holidays
grrlscientist | December 17, 2007
Image: Philadelphia City Paper
You only have one week left before Christmas eve arrives, so I assume that you might be getting ready to panic and spend your hard-earned money on just anything, so you can say you gave your loved ones gifts. So I thought I'd help you spend your money wisely by compiling a list of holiday gift ideas based on clever and much-appreciated gifts that my readers have given me throughout the year as well as some gift ideas that I've used in the past.
DVDs;
The Life of Birds: A must-have for kids and adults who are interested in birds. I also recommend this series…
sporte | December 16, 2007Maybe there's something a little bit odd about having a gingerbread construction contest to raise funds for researching juvenile diabetes.
Maybe these gingerbread houses aren't environmentally proper or particularly sustainable.
But they are impressive.
If you're in Seattle over the holidays, you can see them at the Sheraton Hotel until Jan 2nd and even help fund research on juvenile diabetes.
Some more examples are below.
grrlscientist | December 11, 2007tags: holidays, social relationships, gift-giving, psychology, behavioral evolution, evolution
Since the holidays are upon us once more, I thought you would be interested to read about the psychology of gift-giving. In short, even though giving someone a gift is simple enough, the psychology behind this act is much more complex than most people realize.
A large number of scientists, ranging from psychologists to economists, have studied the purpose and ramifications of gift giving in humans and have learned a surprising number of things about it. Even though many people claim they are…
grrlscientist | December 10, 2007tags: Jim Henson, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas, outtakes, streaming video
This is a series of outtakes from Jim Henson's Muppets christmas special, a focus on the talent contest -- this should help you on your way to the holidays in fine shape [7:53]
grrlscientist | December 9, 2007tags: christmas stocking, online quiz
Here is an amusing online quiz for you to play with -- I don't know about you, but I sure hope that my stocking is filled with the goodies that the quiz predicted for me!
You Christmas Stocking Will Be Filled with Money
You've either been really really good this year...
Or Santa is trying to pay you off!
What Will Be In Your Christmas Stocking?
sporte | December 8, 2007Lots of new and curious gift selections are available this year for those of you who had a dog or know a dog owner. All kinds of interesting doggie presents are showing up, like doggie DNA tests and special nutrigenomic doggy diets.
And of course, nothing tops the gift of fake testicles for the dog who's never quite recovered from the big operation.
It's true, the Bleiman brothers were the first to bring up the idea of presents for pets by suggesting the kitty toilet trainer as a holiday gift. Really, though, is that kind of gift that you give to the cat? or the owner?
I just don't think…
sporte | December 6, 2007or E. coli, or perhaps a little Giardia (just to loosen things up, of course), or maybe even Herpes.
All these scary pathogens become works of art, when Infectious Awareables puts the images on neckties.
And what could be funnier than a pair of boxer shorts full of Gonorrhea?
sporte | December 5, 2007Do you wonder what the SciBlings drool over during the holiday season?
Here are some gift ideas from Janet, Shelley, Greg, Ed, Mo, the Bleimans, and me.
And you can probably guess what Steve suggests.
sporte | December 2, 2007Usually, I wait until the end of December to take care of holiday-related shopping and shipping. This year, I've resolved to do better. This year, I'm hoping to ship holiday gifts before Christmas.
Fortunately, my SciBlings have come up with lots of great holiday recommendations to help you share science gifts with those you like and love.
I've compiled some of those suggestions here and I'll keep adding new ones as the month proceeds and people post them.http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/11/get_your_larry_craig_doll.php
Before we indulge the material world though, I'm going to…
grrlscientist | November 22, 2007tags: thanksgiving, holidaze
Now that I finally have a wifi connection tonight (it disappeared yesterday afternoon, boohoo), I discovered that a reader sent this e-card to me, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.
Image: orphaned.
zooillogix | November 21, 2007The Bleiman Brothers are in New Mexico for the week, which as many of you know, has not yet invented the internet. Unfortunately this means this is probably the only post we can send up, but hopefully you all can amuse yourselves by contributing the weirdest Thanksgiving meal you have ever had. Maybe you were doing research at Lake Baikal and enjoyed a fresh Thanksgiving Nerpa seal! Maybe you were in Madagascar and sat down to a traditional Lemur supper. Maybe you were in Southeast Asia and enjoyed their version of the turducken: five of any extremely endangered animals stuffed into one…
grrlscientist | November 1, 2007Are you already worried about Christmas shopping? Are you worried about what to get that family member or friend who seems to have everything? Well, worry no more! Thanks to a reader of mine, you now can give the most unusual gift that anyone has every received; the gift of a Fish 'n Flush! Not only can you keep freshwater or marine fish in this unique set up, but you can also keep lizards or frogs or live plants or even inanimate objects in this thing! Wow, what a great gift, especially for that person on your holiday shopping list who has everything!
(No, I earn nothing for showing this to…