Search Content

Displaying results 2201 - 2250 of 87947

ScienceOnline09 - more individual session pages

Now that the registration is closed (you can still get on the waitlist if you send an e-mail to info@scienceonline09.com), it's time to start preparing for the sessions. Here are some more sessions you may be interested in: Not just text - image, sound and video in peer-reviewed literature Alternative careers: how to become a journal editor Providing public health and medical information to all Art and science -- online and offline Anonymity, Pseudonymity - building reputation online Open Access in the networked world: experience of developing and transition countries Social networking for…

More geology!

Not long ago, we had a story about the University of Wyoming shutting down their geology museum. Now the issue has become…an online poll! We know what to do with online polls, don't we, boys and girls? Should UW put funds into keeping the Geological Museum open? Yes, it needs to be open all the time. (935 Votes, 60%) Yes, but they were right to open it part-time to save money. (516 Votes, 33%) No, they need to close whatever keeps them financially sound. (72 Votes, 5%) They should turn the museum into a skate park and make some cash instead. (29 Votes, 2%)

Hey There, Berghs Students

Every once in a blue cheese, a son of Ming the Merciless invites me to speak at an advertising school in Stockholm, Berghs School of Communication. (Yes, they have adopted an English name to sound cooler. No, they didn't put the genitive apostrophe in. I find that really painful.) I talk about cyberculture, on-line communities and what advertising people need to know about the web. As this entry comes on-line, I am standing in front of 30 fresh-faced Macbook-toting hipsters who will soon learn, to their horror, that Firefox allows you to kill all ad banners and flash clips. During my talk, I…

Second Life Q&A on the Accelerating Universe

Following the talk I gave in Second Life about the discovery of the accelerating Universe, we held a couple of Q&A sessions. The original plan was to have questions right after the talk, but the Second Life main grid crashed right at that moment. We all got online about half an hour later, and I held one Q&A session for the people who came back. There was another one the next day. Troy McLuhan (his Second Life avatar name) logged the session, and has done the hard work of formatting and lightly editing it for web publication. You can find the transcript of the Q&A session…

Wales: Wikipedia OK for Students

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said teachers who refuse younger students access to the site are "bad educators". Speaking at the Online Information conference at London's Olympia, he played down the long-running controversy over the site's authority. He said young students should be able to reference the online encyclopaedia in their work. Mr Wales said the site, which is edited by users, should be seen as a "stepping stone" to other sources. As long as an article included accurate citations, he said he had "no problem" with it being used as a reference for younger students, although…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Jeremy Yoder

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked Jeremy Yoder from University of Idaho and the Denim and Tweed blog to answer a few questions. Jeremy came to ScienceOnline2010 as one of the two winners of the NESCent blogging contest. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my…

Why I left Facebook, and then went back

It's rare that I blog off topic - there's so much cool science in the world that I don't have much time for anything else. But my departure from Facebook has co-incided with something of a global trend, so I thought I may as well explore what people thought. In case you've been wrapped in roofing felt for the last few weeks, here's the scoop. After a series of embarrassing security flaws and anger over the company's attitude toward privacy, Facebook users are leaving in droves. Or at least, that's the claim - the reality is that there's no viable alternative yet, although some bright…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Robin Ann Smith

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked Robin Ann Smith from NESCent to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (…

From the Archives: Interview with Bora Zivkovic, Crazy Uncle of the Science Blogging Community

What with the recent blogospheric developments, I thought it would be a great idea to reprint a post from a couple of years ago where I turned the tables on Bora and interviewed him about science blogging, science and ScienceOnline. The original post is from March 13, 2008. I'd also like to point you to the interview Bora did with my son Sam after the 2009 conference. And yes, I think "Crazy Uncle" is perfect. Science blogging is like family and I think Bora fits perfectly not as our father or our brother or our cousin, but as our uncle. ============================== Welcome to the…

Iraq, the homefront, and Doonesbury

In the Doonesbury storyline that began on Monday, Garry Trudeau managed to capture what modern technology has done for deployed families far, far better than anyone I've seen before. With many of the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan operating from more-or-less permanent bases, communications between the front lines and those left at home are a hell of a lot better than they've ever been. In many ways, this is a mixed blessing. At the camp my wife is based out of in Iraq, she has easy access to a payphone and can buy phone cards that allow her to call home at reasonable rates. She…

I conquered! Now try a poll that I am not on

I sicced you on this poll to identify the most vocal atheist of 2009: don't be surprised, I won. Of course, the real problem there was that the winner was determined in an open online poll — if it had been a poll to determine the most vocal Christian of the year, I also would have smashed into it hard. Now try something a little less biased: a poll to determine the most influential female atheist. My name is not on it, so I'm safe from messing this one up. Ophelia Benson 7% (76 votes) Greta Christina 21% (237 votes) Annie Laurie Gaylor 6% (68 votes) Tracie Harris & Jen Peeples 3% (29…

Science Haiku 2

Since the haiku post was well received, and since we have another three pieces online today – each on a different finding and each interesting in its own right – I have decided to return to the haiku format. Among other things, there is something quite satisfying about distilling complex scientific findings down to 17 little syllables – like writing the perfect tweet, but more so. In any case, follow the links to read more:   A burst of enzymes: A transcription traffic jam Watch for gene speed bumps   Genetics can rid The poison from potatoes Or add it elsewhere image: Thinkstock To raise…

Sciencewomen Take a Bow

After nearly five years online and two years with us here at ScienceBlogs, ScienceWoman is stepping away from the fray to focus on "Peace and Joy" for 2010. This will be my last post as SciWo or ScienceWoman. I've come to peace with the realization that blogging as SciWo is no longer a source of joy for me. I treasure the true friendships I share with many of you, but I know that we can continue to revel in and grow those friendships even without this blog. Alice Pawley is also hanging up her blogging shoes, so Sciencewomen will go dark. Stop by and say goodbye, wish well and carry on.

Circadian Rhythms in Human Mating

A short-but-sweet study (March 18, 2006): -------------------------------------------- I remember from an old review that John Palmer did a study on the diurnal pattern of copulation in humans some years ago. You can see the abstract here. Now, Roberto Reffinetti repeated the study and published it in the online open-source Journal of Circadian Rhythms here. The two studies agree: The peak copulatory activity in people living in a modern society is around midnight (or, really, around bedtime) with a smaller secondary peak in the morning around wake-time. Dig through the papers yourself for…

When will they learn? Another internet poll

The town of Frankenmuth, Michigan likes to flaunt their crosses — they've put them up on signs, and they've got one on the city logo. I suspect the town contains a Christian majority, so their local news probably felt safe putting up an online poll asking, Should Frankenmuth remove its cross from the city shield? They don't expect a horde of ravening godless atheists to descend on them and vote "YES!" — they never do. Mount up, internet warriors, and assault their poll with fire and sword and level it until they reel back crying for mercy. Frankenmuth won't know what hit them.* *Literally;…

The Hovind Scale

This will be handy around here: The Hovind Scale. It's a metric for calculating the craziness of a creationist's comment from 0 (scientific and honest) to 100 (dishonest insanity). There's even an online calculator to simplify it for you! I did a quick spot check on a few of our local loony commenters, and found that 16s were pretty common, and a few of the egregious old trolls who've been banned got up into the 40s. Unfortunately, the scale is flawed by one subjective measure: you have to interpret whether the kook is knowingly lying or not. I tend to view most of them as stupid but sincere…

Connections in Science

Web usage data outline map of knowledge: When users click from one page to another while looking through online scientific journals, they generate a chain of connections between things they think belong together. Now a billion such 'clickstream events' have been analysed by researchers to map these connections on a grand scale. The work provides a fascinating snapshot of the web of interconnections between disciplines, which some data-mining experts believe reveals the degree to which work that is not often cited -- including work in the social sciences and humanities -- is widely consulted…

Kevin Zelnio in Seed

Kevin Zelnio published an article in Seed Magazine, which was placed online yesterday - On the allure of the ocean's novelty: That is what the deep sea is like. Almost every collection brings up something that I have never seen; that few, if any, have ever found. It is an immense task, in an immense place, cataloging life in the planet's largest ecosystem and trying to understand what drives its diversity. But its constant novelty and rewards keep me sorting through the muck even as my vision starts to blur with sweat and tears and my nostrils burn from the stench that hangs in the salt-…

Laboratory Web Site and Video Awards

You may remember, from several months ago, that Attila started a contest for the best designed lab web page. Soon, the project became too big for a lone blogger to tackle. Especially after an article about this appeared on the online pages of Nature. So, as Attila announced today, the contest goes Big Time. The Scientist is now hosting the official contest. Of course, Attila is one of the judges. Several web-pages have already been nominated and now it is your job to think of the best-designed, prettiest, most-functional and most up-to-date laboratory homepages and nominate them for the…

Good wine

Last Wednesday I went to Wine Authorities, the new wine store in Durham, for our monthly Durham Blogger Meetup. Afterwards, I could not help it but go home with three new bottles of wine. The best is the one I tried from the Enomatic machine at the back of the store - 2005 Fleurie, Granits des Moriers (Jacky Piret), a gorgeous Spanish version of a Burgundy. Since Thursday and Friday were crazy (on Thursday I spent 12 hours online monitoring the media and blog responses to the Nigersaurus paper and unveiling) and I was teaching on Saturday morning, we finally managed to have a nice dinner…

NAS Assessment of NAI

The NAS Assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, 2008, is out and available The National Academy of Sciences did an assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, at the request of NASA, over the last year. The report is out and available on the web From the Executive Summary: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Overall, the committee is unanimous in finding that the NAI has fulfilled its original mandate. The NAI has played a key role in supporting the development of astrobiology and has positively affected NASA's current and future missions. The committee recommends that the NAI should…

Volcano from space

I like this one. It is from NASA though I've heavily hacked it around (I saw it today in a copy of Wired at Mr Polito's; oh yes, it is online too: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/gallery_volcanoes/3/, but I don't recommend visiting, the site is mindbogglingly slow, lord knows how much Javash*t they load up). Anyway, it's the Sarychev volcano (Russia's Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. I'm not entirely sure what I'm seeing here - real Met Men should comment - or how tall the plume is. Is it hitting the stratosphere? [Sorry folks -…

'Sense About Science' slaughters celebrity silliness

Oh my gawd this is so fun! You know how we are always screaming online about some stupid thing Jenny McCarthy or Bill O'Reilly has said/done? A group of folks at Sense About Science have gotten together some of the stupid, if not outright dangerous 'potentially misleading' things celebrities have said about earth science/heath/diet/etc and matched them up with real explanations from real scientists/educated people within the appropriate field. PDF-- Celebrities and Science 2011 It includes a couple of my pet-peeves-- 'boosting' your immune system and mega-dosing on vitamins in the absence of…

Them Doggone Carnies

Blog carnivals! The twenty-eighth Four Stone Hearth is on-line at Hot Cup of Joe. Archaeology and anthropology to a most awe-inspiring extent. The next open 4SH hosting slot is already on 5 29 December. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. No need to be an anthro pro -- come as you are. And do it NOW. A very fine Skeptics' Circle may be found at Med Journal Watch. So fine, in fact, that I am on it despite forgetting to submit! Thanks Chris! And all you biology types, check out the latest Tangled Bank at From Archaea to Zeaxanthol.

Notability Discussion on Wikipedia

There is a discussion going on at Wikipedia regarding certain facets of the on-line encyclopedia's controversial notability policy. At heart, it's about where the line should be drawn between notable subjects (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and non-notable ones (Shitty Arnie, my wife's cat), articles about which should be deleted. There are two main issues with WP:Notability that need clarification by the community. Does every article need reliable third-party sources to prove it is notable, or can notability be inherited from another article? To what extent can the General Notability Guideline be…

Giving a bad review is getting risky

The latest round of indignant lawsuits by those irked at negative reviews: Left Behind Games isn't too happy with their game's reception in the blogosphere, so they've started sending out threats of lawsuits to silence the critics. One of the letters is online, another target is Daily Kos, and most amusingly of all, the CEO of the company tried to plead for Christian charity from on critic before deciding to wave a lawyer at him. It's an awfully silly strategy. Bloggers have loud mouths, but don't have deep pockets. These attempts at legal harrassment are only going to win them negative…

Scientific Inequalities: Publications and Populations

This is a visualization of scientific productivity and population. It's from the online edition of the German "Spiegel." The top map illustrates the number of scientific publications per year. Contrast this to the population map, shown underneath it. I've copied the map below. Read on to see... Here's the caption, in German: "Wissenschaftliche Forschung gemessen an der Zahl der Publikationen im Jahr 2001 (oben) gegenuber dem Kartogramm der Bevolkerungszahl der Lander der Welt (unten)." Make of it what you will. In fact, I wonder what you do make of it. (And with apologies to our…

This year's Scifi Contest

I've received a couple of emails from folks who wanted to know when this year's contest would be announced. Shortly, folks. Meanwhile, get going with your story. If I may, I'd suggest mulling over the story idea, setting, characters, tone, etc obsessively and making notes before you actually begin to write the story. Try and get hold of Writing Fiction by Alan Wall and give it your undivided attention for a few days. The rules this year would be pretty much the same as before. There will be an exciting new addition to what we'll do with this year's (and past year's stories) - besides…

Shifting Baselines and Marriage

Marriage is nothing like it used to be. That's true. But lots of things we consider to be new and unprecedented are actually traditional (e.g., adultery, single parenting, politicians having affairs). And the things we consider to be old-fashioned are actually new (e.g., marrying for love, the expectation of fidelity). Historian Stephanie Coontz spoke about the warped view of marriage's past at Seattle's Town Hall last month: Courting Disaster: The Worldwide Revolution in Love, Sex, and Marriage, which NPR made available online. Listening to Coontz reminds us of the marital baselines…

Why I Regret My New Toilet Seat

I recently bought a new wooden toilet seat at Target for five dollars. Five dollars! It wasn't even on sale and I thought to myself, "What a steal!" I should have known that was probably, literally the case. My toilet seat was probably illegally logged in Russia. In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian (who also wrote the great profile of Paul Watson) writes about the illegal logging market. The article is not quite online yet, but check out this short video where he discusses how a tree illegally logged from halfway around the world becomes a toilet seat at your…

Chat Rooms

Context is everything: Sana Klaric and husband Adnan, who used the names "Sweetie" and "Prince of Joy" in an online chatroom, spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles, Metro.co.uk reported. The truth emerged when the two turned up for a date. Now the pair, from Zenica in central Bosnia, are divorcing after accusing each other of being unfaithful. "I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be," Sana, 27, said. Someone should teach these people about the fundamental attribution error…

Harvard bookstore calls the cops

I thought the saga of The Harvard Coop would be over once the inanity of its claim that the ISBN numbers of books used in Harvard courses were their intellectual property. The ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a 13 digit number and barcode used by publishers to identify books uniquely. Harvard students were going to the text book section of the Coop (the original name of the Harvard Cooperative, later bought by the Barnes and Noble College Division), copying down the ISBN numbers and then making them available online via CrimsonReading.org, a service that automates comparison…

Journal Scan: A Little Lead is Too Much

A quick look at Blood Lead Concentrations Less than 10 Micrograms per Deciliter and Child Intelligence at 6 Years of Age by Todd A. Jusko, Charles R. Henderson, Jr., Bruce P. Lanphear et al., published online in Environmental Health Perspectives. The current CDC definition of elevated blood lead in a child is 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (written as 10 μg/dL). However, there is increasingly compelling evidence that lower blood lead levels are associated with decreased performance on intelligence testing. At the same time, it has just been reported that the EPA has just…

The American Astronomical Society responds to "Scholarly Societies: Why Bother?"

A month or so ago I posted on Scholarly Societies: Why Bother?, basically on the challenges that scholarly societies face in the digital age. I got a few good comments, getting a nice discussion going. I also posed a few questions directly to scholarly societies but unfortunately didn't get any comments from any of the various societies themselves. I did find that a bit disappointing in that the public conversation seemed to be happening without them. Never a good thing in the digital age. Today, however, Kevin Marvel of the American Astronomical Society added a comment to my original…

More from the BCCE: Atkins and Harpp on talking chemistry with the people.

It was another full day at the BCCE, starting with an excellent plenary address by Peter Atkins (who wrote my p-chem text, plus dozens of other books) and David Harpp (of the Office of Science and Society). Each of them spoke about the best ways to talk about science with people who are not scientists, science teachers, or science students. Some highlights after the jump. Atkins, it turns out, is not just a scientist and author, but also an accomplished artist. So, it's probably not surprising that he sees the most promising route for spreading chemical understanding as a visual route. A…

Bat sex is not protected by academic freedom

Whoa, dudes. Did you hear about the bats who have oral sex? Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals. Fellatio has been recorded in bonobos Pan paniscus, but even then functions largely as play behaviour among juvenile males. The short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx exhibits resource defence polygyny and one sexually active male often roosts with groups of females in tents made from leaves. Female bats often lick their mate's penis during dorsoventral copulation. The female lowers her head to lick the shaft or the base of the male's penis but does…

links for 2008-12-22

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / How to talk to writers "Writers are people, and they were people before they were writers. They change light bulbs and buy groceries just like everyone else. Really. Because they're people, they vary. Some of them are jerks, but many of them are very interesting people to talk to." (tags: blogs culture SF books writing) Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » How long could a black hole remain in the center of the earth? I don't know, but I expect a panicky Gregg Easterbrook column about it any day now. (tags: science physics blogs silly…

Unfollowing

So a couple of weeks ago I unfollowed every science-type person in my Twitter feed. Not because I don’t like them, in fact, many were friends and colleagues. But there’s something sickly in the online science community, and this was an experiment in ways I might build around that. I have mixed feelings about Twitter. On the whole, I think it’s a marvellous invention, which exposes me to people and ideas that I might not ever come by otherwise. I’ve gotten work through it, made pals, and learned many interesting things. But there’s also a certain predisposition to sourness. It’s a poor format…

A stunning new Mesozoic bird... well, new-ish

Better late than never, I've only recently gotten hold of Zhou et al.'s paper on the enantiornithine bird Pengornis houi, published online in Journal of Anatomy back in January but now available in hard-copy. I must say that I really dislike the new trend of publishing things in special, online versions prior to their 'proper' publication. Anyway... Pengornis (which is from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Dapingfang, Liaoning, China) is particularly interesting for several reasons... It's very well preserved, with one of the best-preserved skulls of any Mesozoic bird [skull…

ScienceOnline2010 - Program highlights 6

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 4:30 - 5:35pm: A. Online Reference Managers - John Dupuis and Christina Pikas moderating, with Kevin Emamy, Jason Hoyt, Trevor Owens and Michael Habib (Scopus) in the 'hot seats'. Description: Reference managers, sometimes called citation managers or bibliography managers, help you keep, organize, and re-use citation information. A few years ago, the options were limited to expensive proprietary desktop clients or BibTeX for people writing in LaTeX. Now we've got lots of…

Dinner With a Dinosaur X

You are cordially invited to Dinner With a Dinosaur X—that's a Roman numeral, not a mysterious appellation. The event happens March 12, 2010, in the Great Hall at Chicago's Union Station, located at 210 South Canal Street, 60606. Yes, there will be a dinosaur, and no, it will not be alive. Other relics include Honorary Dinner Chairs Governor Pat Quinn and Senator Dick Durbin. More importantly, proceeds from the event will benefit Project Exploration, "a nonprofit science education organization that makes science accessible to the public—especially minority youth and girls—through…

Darwin Day in the Guardian

Karen is excited this morning, reading the enormous Guardian edition full of good Darwiny goodness, chockful of articles by Dawkins and many others, as well as extracts from Darwin's works. The only part I find a little too narrow is The best Darwinian sites on the web which mentions only a small handfull of such sites, e.g., Darwin Online, Darwin Correspondence Project, Darwin Day Celebration, AboutDarwin.com and Darwin Today (the last one yet to launch next month). I know, I know, these are the biggest and bestest, but there are so many others that I feel are snubbed by being left out -…

Climate Research Unit e-mails

There has been a lot of chatter about the e-mail cracked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (not to be confused with the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the UK Met Office in Exeter). I would like to post abou it, but, I really can't comment. Since PSU is involved in the issue and there is an ongoing inquiry into the issue, I can not comment: there is a slightest possibility anything I say could be considered in some sense official from PSU; or, prejudicial to the inquiry; or, biased, as I have some connection to some of the people involved…

Weekend Fun

I had some bad news about two Boomer dudes that I know and like(d): one died of lung cancer the other day, and the other was diagnosed with leukemia. But apart from that I had a pretty good weekend: Played Eclipse again, got royally whipped. Gave a talk and did some debating at a skeptics' event in Eskilstuna, met loads of friendly people, all while wearing a suit and tie because I was heading directly to the following do afterwards. Celebrated my oldest friend's 40th birthday. Met lots of surprising greying 40-y-o versions of his friends that I haven't seen much since leaving the Tolkien…

Fornvännen's Winter Issue On-Line

The new version of a slab from the Kivik cairn. Fornvännen 2015:1 is now on-line on Open Access. Sven Sandström on fake Paleolithic art in France. Andreas Toreld and Tommy Andersson on sensational new discoveries on the carved slabs of the Kivik burial cairn. They've been endlessly discussed for over 200 years, and now the whole game just changes. Birgit Maixner on a new Late 1st Millennium elite site at Missingen/Åkeberg in Norway. Inger Jans et al. on the last users of runes in the unbroken tradition from the Iron Age on – around 1910! Anders Söderberg on one of these lovely little…

The Huge Fish

Great images of my childhood are appearing on-line from an unexpected source. My dear Connecticut nanny Lynn Leavey is scanning choice pix from her time with us in Sweden in 1978-79. Here's my India-goin', safety-match-pushin', ABBA-accountin' grampa Ingemar with a big fish and three small boys on the shore of Lake Lillsjön in Kungsängen west of Stockholm. If I recall correctly, the monster pike weighed 8.3 kg, and I still haven't seen a larger one get caught. Ingemar took it with his favourite method, dragrodd, where you trail a wobbler lure after your boat and row along the edge of the…

Nomenclator Zoologicus online

Every taxonomist has to check before they name a genus that the name hasn't been used before, or that their own taxon isn't a synonym of some previously named group. Eliminating synonyms is a complex task, involving a slew of literature from the 1758 edition of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae to the modern era. So a number of reference works were published which list where a taxon name was first published. One such was the ten volume Nomenclator Zoologicus which covered the zoological nomenclature from 1758 to 1994. It is now available in electronic format online, in a database format that can be…

Plimer is not entitled to his own facts

The ABC's quality control at Unleashed appears to have failed. They have published an article by Plimer that merely repeats many of the claims from his discredited book. Plimer has enlarged his claim from his book that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities. Now it is: Over the past 250 years, humans have added just one part of CO2 in 10,000 to the atmosphere. One volcanic cough can do this in a day. Tamino proves him wrong even if you count supervolcanoes. And note that it is dishonest for Plimer to use supervolcanoes to argue that humn emissions don't matter, since supervolcanoes…

The History Of Cooking in Five Courses

FROM OPEN FLAMES TO SOUS VIDE: The History Of Cooking in Five Courses Tuesday, February 9, 2010 - 7 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m. Cost $50. Reservations required. Call 612-624-9050 Join Chef Chris Olson and local experts on an exploration of the evolution of cooking in five delicious courses. With the Bell Museum's wildlife dioramas as a backdrop, Olson, cook at St. Paul-based Meritage and co-creator of Paired, will take diners on a culinary journey through the ages, from the invention of fire to the scientific approach to food through molecular gastronomy. Biological anthropologist Greg Laden…

The Tribulation flops

If you've been wondering how it would turn out, the first review of the Left Behind video game is online. It doesn't get any thumbs up. Don't mock Left Behind: Eternal Forces because it's a Christian game. Mock it because it's a very bad game. The real-time strategy/adventure game from Left Behind Games based on the best-selling series of novels from Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins will even let down born-again types who expect the Rapture to beam them up to heaven any day now. Nobody has enough faith to endure a game with such a hokey story, terrible mission design, serious problems with the…