Given the common name of the thing, I would swear the Neoclinus blanchardi is a spoof. (Click the pic to embiggen.)
Yet Wikipedia describes it thus: Continue reading “Monster Under the Bed Scientifically Identified!”
Proof: Six Percent of Us Would Kill
Maverick Blogger Pioneers World’s First Blog Post Reboot!
Seeing the new Batman movie last night, I had this exciting epiphany about blogging.
Blogging is enormously demanding of time and energy. You have to turn out a completely new post at least every few days. For some bloggers, it’s a new post several times EACH DAY.
But sitting in the theater and looking around at the happy faces, movie-goers content to see yet another Batman movie and plop down $9.50 for the privilege, I thought about reboots. Continue reading “Maverick Blogger Pioneers World’s First Blog Post Reboot!”
Death From Above! Sloppy Bats!
If you’ve read my Falling Leaves post on Earth Day, you know I have a somewhat grim view of what’s coming. Based on nothing more complex than the fact that we have no way to control human population growth, and will probably never have a conscious, deliberate way, we are screwing ourselves out of a future. Control will come from outside, via natural forces, and it will be ugly.
On that light-hearted subject, here’s an interesting article from the New York Times: The Ecology of Disease. Continue reading “Death From Above! Sloppy Bats!”
God Weighs In on ‘God Particle’ Discovery
“I wish people would stop bringing Me into it.”
So complained God, the supernatural superbeing and all-powerful deity of the Bible, in an exclusive interview today with FreethoughtBlogs’ Blue Collar Atheist.
We sat in a small café in Schenectady, New York. On the day after Rolf Heuer, director of European physics research center CERN, announced the likely discovery of the Higgs Boson, God appeared in a blinding flash at roughly 9:17 a.m. (all the clocks stopped, as did most of the people in the room), stepping down from a small cloud as a host of angelic cherubs kept up a continuous long choral note. Continue reading “God Weighs In on ‘God Particle’ Discovery”
O Texas, My Texas! Where Did You Go Wrong?
This is from a document entitled “2012 REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS / Report of Platform Committee
and Rules Committee.”
Assuming I’m doing this right, you can download a PDF of the thing here: 2012-Platform-Final
Believe THIS shit: Continue reading “O Texas, My Texas! Where Did You Go Wrong?”
In Which I Brag on My Friend … Again
If you’re in the biological sciences and expect at some point to get published, here’s someone you should know: Carl Buell.
He’s done heaps of illustrations for science author Carl Zimmer as well as cover and interior illos for countless other books and magazines. He has pieces in museums all over the world, and has designed blog headers for PZ Myers, Chris Clarke and a number of others. (And I’ve probably written about him before, but he’s just one of those cool people you can’t say enough good stuff about.) Continue reading “In Which I Brag on My Friend … Again”
If NASA Made Home Movies
Big-screen this and watch. Continue reading “If NASA Made Home Movies”
The Pure Poetry of Pendulum Periodicity
Watching this video will waste 1.75 minutes of your time. But hey, afterwards you’ll have this cool bit of nerdy almost-knowledge in your head.
Rewinding Religion, Recreating Science
Any serious writer could tell you: Not everything you write ends up on a page somewhere. Some of the stuff just isn’t good enough. Some of it is good enough, but not germane to the piece you’re currently writing. And some of it is good enough but … just doesn’t fit anywhere.
This is a piece of a piece that never made it into my book. It’s sort of a double reject — the chapter in which it appeared was edited out of the book, but even before that decision was made, this bit was edited out of that chapter. Still, it struck me as worth saving. So, here: Continue reading “Rewinding Religion, Recreating Science”