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heathero | March 8, 2011Those of you living in Bosto-Camber-ville* might be interested in attending tonight's Science by the Pint. Our featured speaker is Alex Bradley - the author of the guest post critiquing the Arsenic paper a while back. Come to Tavern in the Square - Porter Square tonight, March 8 at 7pm to chat with Alex and his colleagues about microbially-catalyzed biogeochemical cycles and the coevolution of life and Earth. Yours truly will be hosting, and it will be awesome.
Cheers!
* Boston, Cambridge, or Somerville, MA
pharyngula | March 8, 2011I think this one was more of a wrong number.
Found you online and had a question…
Hi, my name is Susan Dahl. I did a search online for Christians and I came across you. It would be great to have more info about what you are sharing online for the benefit and help of others.
I am writing because I would like to find some new friends who have a walk with the Lord in the Puget Sound area. Even in the Northwest, there are still some of us out there!
I look forward to hearing from you.
God bless you,
Susan Dahl
It's OK. I've decided to name my penis "The Lord" just so these spammy…
tlambert | March 6, 2011Shorter Clive James on Queensland floods:
I get my climate science from poems.
'Shorter' concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.⢠Acknowledgement copied from Sadly, No!.
illconsidered | March 6, 2011As long as I am here, blogging among such a broad-based and scientifically minded crowd, it seems a shame to only focus on subjects I already know a little bit about. I have had in mind for a while starting a series of posts that focus on subjects a little off topic for our usual here and ask questions rather than explain or opine. Hopefully I can do a bit more learning this way.
So, coincidentally on another thread, a topic of long standing personal interest and ignorance has come up: genetically modified organisms. I have intuitive misgivings about GM crops, only a very small part of…
gregladen | March 6, 2011And historical exploration, from DOS to Seven
"Daddy, what's a floppy drive?"
cwilcox | March 6, 2011To a biologist, there are only a few key elements that determine if something is alive: it must undergo homeostasis (stable internal state), metabolism (use energy to maintain organization and homeostasis), respond to its environment, adapt over time and reproduce. It sounds like a simple set of rules -- after all, a bacteria can do it. But we, as human beings, have never been able to capture such essence and truly bring machines to life.
But such is the quest of many computer scientists that seek to create "artificial life," or AI. The goal is to design a digital genetic code that can…
gregladen | March 4, 2011You do know that other people can read your thoughts, right? (What? I can see by what you are thinking that no one told you! Oh dear.)
Did you also know that Dark Matter is really just the sides of the jar that someone keeps our universe in? If you've ever worked with certain kinds of computer simulation then you'll know what I mean. If you create a two dimensional world for simulated creatures to move around in, there is a problem with the edges. If, for practical reasons, the world you create is a big square matrix of possible spots something can "live" on, then there must be an outer…
gregladen | March 4, 2011So, a while ago, Ben Zvanwas talking about doing something with the Bible, which would involve processing the text through some filters and recompiling it. This sort of thing has always interested me: Not recompiling the bible, but rather, textual analysis in general using the basic material stripped of intended meaning by classifying and ordering arbitrarily. What, for example, is the vocabulary of the Rosetta stone, or the Kensington Rune Stone (a probable fake Viking misssive on display in west-central Minnesota). Does the rune stone sample the lexicon of a particular time period or…
mspringer | March 4, 2011A while back in the lab we were conducting an experiment that involved passing a laser beam through a narrow iris, using a beamsplitter to take half the intensity of the beam and send it one way, with the remaining half passing through undisturbed. Then we arranged our mirrors in such a way as to bring the beams together so they were propagating in the same direction parallel to one another before doing some jazz that will hopefully make an interesting journal article.
To get a good handle on calibration, we wanted to characterize the two parallel beams. Laser beams, despite how they might…
gregladen | March 4, 2011I've always felt that if Wally the Wanker came back with his old, stupid and obnoxious trick, that I would out him. He came back. I considered outing him but have been quite distracted with important things like changing diapers and feeding tiny bits of chicken to Huxley. Meanwhile, blogger Ophelia Benson has spilled the beans, here.
I did not destroy Wally's pathetic excuse for a blog, but he/they blamed me for it, and that's how I got the nickname Teh Blogslayer. I did not out him today, Ophelia did. But Wally will probably blame me for that to. Or at least, I hope he does.
I'm not…
gregladen | March 3, 2011Follow Blake Freeman as he takes 69 year old Leroy, across the country on a hilarious journey for the truth about Aliens, Psychics and the Paranormal.
gregladen | March 3, 2011s a second subcommittee hearing on Tennessee's House Bill 368 approaches, the author of The Evolution Controversy in America and the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee are speaking out against the bill....
Details at the NCSE
gregladen | March 3, 2011Or, on some other bridge or other flat spot next to a major body of water...
Global Water Dances -- June 25, 2011 @ Yahoo! Video
Global Water Dances is a world event planned for June 25, 2011. On this day, a 24 hour series of dances around the globe will be danced, centered around water issues. Beginning in the Western Pacific Rim, and encircling the globe, the series of dances will also be broadcast online. Check out the web site.
gregladen | March 3, 2011Skeptically Speaking on Friday will be: Brain Games with Tom Stafford, who co-wrote Mind Hacks: Tips & Tricks for Using Your Brain. Friday evening. Details here!
Also, "Dr. Sarah Brosnan explains her study of game theory, and how humans compare to other primates when it comes to cooperative play." Same show.
Don't forget to download and listen to the Zebrafish and Dictionary Atheism conversation with PZ Myers. Here
Science Friday is going to cover a number of interesting topics this week a well. Will rising sea levels and melting sea ice change the way the Navy operates? and A…
jwilbanks | March 3, 2011(blows off the dust since the last entry)
(Life trumped blogging; my first child was born in March)
Just before I went into the parent tunnel, which is awesome by the by, I attended a seminar conducted by Niels Windfeld Lund, General Manager of the World Opera.
Not my usual event. But music's always been a passion for me, and I performed a lot as a kid - lots of trumpet, both the sort of american wind orchestra stuff (seated and marching...yes, a band geek) and some jazz, a little bit of drums. These days I plink around on an acoustic bass, badly, but well enough that I'll be able to sing…