Archive for October, 2008
October 31, 2008 at 6:54 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Our latest AVoteforScience videos are up and a new article in Science talks about the effort and other grass roots efforts this year. I will note that Science forgot to mention that the AVoteForScience effort was done in partnership with Seed Magazine/ScienceBlogs. In fact, it couldn’t have been done without them.
Of particular interest will be the video by Murray Gell-Mann who received the Nobel prize in physics in 1969. Murray reads the letter from he and 75 of his fellow Laureates in science encouraging the public to vote for Obama.
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Original post by Michael Stebbins none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 6:30 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The Duarte Pumpkins website has a nice collection of creatively carved Halloween pumpkins. They also have a feature that allows you to vote for your favorite creations.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Link - via kottke.org
Original post by GeekAlerts
October 31, 2008 at 5:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It is with great sadness that I wrap up the horror movie trivia posts. But, there’s always next year! And, as someone mentioned, Christmas. Christmas horror movies, you guys! Silent Night, Deadly Night; Black Christmas; A Nightmare Before Christmas… suddenly I’m feeling better about this whole thing. Happy Halloween, everyone!!
Evil Dead
OK, Evil Deadites! Here you go. You already know this stuff, but for everyone else, here’s the rundown. Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and his brother Ted Raimi all went to high school together in Beverly Hills… Beverly Hills, Michigan. Anyway, this is where they first started making short films together on the Super 8. Evil Dead was the result of all of their previous efforts.
• The movie, even up through the first screening of it, was called Book of the Dead.
• The opening shot of the movie was constructed [...]
Original post by Stacy
October 31, 2008 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Strange things happen when it’s Halloween week in the lab.
(reposted in honor of Halloween)
Catch up on the story by reading part I.
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Original post by Sandra Porter none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 5:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I feel bad.
I realize that I’ve been completely neglecting my Academic Woo Aggregator. You remember my Academic Woo Aggregator, don’t you? It was my attempt to compile a near-definitive list of academic medical centers that had “integrated” woo into their divisions or departments of “integrative medicine” (i.e., departments of academic-sounding quackery). Perusing it, I now realize that it’s been over five months since I did a significant update to it. You just know that, given the rate of infiltration of unscientific medical practices into medical academia as seemingly respectable treatment modalities that there must be at least several new additions to this role of shame. Alas, even today, having been shamed myself by the realization of my failure to keep the list updated, I’m not going to do the full update and revamping that the Woo Aggregator cries out for. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t do a piecemeal addition [...]
Original post by Orac none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 4:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This Sunday you are slightly less likely to have a heart attack.
Swedish researchers, publishing in the NEJM, looked at a registry of heart attacks from 1987 to 2006. They found that the incidence of heart attacks slightly increases for the three days following the Spring daylight savings time where we lose an hour. The incidence of heart attacks slightly decreased on the day after Fall daylight savings time:
We used data from the Swedish registry of acute myocardial infarction, which provides high-quality information on all acute myocardial infarctions in the country since 1987. The incidence ratios, as measures of relative risk, and exact 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
The incidence of acute myocardial infarction was significantly increased for the first 3 weekdays after the transition to daylight saving time in the spring (Figure 1A). The incidence ratio for the first week after the spring shift, calculated as the incidence for [...]
Original post by Jake Young none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 4:13 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Photographer ch.knuckles’ shot these cool and weird custom cars in a parking lot near Tokyo. You can view the photographs in his Flickr photoset.
Link - Bouncing Red Ball via Pink Tentacle
Original post by GeekAlerts
October 31, 2008 at 4:09 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Obama took over the airwaves Wednesday night, hitting most of the important audience groups. According to Nielsen (above), Obama’s 30 minute 8pm infomercial which aired on CBS, FOX, NBC, Univision, BET, MSNBC, and TV One drew a combined 33.5 million viewers. His later taped appearance on The Daily Show registered another 3.6 million hard to reach young viewers, a record audience for the program.
Obama even tied into the 11pm local news and cable news broadcast, with many stations and networks cutting live to his first joint appearance with Bill Clinton. CNN video below.
McCain attempts to manage the same type of hard to reach audiences with a just announced appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend.
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Original post by Matthew C. Nisbet none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 4:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
During the breeding season male frogs are compelled to grab moving objects and engage them in amplexus, the tight ‘breeding clasp’ that occurs either under the forelimbs (axillary amplexus) or around the waist (inguinal amplexus), depending on the species. Amplexus is assisted by roughened pads of tubercles or even small spikes on the male hand, wrist and/or forearm. If it’s obvious that the moving object is not a female of the same species (because it feels wrong or makes an objectionable noise [as male frogs do when grabbed by other males]), the male lets go.
Nevertheless, male Eurasian common frogs Rana temporaria - the anuran I’m most familiar with - have been reported to grab goldfish, people’s hands and, as you can see from this photo, members of other anuran species. Here, a male R. temporaria has engaged in amplexus with a Common toad Bufo bufo: presumably a female based [...]
Original post by Darren Naish none@example.com
October 31, 2008 at 3:35 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Note: I’m splitting this off from my earlier post on 23andMe’s encouragement of genetic testing of children, since I think this rather speculative argument distracts from the main point of that post.
I mentioned in my previous post that there’s a real danger that parents might try to use information from current genetic tests to steer their children in specific directions (and that at least one company is already touting such a test) - but the information available right now from genome scans simply isn’t accurate enough to justify such decisions.
For instance, to mention a field close to my own heart, the genes currently known to affect athletic performance likely explain less than 5% of the variation in traits such as muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness. Any parent seeking to decide which sport their child would be best suited to would be far better off simply encouraging them to try [...]
Original post by Daniel MacArthur none@example.com
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