Repost
tfk | June 29, 2011Because Nobel laureate Werner Arber is addressing evolution at the Landau meeting of Nobel laureates, I thought I'd repost this piece from January 21, 2009, which was first posted from the Texas Board of Education meeting room. Enjoy.
In November, the Texas Board of Education met to consider their new science standards. As I've mentioned a major point of contention is a reference in the current standards to "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific explanations, a concept only ever applied to evolution, and without any clear explanation of what it means.
In the course of 6 hours of testimony…
rallain | December 25, 2009So, analysis of the movie Up is pretty popular in the blogosphere. Figure I might as well surf the popularity wave. So, I have a couple more questions.
The most important thing to estimate is the mass of the house. I am going to completely ignore the buoyancy of the house. I figure this will be insignificant next to the buoyancy needed. Anyway, let me go ahead and recap what has already been done on this in the blogosphere.
Wired Science - How Pixar's Up House Could Really Fly - from that post:
First, they calculated (seemingly correct) that the buoyancy of helium is 0.067 pounds per…
rallain | December 22, 2009I re-watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and my wife and I noticed something about teaching. Of course I mentioned that this would make a good blog post (and she may still post it on her blog, but I can't help myself). If you have not read the book or seen the movie, I don't think I will give away any serious spoilers - but who hasn't at least seen the movie? If you were going to see it (or read it) you would have done so by now - right?
The Order of the Phoenix shows at least three different examples of teachers and teachings in the movie. Here they are:
Dolores…
rallain | December 22, 2009Haiku:
The daylight grows short
Blogging time is scarce for now
Repost is now here
I am ready. Bring on the comments about the proper way to write a haiku. Of course, I should warn you that I am technically a professional Haikuer - here is my winning entry to ThinkGeek's haiku contest
Here is the deal. I am going to pick 12 posts from my old stuff and post 1 a day for 12 days (hopefully). Yes, technically, this is not the 12 days of Christmas. Also, I have some other stuff that I am working on, so don't worry - it is not ONLY reposts in the next twelve days.
Anyway, I figure some of you…
tfk | October 21, 2007Reposted from the old TfK because it's fun.
In KU's introductory biology lab about evolution, the students are asked (not my phrasing):
In the vertebrate animal clade, jaws have evolved from cartilage-like rods associated with gills. In jawless ancestral vertebrates, as well as extant jawless species such as hagfish and lampreys, the function of these skeletal rods was/is to support the gills. Jaws function to grasp and chew, their success is notable, as jaws are still present in most extant vertebrates. If an engineer were put to the task of designing "jaws," would the outcome be the same…
retrospectacle | October 10, 2007[I figured that some of you may be new to Retrospectacle due to the blog scholarship contest. I am also writing a manuscript and about to leave to give a talk in Antwerp. So, I thought I might repost a few of my more thought-provoking neuroscience posts today. I hope you enjoy them. -Shelley]
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), currently the most common childhood-onset behavioral disorder, is nothing if not controversial. Nearly every aspect of ADHD from diagnosis to prevalence to medication, and even its mere existence, is disputed by at least one 'concerned' group. And…
tfk | September 18, 2007Reposted from the old TfK, in honor of the late, great Greg Beck.
Over at Death's Door, there is a certain degree of consternation about the possibility that mallard ducks would be gang raping each other.
There is a bunch of confusion wrapped around that so let's start slow.
I also wasn't aware that duck's had duck cocks to gangbang with. I never eaten a duck but I've eaten a lot of chicken, and when you buy the chicken in the store and pull out that little pouch of giblets and shit, I've never seen a tiny chicken cock sittin off in there.
So, what do duck dicks look like, and why don't you…
tfk | August 30, 2007Reposted from the old blog.
Last week we discussed endosymbiosis, the hypothesis that mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as free-living bacteria captured by another cell and essentially enslaved.
This week's Science has evidence of this process at work today. A Secondary Symbiosis in Progress? -- Okamoto and Inouye 310 (5746): 287 -- Science.
The figure labeled A shows the normal adult Hatena. It has a flagellum, an eyespot (the arrow), and all that green chlorophyll. Turns out, as shown in figure B, the eyespot is inherited by only one daughter cell, as is the green. All that stuff…
tfk | August 1, 2007Reposted from the old TfK, for your enjoyment while I drive out to the NCSE.
I don't mind creationism. I know this comes as a bit of a shock, but I don't. For our purposes, creationism is the belief that a supernatural force or being created, designed or otherwise shaped the universe and life in it.
I don't have any broad beef with that idea. I don't necessarily buy it, but I'm not necessarily against it.
I say this because Billy Dembski has expanded on his Vise strategy (previously discussed in "Beware the simple machines").
He creates a taxonomy of "Darwinists": those who advocate…
tfk | July 31, 2007It isn't Passover right now, but several people recently commented that this is one of our better posts from the old blog, so enjoy.
On all other nights, we may eat either leavened or unleavened bread; on this night, only unleavened bread.
On all other nights, we may eat any vegetable; on this night we are required to eat bitter herbs.
On all other nights, we are not bidden to dip our vegetables even once; on this night we dip them twice.
On all other nights, we eat our meal in any manner; on this night we sit around the table in a ceremonial fashion.
The unleavened bread is the bread of our…
tfk | July 30, 2007Reposted from the old TfK, while I Travel from Kansas.
Everyone is answering Seed's Question of the Week: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I'm down with this answer:
I want people to understand that there is no law of averages. There are no laws of probability (at least not if you mean something like "Really improbable things don't happen"). You can't prove just anything with statistics.
My inclination would actually have been phrased the exact opposite way, though getting at the same point.
It's true that there's no law which…
tfk | July 19, 2007Reposted from the old TfK in honor of this story at BoingBoing.
Botflies are disgusting. Horrible, horrible little things. We get their larvae on the white-footed mice we trap here in Kansas. The picture to the right is a white-footed mouse botfly that I caught here in Kansas.
These are fairly rare in collections because the adult is only active for a short time. Many species lack mouthparts because of their short adult life. It flies around, it mates, and the females lay eggs on grass stems. The mouse brushes against the egg, the heat of the body causes the egg to hatch, the larva…
retrospectacle | May 29, 2007 A common question I am asked, on my blog and in real life, is what is the "trick" to getting into a good graduate program (for the sciences). The trick is that there is no trick, but there are a few preparatory steps that *do* make all the difference in the application process. And no, it isn't all about GPA. Cause I didn't even have one.
1. Spend your spare time doing research.
This one should be a no-brainer, so to speak. If you want a career in research, you need to show your commitment early on. Also, as tough as it might be, many research positions are not paid. You gotta just suck it…
tfk | November 1, 2006Reposted from ye olde site, in preparation for another post soon to come.
Ed Brayton asks Is Risk of Theocracy Overblown? His answer is a slightly qualified "Yes." And he highlights why I don't rail against theocracy, but against "religious authoritarianism." While he may be right that Dobson and Falwell (or Fox and Johnston in Kansas) aren't theocrats in the strictest sense of wanting to replace the Constitution with the Mosaic Law, they do want to impose their own religious values on the entire society, which is authoritarianism.
This problem is one shared by many battalions arrayed on…
tfk | August 19, 2006Reposted from the old TfK.
Various people are asking Are We Fighting 'Islamic Fascists'? This in response to the President's claim that, "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom." David Ignatius (linked above) says "I have been pondering since [last week] his description of the enemy. What are 'Islamic fascists,' and does this phrase make sense in describing America's adversaries?" Ed Brayton chimes in that, while he isn't wont to agree with the President, he sees the similarity. I confess that I do not think that that…
tfk | August 18, 2006Reposted from the old TfK.
Two recent comments on the 25th anniversary of AIDS took up a similar call, one in the New England Journal of Medicine, the other from Scienceblogger Tara Smith.
Both essentially argue for the broadening of HIV testing in American society. The NEJM piece largely recycles the history of debates about testing for HIV in the general population, and state limitations on what testing can be mandated. Tara explains:
Currently, the testing paradigm in most areas is patient-instituted, and involves the three C's: consent, confidentiality, and counseling (generally before…
tfk | August 16, 2006Reposted from the old TfK.
Part of the reason Harry McDonald lost a his Board of Ed. race against incumbent John Bacon was the 10% of the vote that David Oliphant siphoned off. Suggestions that Oliphant's run was intended to weaken McDonald's showing have swirled since Oliphant entered the race, and the Pitch Weekly asked Oliphant some tough questions. I put the whole exchange below, but let's just pull out a few choice quotes.
First, he demonstrates his innumeracy and total lack of interest in the race by getting a simple inequality wrong, and being unable to either add two numbers or…
tfk | August 1, 2006Reposted from the old TfK, where it was picked up by the Dailykos, MSNBC, and many others.
For the Board of Ed:
Waugh won re-election. There's no Republican challenge, so that seat remains safe.
Cauble appears to have beat Morris! Only 68% of the precincts have reported (with several urban centers that will back Cauble experiencing technical problems), but the trend seems to be holding. If so (keynehore) a lightning rod on the conservative side got burned. Apparently it doesn't cut it to badmouth your colleagues and use government money to fund a Florida vacation. Tim Cruz will still…
retrospectacle | July 22, 2006This is a repost from my old blog, about a famous scientist, Dr. George Augustine, who came to UM to give a talk about LTP and LTD. Tho occasion was "NeuroDay," a seminar series where us Neurokids get to invite our favorite scientists to come talk to us about brain stuff. :)
The third and last speaker at NeuroDay was Dr. George Augustine, of Duke University Neurobiology in Durham, NC. His research is focused on how calcium ions regulate the release of neurotransmitters at synapses. The lab works in identifying vesicular proteins important for neurotransmitter release and the physiological…
retrospectacle | July 18, 2006Phenomenal timing, seeing as the FDA recently decreed that smoked marijuana held no medical benefits, and was hazardous. This is just one more neon sign making me wonder why cigarettes, proven to cause cancer, are legal while marijuana, which has no cancer link, is stubbornly prosecuted.
CNN reports on a study conducted by UCLA which examined the lifestyles of 611 Los Angeles lung cancer patients, 601 head and neck cancer patients, and 1040 people without cancer. They found no elevated risk of cancer, even in the heaviest of pot smokers. A 20-fold increase of lung cancer was found in people…