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mikethemadbiologist | June 23, 2008...and that wasn't the worst part. From Moue Magazine--who deserves much credit for the brilliant description of ID advocates as "self-hating scientists":
In 2003, the school district told him to stop teaching ID in the classroom and he refused- but kept his job. He did remove most of the visible religious materials in his classroom but then gave his students the assignment of watching the movie Expelled with directions to "explain why it is important to examine this objectively and not let bias affect your observations."
But the teacher is even nuttier than your typical ID advocate (hard as…
kevin z | June 22, 2008No, I'm not talking sushi. I'm talking about Japan's blockbuster sports marine invertebrate films!
Check out Kani the Goalkeeper and Calamari Wrestler below and I dare you to tell me they don't have Oscar written all over them!
sb admin | June 20, 2008On Saturday June 21st, Iâll be the guest on the Firedoglake Book Salon, talking about my new book âDoubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health.â Please join me from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM Eastern time, for what promises to be an interesting conversation.
Doubt continues to get rave reviews. Hereâs Lord Dick Taverne, writing in Nature:
"David Michaels has written a powerful, thorough indictment of the way big business has ignored, suppressed or distorted vital scientific evidence to the detriment of the publicâs health. Doubt Is Their Product catalogues…
kevin z | June 20, 2008
The July edition of free wallpapers from National Geographic offer yet another stunning visible display that overwhelms the senses and renders me in awe of our natural wonder. About the picture:
"A thicket of tentacles belonging to Heteractis magnifica, the magnificent sea anemone, provides cover for a transparent shrimp the size of a rice grain. The sea anemone, anchored to the reef, ignores shrimp but nabs small fish and other passersby."
Hat tip to Michael Barton, FCD.
Bonus pics under the fold!
Part of a collection of amazing photoshop'ed hybrids from this unnamed site here. Below are…
kevin z | June 20, 2008
Stop motion & Music by Ryan Smith. Rendered by Chris Mcdonald.
Disturbing, but the stop motion and haunting music.. can't keep my eyes away...
Bonus beneath the fold!
GIANT SQUID PIRATE FLIPBOOK!!!! Hat tip to Squid, go there to get the details about the book and video.
kevin z | June 19, 2008Rick MacPherson posts one of his most thoughtful essays on people and oceans.
Mission Accomplished? Read for yourself and decide.
Water ice found on Mars!! NASA says "w00t"!
sb admin | June 19, 2008Weâve written before about how important it is for the presidential candidates to let the public know where they stand on science issues. Now, the Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund, in partnership with 15 prominent scientific and engineering societies, is asking Congressional candidates where they stand on science-related issues, including climate change, water, and research funding.
SEA and its partners developed a seven-item questionnaire and are sending it out to the candidates in districts where primaries have been held. Theyâre posting responses as they come in, along with…
sb admin | June 19, 2008Salmonella-tainted tomatoes have sickened at least 277, although the Seattle PIâs Andrew Schneider cites a CDC estimate of 8,600 people whoâve become ill during this outbreak. Congress has reacted to this and other food and drug safety problems by forcing additional funding on the FDA, which isnât allowed to ask for more money than the administration decides it needs. The additional $275 million is small change, though, compared to whatâs needed to shore up our overburdened food and drug safety systems.
Contrast this lackluster action to what happened in South Korea when the government made a…
cmcclain | June 19, 2008Rising gas prices may have one more causality, one you many not have thought of...oceanographic science. Our main tool is the research vessel, large contraptions we use to steam across the vast oceans collecting data. The R/V New Horizon from Scripps take 39,000 gallons of marine diesel. Currently diesel in California is at an average of $4.97 per gallon. So to fill up that is going to take $193,830.00. How many gallons of fuel does a ship go through each day? On the larger ships it can be 4,000 to 4,500 gallons of fuel a day.
Can I pay for that in monthly installments?
Just a year ago…
cortex | June 19, 2008It's a truism that the favorite philosopher of every scientist is Karl Popper. (In my own experience, this truism is mostly true.) Popper, or so the story goes, stood up for empirical fact when the post-modernists were descending into Deleuze and Derrida and difference. His popularity among experimentalists is also a side-effect of simplicity, as his fundamental idea is easy enough for just about anyone to understand: Popper famously pointed out that science never proves things true, it merely proves things false (this is the falsifiability doctrine). In other words, scientists proceed in…
cmcclain | June 19, 2008Sometimes research comes about that really makes my whole week. This time it is a little diddy from Lindner et al. in PLoS. We could go through all the specifics of the paper...they sequenced 100 coral species from a single family or that family is the second most diverse group of hard corals.
But all you really need to know is that this family didn't originate in shallow water but in the deep sea! After the group evolved in the deep, gathering the necessary anti-predatory equipment, they invaded the shallow water tropics at least three times. O but that was not enough! They…
petnoyer | June 19, 2008
New York Times reviews Werner Herzog's Antarctic documentary "Encounters at the end of the World" calling it 'hauntingly beautiful'. The film is set at McMurdo Station, and features 'melancholy' scientists, extended landscape shots, Weddell seals, and jellyfish.
NYT reviewer Manohla Dargis credits the director for avoiding the trappings of "casual talk about global warming and other calamities might cast shadows across this bright expanse" through artistic beauty and an "unshakable faith in human beings".
It would be thrilling to see Werner Herzog sit down with Wallace Broecker in the SEED…
kevin z | June 19, 2008The Raging Wombat of Ugly Overload brings us a tale of small fish eat bigger fish. Go there and see more pictures and get the story!
kevin z | June 18, 2008I know what to get Craig for his birthday!
From Gama-Go:
"This bag is built to last, constructed from a tough, water-resistant cordura nylon shell with a ripstop polyester interior lining and velcro closure.
Keep your gear in order with three handy front pockets under the flap and a large slip pocket on the back.
The interior features two see-through zippered pockets, three pen slots, a cell phone pouch and a detachable keychain holder.
The strap is adjustable and features a heavy-duty seatbelt-style metal buckle with brushed nickel finish designed after the GAMA-GO logo.
The dimensions are…
kevin z | June 18, 2008From CNN.com:
"President Bush asked Congress on Wednesday to permit drilling for oil in deep water off America's coasts to combat rising oil and gas prices.
"There is no excuse for delay," the president said in a Rose Garden statement.
Bush also renewed his demand that Congress allow drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, clear the way for more refineries and encourage efforts to recover oil from shale in areas such as the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
Bush said that the basin potentially contains more than three times as much recoverable oil as Saudi Arabia…
grrlscientist | June 18, 2008tags: Ask a Science Blogger, why blog, blogs and science careers
The most recent "Ask a Science Blogger" question submitted by a reader is [ask a question of your own];
There are many, many academic bloggers out there feverishly blogging about their areas of interest. Still, there are many, many more academics who don't. So, why do you blog and how does blogging help with your research?
There are a lot of reasons that I write a blog. First and foremost, I love writing. Writing has been my voice in a world that refused to hear me, it has been my invisible companion that kept me from being…
cmcclain | June 18, 2008Guardian Online is running a couple of responses to Wallace Broecker's call for carbon storage experiments in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Worth reading all to understand the pros and cons for yourself.
CO2 disposal in the ocean is a dangerous distraction
Deep divisions
cortex | June 18, 2008From Rachel Herz's quite interesting The Scent of Desire:
In one study that contrasted the trauma of being blinded or becoming anosmic [losing you sense of smell] after an accident, it was found that those who were blinded initially felt much more traumatized by their loss than those who had lost their sense of smell. But follow-up analyses on the emotional health of these patients one year later showed that the anosmics were faring much more poorly than the blind. The emotional health of anosmic patients typically continues to deteriorate with passing time, in some cases requiring…
kevin z | June 18, 2008Th Right Blue, a diving and undersea photography blog, has a fantastic story about diving in Sipadan Cave off of Borneo. Jacques Costeau dove here in the 1980s and discovered an underwater cave filled with sea turtle bones. Much like the deep sea, underwater caves are dangerous, dark environments with its own unique ecosystem.
"While Cousteau and his group conjectured that old or sick turtles may have gone there intentionally to die, our guide told us that Cousteau's original notion had been replaced more recently by a more prosaic explanation:"
(You have to go there to find out more!)
kevin z | June 17, 2008
Since PZ Myers and Bug Girl are brought up this important issue, we at Deep Sea News would like our K-12 educational systems to teach what REALLY happened to the ancient lost city of Atlantis. Faithful Deep Sea News readers are advised to wear this T-shirt in support of teaching the controversy about the variety of "theories" behind the once great Utopian city of Atlantis.
Atlantis has sunk to bottom of the Mediterranean Ocean. There is evidence!!
The inhabitants turned into mer-people (mer means ocean). There is evidence!! (also here and here) New Zealanders even sing of them!!
So while…