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Science Etcetera, Marsday 20080722

July 22nd, 2008
  • The American Human Development Project ranks states and congressional districts using a similar criteria the UN uses to rank countries. Not surprisingly, the South sucks. Find out where you reside on the Well-O-Meter here (My HD index is 9.02! Yay!!!).

    • American Human Development Project: Life Expectancy at Birth

    American Human Development Project
    Life Expectancy at Birth
  • Epigenetics at work: overweight mothers give birth to even more overweigh offspring.
  • Tokyo is bringing in honey bees to attack crows and protect seabirds. Next up: Gorrillas to fight the honey bees (HT Simpsons).
  • Icebergs scour the seafloor, endangering life there as global warming produces more of them.
  • Earlier migrations and jellyfish outbreaks are two of eight signs the animal kingdom is out of whack.
  • Internet scholarship is producing journal papers that don’t dig as far for information, using more recent articles that are more popular and turn up in search results.
  • Yay!!! I’ve always wanted to play with this. Check out Richard Dawkin’s Blind Watchmaker applet, and see unnatural selection in action.

    • Biomorph Reserve

    Biomorph Reserve
  • Computer models show that Natural Selection doesn’t always produce the best organisms.
  • MIT Researchers have created a tactile version of an optical illusion (Optical version of the illusion here).
  • When subjects were given two identical burgers and told one was real meat and the other veggie, people believed the meat-version tasted better, showing meat preference is all in the mind.
  • In primates, when males outnumber females, females become the dominant sex.
  • Carl Sagan - A thousand years of darkness. What followed the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.



    • 4 comments to “Science Etcetera, Marsday 20080722”

    1. 1) “Don’t worry. When the winter comes, the apes will freeze to death.” (Except Japan has snow monkeys…)

      2) “Tactors” is a way cooler word than “pixels” — and I like “pixels”. Optical illusions have always fascinated me.

      3) The only veggie burger I ever ate had to be spit out before I could finish chewing the first bite. I’m pretty sure that would have worked if I was blindfolded and told it was a real hamburger :)

           by ClintJCL July 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 am

    2. Wayne made a really delicious veggie burger at Assateague once.. I think it was made out of peas or something…

           by Carolyn July 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    3. I do love peas!

           by ClintJCL July 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm

    4. Wayne’s burgers were indeed delicious. Here is the recipe

           by Vicky July 22nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm

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