Entertainment
pharyngula | August 19, 2008Hey, the next episode of the History Channel's series on evolution is coming up soon: Evolve: Sex. I don't quite have the stamina to liveblog it tonight — I'm ready to fall asleep sitting down — but I'll be tuned in and trying to watch it.
pharyngula | August 18, 2008I got a request from a reader that I'll just pass on directly to any musically-inclined readers here…
Any chance Pharyngula readers can help? I have been writing and posting songs under the band name Natural Wastage on Soundclick.com (a sort of music version of myspace/facebook, I guess) for a while, and whilst re-installing some songs last month, I was struck by the number of Christian related genres available. Therefore, in mid July I emailed Soundclick and asked
"Looking through the categories I note that while there is Christian Rock, Country and Rap, Contemporary Christian pop and Pop…
pzminion | August 10, 2008Some commenters have asked for an open thread to discuss the Olympic games. Your wish is Danio's command.
In the spirit of International cooperation and community building, here's an interactive geography challenge that someone linked to in the comments of some long forgotten post last month (if you want to identify yourself to me I'll happily give you credit up front). Can you identify all 204 nations participating in the 2008 Games?
pharyngula | August 6, 2008It's on the internets. The opening is something that I can't imagine flying by on American television: he simply says that evolution is a vastly superior explanation to anything religion has ever provided.
pharyngula | August 5, 2008Last week, we watched Evolve: Eyes on the History Channel; tonight, shall we watch the next episode, Evolve: Guts, together? Tune in shortly!
A disgusting beginning: competitive eaters? Bleh. It's a basic introduction to mammalian digestive physiology — I can tell we're going to get lots of Big Vertebrate biology again.
They show a cool machine called Cloaca that simulates human digestion, with vats containing chemicals to act as the various chambers. They don't bother to explain why this machine was built, but it is kind of weirdly interesting.
Once again, they openly say that the…
pharyngula | August 5, 2008Tonight, at 9 Central/10 Eastern, it's time for the second episode in the History Channel's series on evolution: Evolve - Guts.
It doesn't just take willpower to survive. It takes guts--in the form of a digestive system that turns food into fuel. Look closely at the role guts have played in shaping some of Earth's most successful animals: tyrannosaurs, snakes, cows, humans and others. Take a 575-million year journey that begins with the planet's first multi-cellular organisms and ends at our dinner tables. Watch as live-action natural history sequences, CGI, epic docudrama, and experimental…
pharyngula | August 3, 2008Whoa, Charlie Booker's review of a new documentary on Darwin really makes me want to see it.
Darwin's theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it's been under attack since day one. That's just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we'd still be debating Newton with idiots too.
I think this might be the documentary he's talking about, which has already made…
pharyngula | July 30, 2008The Michigan festival is apparently going to be showing BIll Maher's new movie, Religulous. I'd like to hear if it's any good, just to know how much I might suffer when I do go see it. And see it I will: anyone who gets Bill Donohue to start spluttering out threats of physical violence needs to be supported.
pharyngula | July 29, 2008The warm-up act for this program was a dinosaur program called "Jurassic Fight Club", which was loaded with CGI and lots of gratuitous razzle-dazzle — but I thought it was a hoot. It also had enthusiasatic scientists talking about how they figured out what had happened (although it does bug me that they treated some speculative stuff in the narrative as if it were factual). Most of the show was taken up with glitzy animations, but it was balanced with at least some discussion of the process of science, so I'll give it a thumbs up.
Now to settle in for the story of the evolution of eyes…
Oooh…
pharyngula | July 24, 2008
P.S. All you happy Minnesotans should be pleased to hear that Roy will be in Minneapolis on 1-4 September. I'll be sure to put up details as they become available.
pharyngula | July 24, 2008You know nothing is sacred around here. Well, I saw The Dark Knight last night and … didn't care for it. It was OK as an action movie, but the story was a mess. The plot wandered all over, and the movie seemed less interested in telling a story well than in throwing up moral ambiguity and ethical dilemmas which, instead of actually pursuing with any depth, it would resolve with a punch from Batman's fist or an explosion. As a plot mover, the Joker was less an agent of chaos and more like the TA for a freshman philosophy course, leading everyone through twisty little exercises in artificial…
pharyngula | July 19, 2008You are all aware of Joss Whedon's new mini-epic, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I'm sure. If not, get over there now…it's only freely available until Sunday night.
All I can say is that it is about time someone made a sympathetic, musical tribute to supervillains. Now I'm wondering, though…the ending is not satisfactory. I want more. Whedon cannot simply stop here with a single 3 part event. I want a weekly series on the internet!
I guess that means we should actually pay for these episodes, as encouragement.
Oh, and if you liked Felicia Day in Dr Horrible, check out The Guild.
pharyngula | July 18, 2008The movie genre of the summer seems to be the superhero flick, and I've enjoyed most of what I've seen so far, but I hope Hollywood won't forget other kinds of movies. There is one I'm really looking forward to, and the news so far seems to be that it will be true to the book: Watchmen. Oooh, it looks good.
pharyngula | July 14, 2008That gadfly of the science communication world, Randy Olson, has a new movie out, Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, and many bloggers all over the place are putting up their reviews today. I tried something a little different. The other day, I invited a group of people from Morris, Minnesota to watch the movie with me, and then we discussed what we thought of it afterwards…while my daughter, Skatje, video taped the whole thing.
Here's the team: Nancy Carpenter (UMM chemistry), Kristin Kearns (astronomy/physics), Pete Wyckoff (biology), Len Keeler (physics), Kathy Benson (psychology), Athena…
pharyngula | July 11, 2008I was interviewed on The Inner Side last night — if you live in Houston, you may have already heard it. If not, you can get the mp3 at that link.
pharyngula | July 8, 2008Some days, my mailbox overflows with hilarity…like today. I got the new Roy Zimmerman CD! You should, too! It'll cheer any liberal to realize that you aren't alone, and you've got a theme song.
But I also get other mail that's almost as funny, although not intentionally so. For some perverse reason, there are some of you readers out there who think you are making a statement and causing me grief by signing me up for conservative magazines and newsletters. You really shouldn't. You know what happens? It comes in the mail, I flip through it, I laugh, and I toss it in the trash. Then when the…
pharyngula | July 6, 2008All right, I think I have a decision: we will meet at 6:00pm or thereabouts on Saturday, 12 July, at Manuel's Tavern, 602 N. Highland Ave., and have a grand old time for as long as you all can handle it. Remember, those Denverites could barely make it to 10pm — I think Georgians have to show that they can both party and offer entertaining rational conversation as good as the Coloradans gave. The honor of the South demands it!
Oh, and look: Atlanta skeptics are meeting at the same place and roughly the same time. It should be an excellent crowd.
pharyngula | June 29, 2008It's a very, very short moment, practically an aside, in a recent Dr Who episode, but there he is.
I guess Richard Dawkins has finally made it.
pharyngula | June 29, 2008Did anyone else catch Saturday Night Live last night? NBC rebroadcast the very first episode with host George Carlin, and I had to watch. Saturday Night Live came out in 1975, when I first went off to college at Depauw University, and it was a major event — every Saturday night, we'd mob the TV lounge in the basement of Bishop Roberts Hall to see that show (this was in the days when no one had a TV in their room; we didn't even have our own telephone, but shared one on each floor. I tell kids this nowadays and they don't believe me).
The old show has acquired a nice rosy patina in my mind…