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The Genesis II Spacecraft & Its Intrepid Arthronauts

Late last month the Genesis II Pathfinder spacecraft was delivered into orbit and along with it went a bold group of unwitting arthropods. Bigelow Aerospace was founded in 1999 with the vision of creating orbital hotels for "space tourists." In an equally lucrative move, this Space Camp for bugs was conceived by Robert Bigelow, the company's founder and namesake, while on vacation. In the middle of last year, he called his payload team into a room and showed them five dirt-filled containers. Inside each one was an entire colony of ants that he had coaxed, prodded and pried from the ground…

Davy Mooney Hits It Big; Profiled in New Orleans Times Picayune

My brother Davy, a talented young jazz guitarist, is the subject of a lengthy profile in today's edition of the New Orleans Times Picayune. The occasion? He got through a grueling competition and so became the first of seven students admitted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance's 2007 class at Loyola University, which has just been established. Here's an excerpt from the article, outlining my brother's story: By the summer of 2005, he had graduated from UNO and settled into a comfortable life as a working musician, performing at least five nights a week. He and his wife…

Does TV advertising work?

KC Buzz Blog asks the question, having observed: Claire McCaskill and Jim Talent will probably spend $18 million, combined, on TV before Tuesday -- yet their race is roughly where it was a year ago. Nancy Boyda, by contrast, hasn't spent a lot on TV -- but has pulled close to Rep. Jim Ryun in Kansas 02. Perhaps some of the cognitive scientists here at Sb will take up this answer from an academic perspective, but I've put some specific comments on those two races below the fold. Two things make a difference here. First, Claire McCaskill just finished running for Governor and holds statewide…

Mallard Rape

Reposted from the old TfK. Over at Death's Door, there is a certain degree of consternation about the possibility that mallard ducks would be gang raping each other. There is a bunch of confusion wrapped around that so let's start slow. I also wasn't aware that duck's had duck cocks to gangbang with. I never eaten a duck but I've eaten a lot of chicken, and when you buy the chicken in the store and pull out that little pouch of giblets and shit, I've never seen a tiny chicken cock sittin off in there. So, what do duck dicks look like, and why don't you see genitalia in chickens from the store…

Thinking, Feeling and the Cognitive Revolution

I've got an article in the Boston Globe Ideas section today on the cognitive revolution, and recent research demonstrating the relationship between cognition and emotion. Ever since Plato, scholars have drawn a clear distinction between thinking and feeling. Cognitive psychology tended to reinforce this divide: emotions were seen as interfering with cognition; they were the antagonists of reason. Now, building on more than a decade of mounting work, researchers have discovered that it is impossible to understand how we think without understanding how we feel. "Because we subscribed to this…

Text of Remarks on "Re-Imagining University Science Media"

Tomorrow morning at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, I will be addressing the annual conference of the University Research Magazine Association. I have pasted the text of my prepared remarks below with relevant links embedded. I will post a follow up on Friday highlighting questions, comments, and reactions. Readers are strongly encouraged to weigh in with their own reactions. As professional science communicators and journalists, you are living in an era of convergence between two major trends in society. The first trend is a dominant focus of this conference: Technology, audience…

America's Electrical Monster: Weekly Hiroshima-sized Bombs?

"An explosive power the size of a Hiroshima bomb - once a week." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Like most Americans, I would love to be able to drive without having to fill up with increasingly expensive gas - costly not only to our wallets, but to the environment and to geopolitics. Why not switch to a hybrid vehicle or even better, an electrical vehicle? Wouldn't an electrical vehicle offer a better, cleaner approach? I imagine parking my new electrical vehicle in the garage, plugging it in overnight to recharge for a new day, unfettered by gas and oil, sleeping soundly. If only it could be so…

Around the Web: Patent system as a threat to innovation, Google Master of the Universe, The status of science and more

The Patent System Is The World's Biggest Threat To Innovation Today How Google Dominates Us The Status of Science: We Have No-one to Blame but Ourselves Resilience vs. Sustainability: The Future of Libraries Getting first sale wrong College Students: The Gadget Generation Our kids' glorious new age of distraction Study this: E-Textbook readers compared Academic E-books and their Role in the Emerging Scholarly Communications Landscape "Librarians" -- An Endangered Species? What Students Don't Know The Library, it's academic Why it matters how faculty view librarians Three Reasons We Struggle…

Around the Web: Transliteracy & Libraries (or not), Loving the iPad, Scholarly Googlebombing and more

Commensurable Nonsense (Transliteracy) and Why Transliteracy? Bobbi's Two Cents (or less) http://arielneff.com/personal/weighing-in-on-the-ipad/ Academic Search Engine Spam and Google Scholar's Resilience Against it Kno Tablets Shipping To Select Faculty and Students Publishers take note: the iPad is altering the very concept of a 'book' Research intelligence - Rip it up and start again A Curricular Innovation, Examined Scientific accuracy in art The line between science and journalism is getting blurry....again Some Lessons From Our Reactions to Wikileaks Mark Waid on Delivery, Content, and…

Around the Apocalyptic Web: Why thinkpieces on STEM education are dangerous and more

Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous Science Is Essentially Human; Or Why Better STEM Education Isn't A Threat Why thinkpieces on STEM education are dangerous STEM and the "Liberal Education" STEM Education Promotes Critical Thinking and Creativity: A Response to Fareed Zakaria Pearson admits to monitoring students' social media use during its online tests The church of TED Learning My Lesson: Marina Warner on the disfiguring of higher education The College Amenities Arms Race The customer isn't right when it comes to higher education Marketing Lessons From Sweet Briar…

ScienceBlogs Is Getting Some Beauty Rest

If you've been running into time-outs and submission errors while commenting lately, you're not alone—our system has been suffering some growing pains and it's time for a network-wide rehaul of sorts. Tonight we'll be transferring over to shiny new servers, and we hope that this will make things run more smoothly for everyone. To make this transition, however, we'll need to shut down the system overnight, and we've asked our bloggers to refrain from posting as well. Starting at 7:00 pm EST, commenting will be disabled. It should be back when the system resumes running tomorrow morning. We…

So...Who Won?

For two weeks I posted about the Spirit of Innovation Conrad awards and all of the cool stuff that these students were inventing. I urged all you, dear readers, to go vote for the people's choice award. Maybe you are now asking yourself: Well...who won? The following recipients were announced to be the 2010 Pete Conrad Scholars: Falcon Robotics (aerospace), Green MAST (green schools), ACWa (renewable energy) and AM Rocks (space nutrition). And the the People's Choice Award was bestowed on the team with the largest percentage of votes cast during the online, public voting period. The top vote…

College Major

What should you study in college? I think I gave this on-line quiz a run for its money, as you will see from my scores (below the fold). Did you earn a different major than the one the quiz diagnosed for you? If so, what was the major you did get and the major the quiz says you should get? What did you think of the questions they used to determine your major? I think this is a fairly decent quiz, all things considered. You scored as Biology. You should be a Biology major! You are passionate about the sciences, and you enjoy studying cell growth and evolutionary concepts which enable…

Golf Gear?

John McCain's website is puzzling: The "Decision Center" shows a four tab banner: Decision Center General Election Obama & Iraq Golf Gear It really is a link to on-line sales of "McCain Golf Gear" It is still there, eight hours after TPM noted it. Strangely the John McCain Store, linked to from the top bar, does not appear to have the Golf Gear. Even more interestingly, the style set at the top of McCain's web site is Skins/Black and Skins/Black2. subliminal. Source code for the Barack Obama web site is much cleaner, very nicely structured. h/t deLong Since I'm there: McCain has…

Fornvännen's Summer Issue On-Line

Fornvännen 2013:2, last summer's issue, is now on-line in its entirety on Open Access. My friends Mattias Pettersson and Roger Wikell on the Stockholm area's earliest post-glacial settlement site, covered here on Aard during fieldwork in 2010. Tony Björk and Ylva Wickberg on an early-1st millennium linear monument related to a cemetery and a river ford in Scania. Svante Fischer et al. on how mid-1st millennium sword fittings were re-used and deposited. Magnus Green on a 17th century angel on the run from its job as embellishment on a nobleman's sarcophagus. Olov Gibson on the unresolved…

I keep telling them that I have a voice and face for blogging

It's a bit of a switch from doing the Minnesota Atheists radio show last Sunday to what I'll be doing on Thursday: I'll be on the Jeff and Lee Christian talk radio program (they told me 4pm, but their schedule says 3; somewhere around there, anyway). Their guest is Geoffrey Simmons, and I'm supposed to "debate" him — he gets 5 minutes to present the evidence for ID, then I get 5 minutes to present the evidence for evolution, and then follows a 50 minute free-for-all. I already told them the format wasn't fair. I need weeks of air time just to summarize the evidence for evolution, while…

Anthro Blog Carnival

The thirty-sixth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Afarensis. Archaeology and anthropology, and this time dealing exclusively with koryÅ«. Explains Wikipedia: "KoryÅ« is a general term for Japanese schools of martial arts that predate the Meiji Restoration (the period from 1866 to 1869 which sparked major socio-political changes and led to the modernization of Japan). While there is no 'official' cutoff date, the dates most commonly used are either 1868, the first year of the Meiji period, or 1876, when the HaitÅrei edict banning the wearing of swords was pronounced." The next…

Jenny-Rita Næss Honoured On-Line

Around the time when a senior academic retires, she will, if she's lucky, receive a Festschrift. The word is German and means "celebration publication": typically, it's an anthology put together by her colleagues and students. The contents of a Festschrift often vary wildly in quality and level of ambition: solid research papers occur alongside humorous reminiscences of travels and travails endured while the august old professor was still a lanky undergrad. Now, here's something unusual from Norway: archaeologist Jenny-Rita Næss's Festschrift is being published as a web site. So far, seven…

51 Best Physics Blogs

A few other people got the same email I did, promoting a list of the 50 Best Physics Blogs put together by Accredited Online Colleges Dot Org. It's a fine list, with one glaring problem: They didn't include Matt Springer's Built On Facts. As you can probably tell from its frequent tagging for the daily links dump, I'm a big fan, and think Matt's got one of the best physics blogs going. I could probably come up with a blog or two that I'd drop off the existing list, but that would be impolitic. So let's just add him as the 51st blog, leaving us one blog shy of a pack of cards. The comments of…

Happenings in the Quantum World: Dec. 4, 2007

SQuInT program and deadline, Rush Limbaugh on quantum cosmology, and the parallel worlds of Hugh Everett's son The 2008 SQuInT conference deadline for registration is fast approaching, December 12. The program is now available online as well. Looks like a good lineup. Rush Limbaugh talks about quantum cosmology. He is completely wrong that man doesn't affect his environment, less wrong that we are insignificant in the universe, and you can imagine that since the paper he is talking about has been filtered through at least one other media organization prior to reaching his hands, the…

Madrid Conference Examines Science and the Media in the Knowledge Society

For readers in Europe, on May 12 and 13, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) will be hosting in Madrid the Media For Science Forum 2010. The event is intended for science journalists, media officers, science communicators, and scientists and is co-organized by the European Union Science Journalists Association. Registration is free. Following the Forum, a report featuring conclusions about the state of science journalism and public engagement will be released with recommendations aimed at enhanced cooperation among journalists, science communicators, scientists,…

Encouraging sign that government may be going all empirical on us

Atop other Obama appointments, this is one I suspect America's scientists will welcome. From the Washington Post: Report: Holdren to Lead White House Science Policy By Joel Achenbach President-elect Obama will announce this weekend that he has selected physicist John Holdren, who has devoted much of his career to energy and environmental research, as his White House science adviser, according to a published report today. The Obama transition office would not confirm Holdren's selection. Last night, asked by The Post to comment on the science adviser search, Holdren responded by e-mail that…

Slowly being seduced by Portugal

I gave my talk today on tree thinking at the local science museum for kids and the general public, which is amazingly popular. The Portuguese seem to hold science and knowledge in high esteem. Which is great. The Ciências Viva helped pay for my ticket, so I hope they liked my presentation. It will be online as a podcast, and they apparently simulcast it at the time, too. I didn't let you know that because I want to check it before I tell my loyal readers about it. Oops... I am overwhelmed by the hospitality and food here. If I could learn another language, or they all spoke English, I'd…

Thursday night RBOC.

* After watching The China Syndrome tonight, I will henceforth refrain from saying "Coffee is for closers!" when I see Jack Lemmon on screen. Getting mad about falsified X-rays of welds makes his character, Jack Godell, an official friend of this blog. * My online Philosophy of Science course has been switched on for about 12 hours and already more than 50% of the enrolled students have logged in to the course. That's good! (Sometimes, weeks into the term, I'll get phone calls asking, "So, when and where is the class going to meet?") * My soccer team (of six-year-olds) seems to have grown…

Open Source Technology Does Not Have Ads

And neither does a lot of proprietary technology. But the possibility that ads will show up on either type of technology is obviously very different. Now, we are about to see add supported P2P services. At the Midem conference in Cannes, France, Qtrax and its parent company Brilliant Technologies Corp. announced deals on Sunday with all four major labels that would make it the first free and legal ad-supported P2P service with major label music. By allowing users to share DRM-protected files with label approval, Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz said he expected the service to offer over 25…

Go, squid, go!

We can learn from nature: Inspired by the sleek and efficient propulsion of squid, jellyfish and other cephalopods, a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher has designed a new generation of compact vortex generators that could make it easier for scientists to maneuver and dock underwater vehicles at low speeds and with greater precision. In addition, the technology — seemingly inspired by the plots of two classic sci-fi films — may soon allow doctors to guide tiny capsules with jet thrusters through the human digestive tract, enabling them to diagnose disease and dispense medications…

Programing note: next two weeks will be exciting!

As you may already be aware I am about to embark on a trip to Europe again. I will be traveling on Sunday and arriving at Lindau, Germany on Monday for the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates. The list of Nobel Laureates (23 of them) and the list of about 600 young researchers from 66 countries are very impressive. Of course, not being a chemist, I'll have to do some homework before I go (I printed out the complete list of descriptions of all of them to read on the airplane), learning what these people did to get their prizes and what the younger ones are doing hoping to get a Nobel in the future…

Laser-Cooled Atoms: Rubidium

Element: Rubidium (Rb) Atomic Number: 37 Mass: two "stable" isotopes, 85 and 87 amu (rubidium-87 is technically radioactive, but it's half-life is 48 billion years, so it might as well be stable for atomic physics purposes. Laser cooling wavelength: 780 nm Doppler cooling limit: 140 μK Chemical classification: Alkali metal, column I of the periodic table. Like the majority of elements, it’s a greyish metal at room temperature. Like the other alkalis, it’s highly reactive, and bursts into flame on contact with water, even more so than sodium (in general, the alkalis get more violently reactive…

Get a Grip!

A few days back, John Scalzi posted a piece celebrating YA books and authors, which included some reading recommendations. In the comments, a few people said that as childless adults they were reluctant to go into the YA section of the store, lest people think they were creeps looking for kids to prey upon. I can honestly say that that would just never occur to me. I can't really imagine how skeevey somebody would need to look before I thought "Gee, I wonder if that guy is really a pedophile creep?" rather than "There's a guy looking for books for his kid." Of course, the sad thing is that…

Guns harder to come by in New York than you would think

Last week, in response to a multiple homicide shooting in an Omaha mall, I wrote a post showing the mental illness is actually a pretty weak indicator of violent behavior. I made an argument in passing that this would imply that using it as an exclusionary factor for gun ownership, therefore, would be unlikely to limit gun violence. I want to clarify that a little bit. Most attempts to limit gun access -- as I understand it -- fall into two categories. You can try and limit guns as a blanket policy to everyone, or you can try and limit gun access to key risk groups. Taking the second one…

In Defense of William Jennings Bryan

Senator John McCain, it appears, is not a fan of William Jennings Bryan. In a recent interview with USA Today, the Republican Party's nominee for President compared the three-time Democratic nominee for president from the turn of the last century to the Party's current nominee: "I believe that people are interested very much in substance," McCain said. "If it was simply style, William Jennings Bryan would have been president." (Bryan, a noted orator, lost three presidential elections as the Democratic nominee in 1896, 1900 and 1908.) It would be easy for me to dismiss McCain's dislike of…

A couple of more cluesticks on dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer

Since DaveScot has made an appearance or two in the comments here, annoying everyone he comes in contact with, it's worth pointing out that mine isn't the only cluestick that could be used to pound some science into him about dichloroacetate, the supposed "cure" for cancer that's being "ignored" or "suppressed" by Big Pharma. Since my original article on the subject, two more excellent (and realistic) overviews of the promise and peril of DCA as an inexpensive chemotherapeutic agent to treat cancer have appeared, one of them by fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy and one actually appearing on…

Buffett

The power of Warren Buffett is impressive. He decides to invest a few billion in Goldman Sachs and panicked investors calm down. And why not? Nobody has an investing record that can even come close to comparing with Buffett's record: he is the lone outlier of Wall Street. According to most calculations, since 1951 Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has generated an average annual return of about 31%. The average return for the Standard & Poor's 500 over that period is 10% a year. The stock market is a random walk, but Buffett has somehow found a way to consistently beat the randomness. So what'…

More on video game violence

This is an image from the video game Asheron's Call 2 (source: mmorpg.com). Does playing such a game, involving regular practicing (albeit in a virtual environment) of repetitive, violent acts, increase our general level of aggression? A recent article in New York Times says no, citing a study by "a researcher at the University of Illinois," which found, according to the article, that "violent video games have no 'long-term,' or permanent, effects on aggressive behavior." Interesting, considering the article I discussed in yesterday's post apparently found exactly the opposite. With some…

XMRV and Chronic Fatigue and Autism and Chronic Lyme Disease: "Trusted organizations"

A while back I wrote about how the lead researcher at the Whittemore Peterson Institute, Judy Mikovits, is speaking at Autismone, a huge anti-vax rally in Chicago later this month. I thought Judy was just a crank. Dime a dozen, whatevs. Turns out things are worse than that. Much much worse than that. Its cranks all the way down. Vincent Lombardi, first author on the original 'XMRV causes Chronic Fatigue' Science paper, founded some weird testing company several years back. This weird testing company was then bought by Harvey Whittemore (father of The Princess That Cant Be Named), and turned…

A truly significant poll on license plates

Yeah, and next we'll have a really important poll on what color socks I should wear. Right now, you'll have to settle for answering this question: What do you think of the decision to block the "I Believe" license plate? The results so far: Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 18.16 % (69) I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 63.95 % (243) They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 17.89 % (68) The second, and so far winning (but you'll turn that around fast), choice is palpably stupid. Of course you have a right…

Denialists' Deck of Cards: The 7 of Hearts, "Jobs!"

The trick to using the "Jobs" card is to totally over inflate the size of your industry and the number of employees it has. It's quite a compelling argument, and sometimes it's true. But I've seen many cases where a regulation creates new jobs and economic development. A great recent example of the 7 of Hearts was occurred in the debate surrounding adoption of the federal Do-Not-Call Telemarketing Registry. The telemarketing industry claimed that they employed 6 million Americans, and had $668 billion in sales. But the economic census showed that telemarketing only accounted for 500,…

Getting in the mood for holidays

Perhaps we should buy this: No Limit Texas Dreidel - Jewish Gift Pack Family Entertainment: Let My People Go All In!! Take Dreidel, combine it with poker, and you've got a new dreidel experience that is truly fun, and a game that is the talk of the Jewish community. You'll check, bet, raise, or fold depending on the strength of your dreidel hand (or how much you like to bluff). Standard edition game is for 2-4 players (not suitable for children 3 and under/choking hazard). Each set includes 4 shakers, a "spinner" button, 4 small dreidels and 3 large dreidels, and comes in a heavy quality…

iPod iChing - 222

Steamy hot friday and we ask the mighty iPod: what for the next 16 years? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. The Covering: Rudi, A Message To You - Specials The Crossing: Travelin' Soldier (live) - Dixie Chicks The Crown: (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais (live) - Clash The Root: Sulk - Billy Bragg The Past: Cadet Rouselle - Sien Diels The Future: Winter - Vivaldi The Questioner: Change - Melissa Etheridge The House: Bob Wilson - Anchorman - Half Man Half Biscuit The Inside: O zittre nicht mein lieber Son - Mozart The Outcome: The Price I Pay - Billy Bragg "Well I'd like to meet…

The stoat in winter

I don't think I've troubled you with a picture of me for a while, so here is one I particularly like, taken with Miriam's Galaxy S2 (rush out and buy one now, its got our GPS in it, which is apparently far better than the competition). If you look closely at my right thigh (and who would not wish to do so?) you'll see the graze I got on today's run at the point where I fell over an electric fence that I hadn't noticed was there. Fortunately the 'lectric itself was off. That was in the middle of the mad wiggly bit where I got totally lost trying to find my way back to the Thames, having got…

Help Me Spend Money

I usually listen to music on the computer using the "Party Shuffle" feature of iTunes on a playlist consisting of recently acquired music. It gives me a chance to get a good feel for new albums, and then when I'm at work or on the road, I listen to the four-and-five-star playlist. I haven't bought much recently, though, so the playlist just clicked over to only one album, the new Fountains of Wayne record. Which just isn't that good-- it's not terrible, but it's not so good thhat I want to listen to it exclusively for any length of time. So, what should I buy when I hit iTunes for new music…

links for 2008-09-25

Dynamics of Cats : how to buy a house A first-order approximation. (tags: economics society US politics) Good Math, Bad Math : Bad Probability and Economic Disaster; or How Ignoring Bayes Theorem Caused the Mess "One of the big questions that comes up again and again is: how did they get away with this? How could they find any way of taking things that were worthless, and turn them into something that could be represented as safe? The answer is that they cheated in the math." (tags: " economics politics math statistics stupid) Point/Counterpoint: Gov. Palin Has No Experience vs. Please…

links for 2008-09-23

Submission Form "Use this form to nominate a blog post for The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2008. " (tags: science blogs books) BuyMyShitPile.com: Hey Washington, can you buy my bad investments too? "Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth." (tags: politics economics internet silly) xkcd - A Webcomic - Tones "One stand on which I'…

How to Teach Physics to Your Chinese Dog

Got a big box in the mail today, which included author copies of two Asian editions: the Japanese edition, which I had seen before, and this: That is, obviously, the Chinese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I say "obviously" mostly because I know that edition was about ready to roll out-- I can't say anything about the actual characters on the cover, other than that they don't include any katakana, and thus it's not the Japanese edition, and they're not hangul characters, meaning it's not the Korean edition. Other than that, I got nothing. If you can read Chinese, and provide a…

Technical Request: Gas Cell Filling

I doubt that this will actually work, but then the Web has brought me some improbable successes before, so it's worth a shot: I have a sealed glass cell (Pyrex, I think, if it matters) that I would like to get re-filled with a mix of rare gases-- partial pressures of 100mT Ne, 30mT Ar, 30 mT Kr. This will contain an RF plasma discharge to serve as a spectroscopic reference for my experiments, and thus needs to be very clean-- I can't have impurities coming out of the walls and quenching the metastable atoms I'm producing in the discharge. The company that initially made the cell has not…

Thursday Baby Blogging 101509

SteelyKid has cast Appa aside in favor of bigger and better things: That's right. She's not allowed to have candy yet, but she's already gearing up for Halloween... The pumpkin bucket is actually a bribe-- I bought it for her to play with while we waited for her prescription to be filled yesterday. This is in fine family tradition-- my father used to buy presents for my sister and me when he had to take us shopping for my mother's birthday... While we're not going to try giving her candy any time soon, SteelyKid is making great progress in the area of eating, as can be seen in the video…

Good To See the Snake Oil Salesman Alive and Kickin'

Almost as inevitable as evolution is the law that states, where there are stupid naive people, there will be someone to hustle them. People were persuaded to buy a powder which they could allegedly turn into "Magic Cheese", said to make skin look younger and to be highly valuable. The powder, called Yo Flex and costing up to $500 (£270), turned out to be an almost-worthless food supplement. More than 20,000 Peruvians and 6,000 Chileans were reportedly duped. Now, as if that wasn't crazy enough, it gets weirder. According to reports, victims of the scam believed they only had to mix the…

Happy Darwin Day!!! Earn Some Cash!!!

It's official! In honor of Darwin Day celebrations everywhere, the Alliance for Science is having their first annual Evolution Essay contest! This year's question: Why would you want your doctor to have studied evolution? Pop on over for contest details, if you're a high school student. First prize is $300, Second is $200, etc. Plus there are a lot of autographed books on evolution that you can win!!! Teachers, prompt your students. If yours wins you get $250 towards lab supplies! Students, submit something! For 1000 words you can buy a semester's worth of books in college, or make a…

Don't miss the "Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and ID" takedown

The takedown intro has been posted at The Panda's Thumb. If the server's down, keep checking in. Over the next week or two, various bloggers will pick apart the different chapters and expose this trash for what it is; a coffee table book for the sycophantic zombies among us. While I predict it will have a very limited audience, that audience consists primarily of so-called "family values" politicians who will buy into this vapid PR campaign. Yours truly will pick a Chapter apart midway through next week, so check back here around Wednesday. In the meantime, Tara has already trashed one…

Server trial by fire

Now we'll really get to see how well this new server provided by Seed holds up. Pharyngula just get linked by Slashdot, and I've seen a thousand hits come roaring in in 5 minutes. My lovely old Mac G5 server would have been screaming and shaking at this point, and you wouldn't be reading this article, that's for sure. If ever you were curious about it, here's a snapshot of the slashdot effect, taken at about 11:00 in the evening. This is just today's traffic. The other astounding part of the phenomenon was that the average IQ of my commenters was cut in half (data not shown). I'm hoping the…