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razib | April 20, 2007Obviously a sex-linked trait. All males seem to exhibit the trait but none of the females. It can't just be the lack of something on the X, otherwise some of the females would have exhibited this trait as well. No, perhaps a mutant on the Y which acts in a trans & "dominant" acting manner to repress or abolish something on other chromosomes?
Note: All the males exhibit the phenotype, but none of the females do. If you accept it is a sex-linked trait which manifests because the males don't have a compensatory copy of the allele inherited from the mother, then all their mothers had to…
razib | April 20, 2007I was at the local food co-op when I saw Brother Bru Bru's African Hot Sauce. It said it was "very hot!" on the label, and since some of you had recommended African hot sauces to me earlier I decided to check it out. The label suggests that there were assorted peppers mixed into this concoction. Frankly, for me it was a bit on the mild side. Also, the background sweetness and pungency overwhelmed the heat. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the flavor, even if I was disappointed by tepid spice level. I'm giving it a 4 out of 10, mostly because this was way too mild for a "very hot!" sauce. I mean…
razib | April 18, 2007It's been a cold & rainy April. This morning I got up and walked down the block to take an unobstructed photo of the mountains which loom over my apartment. When I visit the Midwest I am always struck by the 2-dimensional topography....
Update: Later in the day....
razib | April 15, 2007...sorry about the delay this week. Been busy, will post a few more before next Friday.
razib | April 11, 2007I don't normally blog about stuff like this, but I've decided to link to this story about an assault on a Sikh American veteran by a police officer. Here's the original story posted by the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. If this sort of stuff concerns you I encourage you to link as well, with a high enough pagerank some public pressure might ensue. Here's the relevant bit:
Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer's questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag…
razib | April 9, 2007I'm not going to post about fr*ming (don't want this to get caught by the "Buzz" algorithm), just so you know. Yann pointed me to this paper, Group selection and kin selection: Two concepts but one process, and I'm going over the details (this is one where most of the math has been pushed to the appendix), but until I finish that, check out this....
razib | April 8, 2007Some people have joked that journalists have a tendency to always present "alternative viewpoints" even when the sides are not symmetrical in their cogency or credibility, e.g., "Earth is a sphere, views differ." That being said, this article about the controversy over blogging etiquette, and specifically the Kathy Sierra controversy really pisses me off because of this passage:
That may sound obvious, but many Internet veterans believe that blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor's comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech. It is too early to…
razib | April 7, 2007I went to a Thai restaurant I frequent regularly today. The wait & kitchen staff know me, I called ahead to make sure they prepped "the usual," a medium rare steak served with onion, tomatoes and spicy lime sauce. In my case I like the lime sauce "4-stars spicy," that is, mixed together with a rich habanero paste. The first time I asked for this they gave me long lecture to make sure I could "handle it." No more. The chef is kind enough to rub the meat with the sauce before it's brought out me. When we showed up the server, who was new, told us the specials and took our wine orders…
razib | April 4, 2007Nick Wade has a long write up about the recent work on Etruscan phylogenetics.
"The overwhelming proportion of archaeologists would regard the evidence for eastern origins of the Etruscans as negligible," said Anthony Tuck, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts Center for Etruscan Studies.
In terms of "evidence," that would be archaeological evidence. Historical sciences do not rest upon one leg! Two minor points:
1) There is some concern that non-Indo-European languages were not extant from our textual knowledge in the region of ancient Asia Minor from which the Etruscans…
razib | April 3, 2007I'd assumed that Mad Dog's Revenge Habanero & Chile Extract would be the spiciest "sauce" of the bunch. I put sauce in quotations because it isn't a hot sauce, it's a food additive. The label warns not to use this as a hot sauce because it is way too spicy. How spicy? The label says, "1,000,000 Scoville units Mad Dog's Revenge is 450 times hotter than Tabasco Sauce." If you don't know about the Scoville Scale, here's a sample:
2,500 - 8,000 Jalapeño Pepper (which I chow down like Bell Peppers)100,000 - 350,000 Habanero Chile2,000,000 - 5,300,000 Standard US Grade pepper spray
Well,…
razib | March 31, 2007For Mad Dog Liquid Fire the same critique that I applied to Ass in Space applies. The only difference is that there was a nice tangy smoked flavor to it, so I will actually give it a 4 out of 10 (I was too disgusted with Ass in Space's lack of spice to rate it).
razib | March 30, 2007You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce is subject to the same critique as Dave's Insanity. Only not as spicy (though close). 6.5 out of 10. I ate it with rice + Yumm! Sauce + avocado + black beans & onions + cilantro & tomatoes.
razib | March 29, 2007As some of you might have noticed, I was not impressed with Hot Sauce #2. For day 3, I had pepper-crusted beef, bacon, and arugula sandwiches and spicy mustard with the Hottest Fuckin' Sauce. As you can tell by the picture to the left where I'm pouring, yes, pouring, the sauce over my sandwich, this isn't that hot of a concoction. The ingredients listed are: Habanero Peppers, Water, African Oleoresin, Scotch Bonnet Peppers, Salt, Onion, Vegetable Oil, Acetic Acid, Garlic and Xanthan Gum. I don't know what did it, but this might not be as spicy as Dave's Original "Flavorless" Insanity Sauce…
razib | March 27, 2007So, I tried out Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce with some Tuna pasta yesterday. Here's a comment from Amazon: "I am a real fan of hot sauce, hot peppers and anything that makes my eyes water, and I have to honestly say that Dave's Insanity Sauce is absolutely the hottest thing I've ever tasted. I use one drop in about 25 ounces of home-made tomato sauce and it makes the sauce noticibly hot. This is NOT a sauce to dash into your soup or to liven up some salsa." Hm. So I was warned. I tried a drop...and well, it was spicy, but not that spicy. So I tried a dash. Definitely made me sweat, but it…