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pharyngula | January 28, 2011I've tried to catch the news on broadcast and cable TV, off and on, lately, and it always ends up being far more off than on, despite certain dramatic events going on in the world. American news is dead, it seems. What I've done instead is tune in to Al Jazeera on the internet, which is doing a phenomenally good job of covering Egypt.
To my cable company: you'd make me very happy if you had an option to switch Al Jazeera English for the awful Fox News you offer now. And as long as you're doing that, can we switch out CNN for the BBC?
gregladen | January 28, 2011Check out Berry Go Round #36. Click it, read it, blog it, facebook it, and the posts therein, please! Thanks.
gregladen | January 28, 2011Suddenly and for the first time I saw Amanda as a little child wide eyed with both awe and fear, among other children some sitting on the floor, some in chairs, some standing behind desks, eyes trained on a TV monitor and their teacher as the sudden realization dawned that the Space Shuttle Challenger had been consumed in a fiery, deadly explosion. The teacher on board was incinerated before their very eyes. As the explosion developed, shooting out huge arms of smoke and the voice-over began to acknowledge that something was wrong, NASA's space program was suddenly transformed, in the eyes…
cwilcox | January 27, 2011Sexual assault is no laughing matter - unless, of course, the would-be rapist isn't human. Who doesn't giggle when they see a small dog humping someone's leg? But what many people don't realize is that reverse bestiality - where an animal makes unwanted sexual advances on a person - is a true problem for scientists working in the field where the actions of wild animals are completely unpredictable.
Sure, sexual assault is embarrassing though tolerated when committed by a small, fluffy pomeranian with an overactive sex drive. Most people won't report the assailant to any kind of authority. It'…
gregladen | January 27, 2011Researcher and blogger Ash Donaldson joins us for a pre-recorded discussion on the fascinating field of Human Factors Engineering. This multi-disciplinary science draws on anatomy, physiology, physics, psychology and communications research, as it tries to improve the ways that humans interact with technology, and use technology to interact with each other. And health science journalist Paul Ingraham returns with a primer on the causes and treatment of repetitive strain injuries.
This week's Skeptically Speaking
gregladen | January 27, 2011Every year, at least once (for his birthday or for Christmas, depending) I give my father-in-law the same exact presents: A tape measure, a utility knife, and a pencil. This way, when we are working on something like sheet-rocking the kitchen, patching the bullet hole in the roof of the cabin, or installing the invisible surround sound system there will be a tape measure, a utility knife, and a pencil. The tape measure tells you where to cut, the pencil marks where you will cut, and the utility knife cuts it. There are lots of other tools involved in carrying out these tasks, but these…
cwilcox | January 27, 2011Citrus fruits are delicious. Their delicate balance of sweetness and tartness is a biochemical masterpiece. It's no wonder that they, of all nature's tasty options, are the highest value fruit crop in terms of international trade, with over 105 million tons produced annually. But these tempting produce face a persistant villain that seeks to destroy their roots; a menace known, cleverly, as the citrus root weevil.
The weevil's grubby larvae feed like maggots on the vital roots of citrus plants. Native to the Caribbean, this crop-destroying pest wreaks havoc on citrus farms in Florida and…
pharyngula | January 26, 2011At least they're going in the right direction: Taco Bell is being sued because their meat is mostly non-meat.
The "seasoned ground beef" contains less than 35 percent beef - the other 65 percent of the meat-like mixture is: water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin, soybean oil (anti-dusting agent), garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified corn starch, natural smoke…
gregladen | January 26, 2011From the NCSE:
It's time to dust off your Darwin costume again: less than a month remains before Darwin Day 2011! Colleges and universities, schools, libraries, museums, churches, civic groups, and just plain folks across the country -- and the world -- are preparing to celebrate Darwin Day, on or around February 12, in honor of the life and work of Charles Darwin. These events provide a marvelous opportunity not only to celebrate Darwin's birthday but also to engage in public outreach about science, evolution, and the importance of evolution education -- which is especially needed with…
j7uy5 | January 25, 2011Every clinician knows that careful observation is the foundation for all knowledge. Reading the account of how Nabokov correctly anticipated the outcome of DNA analysis of butterfly taxonomy, using only his acute powers of observation, I am reminded of historical accounts of physicians who could estimate a person's hematocrit value just by looking at the palm of a patient's hand.
One of the problems, with the rise of the machine in medicine, is that these observational talents are being lost.
gregladen | January 25, 2011The BBC us cosing down Douglas Adams Hitchiker's Guide web site. But there is a plan to get off the planet before it's too late. So have a beer and read this.
krandall | January 25, 2011By Dr. Darlene Lim, a geobiologist and limnologist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
Dr. Darlene Lim's research interests span Earth and Space Science. She conducts limnological and paleolimnological investigations of remote lakes and ponds in the Canadian High Arctic to characterize Holocene climate change. She has also extrapolated her Arctic work to Mars analog paleolake reconstructions. Darlene led the establishment of the Pavilion Lake Research Project in 2004 and has enjoyed managing and evolving the project ever since. She…
cwilcox | January 25, 2011
"I am not a pretty girl - that is not what I do."
Ani DiFranco
A few weeks ago, I received a facebook message. It was from a male admirer of my blog (and his fiancée, coincidentally). In it, he said "You are GORGEOUS, and your tits look absolutely incredible." I froze. I know it was meant as a compliment, but it made me really uncomfortable. It was a sentiment that was much more muted in other comments I'd gotten. You know, ones like "wow, you're an amazing writer AND you're hot?" or "who would have thought a pretty girl could be so good at science?"Of course, if you point out to any of…
mspringer | January 25, 2011I always tell my students that they should never just write down an equation blindly and start plugging things in. If you don't understand what you're doing, you're much more likely to make a mistake.
Sometimes I don't take my own advice. On a science forum I read occasionally, a person who was just taking their first quantum mechanics class asked just how exactly you would go about preparing a system such as a hydrogen atom in a particular quantum state. It was correctly suggested that at room temperature, pretty much all of the atoms would automatically be in the ground state by virtue of…
cwilcox | January 25, 2011One of the most rewarding sessions I was a part of was "But it's just a blog!" run by Hannah Waters, Psi Wavefunction, Eric Michael Johnson, Jason Goldman, Mike Lisieski and Lucas Brouwers. The main question was: how do new bloggers get noticed and read in a sea of emerging science blogs? Furthermore, how do they get over the self doubt and "impostor syndrome" that keep them from feeling like they belong and become an important voice in the science blogosphere?
Coming into this session, I had to face my own impostor syndrome (or, as Emily best coined it, "I'm not Ed Yong" syndrome). As the…
gregladen | January 24, 2011You may or may not have heard the news: There was a major explosion, or set of explosions, with suicide bombers and everything, 31 or more dead, at the Moscow Airport. The details are sketchy.
And in a totally unrelated story, but still with an explosion, then there's this:
God's Highway, I 35w, is famous for the fact that it winds back and forth through Minneapolis. There is one cruve that requires drivers to slow down to about 35 mph. This is a major interstate. On a different turn, which is not as tight, a semi truck fell over about 10 years ago and landed on a man and his young son…