We’ve received word that there have been some behind-the-scenes improvements in spam filtering, and I’ve gotten enough complaints about that annoying typekey thingie, that I’ve gotten rid of it. This is provisional, and I’m hoping I don’t get a flood of spam now, but try it—commenting should be easier.
There are just too many pretty molluscs in the world, so today you get TWO Friday Cephalopods, this one thanks to NOAA.
Just think, their children will be such lovely cyborg cephalopods.
If you’ve read this outrageous WaPo op-ed that basically says you can’t expect moral behavior from scientists who are glorified baby-killers, you might appreciate this rebuttal at the Give Up Blog. The foundation of the fundiecrat anti-science article is that 1) Hwang Woo Suk was bad, therefore all stem cell/cloning research is tainted, and 2) alternative techniques (most of which they don’t seem to understand) and adult stem cells will give us all the answers we need.
Which actually leads into this week’s “ask a science blogger” question:
Only this one has a real prize. Invasive Species Weblog wants a title for an article—a strange story about those wretched starlings.
These sites are completely fake, but they’re fascinating anyway.
Phil sent me a link to the Museum of Fantastic Specimens, a bizarre collection of strange creatures. It’s all in Japanese, but Pink Tentacle has a brief guide in English.
Several people let me know about this one: if you prefer your fake organisms to be the product of fake synthetic processes rather than fake natural ones, you want a GenPet.
OK, many people seem to be picking up on Coulter’s plagiarism, Karl Mogel picks up on the overt sexism of Coulter’s remarks*, but there’s far too little discussion of the fact that Coulter’s book is a tissue thin collection of lies. Her understanding of science is negligible, and she’s simply parroting old creationist nonsense, but almost no one is pointing out that fact. Is science just too hard for the media? Shouldn’t the fact that she plagiarizes be a lesser sin than the fact that she is making stuff up?
Although, actually, I do feel that the fact that she dismisses over half the population as too stupid to do good science, and doesn’t even think biology is a science, is probably more serious.
*One bothersome thing I need to point out about Karl’s analysis: The Panda’s Thumb would also do very poorly, with women grossly underrepresented on the list of contributors. There is no shortage of XX science bloggers, though, as the list at scienceblogs shows.
John McKay tells me that Media Matters has a thorough content-based criticism of Coulter’s book. Excellent!
Regular commenter Ed Darrell has started a weblog of his own now, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, dedicated to knowing US History. And really, don’t you want to learn the story behind the name?
That’s some kinky photo Revere has put up—and he’s looking for captions. Most of mine were not fit for a Family Blog, but I’m sure you can do better.
Oh, and if brain teasers are more your thing, World’s Fair has a mysterious puzzle to solve.
Via Deep Sea News, here is a site for the BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition 2006: a whole collection of underwater images. It’s beautiful!
