Scientopia Goes Online

Many of the diaspora from Scienceblogs have reconvened at a new site, including several I read regularly. Check out Scientopia to see what these science bloggers are up to.

The smell of asparagus

I like it when science and humor cross-pollinate, but sometimes it's even funnier when it's completely serious. You just can't make up stuff like this:

Br Med J  1980;281:1676-1678 (20 December),
doi:10.1136/bmj.281.6256.1676

A polymorphism of the ability to smell urinary metabolites of asparagus.

M Lison, S H Blondheim, R N Melmed

The urinary excretion of (an) odorous substance(s) after eating asparagus is not an inborn error of metabolism as has been supposed. The detection of the odour constitutes a specific smell hypersensitivity. Those who could smell the odour in their own urine could all smell it in the urine of anyone who had eaten asparagus, whether or not that person was able to smell it himself. Thresholds for detecting the odour appeared to be bimodal in distribution, with 10% of 307 subjects tested able to smell it at high dilutions, suggesting a genetically determined specific hypersensitivity.

Discoblog has a longer exposition on the topic:

NCBI ROFL: Asparagus, urine, farts, and Benjamin Franklin (Part I)

This and That

Some interesting things I found, with no particular theme:

String Theory Illustrated
[found at Not Even Wrong]


Andrew Gelman comments on Climate change as a religion, and the more general use of "religion" as a term of insult.

Can US Skiing be saved?  As an avid skier, even tough transplanted to the lowlands, it would be fair to say I don't give a damn if the ice caps melt and cities are inundated, just so long as global warming DOESN'T MESS WITH MY SKIING!! [Climate Progress]

A really creepy commenter over at Evolutionblog.

Pallative Care Grand Rounds, with links to the interesting and wonderful, ...

... including PostSecret. Very cool.

Destination Ordination, via the Sensuous Curmudgeon.

Good News for bone marrow transplant patients. [ScienceNow]

This is fun ...

 I just discovered a nice blog tribute to ... oh ... but telling would spoil some of the fun. This series of posts at The Armchair Generalist is still fun, even if it is after Halloween.

Here, have some more fun:

How Superman Defeated the Ku Klux Klan

TV Shows Little Girls Watch

Monkey Business: Scientist Monkeys Around With The Economy

Internet Rules

Piano Stairs are fun too.

I Love the Internet

Anti-Vax Debate

Its Rationality Vs. Moronity over at Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant. Mike would seem to be a very patient man.

Behe bobbles ball to Blind Locksmith

This is a bit much to explain, but Carl Zimmer hosts an enlightening response from biologist Joe Thornton to creationist wannabee Michael Behe's lastest brain-fart.

This is the same Michael Behe who, when Thornton published the first half of this research, declared it “piddling.”
Why the change of heart? Because Behe thinks that the new research shows that evolution cannot produce anything more than tiny changes. And if evolution can’t do it, intelligent design can. (Don’t ask how.)
I pointed out Behe’s posts to Thornton and asked him what he thought of them. Thornton sent me back a lengthy, enlightening reply. Since the Discovery Institute doesn’t allow people to comment on their site, I asked Thornton if I could reprint his message here.

What are you still doing here? Go read the original at The Loom.

From One Tomato Addict to Another

"My name is Kristina and I am a tomato addict!"

{unison reply} "HELLO KRISTINA"

Just to mix things up, today I give you a different sort of tomato addict. Meet the Tennessee Locavore. Some delicious recipes for your solanum lycopersicum. Enjoy!

I Won! I Won!!

Such a contest it was too, since I floated the idea (see first comment) with the intent that creating something like this would be fun. My entry won out among the thousands of submissions and ... well ... maybe it was hundreds ... or at least a dozen ... ok ok, it was just me as far as I know, but I still had fun with it.

From misc

So perhaps I should explain what the heck I'm talking about? I should, but I'm really tired and have to get up very early in the morning, it is going to be short and abrupt:

A new blog - The Thomas Society - by Presbyterian minister Jonathan Weyer and friends, discuss rationality and religion, or maybe religious rationality, something like that (REALLY TIRED), needed an avatar for his blog award, "The Attie".

I'm very happy that Jonathan liked my image. I am happier still to read his blog, because it seems to provide the kind of rational discussion of religion I had given up on ever finding. Jonathan wins too, he's the latest addition to my Scientia Causidicus.

Science Envy

Read it and weep at Pandas Thumb. [Especially if your name rhymes with Dilliam Wembski.]

Stand in awe at the power of us scientists, we only have to use big words, show lots of data, click our fingers and politicians will um, er, well … ignore us actually. Until real disaster actually does strike.

[Hat Tip 2 A Simple Prop]

Make Them Laugh

Scott Aaronson has a great post about humor in scientific talks:

Essentials of complexity-theoretic stand-up comedy

Here's a very short excerpt:

But because I love you, my readers, so deeply, and because I feel guilty about abandoning you for so long, I shall now publicly deconstruct the main ingredients of seminar humor, insofar as I’ve been able to find them. (A few ingredients are specific to theoretical computer science, but most are more general.)

1. Make fun of people in the audience. (Of course, you have to do it in such a way that they’re flattered you’re ripping them and not someone else.)

Good stuff, if you are a geeky science type. Go read the whole thing at Shtetl-Optimized.

Failure is Fun!

Failure is fun, if you do it right, and the Science Fail blog does it right. "Dirty Harry" takes the simple approach of posting anti-science quotes -without comment - and letting them speak for themselves. So are laugh out loud funny. I grabbed a few examples to post here; some real gems like ...

Josh Greenberger: "One fossil is NOT evidence."

Renuo Fides: "The general hypothesis of ID CAN be tested by the scientific method - although not as it pertains to "naturally" occurring life forms."

Jorge: " - by your own use of the term - you confirm it is a theory. Science has very few facts as such - other than data. Biology has many theories but almost no laws or "facts". "

There is more, and there is worse ... FAR worse ... at Science Fail.

Disclaimer: Excessive reading of posts at Science Fail or sites linked to from Science Fail may cause ocular bleeding. The management of this blog is not responsible for injuries that may occur as a result of excessive laughter. Do not taunt Science Fail. Study has shown that 50% of all Science Fail readers are below the median intelligence of all Science Fail readers.

Oh Crap, part 2.

The second in an a series of posts that I might regret starting.

When emperor penguins are in your vicinity, their signature tuxedos and waddling gaits make them hard to miss. But when scientists from the British Antarctic Survey tried to track Antarctic emperor penguin populations using satellites, the birds proved too small to be seen. That’s when they got the idea to focus on something much larger and darker than the penguins themselves: the stains left by their feces.

Using the patches of poop as a guide, the scientists examined the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica and spotted 38 penguin colonies, including 10 that had never before been recorded.

More at Discoblog.


... and then there is THIS unfortunate confection ...





... and another ...



... and video of a penguin pooping ...

... and this ...

... and the science of penguin poop explained ...




OK, I think that's enough crap for one day. Oh wait, there's this!

Red Mercury

I found this article recently on Anne Marie's Chemistry Blog:

Sewing Machines Believed to Contain Red Mercury

Do you have an old Singer sewing machine? If so, it may be worth $50,000! BBC is reporting on a sewing machine hoax in Saudia Arabia in which people are rushing to buy old Singer sewing machines based on the belief that they might contain red mercury.

I think my grandmothers old Singer is still in the family somewhere, but it's primary value is the memories in evokes.

Still, this might be a useful method of generating income; First I need to identify some bit of old junk in my basement, then start a rumor that such items contain an element of rare value, wait for the price to go up, and then I can cash in!

So ... you know that old Toro lawn mower engine blocks contain an unusually high concentration of pink antimony, an element that has become increasingly rare since the last Soviet era processing plant closed down a few year ago. It's quite valuable, but I'd be willing to let my old lawn mover go for a very reasonable price ...

[image Chuck's Lawn Mower Page, which, to my amazement and pleasant surprise, is well worth a visit in itself. Go figure.]

Chicks Dig Math

Chicks Dig Math!!!

But not these chicks ... sorry ... not these ladies ... well ... maybe they do. It's hard to say.

[image http://www.kismetgirls.com/]


Now THESE chicks really do dig math, and you can read about the innate mathematical ability of chicks at 90Beats. Sorry, make that 80Beats. Hey ... I was within 10 ...


[image Livingromcom]





But as long as I am confusing subjects, how about more chicks women and math?


[image Eat.Sleep.Geek]




and more

[image GaySocialites]










and more.

[image CPBN]

Computing with LEGOS

[Found on Shtetl-Optimized]

But first a bit of explanation. A Turing Machine is a sort of computer first proposed in 1936 by Alan Turning. This computer is a bit different from the modern computers we have today. All the instructions are "built-in" to the computer. It reads data from a "tape", processes it according to its built-in program, and writes a result. I should emphasize that the Turing Machine is (to my limited understanding) generally thought of as a conceptual model of a computer, not as a practical device. I doubt Alan Turing ever thought that someone might go and build such a device, much less that they might build it out of out of LEGOS! (Sigh ... anyone else remember when LEGOS were plastic bricks, instead of pre-packages toys with some assembly required?) For example, if the machine encounters two "1" bits (or maybe two consecutive LEGO blocks in the "up" position), its program might cause it to change the second bit to "0" (or moves the LEGO block to "down").

But enough talking typing, time for the video.



More information and some cool pictures can be found on the project blog: Lego of Doom.

Job Insecurity

Uh oh ... I just read this at Not Exactly Rocket Science:

Say the word 'statistician' and most people might think of an intelligent but reclusive person, probably working in a darkened room and almost certainly wearing glasses. But a new study shows that a monkey in front of a monitor can make a reasonably good statistician too. [emphasis added]

Dang, now I have to be on the lookout for monkeys after my job. Didn't see that one coming.

[photos by snelvis]

Donut Holes and Atlas Shrugged

Scott Aaronson writes an interesting critique of everything that Ann Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is not.

The Compliment of Atlas Shrugged
[at Shtetl-Optimized]




And if you see John Galt, remind him that he still owes me $10.
[Image (most of it) Wikipedia]

No Virtue in Politeness

Found on Pharyngula:

I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners. These demands for a false front of civility are one of the strategies used by charlatans who want to mask their lack of substance — oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you. I am quite happy that we have a culture of being rude to frauds here.

That was PZ Myers commenting earlier this month on the treatment given to certain people posting comments on his blog Pharyngula. He is right too. We know it is all too easy to be rude on the internet, because there are no consequences for bad behavior. Likewise there are no consequences for dishonesty and ignorance. However, there is credibility on the internet. Communities of readers build up knowledge and trust in each other. It's easy to be false on the internet, but building up credibility require time and consistency. It's not perfect, people can be fooled, but that is nothing new. Credibility is the virtue of the internet.

Spoilers Ahead

Caution: This post contains spoilers about one of my favorite blogs. I've been wanting to write this post since November, and have held back for fear of letting the secret out of the bag. You might wonder how I can spoil a blog, but this one also requires an opinion about the blogger, an opinion that you might be better off forming for yourself without the influence of a confirmed tomato addict.
If you have some time, go check out Science and Math Defeated and form your own opinion. I'll put mine below the fold.





[image somewhat pointlessly borrowed from shophyperformance.com]


In response to a post by Notedscholar, earlier today I inserted a comment at RationalWiki about this blog (SMD) being satire, a Poe if you like. The comment was soon removed. I really was not trying to be a saboteur, but after carefully digging into some of the posts and references on SMD I find them to be well researched, very cleverly thought out, purposefully crafted counter-arguments to the original statement. As Notedscholar (NS) this blogger plays the anti-science role and never comes out of character. Indeed, he cannot come out of character without defeating the purpose of the blog.

You might also note what NS does *not* say in replies to comments people post; compare what is refuted and what is allowed to stand. Each posts has a specific point to make, which might not be immediately obvious, except that is generally opposite of the initial statement. When someone refutes the statement and gets is wrong, or is right but incorrectly stated, NS shoots them down. When someone gets it right and makes the correct argument NS generally lets it stand *without* comment. NS could easily delete these posts, but instead leaves them (in my estimation) as the resolution to the original statement of the post.

Finally, look at the people who comment. These are not kooks; They are very smart people trying to point out the flaw in his argument. Some of them do, some of them don't. As I've read some people complain, NS is all over the internet posting on blogs and stirring up trouble, but the result is pro-science, and that is the ultimate purpose.

At least that is my opinion. I find Science and Math Defeated to be enormously entertaining, often laugh-out-loud funny, and filled with razor sharp wit. If some people (very smart people!) get their shorts in a knot over it, it is either because they have become a bit too rigid in their thinking to appreciate the greater point being made, or have become too complacent their own views to bother to understand what is being said being said and why it is correct [double emphasis on the why]. NS claims that he is always correct, and he is; you just have to consider what he writes from the proper perspective. Understanding the perspective of this blog can help people be just a little bit smarter, if they make the effort.

Felis sum et ad furandum veni

Don't Worry - Accept Uncertainty

I found an interesting blog post ...

How to Stop Worrying and Why

... and I have to say I am all for their #1 piece of advice:

1. Learn to accept uncertainty

People who worry a lot don’t like uncertainty in their lives and because they cannot control the dangers in life for themselves and their loved ones they worry even more. You have to accept uncertainty in your life. Accept the fact that you love someone enough, including yourself, to worry about them, but you cannot control what may or may not happen.

That right. Uncertainty. It's about the only thing in life you can count on so we may as well get used to it. (For that matter, you could be like me and make a career of it.)