The Moron Magnet

It would be almost unscientific of Science Vigilante to condone use of the term "moron," so you will perhaps indulge me as I direct you to this cleverly rageous (outrageous minus the 'out') writeup of the opening of the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY.



Well, it's a silver lining at any rate, I guess...

Why in God's name (well, I guess that's exactly in whose name, but) do these creationcritturs always insist on using DINOSAURS to further their cause? WHY? WHY? WHY?

E.O. Wilson's Encyclopedia of Life coming to life

Read about it on Boing Boing... Boing Boing: E. O. Wilson's Encyclopedia of Life gets over $50M in funding

Read about it on the TED Blog...

View his TED wish


Or just go there. Be sure to check out the cool video reminiscent of The Machine is Us/ing us (is there a meme for this style yet?).

Appropriate appropriation & miscommunication

Bloggers blogging about a published scientific paper, in order to further the scientific discussion, would appear to be fair use under any legal copyright. However, a Journal published by Wiley and owned by the Society of Chemical Industry gave blogger Shelley Batts a pretty hard time when she used a portion of an illustration from the Journal in her blog post on the paper in question. Read about it on Boing Boing.


And, um, does anyone else find it discomfiting that the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture is a publication of the Society of Chemical Industry? Can we at least pretend that food and agriculture is even remotely independent of Chemical Industry? I wonder how well papers on organic 'Science of Food and Agriculture' do in that journal?

Why is Pokemon Evil Incarnate in Kansas Schools?

HINT: It's not because it distracts pupils from class, wastes their time and money, or anything even remotely like that. It's because Pokemon, (I would pause here to laugh really really hard if this were not so warped) PROMOTES EVOLUTION.

Those bastards!


UPDATE: SO much for VIGILANCE, we got April Fooled!

The Muffin Joke

After an 8 month lapse, I thought I'd better get right to the hard-hitting science issues of the day. Like this analysis of The Muffin Joke, posited on science blog Cosmic Variance

Too Much of (what was once) a Good Thing

Apparently you can actually digest too well... Certain microbes in the intestinal lining help you get the most energy from your diet (no actually, I could have skipped a few of those calories, thanks!). This used to be a very very good thing in the US. Still is, some places. So here & now, are these buggers actually causing obesity? Hard to tell.

BUT, when they gave mice without the microbes the Supersize Me treatment, they didn't get fat. Astonishing. Where do I sign up for a daily scoop of Bacteroidetes?

Science Worth Speaking About

I have been extremely un-vigilant lately. And, soon I will live nowhere in particular, so I may keep up the bad work. But I am thinking of you, oh vigilant one inside me. Here is something nice for you to read, and remember, and be yet again... vigilant.

This is a wonderful idea... for any scientist or science-interested person. And the bonus of improving your communications and presentation skills will take you far in life!

Images of Science

So it would seem we've still got a long long way to go...

"Honey-Do" List for Science

This should make for fun reading -- top 25 things science hasn't figured out yet.

The Economist High on Medical Cannabis

Science Vigilante is always fascinated by the intersections of science and politics, thus this piece on medical marijuana. But the real payoff here is that it ran in the Economist! (Another one of those alt-liberal, hippy-grass-smoking, crunchy hemp freak magazines, right?)

Thank You De Niro et al

Science Vigilante would love nothing more than to see popular culture embrace science (not mutilate or distort, embrace).

Tribeca Film Fest Sweet on Science from Wired News Online
"De Niro Seeks Science Scripts." That was the header of a press release sent out by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation when it launched a screenplay competition in conjunction with Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival...

Doron Weber, the director of Sloan's Public Understanding of Science and Technology program, includes the Tribeca festival as part of his broader effort to promote pop-cultural depictions of scientists and engineers.
"Instead of just cops, lawyers, teachers, let's have movies about people who are working in science, in occupations that have such a huge impact on our lives," he said. "Let's find ways to tell their stories."

Sweet. Where do we sign up?
The article goes on to say:

In his Super Size Me-style documentary A Flock of Dodos, Randy Olson interviews both proponents of Intelligent Design (a thinly veiled successor to creationism) and evolutionary scientists, none of whom provide a workable strategy for promoting evolution.

Okay folks, we gotta work on that one.

Nancy Schafer, Tribeca's managing director and programmer, said the tension between science and religion is a subject the festival felt compelled to address.

"We have to tell the stories that we feel are important and relevant," she said. "One of those stories is the way science and religion and politics are entwined."

Getting Students to the Starting Line for Science Careers

Charity (and by that I mean change) begins at home. Elementary and secondary schools that suck, no matter what community they are in, set us up for failure across the board.

"In fact, the richest untapped source of future talent will likely be found in our underserved cities and among low-income and minority students who are failing to receive a good education in our public schools. A college scholarship is worthless unless you graduate from high school, but only about half of America's minority students even finish high school on time."

"As a result, the best long-run strategy for boosting America's global economic standing isn't giving more students a reason to choose careers in science. It's giving more students the ability to choose careers in science. Without expanding the pool of well-prepared students who can take advantage of them, no amount of scholarships will make a difference."

SciToys.com

But here is where it really gets good. Build, do, see, learn, play!

How Stuff Works

Oh the fun we could have here.

Darwin World Tour

Coming to a Museum near you, an exhibit of Darwin's artefacts, history and work. But it could have done more says Florida's State University's Michael Ruse.

Equal Parts EW and WOW

SO glad this works differently for us:

"An amphibious wormlike creature has been found whose young feed on their mother’s skin... Nursing mothers of Boulengerula taitanus transform the top layer of their skin from its usual flat, dead cells to a thicker layer of large cells rich in protein and fats. The nutrient content of this skin layer is similar to that of milk."

Tiktaalik is so clearly an intermediate "link between fishes and land vertebrates," they said, that it "might in time become as much an evolutionary icon as the proto-bird Archaeopteryx," (and THIS from rivals of the team who published the finding...)

YAY! Sweet. This is a very big deal.

But... Naturally lots of the thinking sort of people are thinking this will help lay to rest a lot of ID/creationist hooey. Us science fans are wicked excited about Tiktaalik. The Missing Link! We gush, while linking, linking and more linking on our blogs to the drawings, quotes from the paper, etc.

But why on earth are we naive enough to believe that scientific evidence means anything to the ID sort of "thinker"? I mean, I'm thrilled at this corroboration, it's a fabulous find, but I really didn't feel unable to defend evolution without it, so why should it convince the "faithful unbelievers" of creationism, ID and ilk.

By the way, ya ever notice how the IDers just plain suffer from a shockingly dull lack of imagination.

In their report, the scientists concluded that Tiktaalik was an intermediate between the fishes Eusthenopteron and Panderichthys, which lived 385 million years ago, and early tetrapods. The known early tetrapods are Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, about 365 million years ago.

So in TWENTY MILLION YEARS of time, there is no way that ancient fishes could have evolved into early tetrapods without and Intelligent Designer at work? How Intelligent are we talking, anyways, if this incremental change takes TWENTY MILLION YEARS?

Oh Canada.

Unbelieveable. Click the link to read full Ottawa Citizen story...

Excerpt from The Lancelet

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) denied funding McGill professor Brian Alters on the following grounds:

"The committee found that the candidates were qualified. However, it judged the proposal did not adequately substantiate the premise that the popularizing of Intelligent Design Theory had detrimental effects on Canadian students, teachers, parents and policymakers. Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct. It was not convinced, therefore, that research based on these assumptions would yield objective results. In addition, the committee found that the research plans were insufficiently elaborated to allow for an informed evaluation of their merit. In view of its reservations the committee recommended that no award be made."

What Physics can teach us about Fabio's nose

To get mass understanding of science, sometimes we need to be silly. Physics, Fabio and what happened to the poor duck...

Trains Stop Verrrry Slowly

Evidently Global Warming is a pretty damn big train, and going to keep running long after we stop "making it worse". Great.