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Quote of the Day - 31 December 2006

Here's a good New Year's quote, from the first season of The West Wing: Toby: It's not the new millennium, but I'll just let it drop. Sam: It is. Toby: It is not the new millennium. The year 2000 is the last year of the millennium, it's not the first year of the next one. Sam: But the common sensibility, to quote Stephen Jay Gould-- Toby: Stephen Jay Gould needs to look at a calendar. Sam: Gould says this is a largely un-resolveable issue. Toby: Yeah, it's tough to resolve. You have to look at a calendar.

Pro-Test, two years later

Some of you may recall I was immensely impressed by Laurie Pycroft, a 16 year old who started Pro-Test, which defended the use of animal models against the vicious and largely unthinking nastiness of animal "rights" protesters. Now Nick Anthis, at The Scientific Activist, is reporting that they seem to have achieved many of their aims in defending science from the ignorant. However, I think they will always have to be active - this stupidity has been around for over a century in Britain and elsewhere, and won't go away any time soon.

SfN: Let the Games Begin!

Hi everyone, For the next 5 days, I -- like fellow Sciencebloggers Shelley and Evil Monkey -- will be blogging up a storm from the Society for Neuroscience convention in Atlanta. Check in regularly for updates as to the proceedings. And remember to check in next Thursday for a very special issue of The Synapse that will summarize all the convention related goodness. Jake UPDATED: Incidentally, if you are going to SfN and you read this blog, email me. I would love to meet people there -- particularly at the Neuroscience Official Superswanky Sponsored Socials or NOSSSs.

Sick... again

Once again I have manflu, the most despicable disease known to man (and to women, who also suffer indirectly from it). So blogging is patchy. Also, I have to do some teaching stuff, which involves thinking about what the essays say. I am writing, slowly, a piece about the recent paper on ratite origins first author of which is my friend and occasional sparring partner John Harshman. As this means I have to learn stuff first, it's taking a while, but I want it to be a good one. Be patient, and in the meantime read this.

New work on the origin of life

I can't say much about this without reading the paper in the company of Somebody Who Knows About Chemistry, but Jack Szostak's team at the Harvard Medical School has done some interesting looking work on the self assembly of lipids into miscelles that could contain DNA reactions. What is new to me is the claim that lipids might have been formed in hydrothermal vents rather than as by-products of the original chemical cycle. But it doesn't explain how the transition from "found" lipid monomers to "made" monomers arose. Anyway, check it out.

Render Caesar

In a famous skit, Wayne and Schuster had Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, saying "Julie, don't go! It's the Ides of March!" Now we can see why Julie went. He was old, and worried... This is a bust of Julius Caesar in his "old age" (old age be damned. He looks younger than I am) that has recently been found in the sediment of the Rhône River next to the Roman city of Arles, which Caesar founded. It is thought to be from life, and is the oldest bust of J. C. known.

Algae-based, anti-HIV gel development

Brazilian researchers have been experimenting with an gel containing an algae-based anti-HIV compound designed for use by women to prevent the spread of the virus. Derived from the Brazilian brown alga, Dictyota pfaffii, two papers are available the describe the isolation and biological activity of the most active of the components, the dolabellane diterpene 8,10,18-trihydroxy-2,6-dolabelladiene. The compound does indeed appear to inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase at concentrations (about 16 micromolar) that can be maintained in a vaginal gel preparation. Human trials are expected to being…

Optical illusions!

Here are a few neat optical illusions. 1. Multi-colored X? (via Grand Illusions) It appears that the X is two different colors, but it's actually made using just one shade of pink. (more below) 2. Is this a circle? (via eluzions) It is indeed. 3. Some classic illusions embedded in an animated video: Hope you enjoyed these! [Mainly this is to distract you from the fact that there is no Casual Friday post today. There was a billing problem with our survey provider. I fully expect Casual Fridays to be back next week]

NY Times interview with Philip Zimbardo

Just wanted to point out an excellent interview with Philip Zimbardo, the principal researcher of the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment, on the New York Times web site. If, like me, you couldn't stomach watching the entire video (now removed from YouTube), you should at least watch this 8-minute interview, which also offers a nice summary of the experiment and its relation to Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo's thesis is that we all have the capacity for good and evil; it's the situations we are put in that cause us to behave in good or evil ways.

I'll bet you don't understand error bars (updated with answers)

Cognitive Daily gets a lot of complaints about graphs, mostly from readers who say the graphs are useless without error bars. My response is that error bars are confusing to most readers. But perhaps I'm wrong about that. Now I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. Take a look at this graph. It represents a fictional experiment where two different groups of 50 people took a memory test. The mean scores of each group are shown, along with error bars showing standard error: Based on this graph, can you tell if there is a significant difference (p<.05) between the scores of the two…

Will banning iPods make pedestrians safer?

Should iPods be banned from crosswalks? Bloggers respond, and so does Jake Young. A model of how the brain processes time. Do cigarette warning labels work? Yep. One reason to believe that IQ can be improved. Do you like experimental psychology? How about experimental Philosophy? Encephalon will be at Mind Hacks next week. Submit now or forever hold your peace. P.S.: Sorry for the lack of "in other news" posts this week -- we've had a perfect storm of child illnesses and technical glitches. We should be back on a regular publication schedule for the foreseeable future.

Off to Lovely Bellingham, WA

Hoping to see some Bald Eagles as I make the 80 plus mile drive from Seattle up to Bellingham today, in order to deliver this talk: Saturday, September 16 7:30 PM-9:00 PM Village Books 1200 Eleventh Street Bellingham, WA 98225 I'm feeling a bit under the weather--to much masquerading about--but as long as I've got plenty of water I should still be able to speechify. Anyway I've never been to this part of the country before, so I'm really looking forward to it. Stop by if this is your area....

Campus Progress Talk

Today right in my backyard, at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel in DC, the Center for American Progress's campus branch is having its 2006 National Student Conference. I'm pleased to say that the event will include a panel on the "war on science" from 2:45 to 4:00 pm, and I'll be on that panel. Details here. Just as was the case with Yearly Kos last month, these "war on science" panels really seem to be popping up everywhere--science is "on the agenda," so to speak. And to me, that's very heartening....

Outta Here

I'm heading off to Boston for an event tonight. I may get to blog again from Beantown, or I may not. A couple of things to leave you with: First, check out the latest Bush administration science scandal. A government report was apparently doctored to take out references to the possibility that Navy sonar may have caused the beaching of a group of whales. Typical, I know, but do try to sustain the outrage, if you possibly can--at least until the weekend. Meanwhile, just a reminder that I'm on Tavis Smiley tonight on PBS. Check your local listings; Tivo here.

Dow Jones Industrial Average Falls Below 7,000

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled Monday, with the Dow and S&P 500 falling to 12-year lows after insurance company American International Group's huge quarterly loss added to worries about the financial sector and the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost almost 300 points, or 4.2% to end at 6763.29, its lowest point since April 25, 1997. While I hoped this email from last September was hyperbole, today I'm less certain. The world has changed, but I remain hopeful that with the right direction, we may yet recover.

C.I.A. Director Panetta

Ocean champion Leon E. Panetta will take over the Central Intelligence Agency. In disclosing the pick, officials pointed to Mr. Panetta's sharp managerial skills, his strong bipartisan standing on Capitol Hill, his significant foreign policy experience in the White House and his service on the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel that examined the war and made recommendations on United States policy. The officials noted that he had a handle on intelligence spending from his days as director of the Office and Management and Budget. Details at The Caucus Blog...

Forty Years After Earthrise

Forty years ago* on December 24, 1968, Earthrise was captured by astronaut William Anders during Apollo 8--the first manned voyage to the orbit of the Moon. It is a photograph that forever changed the way many humans perceive our place in the universe. As we celebrate the new year, take a moment to consider our impact on this pale blue dot in the short span of time since then... and just imagine what we may yet accomplish and discover by 2048. *posted a day early given many readers will be away from the blogosphere tomorrow

Remembering Michael Crichton on WBUR On Point

This morning at 11 ET, I'm going to be on this program with Tom Ashbrook: Remembering Michael Crichton, from "The Andromeda Strain" to"Jurassic Park," "ER," and "State of Fear." We'll look at the blockbuster master's long reach. Guests: Lev Grossman, book critic for TIME magazine. Lynn Nesbit, Michael Crichton's literary agent. She signed him in 1965 while he was still a medical student. Chris Mooney, journalist and author of "Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming" and "The Republican War on Science." Tune in if you're interested.....

Sheril Votes For Science

I contribute to another Seed blog called 'A Vote For Science' where we recently launched our 'YouTube Challenge': Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund and ScienceBlogs have teamed up to bring you "A Vote For Science." Here we will feature videos of scientists explaining who they are voting for and why. Jennifer, Lawrence, and many others have already submitted videos, and I finally recorded mine from the road, taking a slightly different approach: Readers are encouraged to upload your own YouTube videos and make sure you tag them with 'avoteforscience.'

What?

Politics aside, I'm suspicious of McCain's latest ad. It's a false free association taking us from Britney to Paris to Obama and then somehow to offshore drilling... (the latter is a very bad idea by the way). I can't help but wonder how in only 32 seconds we're supposed to figure out the connection between 'more foreign oil' and Spears. What I am sure of is that any potential leader of this country ought to give the American public enough credit to see through this kind of overt manipulation in advertising.

"More Things on Heaven and Earth...Than Are Dreamt of in Your Meteorology"

I just did my latest Daily Green item about Tropical Storm Erin--the last 2007 Atlantic storm to have its definitive report (PDF) emerge from the bowels of the National Hurricane Center. Suffice it to say that the delay seems well justified--meteorologists still don't really have a clue what Erin was. I mean, we're talking about a storm that barely attained tropical storm status over the Gulf, but that developed an eye, 995 mb central pressure, and 50 knot winds over Oklahoma! Read here for more on this very, very wacky weather phenomenon....

Was Cyclone Sidr as Bad as Hurricane Mitch?

Jeff Masters doesn't think Sidr will turn out to have killed as many as the 1998 storm that caused some 11,000 fatalities (or more) in Nicaragua and Honduras. But the Times of London is reporting that the death toll from Sidr may rise as high as 8,000. Whatever the case, this is, just as we feared, a major humanitarian disaster. The Times of London gives a list of links for charitable donations, which we encourage you to follow. And I'm reposting Sheril's much-watched YouTube video, which seems to be inspiring people to give aid:

Cyclone Sidr: Death Toll Rising

I don't like that if you look at news reports over the past three hours or so, we find differing--but possibly escalating--reports of the casualties in Bangladesh. The highest estimate I've seen yet comes from Reuters Canada: "killed more than 500 people in Bangladesh and left thousands injured or missing." News is still rolling in, though. I don't think we really have any idea yet how bad it was. Now is the time to think about humanitarian donations--the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies is a good start.

Update about the Ida carnival

Many thanks to everyone who has sent in material for the Ida carnival. There is plenty to post, but I have decided to delay the carnival by one day. Instead it will go up tomorrow afternoon, and I will be accepting entries until 9 AM tomorrow. Why? Because today is the Silence is the Enemy blogswarm and I want to encourage readers to check it out/contribute to it rather than keep fretting over Ida. I strongly urge you to read Sheril's post and follow the links over to essays from other participants.

Gould on Darwin

I am not sure when it was recorded, but here is the audio (with pictures added by "CosmosFan1") from a lecture Stephen Jay Gould delivered at Wittenburg University in Ohio. There are a few unintentional flubs involving the dates Gould cites (that's 1859, not 1959...) but otherwise it's an interesting perspective on why Darwin's work was so important. Gould's take on Darwin's motivations for developing his theory get a bit speculative, but it is an interesting review all the same; [My apologies, it seems that the remainder of this lecture has not been posted yet.]

Creationism where it belongs, in the fiction section

Today Greg Laden mentioned a paleontology-based creationist novel that was bundled in with the Expelled marketing campaign called Fossil Hunter. Some of you may recall that I mentioned the book about a year ago but never got around to reading it/posting about it. Since I went to all the trouble of getting a used copy from an independent bookstore (so the money would go to the bookstore, not the people behind the book), though, I figure I might as well make good on my promise to review it. It couldn't be any worse than Monster, right?

The GOP Candidates on Global Warming

My latest DeSmogBlog piece is now up--as I say, I'm surprisingly optimistic that a lot of the GOP candidates actually seem to take global warming at least somewhat seriously. Except for the real right wingers. Anyway, can you believe Mike Huckabee said the following? "We ought to be moving rapidly towards energy sources that don't have a greenhouse gas effect. Aggressively set the goal that within a ten year period, we should move a way from a fossil fuel culture to one that has alternative energy resources." You can read the entire piece here.

Karen, The Once and Future Hurricane?

Karen, possibly a hurricane for something like three hours, maybe. My latest "Storm Pundit" post just went up--it's about Tropical Storm Karen, which was probably a hurricane yesterday for a very brief period and may be officially named one in post-season reanalysis (assuming the now-highly sheared storm doesn't make any kind of comeback). I point out that if Karen hadn't been in the Atlantic, I doubt we'd be able to look forward to this type of highly detailed reanalysis...and that's one of the key problem with hurricane datasets from around the world.

Best Sex Video On The Web

Before Flock of Dodos and Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson was inspiring the next generation of marine scientists with educational videos on topics in our field. My first semester in graduate school, I was dazzled by a particular captivating piece from 1991. Craig McClain referenced this project when he was in town (it's notorious in marine science circles), so yesterday I encouraged my pal RO to post his earlier work on youtube. Unforgettable footage that will leave you just a little more informed about the wonderful world of barnacles. Most quoted line: 'Barnacles Are Very Well Hung'

Troubling Words on Tropical Storm Dean

The latest National Hurricane Center forecast discussion, from forecaster Eric Blake, is blunt: BASED ON WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW ABOUT INTENSITY CHANGE...THERE DO NOT SEEM TO BE TOO MANY INHIBITING FACTORS TO A FUTURE INTENSIFICATION OF DEAN. GLOBAL MODELS UNANIMOUSLY DEVELOP A LARGE UPPER-LEVEL ANTICYCLONE NEAR THE CENTER OF THE HURRICANE AS THE SYSTEM TRAVELS INTO THE CARIBBEAN SEA. IN COMBINATION WITH VERY DEEP WARM WATERS...THIS PATTERN WOULD FAVOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POWERFUL HURRICANE. Here is the latest track for Dean, which is supposed to be a hurricane within 24 hours:

Appearance on the Jim Bohannon Show Tonite; Yearly Kos Videos Up

I'll be appearing on this popular late-night radio program tonight, in studio, at 10 pm ET to discuss Storm World. You should be able to listen live from this link. I hope you'll tune in. Meanwhile, thanks to some amazing helpers, my entire talk on Storm World at the Yearly Kos science panel is now watchable on YouTube. It had to be broken up into three videos; I've posted those in order below the jump. To watch Ed Brayton's talk on the same panel, go here. Part I: Part II: Part III:

Linkorama: From Harper's to Treehugger

My recent Harper's piece, on how to fix the mess Bush made of science policy, is now readable for free here. And the cool website Treehugger.com just interviewed me about Storm World and Speaking Science 2.0. You can read the inteview here. Coming tomorrow: More great pictures from Sheril's Africa trip. Meanwhile, I am off to Maine early tomorrow morning to speak at this conference in Orono on Friday. After Sheril's pictures go up, blogging may be light til I return, or until Sheril gets back to somewhere with a computer hookup....

Out of consideration for your embarrassment, I'll refrain from making rude comments about the Texas electorate

Revealing much about Texas education, Governor Rick Perry speaks out proudly about his state. Texas is a national example of how to best prepare our children for higher education and the workplace. Oh, really, Governor? Perhaps you could give us a specific example of a well-prepared Texas student? I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution. Oh. I think I know everything I need to know about the Texas educational system from just that. Thank you very much.

Hurricanes, Media Coverage, and Skewed Values

Princeton climate scientist Simon Donner has been blogging about Cyclone Gonu and the disturbing way in which the U.S. media seems to care more about oil prices than people killed by the storm. Of course, one might reply that at least our media actually covered this storm. By contrast, it more or less ignored the Madagascan cyclone disasters from earlier this year. No disruption of oil supply involved there, you see. Just destruction of the rice crop, which the people eat, and the vanilla crop, which they rely upon for exports....

Cheney's Attorney Departs

There is very little published about this, so I have no idea why it happened.  Dick Cheney's attorney, href="http://www.usnews.com/blogs/news-desk/2007/11/1/cheney-lawyer-is-leaving.html">Shannen Coffin, has resigned.  He "is expected to take a breather from the rapid pace of government service," then return to private practice. The announcement was made late Thursday last week, and was essentially ignored by the media.  Google News lists only the US News & World Report article, and one mention at href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004627.php">TPM Muckraker.  Perhaps…

Microsoft Big Flub

One of their flagship products, Excel , has been caught making errors doing simple multiplication.   href="http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/09/25/calculation-issue-update.aspx">According to a Microsoft Developer blog: Yesterday evening we were alerted to an issue in Excel 2007 (and Excel Services 2007) involving calculation of numbers around 65,535.  The first example that we heard about was =77.1*850, but it became clear from our testing as well as additional reports that this was just one instance where Excel 2007 would return a value of 100,000 instead of 65,535. You have…

Bacterial fossil doubts resolved

I raised a few questions about those 3.4 billion year old bacterial fossils, primarily that I was bugged by the large size and that they cited a discredited source to say that they were in the appropriate range of diameters for bacteria. Now my questions have been answered by Chris Nedin, and I'm satisfied. In particular, he shows data from 0.8 and 1.9 billion year old fossils in which the bacterial sizes are in the same range. It's also a good review of the other evidence used to infer that they actually are bacterial microfossils. (Also on FtB)

Fall full o' proposals

Alice is rolling in the dough (yay Alice!!!!), but ScienceWoman is flat broke, both personally and professionally. The personal is a story for another day, but now's the time to talk about being professionally broke and the implications for my fall research output. Due to MU's too restrictive policies, I don't have any more start-up funds to cushion the first one to three years of going from post-doc to PI. Last year I wrote two proposals. One got funded. The little one. The total uncommitted money remaining in that account is <$300. So, broke. In fact, this fall I've been paying for…

Please hope for Annika

My small friend Annika is in the PICU in Chicago, on a ventilator and delirious. Anni is 7, and has already had two liver transplants. The current visit is particularly scary 'cause they can't work out what is wrong with her. More info from her mom's blog is here. If you are the praying sort, please pray. If you are the non-praying sort, please hope. If you are the giving sort, consider donating some money to help cover her medical costs here. And sign up to be an organ donor, too.

Tutankhamun's face revealed

Zahi Hawass (centre), director of the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities, supervises the removal of Tutankhamun's mummy from his sarcophagus in the underground tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. (Image: Ben Curtis/ AP)   The face of Tutankhamun has been revealed to the public for the first time. The boy king, who is believed to have been 19 years old when he died, is the best known of all the pharaohs. But he was in fact rather unremarkable. Far more interesting was his father Akhenaten, the inventor of monotheism.

Microsoft wants to read your mind

Researchers from the Microsoft Corporation recently filed an application for a patent for a brain-computer interface that can "classify brain states". They say that the device is needed to obtain accurate feedback about the effectiveness of computer-user interfaces, because the conventional way of  getting this information - by interview - is often unreliable. To me this sounds a bit like the overblown claims that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to determine whether an individual is lying or telling the truth. Except that this seems like an even bigger exaggeration…

Hooterology?

We seem to be talking about breasts a lot this week, don't we? Abel Pharmboy raises a provocative ethical question: is it crass or is it reasonable for breast cancer researchers to ask Hooters to promote breast cancer awareness? I'm of the opinion that we ought to get every penny we can from them, but stop short of giving any hint that we actually endorse their business…although I'd wonder if even asking them for their assistance is granting them respectability, or if acknowledging the assistance of Hooters would turn a serious event into a joke. It's probably best to post your answers to…

10 years of blogging

From the Wall Street Journal: We are approaching a decade since the first blogger -- regarded by many to be Jorn Barger -- began his business of hunting and gathering links to items that tickled his fancy, to which he appended some of his own commentary. On Dec. 23, 1997, on his site, Robot Wisdom, Mr. Barger wrote: "I decided to start my own webpage logging the best stuff I find as I surf, on a daily basis," and the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as the primordial root of the word "weblog."

Knit Me A Brain (and Don't Forget the Corpus Callosum Zipper)

While not as shockingly unusual as the knitted teratoma I reported on a while back, this knitted brain (located at the awesomely-titled 'Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art') is equally amazing. Regions are knitted with varying colors, and the corpus callosum is a zipper! Here's a view of the brain from above, and "opened-up" (the hemispeheres seperated with yarn spinal cord trailing.) Artist: Karen Norberg, Location: Boston Museum of Science "Building a brain with yarn and knitting needles turns out to follow many of the same pathways as actual brain development," says…

The clock-work heart

Fixed Heart offal with mixed metal components Lisa Black, 2008 I blogged about New Zealand artist Lisa Black before, but I can't get over this great piece of hers. What does it signify? Does it represent the gradual replacement of the natural world around us with technology, to the point where our own bodies become artificial? Is it critiquing the reductionist tendencies of neurobiologists who believe our deepest emotions are complex but purely chemical reactions? Is it a steampunk Valentine? I don't know, and I don't really care - it's just cool. Check out more from Black here.

Mystery Image #6

This is. . . . A. The gills of a tropical fish. B. A satellite photo of the Bahamas. C. A blue-green fungus sometimes called Green Stain. D. A UV photograph of the center of a miniature carnation. E. Algae along the edge of a geyser. F. A Cirque de Soleil costume. It's actually B, a satellite image of the Bahamas - and kudos to you if you got it, since it's not what you'd usually expect from a satellite! See a slideshow of 24 more stunning aerial photos at NY Daily News. photo by USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office

Dia de los Muertos + Boston = Skeletal Teddy Kennedy

One of the coolest, weirdest, worlds-colliding Day of the Dead artworks I've ever seen is this sculpture of a skeletal Teddy Kennedy. He's at a podium, open-jawed (no doubt haranguing other late Senators), accompanied by a skeletal dog. The paper in his hand says "Health Care: The Cause of My Life." I realize this is a terrible photo, but in person, I actually found it pretty moving. From the window of Nomad on Mass Ave in Cambridge, MA - they have an extensive Dia de los Muertos folk art collection. Happy Halloween!

We will return to our regularly scheduled blogging. . .

. . . as soon as possible. As you may have noticed, Scienceblogs is having a few hiccups as it transitions to new servers. I'm having a few issues myself as I transition to a new apartment this week, so the blog will be fairly dead until everything gets straightened out. In the meantime, here's a classic wince-inducing headline from the Albuquerque Journal (1984). Is this good advice? Bad advice? Who can tell!? You can find many more like this on the tiles in the restrooms in DC's Newseum - I took this snapshot during the SEED Innovation Summit last month. Have a great week!

Ghost Rider: A Short Review

I saw Ghost Rider last night, and I have a brief review: In this movie, there are many farcical things: demons, irrational property damage from physics-flouting motorcycles, Nicholas Cage's acting, etc. However, the most flagrant absurdity -- the most laughably impossible event -- is when Nicholas Cage's character turns down a sexually willing Eva Mendes and unceremoniously shows her the door. In the physical universe that we presently inhabit there is no conceivable way that a heterosexual male would behave in that manner. It is practically a law of nature. Frankly, it put a pall over…

Reading while I am away

I am getting on a plane today, so here is some interesting reading from throughout the web to tide you over til tomorrow: The Neurophilosopher has a fascinating article on how parasites affect the behavior of their hosts, sometimes even burrowing into their brains -- just like pod people!!! The Scientist on a scientific approach to diversity programs. The Economist on the floundering European climate change abatement program, and an appeal for the legalization of kidney sales. Science Fiction Book Club has the top 50 best science fiction books of the last 50 years.