Sorry, Saint Peters College has removed this video from YouTube so youall could … I don’t know … not watch it, I guess.

Blow the fold
Continue reading Lab Romance →

We [had a cool summer here in Minnesota in 2009], and this has brought out the miscreants who for their own reasons do not want to get on board with the simple, well demonstrated scientific fact that global temperatures have risen, that we humans are the primary cause, and that this climate change has negative consequences.

~ A Repost … Because Global Warming is still real, as is Global Warming Denialism ~

Continue reading Global Warming, The Decline of the Moose, and “Minnesota Nice” →

Here’s the trailer:
Continue reading I can’t wait for the new Facebook movie →

Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation across populations are interesting and, in fact, seem to conform to expectations (in a “we don’t’ really care about statistical significance” sort of way, for now) regarding human social organization.

~ A repost … because effective polygyny is still interesting ~

Before examining the paper, we should mention four terms/concepts: Effective population size, Polygyny, and Operational Sex Ratio (OSR), and Variation in Reproductive Success (RS). The first two are used in the article, and the third I’m adding because it is a good one to know.

Continue reading Effective Polygyny in Humans: Turns out it is for real →

The Jaguar C-X75 (not to be confused with te Siemens CX75 cell phone) will go almost 70 miles on its battery pack, using one 145kW electric motor attached to each wheel, accelerate faster than most hot cars, and reach top speeds that are greater than most fast cars. You can plug it into you wall and thus fuel it off of your local coal burning plant or nuke (yes, folks, plug-in electric cars are terribly inefficient because the electricity is made miles away from where it is used) or, for more efficiency than most (or perhaps any?) hybrid, the car has two internal microturbine engines that will run on a wide range of fuel including biodiesel, compressed natural gas, etc., to charge the batteries, extending the range of the vehicle to about 560 miles. The turbines can also directly power the wheels directly if needed.

The seats are fixed, but the controls move. That’s interesting. Makes me wonder if we’ve been doing it wrong all these years….

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Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur — a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator — were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina’s Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period).

~ A repost, because it is still an amazing dinosaur ~

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Aerosteon riocoloradensis is that it demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Indeed, the authors of this paper imply that this dinosaur’s respiratory system represents an early phase in the evolution of the bird’s respiratory system. This is a case of an adaptation arising in one context and later being used in an entirely different context.

This is how evolution often works: An adaptation arises for one reason, and then that adaptation is employed in a similar way but for a very different purpose (it is “exapted” as Stephen Gould would say) in a later organism. In this case, we see a lung adapted for a certain kind of efficiency in a terrestrial organism. Later, if the authors are correct, this same efficiency-enhancing adaptation is used in birds as an adaptation related to flight, an entirely different reason.

In order to understand the significance of this find, it may be helpful to first discuss some interesting things about tetrapod lungs, and bird lungs in particular.

Continue reading Aerosteon riocoloradensis: A Very Cool Dinosaur from Argentina →

A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the Pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.

The request is an incremental – and long shot – step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against a Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.

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My local congressional race is getting interesting.

Continue reading Jim’s Mom pwns Bachmann-Clone Paulsen →