Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
November 1, 2013
Every time you use a plastic bag at the grocery store or buy another bottle of water you are contributing to the deluge of one-use, throw-away plastic products that pile up in our landfills or float out to sea. One group in Baton Rouge is trying to raise consciousness with Sacred Waste, a…
October 28, 2013
I had no idea such things existed, but behold the remipede:
Yes, it's a crustacean, although it doesn't look like any I've seen before. You're not likely to run into them casually; they're found deep in Central American caves, with one species found in the Canary Islands and another in Western…
October 26, 2013
Ooh, ick, I guess that's a really disgusting zombie image. But anyway, look at this: a cheap and easy DIY photomicrography setup.
Back in the day, I once built a homely kludge consisting of our very expensive microscope, a nice 35mm SLR, and a bit of cardboard and duct tape to hold it exactly the…
October 26, 2013
I'm going to tell you about a paper that was brought to my attention by some poor science journalism, so first I have to complain about the article in the Guardian. Bear with me.
This is dreadfully misleading.
Though everybody's face is unique, the actual differences are relatively subtle. What…
October 25, 2013
Last weekend, in San Francisco…I could have been hanging out with my people.
And my favorite non-people.
Maybe next time…
October 18, 2013
Oooh, those glossy thick pages. The bright colors that pop. The action shots. The extreme closeups. I admit it: I have an addiction to aquarist magazines. You've gotta check out CORAL: the reef & marine aquarium magazine, especially this issue, the one with the big bold feature on "WRASSES".…
October 12, 2013
I'm trying to raise money for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and I promised to do a few things if we reached certain goals. I said I'd write a post microRNAs and cancer if you raised $7500. And you did, so I did. I kept my clothes on this time, though, so here's a more serious picture of…
October 8, 2013
James May, one of the presenters on Top Gear, is trying his hand at providing a little science education. I want to say…please stop. Here he is trying to answer the question, "Are humans still evolving?" In the end he says the right answer — yes they are! — but the path he takes to get there is…
October 7, 2013
I don't know why Mary suddenly thinks highlighting a giant man-killing hornet would be appropriate…
NatGeo
…but I'm not going to argue with her.
October 4, 2013
John Bohannon of Science magazine has developed a fake science paper generator. He wrote a little, simple program, pushes a button, and gets hundreds of phony papers, each unique with different authors and different molecules and different cancers, in a format that's painfully familiar to anyone…
October 4, 2013
The latest celebrity fad is getting pet lorises. They're adorable! They have such big eyes and a funny face! And look, they like to get tickled!
Aww, so cute. I want one. At least, that seems to be the typical response in followers of pop culture. Anna Nekaris, a professor of primate conservation…
October 4, 2013
This cat is going to be insufferable
You may have heard we've got this satanic feline padding about the house now, getting into mischief -- she has discovered my collection of cephalopodiana, and her favorite toy is one of my stuffed octopuses that she wrestles and bats around the floor. It's like…
September 25, 2013
botany.wisc.edu
September 25, 2013
I'm trying to raise money for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and I promised to do a few things if we reached certain goals. I said I'd write a post explaining what tumor suppressor genes are, while wearing a pirate hat and nothing else, if we raised $5000. Shiver me timbers, I did!…
September 21, 2013
I'm trying to raise money for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and I promised to do a few things if we reached certain goals. I said I'd write a post explaining what oncogenes are, while wearing a pirate hat, if we raised $2500. So here you go, arrr.
If you want more, go to my Light…
September 20, 2013
I've mentioned the Earthviewer app from HHMI before: think of it as a bit like Google Earth, only you can dial it back to any period in the planet's history. There have been a couple of developments: it's also available for Android, and it's added some new features, including tracking for major…
September 20, 2013
The story of Margaret Mary Vojtko brought out quite a few adjuncts with their own tales of exploitation by universities. It really is shameful how the current system often takes people who love learning and want to teach and treats them like crap, when they should be regarding them as the heirs to…
September 5, 2013
You are a cruel readership. One of you — I won't name names to protect the guilty — told me to go listen to this radio program out of Colorado Springs called "Generations With Vision", by some guy named Kevin Swanson, and in particular to an episode called The Secular Hold is Slipping. He's a very…
September 4, 2013
I got a strange phone call today, from a fellow who was very polite, so I was polite in return, but it was weird — he kept asking me strange questions about the energy involved in breaking up supercontinents, and how much water could be stored under a supercontinent (which had me suspicious right…
September 2, 2013
Look closely at that leafy wing.
Then watch the video.
(via Real Monstrosities)
September 1, 2013
I wish I knew what it was about the appeal of evolutionary psychology that makes otherwise intelligent people promote outright silliness in its defense, but here comes Jerry Coyne again in a poorly thought-out piece. He disagrees with the anti-EP piece I linked to yesterday, which is fine, but I…