This blog and a few others were down for a while this morning. We apologise and promise it will never happen again.
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Will Phoenix rise from the ice?
The Phoenix robot, left by NASA on the Martian Pole last Martian Fall, has been hidden by seasonal darkness and is presumably covered with ice. The explorer had performed very well during its mission, and it is not expected to have survived the winter.
Continue reading Will Phoenix rise from the ice?
From Fit to Fat to Fit: Lenora
When working with a personal trainer, the first thing you have to do is to calibrate. Then, if the trainer does not crank it up to a higher level, she’s probably not worth her fee.
Continue reading From Fit to Fat to Fit: Lenora
I don’t know what to do with my life
I don’t know what I want for christmas
… Or what I want to be when I grow up, or what to major in in college.
But I can write a poem with Google Search Box:
I am going crazy
I am going to die.
I am going in
I am going to be a big sister.
I am going in Spanish
I am going to die alone.
Scripps Expedition to the “Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch”
Important things for you to read
First, following Ethan‘s Fitness Challenge (to which I responded here) there is another new entry by Dunford here.
Discovering Biology in a Digital World gears up for Science Online 2010: Citizen Science: all fun and no data? ScienceOnline 2010
Isis is branching out from the realm of incivility to the world of diversity, also at Science Online 10: Dr. Isis Continues to Ponder Diversity for #scio10. She’s asking for your ideas as to how to respond to certain question about diversity.
EM Johnson has the third (and I think final) installment of his Social Darwinism posts.
Race and Class
If you follow the race-IQ discussion, you’ll note that the entire edifice is calibrated to questions of work and class. As long as classism stands, the arguments of inherent ability will be plausible to far too many people, and the problem of blacks in poverty will be used to justify itself. Just as racism has always been used to justify poverty.
Read: At the Corner of Race and Class at Quiche Moraine by Stephanie Zvan.
#scio10 Conferencing
Science Online 2010 is coming up in a few days. There is a post at A Blog Around the Clock that is a veritable clearing house for all of the blogospheric information on this conference, including ways for you to participate in the conference even if you do not attend in physical form. I’m sure I’ll be blogging from the conference. For now, I just want to talk about conferences in general, as part of my mental preparation for the impending event.
From Fit to Fat to Fit: Joining the Gym
Back from South Africa and with some time on my hands, I was hell bent on keeping the promise I had made to myself to get back into shape. For most people I know, this would mean eating better and going to the gym more often. But for me, it meant eating better and going to a gym for the first time in my life.
Continue reading From Fit to Fat to Fit: Joining the Gym
From Fit to Fat to Fit and Back: Exercise and Weight Loss
Did you ever watch cattle? I mean, really watch them, for a few hours? Mostly they just sit or stand around munching on grass, chewing their cud, or snoozing. But every once in a while a handful of them will stand up and point in one direction. And they may take a few steps in that direction. Then a few more will join them. And once a critical mass has been reached, the whole herd will just go. Domestic cattle, wild African cape buffalo, whatever. This is what they do.
And as the cattle do, so do Scienceblogs.com bloggers. And the current stampede about to form up is about fitness. I’m not sure where it started, but I first noticed it at ERV‘s blog, but Page 3.14 has also picked it up.
We’re not talking about Darwinian fitness, but rather, physical fitness.
So, because I’m as much a member of the herd as the next cow, I decided to join in and tell you my fitness story … or at least, a version of it. Part I is below the fold.
Continue reading From Fit to Fat to Fit and Back: Exercise and Weight Loss
Which is bigger, cats or dogs?
What is the answer to this age old question?
Continue reading Which is bigger, cats or dogs?
Speaking of “Negro” …
Nevada Democratic Senator and Senate Leader Harry Reid apparently stepped in it:
The US Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has apologised for private comments he made about Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential election.
He is quoted in a new book as saying Mr Obama could win since he was a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect”, unless he wanted one.
The Democrat said he now regretted “using such a poor choice of words” and apologised to any Americans offended.
President Obama quickly accepted the apology and said “the book is closed”.
source
African Skeptic Mayday
Yet another reason that Linux is better than Windows
And here we are not really talking about the operating systems, but the philosophy that derives decision making and development. An OpenSource system, according to J.H., is “real people oriented.” Read “There’s a problem on your computer”
Rushton on Race and IQ
Canadian racist “scientist” J. Philippe Rushton (now dead) has made the argument that the brain size of “Blacks” is about 1267 cc’s, and for whites it is about 1347 CC’s. Rushton also claims that the average IQ of Blacks is 85 and he average IQ of whites is 100. But does Rushton say that there is a link between the two?
Continue reading Rushton on Race and IQ