Misc
sarahdasher | November 3, 2006
This time around, we're talking to Craig Hildreth of The Cheerful Oncologist.
What's your name?
Craig Hildreth
What do you do when you're not blogging?
I enjoy assassinating cancer cells that have taken nice people hostage. I also read, lift weights, hang out with the family, walk the dog, peruse restaurant menus with a skeptical eye, eat dark chocolate, listen to old songs, drive my boat on the river, shoot skeet, listen for whip-poor-wills, and try to make myself part of the solution, not the problem. (Note the Oxford comma there).
What is your blog called?
The Cheerful Oncologist
What's…
sarahdasher | November 3, 2006What's the most important local political race to you this year (as a citizen, as a scientist)?
sarahdasher | November 1, 2006
This time around, we're talking to Mike of Mike the Mad Biologist.
What's your name?
Mike the Mad Biologist.
What do you do when you're not blogging?
Science. For fun, well, I live in Boston. Museums, great restaurants, beautiful neighborhoods (and people, excepting yours truly). After four years in Long Island, just walking around Boston is wonderful. There's always something to do...
What is your blog called?
Mike the Mad Biologist
What's up with that name?
My name is Mike, I'm Mad about what is happening to my country, and I'm a biologist. Simple enough.
How long have you been…
apalazzo | October 31, 2006Some people have asked me why I haven't written anything about Richard Dawkins' new book. To be honest, it's just another manuscript arguing that religions preach ignorance and can promote other societal evils. We've all heard this before. On the other hand, Marc Hauser's book, Moral Minds, is a trully original book, discussing the latest ideas from cognitive science. Just as Chomsky argued that we are endowed with a language instinct, Hauser proposes that we all have a morality instinct. In today's NY Times there is an article on his book:
The proposal, [that people are born with a moral…
sarahdasher | October 30, 2006
Image: Chuck.
There's nothing festive about a past-its-prime jack-o-lantern accruing mats of vegetable mold in the the driveway. At this weekend's 2006 Punkin' Chunkin' World Championships in Millsboro, Deleware, a few resourceful folks will pronounce a nobler, or at least more spectacular, good-bye.
A Punkin Chunkin' is a contest to see how far a machine can throw a pumpkin, using no electricity, engines or explosives. Machines may have springs, rubber cords, counterweights, compressed air or any other device that uses the stored power of one human being in a maximum of 10 minutes. Many…
stoat | October 29, 2006 Daniels half-term homework included seeing a Tudor building, which we only discovered rather late... Sunday in fact. But since it was a lovely day, perhaps the last of a rather extended summer (so I sneaked down to the end of the garden before lunch to remove the Bayvarol strips from the hives, it being probably the last day in the year when I could), it was an excuse to go see "Tudor Cambridge" or at least a bit of it.
The web provided us with this and a nice walking tour, though we didn't manage to do it all. In fact all we managed was Kings, Queens', and the Agora at the Copper Kettle…
sarahdasher | October 27, 2006What's the most underfunded scientific field that shouldn't be underfunded?
maggie wittlin | October 19, 2006
Only We Can Do That to Our Pledges
Labs are just one big frat party. Hey, first year, time to collect the stool sample...
Today's blog is brought to you by the letter R
These linguists hate America. Have you no decency, people?
Do Higher Eukaryotes Smoke More Weed?
RPM doesn't actually answer the question, but he does give a totally worthwhile rant.
Mrs. Butterworth's Scientists Engineer More Absorbent Pancake
These are the kinds of beautiful things basic research can accomplish down the line.
Colbert Debates The Existence of God
The two greatest minds of our time face off.
Got something…
sarahdasher | October 19, 2006
This time around, we're talking to Afarensis of Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution and Science.
What's your name?
Afarensis
What do you do when you're not blogging?
I read a lot. I also have an interest in old science fiction and horror movies. I also sail - weather permitting.
What is your blog called?
Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution and Science
What's up with that name?
I picked the name to reflect the subjects I write about.
How long have you been blogging, anyway?
I will have been blogging for two years at the beginning of October.
Where are you from and where do you live now?
I was…
apalazzo | October 18, 2006Thank God ... um I mean The Flying Spaghetti Monster ... for Youtube.
(Update: the frantic last minute experiment seems to be going well, I'll know the results domani.)
stoat | October 17, 2006 With a title like that it has to be about folk music, and indeed it is. My last music recommendation was a year ago and somewhat more highbrow. But folk is good too. You can listen to BSR here, which is from the site of official Spiers and Boden website. We first heard them at the Cambridge folk festival, where they were wonderful, the best of their year. I tried to find the words to BSR, and ended up with some sort of historio stuff but wasn't what I wanted. Ah, now I look closer the words are here.
I also recommend The Rambling Sailor, from Through and Through, which is probably what they…
maggie wittlin | October 17, 2006
I'm Bringin' Paxil Back: Timberlake SexyBack Remix
'Cause SSRIs are totally kickin'.
One° Climate Change
Churches are rallying around Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." What, disillusioned with Mel Gibson?
Super Monkey Poop Fight (the post you can play)
Yes, this is extremely educational. It mimics the true behavior of our primate relatives...and some bloggers.
Complex meteorology at Venus
Check out the super-hot false-color image composite.
The Evolution Of Beauty
Watch the fitness-faking industry in action.
Got something for Seed's Daily Zeitgeist? Email the Zeitgeister.
maggie wittlin | October 16, 2006
"Every 52 seconds": wrong by 23,736 percent?
How often do men and women think about sex? Well, there's only been one study on the subject, and that paper indicates that it's a few times a day, but please, feel free to put any frequency you want in your book. No need to source the figure.
Bad Graphs
How could you fit these with any other curve?
We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When...C'mon, Everybody Sing!
This is the legacy we'd leave.
The flying spaghetti monster
Dawkins chats with Salon. Catch him on Colbert tomorrow.
Ruben's Tube
Standing waves + Fire = Hotness
Got…
ksharpe | October 13, 2006A reader asks: Is severely regulating your diet for a month each year, as Muslims do during Ramadan, good for you?
maggie wittlin | October 12, 2006
Living a Second Life
A psychiatry professor teaches his students about schizophrenia by making them live through hallucinations in a virtual world. Freaky. (via 3QD)
Einstein's High School Diploma
Yes, but how were his extracurriculars? (via boing boing)
Open Letter to Scientific Equipment Manufacturers
Listen to the man!
Make Your Very Own Virgin Mary, Tentacle, Parrot Toast!
If people buy enough of these, we are going to have to pull a serious True West on their behinds.
Selfish Scientists Won't Share Findings
Meanies.
Got something for Seed's Daily Zeitgeist? Email the Zeitgeister.
sarahdasher | October 11, 2006
This time around, we're talking to RPM of evolgen.
What's your name?
RPM. Well, that's my pseudonym. Once I get to know you a little better I'll tell you my real name.
What do you do when you're not blogging?
I'm a graduate student. When I'm not sitting around trying to figure out when I'm going to graduate, I run PCRs, sequence DNA, and try to make sense of genomes.
What is your blog called?
evolgen. Note the lowercase "e". It has nothing to do with e.e. cummings.
What's up with that name?
I once knew this girl named Jen who was evil (like the fru-eets of the dev-eel). We called her Evil…
maggie wittlin | October 11, 2006
Genetic Savings & Clone
If the $4,000 price tag on a hypoallergenic cat seems like too little to spend on a new kitten, perhaps you'd like to invest $32,000 in cloning your old kitten? Be sure to send them Puss's DNA while he's still alive! (via Ng)
No Abacus Handy? Use your hands.
OK, smarty pants. Now try adding 63 and 38. Heh heh heh.
Does North Korea Actually Need To Test Its Nukes?
Show-offs, them all.
Bird-Flu Fears Forcing Average Americans To Stop Handling Dead Chickens
What will happen to our Thursdays?
what not to insert to the microwave?
A balloon filled with pure oxygen.…
maggie wittlin | October 10, 2006I wrote a story for seedmagazine.com that got posted yesterday to much excitement. The excitement was largely for the unusually pretty composite face featured with the article (thanks, Face Research), but I'd like to comment on the theory proposed.
Over at Frink Tank, Mr. Orange is less than impressed:
Too bad the article it's attached to is about a theory that Mr. Orange thinks is complete bunk, seeing as how it postulates that average faces are attractive not so much because they indicate fitness (in the evolutionary sense of that word), but because they're "easier to process." Dhur?
Dhur,…