Monthly Archives: June 2010

Brookhaven National Lab Blogs

Brookhaven National Laboratory is a multipurpose research laboratory funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Located on Long Island, NY, Brookhaven operates large-scale facilities for studies in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, applied science, and advanced technology. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world.


And, they now blog at Scienceblogs!!!
Go welcome Brookhaven.

Yes, there is a trend. Scienceblogs is adding a number of institutions as bloggers. This is going to require the rest of us to clean up our acts!

They can pry my guns out of my cold dead hands!!!!!

… Which might well be cold and dead because the firearm discharged by accident or was taken away from me by a home invader or I got depressed and shot myself.

Yes, folks, there are things to consider when contemplating private firearm ownership other than what you see on TV or read in the NRA propaganda. In the end, you need to ask yourself this question: How Well Does Your Gun Protect You?

Go Asha!

This blog does more than sit there … blogging. Sometimes it reaches out and does something real. And this year, GLB sponsored (in part) a runner in the Grandma’s Marathon, in Duluth, MN.

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Asha Shoffner ran the half marathon with a time of 1:48:14. This is Asha’s Blog. The producers, writers, and staff of Greg Laden’s blog are very proud to have had this opportunity.

Dancing Scientists? Announcing the 2010 “Dance Your Ph.D.” Contest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 3, 2010) – Who said scientists can’t dance? The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is proud to announce the third annual “Dance Your Ph.D.” interpretative dance video contest. The contest, which is open to anyone with a Ph.D. or pursuing a Ph.D. in a science-related field, asks scientists to transform their research into an interpretive dance. Winners of each of the four categories (physics, chemistry, biology, and social sciences) will receive $500, then compete head-to-head for an additional $500 grand prize for best overall dance. Submissions are due by September 1, 2010. All winning dances will be screened at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City in mid-October, where the best overall dance will be determined by a panel of judges and the audience. A more detailed description of the rules and how to enter can be found at


Go here for all the details.

Putting Exodus into Words: The sed Bible Translation Project

So, a while ago, Ben Zvanwas talking about doing something with the Bible, which would involve processing the text through some filters and recompiling it. This sort of thing has always interested me: Not recompiling the bible, but rather, textual analysis in general using the basic material stripped of intended meaning by classifying and ordering arbitrarily. What, for example, is the vocabulary of the Rosetta stone, or the Kensington Rune Stone (a probable fake Viking misssive on display in west-central Minnesota). Does the rune stone sample the lexicon of a particular time period or another, or one group of vikings or another? (I hasten to add, that study has been done, but was inconclusive).
Continue reading Putting Exodus into Words: The sed Bible Translation Project

Did humans evolve from apes?

The next installment of “Everything you Know is Sort of Wrong” will be on the falsehood: “Humans evolved from apes.” Or, if you prefer, “Humans did not evolve from apes.” Either way, you’re wrong. And right.

Confused? Great, then we’re half way there! Here’s the details. (This is part of the Skeptically Speaking broadcast.) Please post your questions and tune in on Friday.

Oedipus Maximus: The curious case of the YNH blog

The blogger(s?) at You’re Not Helping have tried, really tried, to help. But in such a ham-handed, erratic, uneven, capricious, ad hominem (in that, if you’re PZ Myers you must be wrong) way, that they have polarized where they could have rallied, obfuscated where they could have clarified, and alienated where they could have allied. A classic case of alienation is that of commenter Oedipus Maximus. It would appear that Oedipus showed up on the YNH blog interested in what they were saying, engaged in the conversation, then somehow got the author(s) of YNH pissed off. He seems to have hit them on a day they were out of smokes or had not yet had their coffee or something, because they went so far as to ban him. Or, maybe, they just didn’t think he was important and treated him like crap.

In any event, YNH apparent mistreatment of Oedipus Maximus actually inspired OM to write up his/her experience, and it is here: The curious case of the You’re Not Helping blog. In fact, this is the first post on OM’s new blog. I hope you read it.

Welcome to the blogosphere, OM, I’m sure your presence will make it a better place. If, that is, you are not driven into the swamp by those who can’t handle not being entirely in control of the discourse!

Rwanda ex-army chief Nyamwasa shot in Johannesburg

A former Rwandan army chief of staff, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, has been shot in South Africa and taken to hospital in a critical condition.

His wife told the BBC the couple had been returning from shopping when a gunman opened fire on the car.

She said it was an assassination attempt as there had been no demand for money or goods.

Lt Gen Nyamwasa, an outspoken critic of President Paul Kagame, fled from Kigali in February.

Details.