Squid Read

This is short notice, but hey, it's not like the residents of North Dakota could have anything else planned*: August Berkshire, that other atheist in Minnesota, will be speaking in Fargo on Tuesday evening. Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 7:00 pm - August Berkshire, past vice president of Atheist Alliance International, will do his one-hour presentation "Exploring Atheism" for a meeting hosted by Atheists, Agnostics & Secular Humanists (AASH) in the Rose Room of Memorial Union, North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, ND. Free and open to the public. *After that opening potshot, the North Dakotans will be snarling at me…it's OK, of the two noisy atheists in Minnesota, August is the nice one. Go see him and find out. Read the comments on this post...

This is police dash cam video of a cougar just across the Mississippi from my place, in the town of Champlin. The Cougar was spotted heading towards the river. Strangely, a few hours after this cat was spotted by Champlin cops, there was a report of another cougar a few miles east on the other side of the river. This is either a very active cat or a publicity seeking copy cat (or confused person). We are expecting snow tomorrow. Cougar tracking season begins!!!! Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

So, it snowed here (in Louisiana). Sure, it wasn't a lot, but it was still a big deal. The following day, there was still some snow on the house roofs. I took some pictures. Here is a shot looking at the North side of a house. And here is a view of the South side of the same roof. What is so cool about that? All the houses were the same way. North side of roof = snow. South side = no snow. At first, I was going to use these pictures to talk about flux. Basically, since the Sun is lower in the South sky the southern side of the roof gets more solar energy flux. Then I realized my error. Not only does the southern side have a greater flux, it is also exposed to the Sun for a longer time (the northern side is in the shade from the south part of the roof for part of the time). What else depends on time and flux? The seasons. This roof is like a mini-Earth. The South side of the roof gets more energy because it has sunlight for longer and a greater flux. First, let me show the longer time....

Jeremiah Wobbe, of Saint Paul, chucked tomatoes at Sarah Palin ... at the mall of America ... Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Meet the Evolution Institute, the world's first evolutionary think tank. The mission of the EI is to connect the world of evolutionary science to the world of public policy formulation. Only three years old, we have already made progress on childhood education, risky adolescent behavior, and the mother of all policy issues--the regulation of human social interactions. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Well, well, well, well. What is this I found forwarded to me in my in box? It's from the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue, and it is most interesting: Generation Rescue is in the final stages of receiving grant funding for a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. recommended schedule. The last thing we need are declarations of support from our community who purchased Airborne Health. Did you purchase Airborne during May 1, 2001 - November 29, 2007? Do you support a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. schedule? Do you support a study on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children? If you answer yes to all three of these questions, then you are a supporter and can help Generation Rescue provide ground breaking research. The first 40 respondents will receive a free bag of revitaPOPS for completing a declaration of support. Please email Candace McDonald to receive your declaration form! Hurry supplies will go fast. Thank you to our...

The Globe and Mail has an article by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Andrew Weaver on "responding to the sceptics" that can be read here. It is rather shorter than How to talk to a climate sceptic, having only 4 points. This is the overview of their Q&A: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

The journal Medical Hypotheses is a weird creature: it has no peer review and publishes, to put it generously, 'speculative' papers. At least it's entertaining in an "OMG they say what?" sort of way. A fun blog called NCBI ROFL, which highlights some of the weirdness that pops up in scientific abstracts, has made this Bruce G Charlton week — Charlton is not only the editor of Medical Hypotheses, he's a frequent contributor (which makes one wonder…since the journal has no peer review, and the only gatekeeper is the editor, Bruce G Charlton, has Dr Charlton ever received a rejection from the journal?). They have tapped into a rich vein of weirdness. The Monday entry is this recent paper. Genospirituality: genetic engineering for spiritual and religious enhancement The most frequently discussed role for genetic engineering is in relation to medicine, and a second area which provokes discussion is the use of genetic engineering as an enhancement technology. But one neglected area is the...

Well, well, well, well. What is this I found forwarded to me in my in box? It's from the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue, and it is most interesting: Generation Rescue is in the final stages of receiving grant funding for a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. recommended schedule. The last thing we need are declarations of support from our community who purchased Airborne Health. Did you purchase Airborne during May 1, 2001 - November 29, 2007? Do you support a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. schedule? Do you support a study on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children? If you answer yes to all three of these questions, then you are a supporter and can help Generation Rescue provide ground breaking research. The first 40 respondents will receive a free bag of revitaPOPS for completing a declaration of support. Please email Candace McDonald to receive your declaration form! Hurry supplies will go fast. Thank you to our...

The airline industry's safety record has never been better, but when Air France flight 447 vanished without a trace, it spurred new efforts to prevent tragedies before they happen. Here's how plane crash forensics can lead to safer aviation.

Go say Hello to Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book (see her old blog here) Read the comments on this post...

Meet the Evolution Institute, the world's first evolutionary think tank. The mission of the EI is to connect the world of evolutionary science to the world of public policy formulation. Only three years old, we have already made progress on childhood education, risky adolescent behavior, and the mother of all policy issues--the regulation of human social interactions. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

So, it snowed here (in Louisiana). Sure, it wasn't a lot, but it was still a big deal. The following day, there was still some snow on the house roofs. I took some pictures. Here is a shot looking at the North side of a house. And here is a view of the South side of the same roof. What is so cool about that? All the houses were the same way. North side of roof = snow. South side = no snow. At first, I was going to use these pictures to talk about flux. Basically, since the Sun is lower in the South sky the southern side of the roof gets more solar energy flux. Then I realized my error. Not only does the southern side have a greater flux, it is also exposed to the Sun for a longer time (the northern side is in the shade from the south part of the roof for part of the time). What else depends on time and flux? The seasons. This roof is like a mini-Earth. The South side of the roof gets more energy because it has sunlight for longer and a greater flux. First, let me show the longer time....

Jeremiah Wobbe, of Saint Paul, chucked tomatoes at Sarah Palin ... at the mall of America ... Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

This is a high-resolution photo of Pearl Harbor (click to enlarge). When I saw that it had been posted to the NASA Earth Observatory, I wondered -- momentarily -- why they would post a photo of Pearl Harbor. Then I remembered: December 7th. My father was 14 on 7 December 1941. He studied in high school, got good grades, and enlisted when he turned 18. Didn't think about it. There was nothing to think.  Every able-bodied young man did it, unless there was a compelling reason to do otherwise. He was good at math, so they send him to study Engineering. He also had good language skills. So after studying Engineering for a while, they offered him a spot in the Japanese Language Program. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

I was having a virus discussion with a surgeon recently: Me-- People think to do HIV-1 research you have to gown up in those crazy suits and do all this insane safety stuff, really, the only thing I do 'really' different is I wear *two* pairs of gloves, lol! Her-- I always double glove too, but its not the HIV-1 Im most worried about. Its Hepatitis C.HIV-1 researchers, surgeons, people at high risk of accidental exposure to HIV-1-- we always have antiretrovirals within 5 feet of us, just in case. Get stuck with a needle, take the pills NOW, and you can stop the infection from getting a foothold. Worst comes to worst, there are lots of antiretrovial options available in the US now. Hepatitis C is a different story. Theres not a whole hell of a lot physicians can do for you. *Maybe* you will get better. Or maybe you will be one of the millions of people who get liver cancer/cirrhosis and get put on the liver transplant list... which still wont 'cure' you. 10-20K people die from HCV...

(PhysOrg.com) -- While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

vivienne_strauss posted a photo:

Feel like you are missing something in your life? It's probably because you don't have your own batsignal. Fortunately, thanks to Philipp Tiefenbacher, you can build your own with these plans to make a batlamp. Designed around a high brightness RGB LED and an Arduino, it's actually a general purpose projector that you can use to program your own lightshow. Now, where did I put that laser cutter? [via hackerspaces soup] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Furniture | Digg this!

A woman in her 40s has been shot dead outside a high-rise apartment building on Weston Rd.

In October and November of 2009 Danny DeVito sent out over 50 pictures of his "troll feet" traveling the world on Twitter. Can you identify all the locations?

Ok, seriously, what sick, twisted, sadistic fuck came up with the MeSH term? There is no rhyme or reason to this shit! I'm supposed to go through and pick out these terms that describe my research which is 1) a pain and 2) completely random. The most common thing people would Google me for isn't even listed. Not even close to listed!! And it's not a rare thing!!! I mean, seriously, these things are a joke right? How the hell did I just search for my area of study and get "Transurethral Ultrasound-Guided Laser-Induced Prostatectomy?" That's not even the right hemisphere of the body. So, now I've got to either perform search after useless search or continue using this hot mess of a tree? Figure 1: The MeSh tree, as seen from Dr. Isis's current position. You want to create something useful? Let me upload a file to some database that will then identify MeSH terms in my document, rather than making me hunt and peck around like some kind of drunk chicken. Video 1: Dr. Isis searching for...

(PhysOrg.com) -- While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

Josh Nelson has set up Swifthack.com as a clearing house to correct disinformation about those emails stolen from CRU. Peter Sinclair's Climate Denial Crock of the Week is on the stolen emails. It certainly seems true that the quote miners almost always misrepresent what "hide the decline" refers to be explicitly or implicitly saying that it refers to temperature. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

(PhysOrg.com) -- While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

Go say Hello to Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book (see her old blog here) Read the comments on this post...

Josh Nelson has set up Swifthack.com as a clearing house to correct disinformation about those emails stolen from CRU. Peter Sinclair's Climate Denial Crock of the Week is on the stolen emails. It certainly seems true that the quote miners almost always misrepresent what "hide the decline" refers to be explicitly or implicitly saying that it refers to temperature. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

I was having a virus discussion with a surgeon recently: Me-- People think to do HIV-1 research you have to gown up in those crazy suits and do all this insane safety stuff, really, the only thing I do 'really' different is I wear *two* pairs of gloves, lol! Her-- I always double glove too, but its not the HIV-1 Im most worried about. Its Hepatitis C.HIV-1 researchers, surgeons, people at high risk of accidental exposure to HIV-1-- we always have antiretrovirals within 5 feet of us, just in case. Get stuck with a needle, take the pills NOW, and you can stop the infection from getting a foothold. Worst comes to worst, there are lots of antiretrovial options available in the US now. Hepatitis C is a different story. Theres not a whole hell of a lot physicians can do for you. *Maybe* you will get better. Or maybe you will be one of the millions of people who get liver cancer/cirrhosis and get put on the liver transplant list... which still wont 'cure' you. 10-20K people die from HCV...