If you missed the first (or later any) episode of Cosmos 2014, you can get it on Amazon Prime streaming (for a fee). It’s worth it. Here are a few comments I jotted down (then lightly edited) while watching the first episode. Neil does have his own spaceship, like Carl did. That’s important because it … Continue reading #Cosmos with @neiltyson – The first episode is a win.
I generally ignore climate change denialists on Twitter. I use The Zapper to do that, and it works great, better than blocking. But sometimes I check my Twitter feed on something other than Chrome on my own desktop or laptop and then I see them, and occasionally engage. When I do, I often see troubling … Continue reading What Climate Change Denialism Looks Like
Bioscience for the future has an update o the bee situation in Europe. Europe has 13.4 million too few honeybee colonies to properly pollinate its crops, according to new research from the University of Reading. The discovery, made by scientists at the University’s Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER), shows that demand for insect pollination is … Continue reading The European Honey Bee Shortage
Years ago I knew Richard Dawkins as a fellow evolutionary biologist (met him only once, at a memorial event for WD Hamilton, but we have numerous mutual friends and colleagues). To be frank, and I’m only being frank now because I’d prefer not to use my real name, Dawkins was considered a bit of an … Continue reading How does Richard Dawkins corner the Atheist market?
Don’t make a move until you’ve CLICKED HERE. Then you can continue on to this post. Thanks. I think the accusation that I’ve “stalked” fellow blogger Abbie Smith have been made one too many times. But I’m not sure. Is this the point where I lay out the exact sequence of events of what happened … Continue reading Question for my readers.
This is the question everyone eventually asks themselves. The answer is no. They live all over your body in the follicles of your hair. But, the situation is much more complicated than that, and in fact there is a lot we don’t know about these mites. But, there is a scientist who may be willing … Continue reading Do mites really live on my face?
The news for Minnesota today, and over the last few days, is unbelievable. Here in the twin cities, the body of a guy who police think was killed by his girlfriend was found in a swamp. She’s in prison serving time for a different crime but now the investigation may move towards charging her with … Continue reading Women abusing and killing men
Well, not everybody. First lets talk about some losers. Someday a brave journalist will ask the FBI why they had one of the suspects in sight a couple of years ago but this still happened. Chances are there is a very good answer and we should not be mad at the FBI for this, but … Continue reading The Boston Bombers: Something for everybody
“You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” -Genesis 4:12 Today, a few of us visited the Twin Cities Home School Creation Science Fair of 2013 at its new location. The fair used to be held in the historic Har Mar Shopping Mall but for some reason it has wandered up the road and … Continue reading Creationist Home Schooling Science Fair
I’ve been lucky. Becoming a secularist and atheist and, to some extent, activist in those areas (though I quickly add my activisms is mostly in other areas) was not to hard. Hey, this very morning Minnesota Atheists had a show on what you do for Christmas and other holidays as a non-believer, and asked for … Continue reading You have to read my friend Sarah's post.
I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday, even though it happened years ago, even before you were born. I screamed silently, pinned on my back by the massive weight of a cotton blanket, legs frozen, the dark lights flickering as the human-like form approached, its arms raised in front like The Mummy … Continue reading The Nightmare That Was Christmas (Death Never Dies)
Back in the 1980s, it became popular for biologists to consider plant secondary compounds in understanding inter-species relationships and other ecological matters. I was doing my thesis research at the time, and it even affected what I was doing, as the wild world was being reconceptualized in terms of tannins and alkaloids, seed edators and … Continue reading Smoking is (good) for the birds
Let me start with this. People talking about Sandy Hook need to stop saying that “20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 were killed.” That is technically true but misses an enormously important point and indicates that you really haven’t thought this through. All of the children who were killed were born between … Continue reading Sandy Hook: Their Horror, Our Country, Your Guns.
In an old colonial-looking restaurant that served ten kinds of steaks, I met up with an experienced explorer and a local farmer, to have dinner and discuss plans for an upcoming research project that would be managed by The Explorer and that would partly be on The Farmer’s land, which adjoined a rather extensive and … Continue reading Manspace