My graduate advisor got some good news last week: Charles B. Kimmel has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
It’s nice how he is listed as “professor emeritus of biology (active)”. He no longer runs his own lab, but has instead taken a post-doctoral position working on development of the facial bones in sticklebacks.
Very serious academics
I never heard of the Thylacocephala until I saw this video, and they are bizarre arthropods, now extinct, unfortunately. I learned something new!
At first I thought these were some strange planktonic creatures, but they were 20-30cm long. They were actively swimming predators that looked like some kind of remote drone submersible. They thrived from the Ordovician to the upper Cretaceous, making it kind of ridiculous that I knew nothing about them until now.
Here’s a little good news: Skepticon 14 is happening on 29-31 July.
I’m experiencing a little trepidation about attending an in-person meeting, but these are smart skeptics, they’ll all be practicing good hygiene and will wear masks, right? I know I will be.
What also tempts me is that I plan on driving there, slowly, with frequent stops, and maybe a couple of overnight stays en route. I intend to couple the trip to a spidering expedition in Iowa and Missouri. The farther south I go, the greater the likelihood of finding black widows somewhere, which would be cool.
Is it weird that I’m more comfortable with finding large venomous spiders than I am with meeting people?
I am clearly not suited to a life of manual labor. You see, I started on a little summer project this morning. I don’t know how long I’ve got, but I’m definitely going to die long before my wife, and it’s not as if I’m leaving her a vast inheritance — this old house is about it. I decided I need to do some home improvements before it’s too late, and the immediate task that came to mind is repainting the dining room and bedroom. Both were afflicted with terrible wallpaper that was peeling, as well as being hideous, and I know that Mary will have to sell the place and move to someplace less remote once I kick the bucket, and while she’s worrying about papers and cremation and all that other nonsense, she’s not going to have time to prep the house for resale.
So I figure I’ll do a few things while I’m still ambulatory. I started with stripping the wallpaper with a steamer this morning.
There’s a lot of bending and stooping and working near the floor and also higher up, and I got through about half the job, and hour and a half into it, before my back decided to go into spasms. This was not pleasant. I can tell I will not last long at all in the work camp after the Republicans take over, but now at least, I can sit down and pop ibuprofen for a bit, until I recover, and can get the remaining half done.
As long as I’m sitting down, I called my mother to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. Have you called yours, if you have one, and if she’s the kind of mother who deserves your affection? I’ve got one, and she does. Unfortunately, she also has voice mail. Oh, well.
Jeez, this photo is 10 years old? I’m getting old.
So you’ve been reminded, and I better remind my kids, ’cause their mother deserves a call. They can also say hi and be grateful to me, because I was thinking that once I’m dead, if I don’t get the various jobs I’m planning done, they’re going to have to come home to Morris and do all the house maintenance themselves to help their mother out.
Do any of you old-timers recall TXPiper, the obnoxious racist creationist I banned in 2013? Would you believe he still occasional pesters me with blindingly stupid email? I must be spectacularly compelling and charismatic, since so many of these bozos never go away. I wish they knew how to quit me.
He threw a whole lot of stupid at me the other day, so I had to respond with a video.
Transcript below the fold.
Hey! I was hit by that same truck!
How come that driver still has his license?
Well, today Mary and I scrubbed up the genetics lab all morning, I cleaned out a lot of fly bottles and emptied the incubator, and now those bottles are sitting in the autoclave getting a super-sauna. The lab is now mostly sparkling clean and ready for the next class in the Fall!
This is what I get paid to do, and what my degree qualified me for. Mary, unfortunately, doesn’t get paid, although she too has an advanced degree, and helped out so I wouldn’t have to spend all day in the nasty drudgery. So many dead flies and pupae!
This is exactly what it looked like, after we got done cleaning it.
Even the peaceful octopus knows that sometimes you have to do battle.
I got out of the house to celebrate the end of the semester yesterday, but it was slightly premature. Next week is finals week. I have to slap myself to attention and buckle down and write the genetics final and post it on Canvas.
It shouldn’t be too bad. I’m planning to take full advantage of the Canvas autograder, so I mainly have to invest time this morning in setting up the problems with discrete answers and plugging the answer key into the software, and then grading next week will mainly involve updating the grade sheet.
I slept in until 7am this morning! The stress is fading already!
Our lack has been filled. Iris has opened a Freethoughtblogs Abbatoir.
Here, we perform extractions of lifesaving organs–whether people consent to them or not!
Don’t worry! The Abattoir does not harvest organs from just anyone, willy-nilly. That would be morally reprehensible, barbaric, and inhumane. You see, all of our involuntary organ donors meet one, and only one, very specific criteria: they would eagerly and happily force other people to donate lifesaving organs without the donor’s consent. And these donors do so with absolutely no regard for the harm this may cause, whether physically, psychologically or financially. Since all of The Abattoir’s donors feel so very strongly about this particular principle, it is only just and fair that they live by it!
She has a few photos of the place, I think prior to the actual opening. Once the site gets going, it’s going to be significantly less tidy, and things will get blood-drenched quickly.
Uh-oh. Do we have a Freethoughtblogs Laundry? No, we do not. Do we have a Freethoughtblogs Autoclave? Nope. I’m not in any hurry to open one, I think we can satisfy our donors with reassurances that it’s somewhat cleaner than a back alley.
