Sometimes boys are worth more, sometimes girls are worth more. In an evolutionary sense. Or, more correctly, the value of a certain sex … as an offspring … can be measured in fitness terms. Fisher noted this and hypothesized this was the explanation for the 50-50 sex ratio we usually see. As one sex becomes more rare, it becomes more valuable, and thus parents (mothers, perhaps, usually) bias towards that sex. Then the disparity goes away and thus the differential value goes away.Of course, the truth is that we don’t actually see the 50-50 sex ratio all the time … many species of organisms have a highly biased sex ratio. Many have a highly biased ratio in adults, much more biased than in offspring. This sort of thing varies quite a bit. But what about humans, and what about the report that Indian girl-boy ratios at ‘all-time low’ … Continue reading Sex Ratio Bias in India
Monthly Archives: June 2008
The Earth Will Not Be Sucked Into A Black Hole. But it may coexist with a large number of tiny black holes until the end of time as we know it
An utterly incomprehensible paper has been produced by a team of physicists, designed to make everyone feel better about the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider will produce black holes that will suck the Earth into themselves.There is no effort whatsoever in this paper to speak to normal people. The most I can get out of it is that yes, black holes can form, and possibly very many of them, but it will take them longer to destroy the planet than it will take the sun to destroy the planet by exploding on its present schedule (of some billions of years from now). Which makes no sense to me at all until I saw this in the paper:
Ah, that makes me feel so much better….
Gotha!!! Big Goof in Press Report
We anthropologists love this stuff. This is why we go to zoos. So we can stand around near the ape cage and say to people .. “No, that’s not a monkey. It’s an ape….” and so on.Look a this cute little guy:
Obviously, this is an emperor tamarin, Sanguinus imperator. But the news report labels it as an Emporer tamarin and uses this headline:
HA! Lemurs are, of course, prosimians, while tamarins are New World monkeys. That’s like calling a deer a cow, roughly.I quickly ad, I no my blog is ful of erors. But I do not have an editorial staff and it’s free.source
Ken Hubert, Hero of Life Science Teaching
Continuing with our discussion of the Evolution 2008 conference …Yet another item from the first day of the conference, the pre-conference teachers day sponsored by Evolution 2008 and the Minnesota Citizens for Science Education (MnCSE) …The Minnesota Citizens for Science Education presented Ken Hubert with an award. I am blanking on the name of the award right now, but eventually, the MnCSE web site will probably have a page on this, or an announcement about it. (We need time for some dust to settle.)Who is Ken Hubert?Well, when it comes to the Evolution – Creationism ‘debate’, Ken is Case Law 101… Continue reading Ken Hubert, Hero of Life Science Teaching
… too sexy for my blog … (Birthday wishes)
I had the strangest dream last night:
…The DHS girl had picked up that something was amiss, but a strategically placed index finger run from just behind her ear down to her throat while I explained the situation alleviated her concerns. She was suddenly quite helpful, and half a ton of red tape miraculously disappeared. It turns out she was a fan of Greg’s. …and mine.Greg was going to get his gift, and I was going to give it to him….
But it turned out to be Janie talking to me via the Intertubes, and wishing me a happy birthday. Thanks Janie!My grandmother was forever uttering these statements of fact … If her ankle hurt, she would say “It’s gonna rain” or if somebody spilled something she would say “an angle just sneezed” or whatever. And if I would scratch my nose, she would say “someone is talking about you.,..” But on the Intertubes, you just check Technorati, where I just found this. Thanks for the kind words, Troll Slayer!And this nice present from ERV (Thanks ERV!):
Seven Days of Carlin One
My own personal spore saga
Yes, I too was asked by EA games to install and test Spore. That is their hot new product.I have run into certain hurdles. This is the best I could do for spores:
Continue reading My own personal spore saga
If Marriage is a Sacred Bond between Man and Woman ….
The couple walked into a Norfolk courthouse on a spring day, exchanged a few words, and within 10 minutes, were seemingly husband and wife.It was an unremarkable ceremony – except that several weeks later, officials realized the shapely bride might not have been a woman.Now authorities in Virginia, where same-sex marriages are illegal, are weighing whether to file misdemeanor charges against the couple, Antonio E. Blount, 31, and Justin L. McCain, 18. An announcement is expected this week.
Read the whole story here.The people who are insisting that marriage is only valid if it is people of different sexes are asking for it. It might, in many states, be easier to recognize gender orientations beyond hetero male and female as additional ‘sexes’ (in courts) than to get legislatures to pass non-discriminatory bills.Just as interesting would be the reaction in some legislatures…. Continue reading If Marriage is a Sacred Bond between Man and Woman ….
The American South, Urban Areas, People of Color, Native Americans … In short, the poor and disadvantaged … suffer greatly from poverty-caused neglected diseases
NASA’s Got a New Web Site
NASA’s JPL has a new web site which focuses on surface conditions on one specific planet: The Earth. 
It has a Sea Level Viewer which is basically a very fancy menu for a number of multi-media presentations, and a list of current or proposed missions. I am not overly impressed with this, but it may be a good resource for the kiddies.Much more interesting, and in fact, quite impressive, is the “Climate Time Machine” … Continue reading NASA’s Got a New Web Site
Monarch butterflies in the classroom
Continuing with our discussion of the Evolution 2008 conference …Karen Oberhauser talked about the “single species” approach to pedagogy. This involves focusing on a single species and using it throughout an entire course. Karen has taught classes on this approach for teachers’ professional development programs.The species she uses is the Monarch Butterfly.
Karen is a world class expert on this insect, and runs a major research project with them.The idea of a single-species approach is that a student learns a great deal about one particular species, to the extent that this species becomes an organizing theme as well as a kind of living mnemonic device for all that is learned throughout the course. The individual seemingly disconnected aspects of biology and ecology can become seemingly connected by referring back to a single species. If there is something that this one species does not give you that you need to use in your class, there is almost alwasy a way to work it in. Continue reading Monarch butterflies in the classroom
Carnival
Encephalon #48: The Usual Suspects is now up at Neuroanthropology
Drs Myers and Decker: Advice on Teaching Evolution
Continuing with our discussion of the Evolution 2008 conference … many things have been going on and I have more to report than time to report it. But I will get to all of it, I assure you. Tonight, I just want to cover part of today’s Education Symposium (moderated by your’s truly) … not all of it at once, thought, as it is kind of complex.If you happen to work for the University of Minnesota or know anyone who does, best to not read this or let anyone know about it. This is a little to heavy to be spoken of openly. (Since there are only 11 of you who read my blog, I think we’ll be safe.)I want to comment briefly on two of the talks, one by PZ Myers and one by Mark Decker. The other talks in the symposium were excellent, but I want to address them separately.First, to dispel rumors that PZ Myers passed out on he lawn in the middle of the campus; This is simply not true. It is true that he had slept only four hours over the previous two and a half days, and had just flown in that morning from Vegas, but he did not pass out on the lawn. In fact, we were able to wire him up quite nicely. Here are before and after photos of a little treatment we applied to get him through the afternoon (This is me on the right and our techie in the middle, in the first photo).BEFORE:
AFTER: Continue reading Drs Myers and Decker: Advice on Teaching Evolution
Happy Birthday The Computer and Other Tech News
It was actually yesterday, June 21st, but sixty years ago, when the first “modern computer” which in this case is defined as a computer that could store it’s own memory, as born i Manchester, England. It’s name was Baby.
The Small Scale Experimental Machine, or “Baby”, was the first to contain memory which could store a program.The room-sized computer’s ability to carry out different tasks – without having to be rebuilt – has led some to describe it as the “first modern PC”.Using just 128 bytes of memory, it successfully ran its first set of instructions – to determine the highest factor of a number – on 21 June 1948.”We were extremely excited,” Geoff Tootill, one of the builders of Baby told BBC News.”We congratulated each other and then went and had lunch in the canteen.”Mr Tootill, and three other surviving members of the Baby team, will be honoured by the University and the British Computer Society at a ceremony in Manchester.bbc
In other news: Continue reading Happy Birthday The Computer and Other Tech News
