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Yet even more numbers

Why stop now! The latest stats for you: Top 10 cities in university research spending in the US. [From Network Boston.] City -- R&D expenditures by the city's universities and colleges in 2004 (dollars in thousands)1 1. Baltimore, MD--1,750,9042 2. Los Angeles, CA--1,527,602 3. Boston, MA--1,521,001 4. New York, NY--1,512,632 5. Philadelphia, PA--1,475,536 6. San Francisco, CA--1,388,2183 7. Chicago, IL--1,105,317 8. Houston, TX--1,099,652 9. Durham/Chapel Hill, NC--937,598 10. Atlanta, GA--784,330 1Includes universities and colleges within a 20-mile radius of each city center 2Includes…

Planet Earth ... with Tourette's

Much deliberation has occurred here behind the scenes at DSN about whether to air the following clip. After much debate we have decided to educate the public but let the viewers do so at their own risk. Note below the fold is the video and it is definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK, because it includes profanity. We the authors of DSN note we find it horrible that someone would ruin the beauty of nature by adding such childish obscenity to a nature documentary. We are only posting this as an example of how not to conduct public outreach. We also like the seastar sequence, but putting microphones…

When I Die...Where Will You Put Me?

The Neptune Memorial Reef project is the largest man made reef ever conceived and provides an extraordinary living resting place for the departed, an environmental and ecological masterpiece, a superb laboratory for marine biologists, students, researchers and ecologists, and an aesthetically exquisite, world-class destination for visitors from all walks of life. The most innovative concept in artificial reef design is currently emerging in 50-feet of water, 3.25 miles east of Key Biscayne, Miami. Wrapped in the silence of the clear blue ocean a new reef is evolving. The Neptune Memorial…

Japanese go whaling for humpbacks

A friend of mine from Japan used to like to begin his grad school seminar talks with a favorite recipe for preparing whale meat. His first slide would feature a steaming hot bowl of soup with sliced layers of meat dangling over the side. He was not a joker. He did these things to shock students into a new perspective. My friend wasn't ready to begin any discussion of Japanese fisheries policy until people understood that whales are a cultural resource in Japan, a downright delicious cultural resource. His approach was provocative. It stole the high ground on the whaling issue, and put…

Happy Hallomeme: Ocean-Themed Scary Movies

Rick at MBSL&S tagged me to produce "my favorite ocean-themed scary movies." My favorite has to be Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961). Edward Wain is inept Government Agent XK342. He is on the trail of mobster Renzo Capeto, a Bogart wanna-be who is transporting Colonel Tostada, a group of exiled Cuban nationals, and a large portion of the Cuban treasury out of Cuba. Renzo is also accompanied by Mary-Belle Monahan (an infamous gangster moll), Happy Jack Monahan (her dim-bulb gangster-in-training brother) and Pete Peterson Jr. (a hoodlum/animal impersonator). Wain assumes the identity…

Almost There!

This is HUGE thank you to all of you who have pushed up to 86% of our goal. Our goal is $1100 which was more than we needed to fund three classrooms. At this point we need a mere $166, to put us over our goal and fund a fourth classroom. If we make our goal, we Donor's Choose will give us a bonus to apply to a fifth classroom! I am very excited we are so near our goal. As this week closes, I bask in the contentment of knowing we accomplished something great and are inspiring tomorrow's marine scientists and conservation minded citizens. So help me make this final push. The final…

Come One, Come All: Zooillogix Party

It's long overdue. Time for a Zooillogix writers, friends, and lowly readers party. On Friday, Sept. 26th, we will be having our get together at Tonic, in San Francisco, starting at 9:00PM. We think it will be fun to see what weirdos (that's you!) come out of the woodwork. At worst, Ben and I will get quite drunk alone. Actually, that's not true. At worst one of our readers will be insane and will knife us. But either way, we are forging ahead with this plan. Craig from Deep Sea News will also be there and there is a good chance that some of your other favorite science-type bloggers will also…

Dog Robot

Why are we posting so many videos these days you ask? I don't know! Anyway this is both cool and somewhat off-putting/frightening but only because it is awesome. From Slashdot: "The US company Boston Dynamics has released an amazing new video of its quadruped robot BigDog. The highlight of the video (at 1:24) shows how the robot starts slipping on ice, almost falls several times, but finally regains its balance and continues walking. The video also shows the robot's ability to cope with different types of terrains, climb and descend steep slopes, and jump. Two years ago, the older version of…

My world is collapsing to a singularity.

Well, light can still escape the gravitational pull of my world, but it does feel like it's getting noticeably smaller. Three recent data points: At a soccer game the other weekend, the team I coach was playing a team some of whose players I coached last Spring season. The parent of one of those former players of mine greeted me as "Dr. Free-Ride" -- apparently, he had stumbled upon my blog! (Younger offspring's immediate reaction: "Oh, so you've seen my drawings!") One of my students this term turns out to be the sister of the parent of my former player. Today, I got an email from Steinn…

Do you self-report lab mishaps?

This is a question that occurred to me earlier this month when I had occasion to observe an undergraduate laboratory course: If something goes wrong in the lab, do you tell the lab instructor? The "something wrong" could range from breaking a piece of glassware, to getting a stick with a syringe (of non-biohazardous material), to getting a stick with a syringe (of biohazardous or radioactive material), to spilling a nasty reagent. Of course, it could include other mishaps not enumerated here. I'm not as interested in hearing when students should tell the lab instructor about a mishap, but…

A project for the genetic engineers.

One of the Free-Ride offspring (which one? who can tell; it was last week) brought home a plant grown from seed as part of a school project. "We planted the seeds in yogurt containers," said whichever child it was, "except they didn't have yogurt in them anymore, just dirt." "Well, that's good," one of the Free-Ride parental units said (which one? who can tell; see above). "The seeds wouldn't have germinated in yogurt." Of course, that got us thinking ... How would you have to tweak a plant's genome to get it to produce seeds that would germinate in yogurt? What kind of selection pressures…

Any questions for Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education Margaret Spellings?

This Friday, as part of my university's sesquicentennial celebration, there's going to be a two hour session on "The Future of Higher Education". The keynote speaker will be Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secrtetary of Education. There will also be a "panel discussion with national experts", after which they will entertain questions from the audience. So, what questions about the future of higher education would you like me to ask? In case you're stuck for ideas, here's a potential prompt: Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education has been hailed as a way to bring No Child Left…

Monckton dissected

Christopher Monckton, that pompous know-nothing who professes to be an expert on climate change and doesn't believe in it, gave a talk here in Minnesota last fall, at a little Christian college called Bethel University (which curiously has a biology department that manages to never once mention evolution in its curriculum, just to give you an idea of what it's like). That talk infuriated a professor at another Christian university — but one that doesn't try to hide away from the evidence — who has put together a rebuttal of Monckton's claims. Would you believe that essentally all of the…

14 lines of iambic pentameter for 50 years.

There's a rumor* that, when he's in his cups, PZ Myers sounds like an overeducated -- some might say Shakespearian -- pirate. Therefore, in honor of his birthday, I offer this sonnet: Paul Myers' squids are nothing if not fun, Eviscerating with their beaks aglow. They squirt their ink upon each Myers son And Davy Jones, whose locker lies below. Once naught but a developmental stage, "Pharyngula" a mighty blog now names Where readers may delight or burn with rage: For PZ pulls no punches, plays no games. This sage whose bearded visage is resolved With zebrafish in nearby tanks arrayed: How…

The house of cards is falling down

It almost makes one feel sorry for Andrew Wakefield. Retraction: Enterocolitis in Children With Developmental Disorders A J Wakefield, A Anthony, S H Murch, M Thomson, S M Montgomery, S Davies, J J O'Leary, M Berelowitz and J A Walker-Smith Am J Gastroenterol 2000; 95:2285-2295 On 28 January 2010, the UK General Medical Council's Fitness to Practice Panel raised concerns about a paper published in the Lancet by Dr Wakefield et al. (1). The main issues were that the patient sample collected was likely to be biased and that the statement in the paper, that the study had local ethics…

Helping you plan your January 2007.

If you're ready to admit that we're almost done with 2006 and that it might be OK to start making plans for 2007, check your calendar and think about coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, a "free, open and public event for scientists, educators, students, journalists, bloggers and anyone interested in discussing science communication, education and literacy on the Web." (more after the break) The conference will be happening in Chapel Hill, and is mostly scheduled for Saturday, January 20, 2007. (There's also a Friday night dinner planned, and a Thursday aftenoon…

Is the Hockey Stick Real?

The WSJ editorial page - a very suspect source - opines on a new statistical study which seems to cast doubt on the hockey stick model of global warming. This model began with Michael Mann's 1999 paper, and is the star of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The three researchers -- Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University -- are not climatologists; they're statisticians. Their task was to look at Mr. Mann's methods from a statistical perspective and assess their validity. Their conclusion is that Mr. Mann's papers…

DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge: Last day of the drive!

Happy Hallowe'en and welcome to the last day of the 2009 Social Media Challenge. With your help, ScienceBlogs bloggers have raised more than $56,000 to help public school teachers pay for classroom supplies, fund field trips, and support activities to help their students learn. Today is the end of the drive, so if you've been hanging back -- or if you've found some money in the pocket of that winter coat you've just dug out of the closet -- this is a great time to help make a difference. And, if you make a donation through my challenge page, you can still get in on some fabulous prizes,…

To those who think it's appropriate to post non-specific death threats in comments on Friday Sprog Blogs.

First off, I moderate all my comments. Mostly it's to eliminate comment spam, but it also means the rare death threat is not going to post without me approving it. Second of all, why would you think you have the evidential basis to discern the religious convictions (or lack thereof) of either this blogger or her offspring? Even if you did, why would that be germane to a discussion of a classroom snake? And why, in any case, would it make you feel justified in asserting "you have forfeit your life"? Obviously, you feel like you have an important message to convey to someone. I would like…

Snail eradication (day 21).

This morning was dry and cool and overcast, so the pickings were slim. I went right to the places where gastropods have been found hiding on mornings like this and came up empty. Actually, since I cleared some weeds (and some piles of previously whacked weeds and tall grass) yesterday, I figured that maybe there were just fewer hiding places left. It's even possible that when the piles of weeds and tall grass went into the green bin to go to the municipal composting, some slugs and snails went with their hiding places to be composted. So, despite the lack of snails and slugs to pick, I felt…

Celebrating the Year of Science.

I've been derelict in my duty to inform you that 2009 has been declared the Year of Science, which is, of course, just an excuse to celebrate science-y goodness every day. Each month has a theme and a variety of options for exploring that theme. For February, the theme is evolution (in part because some fellow named Darwin has a birthday this month). In addition to getting a good dose of Darwiniana, you can check in on scientists sharing their thoughts on evolution and science more generally, explore evolutionary thought and the process of evolution, look at the connections between…

Spare the rod, save the child

"Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." -Proverbs 22:6 This is a report of a Fundamentalist Christian couple who beat thier 7 year old child to death as part of the practice of corporal punishment to which they subscribed as per instructions given them by God. They were following the detailed methodology of child torture supplied in a book called To Train Up A Child. Which may or may not be related to a book called Train Up a Child: Successful Parenting for the Next Generation. Nine children were subject to this abuse over several years…

Mars may have flowing water

Observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. "NASA's Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration." Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these…

It is done: Spirit will RIP on the Martian surface

The last communication from the Mars Rover Spirit was on March 22, 2010. A few moments ago NASA announced that there would be no more attempts to contact the space robot after a transmission that will end on May 25th. It is suspected that Spirit's internal circuitry was damaged by very low temperatures experienced during the Martian winter. While it was hoped that solar panels would allow heaters to bring the robot back to life, this apparently has not happened. The resources that would be needed to continue what seems to be a fruitless attempt at communication are now needed elsewhere…

Bird Migration

Bird migration is a huge topic. Super-Big. Vast. Overwhelming. So, starting today, it is Bird Migration Week (running from Thursday to Thursday) on this blog. I'll be posting a number of quick reviews of bird-migration related books and a few other items, but for starters, I'll send you over to 10,000 Birds for a post on bird migration. To a birder, migration means that you can live in Minnesota, New York, Paris or Moscow and see exotic tropical birds such as Piranga olivacea and Icterus galbula on a regular basis without buying a plane ticket. The birds do the flying for you. Even if…

Best info on the Tornado Swarm

Jeff Masters' WunderBlog is a key source of information on any current weather events: A stunning tornado outbreak of incredible violence has left at least 202 dead across the Eastern U.S.; injuries probably number over a thousand, with 600 injured in the town of Tuscaloosa alone. The tornadoes carved huge swaths of damage, completely flattening large sections of many towns, and damage from the storms is likely to be the greatest in history for any tornado outbreak. Hardest hit was Alabama, with at least 149 dead... Read the rest News: Search for current news Local news in Tuscaloosa…

Injuries and Deaths from Firearms in the US in 2000

Since this came up I thought you might like to see the data. NOTES: It would be interesting to look at the ratio of fatal to non fatal over long time spans (before/during/after transition to high quality trauma treatment in the US); I would like to see good data breaking down suicide by age that tracks along with the CDC surveys; Most importantly would be information of similar quality and sources indicating attempted suicide and successful suicide with means other than guns. From the numbers we do have, we can say that there is a bias towards minors in the suicide category, and non-gun…

Transition to ScienceBlogs

Zooillogix has been invited to join ScienceBlogs and we have decided to take them up on the offer. ScienceBlogs is a unique community of science related blogs that run the gamut from highly informed and technical to... errr.... us. What this means for you the reader (e.g. the bored desk slave, bored 12 year old boy or renowned zoologist doing research on your next paper): The Content Won't Change: You can expect the same fascinating stories and questionable attempts at humorTechnical Difficulties: There may be a short "outage" period of a day or two, during which time you will be forced to…

Dozing off at the wrong times...

Here's something that's not a good idea: Boston, MA (AHN) - The Board of Registration in Medicine, which is the governing authority issuing licenses to Massachusetts doctors, has reportedly suspended a Boston anesthesiologist from the practice of medicine for dozing off during an operation. However, the headline is misleading. It turns out that this doctor has a bit more of a problem than just dozing off during an operation: In December 2005, Thomas Ho admitted inhaling anesthetic gas while on lunch break on another occasion. The Board also added that following month Ho had taken a…

Truer words were never spoken...

Via Modern Mechanix, an ad from 1938: Does this make you think of something other than a medical ad? Maybe it's the whole thing about the "human hand" being placed on the groin as a truss. Actually, the best "support" for a "rupture" (a.k.a. an inguinal hernia) these days is some polypropylene mesh sewn into place properly as either a sheet and/or plug to hold the "rupture" in. Back in 1938, the best "support" was some conjoined tendon sewn to the appropriate ligament, the most common of which when I was a resident, back in the days right before mesh became popular, was the Bassini repair…

Media medicine actually gets it right for a change

Granted, it is the print media, rather than the bubble-headed TV doctors that I railed against a couple of days ago, but even so I had a hard time believing this article in the Washington Post when it was forwarded to me. Compare: Washington Post article Part 1 and Part 2 of Early Detection of Cancer, by me. It's like a distilled version of what I wrote and excellent--dare I say it around here these days?--framing of a complex medical/scientific issue for a lay audience. Remember, as you read this, the term "overdiagnosis," which I should have discussed. Also remember that I (and the authors…

A Sunday Science Reading List

I know a lot of you are interested in the Yellowstone Caldera. WEll, a recent article has come out on the topic in Geophysical Research Letters. Chris Rowan has summarized, reviewed, and analyzed the paper here. The way the CDC talks about flu mortality has changed. This is interesting, important, and possibly even annoying. Superbug explains and discusses it here. Speaking of Superbug: (Stolen from here) The latest on Huxley is Here. That's T.H., not Huxley D.L. It's the third part in The Primate Diaries biographical survey of the famous scientist. I've had carved pangolin. Well,…

Tropical Update

Danielle is unraveling. Meteroloigsts are using words like "disorganized" and "decreased dvorak estimates" and "downgrading" and finally, have decided that she is no longer a hurricane. Tropical Strom Danielle may well reintensify into a hurricane, and in fact, she may become a rather intense storm by the weekend. But she'll still be out in the middle of the ocean by then. A new system, still very near the west coast of Africa, is staring to blow up. This is currently close to the Cape Verde Islands. Changes are happening here very quickly, and there is a very good chance that this…

Inside a Political Campaign

There was an election in November of 2008, but you probably knew that already. You cast a vote for a presidential candidate, and if you were especially interested, put a bumper sticker on your car and a sign in your yard. If you're a typical Minnesotan, somewhat more engaged in the process than is usual with Americans, statistically speaking, you also voted for a U.S. Senate candidate, and you remember who it was, even if your candidate didn't win. That's already quite a bit going on for one election cycle, but of course there was also an election for the U.S. House of Representatives in your…

What was that splash? Oh. Greenland melting.

See the missing bit? That is a 1.5 kilometer retreat of the so-called "calving front" of the glacier. In truth, this particular sort of even is not that unusual, but what is interesting is that new satellite monitoring capabilities allow researchers to notice these events more or less when they happen, as opposed to during less frequent inspections of satellite imagery. And, there are some climate-change related features of this event. "While there have been ice breakouts of this magnitude from Jakonbshavn and other glaciers in the past, this event is unusual because it occurs on the…

Plants = Love at Coon Rapids Dam East

We took a walk today along the east side of the Mississippi River just down stream from Coon Rapids Dam. The park here invested about ten years ago in a major prairie restoration project which has been paying off big time in recent years. The following is a sampling of the scenery, mainly focusing on flowering plants in the prairie areas, but there are a couple of woodland plants and a few other items of interest as well. I've numbered the photos so you can provide suggested identifications of any items you recognize. For some photos, you can click to get a larger image. Most larger…

Very interesting local news item regarding the Wetterling abduction

The Wetterling Abduction (1989) is a relatively well known case of an unsolved child abduction. Patty Wetterling went from bereaved mother of abductee Jacob Wetterling (11 years old) to child saety advocate to Congressional canddiate. Had Patty Wetterling won her race for Congress, she'd be there instead of ... yes, you guessed it, Wacko Michele Bachamann. Anyway, right now, something seems to be happening in the abduction case, as I write this: Investigators Wednesday swarmed around a St. Joseph property near the spot where 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989. The Stearns…

Church Suspects Treated like Possible Criminals. Vatican Shocked.

I'm not going to say anything about the methods the Belgian authorities have used, because I don't know anything about due process in that country. (Though I did notice that that Belgian police carry big machine guns, at least when I've been there.) Anyway, the Vatican has it's shorts in a twist because civilian police have, apparently, treated church property and priests as non-sacred. Police in Leuven seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission investigating allegations of sex abuse. They also searched the Church's headquarters, the Brussels…

Are you ready for the Rapture?

Perched heavily on a white stone wall, a cast-iron stegosaurus watched expressionlessly as a backhoe tore up a patch of land that was supposed to have been left green. "We've been doing some more research in the last few months which has already indicated we have to add extra parking," Mark Looy shouted over the rumbling. "The lobby is probably also going to be too small. That outdoor area with the pillars, that's going to be glass-enclosed now. That becomes a portico, a kind of pre-lobby for people to gather, get their tickets. Our projections are for more than two hundred and fifty…

The Best of Quiche: The posts I liked the most

... in inverse relation to how much they got read. In other words, for some reason, you missed these and you shouldn't have. Now is your chance to catch up. There's only two. The first one is serious and meaning drenched: Our Conversations Are Like a Cold Fruit Salad on a Dusty, Hot, Summer Day ... It is about the value of not being a complete asshole all the time just because you seem to be getting away with it. The second one is as far from serious as I get, and the closest you'll ever see me approach scatological humor: When Your Field School Goes Into the Toilet. Technically,…

Retraction: Clinton will stay in race after tonight.

You may have noticed that in my previous post I tried to equivocate and I gave the story right from AP as a big quote. This is because I could not reconcile what I was reading internally. It did not make sense, and I suspected that the press was just trying to bring the campaign to a close. This is based not just on what I posted, but what I watched for 10 minutes on MSBNC. Turns out my caution was appropriate: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is "absolutely not" planning to concede the campaign to Barack Obama on Tuesday night, Clinton campaign…

Teach Creationism in the Classroom

This page is designed for teachers, pastors, youth leaders and organizations to provide useful tools and resources to promote the ideas surrounding this highly anticipated film. You can get Expelled! movie clips to show in your life science class. This site has many movies designed for Christian teachers to use in the classroom... The developers of the side have ... made showing movie clips fast and convenient for anyone to use. It's as simple as a click of a button. Also, we custom edit clips to better illustrate specific points. For instance, we might delete a portion of a scene, combine…

Expelled! Reviewed in Time

And the review is very negative. Of Expelled, as well as of PZ Myers and atheists in general. The man made famous by Ferris Bueller, ... quickly wades into waters far too deep for him. He makes all the usual mistakes nonscientists make whenever they try to take down evolution, asking, for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup. The answer is it couldn't--and it didn't. Organic chemicals needed eons of stirring and slow cooking before they could produce compounds that could begin to lead to a living thing. More…

Flitting through Saturday at SICB

Rather than burning out, I decided I just needed a happy fun day at the SICB meetings, so I put away the notepad and flitted about from session to session to check out a semi-random subset of the diverse talks available here. So I listened to talks on jaw articulations and feeding mechanisms in cartilaginous fishes; the direct developing frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui; Hox gene expression in the fins of Polyodon (which was really cool—that curious HoxD gene flip across the digits may be a primitive condition, rather than a derived tetrapod state); biomechanical properties of spider webs; the…

Cambodia's Water Birds

Storks, pelicans, ibises, and other rare waterbirds from Cambodia's famed Tonle Sap region are making a comeback, thanks to round-the-clock protection by a single team of park rangers. In a project established by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Ministry of Environment of the Royal Government of Cambodia, former hunters and egg collectors have found new employment in monitoring the breeding bird colonies. This novel approach guarantees an active role for local communities in the conservation of this important seasonally flooded wetland. A new report shows that some of the…

It's not enough to be just an anti-creationist

I am not going to praise John Derbyshire; some people seem to be impressed because he has penned a dismissal of the ID creationists, but jebus, that ought to be the absolute rock bottom minimum we should expect from rationalists. That he can clear a hurdle set one inch above the ground does not impress me in the slightest. Furthermore, he couldn't spit it out without saying something stupid. As it turned out, Judge Jones is a conservative in the right way, the best way: he respects the law, and the plain rules of evidence. Think about that. Respect for law and evidence is not a property…

Bird Watchers Plan Global Takeover

And good luck to them, they will probably do a pretty good job! This missive from Birders United comes to us via 10,000 birds. In November 2008, birders, united in a voting bloc, can determine who will be the next president of the United States. There are 15 million or more voting age Americans who have a serious interest in the welfare of birds. United as a voting bloc, birders could have a major say in who is our next president. Politicians in Britain think twice about opposing positions advocated by the million-member Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In this country, birders…

Has Ron Paul Quit?

Vague reports are circulating that Ron Paul is quitting his bid for president. He wrote this letter to supporters. The way I read the letter, Paul is cutting back his campaign but intents to remain a thorn in the side for McCain. But Wonkette has a different take: It is a tragic day for the Ron Paul ReLOVEution or whatever they call it. Late Friday night, Dr. Congressman Ron Paul posted a letter to his fans basically saying it's over, but he will continue talking about his message, and plus it would be completely embarrassing for him if he also lost his congressional seat. Gather the…

It's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!

That's one way to turn French Onion Dip into Frenched Onion Dip. A Clemson University Professor has tested George's Conundrum, also known as the Seinfeld Hypothesis of Germ Theory. You know the story, and in case you don't, watch it here: Double Dipping? 'Seinfeld' Was Right from PhysOrg.com (AP) -- Keep an eye on the salsa this SuperBowl Sunday: A researcher inspired by a famous "Seinfeld" episode has concluded that double dipping is just plain gross. [...] This is, of course, a critically important topic, with the Superbowl scheduled for tomorrow. Some scientists suspect that the…

In which I am a prophet

Five days ago, I wrote about a creationist letter that was published in Nature. At that time, there was a discussion going on in email with the gang at the Panda's Thumb, and someone said we ought to get a pool going on how long it would take before the Intelligent Design creationists would use this to argue that their case was being seriously discussed in the pages of a major scientific journal. Four months was suggested; I said one week. I should have put some money down on that. It turns out one of the PhD alumni in biology from Moran's school (University of Toronto), a respected scientist…