Culture
sheril | August 22, 2008
So what do readers think?
*Update: For an extremely interesting analysis, visit Nate Silver.*
razib | August 22, 2008Hey, so everyone's saying that it's Biden. From my rather politically uncomitted and unobsessed perspective, one word: anti-climactic.
edyong | August 19, 2008When you look at someone's face, what part do you concentrate on? Common wisdom has it that the eyes are the focal point of the face and they are the features that draw attention first. But according to a new study, that may not be universally true - while Western cultures do fixate on the eyes, East Asians tend to focus on the nose.
We owe a lot of our knowledge about the way we look at images to a Russian psychologist Alfred Yarbus. He was the first scientist to carefully record the subtle eye movements that people make when they take in a view. Yarbus's experiments showed that our gaze…
sheril | August 18, 2008I occasionally touch on standards of beauty and couldn't help but notice this uh, charming story:
Life can get a little lonely for bachelors in the Australian Outback mining town of Mount Isa. So the mayor has offered up a solution: recruit ugly women.
Mayor John Molony found himself under attack Monday over comments he made to a local newspaper that read: "May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa."
Beauty-disadvantaged women? Now in my opinion, valuing an individual's quality on…
razib | August 16, 2008In the United States we have the free speech built into the law, so it is somewhat a moot point. Of course, as evidenced by comments in many other Western countries the limits to speech are bounded by public consensus. So I decided to look at the GSS in terms of response to one question:
After I read each statement, please tell me if you strongly agree, aggee, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement.
a. Under the First Amendment guarnateeing free speech, people should be allowed to express their own opinions even if they are harmful or offensive…
sheril | August 15, 2008Well, the Sb family that made it to Seed's NYC meetup that is.
(Ghostly images are anonymous bloggers)
razib | August 14, 2008According to assman (yes, that's his name), porn has not become mainstream. The post is totally work-safe FYI.
razib | August 13, 2008The Daily Star in Bangladesh has published a profile I wrote of Reihan Salam.
cmooney | August 13, 2008My latest Science Progress column is about how Bruce Ivins unfortunately reaffirms the damaging stereotype of the "mad scientist". As I put it:
Certainly science has had its dark episodes in the past--most notably the eugenics fad in the early part of the twentieth century (which is what works like Moreau and Brave New World were reacting to). But in the modern period, one could argue that most scientists, and biomedical scientists in particular, have shown strong moral consciences. The 1975 Asilomar conference, when scientists gathered to agree upon ethical guidelines for recombinant DNA…
razib | August 6, 2008New Results On The Domestication Of Barley In Iran & Cattle In Turkey. And stuff on milk a little earlier than we thought...obviously relevant to lactose tolerance.
razib | August 6, 2008Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome:
The presence or absence of genetic heterogeneity in Sicily has long been debated. Through the analysis of the variation of Y-chromosome lineages, using the combination of haplogroups and short tandem repeats from several areas of Sicily, we show that traces of genetic flows occurred in the island, due to ancient Greek colonization and to northern African contributions, are still visible on the basis of the distribution of some lineages. The genetic contribution of Greek…
razib | August 6, 2008At my other weblog, Cliodynamics, the rise & fall of empires and asabiya and Historical Dynamics and contingent conditions of religion. The first is a bit long. The second is rather long. My Voice will not be Silenced!
razib | August 5, 2008A few months ago I was talking to a friend who is pretty highly "connected," insofar as he seems to know everyone. So we were talking about some genetics issues and I asked him, "You know who Lee Silver is, right?" There was a pause, and my friend was like, "I just got off the phone with him."
razib | August 4, 2008I know this paper will make some ScienceBloggers very happy, Assortative sociality, limited dispersal, infectious disease and the genesis of the global pattern of religion diversity:
Why are religions far more numerous in the tropics compared with the temperate areas? We propose, as an answer, that more religions have emerged and are maintained in the tropics because, through localized coevolutionary races with hosts, infectious diseases select for three anticontagion behaviours: in-group assortative sociality; out-group avoidance; and limited dispersal. These behaviours, in turn, create…
sheril | August 4, 2008
Our overlords at Seed have decided to change the location of Saturday's Reader Meetup. It will now be at a bar on the west side called Social. I don't know much about the place, but their website has great music, so this could be good!
Details:
2pm-4pm on Saturday, August 9
Social
795 8th Ave (close to 48th St.)
New York, NY 10019
sheril | August 4, 2008UPDATE: * LOCATION CHANGED *
The NYC ScienceBlogs reader meet-up is set for 2:00 pm this Saturday, August 9 at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History:
Head to the cafe tables and chairs set by the trees on the upper terrace, facing the Rose Center. The terrace is accessible from the Theodore Roosevelt Park at 81st Street and Columbus Avenue.
This is an outdoor location with tables and shade, which we thought was best for the large numbers we're expecting. After we're all assembled in this spot, if smaller groups are interested in grabbing a coffee or sitting in air…