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PBS Bans Church Services

I had no idea that there were Public Broadcasting Stations that aired church services and such things. I suppose this is because I don't live in Alabama or someplace. Anyway, PBS has done (mostly) the right thing by baning this practice. The Public Broadcasting Service agreed yesterday to ban its member stations from airing new religious TV programs, but permitted the handful of stations that already carry "sectarian" shows to continue doing so. The vote by PBS's board was a compromise from a proposed ban on all religious programming. Such a ban would have forced a few stations around the…

American-like killings in Germany

Don't overlook the awful news from Germany, in which a taunted and bullied crazy person killed 15 people and self. He started out in his old High School where he gunned down 9 people, so quickly that many of the dead were students found with their head on the desk and their pencils still in their hands. He took off, initiating a huge manhunt, hijacked a car, killed a bunch more people, had a shootout with the police, ran away and finally killed himself. The weapon was a handgun from his father's gun collection. Since the Germans have stricter gun ownership rules than the Americans, and…

I hope these stories are not related to each other

REPOST I hope these stories are not related to each other... Great beasts peppered from space There is fairly convincing evidence that the explosion of an object not of this earth hit mammoths and other Pleistocene Mega Beasts with shrapnel up in Siberia and Alaska. Boeing's 12,000lb chemical laser set to fry targets from aircraft Earthlings have finally developed an effective, large scale, and portable Ray Gun. Global group aims to return Martian soil to Earth There is a plan to go to Mars and bring back some dirt. Who knows what is going to be in that dirt? Who Speaks for Earth? ...…

Spam and malware

Scienceblogs is currently suffering from a rogue ad that hijacks your browser and whisks you off to some wretched commercial site trying to sell you software to prevent your browser from being hijacked. It is evil, stupid, and obnoxious, and please do not purchase the software they are trying to extort from you. The sciencebloggers are all weeping and howling in frustration in our backchannel network, and we're firing up urgent flares begging our technical people to come purge the vileness…but it's a weekend, the tech people are all in New York, and unlike those of us living in Morris,…

Pop Culture Interlude: Least Grammatical Lyrics?

I was thinking of trying to post something really erudite about science today, but a series of minor catastrophes has completely derailed that plan. Now, I'm just hoping to get through my afternoon lab without punching anybody. So, in place of the science stuff, here's a pop music topic. While on the way to pick up SteelyKid from day care the other day, I heard "Live and Let Die" on the radio, which famously includes the phrase: "this ever-changing world in which we live in" A few hours later, the cable tv music channel brought up "Small Town" by John Mellencamp (I don't recall whether there…

Little Fire Ants

Wasmannia auropunctata - little fire ants Buenos Aires, Argentina One of the world's worst invaders, the little fire ants have spread from the new world tropics to warmer regions around the globe, becoming especially problematic on oceanic islands. The ants above, though, are from an innocuous native population in northern Argentina. They arrived at a cookie bait at the Costanera Sur reserve, barely noticeable specks of orange just over a millimeter long. Wasmannia has a painful sting for such a small insect, and the ants do this annoying thing where they'll wander around on your body for an…

Friday Beetle Blogging: The Wounded Tree Beetle

Nosodendron californicum - Wounded Tree Beetle California, USA From the Department of Really Obscure Insects, here's a beetle that few non-specialists will recognize.  Nosodendron inhabits the rotting tissue of long-festering tree wounds.  These beetles are not rare so much as specialized to an environment where few entomologists think to look.   If you can spot the telltale stains of an old wound on the trunks of large trees, you should be able to find Nosodendron.  They feed on the microbes- the yeast and bacteria- that grow in the sap leaking from the phloem. There are, in fact, whole…

Nature Chemical Biology focus on natural products

For the rest of July, Nature Chemical Biology is offering free access to about ten articles on research and training in natural products. Investigations into natural products have recently regained prominence with the increasing understanding of their biological significance and increasing recognition of the origin and function of their structural diversity. This issue highlights some of the major questions and advances in natural products research, from recent synthetic approaches to access complicated natural products to a new educational program which utilizes natural products as a basis…

Links Round-Up: The Tea Party & the Media; Twitter's Performance Culture

A few stories from over the weekend that raise decades-old questions about the connection between media and violence as well as the role that media play in the construction of social identity. --WPost leads its Sunday edition with a feature alleging a spike in visits to Colonial Williamsburg from Tea Party sympathizers. One enthusiast asks the role-playing George Washington: "General, when is it appropriate to resort to arms to fight for our liberty?" --The Post's Dan Milbank, relying heavily on releases from Media Matters for America, draws a correlation between several recent arrests for…

World Energy Stats and Predictions, Tabulated

Daniel Nocera, Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and international spokesman on sustainable energy, is giving a talk here at U.Va. today. I thought I'd share some of the stats that he's pulled together in prior publications. Readers of this blog will already know that I question a commonly taken-for-granted assumption in energy predictions -- which is the steady and predictable rise in consumption patterns, a rise that is purported to be intractable and inevitable -- but nevertheless, those predictions are offered below the fold and summarized here: "Within our lifetimes, energy…

Best month evaar

June was the month of greatest traffic ever here at Strangerfruit with 51,656 page views. That’s a mere speck compared to Pharyngula with 1,411,566, but I’m happy nonetheless. More details below the fold ... Top Five June Posts From Sea to Shining Sea An international coalition of non-religious ID scientists & scholars Surprising silence over Behe’s book 66% of Americans may be Young Earthers Manta birth caught on video Top Five Posts Overall From Sea to Shining Sea An international coalition of non-religious ID scientists & scholars Polar Bears are threatened Surprising silence…

Talk of the Conference?

The meeting is a joint one between the History of Science Society (HSS), Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and is this probably the largest collection of science studies people in the continent. Anyone who is anyone is here. Interestingly, I haven't been able to locate any of the "philosophers" from the Discovery Institute (which after all isn't that far from Vancouver) ... gee, I wonder why. The closest I've come to brushing with such intellectual greatness is to note that Steve Fuller (of Kitzmiller fame) gave a talk (for the 4S)…

X-rays don't detect explosives ... and we're surprised?

From AP: X-ray machines that screen airline passengers' shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening. Findings from the report, obtained by The Associated Press, did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft. ... In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security -- Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don…

The hummingbird micropump

A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences provides evidence that hummingbird tongues act like micropumps when drinking nectar. This finding is in contrast to the long-held belief that their tongues use capillary action to pull in fluids. A team of researchers from the University of Connecticut used high-speed film to capture 18 species of wild hummingbirds as they drank from special transparent feeders. They made sure to mimic wildflowers by developing feeders with similar shapes, volumes and concentrations of nectar as the real thing. What they…

Blue bloods

A new study demonstrates that the blue oxygen carrying haemocyanin pigment in the blood of an Antarctic octopus (Pareledone charcoti) protect the animals from freezing temperatures. In fact, when compared to other octopus species from warmer climates, they have up to 40% more haemocyanin. Dr. Michael Oellermann, lead study author from Alfred-Wegener-Institute, provided the following quote for a press release: "This is the first study providing clear evidence that the octopods’ blue blood pigment, haemocyanin, undergoes functional changes to improve the supply of oxygen to tissue at sub-zero…

Resurrecting Ancient Life

Russian scientists succeeded in growing a plant from 30,000 year-old (late Pleistocene) fruit tissue! The fruit tissue was found in an ancient squirrel's burrow frozen in the permafrost. You are probably thinking, what in the world does this have to do with animals or physiology? I'll tell you. There is also talk of the possibility of resurrecting ancient animals using tissues cryo-preserved in the permafrost (albeit a long way off from resurrecting plants). I find myself wondering if they ever watched the movie Jurassic Park... What are your thoughts about the possibility of "resurrecting"…

A short list of things nobody knows

A very limited list of things that nobody knows (as compiled by yours truly, a very limited human). As you may notice, most of the list treads close to things that may be broadly classed as epistemological questions. Do extend it with your own unknowns. There are some other more comprehensive lists: Science Magazine's list from 2005. NY Times list from 2003. A New Scientist list from 2005. What's the matter with prime numbers. (Reimann Hypothesis) What are the fundamental constituents of the universe. (see last question) What is a dimension. How many of it does the universe have. Can life as…

Man uses Barbie fishing rod to make record catch - Boston.com

Man uses Barbie fishing rod to make record catch - Boston.com You can't make this stuff up. I love the look on the guy's face. Is he weeping from happiness, or just strugging to hold up that 21# fish? From the AP via the Boston Globe: ELKIN, N.C.--David Hayes' granddaughter just asked him to hold her Barbie rod and reel while she went to the bathroom. He did. And seconds later he landed the state record channel catfish at 21 pounds, 1 ounce. ... Hayes said his granddaughter worried he would break her rod. He landed the 21-pound…

Ebola kills apes, dreams of popularity

That will teach 'em: Social contact helped the Ebola virus virtually wipe out a population of gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, French researchers reported on Monday. A 2004 outbreak of the virus, which also kills people, killed 97 percent of gorillas who lived in groups and 77 percent of solitary males, Damien Caillaud and colleagues from the University of Montpellier and the University of Rennes in France reported. Overall, it wiped out 95 percent of the gorilla population within a year, they reported in the journal Current Biology. "Thousands of gorillas have probably…

A device to automaticaly recreate smells

A team of researchers in Japan has built a device that is capable of reproducing an impressively large array of smells, says a report in New Scientist. The system will use 15 chemical-sensing microchips, or electronic noses, to pick up a broad range of aromas. These are then used to create a digital recipe from a set of 96 chemicals that can be chosen according to the purpose of each individual gadget. When you want to replay a smell, drops from the relevant vials are mixed, heated and vaporised. In tests so far, the system has successfully recorded and reproduced the smell of orange, lemon,…

Heat From The Earth

This week's energy topic is geothermal and this one's not making the news as much... yet. But keep an eye on it, folks. Over at NexGen, I start with the basics: Since I'm a closet classicist, let's start by breaking down geothermal from the Greek, Gus Portokalos style: Okay. Geothermal comes from the Greek word geo, meaning earth, and therme, meaning heat. So, what do you energize your house with? You see: Heat from the earth. Geothermal. There you go! So the source of geothermal energy is heat below the Earth's surface. Steam and hot water generated there provide electricity and…

A Fossiliferous Fable

The Great Tyrannosaurus: A Fossiliferous Fable The Great Tyrannosaurus Lived centuries ago; Through marshes wet and porous He rambled to and fro. The most tremendous Lizard That ever browsed on meat, His length from A to Izzard Was forty-seven feet. The Great Tyrannosaurus In habitude was not What one would call decorous -- He ate an awful lot. Lamellibranchs in sixes, Iguanodons to spare And Archaeopteryxes Comprised his bill of fare. The Great Tyrannosaurus Of all the world was king; With trumpetings sonorous He swallowed everything. When everything was swallowed Beneath the azure…

Can't afford to pimp your car? Camouflage it

Following up on my previous post about visual illusions, reader Jake alerted me to this story from the BBC: A design student made a battered old Skoda "disappear" by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park. Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance. Note that like a trompe l'oeil painting in a building, or an anamorphic projection, the perspective work on the car will only allow it to "blend in" seamlessly when seen from a specific vantage point - which might be why we only have one…

Embroidering the brain

The new blog Kingdom of the Blind documents an ongoing collaboration between embroiderer/artist Melody Lord and neuroscientist Adam Hamlin. The title is from Jim Endersby's book A Guinea Pig's History of Biology: "Science is the kingdom of the blind: there are no sighted - or even one-eyed - people, because we have no way of looking directly at reality to assess what it is like." On the blog, Adam Hamlin occasionally posts about his work with the cholinergic cells impacted by Alzheimer's disease, while Melody shares her inspirations from the lab, and the challenges of finding the right…

Apple Unveils an iTunes for Science Manuscripts

Wow! I really need this! With this program you can store, search and organize all those PDFs. From the website: Do you have dozens of PDF files from your favorite scientific articles scattered on your harddrive? Do you also try to desperately organize them by renaming and archiving them in folders? But like the piles of printed articles on your desk, you can't keep up with all the new papers you download, and despite all your efforts it has become impossible to find that one article. Finally that all belongs to the past. We've been there, trust us, we know. That's why we wrote Papers, our…

The Stupidest Things Ever Said, Number 1

One of my favorite calendars it The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said. Each day, this gem of a calendar provides me with examples of idiotic statements that are truly jaw-dropping. Every so often, when I'm in the mood, I think I'll quote from past editions for your amusement. Today's stupid quote originally appeared on the calendar back to April 1999 (I've been buying this calendar a long time). It was so monumentally stupid that I actually saved the sheet from the date. The quote comes from an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Press, c. 1954: The [hydrogen] bomb's brilliant gleam reminds me of…

Science News: Health

Beer May Cure Cancer; Prostrate Cancer Protein; Vomit Inducing Infection Strikes Cursed Cruise Ship; Cancer-fighting agent found in beer from PhysOrg.com A key ingredient of beer may contain a cancer-fighting substance, a German study indicated. [...] Scientists find protein potential drug target for treatment-resistant prostate cancer from PhysOrg.com Scientists at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia have found that a signaling protein that is key to prostate cancer cell growth is turned on in nearly all recurrent prostate cancers that are resistant to hormone therapy.…

I hope these stories are not related to each other

I hope these stories are not related to each other Great beasts peppered from space There is fairly convincing evidence that the explosion of an object not of this earth hit mammoths and other Pleistocene Mega Beasts with shrapnel up in Siberia and Alaska. Boeing's 12,000lb chemical laser set to fry targets from aircraft Earthlings have finally developed an effective, large scale, and portable Ray Gun. Global group aims to return Martian soil to Earth There is a plan to go to Mars and bring back some dirt. Who knows what is going to be in that dirt? Who Speaks for Earth? ... From Seed…

Somebody emailed be about a a great way to make money with almost no work.

I just have to send my banking details. Hey, this is from Japan. We trust these guys, right? I can do this, don't you think? Greeting from Japan. Having tried your phone and fax number as found in my country's chamber/business directory but failed. I am contacting you regarding a proposal to assist me receive funds. However, please be aware that this has nothing to do with scam as the English man will call it neither is it money loundering or any illegal act. The funds in question are from a very legal source. I will send more details when you reply to me at hirojio666@yahoo.co.jp which is…

The obligatory holiday weekend Indiana Jones open thread

It's Memorial Day weekend here in the States. For those of us lucky enough not to be on call, working retail, or otherwise being forced to go to work, it means three days away from work. Although I'll be working a bit on various protocols and papers, it nonetheless means three days away from the cancer center. However, even with the work, the lawn work, and the high school graduation party I have to head to, I should still have time to check out Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I had been hoping to go tonight; so I thought I'd solicit opinions from those of you who've…

Translucency

Photo Credit: Photograph by Ingo Arndt, Minden Pictures Looking rather like an alien from a Star Trek episode, this sea butterfly snail is just one of many marine animals found in a photo gallery of translucent marine life on the National Geographic website. However the strangest cartoon-like fish has to be the Pacific barreleye shown below in an image from the National Geographic website (from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). In an effort to study the internal organs of live fish, researchers in Japan actually developed a translucent goldfish last year. I bet these will be…

More Science Songs

I got this email about the ribosome waltz, click here to listen to the mp3. And there's a lot more from where that came from, like this sweet song. These ditties were composed and performed by Greg Crowther from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle and member of the band Science Groove. And they say that scientists are boring ...

Name the creationist

Answers in Genesis or Hitler? One said: In spite of all the variation that we find within the human race, they are all descendants of Adam and bear his resemblance. God also created other kinds of creatures, such as apes, which display significant variation within their kind. But there is an impassable gulf between the human kind and any other kind. The other: From where do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows…

Mardi Gras Physics

Do you need some physics to go with your beads? Well, here it is. Actually, I will let you do the physics (for now - meaning if you don't analyze these, I will). Here are some pictures of a broken strand of beads. I hung them on my fence - you know, for display. Click the image to get a larger analyzable version. Oh - I just happened to include a meter stick in the image. Also, just for show I included a level (that is level). Now, I have two videos. In both of these videos, I again included a meter stick. You know...because I like meter sticks. Also, I am posting these videos on…

Governator mocks folks from small towns

Governor Schwarzenegger addresses insider trading tycoon Michael Milken and a few of their richest friends: "…I always encourage the legislators in Sacramento, because some of them come from those little towns," Schwarzenegger said. "You know what I'm saying? They come from those little towns, and they don't have that vision yet of an airport or of a highway that maybe has 10 lanes. Or of putting a highway on top of a highway. They look at you and say, 'Well, we don't have that in my town, what are you talking about?' So they are kind of shocked when you say certain things." I anticipate…

Impressive eruption at Soputan?

  UPDATE 10.9.08: This photo is not from the current eruption (see the comments below), so disregard any comments I might have about the current state of activity. Contrary to some of the earlier reports, the eruption at Soputan in Indonesia might be more impressive than previously though. Pictures of the eruption (above) show a fairly healthy eruption column coming from the volcano, although it is hard to tell if the image is just an eruption column or a column with an associated column-collapse pyroclastic flow heading down the far side of the volcano (in the picture). The former would…

Sorry: it is properly called swine flu

The old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had a fatal flaw. It's task was both to promote and to regulate nuclear power. That sounds like a bad idea, right? Conflict of interest? But in fact there are a number of government agencies that are in the same awkward position. One of them is the US Department of Agriculture, now run by Obama appointee and former ag state (Iowa) Governor, Tom Vilsack. I'll say one thing for Vilsack. He takes his responsibilities seriously. At least the promoting and protecting the ag industry part. Vilsack has had a mixed record on matters of importance to progressives…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 21 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: From the Eye of the Albatrosses: A Bird-Borne Camera Shows an Association between Albatrosses and a Killer Whale in the Southern Ocean: Albatrosses fly many hundreds of kilometers across the open ocean to…

Bet they don't list this on their tourist website

Some towns have all the luck. Brainerd, Minnesota, population ~13,000, was previously famous as the home of Paul Bunyan, and the setting of the Coen brothers' film, Fargo. Little did I know it had another claim to fame: its very own brand of mysterious diarrhea. All about it after the jump. Brainerd was the site of the first outbreak of this eponymous diarrhea back in 1983. It is described as an idiopathic syndrome--meaning that we don't have a clue what causes it. The diarrhea is acute in onset, explosive and watery, can last for months, and doesn't respond to antibiotic treatment…

Super-size cougars

Knowing that members of a certain species sometimes reach a certain size is not always the same as actually seeing images of that certain species at that certain size. The Puma, Cougar or Mountain lion Puma concolor (other names include panther, painter, catamount, mountain devil, silver lion, brown tiger, red tiger, king cat, Indian devil, purple feather (wtf?), mountain demon, sneak cat, leao and onça vermilha) is a highly variable animal (its historic range extends across much of the length and breadth of the Americas), but an average example from an average population might be anywhere…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 61 articles published in PLoS ONE this week. Here are some of the highlights, look around for more and please comment, rate, and send trackbacks: Adaptive Evolution and Functional Redesign of Core Metabolic Proteins in Snakes: Adaptive evolutionary episodes in core metabolic proteins are uncommon, and are even more rarely linked to major macroevolutionary shifts. We conducted extensive molecular evolutionary analyses on snake mitochondrial proteins and discovered multiple lines of evidence suggesting that the proteins at the core of aerobic metabolism in snakes have undergone…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 30 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Bermuda as an Evolutionary Life Raft for an Ancient Lineage of Endangered Lizards: Oceanic islands are well known for harboring diverse species assemblages and are frequently the basis of research on…

Singing the Praises of Mr. Personality

tags: researchblogging.org, birdsong, personality traits, mate choice, sexual selection, risk taking, European collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, László Zsolt Garamszegi Male European collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, singing. Image: Beijershamn Ãland, 23 May 2004 [link]. Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel 1/1000s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso400. Most people don't believe that animals possess distinct personalities, although they readily recognize and can describe individual personalities among their family, friends and neighbors and are aware of the importance of individual…

New Parrot and Mouse Species Discovered in Philippines

tags: birds, South Pacific Islands, Philippines, ornithology, new species, conservation, Camiguin, parrot . Camiguin Hanging-parrot, or Colasisi, Loriculus camiguinensis, is newly described and is found only found on the Philippine Island of Camiguin. This tiny island is especially rich in biodiversity but is increasingly threatened by logging, agriculture and human settlement. Click image for much larger view in its own window. Note: this a live pet. Photo by Thomas Arndt, Courtesy of The Field Museum of Natural History. Hey, dear readers, a colleague of mine, Jose Tello, co-discovered a…

Ask A Science Blogger: Why is There No Male Birth Control Pill?

tags: Ask a Science Blogger, male birth control pill, contraceptive The human egg at the moment of fertilization. Image: National Museum of Health and Medicine. The newest "Ask a Science Blogger" question is; Why is there no birth control pill for men? I know that many women say that male birth control pills do not exist solely due to sexual politics, namely, why would a pharmaceutical company devote precious research funding to developing a male birth control pill when they can make so much more money from developing drugs such as Viagra? Because I am limited to 500 words or so, I am not…

Paris Pow Wow Heap Good

Dr Roy tells it like it is3. Or perhaps you prefer James Hansen1, 6 as reported by JA? “It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.” The One True Answer is a carbon tax, of course. This has all the virtues of simplicity, transparency and efficiency, and is therefore hated by all the pols who,…

AR5: cursory review of chapter 4 (cryosphere) mass balance of Antarctica

The AR5 draft is now available from http://www.climatechange2013.org/report/review-drafts/. W00t! In the style we've come to love so much from the IPCC it sayeth: The final draft Report, dated 7 June 2013, of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" was accepted but not approved in detail by the 12th Session of Working Group I and the 36th Session of the IPCC on 26 September 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. It consists of the full scientific and technical assessment undertaken by Working Group I. The Report has to be…

Letter from a Mother

Via Atrios, who got it from here, who got it from here. This eloquent letter speaks volumes to the anti-gay crusaders: Letter to the Editor by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000 from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH) As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be. Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting…

The Making of a Graph

One of my current thesis students has been plugging away for a while at the project described in the A Week in the Lab series last year, and he's recently been getting some pretty good data. I've spent a little time analyzing the preliminary results (to determine the best method for him to use on the rest of the data), and I thought I'd explain a little of the process here. Here's the key graph from the first set of results: What we're working with here is a system where we feed krypton gas into a vacuum system, and illuminate it with light from two sources: a really expensive ($7000) vacuum…

Creationist Neuroscience

Now that the big election is over, it's time to get away from political blogging for a while and return to what this blog was created to do: bash creationists. So have a look at this article from The New Scientist: “You cannot overestimate,” thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, “how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a…