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grrlscientist | August 3, 2006Several blog carnivals were published recently that you should take a look at.
For those of you who love birds, the 29th issue of I and the Bird was recently published. This blog carnival focuses on stories and photographs of wild birds and birdwatching.
The Carnival of Authors, Readers, and Writers, which presents the best writing available out there for all the readers and writers out there.
The 59th issue of Tangled Bank is also available. This blog carnival focuses on the best science, nature and medical writing on the internet.
tqa | August 2, 2006After re-reading my post on the latest Plan B foolishness, I think I might have been too angry to make my point clearly. I'm still pretty damn pissed off, but I'm going to give it another shot. There's little about this thing that doesn't make me mad, but right now I'm angriest about the FDA's latest arbitrary decision in this case: to refuse to allow over-the-counter (OTC) sales of the "Plan B" morning after pill to those under 18 years of age. Here's why:
The primary mission of the branch of the FDA that oversees pharmaceuticals is to ensure that drugs, whether prescription or over the…
purepedantry | August 1, 2006The biggest object in the Universe is glimpsed, and everyone is surprised:
An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say.
The galaxies and gas bubbles, called Lyman alpha blobs, are aligned along three curvy filaments that formed about 2 billion years after the universe exploded into existence after the theoretical Big Bang.
The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea.
The galaxies within the newly found structure are packed…
purepedantry | August 1, 2006You've taken a Myers-Briggs personality inventory before right? They are usually strings of yes-or-no questions that give you a result like INTJ or ENTP.
These kinds of tests populate the internet, and for what they are worth they are fun time-wasters and moderately gratifying. This one is just funny. It reframes the descriptions of the resulting personality types.
For example, I usually get classified as a INTJ -- under most classifications it is called a Mastermind. Under this classification here is my description:
INTJ: The outside contractor
INTJs are solid, competent personalities…
neurotopia | August 1, 2006We haven't done enough Neuropimping this week. Go visit Encephalon and get your fill of the best neuro on the net in the last couple weeks. Just remember, cash up front.
stcynic | August 1, 2006ABC, in a stunningly obvious move, has pulled the plug on a forthcoming Mel Gibson-directed miniseries on the holocaust. No word on whether they will also be cancelling David Duke's series about slavery or Osama Bin Laden's documentary on the evils of religious extremism.
pharyngula | August 1, 2006A while back, I mentioned these hate-filled loons in Kansas who were harassing a hotel owner because he was flying a rainbow flag—Pandagon has an excellent summary of the contretemps—in short, he had the flag in memory of his son, the local paper talked up the association of the rainbow with gays, and boy howdy, all of a sudden he was getting boycotted and abused by the community. In the latest news, some Kansas bigot has cut down the flag.
I had a letter from the hotel owners forwarded to me.
Robin & I can't even begin to come up with words strong enough to convey our
appreciation for…
tqa | August 1, 2006This morning, I find posts at both Terra Sigillata and Pharyngula discussing the FDA's announcement that they are planning to reopen discussions with Barr Labs, the maker of the Plan B morning after contraceptive, regarding Barr Labs efforts to gain permission from the FDA to sell Plan B over the counter. Both of my SciBlings' articles are cautiously upbeat about this new Plan B development, as are at least some news articles. After reading the letter that the FDA sent to Barr, which putatively formed the basis for the release, it seems clear that the optimistic spin the FDA Press Office is…
tlambert | August 1, 2006Over at TownHall, Mike Adams writes:
The God-inspired writers of the Bible have always been well ahead of the scientists -- a scenario that hasn't changed from the days of Moses to the days of Darwin, or even now in the 21st century.
Here is one of his examples where he reckons the bible was right and science was wrong.
Isaiah 40:22 "God sits above the circle of the earth. The people below seem like grasshoppers to him! He spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them."
Can you figure out what he thinks the bible got right and the scientists got wrong? Answer later.…
tqa | July 31, 2006Last week, I wrote two posts on the differences between nation building and nation rebuilding. Toward the end of the second, I said this:
I think that a large portion of the problem here is not that we don't have the capability to do enough, but that we have not organized our capabilities in a way that would ease this type of process. As things currently stand, military-based nation building efforts are the worst way to provide comprehensive, broad-based improvements in war torn nations - except for pretty much all the others that have been tried. The military really does have some…
stcynic | July 31, 2006I'm sure everyone knows by now that Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving on Friday. When he was arrested, he was apparently quite belligerant and ranted at the officers arresting him, threatening them and hurling anti-semitic slurs. Even more important, the LA Times is reporting that the LA County Sheriff's Department issued an abridged complaint that cleaned up what was in the original complaint, erasing the threats and anti-semitic remarks. TMZ.com has a PDF of the original deputy's report of what happened at the scene, and notes that an audiotape was made at the scene that confirms…
stcynic | July 31, 2006A man walks up to a woman in a bar and asks her to dance. She says no. He says, "What are you, a lesbian?" She replies, "What are you, the alternative?" So goes the old joke. You may know by now that the other day, Ann Coulter said that Bill Clinton was harboring homosexual tendencies, as evidenced by his "rampant promiscuity." Leaving aside the bizarre notion that having sex with lots of women is proof that he really wants to have sex with lots of men, here's the perfect response as given by David Letterman:
tlambert | July 30, 2006When John Lott was caught using a sock puppet, Glenn Reynolds declared that he wasn't going to mention it on his blog because it wasn't "actual news". Later he chastised Greg Beato for doing a photoshop of Lott as Mary Rosh and downplayed the sock puppetry as "weird", rather than wrong:
Greg Beato, who sometimes takes it upon himself to lecture me on fairness and decorum, has demonstrated his commitment to fairness and decorum by photoshopping Lott in drag and conflating Bellesiles' false claims that a critic had forged emails attributed to him, with Lott's use of a pseudonym in chat groups…
ddobbs | July 28, 2006One of the pleasures of following science is seeing how researchers use old, simple tools to test new questions. In a nice piece of work published in Nature Neuroscience, University of Oklahoma researchers Stephanie Moriceau and Regina Sullivan used learned-fear association in mice to reveal how the stress of maternal abandonment raised rat pups' sensitivity to threats. As ScientificAmerican.com describes the experiment,. Moriceau and Sullivan
tested how baby rats responded to the pairing of an unfamiliar odor--peppermint--and a weak electric shock to their tails. The charge-laced scent…
tqa | July 28, 2006...and he is us.
Once again, it apears that someone in the service has used the incredibly stupid "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a weapon against another service memeber, resulting in the army forcing out someone that they need. In this instance, the victim was a gay military intelligence [feel free to insert comments about oxymoronity here] sergeant, schooled by the army at great expense as an Arabic linguist. According to the Chicago Tribune/AP article cited in Ed's post, some 800 individuals with critically needed skills have been discharged as a result of "don't ask, don't tell" in…
grrlscientist | July 28, 2006[Note: the previous quiz screwed up the formatting for my entire blog, so I substituted this quiz in its place. Please accept my apologies for messing up this entry. Also keep in mind that my readers are not crazy; they were responding with their results to the original quiz]
Arr, as a parrot-lovin' scientist, I thought I should learn more about me own secret pirate identity, and blimey, there I am! How about you, matey?
You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow. You are definitely quirky and often mistaken for mad but if anyone is truly paying attention they can see there is method to your…
neurotopia | July 28, 2006I hate to do it but I gotta take serious issues with some of the things Shelley put forth in her post here.
Unfortunately, NIH training grants (T32 type NRSA) are not an answer to most financial woes. My graduate program had one, and I was on it. At the time, any one student could be carried for two years (I think that was a peculiarity of how our program chose to use the money) and it only funded half of our students. Considering that my program was pretty small (we typically admitted 6 per year), I have doubts about the ability of a T32 grant to pick up most or all students in a larger…
stcynic | July 28, 2006And you thought that only creationists denied a well established theory? Think again. Tara has attracted the attention of someone who denies the germ theory of disease:
Do some research Tara. Then you will be ready to start from scratch again, forget the germ theory nonsense and become a real scientist.
Read the thread. Anti-germ theorists even have their own fake deathbed conversion story, but from Pasteur instead of Darwin. She has a follow up, which will sound familiar to anyone who has dealt with creationists.
stcynic | July 28, 2006Florence King, longtime National Review contributor and one of my all time favorite writers, has unsheathed her tongue and taking a lashing to Ann Coulter. It's a joy to behold. I like this paragraph in particular:
At her best, Coulter writes well, but the chief source of her success is that she is a perfect match for the American ideal: smart as a whip but dumb as a post, educated but not learned, sexy but not sensuous, all at the same time. She would not hesitate to choose a sledgehammer over a stiletto because her instincts would pull her back from what the 18th century called "demolishing…