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grrlscientist | February 17, 2007The second edition of the new blog carnival, Oekologie, is now available. For those who are not familiar with Oekologie, it is the the carnival of the finest ecology and environmental science writing in the blogosphere.
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tags: blog carnival, Oekologie, nature
cmcclain | February 17, 2007This week's post, There is Plenty of Oil, generated a heated discussion about the finer points of peak oil and oil reserves. In line with oil reserves, I noted that offshore deposits are unlikely to sustain global oil consumption or even delay the oil peak predicted originally by Hubbert. Less than one year ago, the chariman for Global Petroleum was speaking optimistically about a Woodside-Dana-Global Petroleum joint venture, that would begin developing Kenya's offshore oil fields.
Dr. Armstrong said that the Kenya acreage has the potential to become a significant oil region:
Woodside…
jrosenhouse | February 16, 2007Sorry for the lack of blogging this week. A combination of life being busy, busy, busy and the outside world being icy, icy, icy.
I did, however, manage to wander down to Bridgewater, VA last night to attend an evolution/ID debate between Skeptic Magazine publisher Michael Shermer and longtime ID flak William Dembski. I have just posted this detailed account of the goings on over at The Panda's Thumb. Go have a look!
tqa | February 16, 2007According to media reports, the anti-impotence drug Viagra was recently used in the UK to save the life of a premature infant. Yes, you did read that right. This case was apparently an instance where necessity and desperation were the mothers of invention, and it shows us just why it is so important for doctors to learn the basics of human physiology, instead of just "cookbook" medicine. It also shows the scientific method at work, in a real-life situation.
The problem was this: the baby, Lewis Goodfellow, was born extraordinarily prematurely, after only 24 weeks of gestation, and weighed in…
tqa | February 16, 2007I was watching M*A*S*H a few days back and saw this scene. For some reason, I can't quite get it out of my mind.
Frank: Well, everybody knows war is hell.
BJ: Remember, you heard it here last.
Hawkeye: War isn't hell. War is war and hell is hell, and of the two war is a lot worse.
Fr. Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Simple, father. Tell me, who goes to hell?
Fr. Mulchay: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in hell. But war is chock full of them. Little kids, cripples, old ladies, in fact, except for a few of the brass almost everybody involved is…
apalazzo | February 16, 2007Not only is the acclaimed Darwin exhibit comming to Boston's Museum of Science starting this Sunday, but there will be a series of lectures by local researchers to accompany the show:
Evolution as a Tool Kit for Understanding Human Disease (Lecture)
March 13, 2007 This is the first event in The House that Darwin Built series. Darwin's theory of natural selection has transformed our understanding of the living world, down to the smallest molecules.
With: Harvey Lodish, Whitehead member.
Evolution in a Test Tube (Lecture)
March 16, 2007 Join us for a look at how studying molecules like RNA can…
petnoyer | February 16, 2007
DSN Valentine Kate Winslet reminds me of mermaids. Were they ever so beautiful...?
She is shown here hunting giant squid.
Photo by Annie Leibovitz, in Vanity Fair
cmcclain | February 15, 2007
Fig. 1. A circular representation of the R. magnifica genome. The innermost circle highlights genes of special interest: cbb (Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle, red), sox (sulfur oxidation, green), dsr (dissimilatory sulfite reductase, blue), and rnf (NADH dehydrogenase). The second and third circles show GC skew and %G+C, respectively. The distribution of genes is depicted on the two outer rings (fourth and fifth, forward and reverse, respectively) colored by role category. [View Larger Version of this Image (273K JPEG file)]
From Newton and colleagues...
The Calyptogena magnifica (Bivalvia:…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007
This is one of a series of photos of these animals making the rounds on the internet ..
The odds of seeing an albino moose are astronomical and to see [them] in the upper peninsula of Michigan, near Wisconsin, is even greater than astronomical. To see two of them together is nearly impossible. We wanted to share these photos with as many people as possible because you will probably never have a chance to see this rare sight again. This is a really special treat, so enjoy the shot of a life time.
cmcclain | February 15, 2007
The film captured the squid, Taningia danae, in action: 1 The squid swims towards the bait; 2 It spreads its arms wide; 3 It swims around the bait, twisting its body; 4 It grabs the bait with its eight arms.
The last few days have been hell! My happy Intel Mac is sick and I have been computerless until this afternoon. If that hasn't been enought there are crazy bioluminescent squid lurking in the deep and everyone covers it before me. Our streak of reporting deep-sea news before everyone else died today. With a tear in my eye, I say sorry.
But back to crazy squid! The Japanese do it…
cmcclain | February 15, 2007
Proper preparation for deep-sea research requires a great deal of equipment, which can cost hundreds of thousands of money. Happily, due to government ignorance and the treachery of accountants worldwide, most equipment can be written off at tax time..."
As April approaches and I prep my taxes, I am thankful for this information. Those things deductible? Sombreros, crutches, massages, air tanks, wire cutters, gas to get to the ocean, etc. Those things not deductible? Robes, sunscreen, plastic ficus, bolo tie, etc.
The humor continues is Volume 3 (No. 164 of 307) of Haggis-On-Whey's World…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007A seed that was discovered in the 1970s in an archaeological site and was found to be 2,000 years old has sprouted, making it the oldest fertile seed known. This seed produced a date palm that was plentiful in Roman times -- a plant that has since disappeared.
"People tell me the tree I'm raising looks like a typical palm you might see in your dentist's waiting room," says Elaine Soloway, who teaches at Kibbutz Ketura's Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and who germinated the 2,000-year-old date seed that was found at Masada. "But that's not true." Soloway says the first leaves that…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007
The book this picture came from said some of the paint jobs cost $15,000 and had to be repeated every 3 months as the cat's hair grows out? It must be nice to have $60,000 a year just to keep your cat painted!
I think I found my new job.
petnoyer | February 15, 2007"Does the brainpower of the folks who read DSN have what it takes to save the planet and win a cool 25 M at the same time?", asks author and "Best of DSN" judge Clark Thompson. "I figure if anyone can get this [carbon sequestration challenge] to work it's the kind of folks who read DSN. So, get the word out --and if you get the 25M, count me in for a small finders fee ;-}"
The game is afoot to win the new CO2 busting "Earth Challenge" from Virgin (and X-Prize) Founder Richard Branson and former VP Al Gore. Clark Thompson's fertile mind already contrived a workable theory using fertilized…
tqa | February 14, 2007But seriously, folks, watch the video. Franken does the best job of explaining what government is for that I've seen in a long, long time.
tqa | February 14, 2007Presidential hopeful John Edwards just released his plan for ending the Iraq war, making him the second of the major Democratic candidates to announce a proposed solution to our involvement in the conflict (Barack Obama sponsored a bill, S.433, last month that is in the Senate.) Looking at the two, I think Obama's proposal is by far the more reasonable (and realistic). It's certainly the more nuanced, and the one that provides the most flexibility to deal with changing circumstances.
Let's look at the two proposals. Edwards proposes:
Cap funding for the troops in Iraq at 100,000 troops to…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007The Valentine's Day/Darwin Day edition of Tangled Bank is now available for your reading pleasure. Curiously, they did not link to the dozen or so stories I did send to them, but instead, chose to link to the latest edition of Birds in the News, a link I had not submitted for consideration. Hrm.
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tags: blog carnival, tangled bank, nature
cortex | February 14, 2007It seems wrong to connect this memoir - which is so sincere, honest and lovely - to Valentine's Day, which is little more than a marketing conspiracy put together by Hallmark, the neighborhood florist and Tiffany's. But if you're looking for a little romantic reading, and don't mind a tragic ending, then pick up a copy of Love Is A Mix Tape, by Rob Sheffield. It's the true story of his love affair with Renee, a charismatic Appalachian with a penchant for Pavement and REM. (Rob, on the other hand, was a "shy, skinny, Irish Catholic geek from Boston.") They got married at the tender age of 25.…
