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pharyngula | January 9, 2008This is hilarious. That wacky Islamic creationist, Harun Yahya, sent all those copies of his great big expensive book, Atlas of Creation, to biologists all around the country, and darned few of us have actually bothered to look at it in any detail. The general pattern of the book is repetitious and predictable: the book shows a picture of a fossil and a photo of a living animal, and declares that they haven't changed a bit, therefore evolution is false. Over and over. It gets old fast, and it's usually wrong (they have changed!) and the photography, while lovely, is entirely stolen.
Here's…
grrlscientist | January 9, 2008tags: Deroptyus accipitrinus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, pets, birds, avian, parrots, behavior
Okay, my peeps, a regular reader was inspired by the earlier blog entry, Songs About Birds -- Can You Name Some? to write a poem about birds, Dirty Bird! Dirty Bird!, except this reader claims this is actually a song because there is a tune that goes with it .. I would like to challenge this reader, Digital Cuttlefish, to sing this song and post it as an mp3!
cortex | January 9, 2008From a very interesting interview with Anthony Bourdain:
AVC: Do you ever feel like your sense of taste or smell was diminished by your drug use?
Bourdain: Who knows? I think, technically, male palates start to decline very early anyway, around 27 or 28. That's what God made salt for.
On a related note, I used to work in restaurants, and was always fascinated by how my perception of saltiness would fluctuate over the course of a night. You get really sweaty working the line and, by the end of a hectic shift, nothing would taste salty enough for me. I'd sweated out so many electrolytes that my…
cortex | January 9, 2008Needless to say, the political pundits were hilariously wrong about the New Hampshire primary. I won't hypothesize about what actually happened, other than to say that I think many voters here wanted a longer primary. They didn't want an Obama coronation in the beginning of January. This says less about Obama and Clinton and more about the over-hyped press coverage and shortened primary schedule. I voted for Obama, but I'm looking forward to a drawn out race for the Democratic nomination. This whole democracy thing is pretty entertaining.
But back to the failures of the political pundits.…
grrlscientist | January 9, 2008tags: Tangled Bank, blog carnivals
This is it, folks, the blog carnival that you've all been waiting for; Tangled Bank. The 96th edition has just been published, so get on over there for some science-y goodness.
cmcclain | January 9, 2008
Via Crave, I see that Underwater Technologies Center has created a Underwater Digital Interface that can keep 56 divers networked with ships or land bases up to 1,000 yards away. The unit serves as a Two-way digital text messaging communicator, Diver SOS and Remote SOS, Homing tool, Compass, and RGBM Diving computer. A cookie to anyone who can tell me where the coordinates above are from.
chrisdrudge | January 8, 2008Hi everyone. First off, thanks for all of the encouraging comments and emails! I'm excited to be blogging here at ScienceBlogs, and I hope I can bring a little bit of humour and general silliness to the proceedings.
I realize that my RSS feed is currently not working, but the right people have been notified and a fix should be coming within the next couple of days. It's a new blog, so certain things have to be set up.
Thanks for reading! Since I've got your attention, if you come across any strange publications that might be good material for the blog, feel free to send them my way. I'll give…
grrlscientist | January 8, 2008tags: Linnaeus's Legacy, blog carnivals
The 3rd edition of the new blog carnival, Linnaeus's Legacy is now available for you to read and enjoy. Even though I never sent in a submission, they included something I wrote anyway -- hopefully, something you will enjoy.
cortex | January 8, 2008I agree with Jeffrey Goldberg: the first episode of The Wire's final season was disappointing.
I was enjoying myself just fine for the first 20 minutes or so, becoming reacquainted with some of my favorite drug dealers--the intensely lovable psycho-killer Snoop most of all--and scandalous cops. But then we entered the newsroom of the Baltimore Sun, and it was straight-up whiskey-tango-foxtrot time for me. I thought the show stopped dead, just about the time we were introduced to the saintly city editor and the darkly ambitious white-boy reporter.
In our early glimpse of the Sun newsroom, we'…
cortex | January 8, 2008The Times has an interesting interview with Scott Page, a professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan:
Q. In your book you posit that organizations made up of different types of people are more productive than homogenous ones. Why do you say that?
A. Because diverse groups of people bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it.
People from different backgrounds have varying ways of looking at problems, what I call "tools." The sum of these tools is far more powerful in…
cmcclain | January 7, 2008Best DSN Post (Fuzzy Yeti): Maybe not the Pulitzer but it matters to Peter and I (and now Kevin). You decide the winner by casting your votes in the comments. The final 6 nominated by The Judges! include:
Canadians Should Root For Global Warming by Craig. One of The Judges! stated this was "a truly informative post on global warming and the NW passage."
Sea Turtle Advocates Appeal to the Vatican by Peter
Rogue Waves by Craig
Hydrothermal Vents=Global Warming by Craig. One of The Judges! commented "You dealt with that well and highlights the ignorance of some sectors of the media. I also love…
cmcclain | January 7, 2008Best Photo (Ansel Adams On Ship Award): Again in the peace loving, utopia that is DSN...we are all winners.
International Polar Year
Scaly Foot
Radiolaria "I'm kind of a Haeckel groupie and this picture of the real thing is obviously a rip off of his artwork"stated one of The Judges!
The Art of Kawika Chetron.
Animals in Formalin Overheard judges comment, "Yeah, yeah... call me a classicist."
Best TGIF video: Peter introduced the Thank God Its Friday Video series this year, thereby creating more work for me but making Friday a little more enjoyable.
Fish Guys
Cruise, Cruise, Baby (…
cmcclain | January 7, 2008The long awaited results...
Best New Discovery/Research (Heights of the Abyss Award): When it's the deep sea its all new. 2007 was no different with more big discoveries and novel research than you can shake a stick at. The Judges! were more indecisive than the Democratic party on what to do about Iraq. The result is a wishy-washy, utopian, happy unicorns and rainbows, "we're all winners" pile of links.
Humboldts Are Here and They Are Hungry
Jackelopterus rehnaniae
Corals In Acid
Sound Generated By Mid-Ocean Ridge Black Smoker
Lost Years For Sea Turtles Revealed
Best Conservation News:…
grrlscientist | January 7, 2008tags: books, writing, writers from across the blogosphere, blog carnivals
The most recent edition of Writers from Across the Blogosphere Carnival is now available for you to read and enjoy.
cmcclain | January 7, 2008The Marian Hypersub is something else entirely or so the website says. Actually the HS is 31 years in the making and kicks of our 2008 coverage of new sub designs. The HS-1200 can dive to 1200ft and reach 45mph on the surface. The safety features indicates this is built like a Volvo. With fuel load upgrade, which I will definitely be getting, the range increases to 1,000 miles without refueling. I will also be opting for the manipulator arm option and the 8 Speaker Bose Stereo Package. Via Neatorama.
cmcclain | January 7, 2008
A new blog I discovered, and seem strangely drawn to, is Information Junk, the findings of a San Franciscan librarian. Via IJ, I see that PG&E has agreed to buy power from a "wave park". No it's not a water park with lots of tourists creating energy through unspeakable means. Rather it's eight buoys bobbing in the water 2 1/2 miles offshore of Northern California, each buoy generating electricity as it rises and falls with the waves. The array, schedule for completion in 2012, will produce enough wattage to light 1,500 hundreds homes or 5 during Christmas.
cmcclain | January 7, 2008
Via Dark Roasted Blend...
French city of Nantes recently became host to extremely strange and fascinating sculptural display: "Les Machines de l'Ile Nantes", designed by Francois Delaroziere and Pierre Orefice.
Note all the sculptures are moving vehicles! Where can I trade in my car for one of these. You can see pictures of the all the sculptures at DRB.