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jlynch | January 22, 2008
The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism have released a report finding that the administration issued at least 935 false statements in the two years leading up to the invasion of Iraq as "part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." Administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had WMDs or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both. Neither of those claims have turned out to be true.…
cmcclain | January 22, 2008Fig. 1 from Miya et al.
It's easy to be a new species, even easy to be a new genus. You got to be just a little different. Yes...yes...we are all unique and special snowflakes. But to get your own order, you got to be really different. If you are the taxonomist erecting a new order, you got have big cojones and strong evidence.
Currently there are about 70 odd fish orders. Scratch that...70 odd plus one. Miya et al. erect a new order based on both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. The new order centers on the monotypic family (only one species in the family) Stylephoridae. The single…
cortex | January 22, 2008Interesting stuff:
The research team led by Tania Singer, at UCL, asked volunteers to play a game with employees of the lab, secretly instructing the employees to play either fairly or unfairly. Afterward, the scientists measured brain activity in the same volunteers under quite different circumstances: looking on as their former game opponents were subjected to various degrees of pain. In both male and female volunteers, the brain areas that signal pain became active, giving neural evidence of their empathy with the others' pain. Strikingly, however, that empathy did not appear to extend to…
petnoyer | January 22, 2008Marine sciences were in full effect at the 2008 North Carolina Scienceblogging Conference this past weekend at the Sigma Xi building in Research Triangle Park. Kevin Zelnio of the Other 95% headed up a session on real-time blogging in the marine sciences. The session included Karen James of the Beagle Project; Rick MacPherson of Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea lice, and Sunsets; Jason Robertshaw of Cephalopodcast, and me as Deep Sea News representative. The session was fantastic, very interactive. Most of the audience was well-versed in the subject of blogging the marine sciences, typical of an "un-…
cmcclain | January 21, 2008You may remember Peter's sobering post on the Plastic Expanding Inevitable, a wonderful part of the Pacific where plastic particles outnumber plankton. According to a post at the Oyster's Garter, a great joint blog between a journalist and a marine biologist, the ORV Alguita has set off on a new journey to the North Pacific Gyre to examine marine debris. Algalita Marine Research Foundation has a blog for the trip and school-themed blog to boot. Miriam comments about the size of the A-frame. Hey, it's not the size that matters it's how you trawl. Maybe I'm spoiled but I can't imagine…
gregladen | January 21, 2008Berry Go Round is a new web carnival. It is ...
A plant's Carnival, to be hosted at Seedsaside by the end of january 2008. Please submit your best posts before the 25th of January. Send contributions to seedsaside[at]gmail.com...
cortex | January 21, 2008Last week, David Brooks had a smart column on the essential "irrationality" of voters. (I'm defining irrationality here as any mental process that's not rational/deliberate/System 2. I have no idea if our democracy would be better off if voters imitated the rational agents in economics textbooks. I only know that the mind doesn't work that way.)
In reality, we voters -- all of us -- make emotional, intuitive decisions about who we prefer, and then come up with post-hoc rationalizations to explain the choices that were already made beneath conscious awareness. "People often act without knowing…
cortex | January 21, 2008I had an op-ed in the LA Times on Sunday. It's about reductionism and the brain:
The reductionist method, although undeniably successful, has very real limitations. Not everything benefits from being broken down into tiny pieces. Look, for example, at a Beethoven symphony. If the music is reduced to wavelengths of vibrating air -- the simple sum of its physics -- we actually understand less about the music. The intangible beauty, the visceral emotion, the entire reason we listen in the first place -- all is lost when the sound is reduced into its most elemental details. In other words,…
cmcclain | January 20, 2008
From the Telegraph via Neatorama...
Inventor Stephan Warge has devised a 160 sq meter kite, based on kitesurfing rigs, that can be attached to commercial ships to reduce diesel consumption. Warge figures the SkySail can reduce fuel consumption by 20% ($1600 a day). The new sail will be tested this Tuesday aboard the 462ft cargo vessel MS Beluga on a voyage from Germany to Venezuela.
You can view a great animation of the whole deployment and utilization process here.
gregladen | January 20, 2008The World of Emetrece Productions presents:
"Ritmos Unidos"
3rd Annual Afro-Latin Tribute to MLK Day
Featuring Maria Isa & CubanÃa
Sunday, January 20th, 2008 // First Avenue Main Room
Doors 8PM // Show 9PM - 2AM // $8 Advance // $10 Door // 18+
In remembrance of King's legacy, "Ritmos Unidos" celebrates the hyphen between Afro & Latin.
Advanced tickets available on-line at First Avenue & Ticketmaster
In contrast to the American 'One Drop Theory,' of African racial classification, in Latin America there are various names for differing degrees of Blackness such as prieto, negro,…
grrlscientist | January 20, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Carnival of the Godless, godlessness, atheist, agnostic, humanist
Just in time for church, the Carnival of the Godless has been published for everyone to read and enjoy!
neurotopia | January 19, 2008And wouldn't you know it, we're supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow. In NC. I lived here for 8 years and saw hardly any snow, and what we got didn't last but for a day or two.
At any rate, I'm having a good time. Getting to meet a bunch of colleagues from Seed again, and attending some good sessions on Public Heath and Medicine, and also Gender/Minority issues. We've had sessions on the uses of technology and also using blogging as a resource for K through Ph.D. education!
Bora's got more on how you can check the conference out online. So, check it out!