jlynch | January 4, 2007So overall I think the workshop on blogging went well. Turnout was, apparently, as expected and we answered questions for just under two hours. All in all, a good experience. Tomorrow we have the meetup in the evening and, eh yeah, some science.
jlynch | January 4, 2007SICB (pronounced 'sick-bee') is certainly a smorgasbord of science and it is somewhat difficult to decide which sessions and/or talks to attend. I had originally intended spending the day with the Linking Genes with Morphology in Vertebrates symposium, but a combination of factors had me instead hopping from talk to talk. For those interested, PZ has summarized the morning portion of the symposium.
(I did manage to attend the first afternoon talk of the symposium - by Cohn on the evolution of cartilage and un-paired fins in vertebrates ... good stuff).
I spent the day so far with topics as…
jlynch | January 3, 2007Apparently people were picking on me for not turning up on time. A slacker, they called me. Bah, humbug - I was only spending time with my family.
That aside, I spent the evening with Grrl and PZ catching up, drinking beer, talking blogging, evodevo, loris, evolution and other stuff.
Science sessions start tomorrow - more then.
jlynch | January 2, 2007As PZ announced earlier today (as did GrrlScientist), we've firmed up our meetup plans for the SICB conference.
Friday 6th around 6pm, we'll be meeting at Seamus McCaffreys fairly close to the conference hotel. Contrary to PZ's suggestion, I wont be forcing anyone to drink Guinness (the drink is only barely drinkable here in the US) and therefore wont be buying the beer :) PZ's got tenure ... he's probably got more cash than me anyways! We should be easy to spot at the bar - GrrlScientist looks like a lori, I'll have a posse (some luck!),
and PZ will be dressed as his Satanic Majesty (no,…
jlynch | January 1, 2007OK, so Michigan lost to a team that itself lost to UCLA and Oregon State. Unsurprisingly, Dwayne Jarrett showed himself to be a classless TO-wannabe. But what about Boise State? 43-42 over Oklahoma in overtime to go unbeaten. Classic, just classic.
jlynch | January 1, 2007This is almost too funny to be true. From the mind of Michael Westfall:
Today the use of personal computers is one of the fastest growing areas of mass communication. This technology can be used for the good of humanity or in some cases small-minded warped individuals endeavor to use it to debase and alter Judeo-Christian values. There are now multiple radical "Left Be-Hinder" web sites that make a sport of attacking those who take a stand for decency. These sites question traditional Bible based morality as they labor to twist our society towards their own confused
values. They use their web…
jlynch | January 1, 2007
In the shadow of The Year in ID, Dembski gives us his predictions for ID in 2007. Three simple things:
A new ID friendly research center at a major university. (This is not merely an idle wish -- stay tuned.) [Prediction by me: This will be at Baylor and no biology will be involved.]
The publication of Michael Behe's book with Free Press: THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION. [Prediction by me: No new science here, shoddy peer review, and Behe will ignore previous criticisms.]
The publication of the sequel to OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE, authored by Jonathan Wells and me and titled THE DESIGN OF LIFE:…
jlynch | January 1, 2007
What is this mystery beast captured on film in Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia in 2003? Initial claims were that it was a new species
of carnivore. But is there evidence for this claim?
Initial discussions centered on whether the specimen was a viverrid of some kind (e.g. the very rare Hose's Palm Civet, Hemigalus [Diplogale] hosei). The WWF, who sponsored the original research, for their part felt that this was most likely a new species of civet. Recently a study by
Meijaard et al. has analyzed the two available photos of the specimen (and in so doing generated…
jlynch | December 31, 2006"Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, was killed Thursday [December 28th] by small arms fire in Baghdad, the Defense Department said." (source)
jlynch | December 31, 2006Real headlines:
AP poll: Americans optimistic for 2007
Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007
... and these are talking about the the same AP-AOL News poll.
jlynch | December 30, 2006This is kind of cool - pool shots in slow motion with thermal imaging.
(Seen on fark.com)
jlynch | December 30, 2006Noticed a few hits from FreeRepublic.com this morning as someone called "truthfinder9" had linked to my post about Ken Ham and AiG revenue. Here is a highlight:
truthfinder9
I noticed the miltant YECs over at AIG have stepped up their unchristian attacks on other Christians. I wonder if their drop in funding has anything to do with it. Or maybe their methods and actions are finally catching up to them. .... [snip quote from my original post]
Isn't it illegal for members of a nonprofit to financially benefit from the donations of their supporters? Seems like Ken Ham was living high off…
jlynch | December 29, 2006The November 30th edition of the London Review of Books has a review by John Whitfield of Burt & Trivers' Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements (which has been on my shelf unread for awhile now). Here's a nice quote:
[R]eading [the book] did help me work out why evolutionary biology is so compelling. It's because it is to biology what maths is to physics: a set of beautiful and powerful intellectual tools that unify and make sense of the facts, revealing both life's strangeness and its logic.
jlynch | December 29, 2006Back in March, I noted that creationism was a profitable business ... at least for Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who had a salary of $121,764 for 2004. Now Jim Lippard is reporting that Ham has taken a pay-cut and only made $60,000 in 2005. Poor, poor Ken ... must be rough surviving in a state
where the median household income is $37,270.
Update (12/30): Jim left this comment which is worth putting up front-and-center:
Actually, as I've now pointed out at my blog and in comments at Pharyngula, I made an embarrassing mistake by failing to notice a technical reason for the apparent (and…
jlynch | December 29, 2006
Over at Tetrapod Zoology, Darren Naish has a great series of photos of a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) taking on a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) over a carcase.
jlynch | December 29, 2006AP is reporting that Saddam Hussein will be executed by 10pm EST. No doubt it will bring a smile to Bush, but it is difficult to see how the hanging will make any difference to what is occurring in Iraq. And it certainly wont bring to account those responsible for the WTC attack.
jlynch | December 29, 2006An AP-AOL News poll has revealed that Bush is both the greatest "villain" and "hero" of 2006.
When asked to name the past year's biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote ...
On the flipside, Bush also claimed the top spot when Americans were asked to name the year's biggest hero, but with only a trifling 13% of the vote. The troops in Iraq came in…
jlynch | December 29, 2006I've noted before that the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) will be meeting in Phoenix next week and also that PZ, Grrl Scientist, and I will be participating in a media workshop on blogging. We've decided that this might also be a nice opportunity for Scienceblogs readers to get together,
so here's what we're proposing:
Friday January 5th @ 6:00pm. Meetup at a wateringhole near the conference (Hyatt Regency). Wander over to PZ's announcement, holler if you can attend, and suggest a place.
Saturday January 6th @ 5:30pm. Phoenix-area skeptic Jim Lippard has kindly…
jlynch | December 29, 2006
Memento
And you are waiting, expecting that one thing,
which infinitely enriches your life;
the mighty, tremendous,
the awakening of the stones,
depths, turned to you.
Dawning in the bookshelves
are volumes in gold and brown;
and you think of encompassed lands
of images, of the garments of
women lost again.
And suddenly you realise: that was it.
You rise to your feet and before you stands
a past year's
fear and guise and prayer.
Ranier Maria Rilke
Rilke died 29th December 1926,