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Ahh McLean, you've done it again

John McLean, the guy who kept guiding Andrew Bolt off cliffs, has this time taken Bob Carter and Chris de Freitas with him. As tamino explains, they say that recent warming trends can be attributed to natural variation, but their analysis removed the trend from the data. See also McLean's defence and Robert Grumbine's lucid post. James Annan exposes another error - they fit a step function to that data and conclude that there is step in the data merely because there is a step in the fitted step function. John Lott made the same mistake in his "more guns, less crime" argument, as I showed…

Andrew Bolt falls into Steve McIntyre's error trap

Back in January, Steve McIntyre used some erroneous data of satellite-measured temperatures from RSS to argue that Hansen's 1988 temperature projections were too high. A week later he posted a corrected graph, blaming RSS for not making the error clear: The fact that users are "falling into the RSS error trap" is one more good reason why RSS should have issued a clear error notice, rather than the obscure readme. They should issue a proper notice of the error in their public webpages and wherever else appropriate. But McIntyre did not follow his advice to RSS, and failed to make a correction…

Tim Ball and Archimedes principle

Richard Littlemore has the latest on Tim Ball's antics. Check out this bit from Ball: The point I made was with regard to the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. I posed the question about what happens to the water level when an ice cube is placed in a glass which is then filled to the brim and the ice melts. The correct answer is the water level drops because the space occupied by the ice is greater than that occupied by the water it contains. Water expands when it freezes. But the ice is floating in the water. The extra space that the frozen water takes up is, by Archimedes principle,…

Rising godlessness

The British seem to have good taste. Look who is at the top of the UK bestseller list: I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith? Aside from that, though, it's impressive that The God Delusion has shot to the top so quickly. When I looked at the list of American best sellers, I saw that it wasn't as depressing as I feared: Chomsky and Frank Rich on top, Sam Harris is at #5, and Dawkins is at #12 and climbing fast. Maybe there's some hope for us after all—at least the literate segment of our population is pondering interesting views. We still always…

Stolen CRU emails: the rejects

Some more of the emails stolen from the Climate Research Centre in 2009 have been released. This time they are accompanied by a readme with out-of-context quotes that asserts the purpose of the release is information transparency, but that's an obvious lie, since they've sat on them for two years and released them just before Durban conference. The timing suggests that the people behind the theft and release have a financial interest in preventing mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. It is most unlikely that there is anything incriminating in these emails -- if there was, it would…

The hate mail campaign against climate scientists, part 2

I wrote earlier about the hate mail campaign against Australian climate scientists. Leo Hickman reports on the hate mail campaign against US climate scientists: The scientists revealed they have been told to "go gargle razor blades" and have been described as "Nazi climate murderers". Some emails have been sent to them without any attempt by the sender to disguise their identity. Even though the scientists have received advice from the FBI, the local police say they are not able to act due to the near-total tolerance of "freedom of speech" in the US. Marc Morano regularly posts the email…

Leakegate: Corrections needed from ...

Following the Sunday Times's retraction of the fraudulent Jonathan Leake story, there are a whole bunch of people who relied on Leake's story that would seem to need to make corrections. Most notably, The Australian reprinted Leake's story, so you'd think they'd have to retract too, but you never know with The Australian. But there's many more. In no particular order: Margaret Wente (who also falsely claims that Andrew Weaver is "bailing" from the IPCC). Glenn Reynolds and again Lorne Gunter Michael Barone The Daily Mail Andrew Bolt Miranda Devine Christopher Booker Terence…

Holy Water?

The human brain has an uncanny ability to see the human form in the most unlikely places. Religious icons in toast and faces in the clouds are but a few examples. Here it is droplets of water colliding with each other. I call the shot above "Man and Woman." This tendency to create order out of chaos never stops to amaze me. I will leave it to the reader to see what they can find in the image below. These images were taken with a Cognisys Inc. water drip valve and microprocessor camera controller. The flash is from two off axis strobes with a duration of 1/60,000th of a second. More…

Indigo (Chemistry: putting plants out of business)

Like alizarin, indigo is a dye that we used to have to rely on a plant to make. Now we're able to synthesize it: Indigo used to be prepared from natural sources, like plants. Modern synthetic techniques have made it cheap and plentiful. While this might seem like not such a big deal, can you imagine a world without colorful...well, much? Everyone wearing Amish white and dishwater grey? Nowadays, we tend to use dyes that have nothing to do with plants, like Yellow 5, Red 40, and Blue 1 (the separation of which you can see here). Dyestuff technology has advanced with synthesis and physical…

Best Of: MOTD Science Club (As long as I broke the seal on repeating myself...)

Well, it finally happened. I made it almost two years, but I repeated a molecule for what I think is the first time. Hooray! Any pressure to be original is off! Here's the first of many best-of posts to come! One thing I've done from time to time is crude experimentation on a recent household molecule, with accompanying photos. Here's a compilation of the ones I can remember putting up. If you have an idea or remember one I missed, leave it in the comments! Thrill to: CSI:MOTD: in which I use cyanoacrylate to expose latent fingerprints on stuff I've handled! Paper chromatography: in which I…

Aziridine (You're strainin' my nitrogen)

Aziridine, like cyclopropane and oxiranes/epoxides, is one of the simple strained three-membered rings. The strain imparts considerable reactivity. Aziridine is kind of neat - like many crazy reactive moieties, it's attracted attention for use in cancer drugs. It's also one of my favorite big strong organiker reagents that finds its way into the biology lab. A cysteine residue in a protein (R-CH2-SH) will react with an aziridine to make R-CH2-S-CH2-CH2-NH3+ (Cf. lysine, which it mimics, R-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-NH3+). Never done this reaction, but apparently the superlative nucleophilicity of…

Nickel Carbonyl (Liquid, suffocating metal)

Nickel tetracarbonyl, like a lot of metal carbonyls, is an odd duck. Many complexes of metals and carbon monoxide don't act much like metal at all, and Ni(CO)4 isn't an exception. Nickel carbonyl is a liquid, but only just - it boils at 43C, or just above blood temperature. It's subject to lots of reactions, and just passing CO over impure nickel is a viable method of purifying nickel from a mixture (it will leave as the liquid or gas, depending on the temperature). Unfortunately, it will give up that CO readily, including, as pointed out here, to certain vital enzymes, such as your…

Methyl Iodide (Makin' methyls)

Methyl iodide is another simple organoiodide: Probably the most common lab use is tacking a methyl group onto something; MeI is a great substrate for the SN2 reaction. Despite its ubiquity, methyl iodide isn't nearly the best alkylating agent. It's cheap and simple, so it sees a lot of use, but there are many things that are better, such as dimethyl sulfate (used a lot industrially, from what I've read), methyl triflate (PDF) (toxic and great), trimethyloxonium salts (my favorite), and the so-called "magic methyl," methyl fluorosulfonate, which has a pretty good vapor pressure (being…

Last chance to help out with Movember!

Here it is, the last day of Movember - a charity initiative to raise money for men's health. *1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime *A man is diagnosed with prostate cancer every 2.2 minutes *1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime *Men are 24% less likely to go the doctor compared to women I'm competing with a few friends to grow awesome mustaches and raise money. I knew getting into this that I wouldn't have much of a chance of winning on merit - this is the result after 30 days without shaving: So, I need your help. Please consider giving…

Extending life with red wine

The latest Science in the News Flash is up, and it examines the anti-aging research surrounding the molecule resveratrol, which is present at low concentrations in red wine: If resveratrol were able to mimic the lifespan-extending effects of caloric restriction in people without requiring such an extreme diet, it would be very popular, especially if it gives people an excuse to drink more wine! However, to consume enough resveratrol to benefit from the life-extending effects seen in yeast, the average person would have to drink 1000 bottles of wine per day, an endeavor with consequences that…

Devastating east coast earthquake

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the east coast yesterday, freaking everyone out, causing schools and offices to close, and causing general mayhem: (Source) I didn't feel it, and growing up in California, it might not have even registered. Then again, the reaction (general fear, disbelief, and confusion) is about what I would expect if we received even a half inch of snow in San Diego. But maybe now people out here in Boston won't be so confused when I mention my deep-seated fear of brick buildings. In other "disaster" related news, my computer has a fresh hard-drive, though I had to…

There's no sex in your violence... or is there?

I was going to cover this paper, but Ed beat me to it (and did a far better job than I would have): With a pulse of light, Dayu Lin from New York University can turn docile mice into violent fighters - it's Dr Jekyll's potion, delivered via fibre optic cable. The light activates a group of neurons in the mouse's brain that are involved in aggressive behaviour. As a result, the mouse attacks other males, females, and even inanimate objects. Lin focused on a primitive part of the brain called the hypothalamus that keeps our basic bodily functions ticking over. It lords over body temperature,…

Our Microbial Organ

Did you know that bacteria make up 90% of the cells in your body? That they make up ~5% of your mass? That they colonize you at the moment of birth and are different if you were born via c-section than if you were born naturally? All this and more in the SITN production, "Our Microbial Organ: The good and bad bugs of the gut." And who's that handsom devil presenting (at least the first part)? Why, it's me! Part 1: Living in a microbial world 2010 Fall Lecture 7.1: Our Microbial Organ: The Good and Bad Bugs of the Human Gut from Science in the News on Vimeo. Part 2: Our Microbial Organ Part 3…

I used to believe Kleck's estimate

I used to believe that Kleck's estimate of DGU's was correct, but overwhelming evidence to the contrary has convinced me otherwise. Sam A. Kersh writes: To the best of my knowledge, you have never accepted Kleck's DGU estimates. At least not in the last 5 years that you and I (and Pim) have debated guns, crime and 'Point Blank.' Here's what I wrote about it back in 1991: A most interesting paper! Like any good scientific paper it raises a lot of questions. The estimate of 1M defensive uses arises from about 50 (4% of 1228) yes respondants. Don't you just want to have a follow-up survey…

Friday Rock Blogging: Columnar Basalt

Waterfall and Columnar Basalt © Joe Decker. Used with permission. I finally found a piece from my nature photographer friend Joe Decker that would make a suitable subject for rock blogging. Y'see, the problem with fine art photographers is that they often forget to do things like add a rock hammer for scale. Also, they can have entire portfolio sections devoted to the Carrizo Plain without once showing an offset stream channel! It must be a very strange way to see the world. Anyway, this image is of part of a lava flow in Iceland. As a new blanket of rock cools, it contracts. If it cools…

Open Source Hydrogen Cars

Riversimple, a small UK-based company, has designed a tiny, relatively cheap, and remarkably open-source hydrogen fuel cell car. The car will not be available for sale, but people will be able to lease it, with the lease agreement including maintenance, fuel, and the eventual recycling of the car. This unique business model allows for the company to manage sustainability for the life of the car. Check out the video below to see the car in action: Hydrogen, of course is still hard to make, and there aren't many sustainable hydrogen production options. My lab is working on ways to make…

"Fuzzy Logic" Department Seminar

Photo source (pschubert.) I came across this gem from The Journal of Irreproducible Results (yes, it really exists) and figured that something light hearted would be appreciated after yesterday's horrific shootings in Arizona. APPLIED MATH DEPARTMENT SEMINAR "FUZZY LOGIC" Professor B. Vastor, Kings College, Cambridge, England Fuzzy Logic is concerned with systems in which subsets are only vaguely defined. This seminar will be held at 4:00 pm in room 347 unless the lecture there is running late. In which case it will be held in room 211. It will be held on June 15 unless Professor Vastor…

Aegirocassis benmoulae

Anomalocaris has always been one of my favorite Cambrian animals -- it was so weird, and it was also the top predator of the age, making it the equivalent of T. rex. The anomalocarids were also a diverse and successful group, so wouldn't you know it…it also had a distant filter-feeding cousin in the Ordovician. This is Aegirocassis benmoulae. Isn't that beautifully bizarre? The great appendages on the front of the animal have been modified to form a filter-feeding apparatus. It was also a real monster, over 2 meters long. You want to know more? One of the discoverers, Peter van Roy, has…

Editor's Selections: Marriage, Rectal Stimulation, and Candyland

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week: Bill Yates asks, Do Personalities Converge After Marriage? Or do similar people simply wind up marrying each other in the first place? "'Rectal stimulation', you say. Sounds all fun and games, but actually this study is an important one. It's looking at potentials traveling up from the rectum to the brain, and trying to detect them in both the spinal cord and the cortex." Let Scicurious take you on this journey. "A study out of the journal Sex Roles took a look at preschoolers' attitudes towards obesity by means of Candy Land…

Donors Choose - Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who donated to the evolgen Donors Choose Blogger's Challenge. We have reached our goal of $500, which means Donors Choose will chip in an extra 10% for every dollar contributed. Everyone who forwarded their confirmation email to this address will be entered in a drawing to win some great prizes. There still are ten unfunded projects listed on the evolgen challenge page, so I will keep the challenge up for an undetermined period of time. Go here to donate to those unfunded proposals. Finally, I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to Janet for organizing this fund raising…

Donors Choose - Update

The ScienceBlogs Donors Choose program kicked off with a bang yesterday. Evolgen is attempting to raise a modest $500 dollars to fund in class projects for public school science classes. There are fourteen proposals to choose from in the evolgen challenge, which will run for the next two weeks. As an added incentive, if you forward your conformation email to sb.donorschoose.bonanza@gmail.com you will be entered into a contest to win some schwag (see here for a breakdown of the prizes). Additionally, SEED has guaranteed to match whatever money we raise (up to $10,000). If you were apathetic…

20th Anniversary of Challenger Disaster

I may not be the oldest of the ScienceBlogs cohort (that's an understatement, by the way), but I do remember the Challenger disaster. I don't remember watching it on TV. I don't remember seeing the explosion on the news. I don't think I even knew what news was or how I could watch it. I was in kindergarten. Among the few things I remember from that first year of school were wetting my pants and hearing that a spaceship exploded and a teacher was on board. I didn't realize that there were other teachers besides mine. I knew my teacher was not dead, and this confused me. This is among…

Editor's Selections: Food and Morality, Food and Music, Pain, and Snooping

Here are my Research Blogging Editors Selections for this week: Is there a relationship between the taste of certain foods and moral decision-making? Maybe. At The Jury Room: Make them eat brussel sprouts. In a somewhat related post, Dr. Stu of his eponymous blog asks if your music selection can make your food taste better or worse. The answer might surprise you. What is the relationship between conscious awareness and the experience of pain? Flavia di Pietro of Body in Mind explores the question. Nociception by any other name will hurt, or not hurt, just as much. Finally, and for the…

Some ScienceBlogs Incest

We all know that the blogosphere is the most incestuous place outside of Arkansas, so why fight it? In that spirit, here's a post that contributes no new information to the web. Luckily, though, some people are actually expanding our body of knowledge. For example, Jake Young of Pure Pedantry, one of the other grad students on ScienceBlogs, apparently pulled an all-nighter in the lab last night and in the process posted something in all ten categories on the ScienceBlogs homepage. He starts things off here, and then goes on to write about everything from open access journals to membrane…

Blogging Scholarship

The finalists for the 2007 Blogging Scholarship have been announced. There's 20 of them, and, from a quick perusal of the list, it appears that four of them are science bloggers. Two of those four are familiar to evolgen: Shelley of Retrospectacle and Kambiz of Anthropology.net. The other two are new to me, but appear to have actual science content: The Big Room and The Biourbanist. At this point, you're probably expecting me to tell you to go to the voting page and click a particular finalist. Well, I'm not going to do that. If you are a fan of science blogging, however, I suggest you vote…

Bracketology

It's March, and you know what that means: brackets. There are two ScienceBlogs brackets to keep your eye on: The barkers at the World's Fair have put together a Science Showdown -- bracket style -- broken into four regions: Octopus (life sciences), Mortar and Pestle (chemistry), Chair (philosophy and science studies), and Orbit (physics). Showdowns between competing disciplines will be decided, in part, by reader participation, and the winners will advance to face off with other disciplines. Go here to share your opinion on the opening round. A more traditional March bracket contest is…

The Secretome

Happy Turkey Day!! As a special gift, I give you yet another -ome to spread on your Thanksgiving bird. You see, I'm fascinated by -omics, the idea that you can affix "-ome" to your favorite biological system to prime the hype machine. And what I have for you this time makes me think of the juices of a turkey that's been cooked just right. With that in mind, I give you the secretome. From what I can gather, these are the proteins secreted by an organism. The authors of the article linked above are interested in the evolution of the mollusk shell, but mice, humans, pufferfish, and pigs all have…

Greenpeace Makes Some More Difference

You know I appreciate a lot of the work Greenpeace does in the seafood market (for instance, chiding retailers and sabotaging seafood expos). This week, they've done it again. Greenpeace erected 'crime scenes' at 8 Loblaw grocery stores in Toronto with the message "caught red-handed selling Redlist fish." The following day, according to Intrafish news service, Loblaw officials were reportedly "disappointed" but said they would work to offer more MSC-certified fish. Also, The Vancouver Sun reports this week that dogfish fishermen off the coast of British Columbia saying the market for…

Drug derived from marijuana suppresses appetite?!

GW Pharmaceuticals has developed a diet drug derived from Marijuana which suppresses the appetite. This is especially surprising for obvious reasons - perhaps a little ironic?! Clearly the marijuana plant contains many many different compounds - but who would have thought that one of them suppressed the urge to gorge yourself on cheeze doodles and icy pops. The drug will soon be entering into human trials to combat obesity. Don't get too exited about getting high on the drug though since that doesn't happen to be one of the side effects. Well...that is unless you want to find the secret…

I'm not just "preaching to the converted"

Every so often, I hear the complaint from some readers, usually in the context of complaining about my posting style on issues I care a lot about, such as countering the anti-vaccine movement or pseudoscientific alt-med modalities, that I'm just "preaching to the converted" and not changing any minds. While there may be some element of that, it's not true that I don't change minds. In the context of the subject of yesterday's post, however, I realize that changing people's minds is very hard, because we humans have numerous defense mechanisms to deflect such efforts. When I hear such charges…

I should use parables more often

They seem to sneak past the alarms that my bluntness usually sets off. Mike Dunford has a nice quote from that subversive radical, Terry Pratchett: "Look at it this way, then," she said, and took a deep mental breath. "Wherever people are obtuse and absurd . . . and wherever they have, by even the most generous standards, the attention span of a small chicken in a hurricane and the investigative ability of a one-legged cockroach . . . and wherever people are inanely credulous, pathetically attached to the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much grasp of the realities of the…

Richard Dawkins Debunks "Christmas Delusion"

He's no Bing Crosby. No, he's better. ...noted atheist Richard Dawkins is taking his first foray into the world of entertainment with "Merry Nothing," a decidedly dour holiday special scheduled to air on PBS this Friday night. For Dawkins, the program represents quite a radical shift. In his attempt to rid the world of what he calls the "Christmas delusion," the man who has made a name for himself as a writer and formidable debater will have to play the role of enthusiastic host: "Next up, our friends from the ACLU are here to tell us how we can help spread cheer this year by filing suit…

Fight! Fight!

There is a fight going on regarding the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. Details can be found here, at A Load of Bright. I'm not privy to any details, and I don't think I want to be. Those folks just need to learn to get along. From Daylight Atheism: Here's my conclusion, and if you read nothing else of this post, read this: So long as the current management persists, I will no longer be supporting the Internet Infidels organization (www.infidels.org). I will also no longer participate in or support the Internet Infidels discussion board (www.iidb.org). I strongly recommend that all my…

Minnesota on our minds

Hmmm…there are a couple of regional links that have popped up recently. Tyler Cowen writes a "my best friends are Minnesotans" post. Does everyone who praises the state have to mention Prince and Fargo and Bob Dylan? Hey, there's a Drinking Liberally Holiday Party next week at the 331 Club in Minneapolis. I don't think I can make it, but that is also my last day of classes, so maybe I'll have to attend my local DL chapter and celebrate. That local Drinking Liberally chapter is run by Lambo, who has just started his own blog, Forum Focus. He's planning to focus on Forum Communications…

Oh. The NanoSail Popped Out

Surprise! HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11:30 a.m. EST, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite, FASTSAT. The ejection event occurred spontaneously and was identified this morning when engineers at the center analyzed onboard FASTSAT telemetry. The ejection of NanoSail-D also has been confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking assets Now, NASA is asking HAMs to help: Amateur ham operators are asked to listen for the signal to verify NanoSail-D is…

Final Vote: Biology textbooks approved in Louisiana

At its December 9, 2010, meeting, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 8-2 to approve high school biology textbooks, despite the ongoing complaints of creationists objecting to their treatment of evolution. As NCSE previously reported, a decision on the textbooks, expected initially in October 2010, was deferred by the board, which sought a recommendation from its Textbook/Media/Library Advisory Council. On November 12, 2010, the council voted 8-4 to recommend the textbooks. Then, on December 7, 2010, a committee of the board voted 6-1 to move forward with the…

Church of Scientology is a Criminal Organization

According to an Australian Australian Senator Nick Zenophon. Senator Xenophon [raised] allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status. "I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers," he told the Senate. A spokeswoman for the church, Virginia Stewart, says she is shocked to…

Your religion flowchart

This is has been around the internet, most notably HERE, where most people have seen it already. But, just in case you have not seen it and are having religious angst on this fine Sunday morning, check it out: I think it will be interesting for many people to see where they would flow on this chart at various changes in your life. For example, I was raised a Catholic. Then I went through my semi-agnostic experimental phase (in seventh grade) which would have probably led me to "Hindu" if there were any decent Indian restaurants where I grew up. I am uncomfortable with what appears to…

Intelligent Design Documentary

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate premieres Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution. To view a trailer and clips from the film, please visit www.darwinsdilemma.org. Darwin's Dilemma will be screened at 7 p.m. on Sunday, October 25th in the IMAX theater at the California Science Center, with a post-film discussion featuring Darwin skeptic Dr. David Berlinski, author of The…

NCSE Genie Scott reviews Darwin film. Likes it.

Of Creation, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly, Scott says: I believe it to be a thoughtful, well-made film that will change many views of Darwin held by the public - for the good. The acting is strong, the visuals are wonderful, and it treats with loving care the Victorian details of the furnishings at Down house and other sites (such as Malvern), and the local church. The movie takes place after Darwin has returned from the Beagle voyage, and has settled down with his wife, Emma. It concentrates on their relationship, on the growth of their family, and of course, on the…

Alert: Evolution Suppressed in Connecticut

"Mr. Tangarone, a 17-year veteran of the Weston school system, claims that a program he wanted to teach about Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln was rejected by the school administration because it involved teaching evolution -- the scientific theory that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor." Mark Tangarone, who teaches third, fourth, and fifth grade students in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program at Weston Intermediate School, said he is retiring at the end of the current school year because of a clash with the school administration over the teaching of evolution…

Iraq Army Magic Wand Manufacturer Busted

Remember this? Divining sticks that consist essentially of an antenna not even attached to a radio (which might make it slihgtly useful for listening to music and stuff), and costing between 16 and 60 THOUSAND DOLLARS each, are being used as the main technology for detecting bombs at check points staffed by the Iraqi army. (source) Well, now we have this ... The boss of a British company that has sold million of dollars worth of "bomb detectors" to Iraq's security forces has been arrested on suspicion of fraud. Jim McCormick, 53, the managing director of ATSC which is based in a former…

"Say hello to my little friend!"

I realize I've been a bit remiss in my usual monthly feature, in which I have until recently featured a photo of our blog mascot from the infamous Fleet Pharmaceuticals calendar. This year's been the most bizarre one of all, a radical departure. One might wonder why I've missed August. Here's why: That's one scary image of EneMan. However, I do see some utility to it here. I think I may adopt it as the logo for any post in which Orac applies some serious not-so-Respectful Insolence to someone who is so full of crap that he or she requires our mascot's "little friend" to clean it out.…

Nooooo!

The other day, I received something in the mail that was so horrifying, so disturbing, so utterly disconcerting that I had to go into my office and hide for a while to regain my composure. No, it wasn't a death threat from some wacked-out antivacccinationist. Nor was it a scientific paper that was undeniable evidence that homeopathy works, water has memory, and I've been utterly and completely wrong about alternative medicine lo these last few year. It was much, much worse. It was this: Noooooooo! I'm not 50 yet! I still have a few years to go before AARP, screening colonoscopies, and senior…

Access recap

I am back from Access and feeling wonderful… and wonderfully exhausted. Data and its care and feeding were the dominant themes at the conference. I strongly recommend reading the session summaries at Pete Zimmerman's blog. It's hard to pick star sessions out of so very many good ones, but the Leggott, Hartman/Phillips, Turkel, and Sadler presentations assuredly will repay attention. I hate to say it, but blogging may continue to suffer somewhat. I have a Web 2.0 talk this Friday, a Wisconsin Library Association talk on the 21st, and I'll be doing a remote presentation for Open Access Week…