Tangled Bank

Tangled Bank #118

pharyngula — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:23:32 +0000

Tangled Bank #118

The latest Tangled Bank is available at Submitted to a Candid World. Time to read!

pharyngula Thu, 11/13/2008 - 05:23

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Thought you should know that Howard Schweber, a columnist at the Huffington Post just badmouthed your favorite marine animal:

What the hell is Paulson thinking? Never mind the economics of all this, what about the politics? I have to assume that members of Congress are going to be absolutely enraged. Remember the hard sell on the original bailout package? We had to immediately purchase toxic assets or a Depression would ensue, there would be riots in the streets, cephalopods would fall from the sky.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-schweber/what-the-hell-is-paulson_…

And my offering over at The Talking Points memo is doing quite well. It's the most recommended post of the last day in the Muckracker section:

An End to the Illegal Smile?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/timtimes/2008/11/an-end-to-…

My religious poll looks to be topping out about 500 votes. Withes and Heathens rule.

Enjoy.

Off topic:

Does anyone know what's happened to Matt Dowling's fine blog Ontogeny? It's been deleted with no mention he's restarted elsewhere.

Stop H8
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/invite/SpecialComment

The post election Tangled Bank

sporte — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:08:20 +0000

The post election Tangled Bank

Is ready for reading at Submitted to a Candid World.

I never thought I'd see the day when a Tangled Bank host would compare PZ Meyers to John McCain, but I admit, it was tastefully done.

sporte Wed, 11/12/2008 - 18:08

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blog-carnival

Tangled Bank

We need Tangled Bank submissions!

pharyngula — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:37:22 +0000

We need Tangled Bank submissions!

It's tomorrow! Send those links to me pronto, so they can appear on A Candid World on Wednesday!

pharyngula Tue, 11/11/2008 - 03:37

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Tangled Bank

Yes, master!

Editor's note - we prefer to go by the full name, "Submitted to a Candid World," but far be it for me to be too picky about a link from PZ :)

Tangled Bank #117

pharyngula — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Tangled Bank #117

The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is at Neural Gourmet.

pharyngula Thu, 10/30/2008 - 05:37

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Tangled Bank

Firefox can't find the server at neuralgourmet.com

Sweet, I finally made it into the tangled bank. This is a proud day for me!

Wow, so the transfer of the transposon Charlie brings up was detected by its break from the far more typical pattern of vertical transmission and modification of genes, which leads the cognitively-deficient Wagner to conclude that darwinian mechanisms are not responsible for the rest of evolution.

By the way, I blogged about this, well over a week ago.

I'll just copy the reference below, in case PZ saves Charlie the embarrassment of revealing his own inability to think, by deleting yet another colossal failure by Charlie:

John K. Pace II et al., "Repeated horizontal transfer of a DNA transposon in mammals and other tetrapods" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0806548105, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, online 20 Oct 2008.

Of course it wouldn't make news, or scientific publication (except possibly in a quite obscure journal), if lateral transmission were at all normal in most animals. But Charlie only writes stupid shit, rarely understanding the implications of his quotes and statements. Of course, if he could think, he wouldn't be arguing against science.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Firefox isn't your problem, must be your connection or something else. I'm on firefox, and I got no problems.

Nuff said.

Tangled Bank #116

pharyngula — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:14:17 +0000

Tangled Bank #116

The latest edition is at Pro-Science. Toddle on over and see what's new in science blogging!

pharyngula Wed, 10/15/2008 - 14:14

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Tangled Bank

Ah! Something to read during the debate.

I hope to be finished with my snake guide series by next month...

I really tangled bank, though, lots of really good bloggers out there.

Dunno if anyone else has pointed out that, once again, God has been let off the hook for showing up in court.

Maybe his summons got lost amid all the prayers.

Where are your links for the Tangled Bank?

pharyngula — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:00:04 +0000

Where are your links for the Tangled Bank?

We need more Tangled Bank entries — the next edition will be at Pro-Science on Wednesday. So get cracking and mail them in soon!

pharyngula Sun, 10/12/2008 - 07:00

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Tangled Bank

Remember, Wednesday starts earlier in Europe, so the earlier the better.

Perhaps, PZ, you need to remind your readers of why we enjoy the fruits of 'en"tangled bank'".

Celebrating the birth year of Darwin (Feb '09) - does anyone remember or realize the beginning? Darwin's 'en"tangled bank'" ?

Hm, postponing that article on tuna populations is looking more and more likely...

@ BrianX - Is that wise? The population must be declining constantly.

I, for instance, had a cylindrical disk of one of them for lunch...

Chris, it really sort of depends on how much detail I want to put into it. It isn't kitchen science per se, but since tuna species are major food fish, it's definitely food science. That said, most of the numbers I have are from Wikipedia, and the whole issue is a little out of my saute-pans-and-Harold-McGee usual sphere of experience.

I do want to do it eventually though, because it's a huge issue.

Ok, the 116th edition is up

Tangled Bank #115

pharyngula — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:50:02 +0000

Tangled Bank #115

The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Evolved and Rational. Say hooray for collections of science posts, and go read!

pharyngula Thu, 10/02/2008 - 06:50

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Haha, the author of Evolved and Rational is apparently a /b/tard.

There seems to be no demographic they don't haunt!

OT but I think you'll like it;

"Faithful see Virgin Mary's Image in Toilet Bowl"

from http://onegoodmove.org/1gm

This is rather funny.

"Oops! Newspapers around the world use SNL pic as official Palin one"
http://www.tvsquad.com/2008/10/01/oops-newspapers-around-the-world-use-…

Agence France-Presse originated article + pic.

Poll to crash on MSNBC!

What's your view on the accuracy of the Bible?

386487 responses

Every detail is literally true.
35%
Some details may be inaccurate or exaggerated, but the fundamentals are true.
32%
The Bible is fundamentally fiction, incorporating some historical facts.
27%
None of the above.
5.4%

David - I went and voted, it's still 35% literally true, 27% fiction,etc.
The horde must not be aware of this one yet.

Trying to move something with 300,000+ votes is beyond even the Pharyngulites. It would be nice to move it, but would need some type of automation.

Well, 10 % of 386487 is within the size of the readership here.

Should have mentioned that his poll was first mentioned by Sanity Jane near the bottom of the "Nothing significant" thread.

My skepticism toward moving the numbers didn't mean that I didn't vote. Go Fiction!

Send me some science links

pharyngula — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 11:12:02 +0000

Send me some science links

There's going to be a new Tangled Bank on Wednesday, 1 October, at Evolved and Rational — so send me your entries soon.

pharyngula Sun, 09/28/2008 - 07:12

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Tangled Bank

Banned Books Week
September 27 - October 4, 2008

http://weti-institute.org/index.html

or is this a kind of anti science? I like it though, great humor from space! Well, actually, not yet.

You may have already seen this. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/other/discovery-textbook-review.ars

http://www.freewebs.com/worldbusybody/

Not sure if any of these suit, but:
http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2008/09/miracles-and-statistics.html <- on probability, chance and the randomness of life
http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2008/09/finely-tuned-universe.html <- on the sheer complexity of the universe, and why fine tuning isn't an answer
http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2008/09/were-you-there.html <- answering the creationist nonsense that anything we can't directly observe isn't science

The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Big Lie

http://greatdinosaurmystery.blogetery.com/

I've relocated my blog to a new blog host and shutdown my Dinosaurs and the Bible A Creationists Fairy Tale blog because I was getting tired of being on WordPress.com with all of its no-javascript restrictions.

Goddamn, used the less-than symbol and it lost all my descriptions

Sorry to get off topic here, but I was just over at Talk Origins and the entire site has been rendered incomprehensible. With the exception text included with images, everything is a jumble of symbols. The source is fine, but the pages are unreadable. I wonder if anyone knows what has happened.

I think this makes a good case for explaining accident via a theory of accident being selected by reproductive success--and it is with respect to an old IDiot/creationist standby, the eye:

http://behefails.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/the-cilium-evolved-into-part-…

Glen D

Since no one's told my my food science submissions suck yet:

http://offseasontv.blogspot.com/2008/09/justus-v-liebig-would-you-pleas…

I'll probably throw a recipe or two up soon as well.

Saw this last week. Thought it was pretty neat.

Tangled Bank #114

pharyngula — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:35:16 +0000

Tangled Bank #114

The latest and greatest edition of the
Tangled Bank is at Science Made Cool. Cool!

pharyngula Wed, 09/17/2008 - 04:35

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Warning: Extremely cool.

(Liquid nitrogen or Tangled Bank? You decide!)

I heartily affirm the inclusion of the off season recipe blog.

More science food blogging!

(.)(.)

Hello - entirely OT, but half an hour's complete silliness (and the last of the series) from the BBC. Bleak Expectations is their radio take on Dickensian excess:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00db5bt
(Or go to bbc.co.uk radio 4 listen again bleak expectations)
Enjoy
AnthonyK

While I usually love anything to do with food blogging, that post on eggs was drivel. :o(

Whoa. Brain freeze.

Reminder: small doses for me.

Here's my idea: have your confederate actually swallow the cracker, then immediately leave the church, where medical personnel will be waiting to sample the stomach contents. Neutralize the pH and whatever you have to do to stop the digestive enzymes, then see if you can recover human DNA not belonging to your friend. Think of the fun you could have sequencing it!

Even better, if there are any viable cells, you can hire the Raelians or somebody to do SCNT and you will have brought about the second coming. Is that a million dollar idea or what?

Tangled Bank is coming…

pharyngula — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:04:38 +0000

Tangled Bank is coming…

The next edition of the Tangled Bank will be at Science Made Cool on Wednesday — it's time to send in those links!

pharyngula Sun, 09/14/2008 - 16:04

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Tangled Bank

I sent in My Divine Submissions...Now Worship Me!

I'm sorry, God. Now you need to pray to Diane Kelly, and hope she accepts them.

How's it feel to be the supplicant now?

What happened to the article on Michael Reiss?

I wanted to point to the followup, here:

http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=8004

GRR! The LORD supplicates to no one! She will accept My Link or she will be smoten!

The Onion reports:

'Evolutionists Flock to Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain'

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/evolutionists_flock_to_darwin

GRR! The LORD supplicates to no one! She will accept My Link or she will be smoten!

And the LORD spoke unto Diane, saying, "OH, SNAP".

Wait - which God are you? the God of Abraham ? Thor ? Bast?
By the expression of Holy Wrath you seem to be rather Thor-like or maybe Zuess-ish ?

DLC - I am the God who blessed Abraham, The Lord Almighty. There are no other gods, there is only ME. I created the entire universe and continue to create everything that appears in it: your parents, you, your dog, your shoes, the toothpaste you use, and even new Froot Loops cereal straws from Kellogs.
Worship Me or burn forever.

#8: According to Satan's FAQ, you're a real sychophant.

Isn't God just so cute when he's defending his territory?

Good God. Here's a treat!

God,

GRR! The LORD supplicates to no one! She will accept My Link or she will be smoten!

That's "smitten". Just because you're the creator of the universe doesn't mean you get to play fast'n'loose with grammar.

Hush, Emmet. Whatever God does is right, because it is He who does it, so that's how that word is spelt. (It's a good thing He chose to vary the spelling of an archaic word nobody uses anymore, rather than, say, 'the'.)

(Why yes, you *do* get ludicrous and demented consequences if you carry this theory through to its logical conclusions, just as you do with e.g. Divine Command-inspired ethics and morality.)

Ah, but what about YOUR spelling, Nix?
Spelt (Triticum spelta) is a hexaploid species of wheat.
Spelled the past tense of "to spell"
;)

Alas, Ra, you have fallen afoul of the Bierce-Hartmann-McKean-Skitt Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation.

You either need a colon after the word "Spelled", so as to indicate that what follows is a definition, or the verb "is" so as to make what you wrote a complete sentence. You also ought to have a period so as to complete the sentence.

While it is not required, good form would indicate that the genus species "Triticum spelta" should be italicized.

Ra #13
In some parts of the world, "spelt" is regarded as the traditional form and "spelled" is regarded as an Americanism.