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Skeptic.com
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present William Stansfield’s article from the archives of Skeptic magazine Volume 10, Number 4 in which he critiques the typing monkeys metaphor generated by Richard Hardison and Richard Dawkins as being too unlike the biological realities of natural selection....
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
IN THIS FASCINATING LECTURE, based on his new book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Dr. Matt Ridley demonstrates that life is getting better — and at an accelerating rate — and he explains why. His new book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age...
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Daniel Greenburg’s article from the archives of Skeptic magazine Volume 11, Number 3 in which he discusses how psychological research shows that our most powerful memories may be untrustworthy....
IN THIS RIVETING STORY about his remarkable discoveries from the Gogo fossil site in the Kimberly district of Western Australia, the Australian paleontologist John Long, now Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of L.A. County, takes us beyond just reconstructing animal morphology and into the...
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present the shortened, non-technical companion essay to physicist Bernard Leikind article of the same title that appears in the printed edition of Skeptic magazine Vol. 15, no. 4. Leikind describes what all physicists know to be true about what happens when human tissue absorbs microwave...
In this week’s eSkeptic, Harriet Hall, M.D. (aka the SkepDoc) reviews The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science: 50 Experiments for Daring Young Scientists by Sean Connelly....
NeuroLogica Blog
I am out of town this week on a special project – more details will follow when I have the green light to start promoting it. So my posting will be a bit erratic this week. Just a quick post for today. I want to point out that Age of Autism,...
It should come as no surprise that we don’t notice everything that we see. We all experience this on a regular basis – there is a great deal of visual information in our field of view but we only pay attention to a small fraction of it. Yet at the...
This morning I found the following e-mail in my inbox: I would be very interested in your opinion about the following case. I have a friend who recently found out that her 25 year old son does not have a right hemisphere. The two neurologists that have studied his...
A team as Mass General has published the results of their preliminary research into growing new livers from hepatocyte stem cells. The work is encouraging – but to put it into perspective, it is still a long way away from growing fully functional transplantable organs. What the team did was take...
Magnetic Healing Through the Ages
The notion that magnets can be used for healing is as old as knowledge of magnets themselves. Several ancient cultures, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, and others, discovered natural magnetic rocks – lodestones. They had a hard time explaining the unusual properties of these rocks given the scientific knowledge at the time,...
More Trouble for Brain Training
Brain training is the idea that training in a specific task will improve brain function for a type of skill that will then transfer more broadly to other tasks. For example, a memory task with improve your overall memory and therefore improve your performance on a different memory task. There...
Skepticblog
Never More Than Three Possibilities…
This is a frame from Westall 66: A Suburban UFO Mystery which aired on the Australian Sci-Fi Channel on June 4th. I did not get to see the show, as it has not aired in the United States as of this writing; but my educated guess is that the filmmakers were...
The Importance of Skeptical Scholarship
I’ve been winding down these last few evenings with a real treat: Benjamin Radford’s new book Scientific Paranormal Investigation. I expect to tackle a full review soon; for now, I’m getting a kick out of his unapologetic pitch for serious skeptical scholarship. It’s a topic I think about often, but...
Sorry for the short and late post today – I am out of town working on a special project and am exceptionally squeezed for time. I will just leave you with wishes for a happy summer. The Analemma – the path the sun takes as it shifts its position in the...
As I reported in my last post, the aforementioned Kelli Faulkner: remote viewer and medium who was on ABC”s Indiana New Extra staff has now been left off the station’s news team. Hurray!This is one small step for skeptics and one great leap for rational thinking. It shows when a few...
If you buy an electric car, you suck.
I’m all in favor of innovative solutions, and of doing what it takes to get there. In most cases. There are a lot of directions in which we might go that make no sense. Some may make sense in the future, but don’t appear to now, and vice versa. I...
The Pattern Behind Self Deception
Last week I blogged about lying: “Everyone Lies: Why?” Deception is one thing, self deception is quite another. This week TED.com has posted my new TED talk, delivered at the last TED conference, in which I present material from my forthcoming book on the neuroscience of belief, tentatively entitled The...
RichardDawkins.net - All Content
Belgian Catholic offices raided in sex abuse probe - BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
Original Link Belgian authorities have raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church during an investigation into child sex abuse claims. A spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors' office confirmed that the palace of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels had been sealed off. Police have also raided the home of retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels. Belgium is...
On Living in the Middle - Darrel Falk - BioLogos
Original link Dear Dr Falk Certainly, I am happy to suggest that our website people might post your article, and I am copying this letter to them to call it to their attention. But I didn't misunderstand Daniel Harrell's essay. It never for a moment occurred to me that he, or Biologos,...
Fin to limb evolution clue found - Victoria Gill - BBC
Original link The researchers discovered genes involved in fin but not limb development A study has shed light on a key genetic step in the evolution of animals' limbs from the fins of fish, scientists say. A team of researchers identified two new genes that are important in fin development. They report in the...
Age of the Genome: Episode 1 - Richard Dawkins - BBC Radio 4
Episode 1 Synopsis In a new four part series, evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins decodes the discoveries and mysteries surrounding of the genome. Ten years ago this June, an international army of scientists announced that they had succeeded in completing their first draft of the genetic book of human life. They had read...
Original link A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by a creationism think tank and school that attempted to force the state of Texas to allow it to offer master's degrees in science education. In 2008, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board rejected the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research's application to...
Stem cells reverse blindness caused by burns - ALICIA CHANG - AP
Original link LOS ANGELES – Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells — a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday. The treatment worked completely...
Skepfeeds-The Best Skeptical blogs of the day
Pneumonia vaccine ineffective?
READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT VACCINE CENTRAL “Pneumonia vaccine ineffective against repeat infections: study” screams the headline. The article goes on to clarify that a study just published seems to suggest that the pneumococcal vaccines in use in Canada do not seem to perform any better than no...
Beloved Readers, Skepdude will be taking a much needed vacation break through the beginning of July. As I will be spending time in an internet free beach in the Mediterranean (yes, such places still exist), and given that the World Cup will be happening, do not expect many entries from...
Haven’t done one of these in a while so here goes. “These poll data should be a wake-up call to the government and the media that a majority of American parents believe that parents, not the state, should decide when and whether to vaccinate their children,” Mary Holland, co-founder of...
CDC releases preliminary data on 2009 H1N1 vaccine and Guillain-Barre Syndrome
READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT VACCINE CENTRAL As part of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report titled “Preliminary Results: Surveillance for Guillain-Barré Syndrome After Receipt of Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine — United States,...
Fair Lawn parents plead guilty in child endangerment
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NORTHJERSEY.COM A Fair Lawn couple admitted on Monday that they failed to take their two-year-old daughter to the hospital as she died from a ruptured appendix. AMY NEWMAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Raymond and Nicole Ahles, with her attorney, Arthur Zucker, right, said that their daughter,...
Another Wakefield paper retracted
Yet another Andrew Wakefield paper has been retracted. After the Lancet retracted his 1998 paper that started the unreasonable MMR scare, the results of which we’re still dealing with, and after being struck from the the UK medical register, now the American Journal of Gastroenterology has retracted a 2000 Wakefield...
Bad Astronomy
Just a reminder: this coming weekend (August 13 – 15) is SETICon, a convention where science and science fiction meet. You can read all about it in my posts where I announced I’d be there, and a followup. It’s still only $35 for the whole weekend, though there are options...
My friend, the geek-chanteuse Marian Call, is touring the United States, playing smaller venues in all the Lower 48 (and Hawaii!). I heard her sing in Boulder where she was incredible as always, and also at w00tstock, where a whole passel of folks were enthralled. If you need a sample...
Happy birthday to two important people
Today happens to be the birthday of two people who are important to me: James Randi, and my sister Marci*. If you don’t know Randi, that’s OK: you can get some good info on him in this interview he did with Big Think, or this talk he gave at TED, or...
It’s Caturday! And this time, I actually have a picture of my cat. I was trying to relax and watch Craig Ferguson, and she decided between my legs was the best spot in the whole house to be. And look how lady-like she is: I need to stop her before that fourth...
Planet triangle graces the western twilit sky
If you look west after sunset, you’ll probably spot the fourth brightest object in the sky*: Venus. But as I looked west recently, I noticed two bright(ish) objects just above it. It didn’t take me long to figure out that they were the planets Saturn and Mars. Both looked red due...
These are the drums the world will end
You know what’s cool? This: I love this song. And yeah, that’s me doing the voiceover for it. You should buy Geo’s album "Trebuchet", too. It has that song and lots of other cool ones, too....
Respectful Insolence
Don't get sick in July? (Revisited)
June is almost over. If you work in an academic medical center, as I do, that can mean only one thing. The new interns are coming, and existing residents will soon be advancing to the next level. The joy! The excitement! The trepidation! And it's not all just the senior residents...
A horrifying breast cancer "testimonial" for "holistic" treatment, part 3
Remember Kim Tinkham? She's the woman who was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer about three years ago. At the time, she became infamous because she showed up on Oprah Winfrey's show, back when Oprah was in her "Secret" phase and proceeded to alarm even the ever woo-friendly Oprah by announcing...
Penn Jillette on Andrew Wakefield
Coming soon: Penn & Teller take on the anti-vaccine movement on an upcoming episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! No doubt it will resemble this little preview that Penn himself has taped: Note: Lots of NSFW language. It is, after all, Penn. I will mention one thing. Penn's wrong when he says...
Oh, no! Bad research is killing science!
Over the last few decades, there has been a veritable explosion in the quantity of scientific journals and published papers. It's a veritable avalanche. Some of the reason for this is simply the increase in the number of scientific researchers that has occurred over the last few decades. Another reason...
Happy Father's Day to all fathers...
...and I hope none of you got anything like this. See you all tomorrow... Read the comments on this post......
Finding money for biomedical research by getting rid of woo
In the wake of President Obama's election, there was a great deal of hope that he would take science-based medicine seriously and, as he promised in his inaugural speech, "restore science to its rightful place." Shortly before Obama's inauguration, in fact, Steve Salzberg proposed that the Obama administration should defund...
Derren Brown Blog
How Scientology Avoids Paying Tax in the United Kingdom
It’s alleged Scientology has avoided paying tax in the United Kingdom by claiming it is run out of South Australia. In Britain, the Church of Scientology is supposed to pay tax on the millions of pounds it brings in each year. Now, the organisation has been accused of claiming its entire...
Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist
“Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens will not be able...
Brain Structure Corresponds to Personality
“Personalities come in all kinds. Now psychological scientists have found that the size of different parts of people’s brains correspond to their personalities; for example, conscientious people tend to have a bigger lateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in planning and controlling behavior. Psychologists have worked out that...
“Graffiti-ridden derelict sites have been given a much needed face-lift with extraordinary light art by Tigtab. Each image is created with the help of stencils. These intricate designs are revealed after a burst from a camera flash lights up the inside of the box. In this picture, a pond scene...
Fishy Gene Hints at How Limbs Evolved From Fins
Two genes found only in fish may be a key piece in the puzzling evolution of limbs. The genes’ removal from zebra-fish embryos resulted in the loss of actinotrichia — a basic fin component — and made their proto-fins resemble appendages seen in ancient fossils of the first four-legged creatures. “The loss...
Dog blown 20 miles away in strong wind
“A dog has reportedly been reunited with its owner after being blown 20 miles away in a storm. The dog was renamed ‘Lucky’ by 57-year-old Agnes Tamas after it survived being swept away from the Hungarian village of Gesztered, Photonews Agencia Noticiosa reports. Tamas said: “I saw the roofs of the local...
Bad Science
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 19 June 2010 On the 6th of April 2009, an earthquake registering 5.8 on the richter scale hit the town of L’Aquila in Abruzzo, Italy. This was a tragedy, and hundreds of people died. It would be great if we could have firm predictions about every...
Ben Goldacre The Guardian Saturday 12 June 2010 As someone who strives – sanctimoniously – to be right, I’m a masochistic fan of research showing that people who are wrong have better lives than I do. This is why I particularly enjoyed a study from the current edition of Psychological Science showing that being...
Jeremy Laurance is an angry man
You might be amused by this piece from the Independent’s health reporter Jeremy Laurance today. It’s about what a bad man I am for pointing out when science and health journalists get things wrong. Alongside the lengthy ad hominem – a matter of taste for you – there are a...
Fish oil in the Observer: the return of a $2bn friend
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 5 June 2010 “Fish oil helps schoolchildren to concentrate” was the headline in the Observer. Regular readers will remember the omega-3 fish oil pill issue, as the entire British news media has been claiming for several years now that there are trials showing it improves school...
The noble and ancient tradition of moron-baiting
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 29 May 2010 This week a man called Martin Gardner died, aged 95. His popular maths column in Scientific American (and 50 books on the subject) spanned the decades, but in 1952 he published a book about pseudoscience, quacks, and credulous journalists. How much do you...
A staggeringly weak interview of Andrew Wakefield on the Today programme
Uninformed reporter fails to present even the most basic GMC allegations of misrepresenting individual patients findings. You can listen to it here: news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8700000/8700062.stm When your interviewee – who has been found guilty by the GMC of misrepresenting his own scientific findings, and conducting dangerous experiments on children without ethics committee clearance, in...
skeptic cat
South Park - Somalian Pirates We!
The full episode "FATBEARD" can be wached on line here: www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220764Somalian Pirates We!Captain Cartman gets his new crew in ship shape....
The Worst Starcraft GeneralFlamewar is hell....
Etiquette NinjasDicks who save parking spots ....Ep. Two - "Cheap Dicks"Just split the bill.Dicks Who Don't WaveIf you cut someone off, you better wave...Dicks who litterThe world is not your ashtray ......
See Also: A Muppet Christmas CarolMuppet Treasure Island (1996) -- 1 hr 15 minThe Muppet's twist on the classic tale Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson .......
The Glencoe Massacrewww.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B2235551160A1F8BHistorical documentary about the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe...
Highlanders - A Documentary Narrated by Sean Connery
Yes, it is Bannockburn Day but we mustn't forget Culloden .... Besides, this documentary wasn't available yet on April 16 ....Highlanders -- 48 minwww.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A2E84614949C23F4A 1995 documentary narrated by Sean Connery examining the myths and realities surrounding the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie with particular attention upon the aftermath of...
New Urban Legends
Alert warns that seven women have died from sniffing perfume samples sent to them through the mail....
Was the melody known as 'Taps' found in the pocket of a dying boy on a Civil War battlefield?...
Did radio's Den Lee pen a screed opining that blacks 'don't read'?...
Wayne Allyn Root wrote in an opinion piece that President Obama is "purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy."...
E-petition protests an upcoming film which will purportedly portray Jesus as a homosexual....
Did Senator Chris Dodd say that a 5% down payment requirement 'would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it'?...
Unreasonable Faith
Is Anti-Islam the new Antisemitism?
Thank you all for the warm welcome. I had two ideas for posts to start off, one a bit less controversial than the other; I decided to go with the easier one first. There have been many words aired over the proposed Cordoba Center in Manhattan, presumably because of its proximity...
by VorJack Can you look at this and not snicker? If so, you’re probably on the wrong blog. (via)...
This is what happens when you send 7-year-old boys to Jesus Camp. I just found this incredibly hilarious. (via Friendly Atheist)...
Give a warm welcome to our newest contributor, Elemenope! El has been around here for a long time (his first comment was in Jan 2009 and he’s made 3,700 comments), and I’ve always been impressed by his ability to think clearly and write persuasively. He’s also amazingly levelheaded in heated...
Jon Stewart on the Prop 8 overruling:...
by VorJack Speaking of thought processes that I don’t understand, can anyone explain this to me? The worst part, for me, is that I’m a compulsive reader. If you have a bumper sticker with small print, I will tailgate you just to figure out what it says. I have gotten...
Science-Based Pharmacy
With the warnings this week in Canada and the United States about the risks of dosing errors with vitamin D drops, I thought it was an appropriate time to discuss dose measurement as barrier to science-based care. Dosing errors are the among the most common and most preventable causes of...
Pushing Pharmacy Towards Evidence-Based Practice
Today’s post is from a pharmacist who blogs under the pseudonym Avicenna, who looks at how to bring evidence to bear on decision-making. With this post Avicenna officially joins SBP as a contributor. Go check out his bio and his prior posts. I am a community pharmacist who spends little...
Find out, at my post over at Science-Based Medicine. Filed under: announcements...
This Friday, Your questions about vitamins answered live
This Friday, June 11, I’ll be appearing on the Skeptically Speaking radio show, answering your questions about vitamins. Call in, listen online, or submit your questions in advance. I promise an interesting discussion. Filed under: Uncategorized...
What do you expect from your pharmacy?
Should an evidence standard be applied to products sold in pharmacies? Whether you’re a health professional or a consumer, I’m seeking your input. Join the discussion over at Science-Based Medicine. Filed under: announcements Tagged: pharmacy practice...
It’s the not-so-distant future. A new patient tells you that he’s been reading reviews of your pharmacy online. He suffers from a chronic disease and your pharmacy’s specialty services were recommended in an article by a local blogger. Later that day, while you’re talking with a new mom about the...
Science After Sunclipse
Who needs the eternal hair-splitting arguments about shall and will or which and that? The uselessness of it can be demonstrated by the fact that virtually no one gets it straight anyway. Aside from losing valuable time, blunting a child's reasoning faculties, and instilling him or her with...
Nostalgia time! Today's entry is reposted from June 2008. Megan Garber writes the following in the Columbia Journalism Review's daily blog: We currently find ourselves in, to put it mildly, a lull in the 2008 campaign's primary season. The delegate tallies are in limbo. Parsing them seems to require a postgraduate...
Call for Papers: Adaptive Networks
Word came in the other day on the iGrapevine about a conference, set to happen in Boston this December. One track of Bionetics 2010, on adaptive networks, looks particularly interesting. Complex network research has so far addressed mostly either "dynamics on networks" (state transition on a network with a fixed...
Reposted from three years ago to test mathcache a bit more. Zeno mourns that his calculus students can't read their own handwriting. Not only do their 2s become zeds, but their thetas become phis and their phis become rhos: \[ \theta \rightarrow \phi,\ \varphi \rightarrow \rho. \] Personally, it was the xi...
When I was in high school, I used an early version of the Postmodernism Generator to do my Advanced-Placement English homework. (I'm hardly alone in thinking that "Transgressing the boundaries" was one of the funniest hacks ever.) I guess turnabout is only fair play, after all: For those of...
Many of you have probably seen those "symphony of science" videos made by autotuning clips of various science-people. You know what I would find superlatively entertaining? If somebody would do the same thing with Sidney Coleman's quantum field theory lectures. Enough with the advertising; let's make an...
The Rogues Gallery
The Rogues Gallery is now back up and at a new home. The new URL is http://www.theroguesgallery.org/. Please make sure you update your bookmarks and RSS feeds to get the new content. Thanks The Rogues, The Roguette and The Roguie....
We recently received the following email question: I have been studying quantum physics for a bit now and was hoping that Bob could give his explanation of The Uncertainty Principle and Wave/Particle duality. My first question is… Is the drawing of a wave (on paper) just a 2D representation of a more abstract...
People’s Choice Awards For Podcasting
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe has been nominated by our listeners as the people’s choice for best podacst in education. From the website PodCastAwards.com This is the Fifth annual event that will recognize the best podcasters in the world by allowing the people (Listeners and Podcasters) to nominate, and then vote...
Don’t you love sleeping and dreaming? I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Not just the act itself though but the whole ritual; the moment you say to yourself “Yup, today is essentially over and I’m going to bed”, the ablutions, slipping under the covers (I like lots of covers),...
Rotten Eggs, Flatulence, and Suspended Animation
We recently received the following email about suspended animation: A Big hello to SGU from Darwin Australia, I am writing in to seek your opinion on something I came across on a paranormal and believers pod cast…As painful as it is to listen to them, in the interest of being a...
Fantasies Are Good For Your Math Skills
Who says skeptics should not indulge themselves in fantasies? Stoic, rational, logical, critical, evidence-based, scientific are just a few of the adjectives that help define us. But in the context of skepticism, you seldom hear a skeptic embracing fantasy as a practical tool on our skeptical utility-belts. It’s time to...
James Randi Educational Foundation
James Randi Overdoses in Utrecht
Randi in Holland, last week. Interviewed by Mr. Martijn van Calmthout, photographed by someone or other, and publicly overdosing on homeopathic sleeping pills. Don't worry, folks: He's okay. (And sorry about the shaky camera in the last cut -- for various reasons, I had to carry our...
It's official: we're launching our very first smartphone "app," for TAM 8. It's available for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android, and Blackberry devices. Created for the JREF by the folks at Core-Apps, this app will allow you to view: TAM 8 Schedule Speakers Bios Maps Your own custom schedule Twitter feed and Alerts Contents are updated every time you...
Reassurance: Brought to you by 97.1 FM, ‘The Point,’ Las Vegas
With the popularity of the paranormal on a seemingly infinite rise, sometimes skeptics find solace in the little things – like a dose of critical thinking from a local radio station. Today, I was driving in my car listening to 97.1 FM on the radio. They air a...
JREF Discusses Faith Healing on CNN Radio Affiliate
Tonight, June 16th at 6:00PM Central time, the JREF's Jeff Wagg will appear on the show "On the DL with Lane & Dave" to discuss faith healing. The show will be live streamed at on-the-dl.com. An archive may be available at a later date. James Randi is the author of The...
Martin Rundkvist Reports on Randi
Martin Rundkvist, speaker at TAM 5.5, archaeologist and friend of the JREF, spent some time with Randi during his European tour. He reports: I spent Tuesday in the charming company of James Randi and his assistant, journalist Brandon Thorp. Myself and P.J. Råsmark had taken it upon ourselves to...
June 08, 2010 — Impromptu vid shot with a camera we're only just learning to use. We are in a lounge at Miami Int'l Airport, waiting on our Swiss Air flight to Helsinki, where Randi will make the first appearance of his Sleep of Reason Tour, 2010. The audio is a little...
Skeptic Zoners
Skeptic Zone On The Radio 2NVR!
The Skeptic Zone is now amongst 2NVR’s “Program Partners” and in their “Tune In For” section at www.2nvr.org.au! 7/3: Kylie Sturgess interview with Matthew Baxter 14/3: Dr Rachie — Moose Dunlop; Dr Rachie — The Shorty Awards; Grain of Salt — Apollo Eleven/Parkes interview 21/3: Kylie Sturgess interview with Milton Mermikides. 28/3: Eran Segev...
Skeptic Zone At The Global Atheist Convention
If you’re heading to Melbourne – look out for Dave the Happy Singer and Kylie Sturgess! The 2010 Global Atheist Convention – Melbourne, Australia 12-14 March at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Presenters will include: Richard Dawkins, Catherine Deveny, Phillip Adams, Taslima Nasrin, Peter Singer, PZ Myers, Dan Barker, Stuart Bechman, Sue-Ann...
10:23 Event – Filming In Perth With The Skeptic Zone
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10:23 Event – Filming In Sydney With The Skeptic Zone
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A tale of blue green algae, attacking birds, Hollywood and dementia
Many listeners especially Australians, would be familiar with “blue-green algae”. In particular, if you have spent any time in South Australia, you may recall periodic government alerts warning against drinking the water or using it for recreation during outbreaks or “blooms”. The term algal ‘bloom’ describes an increase in the number...
Skeptic Zone 2009 Survey – Help Us To Help Our Show!
How did we do in 2009? What can we improve on? What have you liked so far and what would you like to see more of? We’ve done it before – and we’re doing it again! Please enter in for the Skeptic Zone 2009 Survey. This fairly basic demographic survey will help...
Epsilon Clue
For all the diversity in human speech, as far as I know, every language has verbs and nouns. No big surprise there: our world is full of things, like trees and lakes and ostriches and stars, something that nouns are very good at describing. And a lot of these things do...
Like millions of other sheeple, today I upgraded to iOS 4, graciously provided by our benevolent overlords at Apple. One problem I noticed is that after the upgrade, when I tried setting the wallpaper, all of the pictures I had had turned into their thumbnails, i.e., they were small grainy pictures....
Friday Playlist, World Cup Edition
Colourbox – The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Africa Suite The Alan Parsons Project – Games People Play Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers Tack>>head – The Game Queen – We Are the Champions Mojo Nixon – Not as Much as Football AC/DC – Big Balls Concerto No. 5 for Vuvuzela...
Prop 8 Trial: They Got Nuthin’
Just to remind everyone, in 2000, California passed Proposition 22, which said that California would not recognize same-sex marriages, even out-of-state ones. In 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that Prop 22 was unconstitutional, and furthermore, that marriage is a fundamental right. This gave gays the right to get married...
Hope for the Catholic Church After All?
So, yet another priest in the Boston area has been accused of child abuse. So far, it’s bad, but nothing you haven’t heard before. What surprised me, though, was this bit from Fox’s coverage: “The Archdiocese immediately notified law enforcement of the allegations and has initiated a preliminary investigation into the complaints,” Cardinal...
Like a lot of people, I have to submit a monthly “bullet” report, listing the things I’ve done in the previous month. Since I use Org-Mode for planning, scheduling, and organizing tool (or rather: I tend to throw a bunch of notes into a file and tell this love child of...