jlynch | June 6, 2007
Tom Waits singing "The Piano Has Been Drinking" on Fernwood Tonight in 1977. Bonus points: Post-performance interview features the classic line "I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy."
jlynch | June 6, 2007
Anyone have an idea what species of cuttlefish (?) this is? I saw it at the New England Aquarium but never noted down what it was. Thanks.
jlynch | June 6, 2007Ed highlights an absolutely asinine regulation (instituted by the Bush administration in 2004) that prohibits
persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba.
In other word, you as a person "subject to the…
jlynch | June 6, 2007
The old story goes that JBS Haldane felt that God had an inordinate fondness for beetles. It also seems he likes catfish. CJ Ferraris has produced a checklist of fossil and living catfishes and estimated that there are 3093 valid species in 478 genera (and 36 families). Of these 72 species are known solely from fossils. No one who knows catfishes will be surprised that the largest family is the Loricariidae (716 species in 96 genera), but interestingly, three genera of living catfishes could not be assigned to existing families: Conorhynchos and Phreatobius from South America, and Horabagrus…
jlynch | June 5, 2007Events
1969 - The first Internet connection was created when network control protocol packets were sent from the data port of one IMP to another
Births
1436 - Regiomontanus, German mathematician
1519 - Andrea Cesalpino, Italian philosopher, physician, and botanist
1580 - Godefroy Wendelin, Flemish astronomer
1850 - Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1857 - Aleksandr Lyapunov, Russian mathematician
1906 - Max August Zorn, German-born mathematician
1918 - Edwin G. Krebs, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1933 - Heinrich Rohrer…
jlynch | June 5, 2007
There has been some blogospheric notice of the Conservation International survey in Surimane which has found 24 new species. Other good news is that the previously thought to be extinct dwarf suckermouth catfish (Harttiella crassicauda, above) has been re-discovered. The species - which reaches a size of about five centimeters - had last been spotted over fifty years ago.
jlynch | June 5, 2007Behe's latest piece of dreck (The Edge of Evolution) has appeared and it has already recieved quite the beatdown from Michael Ruse, Mark Chu-Carroll, PZ Myers, and Nick Matzke, with Nick's post being fairly damning regarding Behe's "ability" to do basic research (see here as well). I've a copy sitting on my desk here but am not terrible keen to crack it open, particular as there appears to be nothing new in the book beyond what was said eleven years ago in Darwin's Black Box - ID, a "new science for a new century" that is still trapped in the old century, it appears.
Whether I bother to read…
jlynch | June 4, 2007
Events
1981 - The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
1995 - Bose-Einstein condensate is first created.
Births
1553 - Bernardino Baldi, Italian mathematician
1646 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Italian mathematician
1757 - Pierre Jean George Cabanis, French physiologist
1819 - John Couch Adams, English mathematician and astronomer
1862 - Allvar…
jlynch | June 4, 2007Today is my birthday, so don't expect any postings from me ... I'm going to relax for the day. I however dutifully present your events for the day ...
Events
1783 - The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière
Births
1787 - Constant Prévost, French geologist
1877 - Heinrich Wieland, German biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1916 - Robert F. Furchgott, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Deaths
1973 - Maurice René Fréchet, French mathematician
jlynch | June 3, 2007Events
1965 - Launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew.
1965 - For 21 minutes, Edward H. White floats free outside the space vehicle Gemini 4 for the first time.
Births
1659 - David Gregory, Scottish astronomer
1723 - Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-born naturalist
1726 - James Hutton, Scottish geologist
1873 - Otto Loewi, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate
1879 - Raymond Pearl, American biologist
1899 - Georg von Békésy, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate
1923 - Igor Shafarevich, Russian mathematician
1924 - Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Prize…
jlynch | June 3, 2007
For an explanation of why the shadow of the shuttle’s launch plume is pointed towards the Moon, see APOD (which also has a hi-res version of the image).
jlynch | June 2, 2007Events
1966 - Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first US spacecraft to soft land on another world.
2003 - Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
Births
1949 - Heather Couper, British astronomer
Deaths
1785 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician
2000 - Gerald Whitrow, British mathematician
jlynch | June 1, 2007Over at Denialism, Mark neatly outlines Alexander Cockburn’s descent into crankdom regarding global warming, a descent that neatly illustrates the clarity of Mark’s crank HOWTO (which predates his exposure to Cockburn’s droolings - I know as it was I who tipped him onto them).
Update (6/2): Tim @ Deltoid catches Cockburn in the quote mine.
jlynch | June 1, 2007
As Shelley has pointed out, Stinky Journalism has done a take-down on the Hogzilla II photos (see here and here) and has concluded that the hog was not as large as claimed. Not all of that debunking is, it appear, correct, so you might also want to see this debunking which claims that the photos were manipulated digitally as well as through use of perspective (see in particular figure 3, reproduced above in smaller form).
Predictably, the article resulted in a whole bunch of comments by folks defending the boy-hunter ("Let the boy have is momeny of glory"). My favorite has got to be:
I…
jlynch | June 1, 2007Events
1831 - James Clark Ross discovers the North Magnetic Pole.
Births
1633 - Geminiano Montanari, Italian astronomer
1796 - Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, French mathematician
1899 - Edward Charles Titchmarsh, English mathematician
1907 - Frank Whittle, English inventor of the jet engine.
1940 - Kip Thorne, American physicist
Deaths
1795 - Pierre-Joseph Desault, French anatomist
1941 - Hans Berger, German neuroscientist
1979 - Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1999 - Christopher Sydney Cockerell, British engineer and inventor
jlynch | May 31, 2007Births
1931 - John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1941 - Louis J. Ignarro, American pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1799 - Pierre Lemonnier, French astronomer
1832 - Ãvariste Galois, French mathematician
1910 - Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician
1976 - Jacques Monod, French biologist, Nobel laureate
1986 - James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel laureate
2006 - Raymond Davis Jr., American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | May 30, 2007Nature recently ran a story about, what it termed, the "Arizona experiment," changes that have been occurring here at Arizona State University. The article briefly quoted Robert Pettit, the former director of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) which was closed in 2005. Today's Nature features a letter by John C. Knight which states that:
[A]fter disagreements with the university's president Michael Crow, Pettit was removed from the position and the institute was effectively closed down. All the personnel were transferred to the university's Biodesign Institute. After a year of problems and…
jlynch | May 30, 2007You’re either going to get this or not:
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10 O RLY?
YA RLY
BTW this is true
VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!"
NO WAI
BTW this is false
VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!"
KTHX
KTHXBYE
More details here.
jlynch | May 30, 2007
According to the Global Peace Index created by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation in the world and Iraq is the least. Among the 121 countries ranked, the United States came in 96th. Ireland was fourth.
The index was compiled based on 24 indicators measuring peace inside and outside of a country. They included the number of wars a country was involved in the past five years, how many soldiers were killed overseas and how much money was made in arms sales. Domestic indicators included the level of violent crimes, relations with neighboring countries and level…