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Sex, Evolution and Sweden

One last note on the whole Spitzer affair. The reason I think it's dangerous to use the sexual habits of other species (or even other human cultures) as a baseline when discussing prostitution is that the evolutionary argument has very clear policy implications. If, as David Barash argued, sexual infidelity is not only natural but normal and inescapable, then you'd have a strong argument for the legalization of prostitution. (Let's call this the Netherlands model.) After all, why criminalize what can't be helped? However, if you believe that our sexual urges, while powerful, can still be…

Pseudonymity: Five Reasons the New Scienceblogs/NG Policy is Misguided

Recently, Scienceblogs/National Geographic decided it would no longer host pseudonymous science bloggers. As a result, many of my former colleagues have left. I think this decision was wrong. Read on for my reasons. One: simple fairness. Several well-established pseudonymous bloggers had been active here for years. While it's perfectly reasonable to set up a media site from scratch and institute a "no pseudonymous blogging" policy at that time, it's quite another to change the rules and evict members of an established community. It violates my sense of fairness; it's why we usually expect…

Studying "disparities" in access to "complementary and alternative medicine"

When it comes to the use of what is sometimes called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, increasingly, "integrative medicine," there is a certain narrative. It's a narrative promoted by CAM proponents that does its best to convince the public that there is nothing unusual, untoward, or odd about CAM use, even though much of CAM consists of treatments that are based on prescientific concepts of human physiology and pathology, such as traditional Chinese medicine or homeopathy. In other words, it's a narrative designed to "normalize" CAM usage (and therefore CAM practice), making…

Mr. Republican lawmaker, have you purchased private health insurance lately?

Just as Republican lawmakers have been hyping the virtues of purchasing private health insurance----versus the evils of "Obamacare"----my husband Jim and I needed to do just that. I had been writing a check for $659 each month to maintain health insurance coverage under my former employer's plan, as provided by COBRA. After 18 months, it was due to expire. The time had come for us to venture into the Republicans' fantasy land of the free marketplace for health insurance. We took a deep breath and dove in. The first thing we learned is that you don't really purchase health insurance. You…

No FoxNews debate, after all

Following the Edwards lead, Bill Richardson also pulled out of the FoxNews Nevada debate effectively killing it. The current frame in the media and online is that Fox News is not a legitimate news source.

Liberally Skeptical!

Carnival of the Liberals 28: Christmas Edition is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted). Carl Sagan (Pseudo) Memorial / Demon Haunted World (Pseudo) Homage / [50th] Skeptics' Circle is up on Humbug Online.

Denial101x MOOC Full List of Videos...

The recently produced Massive Open Online Course on climate science denial is chock full of great videos that should be at everyone's fingertips. HERE is a list of the videos. Use it well and powerfully.

Skepticality's 100th Show

Skepticality, one of my favourite podcasts, just put its 100th show on-line! Swoopy and Derek have been going strong now for four whole years! Always good for in-depth science-friendly interviews.

Making segments

My latest column for Seed is now available online. It's an abbreviated summary of how vertebrates make segments (so it's illustrated with a fly…), with special emphasis on the global and clocklike mechanism we use.

Lawrence Lessig on Remix and Digital Culture

I had the opportunity to see this live in April. I had never heard of Lawrence Lessig prior to this presentation, but I haven't been able to forget it. I'm so pleased to have found it online.

The next best thing to owning your own copies

Yes! You can now read the complete works of Charles Darwin free, online. Since an original copy of The Origin will set you back roughly $50,000, last I heard, this is a really good deal.

Help Evolution In Florida!

Ed Brayton asks us to sign this online petition "...to keep the pressure on the state Board of Education to adopt the new proposed science standards as they are ..." Please go do it.

Someone's Trying to Play Us

Via Bora, I found a somewhat alarming article. Apparently, it's being claimed, the Lobbying reform law currently in the senate will require bloggers (among other people) to register and file quarterly reports with congress or face possible jail time, "the same as the big K Street lobbyists." Calling it "the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever," the article in question hopes to stir a grassroots swell of oposition to this particular portion of the law. Being a blogger, this naturally caught my interest, so I went and looked at the law. Then at the source of the article. It…

The state of Texas

Steven Schafersman is the president of Texas Citizens for Science, and he sent along a status report for Texas — it's not all bad news, and of course it's always good to see a strong, active organization defending science in the state. I've put the full report below. ICR I talked to many individuals in Austin. I had several good conversations with THECB Commissioner Raymund Paredes. He is really a good guy and we got along well. He understands Austin politics, and is now completely knowledgeable about Creationism in general and ICR in particular, and since we traded several email messages…

Nature Neuroscience: Focus on Glia

Ever since I started to learn about brains, back in the mid 1980s, from some really brainy brain experts like Terry Deacon and Joe Marcus, I always knew that glial cells were important. But I now read in current material in Nature Neuroscience, that "A decade ago, glia were the neglected stepchildren of neuroscience. Although glia outnumber neurons by about ten to 1 in the adult human brain, providing support for neurons has traditionally been viewed as their primary function. Glial biology has come into its own recently, as researchers have shown that glia are critical for the development…

Science Blogging Conference - Blog and Media Coverage

You can follow the conversation about the Conference by checking in, every now and then, the Blog and Media Coverage page on the wiki. The links to date can also be found under the fold... If you want your posts to be easily detected and included in the listing, please use 'scienceblogging.com' as a tag, or as text or link inside your post. Media Coverage Raleigh News & Observer (Dan Barkin): Bloggers to talk science BlueSci, Cambridge UK (Mica Tatalovic), pp.30-31: Science Blogging (pdf) BT Catalyst (NC Biotechnology Center): The BT Catalyst Interview with Christopher R. Brodie M.…

Porn causes tsunamis and earthquakes

Powerful stuff, that porn. The Indonesian Minister of Communication and Information (who must be very smart to have a title like that) has determined that recent natural disasters in his country are a consequence of the ubiquity of pornographic DVDs. His logic is something like this: 1) it is a fact that one can easily buy porn in local markets, and 2) it is a fact that the Padang earthquake killed over a thousand people and that the Aceh tsunami devastated an entire region, therefore 3) it is a fact that the two are causally related. Well, point 3 is a little shaky, but 1 and 2 are so strong…

Great bathroom reading?

I have mixed feelings about this: a first-edition copy of Darwin's Origin of Species has been discovered, which is, of course, great — I do wish I had the pocket change to drop £60,000 to buy it for myself. The weird part is that it was found in the guest bathroom of an old house in Oxford. Apparently, someone thought the Origin was perfect light, occasional reading for visitors attending to certain private physiological functions, which is nice, if a little trivializing. It's a bit odd, though, that they put the book there and no one seems to have bothered to notice it for 150 years. I am…

The Fargo experience

I'm keeping busy here — we had a packed house at my talk (which was all wonky sciencey biology stuff) last night, I did a press conference this morning which might get a few soundbites floating around North Dakota, spent a little time on the Christopher Gabriel show on WDAY radio, and now get a brief break before I head over to NDSU for a 2:00 discussion session on atheist activism, which should be fun. I plan on briefly discussing the Creation Museum trip and desecrating communion wafers, and then let other people howl back and forth for a while. At 6:00, it's time for the Fargo Theatre and…

Existence

David Brin has a new novel out, Existence Brin is on a book tour at independent book stores on the west coast and was in the Bay Area saturday, where he spoke at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, having stopped by at SETIcon II earlier. David Brin The book is nice and chunky, and is a medium future novel, somewhat in the spirit of Earth. I am told that the story also includes the beginning of Uplift as a side plot. David is one of my all time favourite authors, and while at Caltech, as a founding member of SPECTRE, the legendary Caltech Science Fiction Club, I hosted him for the first of…

The fine art of religious expression

Once, religion gave us Bach and the Sistine Chapel. That was then; now religion gives us… Holy Flash Abuse, Batman! You have to see the intro page for the International Congress of Churches & Ministers to believe it. Somebody had way too much coffee. If your religious kitsch preferences are more old school, try crafting a god box. A God box is an object of intense beauty used for manifesting goodness in your life. You can buy it or build it. You can adorn it with faux finishes, faux lapis, strings soaked in glue, making loops, like spaghetti rococco, then paint it, varnish it, maybe…

Read More Novels Month

I'm sort of marking time for a couple of days here, for reasons that will hopefully be explained soon. There are some interesting posts in the works, but I want to wait for a few more days. Of course, I need something to fill the time, and indirectly via Drink at Work, I find that Foma* has the answer: National Just Read More Novels Month. I hereby, unilaterally and with no other authority that which I have granted myself, declare January to be National Just Read More Novels Month or NaJuReMoNoMo, pronounced Nah-JOO-REE-Moe-NO-Moe if you really think you are going to have a chance to say it…

Laptop Recommendations

As previously noted, the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 tablet that I use for my lectures is limping badly these days (it blue-screened this morning, whee). The options for a direct replacement are pretty limited, but in thinking about it a bit, I realized that I hardly use the tablet functions other than to annotate slides during lectures. Most of what I do with it just involves using it like an ordinary laptop. It's not clear to me whether the hardware is really a problem, but I might very well be able to wipe it, reinstall the necessary programs, then continue to use it as a lecture-only computer,…

OMG, Your Head's On Fire!!!!

Do not delay. Do not equivocate. Do not think twice. Just get to the theater and buy your tickets, find a seat, turn off your cell phone, and sit back and enjoy Bill Maher's Religulous! In this film, Maher makes a handful of critically important points. Like, if our world is led by people who are expecting, waiting for, even hoping for, The End Times (or some similar event) then ... well... then we are all deeply fucked. This is probably the main point, backed up by lot of other important points about religion. The other objective of the film is to make fun of religion and religious…

*GAG* GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!

Continuing this weeks theme of spewing-- Drove home to visit the parents for a few days (dial-up country w00t!-- expect spammed comments to stay spammed for a while, sry). While Im sure you all are under the impression Im high-society and enjoy luxury, there are few things that make me happier than a bag of Doritos, and an ice cold bottle of the best soda ever made, Mountain Dew (Red Mountain Dew and Blue Mountain Dew are close seconds). However I cant justify buying these items very often, so normally I buy them as a treat for the (long) drive home to visit the parents. This time I tried a…

Technothrillers vs. Science Fiction

Reading Final Theory last night reminded me of something Patrick Nielsen Hayden said on a con panel once. The question was raised of why thriller-ish science fiction books don't do as well as thrillers with a thin SF gloss-- basically, "Why doesn't Greg Bear sell as many books as Michael Crichton?" Patrick noted that there's a very different attitude toward the products of science in the two genres. In thrillers, he said, the plot is set in motion by the unleashing of some scientific discovery, and the plot is resolved by destroying or covering up that discovery. In genre science fiction, on…

Enjoy a nice cold Pepsi today

And while you're doing that, I have answered the Monday Mystery back at my tried and true wordpress blog. I will be blogging at the old digs for the next few days until I have had time to digest the unfortunate recent events here at Scienceblogs. What's going on? I'll let my excellent sciblings explain: GrrlScientist Mark Chu-Carroll Thoughtful Animal PalMD Dr. Free-Ride ***update and clarification*** I have reached no decision about the future location of Myrmecos blog. I like some things about Scienceblogs. Their openness in letting bloggers air this sort of dirty laundry out in…

Stuff that annoyed me this morning

There's nothing wrong about being pretty, or sexy, or shopping, or being interested in traditionally girly things—but there is a big problem when that's the only option you're given. I know I'd be stressed if I were constantly told I'm less of a man if I'm not playing football or working in a manly occupation that involved large wrenches and heavy industrial tools, so I can sympathize with the limited choices given women: oh, you aren't wearing a bikini on your lithe body with the large breasts? Then you're an ugly dyke. You aren't planning a career as a homemaker and mother? You just want to…

An atheist also blesses the Catholic iPhone app

I am very excited about this new technological development. The pope has blessed an iPhone app to help you figure out what to say in confession. I'm not at all interested in throwing away a whole $1.99 on it, but what's interesting is the potential. Next: an app for priests to guide them in the appropriate penance to deliver. Then we add a little bluetooth/wireless capability to the apps, and confession becomes a matter of walking up to a priest and bumping your cell phones together — instant exchange! Next step: an app that reads your penance — say you're supposed to say 25 Hail Marys —…

Femtosecond Lasers at Uncertain Principles

Hey, I just wanted to draw some attention to this great post of Chad's about femtosecond lasers and laser bandwidth in physics and chemistry. Those lasers are near and dear to my heart, as they're one of the main focuses of my research group. And just so you have some original content, here's the Crazy Matt Opinion Of The Day: I like the Seinfeld Microsoft ads. They don't make me want to buy Windows, and they're not very dramatic or even interesting. I like them because they have Bill Gates doing the robot and reading a programming manual as a little kid's bedtime story. I like the idea…

APS March Meeting Ramblings

Things I learned at the APS March meeting. Updated as I learn them. That's right: real time updates of connectivity of my neurons translated into html translated into text and pictures on your browser. A Yale experiment led by Robert Schoelkopf has demonstrated the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm and Grover's algorithm (two qubit algorithms) using transmon qubits (superconducting qubits.) Fidelities for their implementation are in the 80 to 90 percent range. Paper: arXiv:0903.2030. Also, congrats to Robert Schoelkopft for winning the "2009 Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement…

My kids get caught up in the ugly world of spin, spin, spin

Science Scout twitter feed Yes, those forlorn looking children are my kids, Hannah and Ben. This post is another oldie but goodie, but with the summer looming ahead, this picture still cracks me up. Mainly because it's an example of total misrepresentation of the product. Specifically, here is what the picture on the box looked like: Obviously, you can tell the huge discrepancy between the image on the box and what we might call reality. Anyway, a slide with both of these graphics now often makes an appearance in my talks on science literacy. Particularly as a great visual…

Tell me this isn't awesome.

OK, I know GFP is hardly news since the Nobel Prize was awarded to the scientists who discovered it and made it available to researchers. But, come on - tell me this cat ain't cool: Meet Mr. Green Genes. He's a nearly 6-month-old orange tabby whose eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species. He's the first fluorescent cat in the United States, according to Betsy Dresser, the center's director. The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline…

More Nonsense From Our Buddies On Wall Street

NY Times href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/business/16fund.html?ex=1350187200&en=c71cef9b628ff8d5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">reports that large banks are working on a perpetual motion machine: The new entity, called a Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, or M-LEC, could raise as much as $200 billion or more through the issuance of its own securities, and use the money to buy securities that otherwise might be dumped on the market. Just what we need, another circus, but this time with More Smoke! More Mirrors! I am skeptical, obviously.  But don't…

The glamourous weekend of a mommy scientist

It's nearing ten p.m. on a Friday night. After putting my daughter to bed, I've washed the dishes, done the laundry, and boxed up some outgrown toys. Next I'm going to start writing up work plans for two independent studies I'm supervising this semester. Then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, I've got to take Minnow to the store and buy some diapers, wipes, milk, and chocolate. I'll take the dog for the first decent walk she's had all week. I'll supervise toddler playtime, mealtime, and bathtime. Hopefully during naptime, I'll get a chance to do battle with the invasive plant that's taking over our…

Weird Fish Tanks

A not at all exhaustive collection of cool bizarro aquariums. Modular fish tank Toilet tank. Kind of like fish purgatory. The Fish-Bird Tank-Cage many more below the fold... Sink tank The sophisticated ichthyologist's sitting room A concept piece by a Japanese architectural firm More of the above This robotic fish tank senses which direction the fish is swimming and drives off in that direction. Could prove extremely useful in absolutely no circumstances. In this Korean tank, the pump and aerator are powered via USB. Additionally, temperature is controlled via software on your…

Worst deal ever: Comcast Extreme 105

As Comcast moves towards being the next AT&T (and I'm talking about the ATT of the 1960s, which was more powerful than most countries and more nefarious than Karl Rove and Dick Cheney combined), it gets increasingly strange, self serving, and dangerous as a company to deal with. Over the last year or so, our service (we have Comcast cable) has increased in price and decreased in stations being offered that we will at this point do better by canceling it and adding an antennae (but this is how we get Internet). Now, Comcast offers a thing called "Extreme 105" which costs a bundle even if…

The Girl With Eight Limbs

This is interesting: Doctors began operating today on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said. Lakshmi is joined to a "parasitic twin" who stopped developing in the mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus. [source] It is believed that in utero, this girl had a twin whom she absorbed, reportedly after that twin's "death." (I'm not so sure about the death part... that sounds like an assumption.) Various parts…

What is this #1: Answer

Perhaps you have had enough time to think about the first "What is this" demo item. Here is the item in question. It seems most of you were right on track with this one - probably because you can still buy such a device. This thingy launches a small ball horizontally while at the same time dropping a ball. It is supposed to show that the vertical and horizontal components of an object in projectile motion are independent. It takes two balls (which I didn't have when I took the picture). One ball goes on each end and the arm is pulled back. Update: Thanks to Kevin and Frank for pointing…

Why is there a giant octopus hanging over Minnesota?

This old-school public service announcement is warning of the dangers of smut—and for some reason it's illustrated with a many-tentacled cephalopod hovering above my state. Prophecy? There are more strange PSAs collected online.

If you really must know…

I always wonder who the "you" is that online pollsters think they're addressing. I think they're talking right to us atheists, so you should answer their question: Do you believe in God or a supreme being?

How Good is Your Vocabulary?

tags: vocabulary, online quiz I did well on this quiz -- how about you? How did you score? Your Vocabulary Score: A Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person. How's Your Vocabulary?

Anthro Blog Carnival

The thirty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Testimony of the Spade. Archaeology and anthropology and anthropology and archaeology! Also, don't miss the 78th Skeptics' Circle over at Skeptical Surfer.

Liberals!

There's a new Carnival of the Liberals online, in which I am reminded that yours truly is hosting this one on 12 April. So, like, ummm, go read it, get some ideas, and start sending me links.

What if your workout buddy lives a zillion miles away?

I think one of the easiest ways Web 2.0 can contribute to individuals' health is to help us maintain those buddy relationships, even when we can't see our buddies in person... See Sharing your Workouts Online

World Conference of Science Journalists - New media new journalism

In the opening salvo of the World Conference of Science Journalists, three speakers debated the role of new media in the science journalism of tomorrow. What follows is an account of the session and personal opinions on some of the issues raised. How online news can evolve (and have blogs and other media already beaten it there?) Krishna Bharat, founder of Google News and owner of the incredible job title of "Distinguished Researcher", kicked things off with a whirlwind tour of ideas on the future of online news. He touched on each one for the briefest of moments: He highlighted Google…

Economic End Times and a Coming Housing Implosion

By 'End Times', I'm not referring to the significant global decrease in food production, or the Far East trade war over sand (I'm not kidding--Indonesia has declared a sand embargo against Singapore). Putting those two news items together does have an apocalyptic feel to it. No, what I'm referring to is that mortgage foreclosures and homeowner vacancies have reached record highs (also see here). Over at Tapped, Dana Goldstein describes a cause of the phenomenon: The story is always the same: clever marketing campaigns prey on families in blighted neighborhoods, promising them the American…

Past Due (and Brad DeLong) on Political Paralysis

If you're looking for a good primer on Big Shitpile and other recent economic events, I highly recommend Peter Goodman's Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. It's well written, and does what many other books about the recent economic collapse fail to do: puts it into a larger context. But this small excerpt from Past Due hits the nail on the head as to what our problem is: Washington has grown accustomed to muddy compromises that can be spun into clear-cut victories by both parties, as their leaders appear on Sunday television talk shows to argue over…

Project Exploration

You may have noticed a button on my sidebar (under the heading "I Support") that looks like this: If you click on it, you will be transported to the homepage of one of my favourite science educational programs - the Project Exploration. This project is the brainchild of paleontologist Paul Sereno and his wife, historian and educator Gabrielle Lyons. More under the fold.... If you do not know who Paul Sereno is, you are probably not interested in dinosaurs at all, as he is the #1 Big Star of Dinosaur Paleontology. Among else, he has discovered Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, one of the…

Fresh flowers and spoiled lives

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure A story on the wires about a paper in the journal Epidemiology this month (November) confirms what other work has shown: those beautiful flowers we buy in American florist shops have an added price attached to them, paid by the children of Central America. Epidemiology is one of the top tier journals in the field of epidemiology, but I don't have access to my copy, which is at work (and I'm not), so I'm working off wire service copy (Reuters Health). From what I know of the subject, however, the account is likely accurate. Here's the gist: In a study…