It seems that with every new Halloween there is a new opportunity for some appalling racist act or another. Locally, we had such an event at Hamline University, and nationally, where else: The Bush Administration. Continue reading Halloween is a great time to bring out the racism in the racists
Daily Archives: November 6, 2007
Yet Another Gene for Intelligence
Obviously, I have to work this both into tonight’s talk in Grand Rapids, and blog about it:
Gene governs IQ boost from breastfeeding from PhysOrg.com
The known association between breast feeding and slightly higher IQ in children has been shown to relate to a particular gene in the babies, according to a report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[…]
But for now, I’ll just say this… Continue reading Yet Another Gene for Intelligence
New Pig Species Discovered
A new species of peccary has been discovered in the Amazon. It’s different from other peccaries in that it appears to be a frugivore. It also lives in pairs or very small family groups. This is, of course, exactly what one might expect. Frugovores eat high quality food, while the other peccaries eat lower quality food. Higher quality food is rare and dispersed so it is difficult to get into larger groups. Continue reading New Pig Species Discovered
The Girl With Eight Limbs
This is interesting:
Doctors began operating today on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said.Lakshmi is joined to a “parasitic twin” who stopped developing in the mother’s womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.[source]
Ancient Geek History
Those of you who know my older (now inactive) blog also know that I’m a Linux Jingoist. I like Linux because it gives me a clean, reliable, and superior user interface (I use Gnome most of the time) but also allows me to play with ancient, deeply embedded UNIX Mojo whenever I feel like it.One of the early developments on old Unix systems was the “Calendar File” which was manipulated and accessed with the command: calendar. If you go to a terminal prompt in Linux and type in the word, you get a listing of historical events people have entered for today and tomorrow. On some systems, if it is Friday, you get Friday and Monday.You can use this calendar instead of, say Microsoft Outlook if you can figure out how to enter dates for stuff you want to do. I’m still working on that.Anyway…. Continue reading Ancient Geek History