Greg Laden is a biological anthropologist and science communicator. His research has covered North American prehistoric and historic archaeology and African archaeology and human ecology. He is an OpenSource and OpenAccess advocate. Greg's wife, Amanda, is a High School biology teacher, his daughter Julia is a world traveler and his son Huxley is 2.
Why is America the Greatest Country in the World?
Diversity and opportunity. And freedom. Lots of freedom, freedom is great. I can tell you, I know freedom and I know we have lots of it, more than any other country. And diversity, we've almost got that under control too.
But seriously ...
If you…
Not really. But it is World Suicide Prevention Day. And, one way YOU can help prevent suicides is by keeping your gun locked up, separate from the ammo, and keeping the ammo locked up as well.
Why?
Here’s why:
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among teens and young adults and the 10th…
The history of what we call "OpenOffice" is complex and confusing. It started as a project of Sun corporation, to develop an office suit that was not Microsoft Office, to use internally. Later, a version became more generally available known as Star Office, but also, a version called "OpenOffice…
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited is a subscription service that covers children. I normally avoid subscription services of any kind. But, I have a six year old, and suddenly it made sense.
Huxley is very tech savvy for a newly minted first grader. Last night I was reviewing a new tablet that had multiple…
You may have heard the name, you may have an idea of who she was. This recent item on the Rachel Maddow show (long, but worth every second) puts her in context. Watch it:
Schlafly was one of the key architects of the modern right wing movement. She is one of the worst people in the world, at…
Laborers generally do their jobs, because if they don't they get fired. But there are entire professions where people are not doing their jobs and the rest of us suffer.
Jacob Wetterling was abducted and murdered two and a half decades ago. The guy who did it was known to the cops then, and he had…
What I mean by that is that the real guts of the defunct TV show Mythbusters, Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara, are all over this new thing they are doing for Netflix!
Apparently this is a thing: Network TV shows almost all die a certain kind of death. They get more and more expensive to…
The simplest project in the new book Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity! by Øyvind Nydal Dahl is the one where you lean a small light bulb against the two terminals of a nine volt battery in order to make the light bulb turn on.
The first several…
Not many of them, but so far at least 35. Here's what it looks like after the fact:
As you may know, I'm not a big fan of Samsung smart phones. The version of the operating system they put on your phone takes a HUGE AMOUNT of your storage space, so you are left with almost nothing. There is no…
Hurricanes are well defined systems with characteristics that quite literally set them apart from other storms. Large storms such as Nor'Easters are sometimes less well defined and interact more with major troughs, the jet streams, etc. We have come to understand Hurricanes as the worst case…
Update (Sunday PM):
Hermine is still a big storm and will affect eastern regions to some degree, but the storm never reformed as a hurricane, and is not not expected to do so. Also, the storm has jinked out to the east more than expected and will likely move farther east. So, there will be some…
I remember watching, decades ago, a short film with Picasso. There was a glass wall that you could not see, and Picasso was standing behind it, dressed like a French Artist and holding painting equipment. He then proceeded to draw lines on the glass. Each line had a particular orientation and…
I was half expecting Trump to soften on immigration. The logic of that? His main supporters, who hate all immigrants and are a bunch of racist slobs will vote for Trump no matter what he says because the are morons. But, the fence sitters, the amoral "Good Republicans" who would vote for him…
But I'm sure you already knew that.
The Wall Street Journal is so far behind the curve when it comes to the science of climate change, and so deep in the pockets of the oil industry, that the following is now true: If you are in business or industry, and want to keep track of important news about…
For the latest post on Hermine GO HERE.
Update Thursday PM
Hermine has grown in strength, and may even make landfall as a Category 2 storm. At least a strong Category 1.
The right front quadrant of the storm is where the main "punch" (of winds) is located. If the storm winds come into an…
Update (Noonish Friday):
Lester is going to skim along to the north of the Hawaiian Islands. This is an estimate of the probability of the distribution of 50mph winds:
Surf's up, it will be stormy, but the significant threat is moderate.
Update (Noonish Thursday):
Madeline sort of hit Hawaii,…
Our latest Ikonokast Podcast is up; an interview with agriculture and ecology expert Emily Cassidy!
Organic vs. industrial, GMO vs GnMO, Food vs. Fuel, how to regulate (or not) farming. All of it.
The Podcast is HERE.
Sometimes I think there are not abundant intelligent life forms wafting about the universe. We would see things in our careful, highly accurate, detailed looking at a sampling of the universe. But, I suppose we've only been scanning with super amazing instruments for a few years, and only scanning…
The latest in GMO technology: Photosynthesizing Human Beans!
This is silly, but makes some good points. May be good for teachers in your biology class:
Original Post:
The Atlantic storms are getting interesting.
Two different systems are poised to become named storms, but it is not clear which one will be awarded the name Hermine, and which one Ian. If the storm recently near Cuba develops as expected, it could become a weak hurricane before…
A lot of higher education institutions are old, and back in the day, things were different. Not only were most schools simultaneously on top of and on the bottom of great snow covered hills, but they were often surrounded by nearly medieval settlement, or at least, pre-industrial ones, that lacked…
Women and Physics by Laura McCulloch is a concise addition to the IOP Science Concise Physics series.
McCullough is an award winning Professor of Physics at UW Stout, and served for several years as the chair of that university’s Chemistry and Physics Department. Her research focuses on physics…
By one accounting, 90 companies. Richard Heede ...
...(pronounced "Heedie") has compiled a massive database quantifying who has been responsible for taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the atmosphere. Working alone, with uncertain funding, he spent years piecing together the annual…
How do you judge a field guide?
Phillipps' Field Guide to the Mammals of Borneo and Their Ecology: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and KalimantanSome field guides you leave on the shelf and rarely look at. Others you may put in the living room to spice up the coffee table, because they make great eye…
Wildlife of Southeast Asia by Susan Myers, is a new pocket identification guide covering "wildlife" in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, West Malaysia, and Singapore.
It covers birds, mammals, reptiles, frogs, and invertebrates. Considering that there must be tens of millions of inverts in…
Using executive power, Governor Mark Dayton, recognized as one of the best governors in the US, has laid out protections for pollinators in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is ordered to implement recently developed recommendations related to neonicotinoid pesticides. Potential…
Treecology: 30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Trees and Forests is an excellent new nature activity book for kids of a fairly wide range of ages.
Like a tree, the pattern of the book is pretty straightforward but fractal like; you start off simple but end up pretty much…
A disproportionate percentage of Islamist radical actors, including suicide bombers, come from an engineering background. Why?
Right wing and Islamist extremism seem to share this and other traits, while left wing extremism is more commonly associated with individuals from the humanities and…
