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gregladen | June 28, 2012Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion for today's Obamacare decision; the majority opinion upheld the Affordable Care Act. But, it appears that Scalia thought he was in the majority at the time he wrote the opinion, used terminology appropriate to that situation (referring to the other opinion as the dissent) and then forgot to change the text.
This is a little scary for two or three reasons. One, it looks like this may have been a very close decision. If Romney is elected, the USA might as well fold up shop. Two, Antonin Scalia and his staff are on drugs or something. Three, if the…
gregladen | June 28, 2012UPDATE: Here's the full text of the decision.
Amy Howe of the SCOTUS Blog writes:
In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters.…
gregladen | June 27, 2012Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. From the publisher:
If it weren't for mitochondria, scientists argue, we'd all still be single-celled bacteria. Indeed, these tiny structures inside our cells are important beyond imagining. Without mitochondria, we would have no cell suicide, no sculpting of embryonic shape, no sexes, no menopause, no aging.
In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, Nick Lane brings together the latest research in this exciting field to show how our growing insight into mitochondria has shed light on how complex life evolved, why sex arose (…
gregladen | June 27, 2012I finally watched Downfall. That's the movie about the last days of the Third Reich, a couple of scenes from which form the basis for all those Internet Memes where Hitler is talking about how much meat there is in a meal from Taco Bell. It is actually quite a good movie. If you were worried that you might end up being sympathetic with the poor Nazis hiding out in their bunker as the
"Russian Army" approaches, with constant shelling in the background, don't worry. The script has them mention little tidbits like the Holocaust and such often enough that you are reminded to continue to hate…
gregladen | June 27, 2012A lot of animal cams suck. The angle is bad, the lighting is poor, the animal is usually not there, etc. etc. But this puffin cam is actually pretty darn good. When the bird pecks at the camera you want to duck.
Check it out.
It's from Audubon. Here's some text from the press release:
Seal Island, Maine – June 27, 2012 – explore.org, the philanthropic media organization and division of the Annenberg Foundation, is expanding its collection of live HD cameras to bring people into the world of the charismatic and much-revered Atlantic Puffin. Through a multiyear partnership with Audubon,…
gregladen | June 26, 2012This is coming from a few different sources none of which are really linkable so I'll just copy and paste this press release from the Environmental Defense Fund:
*** BREAKING *** BREAKING *** BREAKING ***
...
Moments ago, a federal appeals court upheld EPA's climate pollution emission standards, rejecting four legal challenges that had been filed by industry groups and several states' attorneys general.
The court ruled in favor of clean air protections in four major cases, denying petitions against the Climate Pollution Endangerment Finding and the Clean Car Standards and dismissing petitions…
gregladen | June 26, 2012This is the first and only one of these.
There really ought to be a sound track.
jdupuis | June 26, 2012This collection of posts is only the tip of the iceberg of reaction to the ongoing controversy at the University of Virginia. For more, see the first item in the list for a digital archive.
I consider this particular crisis a very interesting one to follow, one with implications for all universities and similar in scope and importance as the McMaster and Harvard Libraries controversies were for libraries. I guess I'll have to come up with one of these posts for the Harvard reorganization too. The current crisis at the Library and Archives Canada seems to have larger implications as well,…
lborkowski | June 26, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Just a few years ago in Butte County, Calif., it wasn't unusual for public health workers to administer more than 1,000 free HIV tests every year. In true public health fashion, they'd bring screening services to the people, setting up in neighborhoods, parks and bars, at special community events and visiting the local drug treatment facility and jail. The goal was prevention and education, and no one got turned away.
That was before 2009, which is when California state legislators cut millions in HIV prevention and education funds from the state budget. The cut meant that…
gregladen | June 25, 2012In this video, Genie Scott dissects the claims, the tactics, and the methods being used to confuse the public about what is science and what isn’t:
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photo of Darwin by kevinzim
pharyngula | June 24, 2012Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island Tortoises, died on Sunday. He left no survivors that are known.
His death marks the extinction of Chelonidis nigra abingdoni.
gregladen | June 24, 2012It has just been reported that Lonesome George, the Galapagos Tortoise who was considered to be the last of is kind, has died.
the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old.
Lonesome George was found in 1972 and had become a symbol of Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, which attracted some 180,000 visitors last year.
"This morning the park ranger in charge of looking after the tortoises found Lonesome George, his body was motionless," the head of the Galapagos National…
gregladen | June 23, 2012Are you aware of Dana Hunter's current project? The author of En Tequila es Verdad, the blog that always makes me want to take a shot, is writing detailed essays that track events connected to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. She's writing them as part of her blogging over at Scientific American, but she just posted an update on Freethoughtblogs that serves as an index to all of the stories so far, so you should click here to get oriented and then click through to the stories.
Even though we know how the story turns out, Dana's posts make for an edge of your seat thriller. Also,…
gregladen | June 23, 2012I hear things are pretty busy in the Upper Upper Midwest of Alberta, Canada, and I suppose because of that, Skeptically Speaking has two off-air productions, one with the podcast just out, the other, this week's show, coming out next week. Both are really interesting to me, and I'm sure to you as well. Here are the details:
#169 Play Reality
... we’re looking at the intersection between science and play time. Guest host Julieta Delos Santos talks to Dr. Jayne Gackenbach and Teace Snyder, about their book Play Reality: How Videogames are Changing Everything. And we’ll listen back to “The Petri…
gregladen | June 23, 2012CERN isn't just the LHC. It's also rusty windows and post war big science. Interesting video:
jdupuis | June 23, 2012
WSJ explains the economics behind lending Harry Potter ebooks by Amazon
Money Talks — How Audience Priorities and Publishing Incentives Can Lead to Unusual OA Behaviors
#scholpub, PeerJ and Tim O’Reilly
The coming revolution in STM #scholpub
Why doesn’t Moore’s law apply to #scholpub?
Who is the Steve Jobs of #scholarlypub? Whence comes the needed disruption?
Top 10 reasons why professors leave: elephant in the lab series
Whose Intellectual Property?
Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012
Mending Fences (university presses & librarians in wake of GSU decision)
Penguin, 3M Test…
gregladen | June 23, 2012It's cold and raining at the cabin. We got the physics right, capturing the cold night air through open windows and then closing up so that when it get warmer later in the day we'll have built in air conditioning, but we might have overshot slightly. Huxley got up early and was sitting in his crib counting to ten over and over again as the sound of rain provided an accompaniment to the white-noise making fan that was running in his room. On about the 28th count, so he was heading towards 300, he hit "seven" and a flash of lightning and an instantaneous clap of thunder stopped him in his…
gregladen | June 23, 2012Within a few days of the completion of the on-line draft of Sungudogo: A Novel, scientists have published the key data describing a killer H5N1 virus.
Coincidence? I would assume so. But still....
sastyk | June 22, 2012Well, since the Rio Summit failed to save the world (again), and we're slipping back into economic crisis, and _Making Home_ my book on Adapting-in-Place comes out in August, it seems like the right time to teach my AIP class again. It helps to renew my sense of purpose as well - there's nothing like sitting down and sorting out all the work we're doing to get ready for the world we actually are emerging into again to feel a sense of excitement and purpose about it.
The class will start on American Independence Day, July 4, and we'll declare our independence from corporations and the fear…
sastyk | June 22, 2012So everyone raise your hand if you are shocked, shocked and appalled, that the sum up for the Earth Summit Rio+20 conference was, as the UK's Deputy Prime Minister put it "Insipid."
The meeting, marking 20 years since the iconic Earth Summit in the same city and 40 since the very first global environment gathering in Stockholm, was aimed at stimulating moves towards the "green economy".
But the declaration that was concluded by government negotiators on Tuesday and that ministers have not sought to re-open, puts the green economy as just one possible pathway to sustainable development.
Mary…