retrospectacle
Posts by this author
February 28, 2007
File this under "How in the Hell......"
No one would be foolish enough to claim that racism and discrimination doesn't exist to some extent. Its an unhappy result of worlds and societies colliding, and I truly believe that as societies evolve, the issue improves. Thats why when someone exhibits…
February 27, 2007
A "study" conducted for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages and this impacting (what else?) their IQ. This came in 2006, but I just stumbled upon it today and became predicably irate at yet another example of…
February 27, 2007
Yeah, remote controlled birds.......crazy cool......
Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday.
Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong…
February 26, 2007
Everybody's talking about the firing of incompentent teachers today, and how difficult it can be due to union rigamarole.
Take this flow chart for example, which outlines the steps that must be taken to fire a bad teacher in New York City. It was so huge that it wouldn't fit on the page (below is…
February 26, 2007
"Anyone studying Down's is going to have their socks blown off by this," says geneticist Roger Reeves, a Down syndrome specialist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study. "There hasn't been anything out there that we really could take to patients or…
February 25, 2007
Its the brightest comet in 40 years, and is now visible to the naked eye to people in the southern hemisphere. For those of us in the northern side, we'll just have to make do with cool pictures.
February 25, 2007
India has almost 6 million people living with HIV/AIDS, the world's highest number of people in one nation (although the prevalence is lower than in Africa). However about 40% of women in India have not even heard of AIDS, let alone know what to do to prevent its spread.
The National Family Health…
February 23, 2007
Oh, yes, we all know that Senator John McCain gave a talk today at a luncheon in Seattle hosted by the Discovery Institute. What is said institute (I won't link them, so you can google if you like)?
"Despite its self-proclaimed position as an unbiased think tank, the Discovery Institute has played…
February 23, 2007
Its that time of the year again---when cute little girls ply you with unhealthy, delicious cookies. But this year, the makers of Girl Scout cookies are cutting out the transfat, which is a solid move. Hopefully they still taste the same, which they should, as I didn't hear mention of removing the…
February 23, 2007
According to the Bischof-Kohler hypothesis, only humans can dissociate themselves from their current motivation and take action for future needs: other animals are incapable of anticipating future needs, and any future-oriented behaviors they exhibit are either fixed action patterns or cued by…
February 22, 2007
Save. Us. All.
Westin Hotel in Seattle on Friday, February 23 from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
You've been warned.
February 22, 2007
Fetal alcohol syndrome---where the developing fetus is exposed to high levels of ethanol in the womb---has far-reaching negative effects on neural development. Now environmental and biological factors of parental alcohol abuse might also retard brain growth, according to a new study published in…
February 22, 2007
NASA loves to use weird science to make useful stuff.....even proteins found in the inner ear, in the hair cells to be exact. The protein is called prestin, which is the motor protein on hair cells, which may also find a new use powering space suits. If prestin is combined with electricity-…
February 21, 2007
Google co-founder Larry Page has some pearls of wisdom for scientists: get off your lazy bums and do something.
Scientists need more entrepreneurial drive and could benefit by doing more to promote solutions to big human problems, Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page told a meeting of academic…
February 21, 2007
All you geekly girls out there, send in your most nerdtastic pictures and rock this contest .
Deadline is 2-28-07.
February 21, 2007
Ann Arbor's heartache plastered on a shirt: the closing of the Pfizer lab/factory in my home town has "liberated" several thousand people of their jobs. One of these is my friend Kyle "Coney Dog" Kuzzpit who sent me this hilarious t-shirt.
A lucky, lucky few will be transferred to Pfizer's main…
February 20, 2007
YouTube, the open-source video upload site, is as popular as ever following its buyout from Google. However, today I came across a deliciously snarky editorial about YouTube's blatant use of copyrighted material. Is what YouTube doing really illegal? Can you REALLY get free egg rolls??
(Continued…
February 20, 2007
The 2007 Koufax Award nominees are up, with many blogs at ScienceBlogs in the Best Expert Blog category. Thanks to whomever nominated me, its a great cohort.
February 20, 2007
What's the point of this ad?
Your parents do it. They are probably doing it right now. But you don't want to know that. Just like you don't want to know what happens to chicks and chickens on factory farms. You don't want to know that behavioral scientists have discovered that the cognitive…
February 19, 2007
Earlier PZ Myers disputed the claim that the recently-notorious 4-legged duck was the product of "genetic changes" as reported by the media. Taking a look at the morphology of the poor bird's extra legs, it much more likely that the duck suffers from a phenomenon known as "parasitic limb" or "…
February 19, 2007
What's very bad for one parrot turns out to be great for the species. A rare night parrot in Queensland, Australia was flying and struck a barbed-wire fence which instantly killed it, its headless body found the next day. However, ornithologists already had believed the parrot species to be…
February 19, 2007
I love video games. Hell, I was raised by Mario, Luigi, Sonic, and Yoshi and eagerly anticipated every new upgrade of the Nintendo console. My parents understood, they were of the Atari generation and saw video games as harmless fun on a rainy Florida afternoon, and perhaps even "good" for…
February 15, 2007
Wouldn't you think that NASA would use the most rigorous psychological test to screen for tough minds in potential astronauts? How then does the soap-opera-esque debacle with astronaut Lisa Nowak (you know, the one in the love triangle who's been arrested for attempted murder) even come to such a…
February 14, 2007
The cat's been out of the bag about Jennifer Ouellette (of Cocktail Party Physics) and Sean Carroll (of Cosmic Variance) being engaged, and now a feature story on the two of them is on Nature news today. Specifically, she's asking advice from other scientists about how to keep a relationship…
February 14, 2007
A great learning tool online is Promenade 'Round the Cochlea, which is in both French and English. I've just been swamped during the conference, but my presentation went great yesterday and I got lots of feedback to keep me busy with experiments forever and ever Ramen. Anyway, check out the app,…
February 13, 2007
Remember those old Speak & Spells in the 80s, the ones made by Texas Instruments? Well, that and Simon were probably my favorite games as a kid (oh, and Rubix cube). There's actually a cool Speak & Spell emulater on the web that I came across, check it out and enjoy the 'say it' feature.…
February 12, 2007
As mentioned, I'm currently at the ARO MidWinter Meeting in Denver, and have taken a few pictures of this beautiful city. I also managed to meet up with Karmen of Chaotic Utopia (I found out why she named it that!) for dinner and hang out with her fascinating cornucopia of friends. (Thanks Karmen…
February 12, 2007
The guys over at the World's Fair are at it again (blasted creativity!), this time they've developed a new club: the Order Of The Science Scouts Of Exemplary Repute And Above Average Physique. I encourage you all to join post-haste and wallow in scientific silliness and irreverent badges for…
February 11, 2007
We've all heard of Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephaly) in the media. A few years back it was as big a sensation as bird flu and twice as scary. The colloquial understanding of the disease was poor: what it was, how humans (or cows) could get it, what should be done to curb its spread, and…