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grrlscientist | December 25, 2008It might be Christmas Day, but that doesn't mean that blog writers stop writing .. no indeed, many of us still are typing away on our laptops. One such person is Andrew Dodge, who puts the Carnival of the Vanities together for all of us to enjoy.
gregladen | December 25, 2008"I don't mind that they work over at the factory, but I don't want one of those lactose intolerant people moving in next door..." or "Some of my best friends are lactose intolerant. But I sure don't want my sister marrying one...."
Say what? (this is a Year in Review post)
gregladen | December 25, 2008An out of this world Year in Review item:
One day, the Emperor sentenced a man to be beheaded, and the man was executed immediately. However, it was not entirely clear that this was an act of justice or an act of anger. The historian recorded the event:
"The Emperor, on becoming angry at so and so, had his head cut off, seemingly unjustly."
The Emperor, on reviewing the writings of the historian that day, became angry and insisted the historian change the record to reflect the emperor's belief that the act was just. The historian duly noted in that day's journal that the Emperor insisted that…
gregladen | December 25, 2008Another Year in Review Item:
"I don't think creationists are stupid. I wish people would not attribute that to me, because I simply don't believe it. In fact, most of the active creationists are pretty darn smart."
Who said that?
gregladen | December 25, 2008There IS a conspiracy ...
If you analyze the language that is bandied about by the creationist children and parents, it is clear that they are all on the same page. They are getting their information from their local creationist group, or their pastor, or particular internet sites. If fighting evolutionary biology in schools was ever determined by the courts to be a political act (which it is) there are probably a lot of churches that would have their IRS tax status yanked!
This Year in Review post is one of my favorites, and indeed has been passed around among US Public School teachers and…
mspringer | December 25, 2008On this, my first 25th of December here on ScienceBlogs, I'd like to wish you and all your family and loved ones a happy, merry, and joyful Christmas. In honor of the occasion, my favorite Christmas song:
O Holy Night
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night…
pharyngula | December 25, 2008Also, Jolly Squidmas! Calculating Newtonmas! Even Happy Holidays!
Now get off the computer and go spend some time with the loved ones. That's what this day is all about, you know.
grrlscientist | December 24, 2008I know that christmas nearly has us in a strangle-hold, but if you need to get away from the tension and rush for awhile, perhaps you'd like to read the Festival of the Trees?
And of course, talking about seasonally relevant, don't forget to check in to the Carnival of Christmas.
And the Carnival of Health tips is also availabke to keep us all thinking about how to stay healthy despite the many unhealthy temptations this holiday season.
gregladen | December 24, 2008From whence the humble chicken? Gallus gallus is a domesticated chicken-like bird (thus, the name "chicken") that originates in southeast Asia. Ever since Darwin we've known that the chicken originated in southeast Asia, although the exact details of which one or more of several possible jungle fowls is the primal form has been debated. The idea that more than one wild species contributed to the early chicken has been on the table for a long time, though perhaps not as long as the chickens themselves have been on the table.
Not only is this Year in Review story about the origin of the Chicken…
sb admin | December 24, 2008The Pump Handle will be on vacation for the remainder of the year. Comments are still welcome, especially on Progressive Public Health posts.
We wish all of our readers and friends a healthy, peaceful 2009.
cortex | December 24, 2008Oliver Morton has a lyrical and thoughtful op-ed today in the Times, in which he re-interprets the famous images of Planet earth seen from space:
They came for the Moon, and for the first three orbits it was to the Moon that the astronauts of Apollo 8 devoted their attention. Only on their fourth time round did they lift their eyes to see their home world, rising silently above the Moon's desert plains, blue and white and beautiful. When, later on that Christmas Eve in 1968, they read the opening lines of Genesis on live television, they did it with a sense of the heavens and the Earth, of…
gregladen | December 24, 2008It is common knowledge that most Americans are creationists, and prefer creationist stories of human origins and evolution in general over the findings of evolutionary biology. But this is only true if you ask the questions a certain way, and a new study shows very different results.
Year In Review: This story, which you can read here, is one of the top stories of the year. These Year in Review stories are the most read excluding certain stories that were too timely to repeat or entirely about PZ Myers.
stoat | December 23, 2008Merry Christmas to all my readers, and even more to my writers. Here is a festive image, tastefully coloured in by me.
And now for the quiz. In the spirit of "5 advances in climate science" I ask for the 5 best mistakes in sci-fi novels of the past year. To get the ball rolling with a low bar (and mix some metaphors in the process) I'll offer the polar orbiters in Anathem. Things like di-lithium crystals don't exist don't count, of course. It has to be something plausible and interesting thats wrong.
[Oh well, that didn't work. Never mind... -W]
cwilcox | December 23, 2008Even in Orangutans, apparently.
Now, when I read the headline "Orangutans trade favors," I thought the article was very different... Oh well.
Regardless, what the study found was that orangutans learned the fairness of trade and how to get the most of a situation. Researchers gave two orangutans a set of tokens. One token, the primates learned, gave themselves a banana. Another gave the other orangutan a banana. At first, one orangutan, was very generous to her partner, and willingly traded in tokens to give him treats. When she realized, however, he was less giving, she stopped. He, in turn…
pharyngula | December 23, 2008The New Humanist Advent Podcasts continue, with entries from Marcus Brigstocke, Mark Steel, Ann Druyan, Josie Long, Tim Minchin, Philip Jeays, Dara O'Briain, and in a grand finale, Richard Dawkins. I know, it's a little early — you purists can wait to open the last little door.
grrlscientist | December 23, 2008
Image: TouchGraph and Google [larger view].
Thanks to a reader, sparc, I have reconstructed another web phylogeny of this blog for you to look at. If you actually go to the site itself and look at the graphics as well as the left sidebar, you'll find all sorts of interesting things pop up, thanks to Java.
So what does your blog phylogeny look like using this search-and-graph paradigm?
catdynamics | December 23, 2008Happy Feast of Saint Thorlacius.
Again.
I hope everyone got some "cured" skate!
It is the reason for the season, the excuse for all Manly Men, and Women, to go somewhere suitable (like the garage, your uncle's house, or a restaurant desperate enough to put up with the smell and serve the stuff) and eat the food traditional to this Eve of of the Day of the Advent of Yule.
Þorlákur, is the patron saint of Iceland, in what is a truly novel game of Thor's - to have one of his own be the patron Saint.
His feast has been celebrated on this day for 809 years, by law.
Party on.
Tindaskata - from…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2008Here's the latest carnivalia to enjoy;
Book Review Carnival, 7th edition. This is the fastest growing blog carnival I've ever seen. In just seven issues, this blog carnival has gone from just a handful of submissions to 80 -- yes 80! So if you are looking to give books as a holiday gift (or if you have a gift certificate and want to know how to spend it), may I suggest you browse this blog carnival for some ideas?
Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. This is the first time I've been in this blog carnival, so be sure to peek in there and give them some support!
Carnival of Family Life…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2008
The "Web Phylogeny" of Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted),
22 December 2008.
Image: created by Websites as Graphics.
KEY: What do these colored dots mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags
Back in theice ages, two years and seven months ago, I had a "web phylogeny" constructed for my blog. As you…