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gregladen | January 11, 2011On January 10, 2011, the Mount Vernon City Schools Board of Education voted 4-1 to terminate the employment of John Freshwater. A middle school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Freshwater was accused of inappropriate religious activity in the classroom -- including displaying posters with the Ten Commandments and Bible verses, branding crosses on the arms of his students with a high-voltage electrical device, and teaching creationism. After a local family sued Freshwater and the district in 2008, the board voted to begin proceedings to terminate his employment in the district. Finally,…
krandall | January 11, 2011By Dr. Franck Marchis
Astronomer at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute
It is done. The Kepler team finally announced the discovery of its first terrestrial exoplanet. A referred journal, accepted in the Astrophysical Journal by Natalie Batalha and a large number of colleagues, describes this new member of the exoplanet family. This is the 519th known exoplanet based on the Extra-solar Planets Catalog, but definitely a special one.
Skychart showing the position of KIC 11904151, a faint (11th magnitude in visible) sun-like star located at 172 pc in the…
sb admin | January 11, 2011Software company 5AM Solutions has just launched a neat little FireFox plug-in for customers of consumer genomics company 23andMe.
The idea is very simple:
Download your raw data from 23andMe (or use one of the files from me or my colleagues at Genomes Unzipped);
Install the plug-in from here and point it to your 23andMe data;
Browse to a website discussing one of the genetic variants included on the 23andMe chip, and you'll see highlights around the rsID of any variant on the page (rsIDs are unique codes assigned by dbSNP to most of the common variants targeted by personal genomics…
dgmacarthur | January 11, 2011Software company 5AM Solutions has just launched a neat little FireFox plug-in for customers of consumer genomics company 23andMe.
The idea is very simple:
Download your raw data from 23andMe (or use one of the files from me or my colleagues at Genomes Unzipped);
Install the plug-in from here and point it to your 23andMe data;
Browse to a website discussing one of the genetic variants included on the 23andMe chip, and you'll see highlights around the rsID of any variant on the page (rsIDs are unique codes assigned by dbSNP to most of the common variants targeted by personal genomics…
gregladen | January 10, 2011
" I don't think I give as much credence to my own mind, because I see myself as being very limited and very flawed, and lacking in knowledge, and wisdom and understanding. So, I just take the Bible for what it is, I guess, and recognize that I am not a scientist, not trained to be a scientist. I'm not a deep thinker on all of this. "
kbonham | January 10, 2011It might seem strange at first to use reflection on the recent shooting in Arizona to make a point about progressive politics, but it's absolutely compelling. Go read this, seriously:
Instead our shadow in this country is economic greed, and there is a constant pull to unfetter business, to disallow regulation, and to let business do the business of business no matter the social cost. I have no brief against business and economic activity. It is a human thing. It can be glorious. And, it has deep shadows, including the inclination for the rich to simply continue getting richer while the poor…
pharyngula | January 10, 2011Alright already, enough with the claims that Jared Loughner was a lefty because he read Marx. Does his voting record mean anything?
My eyes are getting a little old. Does it say "SOCIALIST" for political affiliation?
Of course, this does not imply that all Republicans are deranged assassins, or that Loughner's primary affiliation wasn't "MENTALLY ILL".
This is fake? Other evidence says he was registered as an Independent.
I'm a little mystified about why anyone would forge a record like this, though. This kind of crap all gets caught out in the end.
stoat | January 10, 2011#3 in the Is a Tosser series. For his grauniad article Universities must cut private schools intake, says Simon Hughes. Disclaimer: I went to private school, and to Oxford. My son is also at private school [*]. But this article is *not* going to be about my own experience. Meta-disclaimer: in England, it is obligatory for middle-class parents and politicians of all varieties to agonise about education, its funding, and its quality. In the case of politicians, it is strictly required for them to only talk about the quality; they are forbidden from doing anything to improve it [#].
Let us begin…
gregladen | January 9, 2011A few new bits of information mainly from CNN:
Giffords is able to respond to "simple commands" which causes "cautious optimism" among the Neurosurgeons.
Giffords is the only person remaining of the wounded to remain in critical condition. Three are in serious condition, six fair, one released.
The "Suspected Suspect of Suspicion" ... the second person of interest ... has been identified and ruled out. He was just some guy. Conspiracy theories in three ... two ... one ....
Official charges have been made against Loughner. PDF
Papers or an envelopewith the words "I planned ahead," "My…
gregladen | January 9, 2011I wish this was a joke, but Fred Phelps is only one notch to the right of the next guy, and that guy is only one notch to the right of the next guy, and so on. And, by "to the right" I do mean more insane. As Miss Jean Brodie would say, "That does signify, bitches."
Well, she never said it exactly like that, but you get the point. Here's Fred:
While we're on the topic, here's another view, from before the shooting:
And then, there's this: Glen Beck making an utter ass of himself, way back. He's got some stuff to answer to.
I love Ed's laugh at the end of the crying sequence.…
tlambert | January 8, 2011Congratulations to the UNSW students in the Sunswift team who have broken the Guinness World Record for fastest Solar-Powered vehicle.
gregladen | January 8, 2011... and live next to Michele "armed and dangerious" Bachmann's district ...
Ostracize Josh
A man from Rogers, Minnesota...a small town in the Sixth Congressional District represented by Michele Bachmann...went through the trouble of strapping on his Glock .40 caliber handgun and dropping his Kel Tec 380 in his pocket before visiting the site of President Obama's talk last Saturday in Minneapolis. His name is Josh Hendrickson and both handguns were loaded.
He went to the speech to stand outside and show off his cammo and his guns. The press took note and had a chat with him. Hendrickson told…
gregladen | January 8, 2011 I recommend that instead, Sarah Palin shuts the fuck up.
See also this post.
gregladen | January 8, 2011UPDATE (7:50pm Central):
There has been a lot of confusion in details, partly because of the usual blinding incompetence of anyone major news networks deem worthy of putting in front of a camera, partly because the press conference at a hospital will not cover information about those transported to other hospitals or directly to a morgue, and partly because of the high tolerance of those delivering and watching the news to inaccuracy. There is really no other reason for the basic facts to be so incorrect for so long at a highly secured crime scene.
Anyway, the following appears to be…
stoat | January 8, 2011 Via TW (who says Inflation's a tricky thing you know) this interesting inflation calculator.
From the Torygraph, the Jetlev flyer. A ridiculous boys-toy, but it did cause my daughter to say "I must have one". Did I mention that reading the Torygraph in the Waitrose cafe is one of my guilty pleasures? Its not quite as good as it looks, because not only do you have a huge hosepipe trailing after you, there is also the jetski-like boat you're tied to (that's the Jetlev, not reading the TG).
Also from the TG a delightful story about Empty wine bottles sell for £300 in China because, of course,…
stoat | January 8, 2011A running post I'm afraid. I don't think I promised to move them all across.
Courtesy of the generous Maz the Merciless I have a pair of "footgloves" wot am all de rage, or at least they were all de rage a year ago or somesuch. Naturally, I'm late to the party. Today I gave them my first try-out, a 5 km run round the local "countryside reserve". They are really called "five fingers" (of VFF's, as the hip cats say); as they say: we recommend wearing Vibram FiveFingers for exercise, play, and for fun. Stimulating the muscles in your feet and lower legs will not only make you stronger and…
cwilcox | January 7, 2011
Photo by Sara LeeAnn Banevedes
I don't think Brian Alexander is a bad guy or a misogynist. He writes the Sexploration column for MSNBC, so sure, his job is all about selling sex stories to the public. He even wrote a book about American sexuality. But I don't personally think he has a burning hatred for women, or views them as objects placed on this Earth for the sexual satisfaction of men. However, I very easily could, given how he chose to report on a recent study published in Science about men's physiological responses to the chemicals present in women's tears. The headline alone…
gregladen | January 7, 2011I don't often point people to online game-like interactive thingies, but this one has my endorsement. Give yourself a few minutes to watch the process. It can be gruesome:
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab (Please contact us if you want to show it next!). It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.
Click here to get started.
If it is…
sb admin | January 7, 2011As part of his Gene Week celebration over at Forbes, Matthew Herper has a provocative post titled "Why you can't have your $1000 genome". In this post I'll explain why, while Herper's pessimism is absolutely justified for genomes produced in a medical setting, I'm confident that I'll be obtaining my own near-$1000 genome in the not-too-distant future.
Matt's underlying argument is that while sequencing costs will continue to drop, obtaining a complete genome sequence that is sufficiently accurate for medical interpretation will require additional expenses (increased sequence coverage to…
cwilcox | January 7, 2011When the deadline for Open Lab rolled around way back at the beginning of December, there were close to 900 science blog posts in the running for the coveted 50 slots. Over the past couple months, Jason and his team of reviewers have whittled down those submissions, til only 1/18th remain. Yes, that's right, the time has come and the posts to be published in Open Lab 2010 have been revealed!
There is some incredible blogging in there, including posts by some of my favorite writers, like Ed Yong, Brian Switek and Jason Goldman, just to name a few. Each and every post included is definitely…