A Very Nice Introduction To Blogging

Apparently, if you want to be an educator in Scotland, you need to know something about blogs. If you don't, you fail an exam! For that purpose, the Scottish Qualifications Authority has put together a really nice primer on blogs and blogging on a Wiki. It should be useful for everyone, not just Scottish teachers. Check it out here.

It is only a tad little bit out-of-date which should not be a problem for newbies. Also, it contains the '10 Rules' by Jakob Neilsen, that were viciously eviscerated by bloggers who actually know something about the medium (use Technorati Search to find those posts form last year).

Circus of the Spineless

It's time to pass the torch to the new host. Use the dichotomous keys to identify blog-posts about invertebrates in the latest Circus of the Spineless up on Research at a Snail's Pace.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

The next edition of Tar Heel Tavern will be hosted by Laura at Moomin Light next Sunday (or really late Saturday night):

This week's theme is strong opinions. Anything, either current or older, where you've written about something concerning your passionate opinions - positive or negative. The opinions can be about anything - political, social, personal, artistic, NCAA, whatever! This shouldn't be too hard - I would say the majority of bloggers get into blogging to express their strong opinions!

Please send: Your blog name, Your blog URL and The URL of your opinionated post to songfinn AT yahoo DOT com by Saturday at 9 pm.

The Power

The power of MySpace and the power of Tom Anderson (founder of MySpace)! The fact that kids got politically active and organized warms my heart....

Not Just Algebra

We know Richard Cohen does not know any algebra. We know he has no understanding of politics or how the world works. But here is an amazing proof that he does not know anything. At. All.

Do sponges have clocks?

Perhaps...

Science News

* Evolutionary principles used to predict cancer:
Like a diverse ecosystem, a tumor with highly diverse cells will evolve more quickly -- to cancer, a study has found.

* Brain found to mature faster in highest-IQ kids:
The thinking part of the brain thickens and thins faster in high-intelligence youth as they grow, researchers say.

* One universe or many? A panel debates:
Physicists brawled over a question that's nearly unanswerable, yet somehow very alive in science today.

* Loneliness linked to health risk:
U.S. health officials say they're seeking ways to ease loneliness nationwide, as a study has tied it to to high blood pressure and other health risks.

* Science in images:
What does our planet look like during a solar eclipse? A photo from the International Space Station tells us.

I And The Bird

Now, this is a novel way of doing a carnival! Go check out the Bird-icio-us edition of I And The Bird on Bootstrap Analysis.

The Skeptics' Circle

The Skeptics' Circle #31 is right here in my neighborhood, on Terra Sigillata. Very, very nicely done! There are some great entries there. Enjoy!

Carnival of the Green

Carnival of the Green #20 is up on Greener Magazine.

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education is up on Right Wing Nation.

Carnival of the Liberals

Carnival of the Liberals #9, with Religion as the topic, is up on About.Atheism. Go read the Top Ten posts of this blogging cycle. Then write one of your own and send it to Pharyngula for the April 12th edition.

Tangled Bank

Tangled Bank #50 is up on Island Of Doubt. Enjoy the best of science blogging.

The most dangerous kind....

You Are 26% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

BTW, how does not believing in God make one evil? I thought it was the other way round (see my previous post)

(Hat-tip: Afarensis)

Atheists ARE persecuted in the USA

Atheists in the US are not just misunderstood and disliked, but also actively discriminated against, no less than by the judges ruling in custody cases. You can read the whole study (PDF) here on 70 recent cases (only those that were appealed, thus probably just a drop in the bucket) in which an atheist parent lost custody or was instructed by the court to provide "... a plan to the Court of how [he] is going to commence providing some sort of spiritual opportunity for the [children] to learn about God while in [his] custody....."!!!!!!!!!

(Hat-tip: Rioux in a comment thread on Pharyngula).

National Sleep Awareness Week

This week (March 27, 2006 - April 2, 2006) is the National Sleep Awareness Week. So, I assume that Circadiana will get a lot of hits this week. Perhaps if you all link to it....(hint, hint LOL)

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #13 is up on Why Homeschool.

Stanislaw Lem, RIP

Stanislaw Lem, one of the greatest of the greatest of Science Fiction writing, has died yesterday at the age of 84. In the West, his best known work is undoubtedly Solaris, though I liked the original Tarkovsky movie version better than the more recent George Clooney film.

However, my personal favourite of Lem's works is his least characteristic, the absolutely amazing and terrifying The Invincible, which I have read quite a few times and need to read again now that I am an adult.

His trilogy about Ijon Tichy (The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy, Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences Of Ijon Tichy and Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy) is also a great read, a SF satire at its best.

You can learn more about Lem here.

Grand Rounds

The most beuatiful and creative edition of Grand Rounds is now up on NHS Blog Doctor

Republican War on Science

Lots, and I mean LOTS! of good discussion of Chris Mooney's book, over on Crooked Timber.

Sceptic or skeptic or skeptik?

Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata is hosting the Skeptic's Circle this Thursday. Send him your entry by Wednesday to be included.

If you are out of inspiration - oh, what new hoax should I fisk this week - try your hand at this one. You can start with this quote "Do realize that my .... theory is only a theory, and has not been established as fact" and go on from there - tons of material to look at, facts to check, background information to gather - a fresh new topic for the Skeptic's Circle.

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Does Population Genetics Theory Explain? and why not? By Robert Skipper of hpb etc.. Excellent summary of the problem and a great list of references.

God or Not cancelled...

...due to non-participation of theists. Draw your own conclusions.

More blatant plagiarism by the MSM

Associated Press stole text from a blog and printed it as its own. When confronted, their response is "We do not credit blogs!" WTF?!

The original article is here and the AP article is here, so you can compare.

The whole story is reported here, so you can get more details. Read the comments, too.

Someone needs to sue their asses for some Big Money. In the meantime, shame them by posting links to the three articles I just linked above.

(From Shakespeare's Sister - also read the comments - via OxDE)

Clocks, birds and eggs

I have just posted, over on Circadiana, a post with some data and some hypotheses suggesting that the circadian clock in birds may be involved in the evolutionary trade-off between egg-number and egg-size.

Tar Heel Tavern #57

The new edition of Tar Heel Tavern in up on StoryBlogging. We need a host for next week. Let me know if you want to volunteer.

On my other blogs....

For those of you who may be interested, I have recently posted about the third week of teaching biology lab on The Magic School Bus, and about the shifts in sleep schedules in adolescents on Circadiana.

Playing video-games is hard work....

...so Miss Marbles needs to rest a little bit...

[Wow! This is the first time in a week that I managed to upload an image on this blog! And it took about 2 minutes until it "took"]

Medicines from unlikely places

My wife told me about this last night, so I had to Google it and post it so my medical/sceptical blogger friends can take a look and comment:

Gila Monster An Unusual Help For Diabetics

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH Deborah Keene of the South Hills knows all about diabetes, and now she's using something that's really changed her life - the new drug Byetta.

"I started out with oral medications. They didn't provide the level of control that was optimum and Dr. Gordon suggested I might want to start using Byetta, which is an injectable," said Keene.

Byetta is a medication that works differently than pills or insulin. It helps your body produce the right amount of insulin at the right time.

Now made synthetically, it originally was discovered from a most unusual source - a gila monster.

"They produce venom. It's a modified saliva under their tongue and that's what they use as a defense mechanism," explained Henry Kacprzyk of the Pittsburgh Zoo. "If you get a bite from this guy, you can die, but the truth is you'll probably just wish you were dead."

But through research, it was found that this substance had a very positive effect, in particular for diabetics.

"It's a first in its class of drugs that's been approved for diabetes that affects the mind-gut interaction, it affects our satiety center, reduces our appetite and allows us to lose weight," said Dr. Murray Gordon, director of endocrinology at Allegheny General Hospital.

For Keene, it's really improved the quality of her life.

"It has done a really great job. My glucose levels have dropped back to pretty much where a person who didn't have diabetes would be," she said.

Healthy foods and a good exercise program can help control diabetes, but the use of this newly approved medication, Byetta, can really help some patients manage their condition. And, as a bonus, in many cases patients loose weight.

Dr. Paul Nemiroff is a nationally-recognized surgeon who specializes in head and neck cancer and reconstructive surgery. Watch KDKA-TV for his expert advice on today's medical issues.

I am fascinated by venom. I am even more fascinated by medicinal uses of venom. Can someone tell me more about this?

I am locked up in a mezzuzzah factory and can't get out (written on the parchment inside my mezzuzzah)

18.75 %

My weblog owns 18.75 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

I am surprised! I thought my blog is my life - 100%!

Hat-tip Grrrlscientist

Science News

* Can mice succumb to Mozart?:
Few if any people would claim that rodents like Mozart. But three research groups say this much: his music seems to do something for them.

* New type of comet may be source of our oceans, study finds:
Three objects reported to look like comets, but act like asteroids have grabbed scientists' interest.

* Global warming yields 'glacial earthquakes':
Researchers are warning of dramatic sea level rises and a newfound phenomenon, glacial earthquakes.

* Solar eclipse coming:
On Wednesday, a total eclipse will be visible in parts of the world. Some others will get a partial eclipse.

One more reason to get rid of Lieberman

Apparently, he has bought into the autism-mercury-thimerosal-vaccine connection crap and is pushing this BS through Senate in some bill or something.

Divine Right of the President

Administration tells Congress (again) - We won't abide by your 'laws':

As usual, the most amazing aspect of all of this is not that the Administration is claiming these powers. It is that even as it claims them as expressly and clearly as can be, the Congress continues to ignore it and pretend that it still retains power to restrict the Administration by the laws it passes. And the media continues to fail in its duty to inform the country about the powers the Administration has seized, likely because they are so extreme that people still do not really believe that the Administration means what they are saying. What else do they need to do in order to demonstrate their sincerity?

If you are a born-and-raised American, it is hard to believe taht this really is happening in America. Wake up while you can still do something about it, before it is too late. Read the rest of the article, of course...

Obligatory Readings of the Day

Early prototype, expect instability: What is stupidity and how it evolved.

A moral suggestion: How did ethics and moral evolve? One quibble with this one - there is one place where it mentions "selfish gene" as a mechanism behind a particular evolutionary path, then proceeds to desribe something very different and much more applicable (even opposite) of selfish gene - the "group selection" theory (which is just a part of 'hierarchy of units of selection' - the author mixed up the units - or "levels" - big time in this article).

Justinsomnia and other local bloggie stuff

For some odd reason I have not followed Justin Watt's blog Justinsomnia since he left Chapel Hill for some California sun (Hi, Justin! The computer did not work as a whole, but I scavenged it for parts! Thanks, man). Perhaps it is because he's not aggregated on NCBlogs any more.

Now, I see he's become a mini-celebrity, ACLU defending his sweet little parody billboard against the nuts of Exodus International (so, why don't they, well, exode somewhere internationally and leave us alone?). You can get more information on his blog, of course - just visit Justinsomnia, which looks so much nicer and spiffier since the last time I visited. Or, you can check out the commentary by other locals who know Justin, e.g., Arse Poetica (who I had great fun chatting with last night at the Blogger MeetUp) and Will Raymond, who, after a short slump after losing the darned election, changed the blog name to Concerned Citizen (but could not make it last night to the meetup) and is going at it full speed again.

Will also posted a nice list of local political blogs that are a Must-Read if you live in the Triangle (I guess Pam is now too stratospheric to be included in this local list, although she was up for Koufaxes in the State/Local category for some unfathomable reason - and she missed the MeetUp, too!).

Speaking of the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Bloggers MeetUp, there were nine of us there last night. I had a particular pleasure to finally meet in person Abel PharmBoy (no, when you get a comment from him it is not spam, as Anton thought) of Terra Sigillata, another rare science blogger in the area. I made him tell the story of the crossword puzzle that brought him thousands of British fans!

Speaking of Anton, he is hosting this week's Tar Heel Tavern, not on his main blog, but on StoryBlogging, in order to give the storyblogging concept and action some more prominence among the local bloggers. So, have you submitted your entry yet? (Shame on me, I have not...yet).

Speaking of storyblogging, we had an idea to try to recruit non-bloggers to write stories and guest-blog on our blogs, or, if they are more comfortable that way, to be interviewed by us and the interviews posted on our blogs. I immediatelly thought of my mother, my brother, a professor who's been everywhere in the world, a student who is doing AIDS research and educaton in Lesotho... I'll try to twist some arms and get that to happen.

God or Not - call for submissions

On March 27th Buridan's Ass will host the 11th edition of the GOD or NOT Carnival. The theme is Evil or "the problem of evil" or Theodicy.

Quote of the Day

By Seth Lloyd:

Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved. They can only be tested again and again until only a fool would refuse to believe them.

Hat-tip: John Lynch of Stranger Fruit

Call for submissions for Carnival of the Liberals and the Carnival of the Godless

This is long and involved, so just go to Neural Gourmet to get all the details. In short, this week's theme for the Carnival of the Liberals is Religion, and so is the Carnival of the Godless (surprise, I know).

Art & the New Biology of Mind

If you are in New York and can make you may be interested in attending this - it sound fantastic. I wish I could go:

Columbia Forum on Art & the New Biology of Mind

THE ITALIAN ACADEMY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
presents:

Columbia Forum on Art & the New Biology of Mind

FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2006
9:30am-6pm

New York, NY - February 15, 2006 - The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University is proud to announce the first Columbia Forum on Art and the New Biology of Mind which will be held in the Academy's Teatro on March 24, 2006. This forum will be the first major gathering of neuroscientists, philosophers, art historians, and artists with the specific purpose of establishing the foundations for understanding the potential of the relationship between the visual arts and the neurosciences.

Speakers will include the leading experts in the neurosciences from around the world: Antonio Damasio, Vittorio Gallese, Raymond Dolan, Margaret Livingstone, Joseph LeDoux, V.S. Ramachandran, and Semir Zeki. The forum will be led by the Italian Academy's Director, art historian David Freedberg, along with Nobel Laureates Eric Kandel and Richard Axel. A panel of distinguished artists, including Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, George Condo, Robert Irwin, Neil Jenney, Richard Meier, Joan Snyder, David Salle, Philip Taaffe, and Terry Winters with the participation of Arthur Danto will respond.

Recent studies of the brain have begun to make an enormous difference to our understanding of art. Neuroscientists have made a number of remarkable discoveries about vision, recognition of faces, places and
bodies, emotional responses, memory, and a whole variety of sensual responses to the world around us, including to works of art. The scientists who will participate in the Academy's March 24 forum have done important, original work on subjects ranging from the emotional brain to mirror neurons, empathetic responses, the study of vision,
luminance, and color, synesthesia, and scanning techniques. The forum promises to be a landmark event in which an assessment will be made, in the most rigorous way possible, of the prospect for a newly-enriched understanding of our complex relations to visual art.

The Louise T. Blouin Foundation is a co-sponsor of the forum, as is the Columbia Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. The Italian Academy's Teatro in Casa Italiana is located at 1161 Amsterdam Avenue between 116th and 118th Streets. All seats for the forum must be reserved by contacting Rickhitaker via email at rw2115@columbia.edu.

Animalcules, Volume 1, Issue 4

Welcome to Animalcules, the carnival of all things microbial. I got a few entries at the last minute, and dug through some blogs of usual suspects for a few more, and I hope you enjoy the choices.

Tara Smith of Aetiology, the inventor and founder of this carnival, sent in The potential of papilloma virus vaccines, but I thought that - in the spirit of "more the merrier" - another post may also be included: Determining an infectious cause...not as easy as you'd think.

Mike the Mad Biologist sent in An Interview About Antibiotics and Agriculture, but I also picked an additonal post: More on Phage Therapy...or two: Wash Your Damn Hands, Part I - Can't Count That High

A protist, Plasmodium falciparum, is the main character in this Circadiana post: Some hypotheses about a possible connection between malaria and jet-lag.

And if you think that Plasmodium and other protists have incredibly complicated life cycles, you ain't seen nothing yet! From Grrrlscientist comes Spermatogenocide, with a quiz at the end! Your work may not be safe for this post!

Paul Orwin has some Challenges in Microbiology. Of course, hypothesis-testing is not the only part of scientific method (outside freshman science classes), so he is home free.

Sandra Porter of Discovering biology in a digital world is asking: What allows a virus to begin infecting a new species? Doing the cross-species hop

Carl Zimmer on The Loom - we all have viruses:The Sixty-Million-Year Virus

On Effect Measure, I found a post with a very un-Animalcules-like title - Cats, dogs, birds, but it is really about all the animals that avian flu can infect.

Complex Medium wrote a variety of stuff on microorganisms lately, some more, some less serious in tone - find out which is which:
Compensatory mutations to antibiotic resistance
Virus as metaphor
Running out of targets?, and
Finally, something we can use

Technology in Teaching sent in the picture of her scarf with a microbe on it - it is Mycobacterium, the tuberculosis fella. With Blogger being a mess, she could not post the image, and I could not do it on two of my four blogs (thus the ascetic look of this carnival!), so you have to go look at it here.

Animalcules will resume in two weeks. Volume 1, Issue 5. will appear on April 6, 2006 to be hosted at Complex Medium.

Chapel Hill/Carrboro Blogger MeetUp

Tomorrow night at 6pm at 3 Cups Coffee. Check Blog Together for more information. I assume that Michael will come again [Update: No, he cannot make it, unfortunately].

Last night, Rep.Brad Miller (D) showed up at the Raleigh Blogger MeetUp. You can read what they talked about on blogs by Josh, Dave and Bill.

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #59 is up on The Education Wonks.

Why Friendster Lost and MySpace Won

Danah Boyd explains in: Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?.

Read it also for important message about impending dangers to the freedom of the Internet as a whole.

On Teaching Science

EducationWonks found an excellent article written by a student about science education in elementary schools and beyond:
Light a fire under students for math, science programs :

-------snip----------

Upon reviewing the major points of the bill, however, I failed to find a specific focus on improving science and mathematics education in grades K-6. The bill seems to be geared toward secondary school students - those in junior high and high school - and even college students.

However, interest in science truly begins at the elementary level. A key component of improving the number of American scientists and engineers is igniting interest at a young age and nurturing that interest throughout a child's education.

Educational television can help to interest a child in a subject. When I was young, I watched "Bill Nye the Science Guy" and "Magic School Bus," and I learned much from those shows that I remember and utilize today. High school science teachers often use "Bill Nye the Science Guy" in their classrooms because it is such an excellent resource.

Currently, educational television leans toward multicultural education. While multicultural education is indeed extremely important, a balance should exist. A greater number of fun and educational science shows should appear.

Even if children enjoy math and science when they are young, they may lose or ignore that interest in junior high because of the enormous peer pressure to be "cool." If educators could find a method to make science "cool" and socially acceptable, I believe that many more students would pursue the subject.

Teenagers tend to believe that scientists are social pariahs who are concerned only with their work. Adults should strive to dissuade them from this perception by demonstrating that scientists and engineers are indeed normal human beings.

In addition, illustrating the application of classroom learning to real-life situations would more fully engage a young teenager. Instead of simply learning formulas and doing simple labs, science teachers should demonstrate the widespread effects and applications of their subject. Some teachers are already adept at this, but some are not. Students need applications to which they can relate.

Recently, the government has focused on improving standardized test scores. While that is certainly a worthy pursuit, better test scores will not increase interest in math and science. Politicians and government officials should instead attempt to develop a true interest and involvement in science and math among young people.

Careers in science and math are certainly not ideal for everyone. We shouldn't attempt to force young people into such careers. However, students may miss out on something they truly enjoy if their science education comes solely from a textbook, which I'm sure many would consider quite dull. In order to increase the number of math, science and engineering majors in the United States, we first have to infuse students with an enthusiasm for the subject.

Yes, yes, yes...

On Milosevic

I have to brag about my famous brother and at the same time provide you with some quality reading about Milosevic and Serbia. Feel free to tranfer the ideas to the USA, the victimhood of the fundamentalist Christians etc.

First, here is an article about a talk my brother gave in Alberta the other day:

Lecturer examines 'poisonous zombie swamp' of Serb politics

and here is a little bit older paper, but excellent and still relevant paper (PDF):

KOSOVO IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE SERBIAN WORD: POLITICAL ENCHANTMENT AND MILOSEVIC’S RISE TO POWER

Update: As usual...no, as always, journalists get some things wrong. So, in the first article above, there are a couple of mistakes (you may also have noticed a typo on one of the copies of his last name).

First, he has no mixed feelings about Milosevic - his feelings are entirely negative. He said:

"I don't recall my exact words, it could be that I said something like "I haven't yet sorted out my emotions," but I definitely did not mean that my feelings were "mixed" - for "mixed feelings" could be interpreted as if I could also entertain some positive feelings towards Milosevic, or sadness over his death - and in that respect my feelings are not mixed at all - all my "feelings" toward Milosevic are decidedly, and quite unmixedly negative! "

Second, it says there that "....conspiracy theories make up a founding characteristic of the Serbian people...". He never said that. Conspiracy theories are universal - Serbs did not buy any exclusive rights to them. Also, no self-respecting anthropologist will ever utter the phrase "founding characteristic of X" as the anthropological police would immediately come to take him away (insert a winking smiley-face). Something like thet would belong in the genre of "national character", something he writes about only from a distance, mostly ironically, and he is in no way involved in studying "national characteristics of the Serbian people".

Political Neurobiology Redux

So, have you read yet Chris' two-part dissection of the study purpotedly showing that political partisans act irrationally? If not, run over there and read both Part I and Part II all the way to the end!

Science News

* Space rock risk underreported, researchers say:
Growing numbers of astronomers are questioning traditional estimates of how often comets or asteroids hit Earth.

* In new state of matter, echoes of an old symbol:
A medieval emblem of three interlocking circles is finding new life as a description of some special atomic interactions.

* Was 'extinct' woodpecker sighting real?:
Scientists debate whether a long-lost bird was really caught on videotape.

* Astronomers peer into the 'first trillionth of a second':
New data help confirm that the newborn cosmos underwent a stupendous growth spurt, scientists say.

This appears to be an interesting book

Modernism in Serbia -The Elusive Margins of Belgrade Architecture, 1919-1941
by Ljiljana Blagojevic

Modernism in Serbia is the first comprehensive account of an almost forgotten body of work that once defined regional modernism at its best. The book reconstructs the story of Serbian modernism as a local history within a major movement and views the buildings designed in Belgrade in the 1920s and 1930s as part of a larger cultural phenomenon. Because so many of the buildings discussed are disintegrating or have been destroyed or altered beyond recognition, the book serves not only as a documentary and critical study but also as a preservation resource. Most of the photographs and plans have never been published outside of Serbia, if at all.

In restoring this work to its rightful place in the history of modern architecture, the book also sheds new light on a number of other stories. These include the influence of Le Corbusier and of the Yugoslav avant-garde movement Zenitism and the impact of international modern movements on the theoretical underpinnings of Serbian modernism. One of the subplots follows the story of the Group of Architects of the Modern Movement in Belgrade and its four founding members, Milan Zlokovic, Branislav Kojic, Jan Dubovy, and Dusan Babic. Through anexamination of their work and that of other modern architects, most notably Dragisa Brasovan and Nikola Dobrovic, the book discusses the identity of Serbian modernism as it was established in the period from 1925 to 1940. The book also identifies those buildings that represent the purest examples of Serbian modernism and analyzes the qualities that make them quintessentially local forms while part of the larger modernist movement.

Modernism in Serbia is a copublication of the Harvard Design School and MIT Press.

Ljiljana Blagojevic is a practicing architect and an architectural historian and theoretician. She is Lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, and teaches at the School for History and Theory of Images in Belgrade.

Endorsements

"Ljiljana Blagojevic's book is a welcome addition to the pioneering series of books on Central and Eastern European architecture that the MIT Press initiated some years ago. Not only does the author bring to light surprising discoveries that have escaped the notice of previous historians of architectural modernism, but she succeeds in describing the specific situation of Serbian architecture in a way that connects it to European developments of the past as well as to theoretical debates of the present. This book restores Belgrade to its rightful place on the map of modernism."
--Ákos Moravánszky, Professor of Architectural Theory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and author of Competing Visions: Aesthetic Vision and Social Imagination in Central European Architecture

"This engaging book applies the international perspectives of Benjaminian critical theory and Lacanian post-structuralism to Serbian modern architecture. A wonderful 'transparency' ensues, of unbiased historical writing and lucid architectural analysis supported by revealing plans, photographs, and documents. This is a model scholarly monograph for the twenty-first century."
--Peter Kaufman, Boston Architectural Center

"Serbia has always been a hinge of Slavic resistance to domination from both the West and the East. Its troubled history emerges in the unique brand of modernism that this book so ably documents and discusses. Ljiljana Blagojevic proves that the strength of this seminal movement of the twentieth century lay not in its universality, but in an adaptiveness its doctrinaire founders never imagined. An important, original study."
--Lebbeus Woods, Professor of Architecture, The Cooper Union

Teaching Biology Lab - Week 2

I have just posted my experiences from last week's lab.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

Next weekend, the Tar Heel Tavern will be hosted by Anton Zuiker on StoryBlogging Our History. He has posted a detailed call for submissions, explaining what kind of posts he is looking for, most importantly:

----------snip--------------
StoryBlogging is a grassroots initiative to bring together oral history, memoir writing and blogging. So, the theme for the Tavern this week is memoir blogging. Please submit a post, recent or ancient, in which you tell a story about a moment in your life. Or, submit a post in which you share the history of one of your family members. Podcasts will be accepted, too.
------------snip-------------
Please submit your Tavern entries (your name, post title, post permalink) to mistersugar AT gmail DOT com by Saturday, March 25th at 7 p.m.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling is up on PHAT Mommy.

Animalcules - last call for submissions

Volume 1, Issue 4. of Animalcules will see the light of day on March 23, 2006 right here on Science and Politics.

This carnival collects posts about microorganisms - unicellular creatures visible only under the microscope.o

OK, I'll accept a post about a yeast, or a mold, or a protist that just happens to be colonial or multicellular.

Some microorganisms cause diseases in humans and other animals and it is tempting to focus on symptoms and treatments, but if you want your post to be included in the carnival, a substantial part of the post has to be about the microorganism itself - its genetics, physiology, behavior, ecology or evolution, its mechanism of transmition or its epidemiology, i.e., place the microorganism center-stage and treat the human patient as its habitat.

You may also send in posts that look at microbes from a different angle: historical, literary or artistic. Perhaps you can just show us which microorganism you have on your necktie or which one of the Giant Microbes you have bought.

Send your entries to me by March 22nd at 8pm EST at: Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com

For the science geeks

You can buy earrings, bracelets and necklaces in shapes of neurotransmitters at MadeWithMolecules. Next birthday, Christmas, Valentines? Please, do not buy me testosterone boxers....

[I tried to post a picture of a serotonin earring, but, even after clearing the cache, Blogger is still not letting me post images on this blog - it does on the others]

Anti-Choice is Anti-Woman and Anti-Sex, not Anti-Murder

Ampersand, on Alas, A Blog has posted a table of anti-choice arguments/policies that everyone should copy, save, print out and send to friends. If you denied before, or were not sure, that all anti-choice policies are inconsistent with "abortion is murder" notion, but are consistent with anti-choice being anti-woman and anti-sex, this will persuade you.

(Hat-tip: Dave Munger, now happily aggregated on NCblogs.com)

Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds 2:26 is up on HealthyConcerns.

If Presidential Elections were more like NCAA

Inagine the voter turnout (and the level of knowledge and understanding of issues!) if the elections were held along the lines of the March Madness!

What politics could learn from basketball:

The people who run elections could learn from the NCAA.

First, the tournament's 64 games are played in three weeks. No dragging them out endlessly until people are sick of the whole thing.

Second, there's suspense and unpredictability. You can count on upsets.

And third, you're bound to see some great, classy performances. Skill on the court means something. In basketball, nobody wins by badmouthing the other guy. Actions really do mean more than words.

Choosing a president could be more like that.

Read the rest...

Koufax Awards - Voting is open

All the finalists in all the categories are now up and the voting is open for the Koufax Awards, so go over to Wampum and VOTE!!!!

Choosing my single vote in the semi-finals was an excrutiating exercise - so many good blogs and so many friends to choose from. Voting in the finals was, to a great extent, much easier. Here are my votes:

Best Blog, Non-sponsored: Pharyngula (a coin-toss - literally - with Pandagon)
Best Blog Community: Panda's Thumb
Best Blog, Sponsored/Professional: Orcinus
Best Series: Firedoglake for coverage of the Plame matter
Best Group Blog: Shakespeare's Sister
Best Writing: Creek Running North by Chris Clarke
Best New Blog: Unclaimed Territory by Glenn Greenwald
Best Blog Commenter: Chris Clarke
Most Humorous Post: Michael Berube: And now a word from our sponsor
Best Single Issue Blog: Pharyngula
Best Expert Blog: Pharyngula
Best Post: Creek Running North: Life and Death by Chris Clarke
Most Humorous Blog: Jesus' General
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition: Echidne of the Snakes

Except for the best non-professional blog, it was relatively easy to choose. Oh, almost forgot to mention - as expected, I did not make it into any of the finals. It is not an election year, my political writing is at a low, and most voters are Lefty political bloggers/readers, so I did not expect anything this year. No big deal.

Another note: Not a single one of North Carolina blogs made it to the finals in the Best Local/State blog!!!!! How is that possible. Orange Politics and NCBlue should have been there, at least. Why? Because none of the NC blogs asked their readers to go and vote! In awards like these, you have to self-promote. You cannot just assume that all the readers will be aware that such a thing as Koufax even exists. A little post with a link to Wampum could have made all the difference. A lesson for next year, I guess....

Creationism - not viewed in isolation

Some months ago I wrote a post titled something like 'creationism is just one symptom of conservative psychopathology'. If you thought Kent Hovind is "just" a Creationist, you need to read what David Neiwert uncovered about the guy.

Why North Carolina is not a battleground of culture wars?

Rob Christensen explains.

Chaucer has a blog

And it is written in middle-English. Very funny!

Carnival of the Green

Carnival of the Green #19 is up on Baloghblog.

Ontogeny of political ideology

How come all the studies, no matter what they look at and what methodology they use, always find the conservatives fearful and rigid (adapted to 16th century social organization) and liberals flexible and courageous (adapted to 21st century world)? Can someone send me a PDF of the actual study described here, plese?

How to spot a baby conservative:

The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

------------------snip----------------------

Whether anyone's feelings are hurt or not, the work suggests that personality and emotions play a bigger role in our political leanings than we think. All of us, liberal or conservative, feel as though we've reached our political opinions by carefully weighing the evidence and exercising our best judgment. But it could be that all of that careful reasoning is just after-the-fact self-justification. What if personality forms our political outlook, with reason coming along behind, rationalizing after the fact?It could be that whom we vote for has less to do with our judgments about tax policy or free trade or health care, and more with the personalities we've been stuck with since we were kids.

And, all Lakoff suggests is - look at the influence of parenting styles (not genes - that is silly!)

Go read the rest...

(Hat-tip: No, You Can't Have A Pony!)

On Religion in the public square

Sean Carrol, Chris of Mixing Memory, Amanda, Amanda again, Dave Munger and Chad Orzel have interesting thoughts about religion and its mythological, ethical and social components, as well as how the atheists/agnostics should approach the religious people on the Left and the Right. Chad suggests that there are two approaches: the intellectual and the strategic. I keep trying to find a way to fuse these two approaches together - how to make a good strategy without hiding any of the truth and without sacrificing any of the intellectual honesty.

Darwin on Marriage

3 Quarks Daily has a great write-up inspired by Darwin's list of pros and cons of marriage: A Wife is Better than a Dog Anyhow!

(Hat-tip: Reality Conditions)

The Scarecrow

The Man made of straw (remember - that is the one without a brain) destroys the straw-man over and over again: Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

Read the rest...

(Hat-tip: Rob Helpy-Chalk)

Malaria Action Day

Today is Malaria Action Day, so I have compiled a sample of the blogosphere's response. On top are posts about malaria, and on the bottom are links to bloggers who urged their readers to take part in Dunk Malaria day and to contribute to The Global Fund for the fight against malaria.

From Tara at Aetiology: Mechanism of malaria "hide and seek" coming into view

From Historymike's musings, a historical perspective: A Pocket Of Pestilence: Northwest Ohio’s Nineteenth-Century Reputation As An Unhealthy Region

Over on Circadiana, I wrote: Some hypotheses about a possible connection between malaria and jet-lag (if you have missed them before, you can also read my two older posts on the topic: Dr.Love-of-Strange, or How I Learned To Love The Malaria... and Malaria and Melatonin: Co-evolution Around The Circadian Clock)

Craig Conard on Mali, Malaria, and Craiger: My fellowship begins, finally

Now, those who linked to Dunk Malaria and/or The Global Fund:

Tim Lambert at Deltoid started all this with Dunk Malaria and followed up with Malaria Action Day.

Tara Smith on Aetiology: Raising malaria awareness

John Quiggin: Malaria Appeal

Basketball in Africa: KENYA: Dunk Malaria 2006

Malaria: Malaria - DunkMalaria.org - Home

Watch a video about the breakup of Yugoslavia

In the wake of Milosevic's death and the temporary blip in interest in Serbia again, you may want to visit (or re-visit) this documentary (in two parts). Even if you are not particularly interested in the Balkans and care more about Iraq, this movie has important lessons about the dirty international politics, the way US government (and other governments) operates, and the way press is manipulated and in turn becomes a manipulator.

A documentary which traces how crucial mistakes made by the West helped lead to the unnecessary breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, culminating in the devastating NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

Carnival of the Godless

Carnival of the Godless #36 is up on Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin'.

Blogger Image Publishing!@#$%^&*

Does anyone know what is wring with Blogger?

I have not been able to post an image for about 24 hours now. I have written a nice long post for the Malaria Action Day and have not posted it yet because I cannot put the figures up (and they are important and refered to in the text). You still have to click on the link to see the Beetle Bailey cartoon here, or to see the graph of the diurnal patters of human sexual activity. What is going on!!!!!??????

Tar Heel Tavern

The latest edition of the Tar Heel Tavern in up on Technodad.

At what time of day do people have sex?

The answer is here.

Why people read blogs?

Hedwig asks that question (as well as other 'standards', e.g., where people get most of their information, etc.) and there are some excellent responses in the comments section.

Beetle Bailey has a keen grasp of the obvious

Blogger obstinately refuses to post images tonight. I will add it when I can, but in the meantime you can see today's Beetle Bailey cartoon here. He 'gets it'.

(Hat-tip: Sahotra Sarkar)

The beginning of the post-post-Milosevic era

Thanks to Victor for fantastic coverage of the whole Milosevic saga - the death, the autopsy and the funeral. Check out his last ten million posts! He took some pictures of the viewing here: The End of a dictator and recapped the whole sordid affair (wow - the power of instant messaging!) in Spring comes to Belgrade three days too early.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)

You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas. Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.

What American City Are You?

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

Malaria Action Day

Malaria Action Day is this Sunday, on March 19th. Read Tara and Tim for more information.

What should you do?

1) You should play basketball on Sunday, as part of the Dunk Malaria initiative.

2) You should donate to The Global Fund for the fight against malaria (and send Tim the confirmation e-mail you get, so he can match it up to $300).

3) Post this information on your blog (or e-mail to friends) between now and Sunday.

4) Write a post about malaria or something related and I will put together a linkfest on Sunday, linking to all bloggers who send me permalinks of their posts on the topic. If you have not written anything recently, but have a good post from the past, send it anyway. The post need not focus on biology or medicine of malaria - writings on history, geography, economics and politics of this disease are equally welcome.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

This week's Tar Heel Tavern will be hosted at Technodad.

The theme will be Parenting and Children, so send in anything you've got that's in any way related to that, whether it's your children or your childhood. The carnival will be posted on Sunday, March 19th.

You can send your entries to: technodad.blog@gmail.com.

We need hosts!!!! Please e-mail me to volunteer!

Teaching Carnival

Aftre some technical difficulties, the new Teaching Carnival is finally up on The Salt-Box.

Local Organizing and Blog Carnivals

While national politics are sexy and exciting, the real battleground is at the local level. If bloggers are to have an impact, it is important for progressive bloggers living in the same geographical area to be able to find each other, meet, and spur each other into action. How do you find local bloggers? Some places have local blog aggregators, but that is still rare. The best way is to follow blog carnivals and look for like-minded bloggers in your geographical area as well as those who share your interests.

There are more than 230 blog carnivals in existence. Many are organized by Right Wingers and may be useful for opposition research - what is their strawman of the week? However, some carnivals are better than others for finding progressive bloggers and the members of the reality-based community. Here is a small sample of some of the most appropriate ones.

General Liberal Topics

Carnival of the Liberals is competitive. Each time a new host serves as an Editor, picking the best ten entries. The eighth issue is up on Brainshrub and the ninth will show up on Atheism.About in about two weeks.

Carnival of Feminists looks at gender from all angles. The tenth edition is up on IndianWriting and the eleventh will be on Angry for a Reason

The Carnival of Bent Attractions is devoted to GLBTQ Blogging. Fourth edition is up on Transcending Gender and the fifth will be on Jay Sennett.

Radical Women of Color Carnival - well, the name says it all. The latest issue is supposed to be up on Mamita Mala (perhaps it will show up there shortly!?). In April, see the new issue at Woman of Color Blog.

The Big Fat Carnival covers fat pride and fat acceptance. The first edition is up on Alas, A Blog and the next one will be on This ain't livin'

Radical Progressive Carnival is new. The first issue will be on Julius Speaks on March 20th.

Science, Medicine and Environment

Tangled Bank is the Big Mama of science blogging, covering a broad range of topics related to science, nature, medicine, environment and the interaction between science and society. Living the Scientific Life. In two weeks, check out the next edition on Island Of Doubt. Tangled Bank has spawned quite a lot of other science-related carnivals with more narrow focus:

Grand Rounds is a carnival of medicine and healthcare. The latest issue is up on Geek Nurse and the next one will be next Tuesday on Health Concerns.

Carnival of the Green covers environmental issues. The last edition was posted on Dirty Greek and the next one will be on Baloghblog.

Skeptic's Circle collects posts that debunk pseudoscience, medical quackery and political misuses of science. Edition #30 is up on Paige's Paige and the next will appear on Terra Sigillata.

I And The Bird covers everything about birds: science, natural history, birdwatching and conservation. The edition #19 is on Science and Politics and #20 will be on Bootstrap Analysis in two weeks.

Circus of the Spineless gathers blog posts about Invertebrates. It is a monthly carnival. The last issue was on Science And Politics and the next one will be on Research at a snail's pace.

Animalcules gathers blog posts on all things microbial. The third edition is up on Aetiology and the fourth will appear in two weeks on Science And Politics

Friday Ark collects posts and pictures of all sorts of animals every week. Issue #77 is up on the Modulator (it is always there).

Carnival of Biotechnology is the newest addition to science-related carnivals. The second edition is up on About Biotech and the third will appear on Biotech Blog.

Religion

Carnival of the Godless looks at religion from a godless perspective. The 35th edition was posted on JodyWheeler and the next one will be on Daniel Morgan

God Or Not is a civil debate between theists and atheists on an assigned topic. Last time, the topic was Truth and it appeared on Kingdom of Heathen. Next time, the topic is the Problem of Evil and it wil be hosted by Buridan's Ass.

Freethinking Women Jamboree is just starting. The inaugural edition will be on The Atheist Mama tomorrow.

Social Science and Academia

History Carnival is mostly populated by professional historians (although lay bloggers contribute every now and then, too). The 27th edition is up on History:Other and the 28th will appear on Patahistory on April 1.

Carnival of Bad History looks at misuse and misinterpretations of history (in politics, journalism, media, science and art). The latest issue is up on Ahistoricality.

Carnivalesque is a monthly carnival, quite academic, and it alternates between Ancient and Early Modern history. Edition #13 is a mixed (Ancient + Early Modern) edition, it has Women's History as a topic and is up on Archaeoastronomy. Next month, it is a turn for an Early Modern edition on the Earmarks in Early Modern Culture.

The latest issue of the Philosophy Carnival was hosted by Heaven Tree.

Education

Carnival of Education covers all aspects of education, including policy. Issue #58 is up on Education Wonks (and the next one will be at the same place).

Teaching Carnival focuses on Higher Ed. The last edition was on Science And Politics and the next is about to be posted on The Salt Box.

Carnival of Unschooling is new. The third edition is up on Atypical Homeschool.net. The next one is due Monday also on Atypical Homeschool.net

The latest edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is currently on Common Room and the next will be on PHAT Mommy.

You can see a complete list of currently active carnivals (there are more than 230 of them right now!), get the news, automatically enter your blog-posts, and check all of the archives on BlogCarnival.com. If you are interested in history of carnivals and want to check out some dead-and-gone carnivals of the past, look at the six issues of Meta-Carnival.

Blogs on Milosevic

For the best coverage of the Milosevic saga - his death, autopsy and funeral - check out the Belgrade Blog and YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett.

I And The Bird #19

Welcome to the Nineteenth edition of the I And The Bird carnival.

The number (and, yes, the quality) of the entries that arrived in my mailbox over the past two weeks is just amazing. I soon decided to abandon any attempts to be too funny or creative and I kicked out the pretty pictures I had found. The carnival is already huge and I cannot make it too large and make the readers (and the Blogger software) overwhelmed.

Instead, I snuck in a couple of "Editor's Choice" posts, introducing some new people to the birding blogosphere, and I organized the entries into four loosely-defined categories. The quality of the submissions is just amazing, so let's not waste any more time on my blabberings - enjoy the carnival!

Science and Conservation

Hedwig The Owl of Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) looks at the new study of the role of poultry farms vs. wild migrating birds in the spread of bird flu in Avian Influenza: A Story About Industrial Fowl Play?.

Bethany Lindsay, on one of the coolest science blogs - The Science Creative Quarterly, explains the current state of research on The Compasses of Birds .

Darren Naish of Tetrapod Zoology introduces the Biggest Eagle.

Sylvia Tognetti of Post-Normal Times writes about the need for a new way of thinking about the relationship between humans and nature, in Ode to a swamp.

Mensa Barbie reports of an interesting way to use the natural behavior of birds to track the spread of bird flu: Migratory Tracking in the UAE.

The annotated budak is a blog written by a duck. On feathered fiends announces an interesting seminar on the human relationship with wild birds.

Natural History

Sahotra Sarkar of the Sarkar Lab is a philosopher of science, but his blog has more posts about the beautiful nature of Texas than philosophy (and both kinds of posts are well worth reading!). Prepare to learn a lot from A Year in Texas: Whooping Cranes at Aransas.

Nuthatch of Bootstrap Analysis introduces us to Cuba's endemic birds.

On WoodSong, you'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about the Hermit Trush: A Solitary Thrush

Mata of Time's Fool is having fun while Watching the Wilson's Pharalope

Tom and Sheri are Birders On The Border. In Arizona, roadrunners are noy just cartoon characters skillfully evading applications of ACME kits. They are real Dinosaurs in the desert.

Rick Wright of Aimophila Adventures saw the devil-bird: Phainopeplas on the Move.

Carel Brest van Kempen is a nature artist and he blogs on Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding. You can learn about Kakapo and Condors accompanied with his original art.

Speaking of art, one can learn about birds through poetry, too. Headmistress, the zookeeper of the The Common Room does so in Springtime Poems for the Nature Journals.

The art of birding and birdwatching

Pamela Martin of Thomasburg Walks went for a walk and heard a lot of birds singing: The Cardinal Sings.

Tai Haku of Earth, Wind & Water went on a Snipe Hunt, taking a picture of "a non-existent magical creature".

Laura, who is Somewhere in NJ, reminds us to be always prepared, in Marsh hunting.

Mary Ann of Five Wells is an old blog-friend of mine. Mostly politics. But sometimes, one needs to do something more fun, for instance identify the species of Woodpeckers.

Ben Cruachan Blog - sometimes Hot birding is just too hot!

On the other hand, sometimes it is too cold! Home Bird Notes braved the weather and was rewarded by Scoters at the jetty.

Wayne Hughes of Niches looks at the behavior of purple finches in his backyard in Tuesday Miscellany.

David Ringer of Search And Serendipity is doing what we all would like to have the opportunity to do - birding in Papua New Guinea! Wouldn't you want to spend Two hours hunting mystery birds?

Pete McGregor of Pohanginapete also enjoys nature in a part of the world I'd love to visit - New Zealand. See what you're missing from a Life on the rocks.

When a dedicated birder like Mike of 10,000 Birds sets foot in a new territory, he wastes not a second! There is never too many new species to see: Straight to Arrowhead.

Sometimes when you go birding, you bump into people stranger than the birds - some nice, some not so. Just ask Ocellated about his hillarious encounters with Rednecks.

Dave runs a blog from the Bird Treatment and Learning Center
Anchorage, Alaska, where they take care of injured and sick raptors: 9 and counting.

Trix of WhipPoorWill has a cool neighbor: Just A Moment....

John from A DC Birding Blog suffered an embarassment of riches while birding the other day: Early Migrants at the National Arboretum.

Birdchick Blog finds a novel use for birdseed (as well as the more standard use - to take pictures of cool birds) in Behold, the power of millet.

Magnificient Photography

T. Beth of the Firefly Forest Blog posted some great pictures of a Broad-billed Hummingbird (Cynanthus latirostris).

Russ Williams is the Director of the NC Zoo in Asheboro and blogs, several times a day, on Russlings. Here is a cool picture of a Gier.

Henry of Henry's Webiocosm Blog finds beauty close to home: Friday Backyard Bird Blogging: Tufted Titmouse - Baeolophus bicolor

Deb blogs on the Sand Creek Almanac. Recently she did some More grousing and you can see the result.

Lindsay of Majikthise found a picture of The angriest hummingbird in the world.

Pam Shack of Tortoise Trail teaches by example in Photography 101 - Mockingbird exercise.

Gwyn Calvetti of Bird brained stories! finally got to photograph her jinx-bird: The Conquering Birder!

Linkmeister lives in Hawaii and recently took a picture of a Winter visitor.

Rob Fergus is the Birdchaser. He was lucky one day and took a photo of the Swan Lake.


I And The Bird #20 will be hosted by Nuthatch of Bootstrap Analysis on March 30th, 2006, so send your entries on time!

Skeptic's Circle

Skeptic's Circle is up on Paige's Page.

Science News

* Hormone inspires animal 'babysitting':
Researchers have long turned to animals to study how cooperation evolved. New findings highlight the role of hormones, they say.

* Scientists to probe ethical complaint over 'hand-
walkers' research:
A Turkish scientists' group announced plans to look into ethical complaints against three U.K. researchers, who meanwhile broke a long silence on the case.

* Study examines how humans are still evolving:
Scientists report finding more than 700 genetic variants that evolution may have favored in the past 10,000 years.

* Saturn moon may have liquid water:
Researchers say evidence of water reservoirs erupting in geysers on the moon Enceladus may expand the search for alien life.

* Researchers develop method to view Sun's far side:
A new technique is said to make the Sun's hidden face fully visible for the first time.

Dawkins not retracting "Selfish Gene" yet

Richar Dawkins, after 30 years of dissection and criticism by the best and brightest in biology AND philosophy, apparently still believes (or, pretends to believe to protect his income and legacy) that It's all in the genes.

He has not done any biology in 30 years. I think he should leave it and go on doing what he does well: promoting atheism and defending the Enlightement from the fundamentalist hordes and their "moderate" enablers.

Carnival of the Liberals

Carnival of the Liberals Number 8: The Haiku Edition is up on Brainshrub.

History Carnival

History Carnival #27 is up on History:Other.

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #58 is up on Education Wonks.

Tangled Bank

The new edition of Tangled Bank is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted). Enjoy the best of recent science blogging!

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings: On Morality.

Tomorrow - eat meat for PETA day

If you normally eat meat, or have no problem eating meat, remember to eat some game (instead of just chicken or such) tomorrow.

Why national Dems are clueless about blogs?

This is quite depressing. Do we just need to shout louder, e-mail/fax/call them more often, until they start listening? Can we afford to campaign against them and make some of them lose elections so they all get a kick in the shins and start paying attention? What can be done?

Dog Condoms Recalled

Why does it say that it was dog OWNERS who may not have used them properly? Did they buy XXL size for a Chihuahua so it slipped?

(Via Countess - go say happy birthday to her)

Students on teaching Creationism in school

This is actually pretty scary. From a roundtable of high school students about Evolution and Creationism. Read the whole thing to see the range of opinions (and misunderstandings). There are silver linings, sure, but we have a loooong way to go.

I like Tom - he did his homework. Tara's words strike me as something we should carefully examine:

I think that it is very sad when people can't believe in something without proof, and I myself have to have that faith. If I believed that I evolved from a monkey and that there wasn't a God that created me, I don't know if I could go on.

We are dealing here with extreme emotional dependence on myth and a disdain for reality - the "mere mortal stuff", like proof.
(Hat-tip: Education Wonks)

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling is up on The Common Room

If you are in Durham NC this week

Dr. David Papineau (Kings College London) will be speaking this Friday, March 17th, at 3:30PM in 105 West Duke. His talk is titled "Are There Any Sciences Apart From Physics?".

On the palm-walking humans

Although I linked to the original science-news reports on this, I have not made any further comments on the quadrupedal Turkish family yet. That does not mean I did not closely follow the story in the newspapers and on blogs. I was toying with the idea of writing a long post about it, but it is, luckily for me, not neccessary any more, as John Hawks has written a definitive summary with which I agree 100% and Razib published a very good explanation as well as the comment from the movie producer that clears up some of the "politics" of the case.

The.Worst.Website.Ever

I saw it a couple of days ago and forgot where. Now, I found it again via Grand Rounds. Make sure your sound volume is set on high when you go here.

Grand Rounds

Geek Nurse is hosting this week's Grand Rounds n.2:25.

Some sleep science

I wrote a tiny little blurb on Circadiana about the human sleep patterns, i.e., what should be considered to be a natural pattern.

Carnival of Bad History #5

The latest edition of the quarterly Carnival of Bad History is up on Ahistoricality, and I think it is the biggest and bestest ever!

Carnival of the Green

Today's Carnival of the Green strikeds close to home - right here in North Carolina, hosted by George of Dirty Greek. There is some good stuff there!

Holy Cow - Swimming Ants!

Scientists discover swimming ants!
Just wait for the sci-fi channel to get hold of this and make a movie. Imagine gigantic mutant man-eating swimming ants terrorizing a small fisherman town. At first, the fishermen cannot catch any fish any more - they are all gone! Then, after exterminating the fish, hungry ants go to the dry land. The first victim is a dog. Second vicitm is a teenager making out with his girlfriend in the woods. There is, of course, a corrupt mayor who allowed the dumping of mutagenic chemical or radioactive waste in return for some political favors! The nerdy entomologist and gorgeous boobalicious mayor's daughter save the day by blowing up the submerged mangrove air-pocket anthill, then, all sweaty, dirty and wet, they kiss! Roll the credits. Next showing at 4am.

(Hat-tip: Living the Scientific Life)

Edwards interview in WaPo

Insider Interview: John Edwards -- Not Dwelling on 2004 (full transcript of the interview is here)

Help this kid go to college, Stay a Democrat and Save America from the Republicans

Dave has the whole story of a kid whose Republican father refuses to pay tuition until the son registers with the GOP. The son refuses and has set up one of those websites where you can buy advertising space by the pixel.

So, go here and buy some space (I see the grandma picthed in a lot of money to help the kid). One more for us, one less for them. And it will teach the Dad a lesson. And the son will never leave the Democratic party ever!

Also, spread the story further, and do not forget to link both to Dave and to the advertising webpage.

Teaching Carnival

It's almost time for the next Teaching Carnival. Send you entries to The Salt Box by tomorrow.

Obligatory Reading of the Day

This post - Thinking About Evolution: Cognitive Factors That Get in the Way - by Chris of Mixing Memory is a must-read for everyone who is involved in battling Creationism and/or teaching evolution. It is an uphill battle we are waging and we should be aware of the obstacles we need to overcome.

Framing is not Messaging

From the FRAMESHOP by Jeffrey Feldman, addressing something I've been harping on for two years now:

Frameshop: The Message Is Not the Frame:

When progressives talk about ‘framing’ the political debate, we often confuse ‘frame’ with ‘message.’ We want framing to be a quick path to victory, a magic bullet delivered in the form of a perfect talking point, that brings the opposition to its knees.

In fact, framing is not a magic bullet, but a set of tools that empowers progressives to be more engaged by taking control of the debate--first by seeing the broad ideas that trap us in a losing position, and then by re-framing the issues in moral terms that speak to ideals of the American people. Framing, in other words, makes us better readers, better listeners, and better participants in day-to-day politics, thereby enabling us to become the kind of citizens that are most effective in the culture of media driven politics.

Sleepy White House

Senior White House Staff May Be Wearing Down, says WaPo.

Now they are blaming it on lack of sleep! Well, they could have employed an expert, a chronobiologist to set their sleeping schedules and keep them fresh and alert at all times.

But, since when did the Bush administration ever listen to any expert on any topic? Oh, yeah, the PR experts - those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Carnivalesque

Alun has posted the latest edition of Carnivalesque on Archeoastronomy. The theme this month is woman's history. Alun did a great job and there are some excellent posts there.

Disney's Desparate Housewives

When I was a little kid I thought that there was only one Prince, going from one fairy-tale to another, saving and marrying all those pretty girls. That is why, when I first saw this cartoon, I thought this was a commentary on the recent harem-daydreaming by John Tierney and Stanley Kurtz.

(From Curmudgeonly and Skeptical)

My class yesterday

I taught my biology lab yesterday. You can get the details if you click here.

Koufax Awards - Voting about to close

Update: Semi-finals for the Koufax Awards are going to end tomorrow, Monday at 11:59 PM, over at Wampum. So, if you have not done it by now, go vote for me or for those more worthy than me.
...................................

There is an amazing diversity of excellent blogs in all categories. Cutting down one's choices to just one per category is going to make me break into a sweat. After all, I have nominated so many of them myself.

My blogs also receieved nominations in several categories. Best series is the only place where I have half a chance of getting ANY votes whatsoever, but you can surprise me...

You can find Science And Politics in the following categories:

Best Blog (non-professional)
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Best Single Issue Blog
Best Post
Best Series

And Circadiana was nominated in this category:

Best Expert Blog

So, go to Wampum, check out all the nominees in all the categories and VOTE!

Update:

This is soooo hard! I tried NOT to vote for the biggest vote-getters at this stage. I can always vote for them in the finals (as they are sure to make it there). I tried, instead, to make sure that some of these blogs make it to the finals in the first place:

Best Blog (non-professional)
Legal Fiction

Best Blog -- Sponsored or Professional
The Intersection

Best Blog Community
One America Blog

Best Writing
Lance Mannion

Best New Blog
Adventures in Ethics and Science

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Echidne of the Snakes

Best Single Issue Blog
Effect Measure

Best Post
Creek Running North: Life and Death by Chris Clarke

Best Series
Science And Politics on 'Understanding America'

Best Expert Blog
East Ethnia

Best Group Blog
Shakespeare's Sister

Most Humorous Blog
Pearlswine

Most Humorous Post
Michael Berube: And now a word from our sponsor

Best State or Local Blog
Orange Politics

Best Commenter
Jonnybutter

Edwards watch

Today in Raleigh News and Observer, an interview with John Edwards:
Fill void of moral leadership:

There are a lot of faiths in America. America embraces all those faiths, and it's one of the great things about our country. So the reason I use language like what is right and just and moral when I'm talking about, for example, the issue of poverty and doing something about the issue of poverty, it goes across all the faith traditions in the United States. And my own belief is that we, the Democratic Party, have to provide moral leadership on issues like poverty because no one's doing it. It is desperately needed.

Carnival of the Liberals - call for submissions

Paul from Brainshrub has posted his first call for submissions for Carnival of the Liberals #8: The Haiku Edition. For each of the ten selected entries, Paul will be writing an original haiku. See Paul’s post for more details.

CotL #8 will be on Wednesday, March 15 and the deadline is Monday, March 13 at 11:59PM EST.

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Do you want to get really moved today? If so, go read Archy.

Tar Heel Tavern

Billy has posted the latest Tar Heel Tavern. Why? Because he could. There.

Milosevic Dead. Milosevic Who?

He's been out of sight and out of mind for a few years now. It's not that Serbian politics has been boring since he was deposed, after all. Much water passed under the bridge since and the life moved on a long time ago. He has not been a player, or of any importance, for a long time.

The post-Slobo era does not start today. It started in 2000. It should have started 15 years ago on this day, with the first demonstrations against him in Belgrade, starting on March 9, 1991, and lasting a week. The first Balkans people to see the tanks in the 1990s were citizens of Belgrade, students, us. That is when CNN became the third party of that war - on the wrong side.

The International Tribune will suffer the most - two deaths and two suicides in their prison over just a few months, including their star witness and their star prisoner. There is a lot of finger-pointing at them already, for not taking Milosevic's bad health seriously enough and for letting him die. They deserve all the scorn they will get and more....

Where is he going to be buried? This can be provocative. Gen.Rankovic, at the time of his death out of favor with Tito, was buried in the Alley of the Great (Aleja Velikana) anyway. The "speak no bad about the dead" idea is strong in that part of the world, and Milosevic will probably end up in the same place. Fine with me. Not that Nixon's body was buried in someone's back yard. There is a proper place for burying presidents even if they are crooks.

I just hope there is no provocation, some kind of an incident over the next couple of day before the funeral. After the funeral and all the pomp and chest-beating and political wailing, he will be forgotten AGAIN.

Here are some resources:

BBC:

Milosevic found dead in his cell
'He was determined to fight on'
Relief and regret in the Balkans
Milosevic's legacy of discord
Obituary: Slobodan Milosevic
Milosevic's legacy haunts Serbia
Worst outcome for Milosevic tribunal
Life in pictures: Slobodan Milosevic
In quotes: Milosevic death
Reaction from around the world to the death

B92 (in Serbo-Croatian):

Preminuo Slobodan Milošević
Reakcije na smrt Miloševića

On the blogs (a small sample):

Finally, the post-Milošević era
The last of the unholy trio has died
A eulogy
Milosevic Found Dead at the Hague in his cell
The Butcher of Balkans is dead
Milosevic dead: Reaction
Balkan countries sorry Milosevic escaped justice
Milosevic, Serbs and lessons about the World
MILOSEVIC - TEST YOUR MEDIA (this is actually all factually correct, so test your knowledge and confront your biases!)
Hague's Passivity Pardon
Slobodan Milosevic Died
Yes Its True - Yugoslav Leader Slobodan Milosevic Dies in Cell
Milosevic feared he was being poisoned
Slobo (or the Problem with International Tribunals)
The Despot is Dead. Vive le Despot

A loooong time ago on my blog, almost in passing:

Bush is Milosevic
On Clark and Shelton
Saddam trial - a historical parallel
Never Again

Tweety from A to Z

What Dave says...

Edwards on TV

Senator Edwards will appear on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, March 12th. Senator Edwards and former Secretary Jack Kemp will discuss the findings of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S.-Russia Relations that they co-chaired.

Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer airs on CNN from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. EST. Please click here for more information on the show.

I And The Bird - call for submissions

If you are a birder, birdwatcher, ornithologist, biologist studying birds or have, for no special reason, posted a nice picture of a bird recently (but are not a poultry farmer!) send me the permalink of your latest bird-related post for the inclusion in the next I And The Bird carnival.

The deadline is Tuesday, March 14th at midnight EST and the carnival will go live on Thursday, March 16th early in the morning.

Send you entries to: mike AT 10000birds DOT com, or to: Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

Don't forget to send your entries to Billy!

Also, we need hosts....E-mail me if you want to volunteer.

Friday Ark

Friday Ark #77 is up and it is building up fast. Send your animal pictures for inclusion.

Chapel Hill/Carrboro bloggers' meetup

Here are some pictures from last nights' Chapel Hill/Carrboro bloggers' meetup. Nice crowd and great coffee!

Roy Kim, Anton Zuiker and AE:
Brian Russell, Tucker and Sally Greene:
Sally, Congogirl and Michael Berube:
Josh Steiger, Steve Cory, Ken Bavier, Jackson Fox and Roy:
Sally, Congogirl, Michael and me:
Congogirl, Michael and me again:
Also, not pictured are Will Raymond (who took the pictures), Rob Gluck who had to leave early, and Paul Jones who came later, after a long trip.

We were talking about blogging, commenting and trolls, of course, but also about Lyceum (I really have to take a look at it), the Blooker Prize, ice-hockey, getting jobs in academia, finding food in Chapel Hill, children with disabilities, history of (and women's health in) Congo, nursing informatics online, and much, much more.

Has anyone else posted any pictures? Let me know. If I misidentified or mis-linked someone, please let me know so I can fix the errors (of my ways)....

Marbles

Miss Marbles is growing up! You can watch her grow if you compare the pictures from two months ago, one month ago and today:

Science News

Mass extinctions: a threat from outer space or our own planet's detox?

University of Leicester scientists suggest extraterrestrial theories are flawed and that more down to earth factors could have accounted for past mass extinctions. Earth history has been punctuated by several mass extinctions rapidly wiping out nearly all life forms on our planet. What causes these catastrophic events? Are they really due to meteorite impacts? Current research suggests that the cause may come from within our own planet the eruption of vast amounts of lava that brings a cocktail of gases from deep inside the Earth and vents them into the atmosphere.

Worm hormone discovery may aid fight against parasitic disease

New research at UT Southwestern Medical Center shows that on a biochemical level, hormone-like molecules in tiny worms called nematodes work similarly to the way in which certain hormones work in humans: findings that one day may help eradicate worm infections that afflict a third of the world's population. UT Southwestern researchers have discovered a molecule that activates genes involved in the development and reproduction of Caenorhabditis elegans, a common research worm about the size of a pinhead. In a study available online and appearing in the March 24 issue of the journal Cell, UT Southwestern scientists describe how the molecule, called a ligand, acts like a hormone, the first such hormonal ligand identified in C. elegans.

For the first time: Longevity modulated without disrupting life-sustaining function

Within a hormone-triggered cascade of molecular signals that plays a crucial for a wide range of physiological functions, researchers for the very first time have identified a protein that functions specifically to extend lifespan and youthfulness -- without disrupting fertility, immunity or the organism's response to stress.

Invasive exotic plants helped by natural enemies

Although conventional wisdom suggests that invasive exotic plants thrive because they escape the natural enemies that kept them in check in their native ranges, a new study in the journal Science suggests the opposite. Exotic plants that are in the presence of their natural enemies actually do better in their introduced ranges.

'Hands free' isn't mind free: Performing even easy tasks impairs driving

Despite the well-intended laws requiring the use of hands-free devices, a driver's performance is impaired when distracted by even the simplest tasks, whether or not both hands are on the steering wheel. A new research study presents a unique perspective of how the psychological-refractory-period effect pertains to driving, perhaps the most ubiquitous real-world task where non-optimal performance can have serious consequences.

NYU scientists ID key factor in how fruit fly color receptor cells 'decide' their type

Biologists at New York University have identified a key factor that enables photoreceptor cells to decide their color sensitivity. The findings, which were uncovered by researchers in Professor Claude Desplan's laboratory in NYU's Center for Developmental Genetics, were published in the March 9th issue of the journal Nature.

Leave it to salmon to leave no stone unturned

Like an armada of small rototillers, female salmon can industriously churn up entire stream beds from end to end, sometimes more than once, using just their tails. A University of Washington researcher writes in this month's BioScience journal that the silt, minerals and nutrients that are unleashed cause changes in rivers and lakes far from the nest building.

How to build a smart, safe car

Every now and then I see articles about the "future of the car", like this one. I am trying to figure out what is so smart about the mindset of the people who think these things up. Leaving comfort, speed, entertainment, information, fuel efficiency and environmental impact aside and just focusing on safety, what are these "futurists" thinking?

They have two general ways of thinking about this. The first is: make the car bigger, heavier and built of stronger metarials so that it can withstand crashes and keep you alive. The obvious result is an evolutionary arms-race between Hummer, next years "Uber-Hummer", the 2008 "Super-Hummer", 2009 "Ultra-Hummer" and 2010 "Hyper-Hummer". What's next - a Sherman tank? More and more violent vehicles, lulling their owners into a false sense of safety, promoting their beligerent aggression, and killing more and more people unlucky enough to be able to afford (or do not want in principle to own) the latest behemoth.

The second strategy is to employ electronics to replace driving skills. You are reading this, thus you have some experience with computers - do you really want them to be in charge of life-and-death decisions? Is it possible for a computer to be able to correctly respond to every possible situation - out of an infinite number of possibilities - that can arise in traffic? I didn't think so....

When I think of an ideally safe car, I think of driving something embedded inside bubble-wrap packaging, with styrofoam peanuts. In case of a crash I want an air-bag to deploy not in my face, but between the two vehicles (or the car and the tree), amortizing the impact and gently bouncing back.

Imagine a highway on which all the cars have, on the outside, the consistency of marshmallows. The worst thing that can happen if you bump into somebody is that you get a finger raised at you. Doesn't that sound saner?

Spider Photography

Call for entries for Through the spider’s web

National Park Fruska Gora, Serbia and Montenegro is proud to announce that we are, as part of celebration of European Day of Parks on 24/05/2006 in association with Europark Federation organising photography exhibition on the subject of spiders of the world.

The exhibition will tour to all major cities in our country and there will be lectures and seminars, all with an ambition to draw attention to various ecological issues and further popularise protection of these species. We strongly believe that this will have more significance and further reaching effects if we take it to the international level.

This call for entries is open to all amateur and professional photographers and we are welcoming any photographs that feature spiders from all four corners of the world.

The deadline for sending your work is 10/05/2006.

For further information, visit:
http://www.naturefg.com/spiders/spider.htm

Animalcules 1.3

The brand new edition of Animalcules is up on Aetiology. All things microbial, in honor of PZ's birthday.

Happy Birthday, PZ Myers

Now everyone go and say Happy Birthday to Pee Zee!

Carnival of Education

This week's Carnival of Education is excellent and is masterfully hosted by MathAndText.

Blogger MeetUp

For various (mostly scheduling) reasons, I could not make it to the Chapel Hill/Carrboro bloggers Meetup in several months!

But, starting tomorrow, the schedule is different, and I will find myself sipping excellent coffee at 3Cups coffee shop on West Franklin Street tomorrow night at 6pm.

And on top of all that I will get to meet one of the bloggers of renown - one of the "most dangerous professors in America" (as David Horrowitz would say) - Michael Berube - who is here as a visiting scholar for the next month.

I expect to see some regulars there, for instance, Anton Zuiker, AE, Pam (of Pandagon fame), Paul Jones (if he has time - judging all those Blooker Prize finalists!), Sally Green (who, I hear, is a great Berube fan), Brian Russell, Melinama, Kenneth Bavier and many more. I guess that Ruby is out of town. Perhaps in two weeks...

Anyone else planning to go? I'll try to remember to put new batteries in my camera to take some pics to post tomorrow night...

John Edwards on Meet The Press

Unfortunately, life interfered and I missed watching Edwards on Meet The Press last weekend. However, Mary Beth posted the entire transcript, with the best commentary of her own, on Wampum here. You can also watch the clip here.

Holocaust Deniers Strike Again!

The San Antionio warehouse that, among other businesses, also houses The Holocaust History Project (THHP), an organization fighting against Holocaust denial, anti-semitism and neo-fascism, was burned down on Sunday. The police suspects that the THHP was the intended target of arsonists. The investigation continues.

Read the press release by THHT, and more commentary here. To learn more about Holocaust denial, follow the links here and to learn about the resurgence of neo-fascism in the USA, dig through the archives of this blog (some of the most important posts have been assembled as downloadable PDF files on the sidebar).

Here is the full text of the Press Release. Please disseminate further:

Trial By Fire: Holocaust History Project Won't Be Silenced

In the early hours of March 6, 2006, a fire broke out at a warehouse complex near San Antonio International Airport, causing extensive damage to the offices of The Holocaust History Project (THHP), an organization that has been, for the last ten years, in the forefront of confronting Holocaust denial online, in addition to providing educational materials to students throughout the world. Arson investigators now have confirmed that the fire was intentionally set and are continuing their investigation.

It was just the latest in a series of attacks with the apparent intent to silence THHP. For the past 18 months, the THHP website has been under an unprecedented Distributed Denial of Service attack. This cyber attack began on September 11, 2004, and is being carried out by a specially modified version of the MyDoom computer worm, programmed to target the THHP web server. See the THHP statement:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/denial/denial-of-service.shtml

Harry Mazal, the Director of THHP said, "We have been able to defend our work against these cyber attackers. They tried, but couldn't shut us down. We have strong indications that this arson is the next step in a series of attacks against our educational and scholarly work. Although the fire caused significant damage to our offices, there is no way we will be silenced. Our web site has not been affected, and our work will continue."

While an arson attack such as this cannot be specifically anticipated, THHP has long ago taken steps to minimize the impact of any attacks, physical or virtual. Several mirror sites ensure that even as serious an attack as occurred Monday morning will be unsuccessful in forcing THHP to go offline.

Background:

THHP is one of the largest repositories of information relating to the Holocaust on the Web. For the last ten years, an international staff of volunteers has worked tirelessly to make information on the Holocaust, and on those who would deny it, easily accessible to students, scholars, and anyone who has an interest in the truth.

Among the material on the site are essays about various events and people, scientific and legal analyses, original Nazi documents, expert witness testimony, transcripts of many of the Nuremberg trials, and the complete texts of two seminal works, Jean-Claude Pressac's "Auschwitz" and Robert Jay Lifton's "The Nazi Doctors." In addition, THHP volunteers personally answer emails from thousands of students each year who are looking for information to further their studies.

The site has registered more than 50 million hits in a year. "Traffic to our site increases every year," said Mr. Mazal, "we intend to keep adding new content to the site. Right now we are preparing the Belsen trial transcripts, and the transcript of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel."

Media questions should be addressed to:
Sara Salzman, 303-617-9412, media@holocaust-history.org

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Jaye Ramsey Sutter: Controlling: from what we breath to whether we reproduce:

....They did not know that corporations single purpose is to make stockholders rich, not keep the air clean for us.
This is why South Dakota happened. This is why there is going to be no abortion rights. These students are the future and they do not understand that you get what you vote for or don't vote for in America. They do not believe me that "good" is not universal. They do not believe that people will pollute the air because it is cheaper than keeping it clean....

How to think about Wikipedia?

Daniel explains. One of the best articles on this topic I have ever read.

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Cervantes of Stayin' Alive: Democracy's dirty little secret, on something I've been duelling about with "Deep Thoughts" commenter in several recent posts - the irrationality of voters and what they really vote on.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #10 is up on Palm Tree Pundit.

Does a queen have more entropy than rook and bishop?

Alejandro Satz of Reality Conditions blog got a visitor with this bizzare Google search, but then, being nice and fun, provides the correct answer.

Carnival of the Green

Carnival of the Green #17 is up on Enviropundit.

Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds is in ER this week, on Emergiblog. Kim did a great job doing the Rounds this week! Apparently, you can find a Redux version, only slightly different (but with a whole different set of comments and trackbacks) here.

The coolest salamander

Growing up, we all learned about the strangest animal of our country - the cave-dwelling White Olm Proteus anguinus, that we called Man-fish (Covecja ribica). Now, Darren Naish gives us the whole scoop on this fascinating animal (as well as its sibling-species - a surface-dwelling dark Olm).

The Crash Of The Oscars

I did not watch the Oscars last night because I have not seen a single movie nominated for any award (not even the tiniest technical categories).

I heard that a movie I just heard of for the first time - 'Crash" - won the Best movie Award.

Jeff Chang and Sylvia Chan, Scott Foundas and Richard Kim did not like 'Crash'.

I guess I will not be renting it any time soon...

How is this rational?

Avedon Carol has some examples of the anti-choice mindset, specifically anti-choice women who themselves have abortions but think their case is somehow "special": Better than you

Word Munger has two posts on the anti-choice movement: I just read a very depressing book and Trying to think like a pro-lifer

And Amanda on the same topic: Well, if Bill Frist can diagnose Schiavo from a videotape, why can’t a piece of paper determine if you need to abort?

Calls for carnival submissions

Send your submissions for the following carnivals:

Grand Rounds on Emergiblog on March 7th.

Animalcules on Aetiology on March 9th.

Tar Heel Tavern on Billy The Blogging Poet on March 12th.

Carnivalesque on Archaeoastronomy on March 13th.

Tangled Bank on Living The Scientific Life on March 15th.

I And The Bird on Science And Politics on March 16th.

Popular Science Book Reviews

Phillip Manning is a science book reviewer based in Chapel Hill. He writes reviews for Raleigh News and Observer and a column for the Chapel Hill News. In yesterday's N&O he had a nice little review of popular science books in general, titled These books make science popular. Apart from citing that horrendous Kristoff editorial on 'two cultures' that bloggers (from both 'cultures') destroyed when it first came out, it is a nice list of suggestions of readings that can help an educated person catch up with modern science. Phillip writes:

However, Snow was on the right track. Education is the key. A bridge between the two cultures, a gateway to understanding today's front-page science stories is available. For most of us, it lies only a few steps away, in a bookstore or library. The hundreds of popular science books (so-called to distinguish them from academic texts) that have hit the market in the last decade or two make scientific literacy possible for anyone. Entertaining, accurate and amazingly informative, the best of them provide the scientific background -- what exactly is a stem cell? how solid is the evidence for global warming? -- that is rarely spelled out in public discussions. As the science of nutrition, medicine, the environment and myriad other issues affect our everyday lives, it is ever more important that we understand them in order to make informed decisions.

Then he gives short blurbs for the following books: on stem cells: The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine by Ann Parson; on invasive species: Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick; on genetically engineered food: Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Foods by Nina Fedoroff and Nancy Marie Brown; on global warming: The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery and Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert; on evolution: Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom by Sean B. Carroll; on avian flu: Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic by Marc Siegel; on Alzheimer's: The Forgetting: Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic by David Shenk; and on impending world vaccine crisis: The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Paul Offit. Pretty good choices, methinks (I have listed some of mine here). Go read the whole review.

You can check out a lot of other reviews at Scibooks: Science Books Reviews by Phillip Manning, a static website (ah, how last century). I wish he had a blog.

Obligatory Reading of the Day

Chris reprints an article from March, 1871 that is against women's rights and suffrage. Compare and contrast with modern Republican rhetoric in The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same.

George Will is stuck in the 1930s

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 deconstruction. Briefly. No big effort. Will writes:

In a speech shortly after Katrina, he rightly stressed the correlation of family disintegration -- especially out-of-wedlock births -- with many social pathologies associated with poverty. He said, "It is wrong when all Americans see this happening and do nothing to stop it."

Why did Will single out only this point, the very last correlation that Edwards mentions in his speeches? Why not some other, or even all correlations? Why not some of the CAUSES that Edwards mentions? Why indeed? Because Will is a conservative. And although he uses the word "correlation" he implies causation, and the poor doing it to themselves is the only cause a conservaitive believes in. Hierarchy. If you are rich it is because you deserve it, because you are morally above those who are below you on the Dollar Ladder. It is your duty to step on their heads and push them down. Will continues:

Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else, they just lack certain goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.) that government knows how to deliver. Hence he calls for a higher minimum wage and job-creation programs.

George Will is intellectualy incapable of understanding what Edwards is really proposing, so he substitutes in its place the only liberal strawman he is capable of fathoming. Go to OAC and read for yourself the details of what Edwards is really trying to do. It has nothing to do with handouts (this is what Will is implying - he is skilfull with deceptive use of language, if not with actual thinking). It is a program to help poor help themselves, designed specifically because it is obvious that 1930s strategy has failed. It proposes to give the poor: a) education, so they can better understand the way the world works, so they can swim in it better, b) training, so they can develop their talents and interests in ways that they can use and sell on the market, 3) some help in surviving while the training lasts, and 4) a start-up capital so they can go on their own and do the best they can for themselves. It is a fundamentally free-market solution, as opposed to the conservative anti-free-market, top-down control by mega-companies (because they are the richest, thus led by the best and most moral people....er, like Ken Lay...). Will reveals his true colors:

The new paradigm is of behavior-driven poverty that results from individuals' nonmaterial deficits. It results from a scarcity of certain habits and mores -- punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification, etc. -- that are not developed in disorganized homes.

Yup, blame the poor. They must be poor because they are immoral and bad and mostly brown. And George Will is rich because he is smart and honest and a wonderfully moral person - in his own book! Give me a break.

When Democrats wonder what red states Hillary Clinton could turn blue in 2008, the wondering does not help Edwards, whose presence on the 2004 ticket did not sway his own state: In 2000, Bush beat Gore-Lieberman in North Carolina 56-43. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry-Edwards here 56-44. And Democrats know that Gore might now be in his second term if he had carried his home state.

First, that whole "carry his own state" canard is the red herring, a Republican talking point used to push Edwards (and Gore and others ) down. It does not matter at all. Kerry did not let Edwards campaign in the South, not even in North Carolina. Kerry quit campaigning in North Carolina a month before the election in spite of a close race at the time (it ended up not being so close because of his pulling out). Who's to tell what Edwards could have done if he was on top of the ticket and directing his campaign to the South (as he planned to do when he initially ran for President)?

Also, George Will is touting the party line here: Hillary will be the nominee of the Democrats. That is what RNC wants you to believe because they want her to be the Dems nominee because they know how to defeat her. Yeah right. I've been trying for months now to find a single Democrat who is not scared shitless of the very idea of Hillary running and will not do everything and anything to prevent her from getting the nomination.

In 2003/2004 blogs were just beginning to have an effect on the political process. Dean made a killing by being the first one. Edwards and Kerry, though late-comers to the game, used the blogs smarter and ended up on the ticket. Dinosaurs who did not "get it" lost in Iowa and dropped out By New Hampshire.

With the current explosion of blogs, the rising readership of the Liberal blogs, and the increased savvy of the candidates and their campaign managers, the money, power and backroom stabbing by the Clintonistas will not be able to overcome the grassroots activities of the Democrats campaigning against Hillary (and other boring candidates or DINOs like Biden, Lieberman, Bayh, Richardson and Warner).

The bloggers are "influentials" - people who are much better informed then the rest of the population and who, in political chats with their families and friends, supply the information to others, swaying their opinion. If each blogger (and blog-reader) on the Left manages to persuade ten uninformed citizens that Hillary is a potential disaster, Hillary will not win any primaries. It is far from a done deal. The Democratic base prefers Feingold, Obama, Edwards and Gore (if he'll run again), and of those, Edwards did the best job of keeping his online base active on a daily basis, with the continuation of his campaign blog as the One America Blog. He can spring into action within hours! Kerry had his chance - though many like him, most will not trust him to run a viable campaign in 2008. And I guess the war-criminal Wesley Clark will still have some support among the militant wing of the Democratic party.

Finally, Will ends like this:

Edwards says one lesson of 2004 is that presidential elections "are not issue-driven"; rather, they are character-driven and voters see issues as reflections of character. The issues "show people who you are." Perhaps.

But the idea that the candidate's persona is primary and that issues are secondary is a mistake made by some Democrats who yearn for another John Kennedy. He was a talented but quite traditional politician, whom many Democrats wrongly remember as proving that charisma trumps substantive politics. Edwards, who has been called Kennedy-esque, has a stake in that yearning.

What a load of bull! George Will is the most dishonest opinion writer right now - he is even more sneaky than David Brooks! Never EVER trust a Republican to tell you how to run a Democratic campaign! He does not have an interest in helping Democrats, quite contrary... Democrats lost because of their faulty belief that issues matter. All the research shows that issues are the LAST factor in determination of voters' choices - it is the personality and how it is sold.

Update: The Carpetbagger Report, Iddybud, Liberal Walrus, Ezra Klein on Tapped, Donkey Path, Sirotablog, Kevin Drum, Jim Buie, Exit Stage Left and The Third Estate have additional interesting points on this article. Also, I was unclear above when I said that 1930s anti-poverty programs failed - they actually did a lot of good, but did not do the 100%, so new approaches are obviously needed.

Reality check about our insignificance in the context of the Biggest Picture

First go to The Loom and read Carl Zimmer's article about the new phylogenetic tree of all of life, how it was constructed, and what it all means:
Then go over to Radagast and dig through all those links to learn more about all the critters represented in the tree.

Anti-Choice is Anti-All-Choice

The Sideshow, Digby and First Draft recognize that "pro-life" position is not just anti-woman, but also extremely classist (and also racist). Read them to see how.

Update: Amanda and Echidne chime in brilliantly.

Carnival of the Godless

New edition Carnival of the Godless is now up, hastily assembled by Jody Wheeler. It's funny, plus a great colleciton of blog posts!

Tar Heel Tavern

Tar Heel Tavern - the Grace Edition - is up on Gingerivers.

How birds know in which direction to fly?

From The Science Creative Quarterly, a nice brief summary of what is known about the navigational abilities of migrating birds - particularly the ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field: THE COMPASSES OF BIRDS

How to make perfect hard-boiled eggs and how to write a textbook - some similarities

Moebius Stripper has the answer. The eggs are not made by hens, and textbooks are not made by writers.

OK, I'll do it, too...

All the science bloggers are doing it, mostly getting "Serenity" as the answer. As usual, I am different:

You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Moya (Farscape) 88% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 81% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 69% Serenity (Firefly) 63% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 63% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 50% SG-1 (Stargate) 44% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 38% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 19% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

So, what does it all mean - I have never seen a minute of any of these shows?

Edwards on TV

From OAC:

Senator Edwards will appear on Meet the Press on Sunday, March 5th. Senator Edwards and former Secretary Jack Kemp, co-chairs of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S.-Russia Relations, will discuss the findings of their upcoming report. Click here to find your local listings.

Senator Edwards and former Secretary Kemp will present their findings to the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, March 6th at noon and C-SPAN will cover their presentation LIVE.

Then, on Tuesday, March 7th, Senator Edwards and former Secretary Kemp will also appear on the Charlie Rose show. Click here for your local listings.

Looking for Politics on "Science And Politics"?

[Note: moved to top for the readers coming over from Wampum blog - the Koufax nominations]

I have just realized I have not written a substantive political/analytical post in weeks!

People who come here and look down the front page will wonder why they were pointed here in the first place - whoever is recommending this blog as a cool Lefty political blog must be nuts!

And my Categories are at least two (now almost four months out of date) months out of date - automating categories is one function I wish Blogger would implement next!

Well, holidays, real life, laziness...whatever...no excuses!

Anyway, some people come here for the cool links, community building, personal posts, blogging about blogging, science links, blog carnivals, or whatever. But political analysis is what got this blog its first regular readers who told the others who told the others....So, to help the new visitors navigate, here is a sampling of what I think are some of my best political posts:

2004

Moral Politics in the Context of History of Marriage,
Conservative America
Safire's Reptilian Brain
Liberal Moral Core - Rush Limbaugh Version
Moral Order
How To Win Conservatives Over
War Of The Worlds
Political Brain
Nurturant Is Not Coddly
Top Ten Reasons Why I Will Never Be Elected Dogcatcher
Fires And Draughts Are Just God's Ways Of...
Four Horsemen Of Horse Race
God, Genes and Conservatives
Genocentrism Aids Anti-Abortion
How Bush Defeated Himself Tonight
Dred Scott And Other Code Words
Femiphobia
Why Are Postmodernists/Deconstructionists Liberal
Lakoff In Space And Time
Empire, Empiricism, Empowerment
Assault On Higher Education - Lakoffian Analysis
Bush, Frogs, Baboons, Horses
Strict Father Likes Some Of His Children More Than Other
Election Analysis 1: Exit Polls
My Feedback Message To DNC
Election Analysis 2: State Of The Union
Election Analysis 3: Temporal Trends
City/Country - What Is Exurb
Why Is Academia Liberal
Two Americas: Past, Present And Future
One Or Two Americas
Baby Gap
Science, Free Market and Is Lakoff Scientific
Great Men, History, And Science Education
Enslaving Women - Not Just Fundies
Great Men And Science Education, Take Two
I'm Gone Country, Part I
Rent Wars, It's Sex, Stupid
Hypocrisy Or Natural Order Of Things
Conservative Manly Men, What Are They Afraid Of
Conservatives Are Crazy And Dangerous
What About Them Libertahrians

2005

Perils Of Ideological Continua And Coordinate Systems
Why Creationists Need To Be Creationists
Hooked On Hooking Up
Ward Churchill, Who Cares
Femiphobia Again
Apart From Being An Idiot, Horowitz Is Also An Unwiped Anal Orifice With Hemorrhoids
Lakoff, Femiphobia and Writing On/For Blogs
Teen Sex, Hooking Up, Gay Marriage, Femiphobia
Religious Left and the Democratic Party
This is not about academic freedom
Regressives
Comparative Wingnuttery
Still Misunderstanding Lakoff
Reading List - American Politics
How Should We Call Them,
Babes in Politics
Public Park Parable of Political Psychopathology
Femiphobia Is Womb Envy
Femiphobia And Race
Books: The Postman by David Brin - chillingly current
The Good Father
Ann Coulter, Beauty, Beast, Rapunzel, Cinderella Or All Of The Above
Child Abuse, Horse Abuse, Wife Abuse, God Abuse - Conservative Pathology
Creationism Is Just One Symptom Of Conservative Pathology
New PBS Anchors: Louis XVI, Cesare Borghia and Cardinal Savonarola
Who Won WWII
I Want Bigger Government
Some Thoughts On Use Of Animals In Research And Teaching
On Lakoff, Religion and Language: The Rising Tone
Two Perspectives on Women in Star Wars
If only people read the Bible the way they read their contracts
Never Again
On Conservative Psychopathology
Nationalism is not Patriotism
Lefty and Righty excesses of pseudo-science
We The People
Sometimes You Just Don't Know
Warriors
Political Affiliation on Campus
Being Poor All The Way To The Bank
Blogging From The Outside
John Edwards Kind Of Day
Poverty In The Media
A Simple Explanation
Wonks and Cranks

2006

The Two-Party System in the USA
Republicans are corrupt, they lie, and they are crazy
Lefty Blogosphere and the Love/Hate of Hillary
Political Brain No.3
Should Republicans be allowed to have (or adopt) children?
George Will is stuck in the 1930s

There are other good ones, too. but for those, you'll have to dig through the Archives....

Don't forget...

...to eat some game on March 15th.

A 'homeopathic' tyranny

Jonnybutter hits a nerve.

Koufax Update

The last category in the Koufax Awards semi-finals - The Best Blog (non-professional) - has been posted on Wampum. Go check out the nominees and get ready for voting soon.

On the significance of new pre-Katrina tapes

Daniel Conover explains it here and here (scroll down to the bottom half of the post). What was the meaning of "is", I cannot recall?

My Article on LabLit.com

Have you been to LabLit.com yet? It is a really nifty online magazine featuring essays and stories by and about scientists, about life in science and everything related.

I was recently invited to contribute an essay and I midly edited one of my ancient blog posts. You can see my article there now - it was posted earlier today.

The Carnival of Homeschooling: Week 9

New The Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Why Homeschool.

Grandmother hypothesis

Keat's Telescope has an intriguing three-part series of posts on the "grandmother hypothesis" of human evolution:

Part I - Fish Bowl
Part II - Great grandma
Part III - Things fall apart

There is a vague promise of Part IV, some time in the future...

Obligatory Readings of the Day (mostly science news)

On Bird Flu: Insurance companies give poultry farmers the bird
Wherein I disagree with Laurie Garrett

Study reveals mass migration of mormon crickets driven by hunger, fear

Falcon decoys and simulated rifle fire keep birds from oil

A new tree of life allows a closer look at the origin of species

Lance Mannion: Searching for Bobby Fischer at John F. Smith Elementary

Ivory-Bill news: Scientists to seek once presumed-extinct bird

Chimps Cooperate Too
Chimpanzee cooperators

Drum: Universal Healthcare....

Science and Reason: Mirror neurons

The Daily Transcript: The Origin of the Nucleus.

Uncertain Principles: Better Jobs Than Science

DarkSyde interviews Michael Grunwald (author of 'Swamp').

SocraticGadfly on "wrist-walking" people in Tureky: Cultural imperialism rears its ugly head in science

Officials: Bird flu spread to Serbia

Zero Brane: Neural Modeling: Emotions

Obligatory Readings of the Day

Radical Russ: Did someone say "sociopaths"?
Lambert, on essentially same topic - corporations as "persons": Why do the Republicans want to you eat rotten food?
And Lambert again: Why do Republicans hate the poor?

MJS: An ad hoc Armageddonist.

Ed Cone: Ad whominem.

John Wilkins: Rooting the tree - and finding the cenancestor?

This is a political post - read to the end: Autoimmune diseases.

Hugo is battling femiphobia.

Scott Lemieux: Causal Theories So Implausible They Deserve to be Called 'Objectivism' (follow the links within).

Nanobiology Notes: ATP explained

Heather on Demolition Recycling - it's the money, not just altruism.

You've heard about the paper on sex in water-fleas? Now, one of the authors explains what it means.

Paying Down Your Debt Can Raise A Red Flag With The Department Of Homeland Security! No, You Can't Have A Pony!

Amanda: Nice guys and the hipster birthright of the high school nerd

Driftglass: Embracing Your Inner 'Poon Nazi'

Dover in St.Petersburg (Russia)?

Marisa on Lakoff.

Gnosos asked Kent Hovind a question.

Housekeeping and a question about my feed

You can see on the sidebar now two new items: "Best of Science Posts" and "Best of Politics Posts". Keeping up with Categories on Blogger is so hard, this may be a better way to direct the readers to the best this blog has to offer. You can always go by Monthly Archives, if you want a more detailed look, of course.

Second, I don't know if this has to do with Blogger, or atom, or what, but I see that my feed in Bloglines does not show images and does not highlight links. Is there anything I can do about it?

Also, now that I am using Bloglines a lot (I have built a list of about 460 blogs I am tracking!), I noticed that most blogs syndicate complete posts. I had mine truncated because a reader of Circadiana once begged me to do that.

But I notice that I am more likely to read, click-through and comment on posts that are rendered whole. Is that true for everybody? I have switched SciPol feed to Full today, and left Circadiana as truncated. Let me know how you fell about it....

Science News

* Misconduct claim fuels clash of "wrist-walker" researchers:
The already bizarre case of a syndrome whose victims walk on all fours has taken a surprise turn.

* Redrawn 'tree of life' favors hot-origins theory:
A newly detailed map of evolutionary relationships suggests the ancestor of all life forms dwelt somewhere hot, researchers say.

* How mega-vortices form: energy theft, researchers find:
Energetic swirling structures, vortices, often form where fluids flow irregularly or turbulently.

* Molecule blamed for "scar" in brains of the depressed:
Using mice, researchers say they may have found molecules related to a psychological "scar" that haunts depressed people.

* Chimps cooperate strategically, study suggests:
Chimps can assess how and when to work together, researchers say.

* Science in images:
Japanese researchers announced this month they had used lasers to create arrays of dots of light floating in air.

Should Republicans be allowed to have (or adopt) children?

Blogosphere was abuzz earlier this week ( just check the number and variety of responses, e.g., Pam's House Blend, Pandagon, Shakespeare's Sister, Pensito Review, Mustang Bobby, Needlenose, Accidental Blogger, Dogged Blog, Green Knight and many more) with the report that the Ohio state senator Robert Hagan proposed a bill banning Republicans from adopting children, in response to state senator Hood's bill proposing to ban same-sex couples from adopting children:

Plan would bar Ohio adoptions by GOP:

If a Youngstown lawmaker's proposal becomes Ohio law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.

State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to ``introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents.'' The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship.

On Thursday, the Democrat said he had not yet found a co-sponsor.

Hagan said his ``tongue was planted firmly in cheek'' when he drafted the proposed legislation.

However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

``We need to see what we are doing,'' said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill ``homophobic.''

Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that ``credible research'' shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing ``emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.''

However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Just as ``Hood had no scientific evidence'' to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.

``It flies in the face of reason when we need to reform our education system, address health care and environmental issues that we put energy and wasted time (into) legislation (Hood's) like this,'' continued Hagan, who has been in the Ohio Senate nine years. Before the Senate, he served 19 years in the Ohio House.

The only thing that Hagan got wrong is stating that he has no scientific evidence. There is, actually, plenty of evidence that being rasied in a Conservative family messes you up Big Time. Lakoff's Moral Politics has whole chapters on this topic, reviewing several dozen research findings on child-rearing styles and their long-term effects on children.

There is ample research demonstrating that the typically Conservative/Republican strict parenting (and its sub-category - abusive parenting) has detrimental effects on the emotional development of children, as opposed to other child-rearing styles (e.g., permissive, neglectful and nurturant). I wrote a lot of posts on this very topic over the past (almost) two years (most of them collected here), so you can go and look at the details.

If you do not believe me, or Lakoff, delve deep into these two papers (PDFs):Conservatism As Motivated Social Cognition and Conservatism Reply and see for yourself if Hagan's proposed bill really has no basis in scientific research.

Even if it is no particle physics, it still has much more going on for it than the opposing Hood's bill. There, the research consistently shows that there are no ill effects on children for being raised by a same-sex couple. You can see the references for that research all over Alas, A Blog, particularly in these two old posts - What social science says about gay parents and Same-Sex Marriage is needed to protect children - and this brand-new post: Critique of “No Basis” Part One: Their Appalling Double-Standards.

Update: Materials linked from a blog post are constuitive elements of that post. You cannot comment on the post without reading the linked stuff.

I have been writing about this for a long time. I cannot waste everyone's time by including three paragraphs of caveats in each post. Follow the links to older posts in which I did that.

The point of this post is that Hood's bill is nonsense. Hagan's bill is a fun parody that highlights how much Hood's bill is nonsense.

Another point of this post is that scientific research has been done to test both the Hood's notion (being raised by a same-sex couple is bad) and Hagan's notion (being raised by a Republican couple is bad). Science completely demolishes Hood's notion. In contrast, Hagan's notion has a lot of support. It may be contentious research and, as I stated above, not particle physics, but there is certainly MORE to it than to the Hood's notion.

Finally, nit-picking about the definition of "is", or in this case, the definiton of Conservative, is a distraction from the point of this post. Yes, I know, there are conservatives and there are conservatives. Those who have read the whole series of my posts on this know how much I have wrestled in the past with the issue of terminology. I use the term "Conservative" in Lakoff's sense, that is, in the psychological sense and not in a historical and parochial sense. It is irrelevant to my argument what planks of the platform American GOP had in 1880s, 1920s, 1960s or today. This transcends centuries and continents.

Koufax Update

The penultimate category for the Koufax Awards - the Best Series, is up on Wampum. That may be the only place where I may have a chance to move on to the finals, but for that to happen, once the voting starts, you need to help it happen. Just check the 2005 section of this post....

The Daily Transcript has a new home

The Daily Transcript has joined the Seed Scienceblogs. Adjust your blogroll and newsfeeds.

I And The Bird

I and the Bird #18 is up on The Birdchaser. It is Big and Beautiful!

Next time, I And The Bird will appear right here on Science And Politics. Send your entries by March 14th 2006 at midnight EST and I will post the carnival on 3/16/06 in the morning. You can e-mail your entries to Mike at: mike AT 10000birds DOT com, or to me at: Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com.

Obligatory Readings of the Day

Apophenia: the value of high school.

Dean Dad: Why is it taboo to talk openly about salaries?

The Countess: The Biology Of Love.

Eszter on Crooked Timber is collecting gender signs, as in pictures on doors of toilets that differentitate between men and women in a symbolic and stylized way. Watch her growing collection of images here.

Echidne On Choice, Abortion and Multiculturalism.

The South Dakota bill also ban contraception, acutane and warfarin.

On Bush and Katrina:
Firedoglake: It's All About The Lying
Mahablog: La La La La La
Jessica Wilson: Texas chainsaw massacre.
Pam checks the Freeperland.

The official pro-war position:
* there is no civil war in Iraq
* there will be no civil war in Iraq
* if civil war comes, it won’t be our fault
* when civil war comes, it will be a good thing

Niches: The Enormous Egg.

The Best Blogging Newspapers in the U.S.

Mardi Gras on My Mind.

Scarlett Johanssens of the future are safe: Blonde Equilibrium

Orac collects responses to the newest autism BS by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Science Creative Quarterly: THE CONTROVERSY OF GROUP SELECTION THEORY

Dr. Free-Ride: OK, let's get rid of basic research

Word Munger: 'pro-life' movement is really an anti-sex movement

Skeptic's Circle

29th meeting of the Skeptic's Circle is up on The Huge Entity. And it is Huge!!!

Reload again and again for hours of fun!

THE AUTOMATIC GEORGE W. BUSH SPEECH GENERATOR ~ NOW INCLUDES GRAMMATICAL ERRORS
(Hat-tip: Anonymoses)

Happy Birthday, Dr.Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born at Springfield, Massachusetts on this day in 1904.

Indian Science Blogging

It appears that Scian Melt is running again. Issue #14 is up on Topix of general interest.

History Carnival

History Carnival #26 is up on World History Blog.

New Carnival!

The inaugural Carnival of Biotechnology is up on Biotech Blog.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

GingerRivers will be hosting the Tar Heel Tavern # 54.

The theme is grace. How do you define grace? Where do you find it? What, or whom have you seen it in? This tavern will focus on grace, on these questions. Write a poem, a short essay, send in a photograph with a caption ~ whatever you choose. Post your entry on your blog. Submit it to Tar Heel Tavern by sending an email with "Tar Heel Tavern" in the subject field of your e-mail to: gingerivers AT yahoo DOT com

Send: The name of your blog; The title of the post; The URL of your post. Additional blurb about it is also a nice touch and may be used to introduce your entry. Send the entries by Saturday 2/25 at 9PM and the Tavern will be up on Sunday morning.

Looking for Science on "Science And Politics"?

With so many miscellaneous posts here, sometimes I get asked where is science on this blog and where is politics on this blog. Nobody digs through the Archives of course, and with 1414 posts here, it is hard to sift through all the carnivals, memes, quizzes, cartoons, linkfests, blog-friend shout-outs, navel-gazing, meta-blogging etc. Not to mention that Blogger does not automate categories, so I am always 3-4 months behind in doing it manually.

The blogging gurus suggest that one should often link back to old posts. I do that, actually, quite often, mostly in posts about politics. I noticed that, when they moved to their new digs at SEED, several science bloggers posted their lists of "best of" posts. I found those lists very useful. I never dug through their archives so this was an easy and quick way to get to know their older stuff.

I have recently compiled a list of "best of" political posts here, so now I should do the same for science. This is an attempt at such a "best of " list, putting together the best of science blogging both from "Science And Politics" and from "Circadiana". I hope you find it useful.

I often just report on new cool research with no commentary. Sometimes I add a brief comment of my own:
Do We Also Taste Just Like Chicken?
Bipolar Disorders
Zebrafish Research at BU
Circadian Rhythm in Visual Sensitivity
Melanopsin
I Am Seeing Red
Beached Whale Recycling
Now this is some cool science!
How Period and Timeless Interact in Fruitflies
Circadian Rhythms, or Not, in Arctic Reindeer
Persistence In Perfusion
Ah, Zugunruhe!
Ants are amazing!

More often, I use the reports on new research to make connections to the Big Picture, or to other areas of science or beyond:
Malaria and Melatonin: Co-evolution Around The Circadian Clock
Diversity of insect circadian clocks - the story of the Monarch butterfly
Serotonin, Melatonin, Immunity and Cancer
Revenge of the Zombifying Wasp
Lithium, Circadian Clocks and Bipolar Disorder
Some hypotheses about a possible connection between malaria and jet-lag
Penguins have to rush sex - 'quicky' is the new norm

Sometimes it is not new research, but blog posts, books, articles, or some old historical stuff that prompts me to write a long post:
What Are Gonads For (Among Else)?
Evolution Project And A Truly Fair And Balanced Fox
Lysenko Gets A D-Minus On My Genetics Test
The Mighty Ant-Lion
Did A Virus Make You Smart?
Development of the human sleep patterns
Science of Fiction, or, why we still read Sherlock Holmes
Diurnal rhythm of alcohol metabolism
Circadian Clocks in Microorganisms
Lunar Rhythms in the Antlion
Circadian Rhythms in Human Mating
What is a 'natural' sleep pattern?
Clocks in Bacteria I: Synechococcus elongatus
Do sponges have circadian clocks?
Clocks in Bacteria II: Adaptive Function of Clocks in Cyanobacteria

Sometimes I even post my own hypotheses or even my own unpublished data:
Does circadian clock regulate clutch-size in birds? A question of appropriatness of the model animal.
Influence of Light Cycle on Dominance Status and Aggression in Crayfish
Chossat's Effect in humans and other animals

I have no qualms about putting in my two cents in controversial areas of science:
More On Female Orgasm
Does Tryptophan from turkey meat make you sleepy?
Sleep Schedules in Adolescents
More on Adolescent Sleep

Of course, science reporting in the media drives me crazy, sometimes strongly enough to write about it:
Sixth Sense? Give Me A Break!
Sex On The Brain of the science reporters

I like to review whole lines of research in plain English:
(Non) Adaptive Function of Sleep
Bipolar? Avoid night shift
Clocks, Migration and the Effects of Global Warming
Seasonal Affective Disorder - The Basics

My most popular post ever, on all of my blogs, is this one, combining the recent research, review of whole lines of research over the decades, and social and personal relevance of such research:
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep

I have written several times on topics related to science education:
Teaching Scientific Method
Some Thoughts On Use Of Animals In Research And Teaching
Dr.Love-of-Strange, or How I Learned To Love The Malaria...
My first high-school teaching experience
Great Men, History of Science
Great Men, History Of Science, Take Two
Teaching Evolution Successfully
Teaching Biology To Adults
An attempt at communicating science to lay audience on a blog
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 1
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 2
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 3
When Should Schools Start in the morning?
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 4

I have reviewed some books:
Books: Collapse by Jared Diamond
Books: Biased Embryos and Evolution by Wallace Arthur
Tomasello - Part I
Tomasello - Part II
Books: Evolution's Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden

I have listed science-related books on occasion:
Holiday Reading: Science Books
Reading Recommendations: Books about Clocks and Sleep
Essential Science Fiction
What Is Lab Lit?

I have mused about the way science and Internet are connected:
Blogs and the Future of Science
Quorum Sensing and the Blogosphere as a Superorganism
Science BloggerCon?

Some bloggers bash Creationists every day. It's not my style, but I could not resist taking a stab at it myself a few times:
Definition Of Theory As In Theory Of Evolution
Evolution/Creation Discussions on DailyKos
Why Creationists Need To Be Creationists
Do We Need An Anti-Creationist Think-Tank?
Creationism Is Just One Symptom Of Conservative Pathology
Reverend William Paley's Circadian Clock
On Bush' Endorsement of Intelligent Design Creationism

And Creationism is not the only pseudoscience I paid attention to:
What This Blog is NOT About: Biorhythms

I came here from Yugoslavia 15 years ago, but I still have one ear out to the news from over there. Sometimes, they make news in science...or pseudoscience, that warrant blogging about:
I Take This Personally
Saga Continues
Serbs Like Darwin After All
Darwin In Serbia, He Said, She Said
More On Darwin In Serbia
Astrology Academy in Serbia
A new meaning of 'having a buzz'
Anti-Darwinian Lunacy in America: View from Serbia
A Pyramid in Bosnia?
Update on the Pyramid in Bosnia

This was so long, I had to split it into four parts. I wrote it in 1999 so it is six years out of date and both science and the philosophy of science have moved on since then, but it is well referenced and it is an interesting snapshot of the Zeitgeist, as well as the only time anyone put together heavy-duty history of science, philosophy of science, evolutionary biology and chronobiology all in one place:
What Would Darwin Do (WWDD)
WWDD1: Darwinian Method
WWDD2: Darwin On Time
WWDD3: Whence Clocks
WWDD4: Power of Darwinian Method

Circadiana is a science-teaching blog-to-be, so you can learn the basics of chronobiology there:
What Is Chronobiology
Basic Concepts and Terms
Clock Evolution
On Methodology
Forty Five Years of Pittendrigh's Empirical Generalizations
Circadian Organization
To Entrain Or Not To Entrain, That Is The Question
Circadian Organization In Mammals
Circadian Organization in Non-Mammalian Vertebrates: Birds
Circadian Organization in Japanese Quail
Entrainment
Phase-Shifting Effects of Light
Constructing a Phase-Response Curve
Using The Phase Response Curve
Interpreting The Phase Response Curve
PRC Atlas
Short History of Clock Genetics
Seasonality
Photoperiodism - Models and Experimental Approaches

One of those posts, a simple, educational post with not great axe to grind may actually be the most valuable one after all. Why? Because it is a reference in a scientific paper! Do you know of any other blog posts that have been cited in scientific literature?
Blog-post as a scientific reference

And of course, this blog being titled "Science And Politics", sometimes I try to connect science and politics in various ways:
Political Brain
Political Brain No.2
Political Brain No.3
Candidates' Circadian Profiles
Early To Rise Early To Bed...
God, Genes and Conservatives
Genocentrism Aids Anti-Abortion
Lefty and Righty excesses of pseudo-science
Political Affiliation on Campus
Fear = Bad; Anger = Good
Should Republicans be allowed to have (or adopt) children?

I have collected links when more-or-less important events happened:
Size Does Matter, or Does It?
Penis Blogging Week Continued
One-stop shopping for blog responses to the NYT series on Intelligent Design Creationism
It's Over in Dover
Darwin Day Blog Celebrations
I tried to teach Bart Simpson algebra seven years in a row...

I like giving shout-outs to my blog-friends, including science bloggers, so here are a few link-fests:
Evolution/Creation Debate
Evolution of the Intelligent Blog Design
IDC Blog Craze
Evolution Today
Link-Love: Weekend Science Blogging
Link-Love: A little bit of science blogging
Link-Love: some more science blogging
Link-Love: science-blogs down the alphabet, Part III
Link-love: more Alphabet Soup of science blogs
Link-Love: science-blogs down the alphabet, Part V
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs - Part VII
Link-Love: Science Blogs Qs and Rs
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs - Part IX
Link-love: Catching up with the shifty alphabet of science blogs

Or do you just want to look at pretty pictures of strange critters?
Monday Cool Insectivore Blogging
Coturnix- Japanese Quail
Cockroaches
Quail

I have hosted a number of science-related carnivals:
Tangled Bank #19
Tangled Bank #51
Circus of the Spineless #6
I And The Bird #19
Animalcules, Volume 1, Issue 4
Grand Rounds #47
Grand Rounds v.2 n.20
Skeptic's Circle #5
Skeptic's Circle #23
...and many more...

Finally, I have written personal posts that are science-related and this one is my all-time favourite:
How To Become A Biologist
which also got published on LabLit.com as
How to become a biologist

See also some others:
I, Coturnix
Where Did My Son Get His Smarts?
From The Mouths Of Babes...
At The Science Fair
My Equestrian Past
39

Tangled Bank

Oldies music edition of the Tangled Bank is up on Aetiology!

How to frame the anti-choice movement

MJS on Corrente Wire has a great post, called Democratic Talking Point Oracle Appears as Vaginal Schematic, that makes an interesting suggestion - make the anti-women crowd squirm by talking bluntly about vaginas, penises and other organs they rather not know exist.

Obligatory Readings of the Day

Lots of them today:

A Change In The Wind: Largest Insect Epidemic in North American History:

That's according to the Canadian Forest Service. Hat tip to the Washington Post, for an excellent story about the spread of the Mountain Pine Beetle, a tiny little critter that for eons has been controlled by cold winters...but no longer.

"It's pretty gut-wrenching," said Allan Carroll, a research scientist at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle. "People say climate change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."

Dr.Biobrain: God's Big Kick and Faith After Death.

Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk: A Qualified Defense of Standardized Testing in Higher Education.

Archy: Beware of frozen mammoths - part 2: The admiral and the mammoth.

Sean explains the way a computer solved a problem without running it at all in: Quantum interrogation

Echidne and Amanda rip into John Tierney and he gets what he deserves.

Environmental Action Blog: Americans Will Support Gas Tax Increase If...

I applaud every excuse to post a picture of Scarlett Johanssen, as in Anatomically modern gentlemen prefer blondes on Archaeoblog. Update: Here is another blonde cave-woman.

Global Warming, the only issue that is REALLY serious, as it is global and long-term and irreversible, ranks dead last in a recent survey of what the government should focus on: Matt Nisbett reports.

Everything made its way into science fiction. Even my old oft-repeated harping that conservatives are hierarchical and liberals individualistic. See Musical Perceptions: The evils of hierarchy. I'll have to get some Octavia Butler stuff to read soon.

Mahablog has been on the roll lately. See Obliviousness on healthcare, Rights, Facts, Comments and Kibble on abortion, and The Bush Policy Flow Chart on Rovian politicking, among else.

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #56 is up on The Education Wonks.

2006 BlogAds blog survey

After the great success of the Blogads blogosphere surveys of 2004 and 2005, Henry Copeland of BlogAds is launching the new, 2006 survey. Go here and answer some questions. (For Question #23 put "Science And Politics" if you want)

Quotes on Counting

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
- Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.
- Dr. Robert H. Schuller

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
- Eric Hoffer, 1902 - 1983

It's not the quantity, but the quality of friendships that counts. That's the difference between 'counting off' and 'counting on.'
- Jimmy Tom

People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
- Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.
- Jean Paul Getty, 1892 - 1976

From Quotes of the Day

Carnival of the Liberals

Carnival of the Liberals #7 has been posted at Throw Away Your TV.

Jeff has done an outstanding job with the usual eclectic, informative and witty selection of quality liberal blogging but has added his own special twist. Throw Away Your TV is a video blog and as such Jeff has gone out of his way to choose a video quickclip to highlight every post in this edition. The video clips are often times funny, sometimes educational, and ocasionally the video clips just underscore the anger and frustration we all feel at the sheer madness that is the far right wing. So go and spread some liberal cheer Jeff’s way while catching up on some of the best writing in left blogistan.