Category: Ionian Enchantment
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Being Labeled for What I Don’t Believe Versus What I Do
The Reason Rally I remember unexpectedly having that conversation with my mother in law while riding in the car recently: “What do you mean Sagan isn’t going to be raised Christian?” she asked when we accidentally let slip that he wouldn’t be going to a Christian church. “There’s lots of possible belief systems out there,”…
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101 Reasons Why Evolution is True
Jump To: Age of the Earth and Its Fossils Genetics Comparative Anatomy Transitional Fossils Convergent Evolution Adaptations Vestigial Traits Artificial Selection Evolution in Action Sexual Selection And The List Goes On… These reasons will work from the general to the specific. I’ve used links to articles in Wikipedia as much as possible because Wiki articles…
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Evolve Culturally or Die
Cavefish and Zebrafish Embryos Credit: wellcome images An important rule of evolution is that species lose adaptations they aren’t using. Cave fish have eyes that do not work because they live in an environment without light. Crocodile icefish blood has lost its hemogloblin because they live in oxygen-rich water where they don’t need the protein…
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Powers of Eleven Day
Pascal’s Triangle, Odd Numbers Highlighted One of the great joys of being human is our incredible powers of pattern recognition. Our brain’s ability to manifest meaningful associations out of the complex morass of sensory stimuli perpetually assaulting us is a cognitive expertise into which computers are only just starting to venture successfully. It’s what allows…
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Archeological Narratives that Enchant the Imagination
Shonisaur vertebral disks arranged in curious linear patterns Credit: Mark McMenamin I admit it. I knew better when I posted the story about the kraken lair to my Facebook for my less scientifically literate friends to awe and wonder at. I could tell from the scant evidence provided in the press release that there really…
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Our Childbirth Experience
Jump To: Researching Pregnancy Pregnancy Lifestyle Where to Deliver Labor and Delivery Our Parenting Choices What We’ve Learned Further Reading Stages of Fetal Development Credit: NHS Pregnancy Desktop One of the first things Vicky and I established when we first became romantically involved is that we both wanted to have children. We share a deep…
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Is Archeopteryx a Bird or Dinosaur? The Fuzzy Lines Drawn between Species
Archeopteryx Credit: digital cat On top of Pluto being demoted, the non-existence of Brontosaurus, and whether it’s okay to proposition a woman on an elevator at 4:00 in the morning we can now add a fun new debate for the online scientific community: is Archeopteryx a Bird or Dinosaur? Analysis of a Xiaotingia zhengi fossil…
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Yuri’s Night Space Party and the 50th Anniversary of Manned Space Flight
“Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!” ~ Yuri Gagarin Yuri’s Night 2011 50 years ago, on April 12th, 1961 cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin piloted the Vostok 1 into space, entering the history…
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Our Science Wedding
Mad Scientist Groom and His Lovely Bride Atheist, agnostic, humanist, secularist, skeptic, empiricist, Ockhamist, and Patafarianist are all different flavors of the philosophy of life my wife and I share, but Vicky and I prefer the term “Spiritual Naturalist” to describe the deeply fulfilling sense of wonder we get from engaging the natural world around…
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Memetic Association Exercizes with Science Tarot
Visconti-Sforza tarot deck, 15th Century If you’re looking to part a fool and their money, psychic readings are a great business*. Through the art of cold reading,by making statements that seem personal, but are true for most people, the psychic creates the illusion of having supernatural intuition about their client. For instance, they may say…
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Relating Thermodynamic Entropy to Information Entropy with Maxwell’s Demon
Brownian motion, the natural vibrations of atoms not at an absolute zero temperature, has long been the strategic key for anyone looking for a way to achieve the holy grail of reversing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that a closed system will always move toward a state of increasing disorder. I previously covered…
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Happy Super-Duper-Mega-Maxi-Utra-Omni-Uber Awesome Powers of Ten Day!!!
Happy Super-Duper-Mega-Maxi-Utra-Omni-Uber Awesome Powers of Ten Day!!! 10/10/10 is not only an entire power of ten more awesome than the other 99 years’ worth of 10/10 days in this century, 101010 is also the meaning of life in binary! Take a moment of silent reflection at 1010 AM, for yet even two more powers of…