clock | September 1, 2008Well, not really, but someone is running a satirical blog named Welcome To The PalinDrome: Sarah Palin's Blog.
Humor and satire are important part of every campaign. While I may not find conservative humor funny (it is too often mean and targets the weak and defenseless), I understand that conservatives find it funny and it helps them rally their own troops. So do we on our side and there are some very funny bloggers out there. This spoof blog is part of that tradition.
What is the funniest is checking out the comments and seeing that some commenters, both Lefty and Righty, did not see…
clock | August 31, 2008The individual woman is required ... a thousand times a day to choose either to accept her appointed role and thereby rescue her good disposition out of the wreckage of her self-respect, or else follow an independent line of behavior and rescue her self-respect out of the wreckage of her good disposition.
- Jeannette Rankin
clock | August 31, 2008Encephalon #53 is up on Ionian Enchantment
Berry Go Round #8 is up on Not Exactly Rocket Science
clock | August 31, 2008Just as I posted this clip about the way kids use blogs and social networks, David Warlick posted this intriguing analysis of the way kids use online technologies. Dave posted an interesting graph that shows that kids assess that they acquire various skills equally in school and in off-school online environments.
What?
Yes, there used to be a time when you went to school to learn A, B and C: facts, learning skills, social skills with peers, and then went home to learn skills D, E and F: how to deal with adults, perform acts of personal hygiene, and learn to do household chores.
But today, the…
clock | August 31, 2008
More Genes Are Controlled By Biological Clocks Than Previously Thought:
The tick-tock of your biological clock may have just gotten a little louder. Researchers at the University of Georgia report that the number of genes under control of the biological clock in a much-studied model organism is dramatically higher than previously reported. The new study implies that the clock may be much more important in living things than suspected only a few years ago.
No More Big Stink: Scent Lures Mosquitoes, But Humans Can't Smell It:
Mosquito traps that reek like latrines may be no more. A University…
clock | August 30, 2008All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
clock | August 30, 2008Connie Bensen has assembled all the relevant links and tags so you can follow Gustav and, if you are in the area, organize the response.
clock | August 30, 2008Wayne interviewed three local kids about the way they use social networks and blogs:
School has just started and we had a chance to sit down with three bright kids, Toby, Dominique, and Samantha to talk about how they use social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. But not only social networks, we asked them about blogging and how they were introduced to twitter. Also see what the future paintball king, dancer and artist had to say about their parents being friends with them on social networks and their goals in life.
I am my son's Top Friend on Facebook, and we follow each other there…
clock | August 29, 2008Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee? Wilt thou never enjoy an affectionate and contented disposition? Wilt thou never be full and without a want of any kind, longing for nothing more, nor desiring anything, either animate or inanimate, for the enjoyment of pleasures? Nor yet desiring time wherein thou shalt have longer enjoyment, or place, or pleasant climate, or society of men with whom thou mayest live in harmony? But wilt thou be satisfied with thy present condition, and pleased with all that is about thee,…
clock | August 29, 2008Less than 100 comments to go. The lucky 10,000th commenter gets a prize - a choice from the Clock Store or perhaps one of the anthologies....
clock | August 29, 2008Online maps 'wiping out history':
Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, the president of the British Cartographic Society has said.
Mary Spence said internet maps such as Google and Multimap were good for driving but left out crucial data people need to understand a landscape.
Mrs Spence was speaking at the Institute of British Geographers conference in London.
Google said traditional landmarks were still mapped but must be searched for.
Ms Spence said landmarks such as churches, ancient woodlands and stately homes were in danger of being forgotten…
clock | August 29, 2008There was a fantastic example of an anti-vaccination caller on this show earlier today - Parents Protest Increase In Required Vaccinations. Please listen to the podcast, especially to the last caller. Prodded over and over again, she displayed more and more loony conspiracy theories and in the end flatly stated that no kind or amount of evidence would change her mind. Do you think she was handled well? What take-home message would an uninformed listener take from the exchange? Pro or con?
clock | August 29, 2008The cat is out of the bag! The version2.0 of ResearchBlogging.org is ready to go and you can test it out:
After a week of late nights and hard coding, our development team has released the beta version of the site to our entire userbase! You can visit the new site here:
http://72.32.57.144/index.php/
We are planning on launching the site at the researchblogging.org address over the weekend, but you can get a head start now setting up your account, customizing it the way you like, and trying out all our new features. (note: All passwords have been reset, so you'll need to use the "forgot…
clock | August 29, 2008The London Science Blogging Conference is about to begin. Check out the Conference Programme the who's who list of attendees and the discussion in the Science Blogging 2008: London NN forums, a FriendFeed room and a Facebook page.
We will be wathing closely, getting ideas, learning stuff, and making our own program for the ScienceOnline'09 - soon to be revealed to the world.
clock | August 29, 2008While everyone else has been focused on politics this week, several science bloggers posted some amazing posts about, gasp, science! Check these out - amazing weekend reading (and potential anthology entries!):
Neurophilosophy: Wilder Penfield, Neural Cartographer:
The patient lies on the operating table, with the right side of his body raised slightly. The anaesthetist sterilizes his scalp and injects it with Nupercaine to produce analgesia - the patient will remain fully conscious throughout the procedure. Behind the surgical drapes, three large incisions are made in his scalp. A large…
clock | August 29, 2008Palin is the one I was afraid of.
Not much to say. I have collected some good links here - check them out.
McCain needed to appease the unhappy base. And he needed to make inroads into the Zero-information "independents". And he needed more women. And he needed the last remnants of racists that have not yet left the Dems with Nixon and Reagan elections. Sara Palin does it all for him.
Her extreme social conservatism gets the base. Her good looks and zero name-recognition appeal to the "open minded Center". She has does not have a Y chromosome which, unfortunately, is enough for some…
clock | August 29, 2008Unexpected Large Monkey Population Discovered In Cambodia: Tens Of Thousands Of Threatened Primates:
A Wildlife Conservation Society report reveals surprisingly large populations of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia.
'Pristine' Amazonian Region Hosted Large, Urban Civilization:
They aren't the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover. But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical forest, were once large and complex enough to be considered "urban" as the term is commonly applied to both medieval European and…
clock | August 29, 2008There are 12 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Urochordate Histoincompatible Interactions Activate Vertebrate-Like Coagulation System Components:
The colonial ascidian Botryllus schlosseri expresses a unique allorecognition system. When two histoincompatible Botryllus colonies come into direct contact, they develop an inflammatory-like rejection response. A surprising high number of vertebrates'…