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gregladen | September 30, 2010Fisher-Price recalls more than 10 million items
Fisher-Price is recalling more than 10 million tricycles, toys and high chairs over safety concerns.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday that two of the products being recalled involved injuries.
In the recall of about 7 million Fisher-Price Trikes and Tough Trikes toddler tricycles, the agency is aware of 10 reports of children being hurt. Six of them required medical attention.
source
"First, the baba juice is recalled, now this! Who put these people in charge!" complains namesake of Darwin's Bulldog.
gregladen | September 30, 2010
The world's most famous cross dresser has died at 85. Tony Curtis received numerous Oscar nominations, made more than 120 films, played several TV roles, and was an accomplished painter.
And, she went to a conservatory.
cwilcox | September 29, 2010Recently, I got this e-mail forwarded to me. It started out with the header
World shame coast in COSTA RICA
Followed by images like these:
and it concluded with the message:
Please distribute widely.
The Turtle eggs are stolen to be sold.
The planet is thankful for the forwarding of this email.
The e-mail isn't an isolated incident. A quick internet search will immediately bring up sites like this one, heralding the extinction of sea turtles in Costa Rica due to the illegal harvest of their eggs.
Look, I know it looks bad. Yes, the photos are real and of people taking thousands of sea…
gregladen | September 29, 2010There is a recent "PC Pro" magazine article comparing Windows 7 to Ubuntu, which concludes that Ubuntu is almost as good as Windows 7.
This would be roughly like Michele Bachmann comparing Ronald Reagan to Edward Kennedy and concluding that Edward Kennedy is almost as good. So, we can safely conclude that Ubuntu kicks Windows butt.
I hated the article for several reasons, but could not bring myself to write a review or response. But, JH at Linux in Exile did: Windows vs Ubuntu.
gregladen | September 29, 2010A young man with dark skin attracts the attention of a white police officer. The police officer, not busy with anything else, takes the opportunity to develop his own particular style of neighborhood relations, stops the young man's car and shakes him down. One thing leads to another, and the young man is beaten severely. Then, more things lead to more other things and charges are filed. From this point forward, it is pure nightmare for the young man and his family. Such is the nature of police-citizen relationships in pretty much every city and town in the US.
Sleep Deprivation is a…
cwilcox | September 28, 2010Tonight's Nat Geo special about the Gulf Oil Spill and its lasting impacts looked interesting enough. Then I recognized the talking lab rat in it: Brian Zielinski, a classmate of mine from undergrad at Eckerd College. So cool, Brian!
But the gulf oil mutagenic? That is not cool.
*Oh, and as my dear friend Allie just pointed out, one of my old professors is in it, too. Hello Dr. Jonathan Cohen! How did I miss that the first time around?
krandall | September 28, 2010By Dr. Paul EstradaPlanetary physicist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
If planets are a dime a dozen, moons are less than a penny each. There are at least 139 moons just within our own solar system. Most of these are the property of the gas giant planets beyond Mars. More than just a nice accompaniment to planets, moons may have habitats in which liquid water could ebb and flow - and possibly be a suitable home for life. Planetary physicist Dr. Paul Estrada investigates how moons around gas giants are formed -- an important…
kcollins | September 28, 2010
Come to the USA Science & Engineering Festival Preview Press Conference and Find Out.
Who: Science Leaders from the AAAS, National Academy of Engineering, Lockheed Martin, Scientific American, the Science Channel, The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, University of Maryland at College Park, PBS, EE Times, EPA, DOE, J. Craig Venter Institute, PBS Kids, Seed Media Group, You Can Do the Rubik's Cube, National Science Teachers' Association, Marian Koshland Science Museum and the National Institutes of Health discuss the Festival and meet with fifth grade students from…
zooillogix | September 27, 2010In just a few days, my good friend and fellow Zooillogix blogger, Julia, will leave the safety of Chicago for the violent, pineapple-strewn streets of Honolulu for a new job. Here are some things you should know about Julia: #1 - She is the best kickball player in the Midwest. #2 - She has a margay tattoo across most of her torso and Ernst Haeckel tattoos on her arms. #3 - Despite her PhD meets Sons of Anarchy bodywork, she is one of the sweetest people I know.
Among other activities, I have greatly appreciated her company for beer drinking, music listening, encasing wild mushrooms in clear…
gregladen | September 27, 2010Sherlock Holmes news: Stephen Fry, who played IIRC the psychiatrist on Bones who treated Seeley Booth after he shot the clown off the ice cream truck in a conniption of annoyance, will play Mycroft in the second Guy Ritchie Holmes adaptation (with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law) due out in December 2011. Excellent choice.
Delta Airline 5951 required an emergency landing last night due to faulty wheels. Here is a video of the event from inside the cockpit:
I've never heard a flight attendant do that. I hope someone slapped her and the person who thought of the idea of doing that and the…
illconsidered | September 27, 2010The title is of course a reference to Alice in Wonderland, and particularily to the quote about believing 6 impossible things before breakfast (which Eli Rabbet upped to ten) and, again, of course applies so nicely to the climate contrarian community.
But I guess it is not quite a perfect fit for what I am posting about now, which is rather believing contradictory things, before, during or even after breakfast.
(cartoon source)
[Note: we could make this cartoon a perfect fit for Monckton just by adding another panel where the scientist suddenly turns to the Galileo-wannabe saying "WTF!? I…
gregladen | September 27, 2010While riding around his North Yorkshire estate on a Segway, [Jimi Heseldon] reportedly drove straight off a cliff and into the River Wharfe. A spokesperson for West Yorkshire police confirmed his death: "He was pronounced dead at the scene."
source <--- warning, web site may be poorly behaved
Heseldon did not invent the Segway, he just bought the company last year. His company was primarily engaged in defense contracting.
cwilcox | September 26, 2010Ok, I'm a few days late in posting this, but here's the latest podcast from Me, Travis, Peter, Jason and Sci. Our topic of the month: Fieldwork! Which we stay on for, oh, maybe a few minutes before getting sidetracked... :)
Enjoy!
PS Our previous podcast about life as a grad student can be found HERE!
dolittle | September 26, 2010One theory of aging holds that accumulation of reactive oxygen species from aerobic metabolism damages nucleotides, proteins and lipids. Therefore, animals with a higher metabolism (poor mice) would be expected to produce more reactive oxygen species and age at a faster rate than animals with a slower metabolism (go sloths!). In a healthy individual, antioxidants help to protect from such increases in oxidative stress. However, this antioxidant capacity declines as we age.
You may be aware that bees transition from working around the hive to foraging at about 3 weeks of age. Foraging is much…
gregladen | September 26, 2010Evolution is a myth!!!! Why, Charles Darwin Himself .... BlaHH!!
Dabbled in which craft? Oh, witchcraft! Mice have human brains? Maybe this human has a mouse brain! Ugh.
gregladen | September 26, 2010 People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web.
pharyngula | September 25, 2010Last month, I mentioned this sad and inspiring story of Mike Celizic, who had been diagnosed with cancer and given very little time to live. I'm sorry to report that Mike Celizic has died. Here is the last email he sent to me; it's a little embarrassing that he's saying more about me than himself, but that seems to be the kind of fellow he was.
Dr. Myers:
I'm not given to firing off emails to people who are overwhelmed with same. But I'm dying of lymphoma - I've got a few weeks - and I want to tell you how much I've learned reading your blog and how much enjoyment it has brought me. I'm a…