What does skepticism look like from a Native American perspective?
…change is never an easy obstacle to overcome. People fear the unknown and find comfort in daily routines, habits, and ritual tradition. Society itself has become too comfortable with some of the ways we think and perceive issues in America. People tend to not understand what is outside of that “comfort zone” that they have created for themselves simply because they are afraid of a change….
Yet another study on why women shop, from an evolutionary perspective:
In an unconscious attempt to outdo female rivals, ovulating women buy sexier clothing, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“Not unlike the chimps featured on the Discovery Channel, women become more competitive with other females during the handful of days each month when they are ovulating. The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women,” write authors Kristina M. Durante, Vladas Griskevicius (both University of Minnesota), Sarah E. Hill (Texas Christian University), Carin Perilloux (University of Texas at Austin) and Norman Li (Singapore Management University).
Danielle is unraveling. Meteroloigsts are using words like “disorganized” and “decreased dvorak estimates” and “downgrading” and finally, have decided that she is no longer a hurricane. Tropical Strom Danielle may well reintensify into a hurricane, and in fact, she may become a rather intense storm by the weekend. But she’ll still be out in the middle of the ocean by then.
Continue reading Tropical Update
Terra Sigillata has settled at Central Science. Click here to visit the new blog and find out the details.
My brother, who lives in Kentucky, very recently had similar corrective heart surgery as PZ’s. He sent me this video to pass on to PZ of what appears to be the latest trend in Kentucky health food, as well as the main novel food item that will be sold at the Kentucky State Fair which starts up in a day or two.
Timely:
Investigations into research misconduct cost US institutions more than US$110 million per year, estimates a study published this week. But experts contacted by Nature question whether calculating the cost of investigation is the right way to measure the impact of research misconduct.
read the rest at Nature
The word on the street is that PZ Myers has been surgically updated and will return home soon, probably tomorrow. My understanding is that he received a stent, which is routine, but as long as they had him on the table they also upgraded his laser eye blaster tubes and retractable squid arm assemblies. So look out.
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.
In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.
“The real kick in the pants is that I don’t even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous,” Bess says.
Now, here’s the thing. I copied that from a story I found on the web, but the assholes who wrote the story did not have the courtesy to link to Marilyn’s blog! Imagine that!
So, here’s the reference to the site, so you can type in the URL. But I’m not going to make this easy for you because, well, they’re obviously assholes:
It’s at Philidelphia’s “citypaper” and the url is citypaper dot net slash articles two oh one oh oh eight one nine, with some backslahses in there where you might expect, followed by blogging business priviledge tax philidelphia but with dashes where I put spaces and stuff speld right. Good luck.
You know of DuWayne Brayton as the over the top highly opinionated commenter who is always giving everyone a hard time on this blog, or when not here, on his own blog. (Which, by the way, has recently undergone a style change, and I like it.)
Well, you may not know that DuWayne writes fiction now and then. Have a look at this piece, “Leaving.”
I’m afraid the people who really need to read this are not going to. So pass it around, please. It’s quite good .
But you can help. And there’s something in it for you.
Continue reading Eight Preventable Infant Deaths
I am sad to report that it is indeed confirmed by official sources that primatologist Marc Hauser engaged in several instances of what is being termed misconduct while carrying out experiments in his lab.
Dean Michael Smith issued the following letter to members of the Harvard community today:
Continue reading Harvard Confirms Scientific Misconduct by Marc Hauser
In our recent tour of the northern and western parts of Minnesota, we stopped briefly at Tamarack Wildlife Refuge. Here are a few shots:
Is PZ Myers over the top? Is Phil Plait too nice? Is Chris Mooney right about framing? If I meet a Creationist, should I throw a fossil over his head?
Continue reading Be a smart dick
