Watson, Can You Smear Me?
Many things have been written about James Watson’s inglorious Imus homage, but for my money, Annalee’s column, pointing out the remarkable arrogance and needless associations with race and gender, is one of the few that consider the expansive context.
“It is actually a very serious matter for finch lovers.”
One more finch tweeting post before I go - thanks for having me, Ed!
Belgian Meritocracy
Ladies and gentlemen, the storied sport of finch tweeting. (via the avian dialectologists and comparative Belgianists at Language Log)
Ice Ages Are a Great Sartorial Motivator
New York Times: “If people first became nudists 3.3 million years ago, when did they start to wear clothes? Surprisingly, lice once again furnish the answer. Though humans may long have worn loose garments like animal skin cloaks, the first tailored clothing would have been close-fitting enough to tempt the head louse to expand its territory. It evolved a new variety, the body louse, with claws adapted for clinging to fabric, not hairs. In 2003, Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, estimated from DNA differences that the body louse evolved from the head louse about 107,000 years ago. The first sewn clothes were presumably made shortly before this time.”
Protonium Crystals, Not Dilithium
New Scientist: “Mixing antimatter and matter usually has predictably violent consequences – the two annihilate one another in a fierce burst of energy. But physicists in Geneva have found a new way to make the two combine, at least briefly, into a single substance. This exceptionally unstable stuff, made of protons and antiprotons, is called protonium.”
The Early Name for This Region Was “Department of Justice”
New Scientist: “A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say. Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out ‘justice’, dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher’s own best interests.”
Brundleflies of the World Unite! Airlines Cower in Economic Fear!
Scientific American: “At long last researchers have teleported the information stored in a beam of light into a cloud of atoms, which is about as close to getting beamed up by Scotty as we’re likely to come in the foreseeable future.”
The Guinea Pig is Doing Better
The human eye transfers information to the brain as fast as a swift Ethernet connection. Unfortunately, like a tetchy DSL connection, we could be transferring data a lot swifter. Humans have ten times more ganglion cells in the retina than a guinea pig, yet the guinea pig is faster. This suggests that this deficiency might be best rectified if a few humans replaced a few guinea pigs for those painful dissections conducted in the name of research. Or perhaps our ganglion cells might be boosted if we adopted other humans as pets and had them run around in circles.
Either way, this will not stand! The human is smarter than the guinea pig. Can a guinea pig balance a checkbook or order takeout? I think not! Moreover, the average guinea pig lives a mere four to six years. Perhaps that comparatively smaller blip of existence is what causes the guinea pig to get its act together.
I call upon my fellow humans to do better! We must triumph over the guinea pig before the eye-to-brain transfer speed is comparable to a 56K modem.
The Reader’s Last Sigh
The Associated Press reports that Rushdie’s new novel will “have a lot more India in it” than Midnight’s Children. That’s great. But it still doesn’t change the fact that Rushdie hasn’t written a single compelling novel since Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Who says they aren’t crazy about libraries in the sticks? In Modesto, 100 volunteers are trying to maintain a small sales tax to ensure that their libraries stay open.
Geologists are trying to stop a creationist book from being sold at the Grand Canyon. The book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, suggests that the Canyon came into being not by the erosion of the Colorado River over millions of years, but because of a wager between Jesus and Peter. Peter lost the bet. And instead of turning water into wine, as Peter hoped, Jesus created the Grand Canyon. But not without starting a few side projects like lime jello and double-entry bookkeeping.
And Pete Rose has the best marketing gimmick around: “Read my book before judging me.”
[1/24/06 UPDATE: As of November 2004, the controversy died down. I am not in a position to confirm this, although I will try and make a phone call to determine what the National Park Service's position is, but it appears that Tom Vail's apocryphal book is still being sold at the Grand Canyon store. Of course, all this came well before any of the Intelligent Design bullshit. But the decidedly unscientific Tom Vail has remained quite smug about his victory.]
Is There Life?
The Science article requires membership to some orgainzation that sounds too much like someone’s rear end, so all we have are generalities in other media outlets to go by. But it looks like the Australians have found a habitable region in the Milky Way where life is likely to exist. Charles Lineweaver notes that there are four components necessary for life: a star, elements to form a planet, evolutionary time, no chance that the star will fall prey to a supernova. But there are three additional facets Lineweaver fails to list: wars triggered by colossal misunderstandings, edible underwear and parking tickets.
