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Love Songs for Geoscientists

I am frequently earwormed by the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo's song New Madrid, in which the narrator begs an intraplate seismic zone to somehow restore his lost love: Come on do what you did Roll me under New Madrid Shake my baby and please bring her back So for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd poke around the iTunes store and see if I couldn't find something else to be earwormed by. Something a little less relentlessly cheesy than The Earthquake Of Your Love. As it turns out, geological love songs are hard to find - and when you do find them, they're likely to be depressing (or else they'…

Live from Seattle: Fatal intracerebral mass bleeding edition

The poster sessions were largely a bust yesterday but I did come across a couple of interesting ones: 1) Definitive evidence that it was the melamine + cyuranic acid that caused toxicity in animals (by creating crystals inside the kidney). As I've noted before, neither is very toxic on it's own. Not a surprise but good to get some confirmation. 2) Ms Vitalone is a woman after my own heart. Her presentation: Natural is not always safe: A lesson from the literature on the use of herbal products. Now, doesn't that sound familiar? It was basically a compilation of what we know about adverse…

Advice for doctors on dealing with personal genomics customers

Think Gene's Andrew Yates has posted generic responses for medical professionals to use when dealing with patients who come armed with their results from 23andMe or Navigenics. They're probably quite useful little tools for busy doctors without the time to brush up on the field of personal genomics, but - seeing as this is Andrew Yates - they're also a dig at the careful "medicine but not medicine" stance of personal genomics companies. An excerpt: Thus, applying 23andMe to your health care would be a violation of the 23andMe terms of service and, as stated, it "cannot be relied upon at this…

Abstinence-Only Promoter Can't Keep it in His Pants

On Friday, Randall Tobias--the Bush Administration's chief promoter of foreign abstinence-only sex education programs--resigned from his position as Deputy Secretary of State after getting busted for frequenting DC prostitutes. If your head hasn't already exploded, check out Timothy Noah's humorous but detailed commentary at Slate. Tobias advocated an ABC program (Abstinence; Be faithful; a brief, skeptical, and largely inaccurate mention of Condoms). Clearly the A and the B didn't really pan out here (which isn't surprising, since these programs don't actually affect participants' sexual…

Robot Boogie

Robots are now commonplace for cleaning carpets (random walk), remote sensing, even swarming. But robot boogie? Fun for some, profound for others. Thanks, MIT! At the beginning all the robots are waiting for my signal to start. While dancing, they are constantly synchronizing with each other, so if a robot lags behind they will wait for him and the late robot will accelerate. When I remove a robot from the choreography, the others continue dancing. When he stands up again and resumes his dance, he asks the others for a starting position. Then he goes to this position, and starts dancing…

Super Size My Arteries

Yes, thirty days of McDonald's meals causes weight gain, even heart palpitations. But what happens to your arteries? For the first time, a short term, six week, study (using mice) shows that a similar diet causes arteries to begin clogging, and worse, affects its structural and mechanical properties. This study used a high fat diet comprised of about 36% of calories as fat; a Big Mac has about 49%. From the study: The arterial compliance was compared between control and high fat-fed mice for 6 weeks.We show that the compliance of the TDAs was dramatically reduced in high fat-fed mice…

Mindful Elephants Don't Stomp on Grass

Photo source. "There's an African saying: When the elephants fight, the grass suffers." Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim on the greatest challenge in global health, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose, pointing out that the "poorest of poor suffer the most." Such wisdom will serve Dr. Kim well as he prepares to lead the World Bank, in response to President Obama's nomination. Dr. Kim is a physician and human rights advocate, whose research was initially bolstered by a major grant from George Soros to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis. The recent interview by Charlie Rose also…

Controversial Football Coach Paterno Dies at 85: "Get NCAA Out"

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach en:Joe Paterno on the sideline during warmups prior to the 2006 Homecoming game versus the University of Illinois on Friday, October 20, 2006. Joe Paterno at Penn State was one of the most successful, and controversial, football coaches at the University level. What will his real legacy be? From The New York Times: Joe Paterno, whose teams won more games than any other major-college football coach, who became the face of Penn State University and a symbol of integrity in collegiate athletics only to be fired during the 2011 season amid a child sexual-…

Girls Rule Google Science Fair!

Winners (from left to right): Lauren Hodge, Shree Bose, Naomi Shah Girls swept all three age categories at Google's first science fair! CONGRATULATIONS! * Lauren Hodge in the 13-14 age group. Lauren studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken. * Naomi Shah in the 15-16 age group. Naomi endeavored to prove that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people's reliance on asthma medications. * Shree Bose in the 17-18 age group. Shree discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer…

Bathroom Graffiti Musings: Richard Dawkins A Deity?

My recent post "The Royal Wedding, A Thoughtful Theologian and the Faith/Science Conundrum" stirred up, not surprisingly, some thoughtful and not so thoughtful (or respectful) readers' comments. Some readers mistook my article as an endorsement of Archbishop Williams' writings - it was not. Sadly, readers missed the opportunity to wish the happy couple a bright future. I would like to share an antidote, prompted in a way that only bathroom wall graffiti could provide. We've all seen them - those often profane, ludicrous scribbles on bathroom walls. Today I saw the following (Was it…

Linux turns 20 years old, Open Innovation Exemplar

Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Linux with us. Watch the Story of Linux to remember - or learn for the first time - how Linux disrupted a market and has begun to change the world. Do you see yourself in its story? The computer operating system Linux was introduced in August 1991. It was made available freely but has fueled a number of businesses. How can this be? I encourage to watch this brief video to appreciate Linux as an entrepreneurial success story. From the video, Linux provides users with: The freedom to use the software for any purpose. The freedom to change the software to…

A note on hanging chain clocks

So BoingBoing has an item on hanging chain clocks, on sale from Ticktock Showroom at a bargain $100. I wrote about a similar art piece by Andreas Dober a year ago on these very pages, but that had a price tag of $2,338, so I'm glad to see bicycle chains have come down in price. Here's the thing though: to my eyes, both this clock and the original by Dober are backwards. The clock is designed so that the chain takes the place of the hands as the moveable part, and thus someone decided that it should go clockwise. As a result, the numbers are printed in the opposite order to a usual clock.…

Indie band sings about the solar system

Michael Hearst of One Ring Zero writes: I just did a Google search for "science blogs," and landed on your site. And the first thing I see is a picture of The Magnetic Fields, who are good friends of mine, and who I've toured with. Very strange. The reason I was searching for science blogs is because my band, One Ring Zero, is gearing up to release a new album on Sept. 7th ... our first studio album in 3 years. The theme and title for this one is PLANETS. The album is a sort of revisit to our solar system, as the 100th anniversary of Holst's The Planets approaches. Here's some more info…

Man shrugs off 500,000 volts of electricity

Looking every bit like the mythical Silver Power Ranger, the guy in this video is bestowed with similarly impressive powers - the ability to shoot lightning from his hands! So what's really happening here? The lightning is actually being generated by the huge Tesla coil in the background, and flowing through the figure into a ground point near the camera. The chain mail suit protects the guy as the electricity flows around him rather than through him. The video was shot in Austin, Texas, as part of a documentary for German television. Producer Johannes Wiebus says: A guy in a chain mail…

Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys

Aye, this is a CD I shall be purchasin'. Leering, full of menace and the threat of pain, "15 Men on a Dead Man's Chest" is arguably the most famous pirate song ever committed to tape (and thanks to its refrain, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," it also ranks among the more pro-booze sing-alongs in the children's section of the music store). But as a genre, pirate music remains obscure even by musicologists' standards. To spotlight a genre that has all but disappeared — as well as cannily promote their summer blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" — Johnny Depp and director…

Win a SCIENCE mega-book, part 4

Another day, another beautifully-illustrated definitive guide to SCIENCE to be won! With the contest in its fourth day, I have only two more of these huge books to win. They're worth a princely £30 each, and were edited by the venerable Adam Hart-Davis. SCIENCE: THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL GUIDE is a great tome of wonder and intrigue, with some great photographs and imagery that I've never seen before. Truly, the art editor was top notch. Here's one example: We had many wonderful suggestions yesterday on what was the world's best-ever invention, from transistors to tools to light itself. Which…

Biologist's guide to brewing beer on board a research vessel

Or, to give the full title: "How to brew beer in a coffee maker, using only materials commonly found on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel". The marine scientists at Southern Fried Science have this handy guide to any scientist unfortunate enough to find themselves high and dry whilst out collecting data: You're six days into a 2 month expedition, and if you were lucky enough to not be on a dry ship, it's de facto dry by now anyway. You're eying the ethanol stores, the crew is eying each other, and all hell will break loose if y'all don't get some sweet water soon. This is no…

Editor's Selections: Katrina, Music, Crickets, and Artificial Movement

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week: "Now, five years later, there's new evidence of the significant, negative impact of Hurricane Katrina on children's mental health." Many Children Still Haven't Recovered from Katrina. "Congenital amusia is one of several different types of music perception impairments. A person with the disorder is born with a variety of symptoms, including an inability to recognize a familiar song without hearing the lyrics, an inability to discern the difference between two melodies, and difficulty perceiving when he or she is singing or…

Music While Doing Science Survey

I'm interested in finding out what are peoples' music listening habits while working on various sciencey things. After a small survey and discussion on twitter, I thought I'd bring it to the blogosphere, as people seem to generally have opinions on the matter. This is going to be far from scientific, but take the below survey, and I'll be back later with the results, as well as some data and thoughts based on the scientific literature. Also, you can complete the survey even if not all questions apply to you. For example, if you are not a current or former research scientist, but are, for…

Wednesday Afternoon Jams: The Sky Is Falling Edition

Another awesome music video from OK Go. The song is called "End Love". Their last video for "This Too Shall Pass" featured a Rube-Goldberg machine; this one messes with your time perception. "The fastest we go is 172,800x, compressing 24 hours of real time into a blazing 1/2 second. The slowest is 1/32x speed, stretching a mere 1/2 second of real time into a whopping 16 seconds. This gives us a fastest to slowest ratio of 5.5 million. If you like averages, the average speed up factor of the band dancing is 270x. In total we shot 18 hours of the band dancing and 192 hours of LA skyline…

Nerd Meme is NOT a Geek Meme

Janet's little nerd meme is hot shit at ScienceBlogs. Everyone's bragging about their nerd score. Well, everyone but those of us that are that the bottom of the nerd totem-pole (like me). All this nerd talk has gotten all the science dorks up in a tizzy -- so much so that they're getting sloppy with their diction. The real nerds in the hizzy know that nerdiness is not synonymous with geekiness. In our little back-channel for ScienceBlogs bloggers, Janet promised us a geeky limerick. Here's what she delivered. Hardly geeky. Definitely nerdy and dorky. But not geeky. This is a geeky limerick…

I am not a Nerd

Janet has a declared a nerd-off, and all the ScienceBlogs bloggers are bragging about their nerdiness. They're showing off scores on nerd quizzes. As you can see I'm not so nerdy (compared to the other bloggers here). My standing as a "Low-Rank Nerd" might qualify me for excommunication from the ScienceBlogs society. I'm a remedial programmer. I have a mediocre understanding of the periodic table. I was never into Star Trek, reading books, or playing Dungeons and Dragons. I like sports. While I may not be a nerd, I do have a surprise for you below the fold. I am (or rather was) a geek. You…

Incorrect Guide to Science

The Panda's Thumb is compiling a chapter by chapter rebuttal of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. This book is part of a series of shoddy academic endeavors that includes The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History; they could remove the word "politically" from the cover and capture a more accurate representation of the contents within. PZ Myers has posted his reply to the chapter on embryology here, and he points out: "It really is a ghastly, badly done book, and unfortunately, while it only takes one dishonest fool to spin a lie, it takes a whole…

What's Up With the Y Chromosome?

The human Y, that is. The Science Creative Quarterly has a very thorough (ie, make sure you have some time to spare) review of the mammalian Y chromosome (focusing on the human Y). The article covers the origin and evolution of the mammalian Y and what the degeneration of the Y means for the future of human male fertility and sex determination. I should point out that the mammalian Y chromosome is an anomaly in origin and sex determination. In fact, every single sex determination system and sex chromosome system that I know of differs from all of the others in some manner. It looks like…

Yo Quiero ESPN Deportes

I have been working from home today (mostly grading papers) and watching the World Baseball Classic. This is the first time I've been able to watch a complete game -- the previous games were in Tokyo, which meant they were shown live in the middle of the night. (Note to NBC, you can show sporting events in another time zone live.) Today's game between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic has the energy of a late season game between two teams in the middle of a pennant race. The Venezuelan team is staying with the favored Dominicans. I also plan to watch the USA-Mexico game, and I wanted…

Everything You Need to Know About Your Academic Career but Were Afraid to Ask

A friend of mine passed along this article from Inside Higher Ed (it's a couple of months old, so you may have seen it already) entitled "What They Don't Teach You in Graduate School". Depending on where you are in your academic career, you can either take it as advice on what you should do, advice on what you should have done, or as totally bogus because you know better. The article is aimed at graduate students, but there are insights to be gained by post-docs and junior faculty, as well. I particularly like this nugget: "Remember that a Ph.D. is primarily an indication of survivorship…

Attack of the Horny Peacock

Last month I mentioned that I had been in Barcelona at the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution conference. I arrived in Spain early in the morning, and, after I got checked in to my hotel, I went with a couple friends to the Barcelona Zoo. This zoo is famous for housing Snowflake, the albino gorilla who lived at the zoo from the mid-1960s until he died in 2003. They still have an impressive collection of primates despite the loss of the zoo's icon. Additionally, the zoo has a roaming band of peafowl. The peacocks and peahens have free reign of the grounds, and you'll often see them…

Genomics and DNA Barcoding

Identifying and cataloging biological diversity is challenging. One way to do go about IDing all the life forms is to sequence a known region of the genome in all those species. This is known as DNA barcoding. An article in PNAS reports on the DNA sequence of a gene found useful for DNA barcoding in plants. In a review of the paper, the following table is presented: DNA Barcoding Genomics Number of species All (or most) One (or few) Number of gene regions One (or few) All (or most) The gist: DNA barcoding results in the sequencing of a single gene in a bunch of species, while genome…

One "Art", Please

I can't draw for shit. And I've got crappy penmanship to boot. All in all, I don't end up with aesthetically pleasing creations when I put pen or pencil to paper. So it's ironic that my one blog post selected for the 2007 edition of the Open Lab is a comic that I made. It's called The Lab Fridge, and it's a play off of a PhD Comic. Thankfully, I had Illustrator at my disposal in creating the comic. I don't think it's my best post of the year, but it is the best (and only) comic that I drew this year. For those of you looking to make it into Open Lab next year, go for one of the niche…

Keeping the Race Pure

Imagine you have two races -- because calling them populations is just too damn PC -- that are fixed for different alleles. Additionally, at loci were there are no fixed differences, alleles are segregating at different frequencies between the two races. In order to keep each of the races pure we must prevent any interbreeding (hybridization) between the two races. Why the hell would we want to keep the races pure? For conservation reasons, of course. You didn't think I was talking about human races, did you? Because I wasn't. Seriously. The NYTimes is running an article on efforts to…

It Happens Again

Why, it seems like just last week that we were kvetching about the ad nominum attacks upon our character -- or, at least, the spelling of our blog's name. The people who add an extra "V" (turning evolgen into evolvgen) are lightweights compared to those who confuse us with Evolution Blog. As of today, we can add Page 6.0221415 Ã 1023 3.14 to the list: From Evolgen, A Boom in Bible Publishing. Jason Rosenhouse comments on an article in The New Yorker that casts Bible printing as a booming business. I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, named Jason Rosenhouse. I am an evolutionary…

Michael Ashburner on Open Access

The new issue of Current Biology contains an interview with Drosophila geneticist Michael Ashburner. Here's a quote from the article: Scientists should realize that if they submit to journals -- like those published by Elsevier, Springer, Kluwer, Wiley and the like -- then their work will be less accessible and not as widely read as it would be if it was published in an Open Access journal. Current Biology is published by Elsevier (who are also involved in the arms trade), which means that Ashburner is pushing for Open Access publishing in a non-Open Access journal. Good stuff. Ashburner's…

The DNA Sequencing Wars

Yesterday, I mentioned that one of the greatest technological developments that contributed to the evolution of population genetics was the automation of DNA sequencing. I was unaware, however, that the automated DNA sequencing method that most people use was patented by a group from Caltech (including Leroy Hood) in 1998. The actual invention was conceived in the early 1980s, but a competing group claims they came up with the idea first according to this article in the NYTimes. If Enzo Biochem, the group suing Caltech over the patent, were to win their lawsuit, companies such as Applied…

Annals of Improbable Research goes to the newstand.

The Guardian has started publishing a column by Marc Abrahams who is editor of the bimonthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize. Check it out! The first article is called "Fizzy Logic" which covers the Coke vs. Pepsi debate. He also has a blog here. Here's a little sample of the column in the Guardian: The nagging question of which is better, Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, sprang from an earlier, more basic question: Can anyone tell the difference? Professor Nicholas H Pronko and colleagues at the University of Wichita, Kansas, conducted a series of…

Winning Nobel prize allows you to live two more years!

It seems that if you win the Nobel prize you can live for 2 more years! Screw exercise and eating right - I'm gonna win the NOBEL PRIZE!!!!! Anyone have any good research ideas? Just think you can be responsible for me living TWO MORE YEARS! The average life span for this group was just over 76 years. Winners of the Nobel Prize were found to live 1.4 years longer on average (77.2 years) than those who had "merely" been nominated for a prize (who lived on average for 75.8 years). When the survey was restricted to only comparing winners and nominees from the same country, the longevity gap…

RSVP Mountain Dew Task

I always find it interesting when advertisers use basic psychological research to sell their products - In this case Mountain Dew uses an RSVP task. Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is a technique in psychology (it's also being used for more practical things like displaying text on small displays) used to study a number of topics like attentional blink, temporal masking and repetition blindness. This ad doesn't quite fit into that mold since you don't know what the target is before hand, but the basic idea is there - show a bunch of pictures (or words) in rapid succession and your…

Drunken Skeptics? Are there any other kinds?

If there's one area where I've been remiss, it's been in promoting new skeptics groups. Maybe it's the enormous Orac-ian ego. Maybe it's sheer laziness. Maybe it's becoming too engrossed in work and my two blog projects. I will try to rectify that in the future beginning by flogging a new skeptics group from my hometown. Well, not quite my hometown, but southeast Michigan nonetheless. I'm referring to the Michigan Skeptics Association, which now has a blog, has had a meetup, and has announced a new podcast dubbed the Drunken Skeptics Podcast, which will debut soon. It's to be hosted by Adam…

Texas Will Review Science Standards

Education committees are beginning to review the science standards for Texas Schools this month. There are indications that efforts will be made to weaken the standing of evolution, or insinuate creationism, creation science, or intelligent design into the standards. The current Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards includes a statement that sudents must learn "the theory of biological evolution." The standards also specify that students must apply critical thinking, address "strengths and weaknesses" in theories. This does not sound like a bad idea, but it is exactly the kind of…

Evangelistic Film Not OK for Public Schools

From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State: A church-produced evangelical Christian movie is aimed at evangelism and is inappropriate for public schools, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told Alabama educators. After receiving complaints, Americans United has urged officials at Tuscaloosa City Schools to stop showing the film "Facing the Giants." "This movie is not educational; it's evangelistic," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "Parents and taxpayers expect our public schools to teach, not preach." In a Jan. 15…

When the Robots take over, people may still have one use...

In Stockholm, the heat will be sucked out of the bodies of the thousands of people who pass through the Central Railway station to heat the buildings. "So many people go through the Central Station ... We want to harness some of the warmth they produce to help heat the new building," Karl Sundholm, of the Swedish state-held property administration company Jernhuset, told AFP. [source] A quarter of a million people pass through the station daily, which should provide a lot of heat. Normally, their body heat, and their body odor, is vented from the building. Once the new system is…

War on Christmas Updates

Dispatches: More War on Christmas Idiocy Regarding Pat Boone ... What fucking universe do these people live in? I'd bet a month's pay that not once in Pat's entire life has even a single person ever objected to him saying "Merry Christmas" to them. Pharyngula: We have a Problem ... The archbishop of Wales thinks one of the greatest problems facing the world is "atheist fundamentalism".... and we have presidential candidates pretending to talk to god, and getting standing ovations for it... Respectful Insolence: Deirdre Imus gives everyone some stupid for Christmas I've mentioned before…

EuroCreo Planned

Creationists plan British theme park The latest salvo in creationism's increasingly ferocious battle with evolution is about to be fired in Lancashire. Not in a fiery sermon preached from the pulpit, but in the form of a giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days. The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.5m Christian theme park…

More Evidence for Water on Mars

This time, it comes from the side effect of the Mars Rover getting the Martian equivalent of a flat tire... NASA's Spirit Mars rover has been dealing with [a] right front tire [that] went bad nearly two years ago. It didn't go flat, but it's quit turning forcing NASA to move the rover around in reverse ever since, trailing the stuck wheel behind. But nearly a year later, [it was noticed that [r]uts carved by the bad wheel last May churned up a bright spot in the rover's wake. Rover guiders turned the craft back to the colorful streak for a closer look and discovered that the rock contains…

More Evidence for Water on Mars

This time, it comes from the side effect of the Mars Rover getting the Martian equivalent of a flat tire... NASA's Spirit Mars rover has been dealing with [a] right front tire [that] went bad nearly two years ago. It didn't go flat, but it's quit turning forcing NASA to move the rover around in reverse ever since, trailing the stuck wheel behind. But nearly a year later, [it was noticed that [r]uts carved by the bad wheel last May churned up a bright spot in the rover's wake. Rover guiders turned the craft back to the colorful streak for a closer look and discovered that the rock contains…

Look Who's Not Talking Now

Disturbing news regarding the San Fran Bay oil spill from the New York Times: The captain and crewmen of a Chinese ship responsible for an oil spill after hitting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge have refused to speak to federal investigators, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. But the local pilot who was guiding the ship told investigators that its radar had malfunctioned shortly before the accident. ... The Coast Guard said Wednesday that the captain and crewmen were not tested for drugs within the required 32 hours after the accident. The pilot was…

The beginning of the end of whatshername

Sarah Palin has accidentally revealed her own 500 dollar haircut, her own Chappaquiddick, her own Monica Lewinsky. On a recent trip to Canada, during a speech, she revealed the fact that when she lived in rural Alaska as a child, her family regularly slipped across the Canadian border to avail themselves of the Canadian Healthcare System. Yes, folks, Sarah Palin was an illegal in Canada, as I assume the health care system there is for Canadians, not Unitedstateseans. And, yes, folks, Palin's people are socialist commies who engage in socialist commie Obamacare Canadian style then lie about…

Oscar J. Polaco has died

From his colleague, Eduardo Corona-M, via the Zooarch list server: He was a great researcher at the Instituto Nacional de AntropologÃa e Historia and taught zoology at Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas in the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. In 2006 he received the Fryxel Award by the Society of American Archaeology. For many year he promotes the archaeozoological studies in Mexico and Latin America, he was part of ICAZ Comitee and one of the organizers of the 10th ICAZ Meeting in Mexico. Rest in peace Se comunica a ustedes el lamentable deceso del Profesor Ãscar J. Polaco,…

Inside scoop from Majikthise

It looks like Lindsay Beyerstein dodged a bullet—she was offered the position with the Edwards campaign that Amanda Marcotte accepted, and she turned it down. It's a smart article—there are some good lessons to be learned about blogs and politics from it. The Edwards campaign wants decentralized people-powered politics. Ironically, by hiring well-known bloggers to manage a destination Web site, it was actually centralizing and micromanaging. Every campaign needs a blog, but the most important part of a candidate's netroots operation is the disciplined political operatives who can quietly…

Antarctic marine bonanza

What's happening in the Antarctic? Researchers are looking at seabed changes that result from global warming. The researchers catalogued about 1,000 species in an area of the Antarctic seabed where warming temperatures are believed to have caused the collapse of overlying ice shelves, affecting the marine life below. "This is virgin geography," said expedition member Gauthier Chapelle. "If we don't find out what this area is like now following the collapse of the ice shelf, and what species are there, we won't have any basis to know in 20 years' time what has changed and how global warming…

Errm, what?

So these media people are making a movie about some tombs discovered in Jerusalem—bearing the names Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua—and getting all this hype about discovering the final resting place of the family of the spiritual founder of Christianity. I'm more than a little dubious; they prattle unconvincingly about their evidence. But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family. Wait, DNA tests? What did they do,…