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cortex | December 26, 2007I hope everyone had a lovely and merry Christmas. I've got a post-Christmas question: What cognitive skills are required for present-wrapping? Spatial logic? An intuitive sense of geometry? A belief in neatness? All of the above? I only ask because I am clearly missing whatever skills are required.
thescian | December 26, 2007From The Independent:
Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.
When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists…
pharyngula | December 25, 2007Holiday, Festivus, Saturnalia, Kwanzaa, Agnostica, Cabmas, Hanukkah, Squidmas, Cephalopodmas, Newtonmas, Yule, Humbug Day, Solstice, Nativity, Winterfest, 25th of December, and, oh yeah, Christmas!
ddobbs | December 25, 2007Each December the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury has a gingerbread-house exhibit and competition. This year's was better than ever, with some amusing political entries.
I'm not sure which I liked better - "Mission Accomplished," which tests the idea of whether a gingerbread house can be grim:
or the much happier vision of "Downtown Shopping":
You can see more at http://gallery.mac.com/ddobbs#100022
grrlscientist | December 24, 2007tags: Carnival of Christmas, blog carnivals
The 2007 edition of the Carnival of Christmas is now available for you to enjoy. I admit that, even though I am religiously-challenged, I still participated cuz, hey, I love christmas (well, I love any excuse to celebrate, so I love all the holidays)!
(And besides, christmas was co-opted from a MUCH earlier heathen holiday, so I am not celebrating christmas in the true sense of the word, I am celebrating the "festival of lights" on one of the shortest days of the year, cuz the lights are what I truly enjoy about christmas).
gregladen | December 24, 2007You might want to take along this song sheet of Atheist Christmas Carols.
Including such soon-to-be classics as "No joy to the world!," "Silent Night, Normal Night," "Hark the Herald Hallucinations Sing," and "O Come All ye Faithless."
And many many more.
... here.
petnoyer | December 24, 2007
This video shows why it can feel like Christmas when you're cruising the seafloor in a submarine and you stumble upon a deep-sea coral community. The "marine snow" is falling, the bamboo corals light up like Christmas trees, the anemones, well, they kind of remind me of poinsettias.
Yet, perhaps what's most amazing is how well the lyrics of "Let It Snow" fit the scene. How many phrases can you find?
The footage shown here was taken by the Johnson Sea-Link submersible in 1500 feet of water on Viosca Knoll in the Gulf of Mexico. Special thanks to DSN sweetheart Christina Kellogg for her…
cmcclain | December 24, 2007So all day long after the previous post I wondered, how separated is Architeuthis and Kevin Bacon?
As you might remember although the Giant Squid had some cameos in previous B movies, it really was not until 1954 in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that Mr. G. Squid hit the big time. In this movie, the Giant Squid shared the screen with Kirk Douglas who played Ned Land.
and...
Kirk Douglas was in Tough Guys (1986) with Eli Wallach
and...
Eli Wallach was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon
grrlscientist | December 23, 2007tags: All Women Blogging, blog carnivals
The 24 December edition of All Women Blogging Carnival is now available for your reading pleasure. I admit that I sent them an update on my new roommate, Orpheus, instead of something serious and intellectual, but there's plenty of other things to read there, besides updates on one's pets.
grrlscientist | December 23, 2007tags: Carnival of the Cats, blog carnivals
The latest edition of the Carnival of the Cats is now available for you to enjoy. This is a great way to relax after a busy day of drinking eggnog.
Hopefully, I will be drinking some eggnog soon, too. Maybe tomorrow, with any luck.
pharyngula | December 23, 2007And for a little grim pre-Christmas reading, it has preserved all of their last statements on the web.
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
cortex | December 23, 2007I've got a review of Pinker's latest in The Washington Post:
Language comes so naturally to us that it's easy to believe there's some sort of intrinsic logic connecting the thing and its name, the signifier and the signified. In one of Plato's dialogues, a character named Cratylus argues that "a power more than human gave things their first names."
But Cratylus was wrong. Human language is an emanation of the human mind. A thing doesn't care what we call it. Words and their rules don't tell us about the world; they tell us about ourselves.
That's the simple premise behind Steven Pinker's…
gregladen | December 22, 2007On Mars (they do have a sky there, right?)
The planet Mars may be in for a collision from an asteroid headed its way. Scientists from NASA have been tracking the 160-foot-wide asteroid for some time now, and say the odds of it hitting the Red Planet are about 1 in 75. Back in 1908, Earth was hit by a similar asteroid, near Tunguska, Siberia. That impact flattened millions of trees and is thought to have left a crater that is now a lake.
Details here.
grrlscientist | December 22, 2007tags: Observation on Life, blog carnivals
The newest edition of the blog carnival, Observations on Life, is now available. This is the first time I've contributed to this carnival, so you will find a new group of blogs that are out of your usual internet travels to read.
sciencewoman | December 22, 2007Brilliance as seen at Clastic Detritus...
Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and everything else...
grrlscientist | December 22, 2007tags: holidays, handbell hero, online game
Ahhh, this online game brings back memories! When I was an undergrad in college, I was a member of the Handbell Choir .. So when a long-time reader of mine sent this online game, HandBell Hero, to me, I had a lot of fun playing with it and so I (of course) had to share it with you, too.
How did you do? I didn't do very well. I can promise you that I was a better handbell choir member than I am a handbell player in this game!
cmcclain | December 22, 2007
Chionoecetes tanneri (chio-snow and ioketes-inhabitant) are commonly referred to as Grooved Tanner Crabs and related to the more commercially important snow crab, C. opilio. C. tanneri is from the infraorder Brachyura (short-tailed) or the true crabs (Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Crustacea, Class Malacostraca, Order Decapoda, Suborder Plecyemata, Infraorder Brachyura, Superfamily Majioidea, Family Majidae). Tanners may live to an estimated maximum age of 14 years feeding upon a wide assortment of marine life including worms, clams, mussels, snails, crabs, other crustaceans, and fish parts.…