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Jenny McCarthy plans to ring in 2012 with antivaccine propaganda on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve

Here we go again. In fact, I think I'm starting to see a pattern here among antivaccine organizations. You might remember that in November 2010, the antivaccine group SafeMinds bought ad space in AMC Theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, one of the heaviest moviegoing time periods of the year. This use of pre-movie time to promote antivaccine propaganda resulted in a campaign by skeptics to try to persuade AMC to see the error of its ways, a campaign that was successful. Then, a few months later, the the grande dame of the antivaccine movement, arguably the woman who started the…

I get email invitations

Isn't this sweet? It's a polite invitation from Pastor Dale in Ohio, which was also sent to a lot of other skeptics/atheists. It's so polite and open-minded! Greetings. I want to let you know about an upcoming project, and I invite any of you or your consumers to participate. I realize your viewpoint is drastically different from ours, but I firmly believe that we all stand to gain from honest open discussion with those who see the world differently from us, and that spending all our time with those of like mind creates intellectual inbreeding. We make no demands of participants except that…

Welcome, welcome, please feel at home and look around....

So, the Big Day has finally arrived - the inauguration of the new SEED scienceblogs homepage and the addition of 24 new bloggers to the stable, including me - yeay! So, go check out the brand new front page and all the old and new bloggers there. My new blog, a fusion of all three of my blogs, is a new brand, with a new name - A Blog Around The Clock, reflecting my age and musical taste, my usual blogging frequency and the area of my scientific expertise, all in one title. The Banner was designed by Carel Pieter Brest Van Kempen who also runs a delightful science/art blog Rigor Vitae. The…

Et tu, YouTube: Viacom

We frequently use video clips on this site, many, but not all, from YouTube. To say YouTube has revolutionized web video content would be accurate, neither an understatement nor an exaggeration. The amount of material uploaded to YouTube is staggering. It is also the frequent target of specious take-down demands and is now the subject of a lawsuit by Viacom and other media giants alleging YouTube should check every upload for rights ownership. YouTube responds that such a requirement and threat of liability would put it, and most other service providers, out of business and points to explicit…

Open Access Beer!

What is the difference between Free Access Beer and Open Access Beer? You go to a bar to get your Free Access Beer. You sit down. You show your ID. The barista gives you a bottle. You don't need to pay anything for it - it's free, after all. You take your own bottle-opener from your pocket and open the bottle. You drink the beer from the bottle. You return the empty bottle to the barista. You go home. You order you Open Access Beer online or by phone. You pick what kind of beer you want. It gets delivered to your door really fast. The delivery man opens the bottle for you. You are…

Today's Drum: Positive Black News

As of late, I've not been particularly good at responding to those of you who've been so nice to comment on the blog. So, I spent a little bit of this morning going through your comments and looking at your blogs and websites, especially those of you with whom I was not previously familiar. Among these was commenter Keith, co-founder and editor of an online zine called Today's Drum. Keith was kind enough to write a couple of notes on both our Diversity in Science carnival submission on NIGMS's Dr Geraldine Pittman Woods and the 65th anniversary of the first interracial college basketball…

Methadone for cancer (no) and cancer pain (yes)

Most people know of methadone as a long-term substitution therapy for people addicted to heroin, morphine, or other similar drugs called opiates or opioids. A good, free full-text description of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) can be found in the 15 June 2001 issue of American Family Physician. Now, in the 1 August 2008 issue of Cancer Research, Claudia Friesen and colleagues at the University of Ulm report that methadone can kill leukemia cells in culture and reverse acquired resistance to other drugs like doxorubicin (Adriamycin). Press reports to this effect appeared at the beginning…

That's a Wrap (Or Is It?) + THANK YOU!

Well, another World Science Festival is in the books. And what a trip it’s been. One attendee at this year’s festival suggested that, as if conjuring the gravity of a supermassive black hole, we must have slowed down the passing of time in order “to do so much in 5 days.” Accusations of timespace manipulation aside, there were plenty of magic moments during the 40+ events throughout the run of the Festival. From Professor Stephen Hawking’s poignant speech in front of a packed house at Lincoln Center during the Opening Night Gala to the all-day celebration of science in the heart of New York…

Books I'd Like to Read

For your reading and collection development pleasure. It's been so long since I last did one of these listings, I actually have another one coming up in a day or so. Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia by Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. (ISBN-13: 978-0262014472) Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community--a community of Wikipedians who are expected to "assume good faith" when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to create a freely shared,…

“Socialized science”

The chemists among the readers here have probably already all heard this, but there is a bit of a flap in the American Chemical Society over Open Access publishing. It seems some within the ACS have been protesting Open Access; unsurprisingly, it seems that many of them have connections to the scientific publishing industry. I was deeply amused by the fellow who scorned open access because is it is "socialized science," as if government support of science were bad, and as if we weren't all dependent on the largesse of state and federal government support. Oh, if only we could return to the…

More hilariously off-base genetics denialism

Things have been a bit too serious around here lately. After all, yesterday I wrote about obesity and chemotherapy, while the day before that I did an even lengthier than usual deconstruction of some claims by anti-Obamacare activists, which seemed particularly appropriate to me given that a group of wingnuts has just succeeded in mostly shutting down our government because they are opposed to Obamacare. Come to think of it, given the nastiness that's going on in Washington right now, I could use something light, an easy target even. And who better to serve that role than everyone's favorite…

Social networks and degrees of evilness

Sometimes two posts just collide in my brain. I thought I'd share a recent case of this phenomenon. First up, marketing/PR/social media Rock Star Mitch Joel on taking the best advantage of the inherent evilness of social networks like Twitter in The New Media Pecking Order. Newsflash: the world is one big pecking order. My friend - the rock star - travels infrequently by plane. I'm a loyal customer of the airline. It doesn't seem fair and it doesn't make sense. C'est la vie. Klout, PeerIndex, Twitter Grader and others simply bring to light something we've all known for a very long time: it's…

Math by Mail: Going Strong at 30

Sometime around junior high, this Weizmann science writer stumbled upon Mathematical Games, the late Martin Gardner's monthly math puzzle at the back of my mom's Scientific American, and I became a devotee. The best ones, of course, were those that required a little sideways thinking, and these yielded the pleasure of that "Aha" moment when the answer became clear. (For more on the neurobiology of the Aha moment, look at our site.) So it is no surprise (to me at least) that of the hundreds of science education programs offered through the Davidson Institute of Science Education (the…

Green 2.0

One of the pleasures of reading Stewart Brand's new book, "Whole Earth Discipline", is that when it comes to managing the Earth's ecosystem, he is unconstrained by conventional wisdom. In a break with many old-school environmentalists, Brand argues that the established Green agenda is outdated, too negative, too tradition bound, too specialized, too politically one-sided to address the scale of environmental problems that we face today. Who better to challenge the rigidity of the long-respected environmental movement than the distinguished writer, lecturer and author of the classic Whole…

Help science by celebrating with the USA Science and Engineering Festival and COPUS

Thanks COPUS for helping us get the word out about the Science festival! Read the full article here. Help science by celebrating with the USA Science and Engineering Festival and COPUS Four easy options to help bring science to center stage this October!! 1. Connect your local activities to the festival -- no matter how big or small The impact of many organizations working together is much greater than an individual effort... and easier! COPUS encourages organizations and individuals to coordinate activities in their community with the USASEF -- no matter how big or small. IT IS NOT TOO…

Data mining for fool's gold by fools

The US government response to the bogus war on terrorism is a mixture of the stupid, the super stupid and the evil. Taking off our shoes at the airport isn't evil but it is probably super stupid. So is the 3 oz. liquid ban. On reflection, maybe there are only two categories: super stupid and evil. In the evil category are the pseudoscientific "datamining" and "behavior detection" scams. Data mining is my favorite, since I use one of its techniques in my research work (Association Rule Mining) and I'm familiar with a number of other techniques. Familiar enough to not be surprised that when the…

My Picks From ScienceDaily

Sleep Deprivation Can Threaten Competent Decision-making: Gambling is a risky activity that can potentially result in the loss of a significant amount of money. A study published in the journal SLEEP finds that sleep deprivation can adversely affect a person's decision-making at a gambling table by elevating the expectation of gains and making light of one's losses following risky decisions. Coral Reef Fish Make Their Way Home: Coral reef fish hatchlings dispersed by ocean currents are able to make their way back to their home reefs again to spawn, says a groundbreaking study recently…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Why Doesn't The Immune System Attack The Small Intestine? New Study Provides Unexpected Answer: Answering one of the oldest questions in human physiology, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered why the body's immune system - perpetually on guard against foreign microbes like bacteria -- doesn't attack tissues in the small intestine that harbor millions of bacteria cells. In a study in the February issue of Nature Immunology, and which is currently available on the journal's Web site as an advanced online publication, investigators led by Shannon Turley, PhD, of Dana-…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Two Studies On Bee Evolution Reveal Surprises: The discovery of a 100-million-year old bee embedded in amber -- perhaps the oldest bee ever found -- "pushes the bee fossil record back about 35 million years," according to Bryan Danforth, Cornell associate professor of entomology. Tiny Bones Rewrite Textbooks: First New Zealand Land Mammal Fossil: Small but remarkable fossils found in New Zealand will prompt a major rewrite of prehistory textbooks, showing for the first time that the so-called "land of birds" was once home to mammals as well. The tiny fossilised bones - part of a jaw and hip…

More news on 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective'

As I've mentioned previously, 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective' happens on May 6th and 7th: pretty soon! This two-day conference will be held at the Geological Society's Burlington House in Piccadilly (London), and we now have all the required information available online: if you're thinking of attending it is mandatory that you check out the circular, look at the programme, and then deal with your booking. Read on for more details... Events kick off on May 5th when we have a visit to Crystal Palace in Sydenham (trip costs £10). I've seen the Crystal Palace animals several times, but if…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Fossil Of 'Giant' Shrew Nearly One Million Years Old Found In Spain: Morphometric and phylogenetic analyses of the fossilised remains of the jaws and teeth of a shrew discovered in a deposit in Gran Dolina de Atapuerca, in Burgos, have shown this to be a new species (Dolinasorex glyphodon) that has not previously been described. The extinct animal had red teeth, was large in size compared with mammals of the same family, and was more closely related to Asian than European shrews. Komodo Dragons Even More Deadly Than Thought: Combined Tooth-venom Arsenal Key To Hunting Strategy: A new study…

New Journalistic Workflow

Jay Rosen tweets: New method: slow blogging at PressThink, daily mindcasting at Twitter, work room at FriendFeed. Example: post in gestation http://is.gd/okca This is how I understand that: Step 1 is mindcasting on Twitter (often misunderstood for time-wasting lifecasting, e.g., this), Step 2 is aggregation of a number of imported tweets and digestion of them on FriendFeed, Step 3 is aggregation of several FF threads into a more coherent blog post. The next step, Step 4, could potentially be to aggregate the ideas and knowledge from several blog posts and publish as an article in the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Month Of Conception Linked To Birth Defects In United States: A study published in the April 2009 issue of the medical journal Acta Pædiatrica is the first to report that birth defect rates in the United States were highest for women conceiving in the spring and summer. Action Video Games Improve Vision, New Research Shows: Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player's real-world vision, according to research in Nature Neuroscience March 29. In The Age Of Facebook, Researcher Plumbs Shifting Online Relationships: A University of…

My picks from ScienceDaily

New Sperm Shaker Set To Improve IVF Success Rates: Scientists have developed a ground-breaking method for testing the quality of a sperm before it is used in IVF and increase the chances of conception. Racial Bias Can Be Reduced By Teaching People To Differentiate Facial Features Better In Individuals Of A Different Race: There may be a simple way to address racial bias: Help people improve their ability to distinguish between faces of individuals of a different race. Brown University and University of Victoria researchers learned this through a new measurement system and protocol they…

ScienceOnline'09 - introducing the participants 6

Let's highlight some more of the participants of this year's ScienceOnline09 conference: April L. MacKellar is a doctoral student in the Department of Biochemistry at Duke. Rick MacPherson works for the Coral Reef Alliance and blogs on Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets. He will be on the panel Blogging adventure: how to post from strange locations and will co-moderate the session Hey, You Can't Say That! Robin Mackar is the News Director at the National Institute of Environemental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Kelly Malcom is the Editor for Internal Communications at Duke University Health…

My picks from ScienceDaily

'Beauty Machine' Makes Average Face A Knockout With A Single Click: Our mothers told us that true beauty is more than skin deep -- but researchers from Tel Aviv University are now challenging Mom. They've built a beauty machine that, with the press of a button, turns a picture of your own ordinary face into that of a cover model. While its output is currently limited to digitized images, the software may be able to guide plastic surgeons, aid magazine cover editors, and even become a feature incorporated into all digital cameras. Bullies May Enjoy Seeing Others In Pain: Unusually aggressive…

My Picks From ScienceDaily

College Student Sleep Patterns Could Be Detrimental: A Central Michigan University study has determined that many college students have sleep patterns that could have detrimental effects on their daily performance. When Following The Leader Can Lead Into The Jaws Of Death: For animals that live in social groups, and that includes humans, blindly following a leader could place them in danger. To avoid this, animals have developed simple but effective behaviour to follow where at least a few of them dare to tread -- rather than follow a single group member. This pattern of behaviour reduces the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

New Hope For Sleep Disorders: Genetic Switch For Circadian Rhythms Discovered: University of California, Irvine researchers have identified the chemical switch that triggers the genetic mechanism regulating our internal body clock. The finding, which uncovers the most specific information about the body's circadian rhythms to date, identifies a precise target for new pharmaceuticals that can treat sleep disorders and a host of related ailments. Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pharmacology, found that a single amino acid activates the genes that regulate circadian…

KISS: observing during cruise and after prime

The KISS is running a mini-workshop at KITP on doing Exoplanet Science Measurements from Solar System probes. There are a bunch of spacecraft up there, with a lot of instruments. Many of them, especially the solar system probes, spend a fair amount of time in a quiet cruise phase, where instruments are powered down or in passive mode. Some missions also have a finite time prime mission, but the spacecraft continues to function and may take more observations. There is considerable interest to make use of this capability, to use the spacecraft more efficiently, and to use the people more…

Why the library should affect students' choice of university

When we think of outreach and recruitment, we don't usually think of using the library as a tool to attract students to our institutions. Here at York I do occasionally take part in Faculty of Science & Engineering outreach activities -- mostly when the library is included in high school science class tours of the institution. Rather than do something really boring like a "here's the reference desk" tour, I like to take smaller groups down into our teaching lab and do (hopefully) fun and amusing interactive sessions on the current state of the information universe. You can get an idea…

Delaware Horseshoe Crab Harvest Moratorium Reversed

tags: horseshoe crab, Limutus polyphemus, red knot, Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab, Limutus polyphemus, a living fossil. Image: Pier Aquarium, Florida [larger]. In a controversial ruling, a Delaware Superior Court judge partially rolled back the two-year ban on the horseshoe crab harvest by limiting it to males only. The decision was a reaction against John Hughes, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, who was actually doing his job. However, according to the judge, Hughes had already decided to enact a complete moratorium on horseshoe crab harvests…

Tales of Beedle The Bard Buyer Uncloaked

tags: Harry Potter, Tales of Beedle the Bard, books, JK Rowling, auction, Sotheby's, Amazon.com [larger view] A Mystery Buyer purchased the only publically-available copy of JK Rowling's latest Harry Potter book, Tales of Beedle the Bard for £1,950,000 (US$3.98 million)! This is far more than the £50,000 ( $100,000) sale price that had been estimated by Sotheby's. The leather-bound and hand-written book was bought by a representative from London fine art dealers, Hazlitt Gooden & Fox. The proceeds generated by the sale of this book will benefit Rowling's new charity, The Children's…

Religious Right Loves Gambling Ban

Agape Press reports on the "ecstatic" reaction of religious right groups: .Concerned Women for America (CWA) is applauding the passage of the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, a bill sponsored by Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona. The legislation prohibits the use of credit cards, checks, and wire and electronic fund transfers in online gambling, which is illegal. Kyl's bill is the Senate's version of H.R. 4411, the House bill sponsored by Republican Congressmen Jim Leach of Iowa and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia. These bills seeks to extend the nation's gambling regulations…

Me in the Media: Two New Interviews

I've been slacking in my obligation to use this blog for self-promotion, but every now and then I remember, so here are two recent things where I was interviewed by other people: -- I spoke on the phone to a reporter from Popular Mechanics who was writing a story about "radionics" and "wishing boxes," a particular variety of pseudoscience sometimes justified with references to quantum mechanics. The resulting story is now up, and quotes me: It is hard to investigate the ethereal thinking around radionics, but physics is something that can be parsed. So I got in touch with Chad Orzel, a…

A Request for Physics Expertise

As I noted a while ago, I'm giving a talk at DAMOP a week from Tuesday with the title "What's So Interesting About AMO Physics?". This is intended as an introduction to the meeting as a whole, for new students or people coming in from other fields. The reason? I found a copy of the 2001 DAMOP program, which featured 270 talks and 293 posters. This year's meeting is almost twice as big: 477 talks and 548 posters. That's awfully daunting, so I'm going to try to provide an introduction/ guide to the meeting as a whole. This, of course, requires me to know a little bit about a wide range of…

Links for 2012-09-05

Confessions of a Community College Dean: Kermit How Kermit the Frog is the perfect model for an academic administrator. Chester A. Arthur: Sasquatch Trainer : Filmmaking Frenzy: Commander-in-Chief From the people who brought you "Rutherford B. Hayes, Urban Vigilante," a movie about the only Union alumnus (so far) to be US President. In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why? « Face in the Blue One of my most-visited sites on the web is Reddit.com, and one of my favourite subreddits is HistoricalWhatIf, an online community that debates…

There are no atheists on airplanes

I hate flying. I hate the wasted time. I hate the invasion of privacy. I hate being disconnected from the internet. I hate the food. I hate being around that many people. I hate being squished next to people on the actual plane. I hate the stress. EDIT: UGH AND THE BATHROOMS! I HATE THE BATHROOMS. How could I forget that??? I hate it. What does not add to the fun, is flying itself is extraordinarily painful for me. As far back as I can remember, flying, especially the descent, causes me *extreme* ear pain. Sharp shooting pain, as well as a dull, constant aching pain. Its all…

Atheists with vaginas.

I am so pissed off. I didnt get out of the lab until quarter till 6 tonight, so there was no friggen way I could get down to OU to see Barker (feed/potty Arnie, feed/potty me, 15 mph on I-35... I would have gotten there by the time his presentation was over. Why the hell is it that on Friday nights I have loose, whatever plans, I can sneak out early at 4, but the Friday I want to leave early, I end up being wrapped up in BL-3 till 5 fourty-fucking-five???? RAAAAAGE!!!) So I was all hyped up for some quality atheist entertainment, and Im at home instead. ... So Im going to bitch about…

Kinsley on Clinton's Victory

Now that Obama has scored a very convincing win in the big election, I am reminded of a column written by Michael Kinsley in 1992, celebrating the victory of Bill Clinton. It's eerie how much of it is still relevant today. Couldn't find it online, so here are a few excerpts. Alas, just as with Clinton, no doubt Kinsley's first sentence must give everyone pause. No doubt it will all end in tears. But for the moment, I FEEL GREAT! It's like the lifting of a terrible headache, or like coming up for air after swimming underwater. Yes, the euphoria is not entirely rational. I think I speak…

links for 2009-05-05

The 25 most important movies ever made about war and diplomacy. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine "Last week, in the online edition of Slate's sister publication Foreign Policy, two of its regular bloggers, Stephen M. Walt and Daniel W. Drezner, drew up lists of what they regard as the best movies ever made about international relations. Both are eminent international-relations professors, Walt at Harvard, Drezner at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. It's no surprise that neither of them gives our own film critic, Dana Stevensâor, for that matter, Gene Shalitâthe slightest cause…

The Pseudonymity Laboratory: Do you trust me?

At the upcoming ScienceOnline'09 conference (16-18 Jan 2009 in RTP, NC, USA), PalMD and I will be leading a discussion session on the needs and justification for anonymity or pseudonymity in blogging. Women bloggers have additional needs for blogging under a pseudonym and PalMD and I are currently enlisting such unadvertised participants so as not to, you know, compromise their identity (yes, those present will learn who he and I are but we can assure all that it will be anti-climactic). Even prior to developing discussion points for the session, I had been considering the possibility of…

Old Timey Chemistry Tables, Alchemical and All

I'd seen Janet's notice a few days or a week or whatever it was ago of The New York Times's notice of a book about the history and philosophy of chemistry. As Janet commented, it's just not every day you get studies about chemical history in the NYT. It's probably only maybe one or two days, ever. Oddly enough, they'd also had coverage last summer of a conference at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia on alchemy (yes, that CHF, whose motto remains, for reasons still unexplained: "we hate hipsters"). As it happens, I've written about chemistry tables as visual representations…

Can You Have Open Science in the Dark?

The arXiv is a game changer for how large portions of physics (and increasingly other fields) are done. Paul Ginsparg won a MacArthur award for his vision and stewardship of the arXiv (something other institutions might want to note when they decide that someone trying to change how science is done isn't really doing work that will impact them.) So...Given: The arXiv is great. But there is something that's always bothered me a bit about the arXiv: transparency. (Note: those of you who wish to complain about the fact that you can't get endorsed on the arXiv, this article is not for you.…

Emailing Those Responsible for Science Funding Cuts

Mad about the funding cuts in science? Why not send an letter to those responsible? Taken from an letter just sent out to members of the American Physical Society: From: Arthur Bienenstock, President, the American Physical Society To: Members of the American Physical Society Re: Federal Funding Alert: http://www.aps.org/policy/tools/alerts I am writing to request that you contact your elected representatives and let them know that the 2008 federal budget deals a devastating blow to basic research. You can make this contact quickly and easily at: http://www.aps.org/policy/tools/…

More questions than answers: the future of the scientific journal

On one side, there are some who say the future of scholarly communication in science is databases - or, rather, more or less shared and curated data sets. Some of the folks in this crowd go farther to say that science is a continuous stream and people should be able to comment on and point to this stream. There are those who see the disaggregation of the journal with the papers remaining more or less the same. So databases of discrete pieces that can then be re-aggregated (I've mentioned this before) And there are those who basically think we'll sort of go on as we have been, but perhaps with…

Metaphysics disclaimer

Ron Amundson is a philosopher and historian of biology at the University of Hawai'i - Hilo who has done some great work in my field. So I was greatly amused and more than a little sympathetic to see this disclaimer linked to from Leiter's blog: Metaphysics DISCLAIMER Phil 310, Metaphysics, is a course in some core topics in Western Philosophy, including the Free Will Problem, the Mind-Body Problem, related problems in Philosophy of Mind, and the Problem of Personal Identity. If you’re interested in what these involve, you can find long discussions online in the Stanford Encyclopedia of…

Fear and pain, the great educational motivators

I remember my physical education class in high school — the instructor (I will not dignify him with the title "teacher") was a psychopath, as far as I was concerned. He ran the class like a petty tyrant; members of the football team were treated royally and given exemptions and privileges, while the rest of us were subject to his whims and rather vicious rules. We had jock strap inspections every day, and if we were unequipped, we'd be punished; we had to, for instance, run a certain number of laps around the track, and the students who came in last would be punished. And punishment was…

What does the shadow know?

How do we tell where an object is in a three-dimensional world when our eye only gives us two dimensions worth of information? Today's reading ("Moving Cast Shadows Induce Apparent Motion in Depth" by Daniel Kersten, Pascal Mamassian, and David Knill of the University of Minnesota [Perception, 1997]) explores one aspect of that question: the role of an object's shadow. Video game designers faced this issue in the 1980s when they began attempting to make "3-D" arcade games. One classic example was the game Zaxxon, where you flew a spaceship diagonally across the screen. The trick was, you not…

Yet another example of credulity begetting credulity

Thanks to a commenter going by the 'nym of djm, I found in a comment yet another hilarious example of how credulity towards pseudoscience of one form often goes hand-in-hand with other forms of pseudoscience. It looks as though the "intelligent design" creationists are down with Steorn's claimed free energy machine as "evidence" against materialism: Steorn's findings totally undermine the basic premise of materialism, simply by demonstrating a confirmed physical effect that materialists predict cannot happen. These clever Irish researchers have demonstrated that the principles of…

The Listener against free speech, part 2

Lawyer Steven Price, who specialises in media law, comments on the Listener's use of legal threats to silence a blogger: In the comments section of the correction and apology, someone has helpfully posted a link to a copy of HotTopic's original post. Don't you just love the internet? On the off-chance that the link is removed in the near future, let me take the liberty of reproducing it here. By all means, pay a visit, and encourage others to do likewise. I hope that the post receives exponentially greater attention as a result of this legal threat. I don't say that because I'm a free speech…