Jiggle The Handle

Given the recent space toilet troubles, I am reminded of similar troubles aboard the space shuttle Challenger nearly 30 years ago (November, 1981), and comedian Robin Williams commentary on the solution to the problem. The relevant part starts at 2:35.



Thirty year ago, this put me in stitches. It's still a good one.

Fair and Balanced and the short term memory of a gnat.

For your Monday morning amusement - Fox News never lies - Oh wait ...

Mark Evanier writes: The other day, Bill O'Reilly slapped a Congressman around for saying that Fox News was spreading the lie that if you don't buy health insurance, you'll go to jail. Here's an excerpt from that discussion and it's followed by...well, you can guess what it's followed by...

[Tip-O-Hat 2 News From ME]

Miep Gies

She never considered herself a hero. Would that we could all be so heroic.

(CNN) -- Miep Gies, who ensured the diary of Anne Frank did not fall into the hands of Nazis after the teen's arrest, has died. She was 100.

(NPR) Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary, has died, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam said Tuesday. She was 100. [link to audio]

[Photo Anne Frank House/AP via NPR] 

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

Hello Ardi!

[From Nature News]

At 4.4 million years, Ethiopian fossil clarifies human–chimp relationships.

Rex Dalton

In a far-reaching reordering of human evolution, researchers report today the discovery of the oldest hominid skeleton, a fairly complete 4.4-million-year-old female from Ethiopia.

The discovery shows that humans did not evolve from ancient knuckle-walking chimpanzees, as has long been believed. The reports, in Science, illuminate how early phases of humans evolved along a separate lineage from the last common ancestor shared by early hominids and extinct apes.

This find has been in the works for 17 (17!) years, go read all about it at Nature News. 

'Flammable' bras hold back Swedish female conscripts

  But isn't that what they are supposed to do?

'Flammable' bras hold back Swedish female conscripts

[Found on The Local - Sweden's News in English] You just can't make up stuff like this. Some humorously risque comments below the story too.

[Hat Tip 2 Ohiomike]

Wyoming Geology Museum Reopens

The story that the Wyoming Geology Museum Will Reopen caught me by surprise. It's a great feature of Laramie and the University of Wyoming, and I am distressed that it was put on the budget chopping block, and that its long-time curator is gone.

This story has it's own blog detailing all the rallying efforts to reopen the museum, check it out at Keep Laramie Dinos. I also found a good great photo collection from Fossil Freak, where I found most of the photos featured here.


What I can add to this story is my own memories of this place:

My first visit was in 1971, shortly after my family moved to Laramie. I recall being shocked and slightly frightened by the gigantic dinosaur that looked down hungrily on me as I entered. A few years later it was discovered they had the wrong head mounted on it and replaced it with the correct apatosaurus skull, which was smaller and not nearly so fierce, nor as likely to strike terror into the hearts of small children.

HowStuffWorks has an article on this "celebrated scientific mistake" and how it was discovered and corrected. The head I first viewed is much larger and toothier that the correct skull, and it is still on display near the entrance.


The apatosaurus is perhaps the single greatest display in the museum, and if I recall, there are only three mounted apatosaurus skeletons like this in the world. Quite an accomplishment for this mighty little museum.








Ever have one of those dreams where you are being chased by a dinosaur. When I had that dream THIS IS THE BEASTY that was after me.

Later on, tossing pine cones into the mouth of the hungry T-Rex was an entertaining game.

There is more I could say, but I think I'll let Fossil Freak's photos say it for me.


Image credits:
Casper Star-Tribune
Waymaking.com
FossilFreak
Keep Laramie Dinos

Big Bird Lays An Egg?

According to this Research Highlight at Nature.com, it seems that our favorite big yellow bird is more likely to be a lady-bird.








J. Zool. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00596.x (2009)

It seems that the constraints of egg shell strength conspire to limit how large a bird can be without crushing it's own eggs. Males of larger species tend to be smaller, and this may allow them to incubate their eggs more safely.

Fun Facts About Big Bird
Description : 8-foot-2-inch yellow bird
Birthday : March 20
Likes : Singing, finding solutions to problems, roller skating, making people feel better
Dislikes : Making mistakes
Favorite Food : Birdseed milkshakes
Favorite Thing : His friends
Favorite Toy : Radar, his teddy bear

More bird stuff from Nature here.

[Images Muppet Wiki]

Slim Jim explosion, 1 missing

It is a sad event; no one should have to die for beef jerky.

[From CNN]

[Edit: No-so-funny joke removed. Sorry about that.]

Black Holes More Than They Seem

[From ScienceNow] It seems there is more to black holes than we realized:

Running the model on a supercomputer, the team found the mass of M87's black hole to be 6.4 billion times the mass of our sun--two to three times larger than previous estimates. The model provided similar results for four other nearby galaxies, multiplying their black hole masses by factors of 1.5 to 3.

The results, which will be published in The Astrophysical Journal later this summer, "caught us off guard," says Gebhardt. "It looks like we've been systematically underestimating the mass of black holes."

It's a good think black holes don't take up much room to start with, because now we need to clear out more closet space for them.

Stephen Colbert gets a Haircut

Stephen Colbert is in Iraq entertaining the troops this week, and he is sporting a new haircut. CNN reports that we can see the tonsorial update for ourselves tonight.

More video will no doubt be available at Colbert Nation.

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!

Role reversal undermines speed-dating theories

There's a theory of speed dating? Who knew??
Nature News has this article: Role reversal undermines speed-dating theories.

Speed dating is not just popular among those looking for romance. Psychologists have worked out that they can get swarms of student participants in mate-choice studies by offering speed-dating opportunities on university campuses in return for the right to analyse the dating behaviour during the events.

A study in Psychological Science points out that chivalric behaviour created by the speed-dating experience may be skewing the data.

Normally in speed dating, men walk around a room and visit a succession of seated women for mini dates just a few minutes long. Later, the participants note down whom they would like to meet again. If there is a match, the organizers help the people to get in touch. Psychologists have found that although men choose, on average, half of the women present, women choose to see only a third of the men again.

This isn't really a surprise. Among animals, females are usually the picky ones, because they make the larger reproductive investment. However, the new research, by Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick, social psychologists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, demonstrates that tinkering with the speed-dating format alters human behaviour, dramatically changing the outcome.

"We asked executives from a commercial speed-dating company why they always had men rotate. They told us it was because women tend to have purses and other things to carry and because 'it seems more chivalrous'," says Eastwick. So the researchers decided to explore whether having males literally walking up to seated females was having a psychological effect.

The researchers established 15 speed-dating events for 350 young adults. During eight events, men rotated around the seated women, and during seven events, women moved between seated men. When men rotated, men said yes 50% of the time and women said yes 43% of the time. However, when women rotated, the trend for higher female selectivity vanished, with men saying yes 43% of the time while women said yes 45% of the time. [More at Nature.]

So now I know something I didn't know before; Not only does half* of what we know from psychology experiments come from studies of college students, but most of those student are hormone impaired.

* the other half comes from rats.

When Pigs Fly

With all the hype about the swine flu, I could resist posting this ...



... and at the left-uppermost are the news media, who have consistently over reported the seriousness, and failed to retract their errors when they later get it right, allowing the bad information to keep circulating. I actually heard one local news anchor give one estimate for the number of deaths in Mexico, and then just a few minutes later giver another LOWER number. Is it a pandemic, not a pandemic, and we should be appropriately cautious. Hysterical new media sources don't help things one bit.

[From GraphJam, of course]

*** Update ***

Greg Laden has much more extensive comments on the swine flu and the real reasons we need to be concerned. Greg has a great Bill Maher clip too.

*** Another Update ***

This editorial from Nature.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

One of my favorite authors when I was growing up was Phillip Jose Farmer. I just learned that he passed away two days ago. Featured here are the covers of some of his books, most in the versions I owned and read, and read, and read. Maybe the saddest part of growing up is losing touch with some of the things that made growing up interesting, and Farmer's books were quite good at that. His books had a prominent place on my bedroom shelf for many years.

Good Luck, Mr Farmer. I'm pretty sure the Ethicals will pick you out for special treatment. Don't forget your grail!

January 26, 1918 - February 25, 2009. R.I.P

[Hat Tip 2 IO9]