Most scientists and science journalists argue vehemently for basic research - and even more taxpayer money should be devoted to it, they say. Politicians usually disagree and feel like taxpayer-funded research should have a goal or at least a defined result in its framework.read...
read moreI guess I am not the only Ricky Bobby fan out there. I think the only thing he forgot to include was a shout out for ‘Power-Ade’. “In Jesus’ name, boogity, boogity, boogity, amen.” was pretty cool too. Baptist ministers take pride in having smokiin’ hot wives? And look at this guy. If he does have a smokin’ how wife, wouldn’t it be validation...
read more"Planet of the Apes" for real?British film-maker James Marsh’s latest work, Project Nim, is about a 1970s experiment started in the heyday of the original "Planet of the Apes" films, a world where simians evolved and took over the planet. Nim was a chimp raised as a human child in order to test out the hypothesis that man and his closest relative could learn to talk to each other....
read moreP.Z. Myers of Pharyngula fame asks why something obvious wasn’t in the Ten Commandments – not molesting the vulnerable, like kids. Pretty obvious, but that is not why I link to it. I link to it because I learned there is actually not only a ‘Hobo’ set of rules but an actual hobo convention every year, which seems to defy the point of being a hobo but it’s still...
read moreThe crime-is-in-our-genes notion has popped up in the news (again). 100 years ago it was all the rage. Charles Davenport, founder of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, expressed concerned that immigrants from southeastern Europe were "given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex immorality." Italians, Davenport asserted, were prone to "crimes of personal...
read more