Yearly Archives: 2007
Special Google Search Engines from MnCSE
The Minnesota Citizens for Science Education has special search engines that might be helpful for people doing research on Evolution and related issues.
There are two good reasons to use one of our special search engines. First, they’re based on the standard Google search engine, so they’re fast and efficient. Second, they can deliver search results that suit your tastes, especially when you’ve had it with non-science clogging up your browsing. So give our three offerings a try (we’ll understand if you don’t use the third one a lot)
The search engines are here. Have fun!!!
This is your brain. This is your brain on video games…
Sex differences in certain abilities, which have persisted for decades in various psychological tests, are now widely believed to be the result of conditioning that is in turn shaped by cultural factors. This applies to math abilities, spatial skills, and a range of other activities. Neural plasticity is key, and widely misunderstood or ignored. (Indeed, this is at the heart of the race discussion. Some people really want genes to “cause” different levels or kinds of intelligence, but are unable to explain how a few thousand genes wire up a few billion neurons … but that is the subject of a different discussion, at a different time)… Continue reading This is your brain. This is your brain on video games…
Gene Therapy Video
Kill! Kill! Kill! (A Linux tip)
Now and then a program (a “process”) will need to be killed. It got annoyingly slow, or got stuck somehow. In Windows, the final solution for killing a process is “alt-ctrl-delete” which may or may not give you the capacity to shut down a process, and if that works, it requires a lot of struggling with dialog boxes, etc. Best case scenario in Windows is that the process dies cleanly. Often, a Windows process will leave messy bits and pieces of itself behind that may affect performance or create security problems, and often, the worst case scenario happens … you’ve got to “kill” the process hard, by turning off the power or yanking the cord from the wall or throwing the computer into the nearest lake.In Linux, nothing actually goes wrong, of course. Continue reading Kill! Kill! Kill! (A Linux tip)
Quidditch
I had no idea red wine had a “Key Ingredient”
… You’d think it would have been mentioned by now, by some wine taster or another …
“Ah, yes, a rather wooden palette, and a stuffy nose, but a remarkably close finish… Oh, and a distinct overtone of the key ingredient, resveratrol…”
Continue reading I had no idea red wine had a “Key Ingredient”
I had no idea red wine had a”Key Ingredient”
… You’d think it would have been mentioned by now, by some wine taster or another …”Ah, yes, a rather wooden palette, and a stuffy nose, but a remarkably close finish… Oh, and a distinct overtone of the key ingredient, resveratrol…” Continue reading I had no idea red wine had a”Key Ingredient”
The Algorithm March is Back
This would not work in Attica. No way, man.
An Anti-Creationist Strategy
Mike the Mad Biologist suggests this:
One way pro-science citizens can influence what local and state governments do is through federal funding. The next time any educational legislation is proposed, a key component should be the release of federal support for educational programs contingent upon the adoption of educational standards that do not accept intelligent design creationism as science and that also support the study of evolution.
The Bible as Ethnography ~ 05 ~ The Virgin Birth
I have a cousin in law who tells this story: Her youngest child found out about sex. Then he made the connection that if he existed, his parents must have had sex. So he confronted the parents with this, and mom was forced to admit, yes, of course, this is how babies get “made” and this is simply how things are. The child did not seem too concerned.Moments later, the child noticed his sister playing in the other room. A thought occurred to him … a light went on, as it were. He turned back to his mother with an expression somewhere between accusation and perplexity.”You did it twice?!?!?” Continue reading The Bible as Ethnography ~ 05 ~ The Virgin Birth
Supergroup Cell: A Sims simulation teaching cell biology
Why am I doing this…You may have wondered why I am always putting cell biology videos up on my site. I’m doing it for a few reasons. One is to provide a resource for teachers. Some day in the not too distant future one will be able to enter “cell biology” in the search box (upper left from your perspective) and get a few peer reviewed research papers and a bunch of movies.Pursuant to this is the possibility that others will watch the films and comment (Thanks Larry, especially, for doing a lot of that). Not all films are good, not all films are usable. You could go on Youtube and Teacher Tube and Google and find these yourself, but I’m doing it for you. I waste my time so you can waste yours.Finally, there is one other reason. My wife, Amanda, is a biology teacher. She has developed a number of routines that she uses to teach cell biology. All of them are dramatic but short interpretive dance routines, incredibly silly, and the students who see them never, ever forget what a flagellum, or endoplamic reticulum, or whatever, are/is. Well, these days with all these new fangled cell phones with videos and stuff on them, I’m expecting to find Amanda’s cell biology lessons on You Tube, and I want to be among the first to see them…OK, so this next bit is using SIMS 2 technology, and is an allegory for the inside workings of a cell.
Gene Expression
Utterly Stupid Quote of the Day
Although secularists maintain that the cacti have evolved over the last two million years, there is very little biological or genetic research on cacti because such research, if published, would reveal the deep irreducible complexity displayed by these plants.
Happy Birthday Daryl Hannah
