Is it unpatriotic to dread the Fourth of July?   I wonder if some U.S. veterans do, in fact dread Independence Day because of the bottle rockets, shot missiles and other fireworks set off to mark the occasion. NBC News contributor Bill Briggs wrote last year about Iraq War veteran Pete Chinnici, 26, who is "yanked backward in time to an unfriendly, unpredictable, violent land," when neighborhood kids play with firecrackers.  Briggs quotes Dr. John Hart of the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas: “Fireworks hit right in the heart of these causes [PTSD triggers.]  Here’s…

Occupational Health News Roundup

In Congo, an estimated two million artisanal miners account for as much of 90% of the countryâs mineral exports. The Washington Postâs Stephanie McCrummen reports on how this unofficial economy works: The diggers usually work in groups of three, heaving out bags of ore. The haphazard tunneling undermines the stability of the earth above, which often collapses. Every week, about 10 miners die in accidents, provincial officials said. [Freelance miner Innocent] Luamba's three-man team can produce perhaps two 220-pound sacks of copper ore a day, a bounty quickly consumed by a slew of dubious…

Spitzer, Kristof, and Dangerous Jobs

By Adam Finkel I am always on the lookout for examples of how laypeople and/or experts fail to appreciate the enormity of the risks workers face.  As someone who came to OSHA from a background in environmental health policy, where an excess lifetime fatality risk greater than one chance per million is often seen as unacceptably high, I am still amazed at the unfinished business on the occupational agenda.  I sent the letter below to the New York Times on March 14th, and it was not printed amid a group of other letters focusing on more lurid aspects of Eliot Spitzer's downfall.  I…

May two-toed sloths climb into your latrine and eat your faeces and urine, because that's the sort of thing they do

I really like sloths, but one of their recently discovered habits might make me like them a little bit less... As recently reported by Eckhard Heymann and colleagues, Linnaeus's two-toed sloths Choloepus didactylus at the Estación Biológica Quebrada Blanco in north-eastern Peru have developed the delightful habit of climbing into an outdoor latrine building, seeking out the latrine contents AND EATING THEM (Heymann et al. 2010). The behaviour was first reported in November 2001 when a sloth was discovered hanging from the wooden bars within the latrine. "It was scooping with one hand from…

Myth of the six-foot super-owl

I've been seriously thinking about letting Tet Zoo lay fallow for a while, as I have a lot on right now and it's a horrendous distraction that I really shouldn't spend time on. Producing long articles like the one on the Sakhalin Island carcass are very satisfying, but they soak up a lot of time. The day job keeps me busy, well, all day, and academic and editorial commitments keep me busy most nights - and this is on top of having a new baby in the house. Today I made a special effort to just go out on my own and waste time looking at stuff in shops, purely because I feel immense pressure to…

Are Cell Phones Killing Bees?

tags: bees, cell phones, electromagnetic radiation I've heard a lot of strange hypotheses in my life, but this one is one of the strangest: mobile phones may be wiping out bees. How? According to the hypothesis, radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing them from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there apparently is evidence to back this up. Jochen Kuhn, a scientist at Landau University, Germany, recently found that bees do not return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby.…

Late lessons from early warnings of risks to health and ecosystems

Could we have taken action earlier to prevent harm from tobacco, asbestos, and lead?  That's the question at the core of the European Environment Agency's (EEA) collection of case studies, which was released this month as Volume 2 "Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation." The publication features articles on those nefarious health hazards, as well as ones about beryllium, Bisphenol A, the pesticides DBCP and DDT, mercury, perchlorethylene, and vinyl chloride.  Protecting ecosystem, including aquatic environments exposed to ethinyl oestradiol (synthetic estrogen used…

Public health researchers and activists gather for 143rd annual meeting: Highlights from Day 1

Kim Krisberg and I are with our public health colleagues this week at the 143rd annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Thousands of researchers, practitioners, and advocates from across the US and the globe have gathered in Chicago to swap best practices, share new science and organize for healthier communities. As "the water cooler for the public health crowd," The Pump Handle is reporting from Chicago. Here are some highlights from yesterday’s event courtesy of the APHA Annual Meeting Blog. Standing with temp workers: Rainy weather didn't stop advocates who took to…

AR4 and sea level

More exciting leaks from the AR4, and a tale of two newspapers. Which, I'm sad to say, results in a resounding victory for the US. The rubbish story is Experts split over climate danger to Antarctica; Scientists challenge 'cautious' UN report; Robin McKie, science editor from the Observer. Its a perfect example of cr*p journalism whose purpose, presumably, is to provide a bit of knockabout to read, rather than to inform the readers of anything useful (am I expecting too much of the papers? maybe). Rather more creditable is Melting ice means global warming report all wet, say some experts who…

Recent Archaeomags

Current Archaeology #266 (May) has a big feature on the Medieval and Renaissance version of Saint Paul's cathedral in London. The current one designed by Christopher Wren, I learned, re-uses none of the earlier edifice's fabric and is not even orientated on the same axis. It was the world's first purpose-built Protestant cathedral, completed in 1710. What happened to the old cathedral? Well, first the Reformation, then a century of neglect while only the chancel remained consecrated, and then in 1666 the Great Fire of London. Finally Wren's building crew tore down whatever was left. Then a…

Sea ice thinner?

Since this years sea ice failed to be a record min (how careless of it) there is a sense of furtive scurrying around looking for something else; and DSB is looking at record thin instead: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has melted to its lowest volume in recorded history, according to new measurements they say on 7th october. Interesting. Volume implies measuring thickness. But while measuring area from satellite isn't too hard (people have been doing it routinely for years, and there are problems, especially when its wet, ahem, but still no-one is too worried), measuring thickness is much harder…

Weekend Diversion: Jewels of the World

"Glaciers are almost gone from Glacier National Park." -Donella Meadows This world is full of beautiful things that are simply awe-inspiring. Some of them are very much man-made, such as this 2007 song by Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby, Crown Of Jewels.But others took thousands of years to form. Image credit: deleted flickr user, of Franz Joseph Glacier in New Zealand. In many great places all over the world, glaciers are an incredible wonder to behold. Carving valleys, rivers and lakes over thousands of years, they are one of our planets great examples of how slow processes can make…

Dawn's Details of Vesta Unexpected

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids. These results were discussed today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, Texas. ... Dawn has found that some areas on Vesta can be nearly twice as bright as others, revealing clues about the asteroid's history. "Our analysis finds this bright material originates from Vesta and has undergone little change since the…

Large-headed supersoldier monkey alien-trackers invade shopping centers!

... Well, it could happen ... Intelligent Life Detected by SETI: A radio signal which is too narrow to be natural, changes frequency in an interesting way, and changes amplitude in an interesting way was detected by SETI while gazing at Kepler-discovered planets a great distance away. When SETI pointed the same radiotelesope in a different direction, however, the signal was still there, indicating that it came not from a distant galaxy but rather, from earth or an earth-launched satellite. ET is home. Phil Plait has an excellent discussion of what happened. In a related story, a secret…

Pox-pops explode irony meters world-wide

Im sure you all have heard this story-- Chickenpox parties--just a Facebook friend away "Pox packages," child abuse, and the violation of federal law I dont have much to add other than a question for the parents doing this: I mean, lets ignore the ethical and legal implications of what they are doing. Lets just focus on the 'logic' behind what they are doing. They do not want to vaccinate their children, because they are worried about their children becoming 'contaminated' from 'chemicals' or 'toxins' or 'voodoo spirits' or whatever and get sick. Vaccines were developed by hundreds of…

Circumcision and Clean Syringes

Sometimes I run into these tricky issues that I find it hard to make up my mind about, like the moral aspects of prostitution. Another one is public healthcare aiding circumcision performed for cultural and religious reasons. Medically speaking, circumcision either of males or females is of course just a holdover from a barbaric past. No enlightened modern Jew, Muslim or generic American -- groups that cultivate this cultural trait -- should even consider it for their children. A cultural identity strongly contingent on the mutilation of babies can't be worth hanging on to without…

Revisiting CO2 Lags, not Leads

I think I will start to close down comments on some of the guide articles as the comment threads get too long and meandering, and instead direct people from there to dedicated "open threads". So consider this the first implementation of that idea for the article "CO2 Lags, not leads". Comments there are now closed. The main reason I want to do this article first, aside from the recent explosion of unproductive comments, is because I would like to make a correction and a couple of clarifications based on what came out there. The majority of the comments fall squarely in the "completely…

Creation Superconference!

Sometimes I wonder what the mailman thinks of me. One day he's delivering the new issue of Free Inquiry, the next he's leaving something from Creation Ministries International. The latest missive from CMI contains a lengthy pamphlet advertising their forthcoming Creation Superconference. Of course, having been to the Creation Megaconference at Liberty University back in 2005 (as described in the first section of the BECB), a Creation Superconference doesn't seem so impressive. Still, just browsing through the pamphlet made me feel that old familiar itch. Is it worth a visit? After all,…

Microbiology and Abortion

RU-486, or mifepristone, was approved for use in 2000 in the US, for medical abortions. Shortly there after, something weird started happening. A handful of women who used RU-486 were dying from sepsis, caused by a really rare bacteria, Clostridium sordellii. Like, these women didnt have AIDS. They werent meth addicts or recovering from cancer. They were previously completely healthy 18, 22 year-old women dropping dead. To pro-lifers, the message was clear: Abortion kills women. Planned Parenthood's recommendation to use the abortion-causing drug Misoprostol vaginally rather than orally…

Syracuse vs. Notre Dame

I watched most of Syracuse's win over Notre Dame last night. Two basketball games in the same week! Luxury! The thing that really jumps out at me about this team as opposed to last year's is that they're calm. Last year Eric Devendorf in particular, and to a lesser extent Johnny Flynn, tended to panic a little when the other team would make a run. A ten-point lead would get cut to three or four, and Devedorf would respond by chucking up a thirty-footer, which would miss, and give the opponent a chance to tie, followed by another forced shot, and so on. This group, on the other hand, doesn't…

Getting a Rise Out of Helium

Sci/Med blogging is an interesting pastime. You can spend a tremendous amount of time writing a post and get two comments and 30 total viewers, or you can write a brief post about your daughter asking where helium comes from and get many more commenters and nearly a thousand viewers. Clearly, the five-year-old is a better source for blog content. Q.E.D. And, wow, what we have learned from our readers in response: one frequent Australian commenter, Chris Noble, confirmed the abundance of helium in Amarillo by noting their next shipment was indeed coming from Texas. Casey pointed us to an…

Plastic tubes and pipette tips leach chemicals that botch experiments

They say that a poor workman blames his tools but according to a new study, laboratory scientists may well have cause to. Reid Macdonald from the University of Alberta has found that some botched experiments may be due to chemicals leaching from the very plastic tubes that scientists use on an everyday basis. Disposable plasticware like the ubiquitous Eppendorf tubes are a staple of laboratory research, as essential to a biologist as a mixing bowl is to a cook. They are always sterilised before use, which reassures researchers that they can run their experiments free of contamination. But…

Waxman-Markey is probably crap.

There's a lot not to like about the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that passed the House this last week. You'd expect the right not to like it, but this bill has many people of all political opinions unhappy. From the left: The bill is a huge 1300ish page monstrosity developed behind closed doors. What we do know about what's in the bill is not promising. Greenpeace opposes it and lists several reasons. The "cap" is weak, flexible, and full of loopholes. The "trade" part is shot full of offsets and concessions to the dirtiest power generation coal plants. Even if everything goes as…

The Uncombable Hair Syndrome

Occasionally, I talk about this when I'm giving a talk on science literacy, and most often, I'll present the following statement asking if it's true or false: There is a human disease characterized by uncontrollably messy hair. It is called the "uncombable hair syndrome." Anyway, it's true and the disorder is also known as Pili trianguli et canaliculi Basically, a genetic syndrome affecting the structure of one of the proteins in the hair follicle. Results in literally uncombable hair (hence the name). An abstract from Pediatr Dermatol. 2007 Jul-Aug;24(4):436-8. A 4-year-old boy was noted…

More cherry picking from Lott

Lott has a new article at Fox News where he claims that gun control is unravelling: Crime did not fall in England after handguns were banned in January 1997. Quite the contrary, crime rose sharply. Yet, serious violent crime rates from 1997 to 2002 averaged 29 percent higher than 1996; robbery was 24 percent higher; murders 27 percent higher. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen by 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned, the robbery rate shot back up, almost back to their 1993 levels. Australia has also seen its violent crime rates soar after its Port…

Another reason not to get with rugby players

Two words: "Herpes Gladiatorium". To be accurate, it's really a reason not to come into any physical contact with rugby players or sumo wrestlers, but since sumo wrestlers don't tend to be tall, muscular men with sexy foreign accents and devilish grins, there's less need to be reminded to steer clear of them. Researchers in Japan have discovered a new strain of this incurable virus which, according to an article published in the October issue of the Journal of General Virology, is even more pathogenic. "Herpes Gladitorium", or "Herpes Rugbiorum", is a variant of Herpes Simplex (the cold sores…

The Greatest Scientists Of Our Time?

There's an interesting new ad campaign on the Scienceblogs site from Honeywell Interactive. It includes short video podcasts of scientists discussing their work and ideas. See an example here, down on the navigation bar at right. Here is a quote from the Honeywell folks supplied to me by my Scienceblogs guru Katherine Sharpe: Designed to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists, The Honeywell  Nobel Initiative establishes a forum for students worldwide to learn directly from Nobel Laureates in Chemistry and Physics through a combination of live on-campus events, interactive…

Lessing's More... With or Without the Nobel Prize

'Go read Doris Lessing,' said my favorite Classics professor at Tufts. You see, we both love Vonnegut, Heinlein and all sorts of science fiction, so I visited his office one day asking why there weren't more women writers of the genre catching my fancy. I took his advice and wandered into the used bookstore in Harvard Square. There among the maze of shelves downstairs, I came upon an old copy of Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos: Archives The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five. The book deals with struggles between men and women and dimensions of love and sex. Here's the…

DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge: day 7 progress, and prizes!

Today is the one week mark in our month-long drive with DonorsChoose to raise funds for public school classroom projects, and it is no surprise that ScienceBlogs readers have been generous in their support. As I write this post, the ScienceBlogs leaderboard indicates: Thirteen challenges mounted by Sb blogs or coalitions of Sb blogs, including a newly-added challenge from Abel Pharmboy. In the lead for most money raised so far, with $1,807, the Uncertain Principles Challenge. In the lead for most donors so far, with 35, Dr. Isis's challenge. The challenge that got the most recent donation…

Spiked at it Again

In 2005 I wrote about a survey of "renowned scientists" conducted by spiked (if you've never heard of spiked, read this) that included 14 global warming skeptics and only three from the mainstream of climate science. Now they've conducted another survey, asking "key thinkers in science, technology and medicine ... what they see as the greatest innovation in their field". They do have responses from great scientists, but once again climate science is represented by global warming skeptics: Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, John Brignell, Kenneth Green, Nils-Axel Mörner, Todd Seavey, and S Fred…

Goldblatt on Lancet study

Mark Goldblatt mounts an attack on the Lancet study: The JHBSPH study attempts to calculate the number of civilian deaths "above what would have occurred without conflict." I wonder, therefore, if the survey group was taking into account the effects of United Nations sanctions on Iraq prior the invasion -- which, if the conflict hadn't occurred, would logically still be in place. According to U.N. studies using similar methodologies to those utilized by JHBSPH, roughly 150,000 civilians, more than half of them children, were dying every year as a direct result of U.N. sanctions. Since the…

Before the truth has a chance to get its boots on

Jeff Poor of Business & Media Institute spliced the audio of an Al Gore interview to turn a statement that Arctic melting was a consequence of global warming: And we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming. The entire north polar ice cap, normally the size the lower 48 states, give or take an Arizona, is melting before our eyes. 40 percent melted in the last twenty years. And in the summer months, it could be completely gone, in one scientific estimate, in as little as five years. into a claim that Gore never made,…

Freaky Fractals

In order to make up for my recent shortage of Friday Fractals, I've assembled a few at once, with a Halloween-ish theme. I browsed over the Mandelbrot set, seeking the spookiest angles. What seems freakiest is the unending depths of the set... I could have been wandering through forever. It is sort of like a dream of falling, but never hitting the bottom. I began using the same set of colors displayed in my Halloween banner, and soon found images reminiscent of monsters and insects: Freaky Fractal I-Monsters That was slightly unsettling, so I brightened things up with shades of orange.…

Weekly Twitter summary

Continuing my new tradition, here are some of the genomics-related links and information I posted on Twitter this week: RT @decodegenetics: The opportunity to migrate to deCODEme ends on February 1st 2010. http://bit.ly/86Xtsh Gah, it burns! RT @jcbarret: Science publishes behavioral genetic association, N=72 humans and 68 mice http://bit.ly/68rC7E The Motley Fool discusses flow-on benefits to personal genomics companies as sequencing costs drop: http://bit.ly/5BtgjR RT @Duncande: Complete Genomics announced 1 hour ago the $1500 genome, 1 day after Illumina announced $10,000 genome, at the…

Rapidly whirling black holes discovered spinning at near maximum speed

Black holes have a maximum speed? Not really, just the usual Cosmic Speed Limit of the speed of light. From a Penn State Press Release.... A new study using results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory provides one of the best pieces of evidence yet that many supermassive black holes are spinning extremely rapidly, according to a research team led by a Penn State astronomer. The whirling of these giant black holes drives powerful jets that pump huge amounts of energy into their environment and affects the growth of galaxies. "We think these monster black holes are spinning close to the…

Mixing up mercury

Elemental mercury is a slippery substance. In the earth's crust, it anchors itself by bonding with other elements, creating materials like the rough coppery rock cinnabar, a crystalline combination of mercury and sulfur. Once cinnabar, or other metallic ores, are mined and crushed, mercury can be easily extracted.  Then the warmer above-ground temperatures, the decrease in pressure, cause pure mercury to become a very odd liquid metal. Unlike a drop of water, a drop of mercury touched by a finger does not wet the skin. Instead, it breaks into smaller drops, tiny glittering balls that…

Let's Talk Fish

I love fishing! I just returned from a weekend fishing trip with my family where we caught these beautiful trout (see photo). Speaking of fish, I just finished listening to a LifeLines podcast from The American Physiological Society in which Barbara Block from Stanford University discussed her research on bluefin tuna. Dr. Block uses electronic tags implanted in fish to record information on their location, depth, body temperature, heart rate, food intake, etc. These tags allow her to study the physiology of the animals in their natural environment. Audio clip. Her research team has tracked…

A lurker in the forest

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a fascinating little bugger. Certain strains can interfere with tumor suppressor genes leading to cancer, especially cervical, anal, and some mouth cancers. Other strains cause genital warts. The vaccine offered in the U.S. (Gardasil) protects against the two strains that cause most cancers and against two strains causing warts. The vaccine has the potential to change the way our population is affected by these diseases. But we are still learning more about this virus. We know that HPV can be transmitted even without visible lesions. But where are these…

Is there springtime for the Abyss?

Think of the changing seasons around you, and the way plants and animals respond to these changes. Trees change color in response to decreasing light levels. Birds migrate, and bears go into hibernation as winter approaches. So, we wonder, what are the seasonal cues in the abyss? Are summer days longer than winter days in the deep-sea? What's the ocean equivalent of rainfall, anyhow? If you've read Craig McClain's "25 Things You Should Know About the Deep-Sea" you know that a) the deep sea-floor is not a stable environment and b) processes and patterns are linked to surface production.…

On RFK, Jr.

I think RFK, Jr. would be a poor choice for the EPA or Department of the Interior (posts he is rumored to be under consideration for), but I'm not nearly as worked up as many of my fellow bloggers are. In his favor, Kennedy has a reputation as a staunch defender of wild places, and an opponent of reckless development and of industrial pollution. Coupled with his unquestionable media savvy and name recognition, he would seem like a perfect choice. The problem is, he got suckered by the anti-vaccination activists pushing the bogus and utterly discredited autism-thimerosal link. There's no…

Friday Flotsam: FOX News kills the dinosaur with coal, Hawaiian lava flows and Turrialba update

The weekend! No updates until next Tuesday - I'll be off to give a talk at Western Michigan University. Coal-erupting volcanoes defeat the Permian dinosaurs ... according to FOX News. Anyway... You know that mainstream media (FOXNews) must have done something appalling when even I can't write about it thanks to my seething rage. I'll let Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous and Ralph at the Volcanism Blog sum up how FOX News tried to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs (hint 1: it happened before dinosaurs even existed. hint 2: volcanoes erupt coal now). After you've read about that…

Tweedy splendour

I just bought Cordarounds and am liking them very much, thank you. Their collection of gingham shorts fails to fully engage my enthusiasm, though they've got a seersucker short that tempts. These cords should go nicely with my Tweed Ride outfit, first deployed last Thursday for an East Bay jaunt. Tweed rides began in London, where a bunch of cyclists donned tweed and had a nice time riding around the city. Some San Franciscans picked up the idea and have now done two rides. A week ago, a bunch of us from the East Bay met up with veterans of the SF rides and explored the tweedy side of…

Marsupial 'bears' and marsupial sabre-tooths

Time for more borhyaenoids. Finally, we get round to the taxa that you might have seen or read about in prehistoric animal books: the sabre-toothed thylacosmilids, the supposedly bear-like borhyaenids, and the gigantic and even more bear-like proborhyaenids. We previously looked at basal borhyaenoids here, and at the mostly scansorial, mustelid-like hathlyacinids and prothylacinids here. Here we go... We begin with the borhyaenids (yes, borhyaenid borhyaenoids), a group of about ten genera of superficially dog- or thylacine-like borhyaenoids. The oldest (Nemolestes) is from the Early Eocene…

Comments of the Week #134: From alien evidence to signs of new physics

"Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose." -Dale Gribble, King of the Hill Alright, so I know you're all impatient with the most burning Starts With A Bang! question of all: what was Ethan for Halloween? Well, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my avatar for the next 12 months: King Triton from Disney's The Little Mermaid! With that said, I'm already thinking about the next Starts With A Bang podcast (maybe on parallel Universes?) and heading to the finish line of my next book, Treknology, about the real-life science behind the technological advances…