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petnoyer | March 27, 2008
Isn't it ironic that the International Polar Year falls on the year with the least Arctic ice cover? The North Pole is now literally on thin ice. Scientists are predicting a seasonally ice free Arctic by 2030. The image above illustrates the changing extent of Arctic sea ice over the last fifty years, from 1953 to 2005. Median Arctic ice cover has dropped from 8 million sq km to less than 6 million sq km over the last 20 years, down to nearly 4 million sq km since 2004.
The graphic is lifted from an article by J. Stroeve et al called "Arctic sea ice plummets in 2007" in the weekly…
grrlscientist | March 27, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Carnival of Australia
The 26 March edition of the Carnival of Australia blog carnival is now available for you to enjoy. They link to a Birdie story that I wrote even though, technically, New Zealand birds are not Australian (but they sure are closely related to the Aussie birds).
grrlscientist | March 27, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Just Write blog carnival
The 21st March edition of the Just Write blog carnival is now available for you to enjoy. They link to a piece that I wrote, so of course, I am a happy camper.
gregladen | March 27, 2008Please get me your Gene Genie Blog Carnival Entries by tomorrow afternoon! I'd like to get the carnival up ca midnight on Friday. I've got lots of good stuff already, but I don't want you to miss your chance.
grrlscientist | March 27, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Bad Kitty Cat Festival of Chaos
The 37th edition of the Bad Kitty Cat Festival of Chaos is now available for you to enjoy. And, of course, they featured something I sent in, too!
kevin z | March 27, 2008... the northern and southern hemispheres.
Scene from Strange Wilderness. Click here for hilarious movie trailer.
cortex | March 27, 2008If you happen to be in the Charlottesville area, I'll be at the Virginia Book Festival tomorrow afternoon, on a panel entitled: "The Creative Mind: How Artists and Writers Invent the World."
gregladen | March 27, 2008Let us begin by noting that "Europe" is an arbitrarily defined geographical unit occupied for the last few hundred years or so by people who believe that "Europe" is the Center of the Universe. Therefore, this statement: "The earliest hominin occupation of Europe is one of the most debated topics in palaeoanthropology" is more about European Ego than it is about human prehistory.
Nonetheless, there is an interesting find ... of a hominid mandible ... reported in the current issue of Nature that relates to human prehistory in the region of Western Eurasia.
The mandible is associated with a…
gregladen | March 27, 2008The Four Stone Hearth #37 - The Pulp SciFi Edition is HERE at Hot Cup of Joe.
Four stone hearth is the Anthropology blog carnival.
cortex | March 26, 2008A commenter asked an astute question in response to my post on religion and dietary laws:
What are your thoughts on kashrut primarily as a means of group indentity reinforcement, ritual, and control? In pre-literate times or in unstable social settings, wouldn't dietary habits be a useful means of tracking who is and is not a member of one's tribe? (Dietary laws also have the effect of confering monopoly power to those preparing and selling the food.)
I think the function of these religious laws - and the Old Testament is stuffed full of such laws - goes well beyond mere identification. While…
esiegel | March 26, 2008WARNING: Sensationalism ahead! Are you kidding me, Newsweek? They really titled their article Will Physicists Find God? Presumably, the title is named because physicists are searching for the Higgs Particle, and the title is taken after Leon Lederman's (mediocre, IMO) book, The God Particle. Leon's a pretty humorous guy, and was told by his Editor (according to him, anyway) that he couldn't name his book, "The Goddamned Particle," which is what he called the Higgs, so he shortened it.
For better or worse, the article is an interview with Steven Weinberg, one of the most illustrous living…
gregladen | March 26, 2008Emetrece Productions
invites you to come 'sim simmer' with us!
"Sim Simmer Latino"
A special 'private party' free show to thank our friends and fans!
Featuring Maria Isa, The Kamillion and Omari Omari on the 1s & 2s.
FREE // 9PM - 12AM // 21+
Thursday, April 3, 2008
600 Washington Avenue North
"Sim Simmer Latino" presented by Emetrece Productions and hosted by Camel Beast House, is a special 'private party' free show to thank our friends and fans celebrating Emetrece's birthday. Hip-Hop, R&B, and reggaetón artist Maria Isa headlines with her live band along with rising Latin…
jlynch | March 26, 2008
The nation’s first case of West Nile Virus of 2008 has been reported here in the Southeast valley, starting the WNV season four to six weeks early. Everybody PANIC!
cmcclain | March 26, 2008
I've already addressed the difficulty of doing experiments in the deep sea which ultimately leads to their rarity. I also mentioned given the costs and risks of doing something so crazy like an experiment in the deep sea makes funding scarce for such projects. I'm not bitter at all that NSF reviewers chose not to fund me twice....no not at all...I won't even mention it. Moving on!
Luckily scientists like David Thistle value such an approach and find creative ways to fund and carry out such a project. Thistle et al. report on a similar study to the Gallucci et al. study we reported on…
cortex | March 26, 2008I was raised in a kosher household, which meant that I grew up convinced that bacon, lobster, pepperoni pizza and cheeseburgers were the promised land of food. (I assumed the banning of trafe was part of God's punishment for Eve and the apple.) I'm no longer kosher, which means that I've since learned that I was right: bacon really does make everything taste better. If I see shellfish on a menu, especially when the shellfish is combined with a pork product (scallops wrapped in prosciutto?) I can't not order the dish.
My point is that we learn to crave what we are denied. It's a perversity of…
cmcclain | March 26, 2008
Rick's comments
Lots of free press on trench science from Manny, Moe, and Jack Craig, Peter, and Kevin on Deep Sea News
got me thinking about what an oceanographic expedition with all three of us onboard would be like. I imagine it would be a LOT like this.
cmcclain | March 26, 2008Via Rick, news on the wire is that the deepest spot in the ocean may soon be included in a marine monument.
As mentioned earlier today, my Saipan colleague Angelo Villagomez is leading the charge on the creation of a new marine monument in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The proposed monument would in part recognize the significance of the Mariana Trench, which at a depth of 6.8 miles is the deepest part of the world's oceans, and the deepest location on the surface of the Earth's crust.
The deepest part of the ocean, and deepest part in the earth's crust, is Marianas…
kevin z | March 25, 2008
This is the second song in my brand new series Deep Sea Ditties. Wait! How can it be the second if the series is new?? The first song has been here all along! It is the Deep Sea News theme song (top left icon, says DSN theme song). Every Once in a while I will write and record a song about the deep sea and post it here for you all to laugh at. Its my way of making up for the fact that I failed at being a rockstar years ago. It also is the start of my second free album, Deep Sea Ditties (the first being Spineless Songs at The Other 95%, see sidebar). I got a little inspiration to break out…
kevin z | March 25, 2008
Life isn't always rosy for a top predator in the ocean. For there is always a predator that higher up the food chain trying to chase you down and make you its next meal! And that top-most of predators are humans. As we continue to overfish our seas, fish cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with consumer demand.
The Pew Trusts have established the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy website to build a "broad national effort to build support for ocean and fish protection." There is much good information, but the real kicker is their game, Ocean Survivor! Designed to raise awareness for the dangers…