Hey, Norway!

I have more imminent travel plans. I’ll be at the World Humanist Conference in Oslo this coming weekend, and then on Monday the 15th I’ll be doing this:

Paul Z. Myers er en amerikansk biolog som jobber ved University of Minnesota Morris, og forsker på zebrafisk innen området evolusjonær utviklingsbiologi. Mest kjent er han for sin populære blogg Pharyngula, hvor han blant annet kommer med harsk kritikk mot intelligent design og kreasjonistmiljøet generelt. Kort sagt er han en aktivist innen den amerikanske kreasjonisme-/evolusjons-debatten. I august er PZ i Oslo i forbindelse med World Humanist Congress 2011, og tar i den forbindelse selvsagt turen innom puben for å slå av en prat med Oslo-skeptikerne!

Skeptikertreffene er uformelle, sosiale treff for skeptikere i Oslo-området. De er ment som en mulighet til å diskutere skepsis, vitenskap og alt mulig annet med likesinnede, og bli kjent med andre skeptikere. Man trenger ikke å være medlem av foreningen Skepsis.

Denne gangen samles vi nok en gang på Asylet, i bakgården dersom det er fint vær. Hvis du ikke har vært med før, så se etter bordskiltet vårt med logoen på, eller spør i baren.

I do not know what that means. If I’m now committed to doing burlesque in Norwegian, let me know soon. When I was a wee little kid, I could recite the Lord’s Prayer in Norwegian, but I think I’ve forgotten it all now.

(Also on FtB)

Anti-Caturday Post

Have you ever witnessed a cat in heat? Yowling, hissing, screaming, tearing at each other…or at best, moping about the house, trying to get intimate in unseemly ways with you, pressing their butts up against everything and responding to every touch with lordosis. They are tacky and obnoxious. It’s no wonder that pet owners get the randy little beasts neutered — it’s not just to prevent them spawning more of their creepy kind, but to suppress their repulsive sexual demonstrations.

Now molluscs, on the other hand — if we had them as pets, we’d be putting hormones in their food to induce more frequent balletic copulations. We’d want a pair elegantly and silently writhing in a corner of the living room all the time, and we’d applaud in wonder and stroke them when they were done, murmuring “Beautiful boy/girl, lovely boy/girl, well done.”

(Also on Sb)

Somebody doesn’t understand basic genetics

Oh, boy. Look at these quotes from a recently published magazine article, and try to guess where they came from.

Scientists had also implicitly assumed that the X chromosomes in all women were identical.

We had? When?

The first comprehensive study of gene activity in the X chromosome of women reveals an unexpected level of variation among individual females. This extensive variation means there is not ONE human genome, but TWO – Male and Female.

This does not follow. There’s also individual variation in chromosome 7, and every other chromosome in the genome. Allelic and expression variation do not make for calling every variant a different genome.

Chromosomes are the set of genetic instructions that guide the creation of an organism. Every human embryo begins with two X chromosomes, but in order to be a male, one of the X chromosomes turns into a Y chromosome.

Wait, how? Could this happen even now? Watch out ladies: if you watch too much football, one of your X chromosomes might turn into a Y.

Depending on the gene, having two active copies can matter very little or very much. When genes on the second X chromosome that escape inactivation are expressed, this can create a stronger overall concentration of particular genes.

That started out just fine, and then degenerated into gobbledygook.

Have you figured it out? You’re probably thinking it’s some wacky creationist journal, because they are always written by people who don’t understand science and get the facts all wrong.

But no: it’s from Health & Wellness magazine, written by Angela Hoover. The editor of the magazine.

The title of the magazine is a clue. What the heck is “wellness”, and how is it different from “health”?

(Also on FtB)

Hey, Norway!

I have more imminent travel plans. I’ll be at the World Humanist Conference in Oslo this coming weekend, and then on Monday the 15th I’ll be doing this:

Paul Z. Myers er en amerikansk biolog som jobber ved University of Minnesota Morris, og forsker på zebrafisk innen området evolusjonær utviklingsbiologi. Mest kjent er han for sin populære blogg Pharyngula, hvor han blant annet kommer med harsk kritikk mot intelligent design og kreasjonistmiljøet generelt. Kort sagt er han en aktivist innen den amerikanske kreasjonisme-/evolusjons-debatten. I august er PZ i Oslo i forbindelse med World Humanist Congress 2011, og tar i den forbindelse selvsagt turen innom puben for å slå av en prat med Oslo-skeptikerne!

Skeptikertreffene er uformelle, sosiale treff for skeptikere i Oslo-området. De er ment som en mulighet til å diskutere skepsis, vitenskap og alt mulig annet med likesinnede, og bli kjent med andre skeptikere. Man trenger ikke å være medlem av foreningen Skepsis.

Denne gangen samles vi nok en gang på Asylet, i bakgården dersom det er fint vær. Hvis du ikke har vært med før, så se etter bordskiltet vårt med logoen på, eller spør i baren.

I do not know what that means. If I’m now committed to doing burlesque in Norwegian, let me know soon. When I was a wee little kid, I could recite the Lord’s Prayer in Norwegian, but I think I’ve forgotten it all now.

(Also on Sb)

Somebody doesn’t understand basic genetics

Oh, boy. Look at these quotes from a recently published magazine article, and try to guess where they came from.

Scientists had also implicitly assumed that the X chromosomes in all women were identical.

We had? When?

The first comprehensive study of gene activity in the X chromosome of women reveals an unexpected level of variation among individual females. This extensive variation means there is not ONE human genome, but TWO – Male and Female.

This does not follow. There’s also individual variation in chromosome 7, and every other chromosome in the genome. Allelic and expression variation do not make for calling every variant a different genome.

Chromosomes are the set of genetic instructions that guide the creation of an organism. Every human embryo begins with two X chromosomes, but in order to be a male, one of the X chromosomes turns into a Y chromosome.

Wait, how? Could this happen even now? Watch out ladies: if you watch too much football, one of your X chromosomes might turn into a Y.

Depending on the gene, having two active copies can matter very little or very much. When genes on the second X chromosome that escape inactivation are expressed, this can create a stronger overall concentration of particular genes.

That started out just fine, and then degenerated into gobbledygook.

Have you figured it out? You’re probably thinking it’s some wacky creationist journal, because they are always written by people who don’t understand science and get the facts all wrong.

But no: it’s from Health & Wellness magazine, written by Angela Hoover. The editor of the magazine.

The title of the magazine is a clue. What the heck is “wellness”, and how is it different from “health”?

(Also on Sb)

Brazil needs your help

Governments that aspire to oppressiveness love to restrict the flow of information and communication, and that’s happening in Brazil right now. The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies is considering legislation to control internet access.

Next week, Congress could vote to radically restrict internet freedom in Brazil — criminalizing everyday online activities like sharing music and restricting fundamental blogging tools. We have just six days to stop them.

Public pressure defeated an attack on internet freedom in 2009, and we can do it again! The bill is in three committees in the Chamber of Deputies to stop the bill from passing. These politicians are carefully watching public response to the proposed bill in the days leading up to the big vote — now is our chance to launch a national outcry and force them to protect internet freedoms.

Brazil has over 75 million internet users — we can be deafening if we join together. Send a message now to leaders of the Constitution and Justice, Science and Technology, and Public Safety Committees, then share it with your friends and family across Brazil!

Sign the petition and save Brazil’s internet!

American Patriarchy News wants to poll you on their god

Today is the day of Governor Rick Perry’s crazy prayer rally in Houston. It’s going to fizzle: Reliant Stadium seats 75,000, and only 8,000 tickets have been sold (if you go, please get pictures of the sea of empty seats); he invited all 50 governors of the US to attend, only one said he would (Throwback Brownback of Kansas), and even he apparently hasn’t made travel arrangements, so it’s more like he said he would but won’t. And then it’s going to be populated with odious villains like Hagee and Dobson and Perkins on the stage, and is paid for by the gay-hatin’ American Patriarchy Association.

What’s really sad about this monstrous promise to violate separation of church and state and to pander to the most hateful lunatics of the extremist religious right is that it might just work…American evangelicals will just love Governor Godhair.

Here’s a nice little evangelical poll prompted by Perry’s folly.

Do America and its leaders need God’s guidance?

Without a doubt – 58.86%
Probably – 0.25%
No – 40.89%

The pain will soon end

The new site is suffering — the poor thing is just dying and struggling and screaming, trying to cope with the traffic. Say goodbye, Ed Brayton is going to put a bullet in its brain tonight, and it’ll be dead.

But good news! A brand new dedicated server is being installed tonight as well! There will be a brief transition in which all commenting will be shut down, and then the existing content will be whisked out of the old, clunky server and transferred to the swift and gleaming hard drives of a brand new machine. Then there will be a period of confusion as a new IP address must propagate out over the network, but within hours for some lucky few and a day or two for others, we’ll be back in action, and hopefully not the limpy wimpy kind of action we’ve been getting lately.

Episode CCXLI: Squidgirl

Let’s see if closing the old long thread helps a little with the load here. Besides, you want to see the squidgirl anyway.

Also, good news: a fresh new server goes in tonight. Commenting will be temporarily shut down sometime after 9pm while the blogs get transferred, and when they’re switched on again, these performance problems should be gone.