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cmcclain | July 31, 2007As I finish off my day, three separate stories are rolling around in my head.
This year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone, that fun-loving anoxic zone of death, didn't meet size expectations but is still the third largest. Is this good or bad? Texas not wanting to be outdone by Louisiana, now boasts its own dead zone.
Next is a paper published in a relatively unknown journal with a low impact factor but its findings, pending a further evaluation, are intriguing nonetheless. Researchers from Saint Louis University (SLU) and Peking University in China are revealing for the first time the findings…
tqa | July 31, 2007
Rudy Giuliani just announced his health care plan. It's not a winner. Of course, Rudy being Rudy, he couldn't just announce what his ideas are without any preparation. First, he had to warm up by spending a day or two imitating a wingnut talk radio host and calling the Democratic candidates "socialists" and who belong to a "party of losers" and are all "heading for France" (or, alternatively, "Cuba"). He also said that it's "unrealistic" to expect a system where "everyone is taken care of from cradle to grave."
The core of the Rudy plan is really nothing new. From the looks of things, he…
tqa | July 31, 2007
Go read what Wilkins has to say about the "soft on terrorism" accusations that get thrown around so casually today. He's an Australian writing about a situation in Australia, but everything he said certainly applies here in the US.
Particularly this bit:
Kevin Andrews also says that critics are soft on terrorism. And here's the nub of the matter. We aren't soft on terrorism - that is a (excuse my French) f---ing [edit mine] stupid thing to say. Does Andrews really believe we critics want a bombing in Sydney? We aren't soft on terrorism, we are hard on rights.
Exactly right.
cmcclain | July 31, 2007Well three years in to this intellectual hurricane we call DSN and I am going have to take down my beloved "We Never Won A Blog Award Blog Award". This is all thanks to Jeremy Bruno Over at Voltage Gate who tagged us with a Thinking Blogger award. While it may not be a Tony or a Koufax it did bring a tear to my eye. Part of the Thinking Blogger Pyramid Scheme is that I tag 5 more blogs that get my intellectual juices flowing and they all pay me $100.
Kevin has only been on the scene a month or two but already I am hooked on the Other 95%. I read his blog daily for all that is invertebrate…
goodmath | July 30, 2007
In the post about Koch curves, I talked about how a grammar-rewrite system could be used
to describe fractals. There's a bit more to the grammar idea that I originally suggested. There's something called an L-system (short for Lindenmayer system, after Aristid Lindenmayer, who invented it for describing the growth patterns of plants), which is a variant of the Thue grammar, which is extremely useful for generating a wide range of interesting fractals for describing plant growth, turbulence patterns, and lots of other things.
The main difference between an L-system and a simple grammar…
nisbetmc | July 30, 2007Has the effort by liberals to re-brand themselves as progressives been successful? What about Republicans who no longer describe themselves as a conservative but rather as a "Reagan Republican"? Rasmussen released a survey last week that reveals some interesting findings:
Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term. Those figures reflect a huge swing, from a…
cmcclain | July 30, 2007Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army, In 1964, mustard gas canisters are pushed into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Millions of pounds were dumped this way.
Following the web frenzy that followed our post on ocean dumping, Brian Ross and the Investigative Team at ABC News post on their blog The Blotter a followup piece. In shameless self promotion (hey I am trying to find a faculty job) a few quotes from myself occur in the piece. The good news...
Legislation on the books for this fiscal year requires that the secretary of defense issue a yearly report naming the location and quantity of the…
cmcclain | July 30, 2007A three-week Canadian expedition recently finished that documented a protected area near Sable Island referred to as the Gully. The Gully is the largest submarine canyon in eastern North America, approximately the size of the Grand Canyon. The submersible expedition can be classified as a success obtaining 3,000 digital images, hours of video footage, and multiple samples. One of the goals of the expedition was to increase knowledge on the distribution of deep-water corals. The team discovered a new species of bubblegum coral, a single-cell organism the size of a grapefruit (Xenophyophore…
thescian | July 29, 2007Yesterday afternoon, I took the car out and after driving a few minutes noticed the air over the bonnet shimmering and undulating like in a mirage. I have seen this before and it's not good news. The last time I saw this sign, the car burst into flames, the birds flew away, the sky clouded up and I heard the devil. I quickly parked the car and took a look inside the bonnet. The engine had overheated and was hissing and puffing at the seams. I clearly remember adding any coolant, about four months ago. Understandably, the engine was unhappy about it. when I opened the coolant chamber lid…
grrlscientist | July 29, 2007tags: encephalon, neuroscience, psychology, blog carnivals
The 25th edition of the blog carnival, Encephalon, the Neuroscience and Psychology Blog Carnival, is now available for your reading pleasure. Yes, I contributed something to this blog carnival, so go there and support them!
cmcclain | July 29, 2007From the Moscow Times...
Two deep-sea submersibles made a test dive in polar waters Sunday ahead of a mission to be the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole. It took an hour for Mir-1 and Mir-2, each carrying one pilot, to reach the seabed at a depth of 1,311 meters, 87 kilometers north of Russia's northernmost archipelago, Franz Josef Land in the Barents Sea, Itar-Tass reported. "It was the first time a submersible had worked under the icecap and it proved they can do this," Anatoly Sagalevich, the pilot of Mir-1 was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass as he left the sub....The mission…
cmcclain | July 29, 2007
Get This Widget!TOPP.org
During Megavertebrate Week, DSN teamed up with several people and organizations. One of these was Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), the same people who brought the Great Turtle Race, a sort a Big Brother of Marine Verts. TOPP is a 10-year project headquartered at Hopkins Marine Station, Long Marine Lab, and NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Center in Pacific Grove that is putting satellite tags on thousands of the Pacific' top predators. TOPP has a new website (http://www.topp.org) featuring animated maps, researcher daily blogs, downloadable widgets (like the ones…
tqa | July 28, 2007
Over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Ed Brayton just highlighted a new, dishonest, and despicable attempt at spinning the casualty figures from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This new spin is simple: military deaths under Bush aren't much different than the deaths under Clinton, so why is everyone picking on poor Dubya?
Ed quotes one right-wing blog:
Active duty deaths during Clinton's first four years (1993 - 1996): 4302
Active duty deaths during Bush's first four years (2001 - 2004): 5187
Ed points out a couple of problems with the comparison (it's based on all deaths, not…
grrlscientist | July 28, 2007
You Are An Atheist
God? No thanks. You're not buying into any religion.
They're all bunk to you. You rather focus on what you know is true.
You may be a passive non-believer or a rabid atheist activist.
But one thing is for sure... no one's going to make you go to church!
Are You an Atheist, Agnostic or a Believer?
What did you think of this quiz? I thought it did a reasonably decent job covering the issues -- for an online quiz, that is.
zooillogix | July 27, 2007Zooillogix has been invited to join ScienceBlogs and we have decided to take them up on the offer. ScienceBlogs is a unique community of science related blogs that run the gamut from highly informed and technical to... errr.... us.
What this means for you the reader (e.g. the bored desk slave, bored 12 year old boy or renowned zoologist doing research on your next paper):
The Content Won't Change: You can expect the same fascinating stories and questionable attempts at humorTechnical Difficulties: There may be a short "outage" period of a day or two, during which time you will be forced to…
grrlscientist | July 27, 2007tags: writers, writing, book reviews, blog carnivals
The July 26th edition of the Writers from Across the Blogosphere is now available for your reading pleasure. Be sure to check it out and give them some support!
zooillogix | July 27, 2007Harvard professor Robert Wood unveiled his newest creation recently, a robotic fly that can be used as a spy, according to this posting on engadget.com. The fly weighs only .002 ounces and has a wingspan of 1.18 inches. Due to light weight carbon joints, the fly's wings beat 110 times per minute and the creature mimics the exact movements of a real fly. Funded, obvi, by the generous folks at the U.S. Defense Department, the little robo-pest has myriad possible uses like surveillance and monitoring the air for chemical agents. Wood plans to install a battery and a remote controlling device to…
grrlscientist | July 27, 2007tags: birds, blog carnivals
For those of you who love birds, you will be pleased to know that the 54th issue of the blog carnival, I and the Bird is now available for your enjoyment. This was a graded assignment for those of us who contributed pieces to this carnival so be sure to go there to see what grade I was awarded.
cortex | July 27, 2007A note to my readers: I'll be on vacation for the next week, so please pardon the sporadic posting.
Thanks, Jonah
grrlscientist | July 27, 2007I have been having a rough time this past month. Besides my usual (and sometimes dramatic) shifts in mood, I have been suffering from an eye infection. This eye infection started out where it felt as though I had road salt in my eyes but it progressively worsened to the point where it has driven me nearly to the edge of sanity -- which considering that I am already somewhat insane, isn't saying much, I suppose.
Anyway, I spent yesterday at home, overwhelmed by the world in general and unfortunately out of reach of wifi, when my eyes became so painful -- itchy, burning and dry -- that I…