voltagegate | June 15, 2007My friend "John" is in the Army Reserves. He was scheduled to be operating a crane in Iraq right about now, but his stint was pushed back until an undisclosed time. So, he has been able to start his biology teaching master's program in person instead of distance learning, and that means staying in the area, at least for the summer.
We went to dinner with Heather last night after John showed me his new apartment and had a shave at the barber. We talked about being raised Catholic, having a hard time with the "don't ask questions, God works in mysterious ways" part of the whole thing. John was…
voltagegate | June 14, 2007Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.
-Louis Pasteur
voltagegate | June 14, 2007Nuthatch reviews some current research in Animal Conservation and Biological Conservation about the effects of domestic cats on wildlife. Definitely worth a look, especially if you let your cats explore the neighborhood.
Heather and I have two cats - Stripey (right) and Lily (left) - who are perfectly content being in the house. Lily spent the first eight months or so of her life on the street and is petrified of leaving our apartment. Stripey's too lazy to care.
I think people feel bad for keeping animals cooped up, and when it comes to energetic dogs like border collies and corgis, they…
voltagegate | June 12, 2007"I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature, to which I reply and say, 'Well, it's funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the almighty, always quote beautiful things, they always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses.' But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old, and I reply and say, 'Well presumably…
voltagegate | June 12, 2007You tell me:
I realize that the guy is trying to boil it down for people by assessing "risk", but by co-opting Pascal's wager to prove a point, he's made an false and unnecessary concession ("maybe we didn't have a hand in it") and drawn out the denialists and all their baggage on the Digg comment thread.
This sort of logic teaser/statistical manipulation smacks of a bit of pseudoscience. Creationists claim to have "scientific" proof of God or Noah's Ark or whatever, whereupon they submit a logic teaser founded on false assumptions. I'm not equating the two here, it just reminds me of that…
voltagegate | June 11, 2007"The whole thing [global warming] is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability."
- Jerry Falwell
voltagegate | June 11, 2007It's true. Ecosystem analyst Dr. Rand Knight is running for senate in Georgia:
From 2004 - 2006 Dr. Knight served as a Scientist for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and received a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). Dr. Knight was part of a team that worked with the National Science Foundation and Congress to develop a continental-scale research platform for discovering, understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species in urban and wild ecosystems. Rand Knight is a member of the…
voltagegate | June 11, 2007Have you sent your best ecology and environmental science entries to Greg?
voltagegate | June 9, 2007...but you make it so damn hard.
MTV has been incessantly airing their latest movie award travesty all week, and I've caught a couple of segments while channel surfing. Another year, another boring awards ceremony. Even Sarah Silverman's jabs at Hollywood couldn't make up for the mediocrity.
I have a hard time letting go of MTV. I know it's crap - I think everyone does, including the producers - but I still have a lingering hope that things will change. Most of my younger friends from college don't remember when MTV actually was down to Earth, played good music and had some sort integrity…
voltagegate | June 9, 2007Learn all about the vacated habitats of the river dolphins courtesy of the EDGE Blog.
voltagegate | June 8, 2007A friend just shot me a link to a Flickr set of pics from the Creation Museum complete with witty commentary. Absolutely mind boggling. Over and over. PZ has a link to the blog post.
I wish I could ride triceratops.
voltagegate | June 8, 2007Things at TVG have been slow for the past couple of weeks. I have been DCed from the internets, on vacation in Western PA. We had the pleasure of visiting Ohiopyle State Park and dipping out feet in the freezing Yough on a hot day. A few miles north of Ohiopyle is Wright's Falling Water, and beyond that is Bear Run nature reserve, where we spent a cool, damp afternoon.
It's truly a lovely area, beautiful place for camping. One of the campsites sits alongside a sizable stream surrounded by thickets of rhododendron and mountain laurel, shadowed by a stand of hemlock.
So, things will be…
voltagegate | June 8, 2007This means you, Defenders of Wildlife!
I have been a member of the World Conservation Union and the National Wildlife Federation for years now, and I've grown used to receiving quarterly mags, posters and gift wrap (just in time for Xmas - phew). But in the past couple of years, on a daily basis, I get loads of junk from other NGOs looking for new members - stickers, return address labels, postcards, envelopes, keychains, offers for backpacks, totes, stuffed animals, etc.
Most of these organizations point out how much we contribute to global warming through transportation. Perhaps they should…
voltagegate | June 8, 2007Well, for Greenpeace anyway.
Police helicopters forced down a Greenpeace hot air balloon on today as the environmental group took to the skies to try to get its message across to world leaders at a G8 summit.
[...]
The white hot air balloon had a giant yellow banner with the slogan "G8 Act Now" hanging below it, with the word "Failed" stamped across it. It was in the air for around 15 minutes before it was forced down.
"The hot air balloon was spotted immediately," said police spokesman Manfred Luetjann. "The air space is closed. They did not get very far. The two people on board were taken…
voltagegate | June 6, 2007"I jumped out in waist-deep water. We had 200 feet to go to shore and you couldn't run, you could just kind of push forward. We finally made it to the edge of the water, then we had 200 yards of open beach to cross, through the obstacles. But fortunately most of the Germans were not able to fight, they were all shook up from the bombing and the shelling and the rockets and most of them just wanted to surrender."
-Sgt. Malvin Pike, E Company, disembarking at Omaha
"The sea came alive. Assault boats and landing craft were rapidly approaching the beach. A comrade stumbled out of the smoke and…
voltagegate | June 6, 2007This is just what our blue crab populations need:
Chinese mitten crabs, first reported in the Chesapeake Bay, are more widespread than initially thought. Four crabs have now been caught in Delaware Bay during the last week of May 2007, and may occur in other waters of the U.S. east coast.
In total, seven adult male mitten crabs have been documented from the two bays since 2005. Prior to this, the potentially invasive species had never been recorded from coastal waters of the eastern United States.
The mitten crab is native to eastern Asia and has already invaded Europe and the western United…
voltagegate | June 3, 2007It's the last day of Red Panda Week, and I know you're wondering: What would it be like to live with red pandas?
Have a look: