clock | February 16, 2007It does not matter if you care or not about Behe's silly creationist claims, but they sure provide great starting points for cool science blog posts. Here, Ian Musgrave uses this tactic to educate us all about the ancient roles of some molecules we use in blood-clotting, but invertebrete Chordates use for other functions.
clock | February 16, 2007This is less than a year old (March 05, 2006), but instructive now that the campaigning has actually started...Also, click on the spiderweb icon to see interesting comments on the original post.
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In his latest op-ed (here is a link from News and Observer: Edwards and poverty's character), George Will, writing in his typical "I-write-so-elegantly-you-will-never-detect-the-underlying-stupidity" mode, takes on John Edwards.
Was it a slow week, lack of inspiration, or was it a depeche from the RNC, only George knows, but it contains several points that need…
clock | February 16, 2007I use it all the time. Today's Merriam-Webster Word Of The Day:
grok \GROCK\ verb
: to understand profoundly and intuitively
Example sentence:
No matter how many times I try to explain it, my grandmother just can't grok what a blog is and why anyone would want to read one.
Did you know?
"Grok" may be the only English word that derives from Martian. Yes, we do mean the language of the planet Mars. No, we're not getting spacey; we've just ventured into the realm of science fiction. "Grok" was introduced in Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. The book's…
clock | February 16, 2007Escalating Truth:
Words have meanings; they express ideas and ideas are important. The word "surge" came with the idea of a relatively small short-term increase in force that would be effective. Such previous troop increases had been ineffective and the joint chiefs saw no reason that this one would be effective either. The actual proposal called a "surge" was the opposite of what the word meant. In short, the very use of the word "surge" was a lie.
People all over the country noticed the "surge" framing immediately, and quickly -- and accurately -- reframed the President's proposal as an "…
clock | February 16, 2007'Regressive Evolution' In Cavefish: Natural Selection Or Genetic Drift:
"Regressive evolution," or the reduction of traits over time, is the result of either natural selection or genetic drift, according to a study on cavefish by researchers at New York University's Department of Biology, the University of California at Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology, and the Harvard Medical School. Previously, scientists could not determine which forces contributed to regressive evolution in cave-adapted species, and many doubt the role of natural selection in this process. Darwin himself, who…
clock | February 15, 2007Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
clock | February 15, 2007The latest issue of Conservation Magazine has picked several 'people to watch in 2007', including Randy Olson and Martin Wikelski.
Who do you think are 'people to watch in 2007'?
clock | February 15, 2007Remember this, and use it next time you are debating religion, politics or pseudoscience:
"....someone wearing nothing but a Peter Gibbons-esque cheerful smile and having nothing but kind words for anyone will always be wrong if he says 2 + 2 = 5, and that if I call him a douchebag on wheels and use terms like "donkey punch" in the course of correcting him, it doesn't change who is right; it just changes the input into the popularity contest...
clock | February 15, 2007You know I love Pilobolus (the fungus, not the danced troupe), as I wrote a very long post about it before, the cutely titled Postscript to Pittendrigh's Pet Project - Phototaxis, Photoperiodism and Precise Projectile Parabolas of Pilobolus on Pasture Poop.
Then I returned to it later to point out some cool pictures of it.
Now, via Bouphonia, I discovered a great article with a time-lapse movie over on the Cornell Mushroom Blog, which I somehow missed although it was a part of the December edition of Animalcules.
And through trackbacks on that post, I discovered a new Slovenian mycology blog…
clock | February 15, 2007Nature Network website just had a major rehaul and redesign. Corie Lok explains the details.
clock | February 15, 2007Global warming change is the topic of a symposium, free and open to the public, in NC State's Campus Cinema, located in Witherspoon Student Center, February 26-28, and featuring excellent speakers. Elizabeth Kolbert, author of FIELD NOTES FROM A CATASTROPHE, opens the meeting on Monday, Feb. 26, at 7:00 p.m.
For more information and to see who else is speaking during the three-day event, click here
clock | February 15, 2007Raleigh Leaders Plan Test of LED Lighting:
Raleigh officials have teamed up with Cree, Inc. in Research Triangle Park to save money and help the environment. Raleigh public works employees will test and implement Cree's Light Emitting Diode lighting components across the city.
In a pilot program late last year, LED lights were installed in a parking deck downtown. Progress Energy, the city's primary energy provider, said that the floor equipped with LED lights used more than 40 percent less energy than the standard lighting system. Also, the quality of the lighting was greatly improved,…
clock | February 15, 2007I have read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "Breaking The Spell" by Daniel Dennett a couple of months ago, could not bear to slog all the way through "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris, and am still waiting to get my copies of "God: the Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger and "Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion" by Barbara J. King. I was going to write a big meta-review of all of them together, perhaps adding in "Darwin's Cathedral" by David Sloan Wilson as an anti-toxin to the Dawkins/Dennet naive understanding of evolution (and just plain old nastiness…
clock | February 15, 2007This is the last in the 16-post series of BIO101 lecture notes for a speed-course targeted at adults. As always, I welcome corrections and suggestions for improvement (June 17, 2006)...
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Last week we looked at the organ systems involved in regulation and control of body functions: the nervous, sensory, endocrine and circadian systems. This week, we will cover the organ systems that are regulated and controlled. Again, we will use the zebra-and-lion example to emphasize the way all organ systems work in concert to maintain the optimal internal…
clock | February 15, 2007Litbrit (also check the comments on the re-post here) tells it beautifully:
That is why so many of us have spoken out--we don't want government telling us what we should believe and how we should run our private, personal lives or how we should use our private, personal bodies. Not because we "hate" religion, but because we revere freedom.
And Amanda:
I want to assure you very much that I don't judge all Christians by the nasty actions of a few. Basically, as I've said before, I find it a shame that the word "Christian" gets applied both to true believers and those who just profess to believe…
clock | February 15, 2007Bats Prey On Nocturnally Migrating Songbirds:
It was until now believed that nocturnally migrating songbirds, while venturing into the unfamiliar night sky for accomplishing their long, challenging trans-continental migrations, could at least release anti-predator vigilance thanks to the concealment of darkness. A new study by Spanish and Swiss scientists -- published this week in PLoS ONE -- shows that migration at night is not without predation risk for passerines.
New DNA Method Helps Explain Extinction Of Woolly Mammoth, Other Ice Age Mammals:
What caused the extinction of the woolly…
clock | February 15, 2007Not every bloggers' meetup has to be talking about blogging. We can also just get together and have fun. And so we did last night. A bunch of us went bowling.
On Wednesday nights they have great family rates. We got four lanes - one for kids, three for adults. My daughter tends to start out slow and get better and better as the time goes. In the end, she got some tens.
I am the opposite - my very first practice shot was a strike and I won the first game, but I get progressively more and more tired. Anton won the second game easily. In the end, my wrist and fingers were hurting so…