This is the weirdest deep-sea video clip: a crinoid scuttling across the sea floor on its feeding appendages. These are supposed to be sessile creatures, a stalk with a flower-like fringe of many slender arms, but it’s picked itself up and started crawling.
I swear, I’m going to check under my bed just in case they’ve ended up there. That’s almost as improbable.
I’m seeing some mixed signals on the series “A Brief History of Disbelief” — it’s appearing in very few station’s schedules right now, and it’s tempting to suspect that it’s being buried by the media, especially since right wing groups detest it:
That "A Brief History of Disbelief" might be controversial is unsurprising. Right-wing groups, such as the Concerned Women of America, are already ramping up opposition to Miller’s program, which originally aired on the BBC in 2005. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council deemed the work of the actor-director-author Miller to be "an evangelistic piece for atheism."
On the other hand, I’ve heard from the author of the article above that stations are also reporting that it’s a problem with the source — it’s being handled by an independent distributor, and the stations haven’t had an opportunity to review it — so the problems may be less nefarious than procedural. Either way, this is probably a good time to contact your local public broadcasting station and tell them you’d like to see them pick up this program, and pretty please, don’t show it at 3am. Let’s let the godless demographic make itself known, politely but firmly.
It’s not like we’re lobbying Fox News. Don’t you all suspect that public broadcasting’s viewership is skewed our way? All it takes is a phone call, so let’s make our existence known in this simple and unthreatening matter.
I’m passing along a request for all you glamorous, photogenic marine biologists:
Are you a marine biologist? Do you want to be in a rock video?
Hello all, this is Toren Atkinson, science lover and lead singer for the Lovecraftian rock band, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. You may, at http://www.thickets.net/toren/darkestofthehillsidethickets.mp3 or http://www.myspace.com/darkestofthehillsidethickets listen to/download the mp3 for “A Marine Biologist,” a fun little number about bathyscaphes, benthic trawlers, giant squid, etc.I would like to create a music video for this track that essentially features marine biologists from across the globe. The idea would simply be a series of video clips of marine biologists doing what they (you?) do, with text at the bottom of the screen detailing who it is we’re looking at, their location and specialty. So, for example, if we got a clip of Dr O’Shea, it would something to the effect of:
DR. STEVE O’SHEA
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND (and/or specific institution)
SPECIALTY: THE GIANT SQUIDThe footage doesn’t need to be created from scratch just for the video – I’m perfectly happy with any video of any quality where it’s clear who the marine biologist is, and that he/she/you are in their element doing marine biology stuff – whether that be in the lab, on site recording courtship sounds…whatever.
So the entire video would be like a profile of worldwide marine biologists set to our song. Hopefully the video would appear on various music/TV shows–MTV, Muchmusic, and their equivalents, but at the very least it would go out throughout the internet, youtube, on our site, and into your hands as well to do with as you wish.
To make this happen – I need your cooperation!
If you are a marine biologist and want to help out would you:
a) contact me at thickets@uniserve.com or via contact info below and we can work out how to get video footage from you.
b) provide a statement that you give permission for The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets to use the footage and your likeness strictly for the purpose of this music video
c) see also (d) below!If you are not a marine biologist, can you please
d) spread this around to any marine biologists you know, or anyone you think might know a marine biologist!
THANKS SO MUCH – if we can get this done I think it would be really fun!
Toren Atkinson
302-1015 West 13th Ave
Vancouver BC Canada
V6H 1N1
604-737-4283
Psssht. Nobody ever wants us mild-mannered lab denizens specializing in developmental biology for their videos.
If you meet the requirements, though, you’re obligated to get out there and represent for all of us more nerdy scientists!
As a small tremor in a bit of a staff shakeup at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, James Lileks got the axe — he’s been demoted from a guy with a regular column to a beat reporter. It’s about time.
He’s not a bad writer, in the sense that he does have his own recognizable voice, but yeesh, he’s such a banal writer, the epitome of Minnesota mediocrity. Some of his online writings are cranky-grandpa interesting, the rantings of a deranged 9/11 wingnut, but his newspaper column … dull, dull, dull. You only need to read one column in your life about a guy who goes shopping at Target and watches TV before he goes to bed, anything more is superfluous.
If you’re unfamiliar with our local columnist, here’s an analogy to help you understand: Lileks is the Garfield of the Star-Tribune. He’s technically competent, entirely predictable, and so boring he’s not even mildly amusing any more. They also don’t even need him to provide right-wing balance to the paper now, since they hired Katherine Kersten (she’s the Mallard Fillmore of the paper: screechy, inane, and incompetent). I haven’t read a Lileks column for years, not because I resent him or am somehow boycotting him or am even angered by him — I’ve tuned him out for the same reason I don’t read the recipes for yet-another casserole. He puts me to sleep.
(via Norwegianity)
I may have to learn the words to “O Canada” if Dan Gardner is representative of that great nation. His recent article is marvelous.
So I thought this is an opportune moment to say I think all three of these faiths — these mighty institutions, these esteemed philosophies, these ancient and honoured traditions — are ridiculous quackery. Parted seas. Walking corpses. Nocturnal visits to Heaven. For goodness sake, people, the talking wolf in Little Red Riding Hood is more plausible.
Preach it, brother. Referring to the habit of some to who see these “New Atheists” as equivalent to the fanatics of religion, he says:
This frames the debate in a pleasingly symmetrical way. Over on that side are the insane religious fanatics who fly jets into skyscrapers and march around with signs saying “God Hates Fags.” Over there are fanatical atheists. Between the two extremes are sensible moderates who take the Goldilocks approach to faith and reason. Not too hot. Not too cold. Lukewarm, please, keep it lukewarm.
He should have continued one sentence: “Over there are fanatical atheists … who write books and talk to people.” It’s good to see, though, that there are others who also see through the prim, squeaky in-betweeners who take pride in their weak-kneed mediocrity and whimper about “funadamentalist atheists”, equating suicide bombers for god with people who simply refuse to defer to religious poppycock.
Bravo, Mr Gardner.
Since everyone is having fun with the good/evil quiz, let’s up the ante: what kind of god or goddess are you? The questions are very dada-esque, which is appropriate, since godhood doesn’t make any sense anyway.
| Which God or Goddess are you like?
Your Result: You are your own God or Goddess
Sorry to say, i have no answer that fits you. You are your very own person, and you like to do things your own way. You have stumped me this time, but i will soon make a quiz that will have your answer, just you wait… |
|
| Budha |
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| The Christian God |
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| Jesus |
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| Satan |
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| Goddess Bast |
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| Goddess Sekhemet |
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| God Zeus |
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| Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz |
|
I’m rather disappointed that my Zeus score is so low. I could throw lightning bolts and impregnate lovely mortal women! Give me a chance!
(via Salad is Slaughter)
At least it’s an easy answer: nonexistent.
This product is apparently a joke, but as long as Coke is constantly tinkering with their formula, I don’t see why dumping in an extract of fried mollusc shouldn’t be within the realm of possibility.
Greg Laden puts an interesting twist on the question of how many hominin fossils we have: the question should be, “how did they die?”. We seem to have evolved from a species that was primarily a prey item on predators’ grocery list, to one that succumbed most often to disease, to one where mortality was driven by violence (and now, at least in our prosperous corner of the world, where senescence exacerbated by sloth and gluttony is the common cause of death.)
He’s right. The cool questions our students ought to be getting excited about have nothing to do with the nonsense the Discovery Institute wants them to discuss.
Would you believe a Nebraska community college is offering a course in creationism … and awarding science credits for it? If any McCook Community College students tried to transfer to my university, I’d argue that any who took that course ought to get negative credits because we’d have to assign additional corrective work to scour the garbage out of their brain.
The course is offered as a physics class. I’m getting a bit fed up with the arrogance of some physicists and engineers, could you please police your own? I can’t imagine a biology faculty member trying to create a course that taught his or her own idiosyncratic vision of physics, one that defied the expertise of their physics colleagues, but some physicists and engineers seem more than willing to declare biology to be all wrong.
