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gregladen | October 3, 2010We [had a cool summer here in Minnesota in 2009], and this has brought out the miscreants who for their own reasons do not want to get on board with the simple, well demonstrated scientific fact that global temperatures have risen, that we humans are the primary cause, and that this climate change has negative consequences.
~ A Repost ... Because Global Warming is still real, as is Global Warming Denialism ~
There are probably different reasons people do not want to get on board with this reality. The main reason especially for younger individuals is that they have been told by their…
pharyngula | October 2, 2010Some of you have already noticed the big banner in the left sidebar (those of you who have adblock installed probably haven't) announcing that we're participating in DonorsChoose this year, the charity that takes your donation and directly hands them over to specific projects teachers have proposed. It's one way to try and compensate for the deplorable state of public education financing in our country. I'll be reminding you all a few more times in the future, but just keep it in mind — if you've got a few dollars to spare, pass them on to teachers and kids who really need them.
gregladen | October 2, 2010Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation across populations are interesting and, in fact, seem to conform to expectations (in a "we don't' really care about statistical significance" sort of way, for now) regarding human social organization.
~ A repost ... because effective polygyny is…
gregladen | October 1, 2010The Jaguar C-X75 (not to be confused with te Siemens CX75 cell phone) will go almost 70 miles on its battery pack, using one 145kW electric motor attached to each wheel, accelerate faster than most hot cars, and reach top speeds that are greater than most fast cars. You can plug it into you wall and thus fuel it off of your local coal burning plant or nuke (yes, folks, plug-in electric cars are terribly inefficient because the electricity is made miles away from where it is used) or, for more efficiency than most (or perhaps any?) hybrid, the car has two internal microturbine engines that…
gregladen | October 1, 2010Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur -- a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator -- were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period).
~ A repost, because it is still an amazing dinosaur ~
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Aerosteon riocoloradensis is that it demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Indeed, the…
gregladen | October 1, 2010A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the Pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.
The request is an incremental - and long shot - step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against a Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.
source
pharyngula | October 1, 2010A few articles published in the newspapers today have hit me right in a few sore spots, making me crankier than usual and compelling me to write a few new rules for science journalists. Pay attention.
This first story is titled Male infertility gene discovered. It does an OK job of describing the actual study and even gets into the nuances farther in, but the lead is awful.
Rule #1: Do not describe genes by the disease they cause when broken. This is a gene that contributes to male fertility. There is no infertility gene. If a man has a missing, damaged, or mutant form of this fertility gene…
kbonham | October 1, 2010[This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com]
The best defense against pathogens is to never let them gain access to our delicious, gooey insides. Our skin is pretty good for this purpose: it's pretty tough and mostly impermeable, and the only way most of our surface tissues can get infected is if that skin barrier is broken. But we can't have skin everywhere. Our airways and digestive tract have to be permeable so that we can absorb air and nutrients. In our gut, we can't have skin, but we do have tens of trillions of commensal (friendly) bacteria that colonize us, and…
mikethemadbiologist | October 1, 2010By now, you've probably heard about the Pew report on Americans and religious knowledge. A lot of atheists have been chortling about how well they done, compared to believers, and have offered explanations like Amanda's:
This, of course, was absolutely no surprise to the loose online atheist community. I took abbreviated version of the test, and wasn't particularly surprised that I got 15 out of 15 questions right. Many, maybe most, atheists that I know came to atheism because they learned so much about religion, enough that the logical inconsistencies and overt wish fulfillment aspects of…
gregladen | October 1, 2010Nobel physicist George Charpak died on the 29th. From Teh Wiki:
In 1992, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber". This is the last time a single person has won the physics prize.
cwilcox | October 1, 2010Every year, the crew behind the Annals of Improbable Research honor research that "first makes people laugh, then makes them think." These awards, known as the Ig Nobels, honor some of the most entertaining research published in the past year. The competition is fierce, and the prizes highly coveted. But without further ado! This year, the winners are...
Engineering
Acevedo-Whitehouse, K., Rocha-Gosselin, A., & Gendron, D. (2010). A novel non-invasive tool for disease surveillance of free-ranging whales and its relevance to conservation programs Animal Conservation, 13 (2), 217-225 DOI:…