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.
I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday, even though it happened years ago, even before you were born. I screamed silently, pinned on my back by the massive weight of a cotton blanket, legs frozen, the dark lights flickering as the human-like form approached, its arms raised in front like…
The just uploaded podcast of Skeptically Speaking is a must-hear:
Whether you’re dropping a last-minute hint to a relative, or buying science books for the people you love, Skeptically Speaking has you covered. We’ve enlisted two dozen scientists, science writers and bloggers, including some of…
Below the fold is a description from Wikipedia of the Red Lake School Shooting. Consider the details in relation to issues of gun ownership, safety, school security, and whatever other issues it brings to mind.
Warning, this is graphic and horrid.
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The day of the massacre…
Scene: Berkeley, California, April 1986. A bar. Five conference attendees, myself included, grabbing a hamburger and a beer in a fern-bar on or near Telegraph.
All eyes are on the TVs mounted over the bar, where we watch footage of an air strike against Libya. This is the retribution by…
American Atheists and two co-plaintiffs today filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky a lawsuit demanding that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stop giving preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations via the process of receiving non-profit tax-exempt…
1) The number of people who care more about gun control than about the 2nd amendment has been greater for some time now, and it has shifted even further. This is according to a new poll by Pew Research Center: After Newtown, Modest Change in Opinion about Gun Control
Most Say Assault Weapons Make…
Golden Eagle
I hope I won't disappoint you ... this is not about John Ashcroft. It is about golden eagles (actually, maybe its about one golden eagle in particular).
A timely repost.
The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) has been in decline for a very long time, so you may not know it…
Mitochondria are cool, important, and fascinating. You know the basic story. Mitochondria are the result of endosymbiosis. A bacterim or bacteria-like organism insinuated itself into another bacterium or bacteria-like organism. The former was small, the latter large. A relationship started up…
Sometimes you just know something is going to happen, and then it happens. And if that doesn't happen to you enough, try some confirmation bias, that always works! I have a friend who just got a new cat and at the same time moved into a new house, and one of the first things that happened was…
The gun nuts did not waste much time after the brutal slaying of 20 six year olds, some teachers, a principal, and some others at a school in Newtown Connecticut to start suggesting that everything would have been fine if only the teachers were armed. And now, after more days have gone by, it seems…
Last night Julia sent me a link to a video of a Golden Eagle swooping down into a Montreal park, picking up an infant/toddler and lifting it several feet into the air before dropping it and flying off. Since then many on the Intertubes have declared the video to be a fake while others insist…
From NASA:
On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun…
A handful of us in the science-skepticism-secularism blogosphere have been saying roughly the same things for a few years now about gun ownership, regulation, and safety. (Here's 67 posts of mine on this topic. Oh, and here's another 60 on a different blog.) While we were busy with this issue as…
I've got kids ranging from zero to 12 years of age to find gifts for this season. I've got most of them covered, and science books have figured in this effort in a bigger way than usual this year. I'm impressed with the number of climate change choices that have become available. Know a…
During this time of great tragedy, American Atheists along with the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA, a SSA affiliate and University of Kansas Student Organization) and We Are Atheism, have decided to come together to raise funds for the children and their families affected by…
Back in the 1980s, it became popular for biologists to consider plant secondary compounds in understanding inter-species relationships and other ecological matters. I was doing my thesis research at the time, and it even affected what I was doing, as the wild world was being reconceptualized in…
Ebb and Flow were the twin space craft that mapped in the Moon's gravitational field by flying near each other, and then as the gravity of the Moon tugged on them they could suss out how much gravity that was, exactly. The gravity map of the moon, actually two of them, at two different scales, is…
I remember finding out about the Tethys Sea and being really excited. I was just beginning my studies of Old World prehistory, Africa, and Human Evolution. What I learned about was the remnant sea separating Africa and Eurasia called Tethys, though it is much more than that (see below). Imagine…
Let me start with this. People talking about Sandy Hook need to stop saying that "20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 were killed." That is technically true but misses an enormously important point and indicates that you really haven't thought this through. All of the children who were killed…
I hope you are on facebook and can click through to this list of names, addresses, phone numbers, and other personal data on one of your favorite groups of slime.
On June 6th, 1944, some 160,000 soldiers aboard about 5,000 boats of diverse design crossed the English Channel and carried out the Invasion of Normandy, one of the more important events in recent history. Many of the soldiers were so sick from choppy seas that leaving the boats and walking or…
The Jewel Hunter by Chris Goodie is the story, generally chronological, of one man's quest to observe, in nature, every known species of a rare and typically elusive bird: the Pittas. Oh, and all in one year. For a birder, this is the rough equivalent of buying some impossible to pay for sports…
