It is official. An unnamed Democratric party source has revealed that Al Franken will run for the Minnesota US Senate seat currently held by Ex New Yorker Norm Coleman.
That’s good news. Al is a pretty funny guy. He’s also a native Minnesotan and not some Yankee carpetbagger.

From a story in the Lexington Herald Leadervia Mark Hall at Archaeology Method and Theory List.

It is official: Four Stone Hearth Carnival is now available, and it is VERY NICELY DONE
The host is Northstate Science.

Understanding Evolution
Tuesday, February 13, 6 p.m.
Varsity Theater, Dinkytown
$5 suggested donation
A panel of University of Minnesota researchers discusses evolutionary biology and the history of America’s cultural response to teaching evolution. Learn about new research from Professor and science blogger PZ Myers, Bell Museum Director Scott Lanyon, and historian and biologist Mark Borrello.
Sex, Snails, and Evolution
Tuesday, February […]

Chinese and US scientists working together are reporting fossilized embryos dating to 600 million years old, in a very early stage of development. The species is not identified, but might be a coral-like animal. This is reported in Geology, volume 35, pp 115-118

What is the meaning of this… “tangled bank”… you ask?
The phrase comes from Darwin, the closing of one of his big famous books, in which he uses a tangled bank (like along a river) as a metaphor for the complexities of ecology. (and in a sense sort of invents the field of ecology). […]

I’ve been sniping about this Jane Fonda issue over at Larry Moran’s blog, and decided to spend some of my efforts in my own space. This discussion is also going on at Phryngula.

This photo is a hoax

Where was I during the Viet Nam War? Too young to serve or not serve. […]

Dilbert can be very funny. But Scott Adams must be a savant, because he is making an argument that is so dumb I suspect it is actually a joke. He makes his argument about Intelligent Design here, and it is being discussed on various blogs including Omni Brain and Phryngula.
Of course, you may […]

Two Faced Calf
click for story

Just a couple of weeks ago, Yone Minagawa turned 114 years of age and thus became the world’s oldest woman. I’m not sure why she did not reach this status when the previous oldest woman died (or left the planet in some other fashion). AP report in the Star […]

Land of Enchantment … isn’t that what the license plates say down there?
Well, state Senator Steve Komadina must have eaten a doped up apple or something because he has introduced four (at least) Intelligent Design Creationism bills for the current State Legislature session.
The Panda’s Thumb has the story.

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

Humans have been indistinguishable as far as the fossil record shows from today’s Homo sapiens for a minimum of about 120,000 years. Bones of Homo sapiens from back this far fit into the range of modern humans. But the archaeological record suggests that our species – […]

Over on the Thinking Blog there is a post about how to make a bow and arrow (an a link).

The instructions are based on a US Army survival manual. I’m not sure how this survival manual specifically was written, but I do know this: Some very important ethnography was actually funded by the […]

Like it or not, the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus nubilis) has been taken off the Federal Endangered species list.
In some ways this is a victory for conservation of this species, as protection has resulted in a successful repopulation in many areas. However, it may also be viewed as a cynical act of retribution against […]

Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are meeting now in Paris to finalize a report that is expected to predict centuries of increased global temperatures and rising sea levels due to the release into the atmosphere of significant amounts of fossil carbon by human activity. (NYT report)
This meeting should be seen as […]

I just read Larry Moran’s definition of a gene.
While reading it I was reconsidering (as I have been for a few days) the exclusion of sequences that are templates for non-coding RNA. That’s what my definition does. I excluded them in my definition because they are part of the system of gene […]