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mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2006From the AP:
Investigators believe American soldiers spent nearly a week plotting an attack in which they raped an Iraqi woman, then killed her and her family in an insurgent-ridden area south of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said Saturday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the attack appeared "totally premeditated" and that the soldiers apparently "studied" the family for about a week before carrying out the attack.
According to the official, the Sunni Arab family had just moved into a new home in the religiously mixed area about…
purepedantry | July 2, 2006Hellllloooooo, love-dart. When molluscs mate, the male shoots this little spear into the female depicted here protruding from the female's head:
Hot.
But why all the she-snail hating. Chase and Blanchard show in this work that the purpose of the dart is for the male snail to convey his man mucus into the female. That is his man mucus, not his royal jelly. The man mucus apparently contains some type of hormone or enzyme that makes the male more likely to successfully sire offspring.
I can't even assimilate this information from this paper. It is so gross yet so cool. Even the abstract…
grrlscientist | July 2, 2006Mendel's Garden has been published at Genetics and Health. Included are plenty of my SiBlings, along with a bunch of other essayists whom you will find interesting. Even though this blog carnival has been around for awhile, it is new for me, so I hope that you find your way there for a little reading pleasure.
tags: blog carnival
stcynic | July 2, 2006So here's how I spent almost 2 hours of my time last night. Something was wrong with the Movable Type installation on my old blog at stcynic.com. I couldn't access any of the cgi files to do anything with it, so I called tech support for the web hosting service. I am informed that the wait will be 15 minutes, which I figure is okay. I just played a game on my computer while I waited. Unfortunately, the on-hold music was the worst I've ever heard in my life. It was this bizarre mix of quasi-rap/dance music versions of classic rock songs. They all had that basic dance beat background you hear…
grrlscientist | July 1, 2006After two really hot games today, I wonder how long has it been since the World Cup has consisted exclusively of European teams? What happened to Brasil? Over the past few days, I was warned that "if any team can beat Brasil, it's the French team", but no one said anything about the possibility that the French might dominate Brasil.
Image source.
tags: World Cup, soccer
grrlscientist | July 1, 2006Considering that the USA was disqualified early from World Cup competition, I decided that I need to find out who my inner European is, just so I know who to root for. I am currently enjoying every team, since each game is so exciting right now (ignoring the ref, who is a moron). So .. after taking this silly quiz, it looks like my new team is ..
Your Inner European is French!
Smart and sophisticated.
You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.
Who's Your Inner European?
tags: Online Quiz
grrlscientist | July 1, 2006The advertizing slogan generator is responsible for the title for this entry -- not me! What is your slogan?
Thanks for this latest bit of weirdness to my SiBling, Coturnix.
tags: Online Quiz
stcynic | July 1, 2006Did anyone see their report on flag burning? Jon Stewart called those pushing for an amendment to ban flag burning "flag hags" and accused them of "flaming flaggotry". I about spit up my iced tea. I couldn't find a clip for that one on youtube, but I did find this one, a compendium of their "War on Christmas" reports with Stewart's famous line about "Osama's homo-bortion, pot and commie jizzporium". Enjoy.
mikethemadbiologist | July 1, 2006I've written before about internet progressives. I've never liked the term progressive because I have always associated them with the Progressives of the late nineteenth century: good-government types who are not very concerned with economic justice. I'm all for good government, following the law, and not engaging in hatemongering. But for me, those are not qualifications for membership in a political movement but for membership in the human race.
I've written before about internet progressives. I've never liked the term progressive because I have always associated them with the…
purepedantry | June 30, 2006How does that even work?
Former "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff had surgery after severing a tendon in his right arm in an accident in a London gym bathroom, his spokeswoman said Friday.
The 53-year-old actor, who played lifeguard Mitch Buchannon on the TV beach drama for 11 years, was shaving at a gym in the Sanderson Hotel on Thursday when he hit his head on a chandelier, showering his arm with broken glass, his publicist, Judy Katz, said.
Among other things, why was there a chandelier in the gym bathroom? Apparently, Mr. Hasselhoff and I frequent different gyms.
cortex | June 30, 2006I've really enjoyed Olivia Judson's columns on Times $elect. They've been funny, eloquent and haven't shied away from the biological nitty-gritty. In her last column, she ends with a meditation on three questions she wants evolutionary biologists to solve:
The first is metamorphosis. Everyone knows a caterpillar becomes a butterfly; and it is easy to work out why it might be useful to split your life between growing (caterpillar) and loving (butterfly). But what I find peculiar is the manner of becoming a butterfly: within the pupa, the caterpillar breaks down its body, including much of its…
stcynic | June 30, 2006This is a hilarious clip of Keith Olbermann hammering Bill O'Reilly on his ever lowering ratings. I love Olbermann.
purepedantry | June 29, 2006I love this article from Seed debunking the latest "We are falling behind in science!" hysteria. Here is my favorite line though:
Wadhwa and Gereffi found that the oft-quoted numbers didn't filter for expertise. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Association of Software and Service Companies and the Chinese Ministry of Education, they determined that many of the Chinese and Indian degrees are "sub-baccalaureate," awarded to the "equivalent of motor mechanics and industrial technicians." They also found that in 2004, the United States actually awarded…
purepedantry | June 29, 2006I like my milk pasteurized like everyone else, but the Department of Agriculture is now actually conducting raw milk stings:
Last September, a man came to Stutzman's weathered, two-story farmhouse, located in a pastoral region in northeast Ohio that has the world's largest Amish settlement. The man asked for milk.
Stutzman was leery, but agreed to fill up the man's plastic container from a 250-gallon stainless steel tank in the milkhouse.
After the creamy white, unpasteurized milk flowed into the container, the man, an undercover agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, gave Stutzman…
cortex | June 29, 2006It seems that supply and demand are compensating for the ineffectual policies of the Bush Adminstration. An Energy Information Adminstration press release announced the following:
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased by 0.1 percent in 2005, from 5,903 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO 2) in 2004 to 5,909 MMTCO 2 in 2005, according to preliminary estimates released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The 2005 emissions increase was the third smallest during the 1990 to 2005 period, exceeding only the emissions declines recorded in 1991…
tqa | June 29, 2006Religion's been on my mind a lot lately. It's come up in a number of blog posts and articles I've read recently, and there have been some acrimonious debates on the topic at Panda's Thumb and elsewhere. All this thinking about religious issues has sparked a crisis of belief for me. That's nothing new, really. It happens so often that I've got my own mug down at the crisis center. I've actualy become almost comfortable with the uncertainty.
I mention this because it might explain why, after reading this post at The Island of Doubt, I went and read Barack Obama's speech at the Call to Renewal…
mikethemadbiologist | June 28, 2006PZ rightly noted about the l'affair de Big Pharma that it's just a stupid overreaction: somehow I don't think the Viagra trade is destroying America's inner cities or rural communities. But, over at Feministe, zuzu notes that the Dominican Republic has a thriving sex industry. Was he just one more sick perv inflicting himself on that country?
If that's what Limbaugh was doing, ick.
purepedantry | June 28, 2006I recieved early release from the New York penal system. As I noted earlier, I had jury duty today, which normally lasts 3 days. However the guy came in after like 3 hours and says that they are letting us out of the whole thing. Apparently there weren't many cases to begin with right before 4th of July and everyone else settled (this was civil court).
Hot.
I have to hand it to the legal system here. They do have their shit together. As much as jury duty is still a chore, they make at least an effort to distinguish it from the DMV -- and at least partly succeed.
purepedantry | June 28, 2006Blogging may be light as I am currently a ward of New York state as a juror. Live-blogging the jury system...see what I have been reduced to...
We saw this great little video at the beginning called "Your Turn" that was hosted by Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer about the history of juries. It has this whole little spiel about how modern juries are better than trail by drowning -- you know like in the middle ages when they would throw someone in a lake to see if they were guilty or innocent. How terribly reassuring.
Nonetheless I remain determined to do my civic duty, though I intend to test a…
cortex | June 28, 2006The blogosphere has begun debating the merits of fMRI. That's a good thing. The debate began with Paul Bloom's excellent editorial in Seed, in which he argued that "fMRI imagery has attained an undue influence, and we shouldn't be seduced." It continues here and here.
I used to work in a neuroscience lab grounded in molecular biology, and there was no shortage of fMRI bashing. A typical complaint went like this: "I'm here struggling with my damn Western blot [or Southern, or PCR, etc.], trying to be a good reductionist, while all those fMRI researchers just pick a sexy question, stuff some…