Some years ago, two friends and colleagues of mine in different academic departments, both divorced, started living together and had children. They did not pretend they were married nor did they advertise that they were not. The female member once told me that since they were not married, she referred to the other person as her ‘partner’. She discovered that when she did so, people assumed that her partner must be female as well, [Read more…]

The silent partner of the magic duo Penn and Teller has written an article that reveals some of the ways that magicians fool you.

In this video clip, Teller demonstrates [Read more…]

This rally is being sponsored by a large coalition of secular groups. It will be on Saturday, March 24, 2012 on the Mall in Washington DC from 10:00am-4:00pm. The list of speakers and performers is here and you can ride on buses from selected cities that can be found here.

Remember that delightful 1995 film Babe about a sheepherding pig?

That was fiction but via The Guardian‘s Grrlscientist, I obtained this video of what seems to be a real-life rabbit named Champis who has a knack for sheepherding.

In the northern hemisphere, the official seasons are as follows: winter goes from the winter solstice (December 21) to March 19 (the day before the spring equinox on March 20), spring from March 20 until June 19 (the day before the summer solstice on June 20), summer from June 20 until September 21 (the day before the fall equinox on September 22), and [Read more…]

When I moved to this site in January, I had to transfer my nearly seven years worth of posts from my old site. I was technically incompetent to do this but Jason Thibeault at Lousy Canuck has the skills and worked tirelessly to make the transfer. Since the data file was huge, it required [Read more…]

A member of the custodial staff in a Berlin art museum came across what looked like a water stain on the floor and after diligent efforts managed to scrub it away. Unfortunately, it turned out that the ‘stain’ was part of an exhibit by artist Martin Kippenberger titled When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling, valued at $1.1 million.

Oops.

In order to reduce spam, I have a policy that the very first comment that is submitted must be approved by me. Once approved, that commenter is free to comment without prior approval.

This means, however, that I must judge if the first comment is genuine or not. So people who are commenting for the first time should make sure that it is relevant to the post that they are commenting on and does not look like it could be misjudged to have been generated by a spambot.

I have had to turn down some comments because they were too generic. If yours was one that was turned down by mistake, I apologize and urge you to resubmit with the above in mind.

Thanks.

I have written before that men under the age of around 25 tend to do really stupid things.

Further evidence in support of this comes from a recent story in a Cleveland suburb where three students sent in phony [Read more…]