Once again courtesy of Not Exactly Rocket Science comes an article about a rather bizarre (to us at least) factor in the process of arthropod molting: apparently, they also shed the lining of their lungs while they’re at it.
Now, this is a little bit different from what we might imagine (yeah, like discarding your entire skin at once to emerge bigger is nothing odd.) Insects – and arachnids,
Among the many, many reminisces following the recent death of actor-comedian Robin Williams – some in honest tribute, some in shameless opportunism – we can find the video of his meeting with Koko, the female lowland gorilla who is famous for communicating by sign language we also have the reports from the Gorilla Foundation, her caretakers, that when told about his
I barely have to write anything for this.
There’s a website called LeastHelpful.com, which features product reviews that, uh, leave a bit to be desired. Far too frequently, the religious reviewer provides the strangest and most clueless entries, and many of those are laden with unintended irony. Case in point:
Over at Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne talks about new research that shows that the we no longer have any examples of ring species (which actually means we never did in the first place.) What’s a ring species, you ask? Go ahead, I did myself. Coyne explains it best, and
This one’s going to be a little bit weird. I mean, more so than usual. It started as just an offhand comment, but grew into a strange bit of philosophical inspection.
I recently read, yet again, the journalistic cliché about someone “beating the odds.” Which is complete nonsense. No one ever beats the odds, though they might fall right in line with the odds in a favorable way –
This is cheating, I know, and especially lazy when the posts have been so thin lately. I could have just linked to it while providing new content, but I find the original from last year to be pretty complete. Plus I’m not sure who actually follows links…
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So not only is today the summer solstice, but also World Humanist Day – which is, admittedly, an odd
Every once in a while, you will get to hear the phrase, “other ways of knowing” – almost invariably, it will be in defense of some topic that is sorely lacking in demonstrable evidence or repeatable results. But this doesn’t matter, because science isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, since there are other ways of knowing. While, not surprisingly,
The other day I went out chasing pics again, and didn’t really snag much of merit. But while playing around with macro shots of honeysuckle flowers, I captured a few frames that illustrate a peculiar, and sometimes handy, photographic trait. It takes some explaining, so bear with me.
First, the illustration. These are two frames from almost exactly the same vantage point, with just a change
It’s funny, because there really are too few instances of exactly what this post is, and I’m not sure why – it can’t possibly be because atheists are too nice about it. But considering that the last ‘
I am changing my tactics slightly with this post, in that I am announcing Earth Day early, so you can actually plan to do something or call in sick or whatever strikes your fancy. If you needed more warning than this, well, that’s your problem – get a decent calendar next year.
So tomorrow, get out and stomp up and down on our planet, just to remind to yourself how useful it is. Or if