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Malcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra

I'm sure I've done more than enough wibbling about TED for this week, but the only major physics story at the moment involved the Higgs boson, and I'm thoroughly sick of that. So let's talk about Malcolm Gladwell and journosplaining. Gladwell has a new book out, David and Goliath that from all reports is pretty much exactly what you expect from a Malcolm Gladwell book. I greatly enjoyed the digested read by John Crace in the Guardian. Among the many bad reviews of this were a trio by my colleague at Union, Christopher Chabris-- first a paywalled review in the Wall Street Journal, then a post…

Of Controversies and Clocks

A few months back, I got a call from a writer at a physics magazine, asking for comments on a controversy within AMO physics. I read a bunch of papers, and really didn't quite understand the problem; not so much the issue at stake, but why it was so heated. When I spoke to the writer (I'm going to avoid naming names as much as possible in this post, for obvious reasons; anyone I spoke to who reads this is welcome to self-identify in the comments), he didn't really get it, either, and after kicking it around for a while, it failed to resolve into a story for either of us-- in his case, because…

Evolution and Original Sin

I had intended to devote this post to Michael Ruse's latest column for HuffPo. It turns out, though, that first we need to consider this earlier column from Ruse. When I first started writing about evolution and creationism I took a highly accommodationist line. I was perfectly happy to parrot the conventional wisdom that evolution and Christianity were compatible and that only crazy extremists think differently. Of course, my current view is not nearly so ecumenical. Today I believe that while it is not flatly impossible to reconcile them, it is at least far more difficult than is…

My Review of Galileo Goes to Jail

In a couple of recent posts I have mentioned the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion edited by Ronald Numbers. Since I have now finished reading it, I figure it is time for a proper review. Short review: Mixed. As a compendium of interesting facts about the history of science and religion the book works rather well. The myth/reality format, however, is not always successful. Longer review below the fold. Galileo Goes to Jail consists of twenty-five short essays, each centered around some “myth” related to science and religion. Some of the myths are of the…

Male dietary supplement for bodybuilding and sexual performance associated with metastatic prostate cancer cases

If you read nothing else: Men with prostate cancer should avoid any dietary supplement containing testosterone (or anything that sounds like it) or that offers claims of increased virility, sexual performance, or increased muscle mass. Consumption of a herbal/hormone dietary supplement has been linked to two cases of aggressive prostate cancer as reported in a paper in the 15 January issue of Clinical Cancer Research (abstract free; full paper paywalled) . The observations and follow-up studies were conducted by urologists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and Baylor…

Global Warming and Nuclear Power: It's Wrong

I'm way late to the Ask a Scienceblogger of a few weeks ago. So late that the question has come back around in a new Ask for this week (and this after being trumped by last week's Organic query - and both subjects are of great interest to me and soon I will converge them, plausibly, not as a lark). I fear now that I may have waded into a mini-manifesto below. The actual article referenced in the Global Warming Ask category is not worth addressing, though it is actually kind of funny (by intent, I suppose). But I am concerned that Global Warming talk is becoming the end-all and be-all of…

A Curmudgeon's and Improv's Guide to Outliers: Chapter 1

Moving on to Chapter 1 in my ongoing pedantic plodding through Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success. See here for what this is all about. Note that I really am doing this as I read the book (I'm reading it really really slowly), so what I say here may be outdated by the time I get further into the book. List of posts here: introduction, ch 1. SPOILER ALERT: Dude, I can't talk about the book without giving away what the book is about, so if you don't want the book's main ideas to be spoiled, don't continue reading. IDIOT ALERT: I'm in no way qualified in most of the fields…

The Beauty of Deceit

Sometimes a picture can tell you a lot about evolution. This particular picture has a story to tell about how two species--in this case a fly and an orchid--can influence each other's evolution. But the story it tells may not be the one you think. Coevolution, as this process is now called, was one of Darwin's most important insights. Today scientists document coevolution in all sorts of species, from mushroom-farming ants to the microbes in our own gut. But Darwin found inspiration from the insects and flowers he could observe around his own farm in England. Darwin's thoughts about…

Imaginary Gastrulation and the return of Balloon Animal Biology

The crackpots are bustin' out all over -- not just in politics, but also in science. Remember Stuart Pivar? The septic tank tycoon who invented a whole new theory of evolution and development that he called Lifecode, built entirely around imaginary drawings of how embryos formed by folding and stretching themselves like balloon animals? It was total nonsense. There was no data. Much of his imagined topological transformations contradicted known embryological patterns, and he'd clearly never looked at real embryos. It was loosely based on structuralism, like the work of D'Arcy Thompson, which…

Tilapia and Fiji's Fish: Revisited.

A little while back I wrote an article about a recent study which largely blamed farmed Tilapia for the loss of native biodiversity in Fijian waterways. I have since received e-mails from Gerald Billings, the Head of Aquaculture at the Ministry of Fisheries and Forests in Fiji. He expressed his concern over the paper's intent and subsequent findings. As a scientist, I believe strongly in impartiality, so I've posted the entirety of his response to the study after the fold for you to read if you wish. I don't like the idea of supporting bickering between governments and conservation…

A sadly necessary introduction:

Update - I've written a second post on this topic in response to the President's speech at Fort Irwin earlier today. Mr. President, meet the Constitution. Constitution, I'd like to introduce you to President George W. Bush. It's been a long six years since Mr. Bush took office, and it's high time the two of you got to know each other - especially with that whole oathy-type thing. It's probably going to be easier to do all that "preserve, protect, and defend" thing if you have some sort of vague sense of what it is you are defending. This overdue introduction is particularly necessary today…

What makes special creationism special?

It is the default opinion of those who accept evolution and those who deny it, that before Darwin, or Lamarck at any rate, everyone was a special creationist. Even Darwin implies in the Origin that if one is not a transformist with regards to species, one is a special creationist. Is it true, and what work does "special" do when affixed to "creation"? It's important to know if only because of those interminable canards creationists of today in which science is supposed to be based on the work of creationists like Newton because they Christians, and didn't believe in evolution. As if one…

Traumatic brain injury on the front line

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is said to be one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq, and accounts for a larger proportion of troop casualties than it has in previous wars fought by the United States. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the U. S. military formally diagnosed 2,121 cases of TBI between October 2001 and January 2007. The incidence of TBI among troops may actually be much higher than these official statistics suggest, largely because of the increasing use of the signature weapon of the Iraq war: the improvised explosive device (IED).…

Essentialized Social Categories I: Gender Essentialism

Psychological essentialism is the belief that kinds have an underlying, probably unseen essence that makes them what they are. We may, for example, believe that tigers have an underlying essence that gives them their stripes and makes them carnivores. We could represent that essence as a particular underlying feature of tigers, such as their genetic makeup, or we could believe that such an essence exists without having any ideas about what it might be. Whether we know what the essence of a particular kind might be doesn't matter. We are psychological essentialists about a particular kind if…

Mother's Day appreciation (part I): Why Mom went back to school.

In honor of Mother's Day, I want to celebrate the ways that mothers have blazed trails, knocked down barriers, and challenged expectations of what their daughters' lives can be. When we're young, we don't always appreciate how important our parents (or other adults in our circle) can be as role models. Part of this, I think, is that a kid's world is smaller in some important ways. What you know of the world you know through school, through friends, through cartoons, and through your family. Lots of aspects of the wider world don't really pop up in your consciousness until you have to…

Ask Dr. Free-Ride: True love waits (until the end of the semester).

By email, a reader asks for advice on a situation in which the personal and the professional seem like they might be on a collision course: I am a junior at a small (< 2000 students) liberal arts college. I got recruited to be a TA for an upper division science class, and it's going swimmingly. I'm basically a troubleshooter during labs, which the professor supervises. The problem is that I've fallen for one of the students, also a junior. Is it possible for me to ethically date her? The university's handbooks are little help--sexual harassment is very strictly prohibited, but even faculty…

What to do with the cheater once caught.

Back in December (or as we academics call it, Exam-Grading Season), esteemed commenter Ewan told us about a horrifying situation that was unfolding for him: Probably not totally relevant, but frankly I'm still in a little shock. Graded exams Friday evening before heading out for weekend. Noted some really strong efforts (take-home exam), some really lame, nothing special. Then: two word-for-word identical, typos-and-all, answers with *many* unique characteristics compared to all other answerers of that Q, even down to the same joke-aside-to-the-professor. Ack, really? Check. Yep, really, and…

Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 3).

As with yesterday's dialogue blocker (the question of whether animal research is necessary for scientific and medical advancement), today's impediment is another substantial disagreement about the facts. A productive dialogue requires some kind of common ground between its participants, including some shared premises about the current state of affairs. One feature of the current state of affairs is the set of laws and regulations that cover animal use -- but these laws and regulations are a regular source of disagreement: Current animal welfare regulations are not restrictive enough/are too…

Once again: "Plausibility" does not mean "knowing the mechanism"

I tend to get lost in complexity from time to time. I know, big surprise to my regular readers, but I suppose it's a good thing that at least I know that this is a weakness of mine. Indeed, it must be part and parcel of my seeming tendency to produce epic posts of ridiculous length that sometimes surpass 5,000 words, although, in all fairness, my average post length is probably less than 2,000 words, which is still too long for many people but not beyond the pale. Of course, part of the reason for this is that I like to leave no stone unturned. In particular, I tend to like to make my…

Stanislaw Burzynski: Kind-hearted strangers and a failure of medical journalism

About two and a half weeks ago, I was disappointed to learn that Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski had somehow managed to delay justice again. At the time, I didn't know what had happened other than that his hearing before the Texas Medical Board, which had been scheduled to begin on April 11 and to which I had been greatly looking forward, given that Dr. Burzynski could well have lost his Texas medical license if the hearing had gone against him. Fortunately, in the comments, readers informed me that this was nothing unusual, a continuance was issued due to legal maneuvering on both sides. Contrary to…

An uncomfortable question

Work called last night. (It happens.) Basically, I had two deadlines for two big things (finishing reviewing the grants assigned to me for study section and a major writeup for a project for my job). Unfortunately, both of them were today. I realized as I perused old posts that I hadn't reposted this one in over five years. So, unless you're a long time reader, it's definitely new to you. More importantly, it reminds me that I don't write about thins like this much anymore. Certainly I rarely do personal anecdotes or straight medical blogging much anymore. Maybe I should do more. [NOTE: This…

Reiki: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you can get what you need

Whenever I write about the woo that is reiki, I feel obligated to point out just what reiki is. Sure, it might be repetitive, but I hope my regular readers will indulge me. I never know when new readers will pop in, and it is necessary to do a bit of review. Basically, reiki is faith healing that substitutes Eastern mystical beliefs for the more "conventional" Christian beliefs that undergird the the scams of faith healers like Benny Hinn or Peter Popoff. Indeed, that's one reason why the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declared that reiki should not be offered in Catholic hospitals, and…

Autism quackery: Try, try, try, and never give up

Antivaccine quackery is arguably one of the worst forms of quackery. First, the pseudoscientific beliefs undergirding such quackery are based on the fear and demonization of one of the greatest medical advances in the history of the human race, the result of which are children left unprotected against preventable diseases that routinely used to populate cemeteries with little bodies. Almost as bad, one of those beliefs, namely the scientifically discredited belief that vaccines cause autism, has led to a cottage industry of quack "treatments" based on the idea that autism is a manifestation…

Dr. Oz promises to stop promoting pseudoscience. Should we believe him?

Regular readers of this blog will find it no surprise that I don't think much of Dr. Mehmet Oz. The reason, of course, is that his daily television show, The Dr. Oz Show, has been a font of misinformation about medicine almost since it began airing six years ago. It's not for nothing that I long ago labeled him "America's Quack." Simply searching for the name Mehmet Oz on this blog will quickly produce examples of the many times when he's credulously promoted quackery and pseudoscience such as homeopathy (The One Quackery To Rule Them All), faith healing, fear mongering about GMOs, and…

Does Cranberry Juice Help Repress or Reduce Urinary Tract Infections? A study in skeptical juice drinking.

After I reported this recent and interesting research paper about urinary tract inflictions, a number of conversations broke out on that post, on my facebook page, and via email, and some of these conversations raised the question of cranberry juice and whether the idea that it prevents, reduces, or shortens the duration of UTIs is real or woo. Added: After further discussion elsewhere, I would like to clarify what is being asked here: Imagine you are a person who drinks apple juice and cranberry juice as your main hydrating substance. Also, you are are a person who is concerned with…

Darwin and the Voyage: 07 ~ South of the Tropics

Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required. The Parana and Uruguay Rivers meet in the Atlantic estuary known as Rio de la Plata. On the north side of this huge body of water is Montevideo, Uruguay, and on the south side, the northern coast of Argentina. There is an interesting story linked with early European exploration of this area. A Spanish ship is the first known European craft to explore La Plata. The ship's captain and a small crew went inland, and never came…

Arrogance: The mercury militia responds to the NEJM article on thimerosal-containing vaccines

Pity the investigators at the CDC studying whether thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative pilloried by the antivaccination movement as the cause of autism and everything that is evil in medicine. Three months ago, they published a high profile article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled Early Thimerosal Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes at 7 to 10 Years, which, as had so many large studies before it, failed to find any correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and neuropsychological problems in children. True, it didn't specifically look at autism (…

The story of the 17-year-old with melanoma being forced to undergo chemotherapy: Urban legend?

My recent update of my ongoing discussion of the Abraham Cherrix case reminded me that there's a bit of alarming e-mail being sent out and forwarded far and wide. If you read it, at first glance, you will think it sounds utterly horrifying, the Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke cases all rolled up into one and then placed on steroids to the point that even a maven of evidence-based medicine would have to take pause--if the story were true. The source of the e-mail seems to be the Natural Solutions Foundation/Health Freedom USA, given all the "donate" buttons in the webpage to which I tracked…

Update on the nine alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth

Several climate scientists have now examined the alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth. At RealClimate Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and Michael Mann (director Penn State Earth System Science Center) write: First of all, "An Inconvenient Truth" was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard. Secondly, the judge's characterisation of the 9 points is substantially flawed. He appears to have put words in Gore's mouth that would indeed have been wrong had they been said (but they weren't).…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Just what your water needs--more electrons!

While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…

A different kind of alternative medicine "testimonial"

I've written before about how frequently alties like to point to testimonials as "evidence" that their treatments work. Indeed, from the very beginning, in one of the earliest posts I ever wrote, I explained just why breast cancer testimonials for alternative medicine should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Of course, most of these testimonials are either given by true believers or used by people selling alternative medicine, and they are used mainly to sell product. That's one reason why I've emphasized that evidence from well-designed clinical trials is the best way of assessing what…

The Battle of the Skeptic and the Empath

Lately, I've been pondering our use of models to predict the future conditions of our planet. However, it is also nearly Halloween. Together, it seems like a good time to pull out this old post of mine, which asks if a deck of Tarot cards can be a useful tool for modeling a person's life. Don't get me wrong... I'm not about to attempt to defend some pseudoscience, nor am I going to expose a mass of woo. Instead, this is more an argument between two sides of personality: the battle between the skeptic and the empath. If you've read some of my [older] fictional entries, such as A Hint of…

A very private conversation revealed, just like Wikileaks

The following is an accurate account of a recent conversation in which illegal, and possibly dangerous acts against the Federal and State governments were planned. "I'm glad you guys could come over for dinner," said our host, as we shared the task of moving dishes and serving plates, silverware and glasses from the dining room table to the kitchen. "Get out of here, no need to help cleaning up," he continued, shooing the three of us away from the kitchen and into the living room, where we distributed ourselves on various pieces of furniture. I had known Bill years ago in school, and we…

PETA: Even more impossible to parody than ever!

Yesterday's post was a result of the feeling that I had been getting too snarky for too long a time without doing some serious science or medical blogging. Not that there's anything wrong with being snarky, but a continuous diet of snark eventually gets dull--and not just to readers. However, science blogging is hard. Posts like that take a lot of work (which is why I have a propensity to write such posts over the weekend and post them on Monday). After I do a serious, thoughtful post like that, sometimes I just need a diversion. Sometimes I need to examine something that allows me to deliver…

The Chicago Tribune's cheerleader for woo is at it again

Oddly enough, I'm more tired this morning than I was on Friday. That's the sort of thing that happens when I actually do as much work over the weekend as I often do on two typical weekdays. The reason is that I've suddenly found myself with an unexpected promotion, and--oh, by the way--there's stuff that needs to be done on Monday. Consequently, my originally intended topic for Monday will have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday, mainly because it might require a bit of thought. That's OK. It'll wait. Besides, it'll be much more useful and educational if I have a little time to think about it…

No matter how often I read about treatments like this, I still can't believe parents actually subject their children to them

It's been a while since I've written about MMS. You remember MMS, don't you? It's an abbreviation for "miracle mineral solution," a solution first promoted by a man who is inaptly named Jim Humble. Basically, as I've described in multiple blog posts, MMS is bleach, specifically chlorine dioxide (ClO2). I first became acutely aware of it a little more than a year ago, when I noticed that the antivaccine autism biomed quackfest known as Autism One featured a talk by a woman named Kerri Rivera, who advocated using MMS to "bleach autism away," as I put it at the time. Of course, Jim Humble doesn'…

My last word (I hope): Michael Phelps, cupping, and "integrative medicine"

As I mentioned yesterday, there are news events involving medicine (more specifically pseudoscience in medicine) that are so ubiquitous and irritating that they’re enough to bring me briefly out of my vacation to bang out a quick post. So it was when I wrote my post yesterday about Michael Phelps’ enthusiasm for cupping, a practice attributed to traditional Chinese medicine that is actually an ancient practice that seems to have been independently thought up in multiple cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians. Basically, cupping therapy is a near-universal practice dating back at least 3,500…

John Phillips' reaction to Darwin

In an essay called "The Reception of the 'Origin of Species'" printed in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (and reprinted in Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley), "Darwin's Bulldog" T.H. Huxley described the intellectual shock of understanding Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection; As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of mind -- inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and…

Hey, where'd that gravy train go?

From Inside Higer Ed, there are reports that the end of regular increases in NIH funding (such that there will soon be a double-digit decline in the purchasing power of the NIH budget) are stressing out university researchers and administrators: At Case Western Reserve University, a decline in NIH funds contributed to a budget shortfall of $17 million below projections for the 2006 fiscal year. NIH funds are key at Case -- and at many institutions the NIH is the largest outside source of research support. While NIH officials have touted the fact that the number of new competitive grants will…

“New Agnostics” or “Same Old Ineffectual Wafflers”

My brain has been blasted by the confident inanity of Ron Rosenbaum. He's a chipper flibbertigibbet who is proudly agnostic (no problem with that) and as dumb as they come (which is a problem). He has written an essay on Slate titled "The Rise of the New Agnostics" which has a few little quirks. No such movement exists, which he admits, it's strikingly unoriginal to invent a 'new' epithet for your nonexistent movement by appropriating a three letter modifier from the "New" Atheists which we all detest and groaningly disavow over and over again, it is a remarkably incoherent manifesto, and he…

"What's the big fuss? It's just research!" (Or, how scientists understand the public's qualms.)

A friend who has been lurking here sent me an email the other day to get my take on the apparent attitude of American scientists toward stem cell research and toward the American public. My friend writes that he has been struck by the reaction of scientists in discussion of stem cell research that "Gee, I just can't understand what all the fuss is about -- this is just research! The scientists in Europe are all laughing at us, because they just don't understand what all the controversy is about! We're losing ground and falling behind!" and so on. Now, I don't have a settled view about the…

The Darwin Road Show

Scientists Take Darwin on the Road | Miller-McCune: "I want to send our scientists to rural schools and communities around the U.S. to talk about evolution for Darwin Day 2011." Jory Weintraub's words hung undigested in the silent air of the management meeting at our North Carolina center last July. "You want to send our scientists where?" I jested. "On purpose?" So begins Craig McClain's account of the Darwin Road Show, a project he and his colleagues at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center undertook last February. McClain, who also blogs at Deep Sea News, describes the enthusiasm the…

Febrile nitwits and the hacked climate change emails

This is an excellent response to the furious and unfounded assertions of the right-wing denialists that have followed from the release of private email by climate change scientists. I'm on a couple of private mailing lists where we exchange views on evolution, and <shock horror> we actually argue it times, and sometimes even disagree heatedly with one another. That climate scientists hash out disagreements in vigorous private debate is no surprise, and no sign of either a conspiracy or intent to mislead the public.

Some Good Lancet Article Posts By Lindsay

Over at Majikthise, Lindsay has been doing some really good debunking of the critics of the Lancet article that indicates roughly 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq War and Occupation. Here they are: Over half a million additional deaths in Iraq since US invasion Innumerate cowards recoil from the facts: 655,000 dead Iraqis More on the Lancet study of Iraqi deaths Interview with co-author of Lancet study of Iraqi deaths Tim Blair and the web of belief

Whether It's Congressional Pages or Schoolchildren...

...it's pretty clear the Republicans don't give a damn about America's children. There's growing evidence that the Republican political establishment doesn't believe in the Christian Right's lunacy. So all the hot air about putting intelligent design creationism into the classroom was crapola to placate the Christopath base. In other words, the Republicans were willing to degrade science education, waste time in the classroom, and divert teachers and scientists from doing their real jobs simply to maintain their grip on power. Heckuva job, Bushists.

Quote of the Day: The HPV Vaccine Edition

From Kristine at Amused Muse: People are always pointing at scientists and screaming, "Why don't you find a cure for cancer?" Well, now that scientists finally have, loopy-loo fundies deny the treatment for their daughters! Screw them. Not only should this vaccination be required for all young girls, any parent who seriously thinks that this "encourages immorality" should have his or her children taken away. They aren't fit to be parents. Pregnancy as punishment, cancer as coercion. Welcome to Bush's America.

Brown, itz not a bug, itz a feature

My friend Manish Vij just started a new brown themed weblog, aptly titled UltraBrown. Anyway, this entry is hilarious. Talk about seeing the world only through your own lens! When I was in San Francisco once someone came up to me in a shop at Ghirardelli Square and asked "where I was from." You see, I had bleached my hair blonde at that point, so she was wondering where the land of brown-skined blondes was! (there are dark-skinned blondes among the Aboriginals of Australia)

You germy fat pig....

Interesting article in The Boston Globe which profiles researchers who suggest that variation in gut flora (the mix of bacteria) might be the cause of differences in body weight. Interesting fact: there are an order of magnitude more bacteria in your gut than cells in your body. Also, to my knowledge (hearing this from a microbiologist last year) this gut ecosystem hasn't really been replicated in the lab, so that kind sucks for a scientific understanding beyond description. Update: An expert comments.

Agnostics smarter than Atheists?

The always fascinating Ron Gunhame parses the GSS and religion & intelligence data. He finds: Mean vocabulary score - Whites 6.52 Doesn't believe 7.24 No way to find out 6.96 Some higher power 6.02 Believes sometimes 6.42 Believes but doubts 6.05 Knows God exists Ron concludes that atheists are less intelligent than agnostics from this, but Jason Malloy in the comments has several follow ups which clear up the issue a bit and suggest that Ron spoke too soon.

Links 6/29/10

Another day, another dollar. Links for you (and they're free!). Science: A simple way to get the antiscience crowd to come around? The Dynamics of Deathly Drool (With BONUS LOL Komodo Dragons!) Why kangaroos evolved small arms and long legs Other: Manifesto: I Am Not a Brand Why wouldn't people be more likely to identify with conservatism? G20 Confers on how to make you pay for the rich's blunders AmericaSpeaks: Will The Politicians Listen? Across From White House, Coffee With Lobbyists