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gregladen | August 19, 2011Until I was sent this paper, I had no idea that Kangaroo DNA had not been sequenced before. How did we even know they had DNA?!?!
This is the fourth Marsupial genome, after the Tasmanian Devil and and some other non-Australian marsupial, to be sequenced. According to Professor Marilyn Renfree of the University of Melborune, "The tammar wallaby sequencing project has provided us with many possibilities for understanding how marsupials are so different to us."
Macropus eugenii is the tammar wallaby. This aninal has the longest period of embryonic diapause of any known mammal, highly…
pharyngula | August 18, 2011Rick Perry was asked about evolution by a kid; his answer was both condescending and wrong.
"It's got some gaps in it," Perry continues, "but in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution..."
"Ask him why he doesn't believe in science," the mother interjects off camera.
Putting both hands on the outside of the boy's shoulders, Perry, not acknowledging the mother says, "...because I figured you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."
On global warming to a local science teacher, he said, "We teach the straight out facts in Texas in our schools. You'll have to pick those up…
gregladen | August 18, 2011See Case Study: How a notorious spammer was brought down via Twitter for a rundown on the recent events related to Dennis Markuze a.k.a. Dave Mabus.
I still don't agree that it was Twitter that brought Mabus down. Yes, it was the medium, and a very powerful one at that, but it was carrying a very important message. Those tweets could have been phone calls to similar effect, I think.
Anyway, thanks to Tim for all his great work on this. This is an excellent work of documentation and analysis.
Now, with respect to Mabus himself .... we play the old waiting game...
gregladen | August 18, 2011Recently, a paper came out with research indicating that Archaeopteryx, the famous feathered fossil, may not be on the bird lineage after all. This paper was discussed briefly in the blogosphere, but I was fairly unsatisfied with the level of treatment it received. The research is a little difficult to understand unless you are a specialist in the field. Essentially, a different species (not Archaeopteryx) was being studied, and in so doing, it knocked Archaeopteryx off the phylogenetic branch on which it has been resting tenuously in recent years. The other fossil species didn't displace…
gregladen | August 14, 2011Several strange creatures including a psychedelic octopus have been found in frigid waters off Antarctica in one of the world's most pristine marine environments.
Others resembled corals and shrimps. At least 30 appear to be new to science, said Julian Gutt, chief scientist of an expedition that was part of the International Polar Year research effort set to launch on March 1. The researchers catalogued about 1,000 species in an area of the Antarctic seabed where warming temperatures are believed to have caused the collapse of overlying ice shelves, affecting the marine life below.
"This is…
j7uy5 | August 14, 2011Last February, we had a very unusual hard freeze. It killed a lot of plants.
The prior year, I had gotten an agave from a local nursery. It was a nice specimen, about 12 inches wide; it cost $25. In the freeze, it died. So I removed all the dead matter above ground. In the springtime, I watered it sparingly. After a couple of months, there was no visible growth.
One weekend, I went and bought a plant to replace it. The new plant is a Dasylirion wheeleri, aka sotol, or desert spoon. These things grow in the mountains, where it actually snows sometimes. Ought to be able to tolerate…
gregladen | August 14, 2011Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus on a Television News Story ... the story is inaccurate in a number of minor ways that obscures an interesting truth, but it is a moment in time worth savoring:
The story is inaccurate in the following ways:
There has not been a "recent escalation" of threats. The threats come in cycles. He's on an average up-swing. It is true that there are a few new people are on his list, and they are making a stink about it. That, however, has happened before. Why did this cycle of threats cause the police to actually do something? See below for a guess.
It is also not…
krandall | August 12, 2011SETI Institute Engages the Public and Celebrates ScienceClick on images for larger view
The cosmos can be mysteriously alluring to all -- from the young in age to the young at heart. In particular, space science and astrobiology fill us with wonder, amazement and awe -- but the scientists who work in these intriguing fields may seem intimidating to the non-scientist. At the SETI Institute, we open our doors on an annual basis and invite the public to celebrate science with us at our Mountain View, California, headquarters in what is always an energizing and informative interactive science…
mspringer | August 12, 2011Boy howdy do we love spheres in physics. Sure we might tell you that the reason involves deep truths in topology, and symmetry, and group theory, and all that mathematical arcana, and in fact there's a lot of truth to that. But if we're completely honest, or at least if I'm completely honest, I have to admit that I love spheres because they're easy. All that lovely deep symmetry tends to produce enormous simplifications in whatever actual calculations we happen to do involving spheres.
Hence, our love for pretending everything is a sphere, or at least close enough for govermnemt work. There's…
tlambert | August 12, 2011In reply to my email, Murry Salby writes:
Thanks for your interest in the presentation at the Sydney Institute.
If not torrential (in some cases invidious), the expressions of interest
have at least been overpowering. Although I would like to respond individually,
the volume of inquiries makes that unfeasible.
Several requested illustrations that were displayed during the presentation.
Many of those illustrations were included in the broadcast which was
subsequently aired. Others are under publication embargo.
When that restriction is lifted, they will be made available.
Thanks again for your…
heathero | August 12, 2011Dear Readers,
I have been more absent than usual from this blog, which is something I regret. However, the time constraints of preparing for my upcoming qualifying exam necessitate this. I decided to break my strict "no distractions" policy to bring you this bit of info that was emailed to me by a lab mate.
Scientists have discovered DNA components in a meteorite, and they seem to be fairly certain it was made there! You can read the actual NASA press release here, and check out a cool video of one of the scientists explaining the discovery here. The cliff notes version is that, while…
gregladen | August 11, 2011Can a person be scientifically literate without accepting the concepts of evolution and the big bang? To many scientists and educators, the answer to that question is an unqualified "no." But the National Science Board--the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF)--isn't sure that rejecting evolution for religious reasons automatically undermines a person's scientific literacy.
yes it does
The paper in question is behind a firewall, but I may be discussing it later.
gregladen | August 11, 2011Did we miss an opportunity over the last few months? For several months, since Last April, SETI has been in hibernation, not taking calls from aliens living in other worlds with radio sets. Phil Plait reports that SETI is back on line after a revival of funding. The question is, did we miss any calls? The funds are private donations. Phil "... was happy to see that people such as Jodie Foster (who played SETI astronomer Ellie Arroway in the movie "Contact") and science fiction author Larry Niven were among people who had contributed, as well as Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders. The $200k…
gregladen | August 10, 2011The Honshu tsunami of March 11th (the one that caused the Fukushima disaster) caused the otherwise stable Sulzberger Ice Shelf to calve giant hunks of ice. Climate scientists call this "teleconnection." I call it a big whopping bunch of whack knocking off a gigunda chunka stuff. Either way, this is important and interesting.
Scientists figured this out by modeling the movement of the tsunami's energy across the Pacific and correlating this with the calving event observed from s satellite. That sounds easier than it was: By the time a tsunami wave travels a few tens of thousands of…
kbonham | August 9, 2011I've refrained from commenting on #elevatorgate snafu, mostly because I feel like I can't add anything original and neither side is making any sense any more. Or at least, the extremests on both sides are drowning out the people who are making sense. For my part, it seems to me like everyone did some things wrong. Elevator dude acted a bit creepy, he probably shouldn't have done that. Watson called out a student who dared contradict her and lumped that student in with misogynists when she couldn't defend herself, Watson probably shouldn't have done that. I'm not sure why people couldn't just…
gregladen | August 7, 2011This looks interesting: ATOMIC COVER-UP: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and The Greatest Movie Never Made. From the author:
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, killing at least 70,000 civilians instantly and perhaps 50,000 more in the days and months to follow. Three days later, it exploded another atomic bomb over Nagasaki, slightly off target, killing 40,000 immediately and dooming tens of thousands of others. Within days, Japan had surrendered, and the US readied plans for occupying the defeated country--and documenting…