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gregladen | April 1, 2009... Aieee! There's something horrifying crashing through the shrubbery and it's coming closer! ..
And it's ... it's ... it's ... The Carnival of Evolution!!!!
gregladen | April 1, 2009... Lynn's comment about Azia!?!?!!
(This will only be of interest to those concerned with relationships, art, inspiration, the erotic, and really good food. Others stay away.)
gregladen | April 1, 2009Zoo Borns claims "A second serving of adorable Asian Small-clawed Otter pups born just three weeks ago at Sea World Orlando. As you can hear on camera, these social otters often communicate vocally, in this case with a very fitting chirp."
Then they have these bogus video:
Right, sure. THIS IS APRIL FOOLS DAY, PEOPLE, WE ARE NOT BUYING THIS!!!
I'm sure these are going to turn out to be Large-clawed Otters. What do you think?
jwilbanks | April 1, 2009Big FriendFeed chatter on the interwebs yesterday about JoVE "moving" to a closed access model.
This is being covered extensively on the FF conversation so I won't dredge through the points there - if you want to see the arguing and JoVE responses, head over there.
What's interesting for me is the lack of conversation about the importance of licensing. There is a reason Open Access talks about copyrights in the definitions. Let's go back and remember:
By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy,…
gregladen | April 1, 2009If you have a Google gmail or Google docs account, do make sure to visit your account today and have a look around. Then log out. And keep your eye's open.
I'm just sayin' ...
edyong | April 1, 2009I win! Fame! Glory! People fanning me with palm-fronds! Muhahahaha! Kneel before Zod!... Ahem. Regains composure...
Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock fame has graciously awarded the first Blog Post of the Month award from everyONE - the new blog from the open-access journal PLoS ONE - to the post I wrote about ballet dancers. Every month, Bora looks at blog posts that have reviewed PLoS ONE papers and picks one out for an accolade.
I'm very pleased, especially since the other blog posts in the running included stuff from some of my favourite writers - Christie of Observations of a…
jwilbanks | April 1, 2009No, this is not an April Fool's post.
I found the argument about mexican lemons at Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline (if you've not got it on your RSS aggregator, get thee behind me) and thought it was a better way to celebrate the day of fools than by doing something fake like "I'm going to work at Elsevier as head of intellectual property!" or some such.
You see, we get fooled all the time by data. And frequently we really, really want the data to tell us something specific - something we've been looking for, for a very long time. Or we want to have the data tell us something coherent - to tell…
awild | April 1, 2009and gives us a list of photography's advantages over specimen collection:
You donât need permits to take images.
You can take images of wildlife and people (you canât âcollectâ those!).
Storage of images takes a lot less room than storage of an insect collection.
It takes less time to prepare an image than a specimen (that may change as I get more sophisticated).
You can share images (I canât pin an insect specimen to my blog).
Photography makes you more observant.
Images of living organisms are more colorful and robust than faded, withered dead specimens.
You can record behaviors in a…
gregladen | April 1, 2009Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, for some reason, is the home of (by US standards, anyway) some of the most extreme (or at least interesting) criminal behavior, and not just in the movies. And today, in Shakopee, Minnesota, a freshly convicted 20 year old was sentenced to life in prison with no parole because of his killing of Katherine ann Olson (24 years old) using Craig's List as a tool to lure his victim into a deadly trap.
Surely, that is the ultimate example of incivility on the internet.
Here is a pretty good overview of the slaying (you may not be able to see this because it is a…
gregladen | April 1, 2009And the winner is ... Michael Behe! I. Do. Not. Believe. This. Details here.
gregladen | April 1, 2009Greetings Science and Culture Enthusiasts!
This April promises to be filled with engaging and thought-provoking science and culture programming from the Bell Museum of Natural History. In addition to our Cafe Scientifique and Science Trivia programs, we are planning multiple outdoor field trips as well as hosting a special Earth Day film series event. Attached you will find detailed program information. We hope to see you this month!
*_SCIENCE + CULTURE PROGRAMS_*
*Café Scientifique: Honey Bees and Human Health Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 7 p.m. Bryant-Lake Bowl, Uptown 810 W. Lake St.,…
omnibrain | April 1, 2009Ok ok.. how about 'Using science to kill the fewest people while seeking world domination'... hmm... maybe not that either, how about 'Using science to protect our way of life'
There we go!
Now that you know what we're talking about you can check out a podcast that I'm particularly interested in called Armed With Science.
Here's the schtick:
Research and Applications for the Modern Military, is a weekly webcast that discusses various applications of science and technology to military operations, and the cutting-edge scientific research and development sponsored by various defense offices. We…
gregladen | April 1, 2009Pseudonymous blogger outed.
Linux Computer Crashes! Experts amazed. Details here.
Esoteric benchmark tests of OO. Against OO. Interseting, but very esoteric.
pharyngula | April 1, 2009Richard Dawkins did it again, clearly stating his opinion of the Pope's policy on birth control and AIDS prevention. One problem: he left out another possibility. The Pope could be evil.
I tend to favor a combination of all of the above.
I have received a communique from Richard Dawkins in which he protests that he was misquoted in the Telegraph. What he actually said was,
The Pope is either stupid, ignorant or wicked.
Much better.
mspringer | April 1, 2009This is a pulley, pulled straight off Wikipedia:
On the test that my students had last week, there was a question involving pulleys connected in a sort of eclectic arrangement. The objective was to find the tension in certain ropes which were holding the pulleys up.
Imagine instead of being connected to the ceiling, the pulley in the picture is being held up by your hand. Hanging from the pulley is a heavy metal block, and the rope holding the block up is itself being temp taut by another person. So just like the picture, except for simplicity assume that the rope is not pulled at an…
cortex | April 1, 2009In the latest New Yorker, Rebecca Mead has a wonderful profile of two poets (Michael and Matthew Dickman) with starkly different poetic styles who happen to be identical twins.
Michael and Matthew share more than the same raw material; they share the same genetic material. Although there is a rich scientific literature on the subject of identical twins who have been separated at birth - their circumstances help to illuminate the competing influences of genetics and environment on the development of an individual's health and sensibility - the Dickman twins, who were raised together and have…
sb admin | April 1, 2009We spend a lot of time writing about all of the things that are going wrong, so it's nice to highlight some promising news periodically. In particular, it seems like there have been a lot of positive news stories about hospitals lately.
The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly profiles Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health system, which is demonstrating that it's possible to save money on healthcare by doing procedures right the first time.
At ProPublica, Sherri Fink describes the orderly evacuation of hundreds of patients from North Dakota hospitals and nursing homes, and finds that increased…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2009One of my favorite things in the world is science-y blog carnivals! And since one science-y blog carnival is currently being revived partially due to my noisemaking, I am taking my support one step further: I am hosting the upcoming issue of the Circus of the Spineless on 6 April. So this means that I need your help. If you have written a "translation" of a scientific paper, or an essay, a photoessay, or if you have a stunning image of a squishy (or crusty) living entity that lacks a backbone -- not including American politicians -- to share with the world, please send your submission to me…
gregladen | April 1, 2009Several very important events or finds are in the news this morning.
I've already reported the discovery of an amazing new rodent. In addition, the Volcano at Yelllowstone Caldera seems to have unexpectedly erupted. Details here. Non one was hurt, but activities on the lake will be canceled for the remainder of .... the Holocene.
Recent work in Evolutionary Theory, just published, seems to show that Darwin was Wrong about Everything. John Wilkins, who himself is walking proof that Evolution is Wrong (or, why would there still be gorillas?) has the details on this story.
Chris Rowen…