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Links for 2011-01-23

Food for Thinkers: The Rise of White People Food - Food - GOOD "White People Food has nothing to do with the relative melanin level of the person eating it. There are plenty of black and Hispanic foodies happily gorging themselves. They, too, in this case, are White People. And it has nothing to do with cuisine or the chef. In fact, Momofuku, the very quintessence of a White People restaurant, serves Asian-themed food and is run by David Chang, who is Korean. White People Food does, however, have a lot to do with money. Are you wealthy enough to afford cuts of [insert farm name] [insert…

The digital revolution and the mainstreaming of arthropods

In 1934, a diminutive book by an unknown author seeded the largest conservation movement in history. The book, Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds, pioneered the modern field guide format with crisp illustrations of diagnostic characters, all in a pocket-sized read. The Guide sold out in a week, but the book's effects are ongoing. To understand the magnitude of Peterson's impact, consider how naturalists traditionally identified birds. They'd take a shotgun into the field, and if they saw something of interest they'd kill it. Birding was necessarily limited to the landed-…

You can't say that on the radio

If you need to kill some time while you wait for word on who Obama has chosen as running mate, check out this transcript of a radio debate on climate change. Canadian PR agent Richard Littlemore takes on British journalist Christopher Monckton on the Roy Green Show on Hamilton, Ont.'s CHML. The sad affair was presciently summed up 500 years ago by Michel de Montaigne: "No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately." Monckton, who most recently embarrassed the American Physical Society by convincing one its online editors to post an error-ridden paper on…

Sunday sermon: Atheism in the WaPo

A pair of stories in Saturday's Washington Post would have us believe that atheism is on the rise in America and in Europe. And despite the popularity of the subject here on ScienceBlogs, the culture of science barely rates a mention in either story. Also missing are much in the way of quantitative evidence to back up the main thesis, but there are some hints that the recent proliferation of "New Atheist" literature may be responsible for whatever growth in atheism there really is. The Post's story on the situation in Europe is headlined " In Europe and U.S., Nonbelievers Are Increasingly…

Brains, Past and Future

By sheer coincidence (or some journalistic twist of fate) two magazine articles of mine are coming out this week, and they just so happen to make a nice neurological pairing. In Science, I've written an essay about what seventeenth-century natural philosophers have to teach twenty-first century neuroscientists about the brain. In the February issue of Popular Science, my cover story looks at the latest work on brain-machine interfaces that will let people control machines with thought alone. Inevitably, the Pop Sci piece can only focus on a time scale of a few years. But the latest brain-…

Many economists have egg on their face

Economic historian, Gregory Clark, details why times have changed for academic economists: The current recession has revealed the weaknesses in the structures of modern capitalism. But it also revealed as useless the mathematical contortions of academic economics. There is no totemic power. This for two reasons: (1) Almost no-one predicted the world wide downtown. Academic economists were confident that episodes like the Great Depression had been confined to the dust bins of history. There was indeed much recent debate about the sources of "The Great Moderation" in modern economies, the…

Science blogging article & paper

The current issue of The Economist contains a short article about how weblogs are beginning to change the way science is being communicate: Earlier this month Seed Media Group...launched the latest version of Research Blogging, a website which acts as a hub for scientists to discuss peer-reviewed science...The new portal provides users with tools to label blog posts about particular pieces of research, which are then aggregated, indexed and made available online. ...According to Adam Bly, Seed's founder, internet-aided interdisciplinarity and globalisation, coupled with a generational…

The Buffyverse and Incidental Exposure to Science

One of the great paradoxes of contemporary society is that Americans by way of the Internet and specialized cable TV channels have greater access to scientific information than at any other time in history, yet knowledge of science and related policy matters remains very low. The problem is too many content choices. In a fragmented media system, strong "preference gaps" exist, as citizens not only select among media choices based on ideology or religious views, but also based on their preference, or lack thereof, for science-related content. As a result, with a wide diversity of…

Not Even Wrong

From time to time, my Seed magazine hosts throw out a question for bloggers to answer. Today's question is concerns a column by James S. Robbins on global warming in the National Review Online. Robbins claims that global warming will be a great thing if it happens, which he doubts. The question is, does he have a point? The question of what the full range of effects from global warming will be--both good and bad--is an important one, but Robbins shows little ability to offer an answer. His column overlooks important things, gets various facts wrong, and belies a general ignorance of and…

New Books of Interest

I found out about these two books from the Chronicle Review; haven't read either one, but they looked interesting and some of you may want to check them out. Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis The number of African Americans and Latino/as receiving undergraduate and advanced degrees in computer science is disproportionately low, according to recent surveys. And relatively few African American and Latino/a high school students receive the kind of institutional encouragement, educational opportunities, and preparation needed for them to choose computer…

Info-boxes and resistance to science

There's been lots of commentary online about Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg's article about why children (and adults) often resist learning scientific information. Deric Bownds gives the money quote from the article: Resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and it will be especially strong if there is a nonscientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are thought of as…

Cognitive Daily readers tackle change

Last Friday, we asked readers to identify changes in a painting by Eugène Delacroix, Christopher Columbus and His Son at La Rábida. For the test, the picture flashed maddeningly between its original state and a doctored version Greta made in Photoshop. Here's the original: We admit it -- we were being a little sneaky. We asked you to "identify the change" in the picture, subtly hinting that only one part of the picture would change. You can click on the picture to see the movie again and convince yourself that two things are changing in the picture: the arch in the center transforms to a…

Chimps With Spears

In a comment to the last post, "Korax" mentions a paper published online in Current Biology this week on chimpanzee tool use. The tool use described in this paper is, as far as I can tell, as or more complex than any previously witnessed in chimps. Here's the abstract: Although tool use is known to occur in species ranging from naked mole rats [1] to owls [2], chimpanzees are the most accomplished tool users. The modification and use of tools during hunting, however, is still considered to be a uniquely human trait among primates. Here, we report the first account of habitual tool use during…

Memo to whom it may concern.

The bullets are addressed to different people and organizations, and I doubt very much that some of them would recognize these were addressed to them even if they received an actual memo. (It's been that kind of week.) Be it known that: I do not at present have the power to be in more than one place at a time. If I did, rest assured that I would find more interesting ways to use it than simply getting two kids to soccer-related activities in different locations at the same time. I wrote a detailed FAQ for my online class for the express purpose of helping students locate the answers to…

Should Scientists Date People Who Believe in Astrology?

I remember, when I was getting to know Amanda, carefully exploring certain key issues such as this. It actually didn't take long to find out that we had almost identical political views, and perspectives on science, rational thinking, religion, and so on. (I say "almost" only because there is room for variation, but I can't think of any actual differences in perspective ... only differences in level of attention to various issues). Anyway, here is a piece by Aaron Rowe in The Wired on the topic: While searching for a soulmate on several online dating sites, I caught myself disregarding…

Rare genetic variants protect against type 1 diabetes

Nejentsev et al. (2009). Rare Variants of IFIH1, a Gene Implicated in Antiviral Responses, Protect Against Type 1 Diabetes. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1167728 The first item on my long list of predictions for 2009 was that this will be the year of rare variants for common disease - the year that we really start tracking down the low-frequency genetic variants (between 0.1 and 5% in frequency) that likely contribute substantially to the risk of common diseases like arthritis and diabetes. It's far too early for me to claim vindication for this prediction, but a paper published online today…

My Wisconsin Death Trip on Twitter

Some time back, I was researching a feature for Wired when I stumbled across the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. One of the responsibilities of this office is to monitor workplace fatalities. Each week, a roundup of deaths in the workplace are posted online. They make for compelling reading. As Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis states on the site: "With every one of these fatalities, the lives of a worker's family members were shattered and forever changed. We can't forget that fact". Yet the lists only hold the briefest of details. The company…

Further Sugary Carbonated Thoughts

Dudes, I don't even drink soda. Of any kind. Ever. Seriously, though, I'm saddened by the loss of several of my sciblings. Many of them are individuals who I consider role models, and look up to. Dr. Skyskull is attempting to keep a list of new locations for them, here, and I've been adding links to responses to this debacle on the bottom of yesterday's post - I'm sure I've missed a few, though. Several other sciblings of mine are taking the wait-and-see approach that I advocated yesterday. To their credit, SEED and Scienceblogs are making some of the requested changes. You'll notice that…

Sensitivity, charm and cleverness: very sexy

Ah, the life of the female giant Australian cuttlefish…males fight for her affections, and during the mating season she will have sex with 2-8 different males each day, with an average total of 17 copulations per day. She can be picky, too, and rejects most of the mating attempts (yet still manages to mate up to 40 times a day). It must be a good life. Males have a rougher time of it, I would think. There are many more males than females, and so it's a struggle to get access to one; the bigger, stronger males will guard females, acting as a consort, and use aggressive displays to chase off…

Beware and get ready, my U.K. readers...

...because the author of the book that fueled the rise of the mercury militia in 2005, that indefatigable purveyor of bad science, logical fallacies and bizarre speculations, that useful idiot that antivaccinationists all know and love, is coming to the U.K next month. Yes, I'm talking about David Kirby. Credulous blogger Ginger of Adventures in Autism has informed me that, thanks to "support" from antivaccinationist groups Generation Rescue and the National Autism Association, Autism Research Institute, Coalition for SAFE MINDS, and Talk About Curing Autism, David Kirby will be traveling to…

Stupid Congressional tricks

Radar Online assesses the ten stupidest congresscritters. But any such list which doesn't include Senator Ted "made of tubes" Stevens is clearly bogus. Furthermore, the entire premise misses a vital point. These congresscritters may well be dumb, but what made them deserving of mockery is their public displays of stupidity. Jim Ryun has said things about climate change at least as stupid as what Senator Inhofe has said, and I'd say his ad touting sustainable energy, in which he addresses the camera while gassing up his SUV, easily tops the press conference on energy described in the entry…

Special Request

[Update; I've now received all the papers (thank you all!), but I'll leave the list up here just in case anyone else is interested in tracking these down for their own interests.] In the process of writing a chapter on the evolution of birds (and, therefore, dinosaurs) I've found that there is a much larger body of literature on the topic than I had previously accounted for. I've got a few books on the topic and have downloaded dozens of papers, but some of the most important papers to my vision for the chapter are beyond my grasp. Many of these are older papers by Richard Owen and T.H.…

Not concerned with getting creationism into public schools, eh?

Just in case you needed more evidence that the young earth creationists of Answers in Genesis are boldfaced liars, they've published a new webpage advising students how to start "Creation Clubs" at their public schools. AiG has sworn up and down that it doesn't want to force their (appallingly incorrect) version of the history of the world into public schools, but over and over again the opposite has turned out to be true. Indeed, taking advantage of the ability of many schools being able to host religiously-oriented clubs run by students, Ham & Co. recommend doing the following to…

Why I Hate Earth Day

I bloody hate Earth Day. No offense to those of you who love it, and I know there are some awesome Earth Day programs out there, but by the time we get there, I'm spending my days hiding under the covers, because every freakin' time I open my email inbox a wave of the most nauseating spew of greenwashing comes flowing out. Guess what? A major department store chain, nearly in bankruptcy, is now selling the eco-tote, made from organic sheepskin, embossed with "Think Global, Act Local" to show your care for the earth and indifference to grammar. And not to trouble me, but just so you know,…

No matter where you are, you can participate in the Science Blogging Conference

Yes, about 200-something people will be participating in the Science Blogging Conference in the real space and real time, being physically present. But, both those who are here and those who are not should also participate online. Here are the three main places to do so: 1. The Wiki The main conference wiki, set up by Anton Zuiker, is the center of the conference universe. Look around and see what is happening. Check the 'Recent Activity' tab to see who made changes to what page recently. Feel free to edit pages - no need to enter the e-mail address (it will reject your edit) - just solve…

The World's Fair: Year 2 Agenda

The World's Fair began last year with the goal of contributing to the on-line, public conversation about science. Scienceblogs.com is dedicated to that mission generally, so Dave and I figured we'd add in by talking about a few areas of common interest to us. Things like: visual art-science connections, science and the humanities (literary, visual, cinematic, theatrical, etc), satire and humor, writing on/about/for science (this dous double duty: as the subject of discussion while also doing it) - this, they say, is called science communication, and Dave seems to be particularly adept at…

Teachers Gone Wild

My wife, a biology teacher, gets crazy in the biology classroom. She is famous for her interpretive dance renditions of numerous cellular processes. The students in the first class of the day reportedly stare in disbelief and roll their eyes, but the students in the other classes throughout the day seem to love it. Several of her students have taken to filming her pedagogical paroxysms, and you know that some day, Amanda will be a YouTube Star. But this brings up the interesting and difficult mixture of students, personal technology in the classrooms, teachers, schools, school…

Birds in the News 165

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter American Avocet chick, Recurvirostra americana. Image: Richard Ditch, 2007 [larger view]. Birds in Science and Technology Researchers have discovered the first direct evidence that exposure to stress in young birds affects the way they react to stress when adult. Exposure to stressful events soon after birth has significant effects on a range of physiological and behavioral responses later in life. Previous work in mammals has been unable to work out whether this is due to raised stress hormone levels produced by…

Friday Not-So-Random 10

This past week, I discovered a new digital music download site, called Bitmunk. It's less expensive than iTunes or Amazon, and has a fantastic selection of obscure bands. Through Bitmunk, I found a couple of terrific new neo-progressive bands, which has me on a serious prog kick. So for today, I've narrowed the domain of the randomization to just the progressive stuff, and I also cheated a bit to make sure that the two best of the new bands I found are included in the list. Just to be clear, I've got no connection with Bitmunk, they're not giving me anything to mention them, etc. I found…

When Privatization Fails: College Loans

Last week, Joe Nocera had an excellent piece in the NY Times about how college loans became so exorbitant. Nocera first relates his own college loan experience--in 1974: ...I was constantly falling behind on my payments. The bank that administered my federally guaranteed loans would send a stern notice whenever I got too far behind, which would prompt me to cobble together a few payments by skipping some other bill. Then I would start falling behind again. Though I found the situation onerous at the time, what strikes me now is how benign it actually was. My bank probably didn't make a dime…

Devil Take the Hindmost As Public Policy: Thoughts on Joblessness and Need

While I've disagreed strongly with Megan McArdle, she recently wrote one of the more humane pieces I've read in the mainstream media about unemployment and underemployment (italics mine): I was unemployed for basically two years between the time I graduated from business school in 2001, and the time I accepted a job with The Economist in 2003. I was much luckier than most people in that situation, both because my parents let me stay in their spare bedroom, and because I was working during much of that time--freelancing, flirting with a start up, doing some tech consulting, and of course,…

Healthcare.gov opens again for enrollment, with modest but varying premium increases

On Saturday, Healthcare.gov opened for enrollment in 2015 health insurance plans, and so far it’s proceeding without the horrific technical problems that greeted would-be enrollees last year. This year, as will be the case in future years, the enrollment window is just three months long. People can renew the coverage they had last year or choose a new plan. Those with incomes of between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level (in 2014, $11,670 - $46,680 for a one-person household, $23,850 - $95,400 for a household of four) are eligible for subsidies to help them afford premiums. The Obama…

New study: Ubiquitous chemicals known as phthalates linked to childhood asthma risk

About one in every 10 U.S. children is living with asthma — that’s closing in on 7 million kids. And while we have a good handle on what triggers asthma attacks and exacerbates respiratory symptoms, exactly what causes asthma in the first place is still somewhat of a mystery. However, new research points to some possible new culprits that are difficult, if not nearly impossible, to avoid. Those culprits are phthalates, ubiquitous chemicals found in just about everything, from food packaging to shower curtains to vinyl flooring to personal care products such as fragrances and shampoos. (…

Research Suggests Bipolar Children Likely to become Bipolar Adults

tags: bipolar disorder, manic depression, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, children Image: Myself43. If you are like me and suffered from unrecognized bipolar disorder as a child only to later have this mood disorder diagnosed upon reaching young adulthood, you might be pleased to learn that current research suggests bipolar disorder is increasingly being diagnosed as beginning in childhood. As a result, these bipolar kids are more likely to receive proper treatment and support such that they, their families and friends will suffer fewer of the deep emotional and social scars that…

Democrats and Religion

Slate offers up this depressing article, by Amy Sullivan about how religious people view the Democratic Party: Which is why it is startling that in the two years since this Democratic revival began, the party's faith-friendly image has dimmed rather than improved. The Pew Research Center's annual poll on religion and politics, released last week, shows that while 85 percent of voters say religion is important to them, only 26 percent of Americans think the Democratic Party is "friendly" to religion. That's down from 40 percent in the summer of 2004 and 42 percent the year before that--in…

Spaceman Blues, by Brian Francis Slattery [Library of Babel]

I've gotten out of the book-logging habit, but Spaceman Blues is good enough that I feel compelled to write about it. I had heard of the book some time back-- I believe I recall Patrick Nielsen Hayden saying nice things about it at some con or another-- but the packaging didn't really give me a clear idea of what it was like, so I never got around to buying it until Tor offered it as a free e-book. I'll buy a paper copy soon, though, and probably pick up his new book as well. It's hard to fault the copy writer, though. This is a really difficult book to describe. The promotional site name-…

Carnival of the Blue 12

In a rare treat on the usually quiet and contemplative Island of Doubt, I now bring you the 12th edition of the Carnival of the Blue, a celebration of all things wet and wonderful. Islands are only islands, after all, if they're surrounded by water. Hong Kong, for example, is what it is because of what it isn't: the mainland. Between the Special Administrative Region and China proper can be found the shallows of Mai Po, a staging area for thousands of sought-after East Asian/Australasian shorebirds, black-faced spoonbills, Chinese egrets, Saunders' gulls, and a host of other species that pass…

Canada's new Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications

Finally, the Canadian government's Tri-Agency funding councils (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) have released the consolidated final version of it's open access policy. The draft version came out some time ago. The consultation process garnered quite a few responses, which the Tri-Agencies were kind enough to summarize for us. And finally it is here. I have to admit I was getting a bit concerned. The final version was rumoured to have been kicking around the various departments waiting for final sign-off for months. With the rumours of the Conservatives possibly dropping the writ and calling a spring…

An uninformative "experiment" on dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer

I hadn't planned on writing about dichloroacetate, the inexpensive compound whose success in treating experimental cancer in rats that provoked a blogopheric storm about a "cancer cure" that would supposedly never see the light of day because it's not patentable. After all, I've done about seven posts on the topic, give or take a couple, in the course of the last four weeks or so. That's saturation blogging, and, really, nothing new has happened on the news front that merits a new post. Or so I thought. Then, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III, just when I thought that I was out…

The Great and Powerful (Dr.) Oz, dissected in The New Yorker

In the beginning, medicine was religion. Indeed, if you look at the history of medicine, you'll see that the very first physicians were virtually always religious figures in addition to their roles as healers. Indeed, in ancient Egypt, for example, the professions of priest and healer were one, and most medicine involved incantations, invocations of magic, and, of course, prayers to the gods, who were believed to be both the cause and the cure of human disease. Amulets were particularly popular, and consisted of three types: homeopoetic, phylactic and theophoric. Homeopoetic amulets, for…

Medieval Norse Trappers On Baffin Island

Icelandic sagas and a single archaeological site in Newfoundland document a Viking Period presence of Norse people in the Americas. Now National Geographic's November issue has a piece (here and here) on new work in the field, lab and museum collections by Dr. Patricia Sutherland. It deals with a group of additional and somewhat later sites that may expand that evidence. Dr. Sutherland, of the Memorial University in Newfoundland, kindly answered some questions of mine via e-mail. The best site is near Cape Tanfield on the south coast of Baffin Island. Dr. Sutherland emphasises the following…

How to Fix an Authentic Serbian* Sarma (Stuffed Cabbage)

Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, as there was other work to do, but here is the method for producing the most authentic sarma. As some steps may be too difficult, I will be adding tips and tricks along the way on how to do it with materials at hand - it will still be good, but you cannot call it "authentic" any more.** Part A - Making Sauerkraut The key to good sarma is good Sauerkraut, i.e., the sour cabbage leaves that you will do the wrapping with. And the most important piece of the puzzle for this is: The StoneTM Heavy, compact, dense, smooth block of rock.*** Taking one from…

The Other Threat to Evolutionary Biology: Evolutionary Psychology

While I wasn't put out by this article by ScienceBlogling Chris Mooney as others were, it did make me think about how evolutionary biologists are viewed. One of the things I've seen floating around the internets, and this is seems to be 'bipartisan', is the equating of evolutionary biology with evolutionary psychology. I've always been puzzled by this since many evolutionary biologists are skeptical about evolutionary psychology. If you went to a Society for the Study of Evolution meeting, many biologists, if not cautious or skeptical about evolutionary psychology, would be downright…

The Consequences of the Politics of Ideological Capture (Thanks, Geither, Summers, Nelson, and Conrad!)

There will be a lot of discussion of what the Democrats could have done to forestall or mitigate the collapse in the House. Most of will focus on messaging or tactical considerations. But, ultimately, I think it stems from the Democrats have forgotten (or never cosnidering in the first place) the Mad Biologist's Cardinal Rule of Politics: people have to like this crap. The issue isn't that Democrats used the wrong electoral and political tactics, it's that the problem was far more fundamental than that: the policies were dreadful. Healthcare reform, while it is an improvement, wasn't…

Deceptive Metaphor of the Biological Clock

Sometimes a metaphor used in science is useful for research but not so useful when it comes to popular perceptions. And sometimes even scientists come under the spell of the metaphor. One of those unfortunate two-faced metaphors is the metaphor of the Biological Clock. First of all, there are at least three common meanings of the term - it is used to describe circadian rhythms, to describe the rate of sequence change in the DNA over geological time, and to describe the reaching of a certain age at which human fertility drops off ("my clock is ticking"). I prefer the Rube-Goldberg Machine…

New study confirms that eating healthy does indeed cost more

On average, eating healthy costs about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy diets, a new study finds. The extra cost seems insignificant at first — a small cup of coffee often costs more — but it all adds up to be a considerable barrier for many low-income families. Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health set out to find the evidence behind the conventional wisdom that healthier foods cost more, conducting the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of price differences between healthy and unhealthy foods. In examining data from 10 high-income nations, researchers found…

Football Saturdays meet workers' rights

The population of Ann Arbor Michigan swelled this past weekend with football fans. It was the annual Michigan vs. Michigan State football game and I was in town to witness some of the fanfare. The sidewalks, parking lots, porches, lawns and frat house balconies were jam-packed with people. Everybody, I mean EVERYBODY was wearing a t-shirt to show their allegiance to either the Wolverines (Michigan) or the Spartans (Michigan State). A few contrarians and oddballs, like me, wore shirts promoting other schools, all in the spirit of fun and camaraderie. As I took in the football Saturday…

Deceptive Metaphor of the Biological Clock

Sometimes a metaphor used in science is useful for research but not so useful when it comes to popular perceptions. And sometimes even scientists come under the spell of the metaphor. One of those unfortunate two-faced metaphors is the metaphor of the Biological Clock. First of all, there are at least three common meanings of the term - it is used to describe circadian rhythms, to describe the rate of sequence change in the DNA over geological time, and to describe the reaching of a certain age at which human fertility drops off ("my clock is ticking"). I prefer the Rube-Goldberg Machine…

what would you have done?

Physics bloggers are quite taken with the recent financial market turmoil. Hsu considers propagator effects and asymmetries of time averaged risk, while the Incoherent Ponderer seizes upon my comment about the root cause between the Superconducting SuperCollider cancellation and current financial shenanigans What brought the original comment I made to mind, is that I recognized a name or two in a list of major players in the east coast financial and mortgage markets... er, Hey Guys! It was very clear when I was graduating that the academic job market in the physical sciences was in a bad…

Exploiting the Alabama Fires

As reported yesterday, three college students have been arrested for setting fire to 9 churches in Alabama (and possibly a 10th), and one of the students ridiculously claimed that their crimes were a "joke" that "got out of hand". I thought it would be hard to top that idiotic statement, but religious right leader Rick Scarborough is giving it a hell of a try. This is from the text of an email he sent to his followers today: The War on Christianity Rages Like... An Alabama Church Fire Today is the day that America called burning nine churches a college "prank." There were three arrests…