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Congratulations, Birmingham Groves

This weekend was the Tournament of Champions, the most prestigious high school debate tournament every year. It's very difficult to qualify for. You have to win two "bids" to get an invitation, each one of which requires getting to the late elimination rounds of a prominent national tournament, so there are nothing but very good teams in it. It's the real national championship of high school debate. And one school from Michigan, Birmingham Groves, placed two teams in the top 17 (one of them made the octofinals and lost there, the other lost a playoff round to get into the octofinals,…

Samuel Chen, Take 3

I just posted the following comment on Chen's blog: I've been an ID watcher for a long time and I've seen a lot of funny things get said. But I have to say, this performance may take the cake. It's at least on the level with Dembski's nonsense last fall where he claimed that our side pulled Shallit's testimony because it was an "embarrassment", then was shown that in fact his side had tried frantically to keep Shallit off the stand, and then deleted the posts where he had made the accusations in the first place, saying that it was all just a bit of "street theater". Chen posts a comment…

MikeGene Retracts on Pianka

MikeGene has publicly retracted his support for Forrest Mims' hysterical accusation that Eric Pianka is encouraging bioterrorism at Telic Thoughts. That should be applauded. The transcript of his speech, being played up hugely by Mims and Dembski's crew, simply doesn't support that charge. Yes, Pianka is a radical environmentalist. I think his views are far too extreme to be taken seriously. But they're not felonious, for crying out loud, and they certainly don't amount to fomenting terrorism as Mims is so ridiculously claiming (along with almost unanimous support from the ID crowd, for some…

Why Do They Always Ask Tough Questions?

I was away at Readercon this weekend, which meant a fair amount of hanging out in a hotel bar socializing with writer types. One of whom was working on a novel that will have some hard-science elements to it, and had been looking for a physicist to ask questions of. Having just sat down, and being well supplied with beer, I offered to give it a shot. Unfortunately, the first question she asked was (paraphrasing slightly, as I was well supplied with beer): Is the speed of light a property of space-time, or a property of light? I still don't quite know what to do with that one. Further…

Brother, Can You Spare Four Dollars?

As you have no doubt seen elsewhere on ScienceBlogs, the great DonorsChoose blog challenge ends tomorrow. I won't actually be here to do a final post on the subject, so this is the last prodding you'll get from me. As of this morning, the Uncertain Principles challenge entry stands at $996.02, according to the leader board. If you've got a spare $3.98 that you don't know what to do with, please consider donating it to a worthy cause, to get us an even $1,000. Or kick in a little extra-- I'm not that obsessive about round numbers... On the other hand, if you're being strategic about this, and…

Math Isn't That Hard

Inside Higher Ed has a story this morning about Smith College moving toward requiring math. Smith, a women's college in Massacusetts, has had an "open curriculum" (i.e., no requirements at all) for many years, which has allowed lots of students to graduate without ever taking a course requiring math or mathematical reasoning. They haven't introduced a requirement yet, but they're apparently leaning in that direction. As you might expect, I'm all in favor of this-- I think we need to demand a greater level of mathematical knowledge from all our college graduates. As a confirmed liberal arts…

Statistical Physics Research Trip

I'm going to Vegas, baby! A good friend from college is getting married this summer, and there's a bachelor party for him this weekend at a casino in Las Vegas. It looks to be quite the affair, with thirty-odd guys, and reservations at a bunch of cool spots, because they're high-rolling financiers. This is going to be quite the experience, as I've been living like a freakin' monk for the past two months, on account of my stomach problems-- no booze, in bed early most nights, highly restricted diet... It'll be an adventure, seeing whether I can avoid doing major damage to myself. Then again,…

Weird plant

I thought this was "vipers bugloss" but I'm no longer at all convinced by that. Even in the unwarped version. But this is an odd one. See how the stem has become flat, and the flower head all congested? I'd be interested to know what sort of oddity or gall this is, and also the True Name of the plant. Its a common weed or flower, depending on your viewpoint. Here is a pic showing the stem from the side, so you can see how flat its become. For comparison, here's a normal one, with free bumblebee: Here's the whole clump, with free beehive: The warped one is on the lefthand side. Here's…

Congratulations to Obama

Obama wins. As election day drew closer it became clearer to me that, whatever Obama's flaws, I did want him to win. You can't have someone who habitually lies about his marathon times as vice-POTUS, and I agree fairly well with the Economist on Romney, and overall America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill. I don't get the impression that America deserves better than Obama, though: many of the obvious flaws in their politicking system derive directly from the laziness and self-deception of the electorate. [Update: so, what about GW in the election?…

Confirmation bias

So, Lindzen f*cked up (Misrepresentation from Lindzen) badly enough that he needed to apologise. He is being weaselly, though, in throwing the blame on someone else. And he is wrong to say that the URLs of the datasets were the same. Part of his "apology" is rather amusing: The public interest in this quantity, however, does make it a matter subject to confirmation bias and to pull a comment out (thanks dp): That's exactly true - someone (Howard Hayden) got a result that they liked (looked like GISS had changed numbers) and confirmation bias made them and Lindzen believe it and publicise it…

Fossil fuels are sub-prime assets, Bank of England governor warned?

And, since I've been cwuel to the septics, I suppose I ought to have a go at the greenies, for balance: A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. -- Proverbs 11:1 So (h/t KZ) the Grauniad says: Open letter to Sir Mervyn King says overexposure to high-carbon assets by London-listed companies risks creating a 'carbon bubble'... The huge reserves of coal, oil and gas held by companies listed in the City of London are "sub-prime" assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability, a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists has warned…

More stupidity about Fukushima

The Fukushima stuff was all very exciting, and doubtless still is if you live nearby (James?). But it does seem to lead to high levels of drivel from the more soppy-hand-wringing Guardianista types: We had a pretty good warning earlier this year, when the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused an even bigger tragedy when the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a meltdown The tsunami killed 20k people, or whatever. Fukushima killed no-one, directly, though it wouldn't be surprising if it kills a few eventually. So why was Fukushima an "even bigger tragedy"? Perhaps Kate Sheppard is…

Climate denial undermines all science

This is something I've been meaning to say for some time, but Gareth has said it instead. I agree with Gareth, but it goes a little further: it isn't just the interface to policy, it is that a whole group of people (possibly large) are being actively encouraged to undermine science, to fail to understand how it works; to think that their own opinions really are as valid as published research; and so on. Science is a whole thing, a state of mind; you can't just cut off one area of "climate science"; everything links together. This is beginning to sound like the traditional complaint about…

Cam clean

Anyone who was anyone (and some who aren't :-) went to the great Cam clean up. Unlike James, I didn't bother turn up for the speeches. This may have been a mistake, as not only did I not get on the grapple teams but also by the time I'd come along most of the litter had gone too. I walked from the FSG (G not J to keep Andy happy!) to the railway bridge and found somewhat less than a bin liner's worth. Still, it was a lovely day for it, I got to abuse Meg in the tub (sorry) and I saw some nice lichen: Weird sight of the day was the diver finding stuff under the Elizabeth Way bridge, as…

He's mad!

Though I must point out that this is "mad" in the sense of "angry", not "nut job". I mean RP Jr, and he is annoyed with Oreskes, saying What is it about the climate change debate that causes previously excellent scholars to go absolutely insane and disregard all standards of research integrity? I don't think Oreskes is insane, but I do think her standards have slipped. RP is kind enough to cite me. Incidentally, why is it that social science types get to give their essays silly names? Real science folks papers have boring names like "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies". Her previous one…

Union Jobs

Two positions of possible interest to academic job seekers: -- First, we're hiring again in the Union college Department of Physics and Astronomy: We invite applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position starting in September 2016, with a preference for an experimental physicist working in either biophysics or soft condensed matter. We encourage applications from interdisciplinary scientists and those who could make use of the College’s shared instrumentation resources (including AFM, SEM, micro- Raman and micro-FTIR instruments and IBM cluster computer; see http://www.union.…

057/366: Last Practice

I did take some DSLR photos today, but the photo of the day is a cell-phone shot from the final soccer practice of the fall for SteelyKid's second-grade team. The last rec soccer practice for the fall 2015 season. SteelyKid is not, in fact, in this photo; she had a belt test for the Elite Team at her taekwondo school tonight, so she was off getting dinner before some hard-core sparring. I was at practice because I signed up to assistant coach this year-- I was going to end up going to the practices anyway, and figured I might as well help out. It's been fun, and definitely increases my…

032/366: Symmetry

Took the camera along this afternoon when I took Emmy for a walk (Kate and I are going to see The Martian tonight, so Emmy got an early dinner and stroll), and took pictures of a bunch of random stuff in a little park near our house. Including these two pictures pasted together into one: Two tree trunks in a park near Chateau Steelypips. These two trees aren't right next to each other, but I didn't do much more than turn 90 degrees to get from one to the other. If I were attempting to pass myself off as an artiste, I would explain that this juxtaposition here is a political allegory: the…

Physics Blogging Round-Up: Condensed Matter, Magic, Navigation, and Late Nights

Another week, another set of posts at Forbes to link here: -- Why Do Solids Have Energy Bands? A conceptual explanation of why putting together lots of atoms with electrons in well-defined energy levels leads to a solid with electrons filling broad energy bands. -- This Is The Key Distinction Between Magic And Advanced Technology: Following up a fun panel at Readercon, and how the "magical thinking" involved in my grad school lab is distinct from real magic. -- What Submarine Navigation Can Teach Us About Building Luxury Prison Tunnels: The editor at Forbes sent email asking if anybody could…

Amazing Blackbody Radiation and LHC Basics

I was proctoring an exam yesterday in two different sections of the same class, so I had a lot of quite time. Which means I wrote not one but two new posts for Forbes... The first continues a loose series of posts about the exotic physics behind everyday objects (something I'm toying with as a possible theme for a new book...), looking at the surprisingly complicated physics of an incandescent light bulb. A light bulb filament emits (to a reasonable approximation) black-body radiation, which is historically important as the starting point for quantum physics. But when you think about it, it's…

The Big Picture of Eureka

No, not the little cover .jpg that I use as the "featured image" to tag these posts promoting Eureka. The post title refers to the Big Picture Science radio show from the SETI insitute. I'm one of the people interviewed in the latest episode, Maria Konnikova (author of Mastermind) and Louis Liebenberg. This is another interview that was recorded remotely down at WAMC in Albany. They pushed back on my stock answers a little more than usual, which in one sense was fun, but was also pretty exhausting, as I was at the lowest point of the cold I'm just getting over now. I went home right after it…

Messier Monday: A Cluster That Stands Out From The Galaxy, M23 (Synopsis)

“[T]his all fades to black, and it’s gone. It’s dust. Choose carefully what you obsess about.” -Meshell Ndegeocello It's been a long time since we've had a new open cluster to look at, since the plane of the Milky Way (and the region towards the galactic center) has been obscured by the Earth and the Sun over the past few months. But finally, the year has progressed to the point where it's becoming visible again, and it brings with it some spectacular views of our galaxy's rich, open clusters! Image credit: Fernando Cabrerizo, via http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130712.html. For this week's…

Ask Ethan #41: Dating the Distant Universe (Synopsis)

“Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.” -Edward Albee Every week on Ask Ethan, we've been taking a look at my favorites of the questions you send in. And one of the things you've been wondering about is this: when we look at an object way out there in the Universe, how do we determine how far back in time we're looking. Image credit: © 2013 Alan Dyer, via http://amazingsky.net/2013/12/10/orion-and-canis-major-rising/. Is it as simple as measuring the distance to it and calculating the time by using the speed of light? If…

The Death of Dark Matter's #1 Competitor (Synopsis)

“The discrepancy between what was expected and what has been observed has grown over the years, and we’re straining harder and harder to fill the gap.” -Jeremiah P. Ostriker When it comes to the Universe, and the structure in it, from galaxies to groups to clusters to the grand cosmic web on the largest scales, you simply can't account for it all without dark matter. Image credit: 2dF GRS, via http://www2.aao.gov.au/2dfgrs/Public/Survey/description.html. But in principle, you might not need dark matter to do it; you might be able to modify the laws of gravity instead to take care of it.…

Weekend Diversion: Finding Darkness (Synopsis)

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” -Walt Whitman To those of you who regularly enjoy clear, dark skies and the wondrous sights they bring, you have not only my envy, but the envy of a great many of us who long to have the wonders of the Universe directly accessible to our eyes. As  the Jayhawks sing, you might be dreaming of Stumbling Through The Dark. But the way our modern world works, humans tend to be clustered together in heavily light-polluted cities. Image credit: Google Maps / Blue Marble / NASA Earth Observatory, via http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2012. But…

Weekend Diversion: The greatest album covers as seen from behind (Synopsis)

“I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.” -Elizabeth Taylor You know how important music is to me, and for many of you it holds a similarly prominent place in your lives and in your hearts. A big part of that experience, going back to our youths, is that of the album cover and liner notes, something that's often lost here in the digital age of music. Have a listen to one of Nick Drake’s unique songs, Things Behind The Sun, while I share with you one of the most amazing art projects I've ever seen. Image credit: flickr user…

The secret of the galaxy's most famous nebula (Synopsis)

“The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the ‘evolution’ of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.” -William James Summer is coming. No, not to Westeros, but to your night skies, and with it, views of the galactic plane and even the galactic center, which holds more than a few surprises inside. In particular, it contains the most famous nebula in the entire night sky: the Eagle Nebula. Image credit: T.A.Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF…

Weekend Diversion: The Amazing Life of Coral Reefs (Synopsis)

“Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There’s still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.” -Sylvia Earle Each and every weekend, I'm committed to bringing you a unique and wondrous story about the Universe, along with a song to take you through it. This weekend's song comes from Laura Veirs, who sings about the beauty of a little piece of the world at night in…

Weekend Diversion: What English Sounds Like to Non-English Speakers

"So when the cat has got your tongue, there's no need for dismay! Just summon up this word and then you've got a lot to say! Pick out those eighteen consonants and sixteen vowels as well, And put them in an order which is very hard to spell..." -Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious, The Sherman Brothers There's something mysterious about foreign languages that we do not speak; the word barbarian comes from the ancient Greeks, who thought that the speech of the Medes and Persians sounded like "bar bar bar" to them. While we might be quick to dismiss such sounds as gibberish, Italian entertainer…

Global Warming Means More Lightning

A new study just out in Science suggests that we will have an increase in lightning strikes of about 12 percent for every degree C of global warming. That could add up. From the abstract: Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the…

Global Warming Update for September 2015

The NASA GISS global surface measurement for September is out. I don't know off hand if there are corrections for earlier months. The data for September show the month as the same as the earlier month, 0.81 degrees C anomaly. The current best estimate of the warming of the Earth's surface from anthropogenic global warming, using the NASA data and a 12 month running mean, looks like this: Looking at just the first months of the year (for each year) to estimate the position of the present year as a record breaker (or not) we get this: Word on the street is that the present month, October,…

September 16th Is Buy A Teacher A Book Day

OK, not really, I just made that up. But it should be! As all the kiddies are going back to school, especially yours if you've got 'em, and you are going to have your first meetings with the teachers (Parent Night, Conferences, etc.) over the next few days, this is a good time to bring your kid's teacher(s) a nice book. A book on the Evolution Creation Debate for your kid's biology teacher, or school administrator. A nice science activity book, not necessarily to use in class, but for the elementary school teacher to get some ideas from. Some ideas: A local guide to birds or trees or…

The outlook for Hawaiian coral is bleak

Marine biologists from the University of Queensland is looking at coral reefs in Hawaii and what they see is not good. They used high resolution images to track coral bleaching and death. Recently coral reefs in Hawaii suffered their first known mass bleaching event, caused by unusually warm waters associated with the now famous "Blob" of warm sea water in the Pacific. An overall warming trend (anthropogenic global warming) along with the additional effects of a growing El Niño seem to be causing this. This phenomenon is happening now. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, chief scientist at Global Change…

Weekend Diversion: As winter approaches...

"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words." -Doris Humphrey I don't know what the weather is like for the rest of you, but here, it's deceptively cold. What do I mean? You know that feeling, when you look outside, and the world looks bright, sunny, and full of color? And then you open the door or window, or step outside, and the world feels like this: Cold! And all you want to do is run back inside, hide…

Clay Higgins: McCarthyism

Scientists are now being subjected to unbridled McCarthyism. Eventually the transcript will be available, but for now you'll have to just trust me on this. Congressman Clay Higgins, Republican on Lamar Smith's alt-Science committee, demanded today to know if climate scientist Michael Mann (author of The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, and By Michael E. Mann - Dire Predictions, Second Edition: Understanding Climate Change">this book…

Editing Out Diseases with the Help of Bioengineering

I get a lot of "infographics" and many are quite good. But this medium has become a vehicle for commercial advertising. So, some company comes up with an info graphics, maybe makes a good one, sends it around to the bloggers and such, and thier name, somewhere down there near the bottom, gets around. I don't mind the commercial aspect too much, but unless I'm able to vet the graphic, I can't post it, I don't generally have time or resources to do that, so I therefore ignore them. But this one I'll post because it looks interesting and is produced by a university. Also, we often discuss GMOs…

The CS Detective by Jeremy Kubica

The CS Detective: An Algorithmic Tale of Crime, Conspiracy, and Computation by Jeremy Kubica is the tory of disgraced ex-detective and hardboiled private eye Frank Runtime. Frank Runtime knows REGEX and is not afraid to use it. From the publishers: When a robbery hits police headquarters, it's up to Frank Runtime and his extensive search skills to catch the culprits. In this detective story, you'll learn how to use algorithmic tools to solve the case. Runtime scours smugglers' boats with binary search, tails spies with a search tree, escapes a prison with depth-first search, and picks locks…

2016 Science Books for Kids

Here I have just a few suggestions for science books for the kiddos. See this post for the adult version. The Outdoor Science Lab for Kids and the other books in the same series are excellent, highly recommended, and reviewed here. Treecology is also a science activity book that people seem to love. Chance are you already have it. Obviously, it focuses on trees, but that does not stop it from being year round, and there are, of course, many non-tree things that relate to trees, and that stuff is covered as well. My review. Electronics for Kids and The Arduino Project Handbook are great…

Get Your Dump Trump Bumper Sticker

Remember the Dump Nixon movement? Well, now we have the Dump Trump movenet. Same idea, but it rhyme better! I have assembled a handful of suggestions for your body, your car, your doorway. The Dump Trump Hat Anti-Trump Navy Blue also comes in a "Fuck Trump" version and is very reasonably priced. I've already ordered mine. This second one is cheaper: Dump Trump- Navy Blue Hat/Cap- Low Profile- Adjustable 100% Cotton. I'm actually worried that I'll wear out my Dump Trump hat, so I'll probably order one of these too just in case. Here is a Dump Trump Tee Shirt: Dump Trump T-Shirt-Funny…

Weekend Diversion: Snowpocalypse Now?

Things slow down when it snows everywhere. They did when I lived in New York, Chicago, and Madison, WI, and for good reason. There are a few basic rules about driving in snow that everybody adheres to, including being knowledgeable about what your vehicle can and cannot handle. It's a pain, but it could be a lot worse. When people make mistakes, scenes like this are the worst you're likely to find. For the past couple of winters, I've lived in Portland, OR. The climate is generally warmer, and so snow is rare. We get snow maybe once a year. As a result, I was completely unprepared for the…

Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the Solomon Amendment, a law requiring universities to allow military recruiters to recruit on campus as they would any other potential employer (see ruling here). It was yet another 8-0 decision (Alito did not participate) in a relatively controversial case, which at least so far seems to be the story of the Roberts court. The decision is the correct one, I think. Obviously I am all for condemning the military for its anti-gay policies and have done so many times. But that doesn't mean you can prevent them from recruiting on campuses. The arguments of FAIR…

ACLU Defends Southern Baptist Preacher

This is interesting. I wrote a few weeks ago about Lonnie Latham, the anti-gay minister who was arrested at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. In an interesting twist, the ACLU has filed an amicus brief in his case arguing that the ruling in Lawrence v Texas, which struck down state anti-sodomy laws, makes the law under which Latham was arrested unconstitutional as well: "The Supreme Court [via the Lawrence v. Texas decision] had made it crystal clear that when it comes to their sex lives, consenting adults are free to do whatever they…

DaveScot's Sense of Humor

Writing at Dembski's blog, DaveScot refers to my post on him taking over that blog yesterday: Be sure to read Ed Brayton's trackback pn Dispatches. The peanut gallery never fails to provide some laughs. Just to show Ed there's no hard feelings I approved his trackback. Let's see if he returns the courtesy (probability zero) and lifts the ban on DaveScot on his blog. Returns the courtesy? You had a chance here, Dave, and you spent 2 days dropping (literally) 30-40 comments a day full of ignorance and vitriol. There isn't a chance in hell I'm lifting the ban on you because you are an obnoxious…

Bush's Hypocrisy on Medical Marijuana

Radley Balko uncovered this and posted the text on his blog. It's from the Dallas Morning News, October 20, 1999, while he was campaigning for President: Gov. George Bush said he backs a state's right to decide whether to allow medical use of marijuana, a position that puts him sharply at odds with Republicans on Capitol Hill. "I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose," the governor said recently in Seattle in response to a reporter's question. We'll put that one right next to his campaign position that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act was…

Our Friday itinerary

Here are our goals for today: We're going to spend the morning screwing around downtown, and are going to be at the Seattle Center International Fountain around noon. Skatje wants to go to the zoo, so we'll do that in the afternoon. Then around sixish we'll be peckish and I tried to find a place not far from Woodland Park, and could not resist the idea of the Jolly Roger Taproom in Ballard. So that's where we'll try to be. Keep in mind we'll be stumbling about in an unfamiliar city and struggling to find parking, so timeliness is unlikely to be one of our virtues. Oh, no…of all the…

Darwin, Racism and Slavery - Take 2

As a follow up to my fisking of Bill Federer's nonsense about Darwin and racism, here's an interesting new article. There is a new edition of Darwin's Descent of Man being published with a forward by Jim Moore and Adrian Desmond. The two Darwin biographers argue that one of the reasons why Darwin was so firm in his belief in evolution was that he saw it as a way to fight against slavery, which he abhorred: The academics say that the biologist's work was driven by a desire to prove that because all races were descended from the same ape ancestors, none could be superior... Darwin caused a…

Political Corruption, continued

The LA Times continues its investigative series on politicians misusing their office with an expose` on Ted Stevens, the enormously powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and how he has become quite wealthy by starting businesses that benefit from legislation his committee passes. Among the other things they uncovered Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the…

Are Anthropologists a Dangerous Tribe?

Two young boys are having an argument while their fathers, resting in hammocks, look on. The argument is over something silly but escalates until the dads decide to intervene. They equip each boy with a small pole and position them face to face, explaining the rules of the game. Each child has the opportunity to whack the other with the stick, in turn. The boys can continue to carry out this ritualized but stingingly painful combat until one of them gives up, handing victory to his opponent. Eventually, these boys will grow into men, and this sort of combat, using either long poles borrowed…

So, what do you think about de-extinction?

John Platt has a nice summary of recent activity in the are of de-extinction. This is where you use modern genetic techniques to bring species that are extinct back into existence. I find it interesting that casual talk about this sort of thing almost always starts out with things like de-extinction very large and very long extinct, and I'm sure, very expensive to take care of creatures like dinosaurs or wooly mammoths. People in the de-extinction business (and there are some, and there have even been some efforts carried out) are more realistic, of course. I've always said we should…

Meteor Hits Russia, Not. Maybe did.

UPDATE: Somebody found a hole in some ice. This is a meteor streaking across the sky in the vicinity of the Urals: Numerous additional films of that event and some analysis are on Phil Plait's blog, here. Here's a FAKE video purported to be a crater formed by a fragment of that meteor BUT IT ISN'T: From Phil Plait's blog: "Note also lots of hoaxes are turning up, like a video of a flaming crater that's actually a flaming pit in Turkmenistan that's been burning for decades (called "The Door to Hell"). Be cautious and be skeptica" ... apparently the shock wave of the meteor passing over…