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gregladen | July 22, 2009An exclusive KIRO 7 Investigation reveals an alarming number of Apple brand iPod MP3 players have suddenly burst into flames and smoke, injuring people and damaging property.
details
gregladen | July 22, 2009Vaccine
Human trials of a vaccine to protect against the H1N1 swine flu virus have begun in Australia.
Riots spread in South Africa
Violence in South Africa's townships has spread as residents protest about what they say is a lack of basic services, such as water and housing.
Scientist will make human brain. Mwahahahahah!
A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.
New Zealand, Australia, expected to collide. Eventually.
A massive earthquake last week has brought New Zealand closer to Australia, scientists say....The…
cortex | July 22, 2009Over at Mind Matters, we've just posted a very interesting article on creativity and distance, or why thinking something is farther away makes us more likely to solve difficult problems that require original answers:
According to the construal level theory (CLT) of psychological distance, anything that we do not experience as occurring now, here, and to ourselves falls into the "psychologically distant" category. It's also possible to induce a state of "psychological distance" simply by changing the way we think about a particular problem, such as attempting to take another person's…
gregladen | July 22, 2009And commenting is back on. We may expect some slowness at the beginning as fine tuning happens, and RSS feeds and channels are not on yet.
grrlscientist | July 21, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 1933 - 1165 - 1123 - 774 - 581 out of 357 candidates registered. I have excellent news: I am once again in second place after one of my Reddit peeps whipped up support for me among my fellow Redditers! THANK YOU REDDIT!
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree…
eklemetti | July 21, 2009The servers and software behind the scenes here at ScienceBlogs will be getting upgraded tonight (7/21). After 7 PM (Eastern), commenting will be turned off (even though the comment form will still be visible). Hopefully things will be up and running by the morning, but if things seem squirrelly, rest assured the honchos at sB are on it.
gregladen | July 21, 2009...Mentally and socially, we begin our lives as tabula rasa, empty vessels waiting to be filled and develop our sense of selves based on the totality of interactions we have while developing. This then affects the way that we approach questions. As people we decide what to accept and what to discount based on how the information we receive incorporates into our accumulated experiences and understandings and the sorts of feedback that we have gotten on the way that we process information....
By Mike at Quiche Moraine. Please have a look.
sb admin | July 21, 2009by Erika Furlong
I recently attended the June 29th-30th FDA advisory committee meeting that voted for a reduction in the maximum daily over-the-counter (OTC) dose of acetaminophen and the âunbundlingâ of narcotic-acetaminophen prescription medications. While I agree ultimately with many of the recommendations that were made, I canât help but feel that there is a larger problem that remains unaddressed. There is a growing disparity between FDA expectations for prescription drugs and expectations for OTC drugs and dietary supplements. As requirements for prescription drugs increasingly reflect…
grrlscientist | July 21, 2009Since I have recently developed quite a history of visiting cold and snowy places, often during the winter, I wish to preserve that tradition. I am competing for the opportunity to go to Antarctica in February 2010 -- a dream adventure that I've always wanted to pursue (and almost did pursue when I was an undergraduate researching Fin Whales and Crabeater Seals at the University of Washington). To enter, all candidates must publish a picture of themselves and write an essay explaining why we think we are the best choice, and solicit votes from the public. Whomever receives the most votes wins…
mspringer | July 21, 2009There's been some discussion around the web of Jupiter apparently getting walloped by something, probably a comet. As with the more famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact, the result is a small dark blot in the clouds of the Jovian upper atmosphere. Small is a relative term - small spots on the surface can easily be as big as the Earth or bigger. Impacts are some of the most violent events in the solar system, and they release their energy entirely via conversion from kinetic energy.
Here on earth people sometimes discuss the history of high energy weapons in terms of energy per weapon mass.…
cortex | July 21, 2009A few days ago, I had my first McGriddle. While I usually try to avoid McDonald's meat products - that's the benevolent influence of my wife, who rightly insists on eating humanely raised animal products - I was stuck in an airport and couldn't bear the idea of another yogurt parfait. The "standard" McGriddle consists of bacon, a brick of bright yellow egg and neon orange American cheese served between two small pancakes that have been injected with maple syrup (or some sort of maple simulacrum) so that they taste extremely sweet and yet aren't sticky to hold. The top of the griddle pancake…
grrlscientist | July 20, 2009
Your future Penguin whisperer?
[book title: Maailman Pingviinit translates as Penguins of the World (Amazon USA :: Amazon UK)]
Image: Bob O'Hara, 19 July 2009 [seriously, do you want to look at a larger view?].
Several endorsements are coming my way and they've asked me to write an essay that outlines specific reasons why I am the best qualified for the "Blog Your Way to Antarctica" job offered by Quark Expeditions as the official blogger for their February 2010 Antarctica Cruise.
First and foremost, Quark Expeditions is seeking a blog writer. As they say in the rules;
The successful…
grrlscientist | July 20, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 1890 - 1147 - 1109 - 766 - 574 out of 347 candidates registered. I have excellent news: I am once again in second place after one of my Reddit peeps whipped up support for me among my fellow Redditers! THANK YOU REDDIT!
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree…
j7uy5 | July 20, 2009I was off-line for several days, because the modem toasted
itself.
I didn't do it, honest! It had been acting up for a couple of
weeks, causing random "web site not found" errors. If it happened
very much, I'd reboot the thing and it would be better for a while.
Finally, it failed. The green power light turned to red. It
would not restart. Unplugging it, waiting the necessary 20
seconds or so, and plugging it back in did not help. Until the
third time, when not even the red light would go on. It was dead.
Called the ISP, who had sold us the thing about a year ago. They
sent a new…
gregladen | July 20, 2009I will be hosting Berry Go Round # 18, for July 31st 2009.
Please send me your submissions. Try to use the word "berry" or something in the subject line so I can find them! Berry Go Round is a blog carnival devoted to highlight recent posts from the blogosphere about any aspect of plant life.
gregladen | July 20, 2009... up and running at A DC Birding Blog. Please go and click all over the thing. Thank you very much.
gregladen | July 20, 2009Seriously, I'm not kidding.
Rebecca Skloot has ended up with a puppy (off the street) that is going to die unless it receives expensive medical treatment. Go here to find out the details and donate a buck or two via paypal.
grrlscientist | July 20, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) was published today at A DC Birding Blog.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.
The host for the upcoming 3 August edition is Bjørn, author of Pleiotropy. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use…
gregladen | July 20, 2009
The McGregor Museum is a complex building with several wings surrounding an inner court yard, a multi-layered roof, balconies everywhere, and numerous trees in the court yard close in to the building. So, a cat can spend the heat of the day in the shaded crown of a tree, and the cool of the evening up on the building's sun-warmed metal roof.
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The interior of the McGregor museum houses numerious exhibits. The old period rooms and hallways focus on the late 19th century, and other newer areas (not shown) have an excellent set of exhibits on archaeology, human evolution, and "San" rock…