Science Etcetera, Marsday 20080722

Posted on 22nd July 2008 by ideonexus in Science Etcetera - Tags: blind watchmaker, carl sagan, dominant sex, epigenetics, hd, human development project, optical illusion, primates, richard dawkins, tactile illusion, veggie burgers

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

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

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.

Comments (4)

4 Comments »

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 :)

   Comment by ClintJCL — July 22, 2008 @ 9:20 am

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

   Comment by Carolyn — July 22, 2008 @ 12:36 pm

3. I do love peas!

   Comment by ClintJCL — July 22, 2008 @ 1:29 pm

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

   Comment by Vicky — July 22, 2008 @ 6:50 pm

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