Search Content

Displaying results 48801 - 48850 of 87947

Social Networking for Scientists, Part N

It seems everyone is talking about social networking sites these days. There are interesting thoughts on Richard Grant's and David Crotty's blogs (read the comment threads as well). Many of those sites will die, others will adapt, but most, I think, will play a supporting role in a whole network of services surrounding...the actual scientific papers. For instance, surrounding TOPAZ-based PLoS papers, perhaps organized into Hubs. And papers from other journals that join into the system. Thoughts?

Junky genomes, again

Also, Casey Luskin demonstrates his inability to comprehend a science paper, again. Creationists are obsessed with the idea that every nucleotide in the genome (and now the transcriptome) must have a function, an idea that is actively rejected by the available data, so Luskin reads a Nature paper on RNA and gets it completely backwards. Larry Moran has a quote from the paper that directly and plainly contradicts Luskin's misinterpretation. Once again, we can all laugh at the inanity of the Discovery Institute.

New and Exciting in PLoS Medicine and PLoS Biology

Are Animals Autistic Savants: Do animals have privileged access to lower level sensory information before it is packaged into concepts, as Temple Grandin has argued for autistic savants? Giorgio Vallortigara and colleagues critique this perspective, and Grandin responds. see also. Maternal Death, Autopsy Studies, and Lessons from Pathology: Clara Menendez and colleagues analyze 139 complete autopsies following maternal deaths in Maputo, Mozambique and find a predominance of infectious and preventable causes. Sebastian Lucas discusses the study in a related perspective.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Wikipedia and Facebook but were too shy to ask

Two books - Facebook: The Missing Manual and Wikipedia: The Missing Manual arrived in my mailbox today. How did I get them? By being on Facebook, getting a message from the O'Reilly Facebook group and being one of the first 20 to respond. The first glance at the books and the tables of contents suggests both books will be useful references and I will try to use them in the near future as I plan how to take over the world!

Computational Biology around the world

Johanna Dehlinger writes: In September, PLoS Computational Biology begins a series entitled "Developing Computational Biology" about the pursuit of scientific endeavors in computational biology around the world. Each country has unique features in areas from educational programs, types of research being undertaken and the ways that research is funded. The series starts with a perspective on computational biology in Mexico, followed by contributions about Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, China, and South Africa. This will be interesting to watch - tune in.

Besides shooting out a big blank from your buttock, you can feel as if your root chakra leaked sweet hot mucus.

This is woo of the decade! Priceless: How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? by Hiroyuki Nishigaki is, according to the Amazon reviewers, absolutely hilarious - reading it will make you laugh (and thus constrict your anus) at least a 100 times, thus completely good-bying your depression. The title of this post is an actual sentence from the book, according to one of the reviewers. Hat-tip: Vaughan

International Genetically Engineered Machine competition

My friend Franz, who runs a delightful blog Mikrob(io)log (in Slovenian) alerted me that the team of undergraduates from the University of Ljubljana won the iGEM 2007 at MIT the other day. They did it for the second year in a row (all brand new students, of course). The Ljubljana team won in the Health & Medicine category for their work on HIV-1 virus. One member of the team is Franz's student. Congratulations to the Slovenian team!

Can't we all get along?

The Phelps gang is picketing in Chicago with their "god hates fags" sign. Hate meets hate: there was a counter-demonstration. Which side to take? I'm a firm believer in Myers' Wager — who would you rather piss off, the little guy with the beard preaching peace and love, or the pitiless tentacled monstrosity from a space beyond space and a time beyond time? — so I'm going to side with this sign. Besides, she's much cuter than the cryptkeeper Fred Phelps.

2.5 hours from now

The horses will be entering the starting stalls for this year's Preakness. Will Street Sense do it again? His Derby win was so impressive it seems impossible he can be beat, but this time the distance is different, the field is much smaller and everyone will be looking out for him. And he is starting from the outside stall, against the instincts of his jockey who loves to hog the rail. It will be exciting to watch...

Birthday wishes all around!

Everyone at PLoS has been so busy lately, that we all forgot to check our calendars and note some important anniversaries! PLoS is turning 5 in December. PLoS Biology turned 4 last Saturday. PLoS Medicine is turning 3 this Friday. PLoS ONE passed the 1000-article mark last week. PLoS ONE will be one year old in December. We found this out from a blogger - thanks John for the reminder (I told you those "this day in history" posts were useful!). [image source]

Cat-astrophe!

Cashing in a few of its nine lives, this cat was lucky to be alive when it was rescued from its predicament. "The cat was just hanging under there," said Bristol Police Lt. Nick Guercia, who was one of the feline's rescuers. "How this cat didn't get killed is just amazing." Which leads me to ask .. how the heck did it get there in the first place?? This lucky kitty is currently under a veterinarian's care in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Circus of the Spineless Now Available

tags: circus of the spineless, blog carnival I know that at least some of you assume that that the Circus of the Spineless blog carnival is all about politicians, but (sorry to disappoint you), this blog carnival instead focuses on linking to essays about invertebrates. The 26th edition of this blog carnival has a lot of wonderful links and stories about insects and other invertebrates for you to enjoy. And, best of all, they included a submission from me!

Giant Leopard Moth Caterpillar

tags: moth, Ecpantheria scribonia, giant leopard moth, Image of the Day During the process of splitting and transferring wood from the woodpile yesterday, we discovered a large (2.5" long) hairy caterpillar. I have enclosed two pictures of it [the second is below the fold]; it is the larval stage of the Giant Leopard Moth, Ecpantheria scribonia. The life cycle is described and the adult is pictured here. Image: Dave Rintoul [wallpaper size] Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [wallpaper size]

More About My New Roommate

tags: hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus, streaming video As some of you know, I will soon be adding a four-month-old young parrot to my household. For those of you who have not heard of a hawk-headed (red-fan) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, or who are not familiar with them, here is a video of a five-month-old parrot of that species, named Cassius. This is still a very young bird, as is obvious from the video [1:44]

Carnivalia

Here's a few blog carnivals for you to read; Carnival of the Blue, number 15. This is a new blog carnival that focuses on the ocean, including ocean life asn well as non-oceanic life that is dependent upon the sea. All Things Eco, issue eleven. This blog carnival focuses on living lightly on the earth. Carnival of Family Life, 4 August 2008 issue. This blog focuses on all aspects of family life, from education to health and wellness.

So that's where some of our trolls come from…

Bill Dembski's Intelligent Design course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has some interesting course requirements. provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you've made on "hostile" websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade). Another 20% of the grade comes from the development of a Sunday School lesson plan. The whole course page is a rich vein of absurdity. Have fun mining it!

Barnard's Comet of 1889 Returns

The Minor Planet Center reports the discovery by L. Buzzi of the Schiaparelli Observatory, Varese, Italy of comet P/2006 M3. Computations by Green strongly suggests it is Barnard's comet of 1889 (c). Returning with a about a 128 year period. Welcome back. New orbit estimate is 119 year period, with apperihelion at about 1.1 AU and eccentricity of 0.95. Here is the original (pdf) No picture yet from the current observations. Maybe someone will get one up tomorrow.

blog scholarships vote

Scholarships-Ar-US have nominated 10 student bloggers for a nice little scholarship. Go vote (it is resistant to Chicago voting, must have a cookie and only lets you visit the voting page once, despite the stakes I imagine few people will take the time to flush their browser cookies and reset their DHCP to dishonestly vote multiple times) Current leader is a kossack, read through the choices, or just take me word for it and vote for SciBling Shelley from Retrospectable

Flash, a-ah

There's a lot of kerfuffle about Steve Jobs recent screed on why Flash is bad and must be blocked from our iApples The screed on Flash I actually sorta kinda agree with Steve here. Crap flash is definitely the thing most likely to hang the computer or crash a browser on Apple lines, and it is being superseded by better, hopefully more robust, standards. The antipope hisself thinks this goes deeper... seriously, check out Charlie Stross's take, after you read Steve Jobs.

An Astronomy Ranking

Here is an astronomy ranking for the US CA 46 MD 20 AZ 14 MA 11 NY 7 PA 7 TX 6 WA 6 DC 5 HI 5 MI 5 NJ 5 FL 4 TN 4 IL 3 OH 3 CO 2 GA 2 IN 2 MN 2 NM 2 VA 2 CT 1 MO 1 NV 1 SC 1 WI 1 0 for everyone else success rates, excluding the zeros, were from 50% for GA to less than 10% for CO. Anyone who tried 8 or more got some. About a quarter goes to CA, about twice the mean per capita.

Women Scientists

Science Education and Society has a blog meme: name five women scientists in your field, not at your institution Too easy. Vera Rubin Sandy Faber Anneila Sargent Margaret Geller Neta Bahcall that is just picking one name from each of five institutions, I could name several more, senior and junior, at each of those institutions, and a lot more by working systematically through the major research universities and institutions, or just my friends and collaborators. h/t Good Math, Bad Math

and then there were five

Keck/Lick team finds fifth planet in 55 Cancri Press release Pretty pictures and animations! 55 Cancri is one of the best studied extrasolar planet systems, it was known to have four planets, and now a fifth has emerged from the data - 45 Earth masses in near 1 AU orbit - in the habitable zone. Be nice if it has a large moon...! Meant to blog it, but Greg beat me to it, and has all the beautiful details wrapped up

Another classic quote mine

This is another wonderful example of the sloppy scholarship of the creationists. The always pretentious Berlinski made the interesting claim that John Von Neumann, the deservedly famous mathematician, thought that Darwinian theory was ridiculous. Douglas Theobald crushes that claim. Von Neumann was clearly on the side of evolutionary theory … but of course, whether he was or wasn't is actually irrelevant, since we don't judge ideas in modern biology by the authority of mathematicians from 50 years ago.

A Game of Thrones: casting call

Game of Thrones is being made into a TV series by HBO I am glad to say. Hope they do as well as "Rome". Could be really cool. But who to play the characters? Can we agree that Tobey Maguire ought to be banned from being in it? That Ian McKellen will somehow be in it. That Judi Dench ought to be in it? And that inevitably Sean Bean will be, and has some chance of being cast well... h/t kos

All I Need

tags: Microcosmos, Radiohead, music, All I Need, nature, streaming video This wonderful streaming video shows an unlikely combination of a series of clips from the 1996 French film, Microcosmos, with Radiohead's "All I Need" as the accompanying soundtrack. It's really beautiful. The editor writes; "The sensual pace and delicate melody of the song reminded me of a world much smaller than ours, with all the love and violence we experience. All credits go to the film and Radiohead. Hope you like." [3:54].

Julia Sweeney Talks About God

tags: Julia Sweeney, humor, streaming video Some religious humor that might appeal to you. Julia Sweeney performs a hilarious and moving excerpt from her new one-woman play, "Letting Go of God." Sweeney is a comedian and playwright, well-known both for her stint on Saturday Night Live (She created the character "Pat.") and for writing and performing the hit Broadway show, "God Said Ha!" (produced also as a film). (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:17)

Extinction Is Forever: Let's NOT Lose the Red Knot

tags: endangered species, red knot, Caladris canutus rufus, Delaware Bay, horseshoe crab, streaming video This a streaming video about the shorebirds, the Red Knot, that migrate through Delaware Bay from South America. Red Knots stay in the bay for 10 days or so and feed on horseshoe crab eggs to fatten up for their long journey to their Arctic nesting grounds. In this streaming video, scientist trap and tag migratory shore birds to gather information about them. [7:04]

Happiness Carnival Now Available

tags: happiness carnival, blog carnivals This is going to shock some people who know how cranky I have been recently due to my professional situation, but a contribution from me was included in the December issue of the Happiness Carnival. Yes, I know, I am the last one who you would suspect is walking around trying to conjure up reasons to be happy, but there ya go; I like to keep you all on your toes! So go there, read and be happy.

AMNH Subway Art #24

tags: sea turtle, photography, subway art, AMNH, NYC, NYCLife An unknown (to me) species of sea turtle (there are seven species to choose from) as portrayed in tiles on the walls of the NYC uptown subway stop (A-B-C) at 81st and Central Park West. (ISO, no zoom, no flash). Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [wallpaper size]. Read more about the AMNH tile artworks and see the AMNH tile artworks photographic archives -- with all the animals identified.

Carnival of Homeschooling Now Available

tags: Carnival of Homeschooling, education, blog carnivals The Carnival of Homeschooling is a new blog carnival for me but it is well-established, as you will see in the most recent issue -- it is jam-packed with lots of links to follow and read. If you peek closely, you'll find that they included an entry from me that might seem a little .. unusual .. when you think of the stereotype of what homeschooling is all about.

Reflections

tags: NYC, New York City, Bob Levy, image of the day Reflection On Frozen Central Park Lake: 01.17.09, 4:19 PM This image is of the New York City skyline reflected on the ice at Central Park Lake. I was looking south from Bank Rock Bay at the northern end of the lake. The original shot was darker. I adjusted the brightness to achieve this effect. Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George [larger view].

Upside down hockey stick

No, this is not Steve McIntyre finally coming out with his own multi-century proxy temperature reconstruction. Nor is it Anthony Watt's release of his surfacestations.org temperature reanalysis. It is the take away figure from a recent paper in Nature by Kinnard et al that reconstructs the extent of arctic sea ice over the last 1450 years. Tamino has a discussion of it here. There is not really much to add to the thousand words that image conveys.

Sneaky distractions

I've got all this work to get done right now, and what happens? Electronic Arts sends me the Creature Creator for their upcoming Spore video game (which is not going to be about evolution, no matter what their PR says — I've read the blurbs, and it's all non-evolutionary). It is fun, though. And of course I quickly whipped up a pharyngupod: Now I'm putting the game away. No more playing until I get back from my meetings this weekend.

Mad Scientist contest

There's a new contest you can enter: Build a Lifeform. A real one. Yes, it can be done now…or at least, we can insert new capabilities into existing organisms. Before you get too excited, though, most of this work involves directed tweaking of phage or E. coli, which is powerful stuff, but far removed from the dream of building Kelly LeBrock in my garage. We're going to need another decade or so before we can do that.

Origin of life

Nick Matzke has a fine summary of progress in research into abiogenesis. He chastises those people who try to argue that abiogenesis is independent of evolution, or that you can get out of trying to answer the question of where life came from by simply saying that that isn't evolution. It is! I've said it myself, and I really wish people would stop trying weasel out of that question by punting it off to some other discipline.

What was going on last night?

My drive home last night was a bit weird — there were fireworks going off everywhere, and being a bit disconnected from the calendar with all my recent travel I was puzzled by it all. Was Minnesota celebrating my return? I shouldn't be so self-centered. Of course they weren't. When I got home I saw the news: Jesse Helms is dead. That makes more sense as a reason to get out and celebrate patriotically — one less twisted, ignorant, bigoted pustule dots the face of America now.

It's a conspiracy!

So a guy gets a little older, and what happens? All these people try to draw attention to my age, largely with a collection of photoshopped pictures of yours truly. Don't they know I'm funny-looking enough that no photoshop is necessary? By the way, I got a nice present from my family: a new, ergonomic Cephalopod Throne. You'll be reassured to know that now, when I fling thunderbolts of furious vituperation about the web, I shall be doing so with excellent posture.

Evolution in 5 minutes

OK, it's cute and catchy, but it's also got a very awkward sudden jump from the mammal-like reptiles to the primates, and unfortunately it perpetuates the "evolution as a process on rails" concept by showing a single lineage — ours, of course. Why not show a progression to a modern rose, or a fly, or a fish? Or better yet, illustrate evolution as an ongoing explosion of diversity? I know, I know, it isn't as engrossing to self-centered humans, the market for this sort of thing.

Hard To Tell If Wikipedia Entry On Dada Has Been Vandalized Or Not

From The Onion, Hard To Tell If Wikipedia Entry On Dada Has Been Vandalized Or Not. Sadly the actual article is boringly factual (or it was; I've had a go at improving it but I doubt it will last. I like the way my version ends with an impassioned yes yes). My first go didn't last long, but then the punctuation was distracting. I think its better with the punctuation removed entirely before the sort. But should the sort be case sensitive?

UK budget

Today Broon delivered the 2007 budget. Listening to the news, it seems like mostly a nullity: just about everyone has had some taxes raised and others lowered (though we may gain a few hundred from tax changes). Fiddling because you need to be seen to be doing something; and aimed more at looking good and making the opposition look bad. Oh dear, its not promising. This has nowt to do with climate (and so does the budget, just about).

Why GM crops again?

So, why do we want genetically modified crops? I thought it was supposed to be part of a new Green Revolution. Apparently not... Via CommonDreams, it seems that another major study has found that GM crops are actually worse in terms of total production than conventional crops. So, besides ensuring global dependence on patented genomes, special pesticides and corporations like Monsanto...what is the point? (What's that? That is the point...? I'm so naive) [--original article from the Independent here--]

Christians Debunking the Christian Nation Myth

Jon Rowe has an excellent post at Positive Liberty about a number of Christian scholars whose work debunks the Christian Nation myth. In addition to the work of Gregg Frazer, which he and I have both promoted greatly, he also cites scholars like George Marsden, Mark Noll and Nathan Hatch. And I love the response that he cites to his own work in this regard, where some hack from Worldmag calls Rowe a "militant secular pagan" - whatever the hell that is.

Moonies Attack Newspaper

John Gorenfeld reports that 700 Moonies in South Korea attacked a newspaper after the paper printed unflattering reports of the cult's activities. They smashed the front windows of the building, destroyed computers and other fixtures in the building, then sent some 200 text messages to the reporter who wrote the story telling him they were going to kill him. And this from an organization that owns newspapers all over the world, including the Washington Times in the US.

Exploding underpants to be banned

Apparently, exploding underpants are to be banned on planes from now on. Security experts say that they never expected anyone to try this, but now that someone has they will look there too. They are considering banning exploding vests as well, but won't bother until someone actually tries it. [Sorry - couldn't find the "war is pants" pic. This will have to do. Or you could take a more relaxed view -W] [Speaking of underpants - don't forget Felix -W]

Wadhams on sea ice

Nothing new, but M pointed me at Greenman on sea ice which has a quote from Wadhams (starts around 5:00, quote around 5:20 I think) that is the "the arctic will be ice free in summer in 20 years" or words to that effect (which got noted in my Arctic to be 'ice-free in summer'?. I still don't believe it, not that that matters. Watch the video anyway for a glimpse of Wadham's / SPRI's rather haphazrd filing system.

Conservatives Against ID

As a counterpoint to yesterday's post about Ann Coulter's place within modern conservatism, check out this post from the blog Conservatives Against Intelligent Design. (Hat tip to Gene Expression for the link. It's nice to see that at least some conservatives are willing to take on the ignoramuses within their midst. I stand by everything I wrote yesterday, however. I never claimed there were no pro-science conservatives, only that such people represent a small, fringe element within American conservatism generally.

Discovering Baltimore's Inner Scientist, Hon

I've been falling down on the job of informing you about promotional events for Eureka, mostly because the pace of these has slackened. But I'll be on the radio today, on WYPR's "Midday with Dan Rodricks" based in Baltimore (I'll be in the usual studio in Albany for this...). This is scheduled for a full hour, 1-2pm Eastern time. So, if you're in Charm City, tune in. Or listen via the Internet from basically anywhere.

Gemini

Gemini is what got me into space, science, all of it. Amy Shira Teitel can bring you up to speed. Gemini worked out almost everything that had to be worked out to go to the moon. Not the part with the big fire cracker under the tin can to take off from the moon, but most of the rest of it. Science Communication Gone Rong! And, just for fun, right after I tweeted this post, I got this:

What Does Rex Tillerson Get Out Of Being Secretary Of State?

He's trying, in the hearings, to not let it look this way, but the truth is that he and Exxon Mobile stand to benefit a great deal from a Tillerson SOC. Also, Russia will benefit a great deal. Putting it a slightly different way, Tillerson's appointment makes the most sense of you replace "Trump" with "Putin" in sentences that refer to who the leader of the United States is. The composite graphic above explains this. The context for those graphics is here:

So I hear this Canadian band doesn't like religion either, eh?

Cleanse your palate of the unpleasant aftertaste of that last video with this loud instrumental from Rush — it's the "Malignant Narcissism" video at the top of the page. I like how it illustrates the advance of religion as a branching snake. If you don't like wmv or mov formats, it seems to be popular among the guitar heroes of youtube, so you can at least listen to it, even if you don't get to see the abrahamic viper.