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pharyngula | October 12, 2010I think you should start out your day with tales of fatherhood, since I did. Sometimes my mailbox is a very depressing thing.
What do you do when your son has seizures? Take him to religious authorities for diagnosis.
"When my son first began suffering from this problem I took him to sheikhs to recite Qur'an on him but most of them became scared when they heard the female voice telling them that she was a royal jinn and that no one can exorcise her unless Turki dies," he said.
The father said a sheikh advised him to tie his son's arms and legs with iron chains and to read Qur'an on him. "…
sb admin | October 12, 2010
Back in June I launched a new blog, Genomes Unzipped, together with a group of colleagues and friends with expertise in various areas of genetics. At the time I made a rather cryptic comment about "planning much bigger things for the site over the next few months".
Today I announced what I meant by that: from today, all of the 12 members of Genomes Unzipped - including my wife and I - will be releasing their own results from a variety of genetic tests, online, for anyone to access. Initially those results consist of data from one company (23andMe) for all 12 members; deCODEme for one…
gregladen | October 11, 2010He's baaack...
Dan Griffith has tried this before and he's trying it again:
Dan Griffith is running for the Minnesota Court of Appeals seat currently held by Judge Terri J. Stoneburner, and because positions and party affiliations are not part of the campaign process for judicial candidates, most voters don't know that Griffith is a right-wing evangelical Christian who would make rulings based on his faith.
Details here Please pass it along.
gregladen | October 11, 2010Information about last week's convention is here.
This is alleged to be a picture of Mabus making what looks like an "I'm shooting you with a pistol" gesture:
And this is the note he posted on my blog in which he mentiones the whole bullet in the head thing:
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!
a bullet for your head, traitor
And finally, the *only* man in Minnesota who says there is no God has suddenly become an arbiter on mental health... unfacts.org/factsforum/viewtopic.php?t=4080 COME SEE A PHOTO OF MABUS AND AN EXPLANATION OF IT!
Mabus never really worried me before, but this is the photograph…
pharyngula | October 11, 2010I just have to remind everyone now and then that we are trying to raise money for science education in the public schools, and I do have a donation page where you can pick specific grant applications you like and give them your cash.
If you're feeling competitive, there's also a leaderboard page where you can see the contributions made by other science blogs. Pharyngula is leading, of course, but I'm feeling lonely…I seem to be the only participant from Seed Media so far. You might think about doing some nagging yourself and tell those other ScienceBlogs to get in the act and join the group.
gregladen | October 9, 2010This was not a lion attack. It was a lion, playing:
THIS is a lion attack:
And finally, this classic video just for fun:
gregladen | October 9, 2010It is said that these were the words uttered by William Orton, President of Western Union, when given the chance to buy out a 10% share of Alexander Graham Bell's patents for $100,000. Those patents included those related to the telephone.
A few weeks later, on this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Watson carried out the first two-way "long"-distance conversation on a telephone, borrowing for the purpose in-place telegraph line, between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. By spring of the next year several additional tests were run over much longer distances, most (but…
gregladen | October 8, 2010Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral is a book about the origins of modern science, the interplay between theory and empiricism, the machinations of the Victorian scientific gentry, epic rivalries, polyps and plankton.
Reef Madness is by David Dobbs, of Neuron Culture here on Scienceblogs. Look for an upcoming Bloggingheads.tv discussion between David and me, mainly about this book.
~ A Repost because it is still a good book ~
This is a book about the competing theories presented by Alexander Agassiz and Charles Darwin about the formation of tropical…
kcollins | October 8, 2010WE.NEED.YOUR.HELP!!!
Constellation Energy is running a "tweet" a promotion of the USA Science Festival and the Constellation E2 Grants program until next Friday Oct 15th. For each twitter user's "re-tweet" constillation Energy will donate $10 to the USA Science Festival (up to $10,000). And here is something to sweeten the deal. For every $10 raised, the Festival will match $10 so we have the potential of raising $20,000!! This money will be used for bus grants for inner city Washington DC students to come to the Expo. If we can get 1000 RTs, that means $20,000 to bring 4000 student to the…
gregladen | October 8, 2010Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights" - a prize likely to enrage the Chinese government, which had warned the Nobel committee not to honor him.
Thorbjoern Jagland, the Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman, said Liu Xiaobo (LEE-o SHAo-boh) was a symbol for the fight for human rights in China and the government should expect that its policies face scrutiny
npr
gregladen | October 7, 2010Desiree will interview Bora Zivkovic, Blog and Community Editor at Scientific American!!!!
Details here