What’s the opposite of a didgeridoo?

Apparently, it’s an eppendorf pipette. If you aren’t a science nerd, an eppendorf pipette is one of the ubiquitous tools of molecular biology — it’s a calibrated gadget for dispensing minute quantities of liquids.

Eppendorf is now selling an automated pipettor called epMotion … and judging by the promotional video and music, it’s also intended to raise estrogen levels. Don’t watch it unless you want to be emasculated!

(The tune is rather catchy. I’m suddenly in the mood to cuddle.)

epMotion Song

Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends your thumbs into overdrive
And spending long nights in the lab makes it hard for your love to thrive

What you need is automation, girl, something easy as 1 2 3
So put down that pipette, honey, I got something that will set you free

And it’s called epMotion (whisper: ’cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)

DNA
RNA
Proteins
Cell Cultures
Less reagents
Faster workflow
Saves you money
Well, well, well

And it’s called epMotion (whisper: ’cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)

Didgeridoos are not for you, little girl

Harper Collins is about to release a children’s book called The Daring Book for Girls(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) in Australia. It contains a very short section on how to play a didgeridoo — and wouldn’t you know it, someone is offended.

But the general manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, Dr Mark Rose, says the publishers have committed a major faux pas by including a didgeridoo lesson for girls.

Dr Rose says the didgeridoo is a man’s instrument and touching it could make girls infertile, and has called for the book to be pulped.

I think Dr Rose has confused aboriginal belief with reality. The didgeridoo is a long piece of hollow painted wood. Go ahead, girls, you can touch it and it won’t hurt you, no matter how much someone claims its magic powers will do weird things to your gonads.

I would think that he could, possibly, make a case for cultural insensitivity if it were true that it would the book violated native taboos, but even that wouldn’t be grounds for demanding that the book be destroyed — it would just mean that members of a culture that rigidly defines women’s roles would not be buying the book. But this Rose kook goes further — he’s not just saying it violates a tradition, he is arguing that it literally has magic powers. What next, will Catholics start claiming that pieces of bread literally turn into pieces of a god? That would be ridiculous.

“I would say from an Indigenous perspective, an extreme mistake, but part of a general ignorance that mainstream Australia has about Aboriginal culture,” he said.

“We know very clearly that there is a range of consequences for females touching a didgeridoo, it’s men’s business, and in the girls book, instructions on how to use it, for us it is an extreme cultural indiscretion.”

Dr Rose says the consequences for a girl touching a didgeridoo can be quite extreme.

“It would vary in the places where it is, infertility would be the start of it ranging to other consequences,” he said.

“I won’t even let my daughter touch one…. as cultural respect. And we know it’s men’s business.

“In our times there are men’s business and women’s business, and the didgeridoo is definitely a men’s business ceremonial tool.”

Heh heh. He said “ceremonial tool.” I know who’s playing the tool here.

(via Josh Reviews Everything)

Palinanity

This is a terrifying video. It’s Sarah Palin going on and on in front of her Assembly of God church, talking about the war in Iraq as “a task that is from God”, promising the congregants the gift of prophecy, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…it ought to make any rational human being ill.

But that’s not the scary part. The truly frightening prospect, and the thing that we must not forget lest we underestimate Palin, is that huge numbers of people in this country will find that blithering speech uplifting and wonderful. We atheists view it with alarmed horror, that an idiot like that could be considered vice-presidential material, but there are people in your neighborhood right now who will watch that and say that she is obviously a good person, they will identify with her, and they will vote for her.

While most of her positions are outside the mainstream, this flavor of Jesus-talk is not. While her hypocrisy of talking small government and detesting federalism while expanding government and raking in pork may grate on people who look at her record, all most are going to see is that she is pretty and upbeat.

I know. She sounds like a moron. But get ready, she’s also a walking advertisement for the corrupting power of religion to mask substance and elevate superficialities and lies to the status of perceived truth.

McCain/Palin could still win this election, unbelievable as that may sound.

On the high velocity rotation of interred organic remains

Let us all doff our hats in astonished disbelief at the brazen arrogance of the people who have created the Carl Sagan Institute in Brazil.

i-ce271ba3c684d3ff0584cd9c162cd6c6-institutocarlsagan.jpg

That is, the Carl Sagan Institute…of UFOlogy. That’s right, a cranky gang of saucernuts have appropriated the name and likeness of Carl Sagan without authorization to flog their belief that Jesus is a flying saucer pilot. They claim that Sagan was secretly a believer in visitations by Little Green Men, who simply publicly lied, and now they want to use his dead body to beg for donations.

Anyone know a good Brazilian lawyer who’d like to fight this?