Zombie-me, c/o Joseph Hewitt, who happens to havea cool RPG game open source thing, if you're curious. You may have noticed that ScienceBlogs has gotten a little... strange today. That's because it's ZOMBIE DAY! There are a ton of posts around the site about the various biological, philosophical, physical, chemical and overall nature of zombies. What I've decided to talk about, though, might be the eeriest and creepiest of it all. That's because I'm going to talk about real zombies. No, seriously. Real zombies. Things that walk around aimlessly, living dead, that kind of thing. In the real…
I've linked to all kinds of posts of this on Twitter, so I figured at this point I may as well just post it myself. Prepare for heartbreak.
My weekly dose of cute this week follows on my last post. They are, of course, my two adorable cousins, which I think are the cutest Homo sapiens ever. :)
"Christie! Christie!" My four-year old cousin tugs eagerly on my jacket. "I wanna see the fishes." Mouse (on the left) and Tuna (on the right),my two adorable cousins "Ok, Tuna, we can go see the fish." My little cousin loves the word 'tuna'. She says it all the time. Tuna, tuna, tuna. Everything is a tuna-face or a tuna-head. She doesn't even like tuna (she doesn't eat it), but she loves the sound of the word rolling off her tongue. Finally, her nanny threatened that if she kept saying 'tuna,' we'd have to start calling her it. My ever so adorable cousin's response was, of course, "TUNA!" So…
HT to wonderful Kira of Bird, Bugs and Beyond
Wave breaking in Alabama (Photographer Dave Martin/AP) versus wave in Hawaii (Photographer Clark Little) Which do you prefer?
I have spent about a week trying to figure out how to start this review. You see, I've had a lot more time than I thought to write it. I brought Vanessa Wood's Bonobo Handshake with me on my vacation assuming that it would give me something to read during the long hours I've spent traveling between my various family members in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and California. I planned on writing this review next week sometime, once I'd finally managed to finish it on my long flight back to Hawaii. The problem is, I started reading Bonobo Handshake the first night I arrived in New…
"We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become - like the radium - a benefit for humanity." - MARIE CURIE
You simply must read these. Though, I wouldn't recommend reading them at work. Of if you're underage. These are definitely not PG-13 rated blog posts. From the ever wonderful Scicurious: Friday Weird Science: a tote for your scrote, a recepticle for your testicle and the fantastic Jason Goldman: A Cup for your Pup: Friday Weird Science Companion Post (and, if you're in the mood to laugh hysterically, I recommend you take a look at Sci's Twitter Feed... you'll see what I mean)
Oil supplies the United States with approximately 40% of its energy needs. Billions upon billions of gallons are pumped out of our wells, brought in from other countries, and shipped around to refineries all over the states. 1.3 million gallons of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines in a typical year. Yes, it would be great if we never spilled a drop of oil. No matter how hard we may try, though, the fact is that nobody is perfect, and oil spills are an inevitable consequence of our widespread use of oil. The question is, once the oil is out there, how do we…
OK. Someone has to explain what this means. This is a comment I got on my World Environment Day 2010 post. If you can decipher it, please explain... Let me show you the FATE OF TRAITORS... loiterink.com/photos/products/182_3424_500x500.jpg they are incapable of telling the difference between SCIENTIFIC *FACT* AND RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL *TRUTH*... FATAL ERROR! they also preach a *VALUE FREE SCIENCE* called *POSITIVISM* that ignores the inequalities of wealth and power in capitalist civilization... for a sample taste of PZ Myers' GARBAGE... scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/…
... drumroll please.... . .. ... .... ..... I'M IN! I feel so honored to be chosen as one of the top 9 finalists! Go check out the post that made it: Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs Of course, there are some FANTASTIC posts in the top set with me. Go check out all of them! They include my fellow sciblings Jason and Eric, as well as other great bloggers like Ed, Margaret and Carl. Basically, it's a list of everyone I mentioned before, plus a couple of other ones just for kicks ;) Congrats to all, and good luck to everyone! I can't wait to see who Dawkins picks as the Top Quark!
Sorry to be so late to the announcement party - my stupid, f-cking lovely computer has decided that it doesn't feel like connecting to the internets anymore, so I'm a little hard up for online time. Anyhoo, thank you to everyone who voted for Observations of a Nerd! Thanks to you, my post "Evolution: The Curious Case Of Dogs" has made it to the semi-final round. You can see all the other semi-finalists here. There's some stiff competition in there, notably from fellow generalist sci-blogger Ed Yong, my favorite botanist Margaret, and a slew of scibling like Scicurious, Jason Goldman, and…
"World Environment Day (WED) 2010 is aimed to be the biggest, most widely celebrated, global day for positive, environmental action. Commemorated on 5 June since 1972, WED is one of the principal vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action. Through WED, we are able to give a human face to environmental issues and enable people to realize not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development. WED is also a day for advocating…
The Kuli'ou'ou ridge trail is one of my favorites on Oahu. It's a 2.5 mile trek that ascends roughly 1700 ft to the top of the Ko'olau mountains which cut eastern Oahu in half. I've done this hike a number of times, and each time I'm amazed by the stunning views. So, of course, when we learned that camping permits were available for this ridge and its surrounding trail system, Barry and I simply couldn't resist. We decided to take it easy on ourselves the first night. I stepped on the trail with 30 lbs of gear strapped to my back, so I was in no hurry to the top. About 1/2 way up, there is a…
MIT's Science Fiction Society has a truly inspiring review of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. Worth taking a quick look at.
Alright folks! Thank you to all of you who nominated my posts for the 3 Quarks Daily science blogging prize! The final winners will be chosen by Richard Dawkins, but before he even glances at them, the public gets to narrow the focus down from the 80 entries that made the first cut. Which means, of course, that I need you to go vote for me! Here is the full list of nominees. There are 3 from Observations of a Nerd on there: Ancient Sex Scandals: Did We Get It On With Neanderthals? Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs Evolution: Watching Speciation Occur To cast your vote go to this link,…
Last year, 3 Quarks Daily had a science blogging contest that shelled out some nice cash to the Top Quark. Well, they're at it again! You can now stop by and nominate your favorite posts by leaving a comment here. I know there's a lot of great writing going on here at Science Blogs, so look around and nominate something! If you want to nominate something of mine (which, of course, you do), here are some of my suggestions (nominating more than once doesn't help in any way - so I'll make note of ones already nominated by others): Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs nominated! Evolution:…
Happy Towel Day!
For those of you who don't know, today is Endangered Species Day. Started in the US Senate, Endangered species day is observed every year on the third Friday in May. The point is to call attention to all the animals that are at risk of disappearing forever. The fact of the matter is, we're losing species at an unprecedented rate. Of the 47,978 species that have been described by the IUCN, 17,315 of those are endangered, and for most of the planet's species, there simply isn't enough data to tell. For my part, I'm making a commitment. I have about five years at least to spend on these Hawaiian…