Sunday, June 29, 2008 . 6/29/2008
Unlike intelligent design/creationism, science actually progresses:Bird Family Tree Gets Re-Write
"With this study, we learned two major things," said Sushma Reddy, lead author and a fellow at The Field Museum in Chicago, Ill.
"First, appearances can be deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Second, much of bird classification and conventional wisdom on the evolutionary relationships of birds is wrong."
The results of the largest ever study of bird genetics are so widespread that the names of dozens of birds will now have to be changed, says the study to be published in Science magazine.
The Early Bird Assembling the Tree-of-Life Research Project has been researching the evolution of all major living groups of birds and has already examined 32 kilobases of DNA data in 19 places of some 169 bird species.
A kilobase in molecular biology is a unit of length for DNA fragments representing 1,000 base pairs of DNA.
Among new discoveries the team found that birds repeatedly adapted to new environments. For example, flamingos and grebes did not evolve from other water birds, while birds that now live on land such as cuckoos did not evolve from other land birds.
Other findings were that, contrary to current thought, daytime hummingbirds evolved from nocturnal nightjars, falcons are not related to hawks and eagles and fast flying ocean birds are not related to pelicans and other water birds.
"We now have a robust evolutionary tree from which to study the evolution of birds and all their interesting features that have fascinated so many scientists and amateurs for centuries," Reddy said.
"Birds exhibit substantial diversity, and using this 'family tree' we can begin to understand how this diversity originated as well as how different bird groups are interrelated."
Pretty cool, huh? 0 Comments - Post/view comments
I've been thinking about how I used to believe in ghosts and such lately, especially how I used to absolutely love the show Ghost Hunters. I was kind of sciencey back then (less then than now, obviously) and I wanted to have my cake and eat it too when it came to science and the paranormal. Ghost Hunters claimed to include science with their "investigations" so I was thrilled. I bought into it all, hook, line, and sinker. They claimed to be more interested in debunking hauntings than proving them to be true and I believed it.
But there is a big problem (ok, there is more than just a single problem but this one is major) -
TAPS goes in already assuming that ghosts exist, which means if they can't debunk something to their satisfaction, they assume the place is haunted. This is not good science. I could just as easily go into these so-called haunted places assuming that invisible fairies exist, try to prove that invisible fairies were not the cause of all the ruckus, and when I can't, fall back into my original conclusion that it was invisible fairies. Never mind that there isn't any evidence ghosts exist in the first place, let alone invisible fairies: it's circular reasoning. It's a logical fallacy.
I really do wish ghosts existed though, don't get me wrong. In fact I cannot even begin to describe how much I want them to be real, and truth be told I kind of miss believing in them whilst happily ignoring more logical explanations. Unfortunately though, just wishing something existed does not poof said something into existence.
Labels: Personal
0 Comments - Post/view commentsThursday, June 26, 2008 . 6/26/2008
Bits of Ancient Earth Hidden on the Moon
Some scientists believe that at least one meteorite found in Antarctica preserves evidence of ancient life on Mars. Now, work by a team of English scientists reinforces an earlier suggestion that evidence of life on the early Earth might be found in meteorites on the moon.
The original idea was presented in a 2002 paper by University of Washington astronomer John Armstrong, who suggested that material ejected from Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment (a period about four billion years ago when the Earth was subjected to a rain of asteroids and comets) might be found on the moon.
Armstrong's suggestion was interesting, but whether a meteor ejected from the Earth might arrive intact on the moon remained an open question.
New research by a team under Ian Crawford and Emily Baldwin of the Birkbeck College School of Earth Sciences used more sophisticated means to simulate the pressures any such terrestrial meteorites might have experienced during their arrival on the lunar surface. This confirmed Armstrong's hypothesis. In many cases, the pressures could be low enough to permit the survival of biological markers, making the lunar surface a good place to look for evidence of early terrestrial life.
Any such markers are unlikely to remain on Earth, where they would have been erased long ago by more than three billion years of volcanic activity, later meteor impacts, or simple erosion by wind and rain.
Labels: Space
2 Comments - Post/view commentsWednesday, June 25, 2008 . 6/25/2008
This is just fucking sick.Leonard Yankton, 32, called police and told them the dog had tried to attack him, so he used the machete to fight back.
"It appeared Leonard Yankton tried to chop the dog's head off," said Lincoln Officer Katie Flood.
The pit bull was taken to an animal clinic, where it died. Yankton was arrested and charged with felony animal abuse.
"Apparently, where the injuries were on the dog, it could not have been in attack mode. It appeared the dog had been laying down," Flood said.
What kind of a fucked up piece of shit does this? Who in their right mind could ever willingly kill an innocent animal with no guilt? People are fucked up, and quite frankly, I don't think five years in jail is nearly enough. If this idiot killed a dog, who's to say he'd stop there?
Labels: News
0 Comments - Post/view commentsMonday, June 23, 2008 . 6/23/2008
I'm sure it'll come as no surprise that I like to lurk in forums such as the ones over at RichardDawkins.net or Infidels.org. What annoys me is that some fellow atheists, especially on the Infidels forums, like to call the bible "babble" or god "gawd". This just seems childish to me. It's no different than fundamentalists calling evolution "evilution".Imagine for a moment that you're a religious person (perhaps you used to be). You think that atheists are arrogant, but want to discuss some things with them to see if that's really true, to ask questions, etc. And then you come about a forum that has atheists saying things like "The babble is no evidence for gawd or jebus". I don't know about you, but that childish spelling would turn me off from the start. Hell, it does that to me now and I'm not religious in the least.
Grow up, please. "Babble", "Gawd", "Jebus", etc is just embarrasing.
Labels: Rants
0 Comments - Post/view commentsSANTA MONICA, Calif. - Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Some People Are Stupid. Stuff. People I Can Do Without.
George Carlin, who died of heart failure Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language.
The counterculture hero’s jokes also targeted things such as misplaced shame, religious hypocrisy and linguistic quirks — why, he asked, do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
“He was a genius and I will miss him dearly,” Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
The actor Ben Stiller called Carlin “a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats.”
Carlin constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the “Seven Words” — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV to this day.
When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government’s authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Labels: News
0 Comments - Post/view commentsFriday, June 20, 2008 . 6/20/2008
I just got done watching Perfect Body, a movie about a girl in gymnastics that develops an eating disorder because of the need to feel perfect. It's absolutely heartbreaking in certain parts but I encourage everyone to watch it.Labels: other
0 Comments - Post/view commentsMonday, June 16, 2008 . 6/16/2008
HOLY SHIT.I'm one of the five people who won the Set Ben Straight contest!!! I completely didn't expect that as so many of those looked better than mine!
AAAAA I'M SO HAPPY!
This is the email:
Congratulations! You were among the five entrants to the Set Ben Straight contest to be randomly selected to receive a year's subscription to Reports of the NCSE and a book from NCSE's shelves. The five books that we have the most copies of at the moment are:
Mark Isaak's The Counter-Creationism Handbook
Eugenie C. Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism
The AAAS's The Evolution Dialogues: Science, Christianity, and the Quest for Understanding
David Quammen's The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
Edward Humes's Monkey Girl
Let me know which of those sounds most appealing, and I'll send it along. (If by chance you have all of them, or don't want any of those, let me know, and I'll see what else we have on the shelf.) And thanks again for entering. We're quite pleased with the effect of, and the response to, the Expelled Exposed website, and we value your contribution -- even if it took us a while to post it and to select our winners!
I chose Mark Isaak's The Counter-Creationism Handbook although I wish I could have all of them!
edit: Aww, three of the other winners chose that book and they don't have anymore. Oh well, I can just order it on Amazon. But my second choice would've been Edward Humes's Monkey Girl so that's what I picked now. 2 Comments - Post/view comments
Uhg. You know what's annoying? This. It's an MSN "article" on which celebrities are "too thin" and which ones are "just right". On the ones that they deem too thin (all of them), the obnoxious author says something like "HEY YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE STARVING THERE, EAT SOMETHING!!!". You know what, though? If those women have actual eating disorders, telling them to eat something or that they look like they're starving doesn't help. It really doesn't. In some cases, saying to someone with an eating disorder that they look too thin is actually a compliment and can encourage the disordered behavior. And just eating more isn't as easy as it sounds.
Some might wonder how I know this so I thought I'd just bring it out in the open already: I have a disordered view of food, myself. No, I'm not anorexic - I'd need to skip three periods in a row. I'm not bulimic, either. And yes, I do eat. But people telling me that I look too thin and that I need to eat more because "you're underweight already, you won't get fat" doesn't help one bit.
So please, if you know someone with an eating disorder, there are better ways to try to help them than by telling them to "just eat, already".
Saturday, June 14, 2008 . 6/14/2008
So I was telling my mom the other day about these delicious crumb cakes she used to get me (think Mini Muffins only instead of muffins, they are crumb cakes). Either they don't make them anymore or all the fatties got to them first because my mom couldn't find any when she went to the grocery. She got something a bit similar instead - they come in a serving size of 3 TINY AS FUCK cinnamon crumb cakes. Know how many calories are in all three? 100. In three tiny, bite-sized cakes with zero nutrition.This is what I don't like about those lame "100 calorie" packs, especially ones when the portion size is so fucking small. A fatass would get these, thinking they are a great alternative to other snacks (and they are, in principal) but the thing is, these things often leave you feeling even more hungry than before.
Now I'm not saying that 100 calories is necessarily a lot, but when it comes to those tiny snacks they sure are. I can think of several things with far less calories but are delicious, nutritious and filling - apples, strawberries, plumbs, nectarines.
So yeah. *Southern drawl* That's all I have to say about that.
Labels: Rants
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This might be way above what I'd ever be able to do, but someday, I'd like to be both a scientist and a popularizer of science like Carl Sagan. I know I need to work on being more patient with the more... uhmm... "thinking challenged" types in order to be as likable as him, and I'm working on that. And I know no one will ever be as great as he was. But that doesn't mean no one can't at least try.
Science is amazing in and of itself, but sometimes people need an extra "push" to see that.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 . 6/10/2008
I used to like the website GalaDarling.com. That was until I found out this chick was both nuts and stupid.What I have linked to above is from a recent article, "The Raw Girl's Travel Guide". Yes, she has gotten into the awful, unhealthy fad of eating raw food and nothing else. Now, this girl used to be anorexic and if you ask me, eating raw isn't much better and seems to me to be the path back to that horrible illness.
Two ridiculous aspects of that article fall under Juice and Vitamins.
Juice in the morning and no lunch. I'm sorry, but this sounds like an eating disorder. And juice is not breakfast.
Also, never take a supplement unless your doctor says you need to! There is such a thing as getting too much of a vitamin and that can be dangerous. Then again, if you eat raw, I'm guessing you'd have a vitamin deficiency of just about everything.
Unfortunately she disabled comments to that article. She was getting her ass handed to her, too. Her last comment before she did this included:
And since this raw food "diet" isn't healthy at all (and can even lead to osteoporosis), she is no better than an anorexic person having an "opinion" that anorexia is a lifestyle.
Byebye, GalaDarling.com. I've enjoyed your positive articles but in the end, you're just too stupid for me. 0 Comments - Post/view comments
Saturday, June 07, 2008 . 6/07/2008
I can't fucking believe this.A bill has been introduced to the University of Michigan to teach creationism.
From BadAstronomy.com:
They can flush that reputation away if State Rep. Moolenaar and Senator Hardiman get their way; they have introduced a bill into the state legislation to allow the teaching of creationism.
Oh, they won’t phrase it that way, of course. They’ll talk about "academic freedom", and "controversial scientific subjects", but what they really mean is that they want to teach fundamentalist religion in school. It’s that simple.
And guess what political party these guys call home? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller*?
Yeah, they’re Republicans.
Remember when that party was all for defending the Constitution, and not for undermining the First Amendment? Incredible.
We might as well just teach witchcraft alongside medicine for all creationism has to offer. So please do as this guy says:
Thursday, June 05, 2008 . 6/05/2008
I love stupid quizzes!You Are a Little Negative... |
 You can be negative from time to time, but you rarely go overboard. You have a realistic view of the world, and most people appreciate your honest insights. Like everyone else, you have your darker moods. But when you're feeling super negative, you keep your feelings to yourself. |
Labels: Quizzes
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