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jrosenhouse | July 16, 2013This poor guy!
A 35-year-old Israeli man was rushed to the hospital on Friday after a snake suddenly emerged from the toilet he was sitting on and bit the man's penis.
The injured man told emergency workers that he noticed a strong burning sensation as he was using the toilet in his parents' home in the norther Israeli town of Nofit. At that point, the man looked down and saw a snake in the toilet. He then "ran from the room in horror" to call paramedics.
"This is the first time I've seen a snake bite like this," a paramedic said, according to Your Jewish News. “Luckily, all tests seem fine…
jrosenhouse | July 15, 2013Paul Krugman tells you what you need to know about the vote by House Republicans to drop the food stamp program from the Farm Bill:
Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We’ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We’ve even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we’re talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable.
And later:
To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something…
gregladen | July 15, 2013Neither, obviously. But whatever facts you may have been using to deliberate may have been wrong:
In the end, Trayvon is the one that was executed for his crimes by George. Different George, though.
gregladen | July 14, 2013Elaine Morgan, who has done a many thing in her life and is also the chief proponent of the more recent version of the Aquatic Ape Theory, has died at the age of 92.
Dr Morgan only retired at the start of this year from writing a weekly column for the Western Mail after suffering ill health in 2012.
The coal miner's daughter, who lived in Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, passed away on Friday morning, three weeks after suffering a stroke.
Her daughter-in-law Kim Morgan said: "She was an incredible woman and so inspirational to so many people."
...
Her book The Descent of Woman became an…
aardvarchaeology | July 12, 2013Here's a fun case of me not anticipating an imminent technological development, not thinking that last centimetre of far enough. In July of 2007, six years ago, I wrote:
Lately I have come to think of books as computer devices, combining the functions of screen and backup medium. All texts these days are written and type-set on computers, so the paper thingy has long been a secondary manifestation of the text. People like publisher Jason Epstein and book blogger the Grumpy Old Bookman have predicted that we will soon have our books made on demand at any store that may today have a machine for…
jrosenhouse | July 11, 2013At the risk of turning this into the broccoli blog, HuffPo serves up an interesting companion piece to Tuesday's post. In the comments I remarked that no one is neutral about broccoli. You either love it or you hate it. Well, here come the geneticists to explain why that is:
Broccoli has certainly earned its healthful reputation as a superfood, yet its flavor remains more controversial. But why is it that some people simply can't stand the taste, while others love it?
The answer might partly come down to genetics, explains John E. Hayes, Ph.D., assistant professor of food science and…
gregladen | July 11, 2013Run is a short movie being made here in the Twin Cities by up and coming film maker Josh Mruz. I know about it because a friend of mine is in the film. It is about "a young woman getting chased by her past, hurdling through new obstacles, and recollecting the jumbled elements of her situation." I've tried to trick them into telling me what exactly she is running from but I'm told this would spoil the film. However, when I suggested it might be dinosaurs, NOBODY SAID NO!
Anyway, I'm showing this to you because I want you to give them ten dollars (or more!) to help with this new film. If…
jrosenhouse | July 10, 2013In logic, a conditional is an if-then statement. “If it rains, then I will go to the movies,” that's a conditional. The question is, how should we assign a truth value to such a statement? This is a question of some importance to mathematicians, since every theorem is ultimately an if-then statement.
In some situations it seems easy enough. If it actually rains and I do go to the movies, then we would say the statement is true. If it rains and I don't go to the movies then the statement was false. Simple! But what if it doesn't rain? You might be inclined to say that we just should…
gregladen | July 10, 2013A talk by Sheril Kirshenbaum, Director of The Energy Poll at The University of Texas at Austin, in four parts:
Part I:
Part II:
Part III:
Part IV:
egrossman | July 10, 2013Field studies conducted at hydraulic fracturing well sites by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in 2010 and 2011 found exposures to respirable crystalline silica well in excess of safety limits set by both NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The NIOSH findings, released in April and May 2012, found 79% of air monitoring samples taken in personal breathing zones for silica exceeded the NIOSH recommended exposure level (REL) and 47% were greater than OSHA’s…
gregladen | July 10, 2013Nasa Earth Observatory has a photograph of the recent derailment of a train of Bakken Crude burning and/or exploding in a small town in Quebec.
The image "was acquired at 6:59 GMT (2:59 a.m. local time) on July 6 by the instrument’s “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, auroras, fires, and reflected moonlight. The image on the left, shown for comparison, was acquired by the same instrument on July 4, before the derailment. Light sources are not as crisp in the July 6…
jrosenhouse | July 9, 2013I'm all out of deep thoughts for the moment, so why not just have a look at this article about an attempt to engineer a better broccoli:
There it sits, a deep-green beauty at the farmers' market: that sweet, crisp nutritional dynamo we know as fresh local broccoli.
And then there’s this: a bitter, rubbery mass that's starting to turn yellow around the tips, all bumped and bruised from its long trip from the field to the supermarket.
Thomas Bjorkman, a plant scientist at Cornell University, examined the store-bought specimen like a diagnostician, unflinchingly but with a certain compassion.
“…
jrosenhouse | July 9, 2013Ever since Darwin, there has been one main argument against evolution. I am referring to the general feeling that things don't naturally get more complex over time. Evolution says that novel structures and functionalities can evolve through entirely natural means, but that is counter to intuition.
Richard Dawkins has quite properly mocked this as, “The argument from personal incredulity.” The evidence against evolution is that I find it hard to believe! Of course, expressed in that way even creationists can see the argument has little force. What they need, therefore, is a way of giving…
aardvarchaeology | July 8, 2013The Stone of Sälna is a runestone (U 323) erected about AD 1000 at Sälna hamlet where a major road crossed Hargsån stream in Skånela parish, Uppland. (This is not far from where Arlanda airport now sprawls.) None of this is unusual. But the stone's great height, its inscription and its later fate are. Here's what can be made out of the runes as they survive today and as documented by a 17th century antiquarian.
Østeinn and Jorundr and Bjorn, the brothers, erected [this] stone [after] ...steinn drums, their father. God help his spirit and soul, forgive him his crimes and sins. Forever shall…
gregladen | July 6, 2013by Hollie McNish
If you are embarrassed by breastfeeding that's fine, that's you. But do keep that to yourself and never, ever, act on that embarrassment. Also, it is possible that something is wrong with you and maybe you can have that fixed.
From here.
jrosenhouse | July 4, 2013Over at Amazon, paleontologist Donald Prothero has posted a review of Among the Creationists. (The review will eventually appear in Skeptic Magazine as well.) Prothero is a familiar name to people with an interest in this issue, since he is the author of the magnificient 2007 book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, among many other books. So what did he think?
Rosenhouse's approach in this book is to recount vignettes and anecdotes of his experiences at various creationist conferences and venues, intermingled with his dispassionate and extremely lucid dissection of the…
jrosenhouse | July 3, 2013The percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation has been growing steadily over the last decade, and currently stands around twenty percent. This represents a significant weakening in the hold of organized religion on American culture. So, is this a good thing?
I say yes! Of course, claiming no religious affiliation does not necessarily make you an atheist, but that's okay. It's not really religion per se that bothers me, but organized religion. Disorganized religion seems a lot less pernicious. So I see this particular trend as an unambiguous good.
Unsurprisingly, though…
jrosenhouse | July 2, 2013Just in case you were wondering whether weekly news magazines still serve any purpose, the answer is no. Go read this epic post, from Hemant Mehta, documenting the perfidy of Joe Klein in a recent Time magazine cover story. Klein, if you are not familiar with him, has long been one of the hackiest of hack journalists. He pops up occasionally as a talking head on cable news shows, but he has never, not even by accident, said anything interesting or insightful during his appearances. Anyway, after reading Mehta's post, go read Dale McGowan's essay in the Washington Post.