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Ah, that's better!

This week has been a bit of a rough and depressing week on the old blog, with the news that Battlestar Galactica will probably be entering its last season,the appearance of annoying conspiracy theorists in new posts and trolls in old posts, really irritating technical difficulties the ScienceBlogs site, and the need to debunk two particularly bad commentaries about the state of cancer research in this country. Worse, I see a further need to revisit at least one rather depressing topic from the past next week. To top it all off, I was on call last week. Given this, I think I need a dose of…

A new ScienceBlog

I'm a bit late on this, given that the blog went live yesterday, but far be it from me not to welcome denialism blog to the ScienceBlogs universe. It's a promising new blog that in its couple of months of existence has already made an impact in the skeptical blogosphere. Also, Mark Hoofnagle, one of the bloggers responsible for it, has become a regular commenter around here. I may not always agree with Mark and Chris about specific cases of what constitutes "denialism" (most of the time, but not always), but I do like their blog. Besides, if I ever agreed with everything a blogger wrote, I'd…

Cyborg Pigeon Makes Debut in China

Chinese scientists have made a remote controlled pigeon. By planting micro electrodes in the pigeon's brain, the scientists can make the bird fly up, down, left or right."I'm looking for a boy named John Conner. Have you seen him?" Chief scientist Su Xuecheng explains, ""The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to electronic signals sent by the scientists via computer, mirroring natural signals generated by the brain." Whether or not the pigeon is going to defend the city of Detroit from a gang of criminal masterminds, who are headquartered in a toxic waste dump…

It is not "A Godwin" to say that this tea-partier is a Nazi

The Atlantic's Josh Green reports that millionaire businessman Rich Iott, the Republican nominee challenging Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) in Ohio's Ninth District, has an unusual hobby: He likes to pretend he's a Nazi. Iott, a tea party-backed candidate, spent time fighting another battle before he hit the campaign trail against Kaptur as a member of the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division, a group of Ohio World War II reenactors. According to their website, the Wikings strive to "salute" the "idealists" from occupied northern Europe who saw the Third Reich as "the protector of personal freedom and their…

Hawking Radiation Observed!!!!

... maybe.... Not in a black hole, where it is supposed to constitute the 'evaporation' of photons across the hole's event horizon, but rather, in a refractive index perturbation style event horizon, in the lab. It is made in glass. ... researchers using a CCD camera detected a peculiar kind of photon emission at a 90-degree angle to the glass. ... researchers arranged the experiment in a way to strongly suppress or eliminate other types of radiation. "Experimental evidence of photon emission that on one hand bears the characteristics of Hawking radiation and on the other is distinguishable…

The following cartoon has been banned by over 20 newspapers

Owing to Fear of Fatwa ... From the Daily Cartoonist: Universal Uclick has confirmed that several papers (upwards of 20) have asked for a replacement for this Sunday's Non Sequitur because it mentions the word "Muhammad." The cartoon by Wiley Miller depicts a lazy, sunny park scene with the caption, "Picture book title voted least likely to ever find a publisher... 'Where's Muhammad?'" Characters in the park are buying ice cream, fishing, roller skating, etc. No character is depicted as even Middle Eastern.... more Just so you know: There is no sect of Islam that prohibits the use of…

Squid washing up all over

Here's a story of a strange large squid carcass hauled up from the Atlantic deep—researchers expect it was between 16 and 24 feet long when alive and intact, but the specimen was a bit gelatinous and damaged and nibbled upon. It's been tentatively identified as Asperoteuthis acanthoderma, which has previously only been found in the Pacific. Although muscular squid zip around to catch food, squid with gelatinous bodies typically float in deep, dark waters and let prey find them, Young says. Pacific A. acanthoderma have glowing, prey-alluring pads at the end of their tentacles. Sucker-laden…

Super cool moon rocks!!

Is there anyone in the Stevens County area who reads this blog? Just in case, I'll mention this event sponsored by the UMM Geology Club to anyone interested in coming on down. Geology Club will be displaying lunar rocks and soil samples collected during the Apollo missions to the moon this Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. in Sci. 1650. These rocks are brought to us by Geology Professor Jamey Jones, which he currently has on loan from NASA. This event is open to the public, so come and check it out! What: Super cool moon rocks!! Date: Thursday, March 22 Time: 7:00 p.m. Place: Sci. 1650 (the…

Storms and Tree Death in the Amazon

I've actually studied the relationship between storm activities and tree falls in a rain forest, so when I saw this, I thought it was quite interesting. Study Finds Amazon Storm Killed Half a Billion Trees A single, huge, violent storm that swept across the whole Amazon forest in 2005 killed half a billion trees, according to a new study funded by NASA and Tulane University, New Orleans. While storms have long been recognized as a cause of Amazon tree loss, this study is the first to actually quantify losses from a storm. And the losses are much greater than previously suspected, say the…

Florida House Academic "Freedom" Bill

The Florida House yesterday voted to require teachers to criticize evolution when teaching the subject in Florida public schools. The house version of the bill will now, most likely, travel back to the Senate (where a similar bill, was recently passed). Governor Charlie Crist is not talking about whether or not he will sign the bill. "What this bill does is tell the teacher, go ahead and teach the theory of evolution and make sure your students have a complete view of that theory and they know that it is only a theory, it is not gospel law," said Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla. "There's no…

Seattle Times Guest Editorial on Expelled!

The Seattle Times, which as far as I know is a regular newspaper, has published a guest editorial by Bruce Chapman in their opinion section. Chapman has published a lot of editorials in the Seattle Times, and in sum, they make him look like (I'm just sayin') he's on the payroll of both Microsoft and the Discovery Institute His editorial is loaded with the usual creationist crap ... claims that Darwin was forced on him in college, noting Haeckel's embryos, quote mining from Dawkins, etc. ...Darwinists have avoided debates, and in universities have stooped to denial of academic tenure,…

Creationist Pop Up Book

Oh, no, wait, I read that wrong... .... "Creationist Book Pops Up .... In Scotland..." Remember Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, the lavishly illustrated Islamic creationist book that first turned up in Turkey, then France and other European countries and prompted a disapproving resolution by the Council of Europe? It's now being mailed to universities in Scotland The mysterious Istanbul writer Harun Yahya (actually Adnan Oktar) is clearly spending large amounts of money sending this unwelcome book around Europe. Where does he get it from? [source] Have you seen this book? I got my copy a…

Behold The Vampire Squid

Normally, I keep my blog away from Squid and other cephalopods because I know that if PZ myers feels threatened, he may charge, and the squiggly molluscs are his bailiwick. But, this evening at the Laden household analog of the dinner table, the question came up: "How many species of cephalopods are there, anyway? Huh?" So I went on line to look, and before I got anywhere near the answer to this interesting question, I came across the Vampire Squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis. This turns out to be an animal of great extremes....http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/…

Al Gore for President?

According to Newsmax, The Telegraph is outlining a scenario by which Al Gore becomes the Democratic Nominee for President. In the unattributed report from Newsmax (meaning I can't give you a link), Gore comes into play after Clinton regains enough momentum in March to deflate Obama's current surge. The Clinton camp reportedly believes that if Obama doesn't deliver a knock-out blow before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Hillary could win those races and regain the momentum, with many superdelegates uniting behind her to preserve party unity. That could lead to bitter battles at…

Evolution, Cuisine and Romance

A Cafe Scientifique by Yours Truly .... .... details below the fold. Cafe Scientifique Evolution, Cuisine and Romance Tuesday, February 19, 7 p.m. Bryant-Lake Bowl, Uptown $5-$10 (pay what you can) Were the opposable thumb, an upright stance and a large brain the most important evolutionary events in human history? According to Anthropologist Greg Laden, these and other traits are only the byproducts of the truly important evolutionary transitions for our species: the rise of romance and the evolution of cuisine. Join Laden for a discussion about the co-evolution of diet, sexual strategies…

Orac feels the love

It's been a while since I've posted any fan mail, but I did get one a few days ago that amused me. It came from someone with a 'nym of "Baxtour". I post it because it represents a common flavor of antivaccinationist response to my blog: You are a fucking moron, which I'm sure you already know, but if there is one thing you know absolutely nothing about it's thimerosal! You shouldn't even talk about it because you are so fucking clueless!!! Sincerely, Someone that actually has a brain Truly, against such intellectual firepower, even Orac has a hard time standing. My first thought was that it…

Don't let the holidays stop you...

...from submitting to the Skeptics' Circle! Our latest host, Pal MD at White Coat Underground, has sent up the emergency flare. With a mere three days to go, he's worried that he won't have enough submissions to his Skeptics' Circle to keep up the usual high quality when the Circle lands on Thursday, January 3. I realize that the holidays may have put a crimp in your blogging, or maybe all that merriment led you to forget to come up with an entry for the Circle. That's why I'm reminding you all now, before the partying of New Years' Eve gets under way. Make it a New Year's resolution:…

For another view on the David Irving fiasco at the Oxford Union

Max Hastings apparently disagrees with the disgust that I and many others expressed over Holocaust denier David Irving's recent appearance at the Oxford Union. I'd almost agree with him, except that (1) I highly doubt, from reading the accounts, that any real "debate" occurred and (2) I don't think the Oxford Union exercise did anything to show students that there are "dangerous people" out there. If anything, Irving may have succeeded in making himself look like less of a threat to many. Actually, Hastings was correct to liken the Irving/Griffin appearance to that of Iranian President…

The perils of cherry picking

One trouble with cherry picking is that you have to be very careful not to change anything or the whole thing falls apart. Dennis Avery picks up Bob Carter's "Global Warming stopped in 1998" cherry but fluffs it The official thermometers at the U.S. National Climate Data Center show a slight global cooling trend over the last seven years, from 1998 to 2005. Nope, they show warming. What went wrong? Well for the Carter cherry pick, you have to thread the needle by picking 1998 as the starting point and you have to use the CRU data. (So I'm threading a needle with cherries here.) In the…

WSJ on Attribution

Reporting on global warming in the media is far too often of the "he said/she said" type that just leaves the impression with the reader that is controversial and there is no way for the reader to work out what is really happening. So I should point to this article in the Wall Street Journal which does a good job of informing the reader about why scientists believe that people are largely responsible for the current global warming. My only quibble is this bit: Earth has warmed 1.4° Fahrenheit over the past 100 years. Skeptics concede that. Most skeptics concede that, but some of them are…

Grand Unified Theory of Lott's lawsuit

Here's an interesting timeline: 31 March: Lott's abrupt departure from the American enterprise institute. 10 April: Lott files his lawsuit alleging that Levitt has defamed him. 12 April: First Anniversary of Freakonomics publication. I think all three events are connected. There is a one year statute of limitations on libel, so April 11 was the last day he could sue Levitt. There are many reasons why AEI might want to let Lott go, but none of them are new. So it may well be that Lott's determination to sue Levitt was the last straw and caused his dismissal. The AEI's refusal to…

I recommend this as an entrance exam for the priesthood

Maybe it would have been more sensible to start with the water-and-wine trick, and later work up to the walking-on-water finale. A priest has died after trying to demonstrate how Jesus walked on water. Evangelist preacher Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation he could repeat the biblical miracle. But he drowned after walking out to sea from a beach in the capital Libreville in Gabon, west Africa. One eyewitness said: "He told churchgoers he'd had a revelation that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus. "He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across…

Souvenirs of London

More random weekend chatter... If a big time Doctor Who fan visits London, what is it that he brings back as souvenirs? Well, I had wanted to bring back a large radio-controlled Dalek to harass my wife with, but I just couldn't figure out how we would get it back on the plane, and I didn't want to spend big bucks to ship it home across the Atlantic Ocean. So, I had to be more modest. For example, there's this to start out with: Naturally, when you use it to open a bottle, it cries out "EXTERMINATE!" (That'll discourage you from opening that extra bottle of beer, won't it?) Then, what die-…

The Khilyuk and Chilingar test

Earlier I wrote about Khilyuk and Chilingar their mistake is so large and so obvious that anyone who cites them either has no clue about climate science or doesn't care whether what they write is true or not. So who has discredited themselves by citing them? Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland and Richard S. Lindzen Ron Bailey The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Andrew Bolt Tim Blair The Idsos Pat Michaels Pat Michaels went way beyond merely citing them, writing over a thousand words about how it was peer-reviewed and how the authors were from USC and how it…

The 39th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: Scooby snacks, anyone?

Zoinks! Why didn't anyone think of this before? This week's Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle starts out in the Mystery Machine, courtesy of Big Heathen Mike at Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant: We join the gang as everyone got ready for a weekend adventure... Everyone piled into the stretch Mystery Machine and headed off on our road trip to Franken Castle. It looked to be a great meeting this week and the change of location from "the 'net", most agreed, was a good idea. And it was. Next up to host is Daylight Atheism. Start getting your best skeptical material ready to submit to the Circle, and…

Jumping on the bandwagon for more woo

If Your Friday Dose of Woo from me isn't enough woo for you, now Medgadget has inaugurated a new feature it calls Pseudoscience Friday (its first target: bioresonance testing). Between the two blogs, plus the Amazing Randi, that ought to be all the woo any skeptic could want to see debunked every Friday! In the meantime, since I mentioned it so late, it can serve as a little appetizer before the skeptical feast that Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant is poised to deliver on Thursday when he hosts the Skeptics' Circle. The guys at Medgaget did have a good idea. They're taking requests, and, now,…

As long as we beat New Zealand

Gareth Renowden on the confused mess that is New Zealand's climate policy: When the ETS was first launched, National supported it. Then they withdrew support for the legislation in the run-up to the election, but campaigned on keeping the basic ETS structure while tinkering with (also known as watering down) the settings. Post-election, to pacify Rodney and his pack of cranks, the ETS was to be put on hold while a select committee considered, amongst other things, whether a carbon tax might be better. Now, on the last day of this session, we learn they're not going to do that, and the…

Duffy does a Hovind

Last year I wrote about Steve Milloy's latest scam -- a $100,000 if you prove the existence of harmful AGW. Of course, since Milloy judges whether your prove is good enough, you know he'll never pay up, just as you know that Kent Hovind will never pay his $250,000 for a proof of evolution. The latest effort along these lines is Michael Duffy's offer of $1,000 for references to journal papers that: 1 examine the causal link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and warming, and 2 quantify the extent of the warming from anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Now it's possible that this offer is made in…

Exxon stops funding misrepresentation of global warming science. Again.

In 2006 Exxon said that they would no longer fund organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute that misrepresent the science of global warming? Last year we found out that they were still funding the George Marshall Institute and others. Now Cindy Baxter reports that Exxon's latest Corporate Citizenship report says: "in 2008 we will discontinue contributions to several public policy interest groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally…

Chickens, roads, crossing thereof

If you can only read one thing today, make it Skeptico's answers to Why did the chicken cross the road? It's dead-on funny—read the hypothetical answers from all the skeptics and loons like John Edward and O'Reilly and Icke and many others, which are just perfect—I'm stealing Behe's answer! A chicken crossing a road has: eyes legs a road the other side If any one of those irreducibly complex parts is missing the chicken will be unable to cross the road, so if it looks, walks (across roads) and clucks like a chicken, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, it's an intelligently…

Roy Spencer fitting an elephant

Barry Bickmore's three part review of Roy Spencer's Great Global Warming Blunder is well worth a read. In Part 1 he examines Spencer's model that supposedly shows that climate sensitivity is low. In Part 2 he looks at Spencer's claim that climate scientists ignore natural sourcs of climate variation. And Part 3 takes apaprt Spencer's claim that his climate model, which has four fitted parameters, shows that the PDO and not an increase in greenhouse gasses is the major cause of climate change since 1900. I'm reminded of the quote from John von Neumann: With four parameters I can fit an…

Is that true, or did you read it in The Australian?

The Australian breathlessly informs us that: The UN is to appoint an astrophysicist to be the first contact for any aliens ... Mazlan Othman will describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire. But Matthew Weaver at the Guardian has spoiled the fun by contacting Othman: Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be…

Kook warning!

Why do we put up with these insane people? This is painful to listen to: it's an NPR interview with John Hagee, and he goes on and on about his weird biblical prophecies that soon (maybe in the next hour!) the Rapture is going to occur, war will break out with Russia and Islam against Israel, and God will make an abrupt magical appearance that will prove his existence. It's got excerpts from his looney-tunes sermons. We get to hear that "All Moslems have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews." And what about Hurricane Katrina? "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God…all of…

Africa Not Fighting Malaria

Ed Darrell has been looking at what Africa Fighting Malaria spends its money on: Looking at the IRS Form 990s for the organization from 2003 through 2008 (which is organized in both the U.S. and South Africa), it seems to me that the major purpose of AFM is to pay Roger Bate about $100,000 a year for part of the time, and pay Richard Tren more than $80,000 a year for the rest of the time. Can anyone tell me, what has Africa Fighting Malaria ever done to seriously fight malaria? One could make the argument that if you sent $10 to Nothing But Nets, you've saved more lives than the last $1…

Paul Sheehan spreads DDT hoax

Paul "Magic Water" Sheehan offers a "counter perspective" to Monckton's big lie that environmentalists killed 40 million people by banning DDT: The claim that millions have lost their lives as a result of the withdrawal of DDT is hotly contested among scientists. Speculation over the number of deaths caused by the withdrawal of DDT ranges from thousands to tens of millions. Yes, his counter perspective is just a smaller lie. Anyone interested in the truth can easily discover that the anti-malarial use of DDT has never been banned, and that by slowing the evolution of resistance, the ban on…

On those stolen CRU emails

The global warming denialists have predictably gotten very excited about the emails that were stolen from CRU, declaring that they prove that there's a big climate scientist conspiracy (presumably to install a COMMUNIST WORLD GOVERNMENT). We don't know whether or not the thief altered the emails, but since there isn't really anything incriminating it's likely that they are all genuine. Most of the fuss has been generated by taking emails out of context and bad faith interpretations of what was written. If you're interested in the gory details the RealClimate comment thread addresses most of…

The doctor is waiting

Doctor Charles is waiting. Yes, he's the host of the next edition of the Skeptics' Circle, scheduled to land on his blog, The Examining Room of Doctor Charles this Thursday, June 8. You only have two days until the deadline. Doctor Charles' contact information for submissions is here; general guidelines for submission are here. Doctor Charles has been blogging quite a while, a couple of months longer than I have, and I've liked his blog since I first discovered it. Indeed, I've always rather envied his way of telling a story. If you want to see what I mean, check out this recent gem from him…

CHAOS: Complex Habitats around Our Suburbs

Nut or Grain Weevil (Probably Curculio, unknown species) Weevils wobble but they don't fall off the lampshade. I found this little guy wandering helplessly in circles around the top of my lamp. His long, skinny snout is a handy tool for boring into nuts and acorns. Typically, in a forest, that's fine, as there are plenty to go around. In the suburbs, on the other hand, there aren't many nuts lying about, so the weevils bore into other tasty treats, like bags of flour. So, even though they don't bite or carry deadly diseases, these little critters are considered pests. I wasn't too concerned…

In which my husband tries to help with my science

My other half and I are both working from home today. I'm revising the first draft of a paper that I'm working on, and he's doing remote network engineering. Last time I sat down with this paper, I realized that, if I plotted my data in a certain way, I would be able to see whether it really did match my model for what's going on. I looked at it again today, and yes, it really is the perfect way to make the argument. I was so pleased that I needed to share it. So I showed it to my husband. And then I tried to explain what I was modeling. After several versions of the explanation, he had a…

The Big Move [n00b]

Hello and welcome (or welcome back) to the reincarnation of The Voltage Gate here at ScienceBlogs. I'm excited to be a part of such a diverse community. For those of you that are familiar with the old site, business will be as usual; for those unfamiliar, I blog mostly about ecology, evolution and conservation, but occasionally chatter on about culture and religion. I've included a few samples of material from the old site below, just to get a head start. Also, the banner is due for a change; I will begin rotating monthly biome illustrations to highlight the growing list of ecology basics…

A Call to Give Up Seafood

Today (which, as happenstance would have it, also happens to be World Ocean Day) the environmental and conservation news site Mongabay.com ran an interview with me on why we should stop eating seafood. I think that if we can get people to feel about fish the way they feel about birds it should be easier to save them... In some ways, [fish] are not that different from birds and, as anyone who has ever been to England knows, there is no shortage of sentiment for avian species. Fish often travel in flocks and flash beautiful colors. Like the albatross, tunas cover remarkable migratory distances…

Attn Boston Beasties: Mind/Machine Interface Lecture this week

Harvard Science in the News begins its fall lecture series this week with a talk on the interface between human brains and machines: I went to the practice talk last week, and it's going to be great! From retinal implants to controlling robots with your mind, Harvard neuroscience graduate students will take you through the science behind melding mind with machine. The lecture is tomorrow (wednesday) night at 7pm in the Armenise amphitheater at the Harvard Med School. Check out the website for more info. Next week: Me! I'll be presenting next wednesday along with my lab mate Sky Brubaker and…

Check out the sea floor... live

Ever wondered what the bottom of the ocean looks like? Well, now's your chance to check out streaming live HD footage from the ROV ROPOS which is currently working out at Axial Volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Currently they are checking out a brand new lava flow, but later this evening and tomorrow they will be working at Ashes hydrothermal vent field (one of my study sites). While not all of the work is microbe-related (there is a lot of geology going on), the fact that they are streaming live and sharing audio conversations with other scientists on land was too cool to share. Also,…

Lott ducks the coding errors question

One more quote from yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education article: Mr. Lott also points out that because the claim of coding errors appears in a law review, it has not been subject to review by third-party scholars, as would have been the case in a peer-reviewed economics journal. It has been weeks since Lott saw the claim of coding errors. It would have taken him a few minutes to check for the existence of the errors and not much longer to see if correcting the errors reverses his results as Ayres and Donohue claim. He must know full…

I've Been Subducted Again

This month's edition of the Accretionary Wedge is up at Magma Cum Laude, covering: How Hollywood manages to screw up, in movie and/or TV form, the science that it took me multiple years, pints of blood and continuing therapy sessions to learn, and why I can't be held legally responsible for my reaction when the students in my intro classes spout it back at me on exams. And once again, I am not in it. But still, you should go read! See especially the quote Zoltan pulled from a review of There Will Be Blood: The fact is, Plainview is barely human to begin with, so watching him grow coarser…

More Lott dishonesty?

BuzzFlash has an interesting story which details some more examples of apparent dishonesty by Lott. I was able to check one of them myself: Mary Rosh's defence of Lott's statement that the "the worst thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash". Rosh argues that this isn't Lott's claim, but that of Michael Fumento, whose book Lott was reviewing. However, if you read Lott's review, it is quite clear that he makes the claim his own. And if you read Fumento's book, you will also see that Lott exaggerates Fumento's position. Fumento argues (convincingly,…

Green Guilt at a Low

Jared Flesher discussed this week A Decline in 'Green Guilt' at the NYTimes Green Inc. Blog. Some groups attribute the decline to the fact that Americans are doing more for the environment (more people are carpooling and planting gardens, especially with the economy in its present state) but Flesher gets to what is likely the true culprit: the environment takes the backseat psychologically in times of economic downturn. According to his post: A recent Gallup poll, for example, found that, for the first time in 25 years, a majority of Americans think economic growth should be given priority…

The Open Laboratory 2009 Winners Announced

The top 50 science blog posts of the year, as judged by a large panel of bloggers, have been announced and will be included in The Open Laboratory 2009. The fourth annual volume of this blog anthology will be published early this year, but you can go ahead and see the winning posts here and here. The editor, Scicurious, the series editor, Bora Zivkovic, and all of the judges deserve a round of applause for their hard work. And, I'm happy to announce that my post on H1N1 influenza antiviral drug resistance ("Why Swine Flu Is Resistant to Adamantane Drugs" from 01 May 2009) made the cut and…

On the Road Again

By the time you read this, I'll already be on a bus bound for Newcastle, where I'll spend the weekend before heading off to Bergen, Norway, for some much needed relaxation. I'm going to be gone for a couple of weeks, but have no fear! I won't be here physically, but I will be here in spirit and, thanks to this newfangled technology stuff, the blogging will continue anyways. I'll be posting from my "Best of The Scientific Activist Collection" so make sure you keep coming back to see what I'm finding in the archives that day. Also, don't forget about the rest of the great blogging going on…

Pneumatic Grappling Hook Gun from Battelle

Live out your superhero fantasies with this grappling hook gun from Battelle. It shoots 100 feet up and 60 feet across, easily enough to scale ten storeys to your enemy's hideout. They say: The Tactical Air Initiated Launch (TAIL) system is used to propel a titanium grappling hook towing a Kevlar line for use in Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations. It also can be used for fire rescue operations, life vest deployment, or other activities.Besides enhanced performance at reduced cost, the TAIL system's simple, rugged design boosts safety and reliability with the advantage of low…