Watching this video will waste 1.75 minutes of your time. But hey, afterwards you'll have this cool bit of nerdy almost-knowledge in your head. … [Read more...]
Rewinding Religion, Recreating Science
April 8, 2012 By 13 Comments
Any serious writer could tell you: Not everything you write ends up on a page somewhere. Some of the stuff just isn't good enough. Some of it is good enough, but not germane to the piece you're currently writing. And some of it is good enough but ... just doesn't fit anywhere. This is a piece of a piece that never made it into my book. It's sort of a double reject — the chapter in which it appeared was edited out of the book, but even before that decision was made, this bit was edited out of … [Read more...]
Ebola and Gonorrhea on Sale!
April 6, 2012 By 4 Comments
Science nerd alert! Yes, now YOU can enjoy deadly disease microbes in the privacy of your own home! From the commonality of the Cold virus or the season delights of the Flu to the exotic pleasures of Rabies, Syphilis, or even that sensational destroyer, Flesh Eating Disease, these pettable petri dish poxes will bring hours of eww! to you and your friends. And they're on sale. Where else? ThinkGeek. This Christmas, I'm giving someone Hepatitis. … [Read more...]
THIS Is The Future I Want
April 5, 2012 By 10 Comments
Google's "Project Glass." Don't know if the reality will live up to the hype in this video, but ... I've had dreams about something like this. I'm so getting a set of these when they come out. Also: Won't it be fun to virtually tag churches with atheist comments? So when you — or your friends subscribed to your comments — walk around town, you all get these friendly little warnings. … [Read more...]
A Study in Conflict Between Island Cultures
March 16, 2012 By 17 Comments
It doesn’t get much play in the publicly-available cultural anthropology literature, but there’s an island in the Pacific where an interesting conflict has played out over generations. The island, which has an untranslatable name – generally rendered in English as “Ryeezahn” – is occupied by two tribes, the Kritsi and the Syenz, which have been at war for generations, a war temporarily restrained in an uneasy peace. The root of the conflict, as visiting anthropologists have … [Read more...]
Icy Fingers of Death
February 28, 2012 By 2 Comments
Paging Bobby Drake! Pretty cool video: … [Read more...]
Okay, So It’s Not Flying Cars …
February 19, 2012 By 12 Comments
But still. Google’s self-driving car has been demoed a number of times over the past few years — “Good Morning America” even took it for a spin in 2010. But the pedal’s about to be really put to the metal in Nevada. Nevada’s Legislative Commission has approved regulations that would allow self-driving vehicles on the state’s roadways. Sweet, huh? Near as I can tell from the story, it's a bit of bracing open-mindedness on the part of Nevada state legislators. They're willing, … [Read more...]
St. Valentine and Darwin: A Tale of Two Carls
February 13, 2012 By 1 Comment
Carl Buell, Carl Zimmer. Do you know the names? Buell is the renowned natural history illustrator, Zimmer is the well-known science writer. Buell's name just popped up all over the world in relation to Darwin Day, Zimmer's makes a splash this week on the cover of Time Magazine. I hope Darwin enthusiast Colin Purrington will forgive me for quoting pretty much an entire page on his website, but he explains the Buell-Darwin connection so well I just couldn't do it better: … [Read more...]
About that Cure …
February 13, 2012 By 2 Comments
Just wanted to follow up on my post of a few days ago. I still feel a little bit bad about the headline, "Hurrah! Cure for Alzheimer's Discovered!" I intended it to be funny, sort of a reflection of common practice in science reporting. This does it better: … [Read more...]
Hurrah! Cure for Alzheimer’s Discovered!
February 12, 2012 By 13 Comments
Yes, I'm doing that "sensationalist headline" thing the popular news media is so famous for. But ... I hope this is true. It would be damned cool if it was. At the same time, I've learned — not as a scientist, because I'm not one, but as a reader of news and onetime newspaper editor — that what you read in headlines is often misleading. And you can't even trust the stories that follow. But here it is: Breaking News from the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine … [Read more...]
Follow Patheos
Atheist: