humor
sa smith | March 16, 2011Laboratory is silent.
Me: *staring at lines and lines and lines of sequences on several monitors, surrounded by coffee cups, energy drink cans, and boxes of Sudafed*
Labmate: *working on a really important experiment so she can finish a paper and fucking graduate*
Labmate: ... SPRING BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!
Me: SPRING BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK YEEEEEEEEEEEEAHRG!!!
Labmate: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHRG!!!
Laboratory is silent again.
sa smith | March 14, 2011Youll have to excuse me for a couple more days.
Im participating in the time-honored tradition of "getting 90% of your data the week before you have to give three big presentations".
mikethemadbiologist | March 12, 2011Ok, so it's not real. But this is an awesome proposal and post by a teacher:
I have used a bank many times. I have a checking account and a savings account (although I do admit I haven't added anything to my savings account for the past fifteen years since my pay has been frozen.) Nevertheless, the fact that I have made deposits, written checks, and I understand in theory the concept of a savings account makes me uniquely qualified to reorganize your operations.
I love that. Anyway, the proposal:
In a program I will call NDLB (No Depositor Left Behind) all banks will from this day on be…
pharyngula | March 11, 2011Check out this hypothetic version of a science test for Christians. I thought it was really easy, but apparently, I got the answers all wrong.
sa smith | March 10, 2011Another student, me, and Bossman discussing some cool data:
Another student: Thats so crazy! How could HIV do that??
Me: LOL! Its sentient.
Another student: LOL! Its a conscious being with self awareness!
Me: LOL! It can recognize itself in a mirror!
Another student: LOL! It has critical thinking capabilities!
Me: LOL! It can beat Deep Blue at chess!
Bossman: Stop it.
oracknows | March 9, 2011Via Stupid Evil Bastard, here's a great cartoon that points out the red flags that indicate most of the major red flags of quackery (click to embiggen and see the whole cartoon):
I have to admit. The main ones are all there.
sastyk | March 4, 2011Over the years I know a lot of people who have asked whether I get frustrated with other people's denial about energy and environmental issues. I do, but most of the time I'm pretty good at not allowing it to get to me. Yesterday, however, I just snapped. After a phone conversation with a news reporter who has every reason to understand peak oil and climate change but seems to decline to, I lost it. If everyone else - from the media to the president to Joe Bob down the street gets to live in denial and ignorance, how come I don't? It seems like such a happy place.
I determined that I too…
pharyngula | March 2, 2011xkcd digs into cladistics.
Unfortunately, his cladogram is wrong. Mammals should also be a subset of the reptiles, so the herpetologists should be demanding that all other amniotes be absorbed into their more inclusive field of tetrapod biology.
At least, until the ichthyologists show up and point out that we're all just weird dry land-walking fish.
Just to clear this up, I hope, here's a modified version of a cladistic diagram to show what herps are:
So if you want to avoid the sins of polyphyly or paraphyly, you must include birds and mammals in the herps. Of course, the alternative is…
sa smith | February 27, 2011Oklahomans, Mid-westerners/Southerners, we get made fun of a lot in pop-culture. Thats fine. It can be funny. Sokay.
I saw Fred Amerson on Conan the other day, and I just caught up with his new show, 'Portlandia'. OMFG-- ROFL!
oracknows | February 20, 2011Even Boopsie gets it:
it's good to note how those holding anti-vaccine viewpoints are being increasingly viewed as punchlines. That is how it should be.
sa smith | February 18, 2011HAHAHAHAHAHA!
For the lulz:
60 Lab Studies Now Confirm Cancer Link to a Vaccine You Probably Had as a Child
Posted By Dr. Mercola | February 18 2011 | 104,627 views
SV40, a cancer-causing monkey virus. The puzzle began in 1994, when Dr. Michele Carbone, a Loyola University researcher, found the virus SV40, which had never before been detected in humans, in half of the human lung tumors he was studying. Since then, 60 different lab studies have confirmed the results, and SV40 has been found in a variety of human cancers, including lung-, brain-, bone-, and lymphatic cancer.
At first no one…
pharyngula | February 18, 2011Have you ever actually read Leviticus? It's madness. It's full of instructions on how to slaughter a goat, what to do if someone spits on you, how to tell baldness from leprosy, and of course, lots and lots of instructions on what you must never ever do. There was something deeply wrong with the people who thought Leviticus 18 was a reasonable set of guidelines — they dwell rather obsessively on nakedness before they get to the one part that all the right-wingers quote.
Lev 18:6 No man shall draw nigh to any of his near kindred to uncover their nakedness; I am the Lord. Lev 18:7 Thou shalt…
pharyngula | February 18, 2011I like the cartoon, except for the abuse of the word "species": "specie" is not the singular of "species"! Put some 's's in there!
pharyngula | February 15, 2011He's the Man Who Sees Dead People, which I guess means he wasn't able to see the live people who thought staying at home and washing the dishes would be more entertaining than watching a 'psychic' wank on stage.
(via Craig Crockett)