reproduction
pharyngula | December 8, 2006I'm going to rudely hijack one political issue to make a point about another. I think you'll quickly figure out what it is.
NARAL has been undermining their own relevance by failing to support pro-choice positions in a misguided attempt to court moderates—basically, as Ezra Klein points out, they're failing to recognize their role in the political ecosphere. They're an advocacy group for a specific range of policies, not a politician who has to balance constituencies—they are supposed to be spokespeople for one particular constituency.
…one thing groups like NARAL have a tendency to do is…
pharyngula | November 28, 2006My eyes have been opened. All this time, I've simply been taking for granted a common biological theory, and now that I've been alerted to the controversy, I've had to rethink the evidence. I've merely assumed that sexual reproductionism is valid. This fellow has completely ripped the idea apart.
Despite the assertion that the Theory of Sexual Reproduction is "settled" and "well-accepted," it still remains just one theory. And beneath the veneer of acceptance, controversies abound. Take for instance, the key idea of the conjecture, namely that a "sperm" fuses with an "egg." No one has…
pharyngula | November 20, 2006Oh! Respectful Insolence uncovers more woo-woo nonsense, a scheme called Global Orgasm that urges everyone to get it on on one particular day.
The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high-energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.
The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world.…
pharyngula | November 16, 2006Clearly, Bush is not going to drift quietly into oblivion. Majikthise and Feministing report that his administration is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health. His qualifications seem to be that he's fanatical about abstinence, to the point of making stuff up.
At the Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas, Keroack defended abstinence (in an aptly titled talk, "If I Only Had a Brain") by claiming that sex causes people to go through oxytocin withdrawal which in turn prevents people from bonding in relationships…
pharyngula | November 9, 2006Synergy! Ooblog leads me to a spectacular painting of carnotaurs mating (did they always get a flight of pterosaurs at the climax?), and then by way of The Two Percent Company, I found this enlightening poster of mammals mating (hey, how many of the first 20 have you done?)…with the unfortunate consequence of death by STD. Put two and two together, and what conclusion do we arrive at?
Dinosaurs didn't use condoms.
pharyngula | November 7, 2006A reader has asked me to comment on this interesting and controversial technique for generating stem cells. Investigators in the UK are requesting permission to do this:
Collect ova from cows. This is routine, done-all-the-time stuff. The cows can't complain.
Extract the nuclei from the eggs and throw them away, so that all you have is a lovely membrane-bound sack of cytoplasm and other organelles. People who eat hamburgers don't get to complain about destroying potential life, so this is OK, too.
Extract nuclei from human cells and throw the cytoplasm away. These can be taken from non-…
pharyngula | November 5, 2006Don't ever claim that the little people can't influence the course of government. Don't assume that you need "credentials" or "knowledge" in order to make a difference. Read the inspiring story of the Unruhs and the South Dakota abortion ban.
Leslee Unruh, a person with no legislative or medical qualifications, drafts a law governing the medical care of female patients in South Dakota. She is also the the chief of the pro-ban campaign.
Alan Unruh, Leslee Unruh's husband, a chiropractor, sits on the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortions, and is tasked with studying and evaluating medical…
pharyngula | November 3, 2006If it was before the age of 30, you are a bad, bad person and the government wants you to stop it.
Does anyone else get the impression that these conservative Republican wankers are all virgins living in their parents' basements?
pharyngula | October 29, 2006
Strange things are found in the sea, like this mysterious gelatinous blob bobbing about in the Norwegian fjords.
On Oct. 1 Rudolf and his brother Erling were diving when he spotted the unusual object.
"It was 50-70 centimeters (19.5-27.5 inches) in diameter and looked like a huge beach ball. It was transparent but had a kind of thick, red cord in the middle. It was a bit science-fiction," Svensen told newspaper Bergens Tidende's web site.
It's something cool: a large squid egg sac. Mmmmm…two-foot diameter ball of squid eggs.
pharyngula | September 15, 2006More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government.
It doesn't go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women's fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and reddening of the vulva, and we don't get any visible signs at all. Let's use technology to return to those halcyon days, and imbed women with LH monitors that change color: from gray on infertile days, to pink as hormone levels rise, to flashing red to announce, "She's ovulating, boys!" I wouldn't…
pharyngula | September 5, 2006Carl Zimmer is one kinky dude—he has a new article on sexual cannibalism in the NY Times, and his expansion on the topic in his blog is also darned interesting, focusing on the scientific duels fought over adaptationism and exaptations in explaining the phenomenon.
pharyngula | September 4, 2006Have you ever browsed a sperm bank catalog? It's a real meat market. You get lists of men by height, weight, profession, ethnic background, etc., and if you like that 6'1" red-haired Lithuanian stockbroker, click, and he's in your shopping cart. They ship direct to your doctor (residential delivery costs extra), and they even have a return policy.
Of course, if you're anything like me, you look at the list and can't help but think, "What a bunch of wankers."
Still, it's a tragedy when you learn that they've been wiped out in a tragic refrigerator accident. Oh, my dear Scots-Irish ski…
pharyngula | September 1, 2006I never thought I'd say this, but…coffee must be evil. Look at Starbucks, for example. I could stop there, I suppose, and everyone would understand my point, but to give a little more detail, PunkAssBlog highlights one of the quotes they are printing on their cups.
The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human? Answer yes, and we have a chance of achieving universal human rights. Answer no, and it means that we are merely another animal in the forest.…
pharyngula | August 29, 2006This Newsweek article on the latest innovation in stem cell research is infuriating. The author, Michael Gerson, is a Republican hack with no competence in biology, which seems to qualify him to be a serious judge of science to this administration.
The issue of stem cells was the first test of the infant Bush administration, pitting the promise of medical discovery against the protection of developing life and prompting the president's first speech to the nation. His solution--funding research on existing stem-cell lines, but not the destruction of embryos to create new ones--was seen as a…
pharyngula | August 25, 2006DefCon Blog has put up a video clip of an unused embryo's fate.
Watch it get eliminated. It sounds horrific, but it's a matter of pulling a tube out of a flask of liquid nitrogen and putting it in the trash. That's what the Religious Right is getting all worked up about.
pharyngula | August 24, 2006In a surprising discovery, reading the Wall Street Journal opinion pages will make you 57% dumber, will kill 8,945,562,241 neurons, and will force you to invent ridiculous statistics. Don't follow that link! The article will make you cry as you go through a Flowers for Algernon experience.
You could read it through the Echidne filter for a little protection (she's a goddess, she was safe in reading it.) Arthur Brooks, billed as a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public Affairs, has written an incredibly stupid article, arguing that because Republican parents outbreed…
pharyngula | August 16, 2006
I've been a bit sex-obsessed lately. No, no, not that way—it's all innocent, and the objects of my obsessions are all fish.
A little background explanation: one of my current research projects is on the genetics of behavior. This is a difficult area, because behavior is incredibly complex with multiple levels of causation, and one has to be very careful when trying to tease apart all the tangled factors that contribute to it. It takes numbers and lots of controls to sort out the various contributors to a behavior.
What we've done so far, though, is to identify and quantify a few simple,…
pharyngula | August 13, 2006It's really not that hard to understand, but what's blocking acceptance are the amazing lies people say about Plan B emergency contraception. Ema found a ghastly op-ed that got everything wrong; try reading my summary of Plan B, then the op-ed by Abby Wisse Schachter, and see if you can spot all the errors. You won't be as thorough as Ema, though, who has posted a wonderfully detailed, complete annihilation of Schachter's article.
pharyngula | August 2, 2006If you're at work, I hope you have headphones; if you don't, check in once you get home. Here are a couple of audio recordings of good science.
John Rennie speaks out on stem cells on an Australian program, the Science Show.
I reviewed her new book a while ago, and now you can hear Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard lecture on basic developmental biology. She has a very nice light German accent that makes it especially pleasant to listen to, I think.