Administrative
pharyngula | November 1, 2010Roger Ebert has a thoughtful post on the problem of not-safe-for-work images. It's a real problem, and it's a curious example of self-imposed censorship built on an artificial fear. I don't care who you are, you've all seen pornography, you've all heard profanity, yet somehow, if even a tasteful nude or an obscenity neatly typed in a small font face appears in a web post, people freak out: I could have viewed that in my workplace! My eyes aren't allowed to see a breast or a penis between the hours of 9 to 5!
There's good reason for that, of course, and Ebert discusses some of it.
I haven't…
pharyngula | October 11, 2010The Molly award for the remote and distant month of August goes to … Gregory Greenwood.
Now September needs one. Leave your votes in the comments.
pharyngula | September 30, 2010One of the ads on this site is serving up something nasty, apparently. I have informed the masters of the machine through a spiffy new fast alert system Scienceblogs recently installed. Now we wait to see if we've also got a spiffy fast response system.
pharyngula | September 28, 2010We often get remarks from people that the Pharyngula comments are a cesspool, that I ought to moderate more, that people use intemperate language and even profanity in their discussions…and, you know, I just roll my eyes and ignore these silly bluenoses and their prissy airs. We're adults here. I am not a playground monitor. I'm more of a distracted barkeep.
But I also think those critics are all wrong. They tend to focus on a few four-letter words and an angry tone that some of us exhibit, and overlook the content. And it's the content of the message that matters. I just ran across a…
pharyngula | September 3, 2010The July Molly goes to…Aquaria and a_ray_in_dilbert_space (finally!)
Now line up and leave comments here about your favorite commenter for the month of August.
pharyngula | August 6, 2010It's a ferocious 3-headed dog, but still…anyway, the Molly award for the month of June goes to Cerberus, for her excellent work in guarding the gates of Hell.
Now who deserves the award for the month of July? Leave comments with your nominations here.
pharyngula | July 30, 2010
We are currently suffering from a surfeit of cheesiness in the ad blocks being served up — the example to the right is just one of many horrors, including ads for $cientology, various Christian and creationist groups, and even some medical quackery. Although the "build an ideal woman" does appeal to the mad scientist in me, it's really just a tease to get your name and various bits of information into one of those "win an ipad" scams. Don't click on it!
Actually, don't click on any of the despicable ads. You don't need to; the ad space is sold on a per impression, not a per click, basis, so…
pharyngula | July 22, 2010Isn't this just the perfect theme song for recent events?
The strike is over. We had a productive discussion with the Seed Overlords, and I think we've clarified issues, got some ideas for further progress, and will be working for a Better World in the Future. Don't expect any sudden changes here, though — we've got a Plan, but it will take time to implement, and the most important thing is that we're going to be holding certain people's feet to the fire on a regular basis. We could still explode and send little fragments of Scienceblogs hurtling outward into the greater blogoverse…but we'…
pharyngula | July 21, 2010Don't panic, don't go into withdrawal, progress is looking good. Adam Bly sounds enthusiastic about meeting my demands (which is easy, since they don't hurt Seed at all), got in contact with us quickly, and we're going to be having a conference call in the next day or so, whenever a reasonable number of us can make a simultaneous connection. And I have high hopes that we'll get a better, more responsive Scienceblogs network out of this.
I expect the strike to be short-lived, which is good, because I have poor impulse control and my brain might explode if I have to keep it in check much longer.
pharyngula | July 20, 2010ON STRIKE!
It's come to this. We've been facing a steady erosion of talent here at Scienceblogs, with the loss of good people like Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong a while back, and with the very abrupt departure of 15 bloggers after the recent PepsiCo debacle — an event that damaged the reputation of this place. And now just yesterday we lost PalMD and Bora. Something is going rotten here. What could it be?
I don't think it's ultimately an ethical problem. I have every confidence that the management at Seed Media Group wants to do the right thing, and I think they have gotten many things exactly…
pharyngula | July 19, 2010Now Bora has left ScienceBlogs. And all is still quiet from Seed Media Group.
A lot of the bloggers here are talking behind the scenes, and I can tell you what it feels like. Bora compares it to Bion's Effect, where the departure of a few people at a party triggers a sudden end to the event. He's wrong (Bora wrong? It happens sometimes). This is a situation rather more fraught. The ship is sinking. The Captain stands at the wheel, saying nothing, doing nothing. All of us on board are edging towards the lifeboats, completely baffled by the paralysis up top, and wondering when some action will…
laelaps | July 14, 2010Laelaps is back up and running at my author website, http://brianswitek.com. Go there for new posts and updates on where this blog will ultimately settle. - Brian
Update (09/14/10): After a few months of blogging on my own, I'm proud to say that Laelaps has made the jump over to the new WIRED Science blogging network. Click here to check it out.
pharyngula | July 10, 2010Oops, I'm late again. But here at last, I've tallied up the the votes and the Molly award for the month of May goes to Ol'Greg. I missed my chance — I should have announced it several days ago, so there'd be fireworks.
Leave nominations/votes for the Molly for June in the comments below.
pharyngula | July 8, 2010We just got this note from Adam Bly:
We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.
We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue…
laelaps | July 7, 2010Important Update: The time has come to close things up here. I will no longer be blogging for ScienceBlogs.com. I am not sure where Laelaps will end up - perhaps back on Wordpress, perhaps elsewhere - but you can be sure that I will keep on writing about saber-toothed cats, whales that walked, early humans, and other cool bits of paleontology. With any luck, I will be able to confirm my plans in a few days. Keep your eyes on my author website or follow me on Twitter to find out where I'll be headed next. This is not farewell - just a brief break in transmission.
By now you have probably heard…
pharyngula | July 7, 2010It's nice when we add another blog to the stable here at Scienceblogs — it means another human face added to the collection, another set of opinions to enjoy or destroy, yet more scientific minds committed to engaging in discussion with the culture. After all, that's what we're all about, putting a human personality to this weird enterprise of science. And as everyone on this blog is particularly aware, we encourage all kinds of diversions and digressions and transgressions, freely stomping on sacred cows and stuffed shirts because we can. Feels good, doesn't it?
So what's with the corporate…
pharyngula | June 22, 2010Another annoying discovery upon arriving home: someone in China accessed my gmail account and was sending out spam to every address they could find there. Sorry about that. Password has been reset to yet another weird complicated string of gibberish, let's hope it doesn't happen again.
pharyngula | June 7, 2010We have a Molly winner for the month of April: Caine, Fleur du Mal.
So, who do you like for May? Leave a comment, right after you congratulate Caine.
pharyngula | May 20, 2010We just hit the one millionth comment on Pharyngula, and it's Ichthyic.
Protein synthesis: just sequence the DNA of something that already makes said protein and write it back out to a bacterium. If necessary, fiddle with the sequence before writing it out.
http://www.iptv.org/exploremore/ge/what/insulin.cfm
like that?
A quote, a url, and two words? Couldn't you have written something longer and fancier and more impressive?
Anyway, the party is in New Zealand, Ichthyic is buying.
pharyngula | May 6, 2010We have a thread on female genital mutilation, and a few boys are insisting on turning it into a discussion of the damage done to their pee-pees by circumcision. For the record, I agree with you: circumcision is mutilation, too, and it shouldn't be done, and doctors shouldn't be collaborating in such a primitive and barbarous practice on children — like piercings and tattoos, it should only be practiced on consenting adults. Except that it's even crazier than a tattoo.
However, FGM is a much more serious problem that causes great pain, destroys most of the capacity for sexual response, and is…