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gregladen | February 17, 2011Birders in every hemisphere spend this time of year preparing for the Great Migrations. It does not matter where you live, several species of birds are going arrive at your location, pass through, or simply come out of or flee to the woods or marshes as Spring or Fall approaches. This means it is time to brush up on your birdsong and vocalization knowledge because when the birds are en route or newly arrived they tend to hide and your best bet at identifying them is with the sounds they can't stop themselves from making.
So, for this edition of the I and the Bird blog carnival, you will…
illconsidered | February 17, 2011Below is an urgent call for support regarding an important issue for Canadians interested in a responsible Canadian media environment. The arrival of "Fox News North" comes with proposed rule changes that severely weaken public protections against false news. Please see below the appeal from Avaaz.org and the accompanying information and if you are persuaded, sign the petition.
Sources:
CRTC plan to lift ban on false news prompts political investigation:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/crtc-plan-to-lift-ban-on-false-news-prompts-political-investigation/article1898147/
CRTC…
gregladen | February 17, 2011From Mn Atheists:
Drs PZ Myers and Greg Laden will be our guests on today's show. PZ is in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro for a pair of talks this weekend. First he will be presenting "The Evolution of Cooperativity" to the Humanists of Minnesota on February 19th, and on the 20th he will be explaining the broader topic of Evolution to the Minnesota Atheists.
PZ Myers is not shy of controversy, as he seems to invoke and generate it at will through his blog, Pharyngula. He writes about atheism, science, politics from a liberal perspective, zebrafish, critical thinking, pirates, sexism and…
gregladen | February 16, 2011Did anyone notice the straw poll results from the CPAC convention? CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference. With all this talk about Palin and Bachmann and Palin/Bachmann and Bachmann/Palin and so on and so forth, one would be surprised if they didn't come in at or near the top of the poll. Here were the results:
Ron Raul: 30%,
Mitt Romney: 23%,
Gary Johnson 6%,
Chris Christie 6%,
Newt Gingrich: 5%,
Tim Pawlenty 4%,
...
Michele Bachmann 4%,
Mitch Daniels 4%,
Sarah Palin: 3%,
Herman Cain 2%,
Mike Huckabee 2%,
Rick Santorum 2%,
John Thune 2%,
Jon Huntsman 1%,
Haley Barbour 1%
gregladen | February 16, 2011Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.
gregladen | February 16, 2011I'll be interviewing PZ Myers on Sunday on Atheist Talk Radio in the Twin Cities. I can't think of a thing to ask him about ... what would YOU suggest?
Write your proposed questions or topics in the comments below.
gregladen | February 15, 2011But you won't stand for it.
Later this week the House will vote on HR 1, a "continuing resolution" (CR) to fund the federal government for the remainder of FY 2011. HR 1 would cut NIH funding by $1.6 billion (5.2%) BELOW the current level - reducing the nation's medical research budget to $29.4 billion! Everyone in the scientific community - researchers, trainees, lab personnel, etc. - must protest these short-sighted cuts. The cuts will slow the discovery of new treatments, lead to wasteful termination of projects, and ultimately cost some Americans their jobs. In addition, cutting the NIH…
gregladen | February 15, 2011South Dakota would make the killing of abortion providers legal.
A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus--a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.
"The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers."
The bill,…
gregladen | February 14, 2011House Bill 368 (PDF), introduced in the Tennessee House of Representatives on February 9, 2011, is the sixth antievolution bill introduced in a state legislature in 2011, and the first introduced in Tennessee since 2007. The bill, if enacted, would require state and local educational authorities to "assist teachers to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies" and permit teachers to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific…
kcollins | February 14, 2011
They're back! Yes, the Nifty Fifty - that high-profile group of researchers and professionals in science and engineering who wowed students during last year's Festival with their inspirational school visits and talks --are returning for the 2012 Science & Engineering Festival.
But this time we're doubling the number of participating Nifty Fifty speakers to 100 so that more classrooms can experience these renowned experts. To make this happen, we are asking Festival Partners to nominate at least one of their scientists, engineers or related professionals to be considered for this elite…
gregladen | February 13, 2011Everyone knows about Darwin's Finches, of the Galapagos Islands. But of course, Darwin made observations of birds throughout his travels on The Beagle. Here, I present a number of passages from The Voyage that include some of these observations.
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gregladen | February 13, 2011Charles Darwin wrote a book called Geological Observations on South America. Since Fitzroy needed to carry out intensive and extensive coastal mapping in South America, and Darwin was, at heart, a geologist more than anything else (at least during the Beagle's voyage), this meant that Darwin would become the world's expert on South American geology. Much of The Voyage is about his expeditions and observations. Part of this, of course, was figuring out the paleontology of the region.
Bahia Blanca is a port at the northern end of Patagonia. Chapter V of The Voyage begins:
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gregladen | February 13, 2011We're half way through Darwin Month, and only a tiny ways through the voyage. Need to hurry up! So, let's skip ahead a bit and hit the Gauchos.... (This is a modified version of a post from my old blog).
Well, you don't really want to hit at Gaucho ... they hit back rather hard....
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gregladen | February 12, 2011Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required.
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gregladen | February 12, 2011When reading the Voyage, it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong stomach were not all that was required to think up Natural Selection and his other theories, or the Origin of Species would have been written dozens of times by dozens of grown up kids.
In the following passages, Darwin is still along the Atlantic Coast, in "The Brazils…
gregladen | February 12, 2011What do you eat when you are travelling the world in search of truth about the natural world? Most of the time Darwin ate pretty well...
While traveling through the interior near Rio, Darwin makes note of some of the agricultural practices of the region. He is visiting farms ... plantations .. carved out of the forest.
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