This digest presents the most recent news and reviews from The Scientific Lawyer. You are invited to download this digest's RSS feed:
August 29, 0:59 AM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Blogmoving: Nothing's Shocking [DrugMonkey]Noah Gray , previously of the Action Potential blog of Nature Neuroscience , skirmisher on the old DM, and occasional punching bag of YHN has started a new blog called Nothing's Shocking at our mortal enemy friendly rival science-blogging-network-thingy place. I've found Noah to be bit less of a stiff than the usual self-important and humorless blogger types at the NPG empire so I encourage you to read, even if you normally don't frequent NN . More importantly, the cause of the blog move is Noah's promotion to the flagship Nature journal. So run on over and congratulate him, eh? Good on ya, Noah! Read the comments on this post...
August 29, 0:45 AM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / They're joking, right? [Pharyngula]The pope has condemned this silly sculpture as blasphemous , and German Catholics are trying to get it removed from display. They can't be serious, can they? It's kitschy and funny. But really, they're unhappy about this. The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. "Surely this is not a work of art but a blashphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone as the museum board was meeting. The Vatican letter said that the work "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love". Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer. So wait…now doing anything with two sticks stuck together at right angles is going to be an affront to "God's love"? I have been told over and over again by pompous wackaloons that I'm on the shock-jock trajectory, compelled to try and top my outrages against religion in an ever-upward spiral of offense, and that it's going to be really hard to top cracker abuse. However, it looks like you can piss off the pope just by playing around with a couple of popsicle sticks. Read the comments on this post...
August 29, 0:42 AM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Meteoroid vs goose... again [Tetrapod Zoology]Thanks to the latest issue (no. 240) of Fortean Times I've just learnt of the remarkable case whereby an unlucky Canada goose Branta canadensis was, allegedly, hit by a meteoroid (Anon. 2008). The story goes that Derbyshire postman Adrian Mannion was 'having a morning cuppa with his wife Fiona' (I'm not quite sure what a cuppa is, but assume it's a sexual act of some sort) when a rock fell, from space, onto their driveway. It was followed by the goose, which hit the roof of their car. This story was reported in that most reliable of sources, The Sun newspaper, back in February (it's here ). Their report includes photos, one of which shows Fiona holding a rock (it really doesn't look like a meteorite, not that I'm an expert), and another which purports to show the unfortunate goose [shown here]. The goose may not have been killed by the meteorite, but while lying in the driveway it was carried off and dispatched by a fox. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 29, 0:32 AM / ScienceNOW / Good for Cops, Bad for NIHMethod to divine one person's DNA from a pooled sample is a boon for forensics and a bane for privacy advocates
August 29, 0:29 AM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Vista may still have its day -- just like XP (eventually) did - Computerworldbit-tech.net Vista may still have its day -- just like XP (eventually) did Computerworld - 39 minutes ago Think Windows Vista is a hopeless dog and XP was always the cat's meow among users? Think again. By Eric Lai Anonymous says: I've been using Vista for over a year without any problems. Has Microsoft Learned Its Lessons From Vista? CRN Black Screens For Unauthorized Copies of Windows Slashdot PC World - BetaNews - bit-tech.net - ZDNet all 48 news articles
August 29, 0:25 AM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL - RegisterSiliconrepublic.com Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL Register - 43 minutes ago By Austin Modine → More by this author Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 has been released, and it certainly makes for better browsing than the rough-around-the-edges beta 1 build. IE8 Beta 2 Ratchets Up Security, Firefox Comparisons CRN Ars: IE8, Beta 2, Shows MS is Serious About Catch-Up The Mac Observer Computerworld - TechNewsWorld - BetaNews - DailyTech all 762 news articles
August 29, 0:20 AM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Apple trying to fix iPhone flaw that lets unauthorized users gain ... - San Jose Mercury NewsCanada.com Apple trying to fix iPhone flaw that lets unauthorized users gain ... San Jose Mercury News - 47 minutes ago By Steve Johnson Apple executives Thursday were scrambling to fix the latest in what has become an annoying and embarrassing series of glitches plaguing their products. Apple to fix hole in password protected iPhones in September CNET News Apple: iPhone security holes, contacts lag, GPS quirks to be fixed ... Apple Insider CRN - Macworld - Computerworld - bMighty.com all 73 news articles
August 29, 0:07 AM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Arctic Ice on Track for Another All-Time Low - Wired NewsBBC News Arctic Ice on Track for Another All-Time Low Wired News - 1 hour ago By Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides August 28, 2008 | 7:00:04 PMCategories: Climate, Space The Northwest Passage is about to be ice-free for the second year in the row, as seen on satellite images released today by the European Space Agency. Meltdown in the Arctic: Polar icecap shrinking at an alarming rate Daily Star - Lebanon Arctic ice at near record low United Press International Christian Science Monitor - The Tech Herald - BBC News - Environment News Service all 613 news articles
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Cluster Watches Earth's Leaky AtmosphereOxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth's atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA's formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It turns out that the Earth's own magnetic field is accelerating the oxygen away.
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Why Transplanted Insulin Cells DieNew research can enhance survival of islets transplants and improve treatment of type 1 diabetes.
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Student-designed Device To Help Poor East Africans Coax Oil From CoconutsStudent engineers designed an innovative and cost-effective apparatus that enables poor East African women to turn abundant coconuts into valuable coconut oil.
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Variations Of Rare Lung Disease ExaminedScientists are conducting a new research study that examines why symptoms of LAM are different in certain subgroups of people with the goal of finding more successful therapies.
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / New Report Card Shows Campuses Going GreenerIs your alma mater among those stepping up to green their campuses? Are our colleges preparing students for a greener future? You can find out in National Wildlife Federation's just-released Campus Environment 2008 Report Card, a comprehensive look at nationwide trends in sustainability among America's institutions of higher learning. The report compares findings with the previous study conducted in 2001.
August 29, 0:00 AM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Study Shows Link Between Spanking And Physical AbuseSpanking has been, and still is, a common method of child discipline used by American parents. But mothers who report that they or their partner spanked their child in the past year are nearly three times more likely to state that they also used harsher forms of punishment than those who say their child was not spanked, according to a new study led by the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
August 28, 11:56 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Former talk show host Bernie Ward sentenced to more than seven years - San Jose Mercury NewsKCBS Former talk show host Bernie Ward sentenced to more than seven years San Jose Mercury News - 1 hour ago By Howard Mintz With his sobbing family looking on in a San Francisco courtroom, former KGO radio host Bernie Ward today completed his tumble from one of the Bay Area's most popular liberal voices on the local airwaves to a pariah caught up in the ... Bernie Ward sentenced to seven-plus years for child-porn conviction San Francisco Chronicle Ward Gets 87 Months For Internet Child Porn Streaming Magazine MarketWatch - CBS 5 - NBC11.com - San Jose Mercury News all 55 news articles
August 28, 11:53 PM / CNET News.com / Vote for me, Obama says, through text messagesDelegates and other convention goers are asked to show support for Barack Obama by sending text messages, which will be scored based on what state they're from.
August 28, 11:53 PM / CNET News.com / IE 8 Beta 2 not without its faultsWhile hiccups are expected from beta software, some of the affected services are Microsoft's own.
August 28, 11:50 PM / CNET News.com / Whoops! Obama's VP text-messaging idea didn't work out so wellKeynote Systems reports that 40 percent to 50 percent of the text messages sent by the Obama campaign regarding the candidate's VP choice were late or never received.
August 28, 11:36 PM / CNET News.com / In YouTube age, political criticisms can (and will) be used against youRepublicans interrupt the Democratic National Convention in Denver with Web site featuring videos of Barack Obama's onetime rivals attacking him during the primaries.
August 28, 11:34 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Comcast Sets Monthly Bandwidth Limit for Customers - PC WorldMultichannel News Comcast Sets Monthly Bandwidth Limit for Customers PC World - 1 hour ago Comcast, the largest provider of cable-based broadband service in the US, will limit residential customers to 250 gigabytes of bandwidth a month beginning Oct. 1, the company announced late Thursday. Comcast to cap monthly consumer broadband starting Oct. 1 CNET News Comcast to Cap Data Transfers at 250 GB in Oct. PC Magazine BetaNews - The Associated Press - Ars Technica - Yahoo! Tech all 92 news articles
August 28, 11:24 PM / CNET News.com / Google Code reverses open-source license ban"Our bad," declares company, deciding that the Mozilla Public License is once again an option for Google Code projects. Also added: the Eclipse Public License.
August 28, 11:16 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Voting from Outer Space? Yes. It is Possible! - MyFox HoustonVoting from Outer Space? Yes. It is Possible! MyFox Houston - 1 hour ago HOUSTON -- As the race for the white house intensifies, many analysts are predicting it will be a close and historic election: millions of eyes around the world will be watching. Computer Virus Infiltrates Laptops at International Space Station FOXNews Be safer than NASA and disable Autorun/Autoplay CNET News TechNewsWorld - InformationWeek - eFluxMedia - InternetNews.com all 196 news articles
August 28, 11:14 PM / CNET News.com / Democrats find 'green' political convention tough to enforceThe idea of the "greenest" convention in the party's history was an attractive one. But tens of thousands of humans generate a lot of trash. And not everyone wanted to give up their Yukon XL SUVs.
August 28, 11:11 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Amazon was not always "pristine" [Gene Expression]'Pristine' Amazonian Region Hosted Large, Urban Civilization : The paper also argues that the size and scale of the settlements in the southern Amazon in North Central Brazil means that what many scientists have considered virgin tropical forests are in fact heavily influenced by historic human activity. Not only that, but the settlements - consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages, each organized around a central plaza - suggest future solutions for supporting the indigenous population in Brazil's state of Mato Grosso and other regions of the Amazon, the paper says. Preliminary interpretations of these data were reported several years ago in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus . Mann's argument is simple: demographic collapse in the face of Eurasian pathogens wiped away 90% of the inhabitants of the New World within about 1 century of "First Contact." And thus ensued a process of the "re-wilding" of vast swaths of the New World. So the woodlands of the North Central United States which the white settlers cut down as they moved west of the Appalachians, or the virgin forests of the Willamette Valley which the pioneers encountered, were relatively recent ecosystems which arose in the vacuum of the collapse of local native populations due to epidemics introduced originally by Spaniards and other Europeans. An important point to remember here is that these epidemics preceded the white settlement in many areas by decades or centuries, so the European experience of the native populations was only in the wake of the massive social chaos unleashed by plague. Imagine if the Chinese encountered Europe first during the Black Death; but on orders of magnitude greater scale (the Black Death killed a larger minority of Europeans, Eurasian pathogens likely exterminated whole peoples). Secondarily, the possibility that many regions of the Amazon were de-humanized recently should remind us that H. sapiens are part of nature. The heuristic whereby humanity is perceived to be above, beyond and distinct from the natural world may be useful in some contexts, but in the broad historical sense we are just another animal. I am one who suspects that H. sapiens were responsible for many megafaunal extinctions as a necessary if not sufficient cause, but after these initial contacts obviously the local ecology entered into a dynamic symbiosis with human populations. It is false to say that Mother Nature is wiser than humanity, because we are subsets of Mother Nature! Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 11:08 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Bloomberg runs obit for still-living Jobs - United Press InternationalSan Francisco Chronicle Bloomberg runs obit for still-living Jobs United Press International - 1 hour ago Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs delivers the keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Development Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on June 9, 2008. Questions revived about Jobs' health Seattle Post Intelligencer Bloomberg mistakenly publishes obit for Apple CEO Steve Jobs Bizjournals.com CRN - CNNMoney.com - Computerworld - The Mac Observer all 59 news articles
August 28, 11:01 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Android Apps -- What would you want? - CNET NewsMobile Burn Android Apps -- What would you want? CNET News - 2 hours ago These screen shots show the Android phone interface to the Android Market. The software shows what applications can be downloaded and reviews of applications that people are browsing. Google Unveils Android's App Store InformationWeek Google Announces Its Version Of The App Store Called Android Market Washington Post ZDNet - PC Magazine - Los Angeles Times - Gizmodo all 51 news articles
August 28, 11:00 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / "Outing" anonymous bloggers: A favorite technique of antivaccine cranks [Respectful Insolence]A reader of this blog was outed by a moron posting as "Mark" on the Age of Autism blog. I will not link to the outing, nor will I link to Age of Autism. I have, however, kept a nice screen shot of the page, just in case someone over there has an attack of conscience, and I will also comment on the observation that "outing" its enemies is a favorite technique of cranks in general. However, it seems to be a particular favorite of antivaccine cranks. So is hypocrisy, it would appear. After all, "Mark" did not post under his full name but only under his first name, while he thinks nothing of outing commenters who don't use their full name. Worse, Kim Stagliano also says he's one of the editors of AoA , which makes me wonder if he's Mark Blaxill. She also disingenuously says that each editor has "full autonomy" to moderate how he or she sees fit. In other words, it's not AoA policy to out critics they don't like, but it is AoA policy if one of its editors feels inclined to do so, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Plausible deniability and all that, you know. Indeed, "outing" its enemies is such a staple of antivaccinationist behavior, that I consider it standard operating procedure for them. They do it gleefully and gloatingly. They're obsessed with "outing" anonymous bloggers and commenters and won't hesitate to do it if they get the opportunity. I've been on the receiving end before, beginning nearly three years ago (the first time an antivaccinationist "outed" me). I will admit that the first time I was "outed" it was not by an antivaccinationist but rather a full-fledged cancer quack named William O'Neill of the Canadian Cancer Research Group , but the antivaccinationists followed a mere four months later. Heck, this year I was even "honored" by having J.B. Handley himself out me in a long, spittle-flecked tirade. He seems to think it would somehow intimidate me or shut me up. If anything, it made me angry. Indeed, you may notice that of late I've adopted a much more take-no-prisoners approach with antivaccinationists, although all these stories about the resurgence of vaccine-preventable disease have played a much bigger role in the hardening of my attitude recently than Handley's childish rant a few months ago did. In wondering why the mercury militia is so obsessed with anonymous bloggers, I've come to the conclusion that it's the paranoid conspiracy-mongering at the heart of their beliefs that leads to their obsession. They honestly believe that anyone they can't identify must be a pharma plant sent to wreak havoc upon the Brave And Bold Antivaccine Autism Warriors Who Know The Real Truth About Vaccines. It simply doesn't occur to them and they can't imagine that there might be a perfectly legitimate reason that has nothing to do with being an astroturf agent for someone to decide to comment or blog under a pseudonym. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 10:59 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Animal Rights Extremists kill at least a dozen mink [Neurotopia (version 2.0)]....by releasing them from a mink farm. This is what happens when you set animals free without regard to the consequences . Now whether you think raising and killing animals for their fur is immoral or not, it takes a special kind of mind to cogitate that an appropriate solution is to spontaneously decrease the mink population by getting them killed. Welcome to Mink Psychology 101: Remedial Minktation -- mink raised on a farm don't know anything about how the world works. When you let 6,000 of them out of their cages and 500 of them manage to escape out of the open farm gate, should anybody be shocked that a dozen of them died either because they were hit by cars, or simply from the sheer stress of a Mink Stampede? By the way, 200 of the escapees still haven't been caught. Then again, maybe the animal rights nutters are the ones who don't know how the world works. Accordingly, I feel compelled to create a new post category in their honor: "Rocket Surgery" Hat Tip: Foundation for Biomedical Research E-Clips service Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 10:56 PM / CNET News.com / Apple to fix hole in password-protected iPhonesCompany promises to plug hole next month that exposes iPhone users' e-mail, text, and voice messages despite password protection.
August 28, 10:41 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Sprint Names New Partners For WiMAX Service - CRNKansas City Star Sprint Names New Partners For WiMAX Service CRN - 2 hours ago By Michele Masterson, ChannelWeb Just shy of its September rollout in Baltimore, Sprint Nextel Thursday signed up new partners for its new location-enabled wireless broadband service, XOHM WiMAX. Sprint Adds Location-based Apps to WiMax in Baltimore Washington Post Sprint unveils location-based ‘geobrowsing’ on eve of WiMax launch ZDNet Bizjournals.com - TelephonyOnline - NetworkWorld.com - xchange Magazine all 76 news articles
August 28, 10:40 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Accidental iPhone Photos Turn China Factory Worker Into Celebrity - SwitchedNew York Daily News Accidental iPhone Photos Turn China Factory Worker Into Celebrity Switched - 2 hours ago by Evan Shamoon, posted Aug 28th 2008 at 6:35PM In a story that seems ripe to be translated into a modern-day cinematic update of 'Annie,' a Chinese woman has gone from factory worker to national celebrity after her photo was accidentally loaded onto ... 'iPhone Girl' Finds Fame And Fear On The Production Line Washington Post Mystery Chinese iPhone worker becomes Internet star Reuters CNET News - The Associated Press - Inquirer - Wired News all 269 news articles
August 28, 10:32 PM / CNET News.com / Comcast to cap monthly consumer broadbandParty seems to be over for unlimited bandwidth: In October, Comcast will begin capping usage at 250GB per month, with dire consequences for abusers.
August 28, 10:20 PM / CNET News.com / Schmidt: Yahoo-Google deal set to start in OctoberCEO Eric Schmidt tells Bloomberg that Google thinks its arguments are strong that the partnership with its rival doesn't post antitrust problems.
August 28, 10:14 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Hello? Disco Institute? Are you reading? [denialism blog]Perhaps I have delusions of grandeur, but after all, this is the (checking) 15th ranked science blog on teh intertubes. But despite my high profile, I've heard no responses to my challeng e to the Creationism Cults. Creation "science" to this point has been based on bizarre teleologic arguments and arguments from ignorance. I was kind enough to give them a real experiment to do. If Creationism is true, the Deluge occurred at a know recent time and very small founder populations of animals are responsible for all life on Earth. Therefore, genomic analysis (mitochodrial, Y-chromosome, etc.) should be consistent with this hypothesis (if Creationsism is true). C'mon! Where are you guys? Get to work! Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 10:10 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Logitech’s Slim Devices intros Squeezebox Boom network player - TG DailyCNET News Logitech’s Slim Devices intros Squeezebox Boom network player TG Daily - 2 hours ago By Wolfgang Gruener Fremont (CA) - Slim Devices, a company Logitech acquired in October of 2006, today announced its Squeezebox Boom “all-in-one” network music player, which promises to deliver a wireless Internet music experience throughout your home. Logitech unveils Squeezebox Boom tabletop music player Macworld Logitech Squeezebox Boom: The ultimate Wi-Fi radio? CNET News PC Magazine - DVICE - Digitaltrends.com - Twice all 34 news articles
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] POLAR SCIENCE: NSF Budget Ills Send Big Chill Through Antarctic ProgramSoaring fuel prices and flat budgets are forcing the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to shorten or defer dozens of research studies in the Antarctic. Author: Eli Kintisch
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] CELL BIOLOGY: Biologists Change One Cell Type Directly Into AnotherResearchers at Harvard University report that they have found a way to reprogram pancreatic cells in live mice, turning them into the insulin-producing cells that are damaged or destroyed in diabetes. Author: Constance Holden
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT: Fraud Charges Cast Doubt on Claims of DNA Damage From Cell Phone FieldsThe only two peer-reviewed scientific papers showing that electromagnetic fields from cell phones can cause DNA breakage are at the center of a misconduct controversy. Author: Gretchen Vogel
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] RESEARCH FUNDING: Research DownturnFederal support for academic research, in real terms, has dropped for 2 years running, the first-ever consecutive declines in the 35 years of tracking by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Author:
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] CANCER RESEARCH: Can Fasting Blunt Chemotherapy's Debilitating Side Effects?A dramatic experiment in mice has led some researchers to suggest that fasting may blunt the side effects of cancer treatment and perhaps even allow patients to tolerate higher drug doses. Author: Jennifer Couzin
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS] GENETICS: First Gene for Severe Dry Macular DegenerationThis week, researchers report the first genetic variant linked to slightly higher risk for severe "dry" age-related macular degeneration, one of the two advanced forms of the disease that robs tens of millions of elderly people of their vision. Author: Jocelyn Kaiser
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / CELL BIOLOGY: Nuclear Membrane MechanicsIn the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the nucleus is tethered to the cytoskeleton by KASH domain-containing proteins in the outer nuclear membrane and SUN domain-containing proteins in the inner nuclear … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / GENETICS: Making a MeristemPlant development is regulated by meristems, which give rise to all plant organs, including the root, shoot, and flowers. In Arabidopsis, the meristem is controlled primarily by a signaling cascade … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient Earthmovers of the AmazonThe forested western Amazon was once thought barren of complex human culture. But researchers are now uncovering enigmatic earthworks left by large, organized societies that once lived and farmed here. Author: Charles C. Mann
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / EVOLUTION: Adding Less or Substrating More?Calibrating robust molecular phylogenies of clades of extant species against time offers a means of characterizing the tempo and mode of evolutionary radiations. Often, net diversification is rapid early in … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] ARCHAEOLOGY: The Western Amazon's "Garden Cities"On page 1214 of this issue of Science , a U.S.-Brazilian research team reports finding a set of "garden cities" built in the forests of the south-central Amazon as early as 1250 C.E. Author: Charles C. Mann
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / CHEMISTRY: Gold for the Shortest Bond?As the Olympic Games come to a close, it's worth pointing out that chemists, like athletes, enjoy keeping records. What's the shortest bond? The longest? The weakest? The strongest? In … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY MEETING: Learning Under AnesthesiaRodents commit the odors of other rodents' meals to the brain as preferred foods using a process known as olfactory learning. At the Physiological Society meeting, researchers reported that this scent-based social learning occurs even when mice are knocked out by anesthesia. Author: Lauren Cahoon
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / CHEMISTRY: Less Strain, More ForceMany studies have probed the force required to pull apart double-stranded DNA. Given the interest in using pore structures to sequence nucleic acids, Ashcroft et al. have now measured the … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY MEETING: Testing a Taste Test for DepressionAt the Physiological Society meeting, researchers presented a simple test that could help doctors to better diagnose and treat patients with depression: a taste test. Author: Lauren Cahoon
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / VIROLOGY: Hitchhiking in Membrane TrafficAutophagy is a process whereby cells rid themselves of defunct organelles and proteins by enclosing them in a double-membraned vesicle that then fuses with and is degraded by a lysosome. … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] ZENG YI PROFILE: A Controversial Bid to Thwart the 'Cantonese Cancer'Zeng Yi has spent 3 decades probing a connection between Epstein-Barr virus and nasopharyngeal cancer. A new vaccine should show whether he is on the right track. Author: Jia Hepeng
August 28, 10:07 PM / Editors' Choice / SCIENCE SIGNALING: Restricted RedundancyThe serine-threonine protein phosphatase PP2A, which participates in signaling cascades induced by TGF- family ligands, is a heterotrimer composed of catalytic, structural, and regulatory subunits. The B family of regulatory … [Read more]
August 28, 10:07 PM / Science: This Week's News / [NEWS FOCUS] ZENG YI PROFILE: Mortality Survey Offers Mixed MessageCancer has become the number one killer in urban China, causing one in four deaths, although screening and prevention programs have reduced mortality rates for some cancers. Author: Hao Xin
August 28, 10:05 PM / CNET News.com / IBM tests 4 terabyte solid state drive technologyIBM announces solid state drive technology that achieves high speed and power savings, if only in the labs.
August 28, 9:59 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Pop-sci book meme [Pharyngula]Jennifer Oullette has put together a pop-sci book meme (and John Lynch has joined in). It's the usual thing, a long list of books and you're supposed to highlight the ones you've read, this time with the theme being that they're all about science somehow. I detect a physics bias in Ms. Oullette's choices, however, despite the excellent beginning — and it's to that I ascribe my poor performance. That and some weird choices: since when is Neuromancer pop-sci? Stephenson's Baroque Cycle or Cryptonomicon or Snowcrash would be better choices if we're going to throw fiction in the mix, or Sterling's Schismatrix . If we open the door to SF, though, the howling hordes will pour in and we'll never get anything done. Anyway, here's my copy of the list: Micrographia, Robert Hooke The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin Never at Rest, Richard Westfall Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney The Devil's Doctor, Philip Ball The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Dennis Overbye Physics for Entertainment, Yakov Perelman 1-2-3 Infinity, George Gamow The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene Warmth Disperses, Time Passes, Hans Christian von Bayer Alice in Quantumland, Robert Gilmore Where Does the Weirdness Go? David Lindley A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson A Force of Nature, Richard Rhodes Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking Universal Foam, Sidney Perkowitz Vermeer's Camera, Philip Steadman The Code Book, Simon Singh The Elements of Murder, John Emsley Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer Time's Arrow, Martin Amis The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, Lisa Jardine A Matter of Degrees, Gino Segre The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss E=mc 2 , David Bodanis Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold, Tom Shachtman A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin Warped Passages, Lisa Randall Apollo's Fire, Michael Sims Flatland, Edward Abbott Fermat's Last Theorem, Amir Aczel Stiff, Mary Roach Astroturf, M.G. Lord The Periodic Table, Primo Levi Longitude, Dava Sobel The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg The Mummy Congress, Heather Pringle The Accelerating Universe, Mario Livio Math and the Mona Lisa, Bulent Atalay This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin The Executioner's Current, Richard Moran Krakatoa, Simon Winchester Pythagorus' Trousers, Margaret Wertheim Neuromancer, William Gibson The Physics of Superheroes, James Kakalios The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump, Sandra Hempel Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Katrina Firlik Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps, Peter Galison The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears Consilience, E.O. Wilson Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard Fire in the Brain, Ronald K. Siegel The Life of a Cell, Lewis Thomas Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris Storm World, Chris Mooney The Carbon Age, Eric Roston The Black Hole Wars, Leonard Susskind Copenhagen, Michael Frayn From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson Chaos, James Gleick Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos The Physics of NASCAR, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais Jennifer did suggest that we make additions, so let's beef up the biology a bit with a few more off the top of my head (OK, McPhee and Rudwick are geology…but that needs bolstering, too!). Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski Basin and Range, John McPhee Beak of the Finch, Jonathan Weiner Chance and Necessity, Jacques Monod Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, Olivia Judson Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Sean Carroll Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, Carl Zimmer Genome, Matt Ridley Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond It Ain't Necessarily So, Richard Lewontin On Growth and Form, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Phantoms in the Brain, VS Ramachandran The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, Elisabeth Lloyd The Eighth Day of Creation, Horace Freeland Judson The Great Devonian Controversy, Martin Rudwick The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment, Richard Lewontin Time, Love, Memory, Jonathan Weiner Voyaging and The Power of Place, Janet Browne Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natalie Angier Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 9:59 PM / CNET News.com / CNET News Daily Podcast: IE 8 beta gets good early reviewNewest Internet Explorer 8 beta gets high marks for its security features; Google announces its Android app "market"; and a possible culprit in iPhone 3G flakiness.
August 28, 9:50 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Microsoft and Nikon ink deal around digital, perhaps wireless, cameras - BetaNewsCameraTown.Com (press release) Microsoft and Nikon ink deal around digital, perhaps wireless, cameras BetaNews - 3 hours ago By Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews After teaming up on Windows Vista, HD Photo, codecs, and wireless technologies over the past few years, Microsoft and Nikon last night unveiled a cross-licensing deal involving digital cameras and still unnamed additional ... Microsoft, Nikon Team Up to Cross-License Patents CRN Microsoft, Nikon Cross-License Patents PC Magazine VNUNet.com - CNET News - BusinessWeek - TMCnet all 45 news articles
August 28, 9:39 PM / CNET News.com / Google grab bag: translation, Apps uptime, and moreGoogle adds new translation abilities, potentially prepares for new YouTube ads, extends credit to paying Google Apps customers, and more.
August 28, 9:34 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Rumors Abound: The Republican VP Pick [The Intersection]In presidential campaigns, there's a tradition of allowing one's opponent a clear run on the night they accept their party's nomination. This time, McCain plans to air an ad congratulating Obama as he accepts the presidential nomination. Also for several hours we've been hearing rumors that the name of the Republican VP pick will be leaked just before tonight's speech. And McCain does indeed have to make a very tough choice... Pawlenty ( age 47 ) would make it impossible to argue about experience to lead. Lieberman or Ridge would mean selecting a pro-choice running mate ( not to mention Lieberman ran with the Dems in '00 ). Romney is another multimillionaire with $30 million in residential real estate. So folks, who would you pick and how do you think this will play out? Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 9:27 PM / CNET News.com / $10 million for mobile media company BuzzCitySingapore-based start-up develops mobile networking software for consumers who do not have broadband access on PCs.
August 28, 9:21 PM / news@nature.com / When good cells turn badNon-cancerous mammary cells in mice can take up residence in the lungs and later form tumours.
August 28, 9:16 PM / CNET News.com / Digg town hall: Local news options, forums on the way?From the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Digg executives Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson answered user questions via webcast and on stage.
August 28, 9:15 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / As untrustworthy as a winged cat [bioephemera]Tia Resleure Winged Cat Mixed Media, 2002 Speaking of possible hoaxes, I noticed thanks to Zooillogix that the Chinese winged cat story is making the rounds again . I blogged about this in May 2007 on bioephemera - apparently they haven't even changed the photo accompanying the story ! Although the Tia Resleure sculpture above is a fake, and the Chinese story may be a recycled urban myth with suspiciously few specifics, reports of winged cats have been around a long time. Here's what I had to say about it back in May 2007: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 9:15 PM / CNET News.com / Awaiting Obama, there's electricity in the airHours before Barack Obama is expected to take the DNC stage, the crowds pack the stadium in anticipation. Here's the scene from Denver's Invesco Field.
August 28, 9:08 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / NASA Postpones Atlantis' Trip To Launch Pad - Aero-News NetworkHalf Life Source NASA Postpones Atlantis' Trip To Launch Pad Aero-News Network - 4 hours ago A stuck pin is to blame for a slight delay in NASA's plan to move the shuttle Atlantis to the launch pad. The space agency announced Thursday this weekend's planned trip to Pad 39A has been postponed to no earlier than Tuesday, September 2. NASA Delays Space Shuttle Launches Half Life Source NASA Updates Shuttle Atlantis' Move to Launch Pad Tuesday MarketWatch Discover Magazine - Space.com - Aviation Week - United Press International all 20 news articles
August 28, 9:00 PM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Low Levels Of Brain Chemical May Lead To ObesityA brain chemical that plays a role in long term memory also appears to be involved in regulating how much people eat and their likelihood of becoming obese, according to a National Institutes of Health study of a rare genetic condition.
August 28, 9:00 PM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Protection Zones In The Wrong Place To Prevent Coral Reef CollapseConservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warned today. Now the team say that urgent action is needed to prevent the collapse of this important marine ecosystem.
August 28, 9:00 PM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Findings Challenge Common Practice Regarding Glucose Control For Critically Ill PatientsAn analysis of randomized trials indicates that for critically ill adults, tight glucose control is not associated with a significantly reduced risk of death in the hospital, but is associated with an increased risk of hypoglycemia, calling into question the recommendation by many professional societies for tight glucose control for these patients.
August 28, 9:00 PM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Proteins Have Controlled Motions, Researcher ShowsIowa State University researcher Robert Jernigan believes that his research shows proteins have controlled motions. Most biochemists traditionally believe proteins have many random, uncontrolled movements.
August 28, 9:00 PM / ScienceDaily Headlines / Study Reveals Gap In HIV Testing Knowledge Among College StudentsMost college students understand how they can prevent the transmission of HIV but are less knowledgeable about HIV testing, according to a new University of Georgia study.
August 28, 8:37 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / E1615+061 [Dynamics of Cats]strange objects found lying around Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 8:34 PM / CNET News.com / Dell earnings down 17 percentThe PC maker's net income and earnings per share are below expectation. Dell blames conservative IT spending and the costs of acquiring more market share in Europe.
August 28, 8:29 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Sen. Dole vs. the atheists [The Island of Doubt]As far as I can tell, North Carolina's no different from the rest of America when it comes to religion. About a tenth of the population is free of religious conviction. That's not a big slice, but it could, in theory, be big enough to cost Sen. Elizabeth Dole her re-election this November, if enough free-thinkers learn that they're not welcome at her dinner table. Thanks to PZ's outrage , we learn that Dole is outraged that her Democratic challenger, Kay Hagan, is hanging out with — horror of horrors — Boston atheists. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 8:25 PM / NYT > Technology / Dell’s Earnings Fell 17% in QuarterThe computer maker said restructuring charges were partly to blame for the decline, which surprised many analysts.
August 28, 8:15 PM / CNET News.com / Google CEO: Internet spurred Obama's nominationEric Schmidt fields questions at the Democratic convention about politics, online journalism, and privacy.
August 28, 8:10 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Blogrolling: Lecturer Notes (or, The Return of Propter Doc) [DrugMonkey]Many of you were, like me, a little sad to hear Propter Doc, author of post doc ergo propter doc blog, sign off a few months ago. Well, Propter Doc is back , sortof. Author "KH" has launched a new blog entitled Lecturer Notes to reflect a new phase in the academic career of the blogger-previously-known-as-propter. Grant proposal in 250 characters or less : Ths grnt iz vry imptnt b'cos it wl sv the wrld. I wl uze chmcl tchnks 2 slv ths problm. I nd $ 4 chmcls & slvnt & lb kt. Rezultz wl b pblshd in lolchmstry. Propter Doc is dead, Long Live KH! (or something like that) Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 8:09 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Veoh Lawsuit Dismissal Provides Hope For YouTube - InformationWeekWall Street Journal Blogs Veoh Lawsuit Dismissal Provides Hope For YouTube InformationWeek - 4 hours ago A US District Court Judge said the adult entertainment company Veoh is not responsible for users who upload copyrighted material to its video-sharing Web site. Veoh decision setback for Viacom but Google not off hook CNET News Court Clears Veoh In Internet Copyright Infringement Case CRN Register - San Jose Mercury News - MarketWatch - Wired News all 104 news articles
August 28, 8:07 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Huxley's On the Origin of Species [Laelaps]If there is any author associated with the book title On the Origin of Species it is most certainly Charles Darwin, yet Darwin was not the only person to pen a book beginning with those words. The full title of Darwin's first edition was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , but about two decades later another On the Origin of Species would be published bearing Thomas Henry Huxley's name. With the full title On the Origin of Species: Or, the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature , the book was a compilation of six lectures Huxley had designed for lay audiences about evolution. This was not a scientific treatise but a quick, plain overview of evolution, and in the introduction of the 1881 American edition an anonymous editor made the need for such a work clear; The publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species," whether we consider the importance of the questions it raises, the ability with which he treats them, the boldness and originality of his speculations, or the profound and universal interest which the book awakened, must be looked upon as marking an era in the progress of science. But while it called forth a due share of candid discussion and intelligent criticism, it has been vehemently and persistently assailed by many who understood nothing of its real character; and the subject has hence been so overloaded with prejudice and perversion that unscientific people hardly know what to think or believe about it. The contents of the book, derived from notes on Huxley's "Lectures to Working Men," had been transcribed by J. Aldous Mays. Huxley acceded to the publication of the work provided that it be noted that he did not have the opportunity to review or revise what he had said prior to the publication of the book. Huxley began his lectures with a discussion about the horse. Surely his would be familiar with what a horse was and what it looked like, and Huxley used a few equine illustrations to introduce not only the anatomy of the horse, but different modes of scientific inquiry. Telling the listeners to imagine Huxley sawing a horse into anterior and posterior halves, Huxley called the audience's attention to a simple diagram illustrating the location of the spine, heart, and other features. "Now that is a horse - as mathematicians would say - reduced to its most simple expression," Huxley quipped. Once Huxley had broken down the horse into its constituent parts he could place the whole organism in environmental context, from cycles of life & death to biogeography. Yet Huxley was not on to evolution just yet. Although he is remembered as "Darwin's Bulldog" he had his own paleontological and anatomical programs, lines of inquiry that centered on form. Where Richard Owen's concept of the vertebrate Archetype was Platonic and little more than a blueprint (a thought in the mind of the Architect), in Huxley's program similar ground plans had been inherited and modified via evolution. Even beyond the vertebrates, Huxley underlined the unity of all life, from plants to our own species. In the next lecture Huxley moved from the "organic world" to the inorganic, providing an extensive overview of geology and fossilization. The great expanse of time separating the present from the strange and different past was the main feature of this lecture. The fossil record was certainly faulty and incomplete, Huxley said, but it was not incomprehensible. What had been found could be understood, even if the Connecticut Valley trackmakers and bodies of the owners of the Stonesfield jaws were still missing. Part of the reason for this was that the remains of ancient creatures appeared to belong to groups still living; among 120 recognized Orders Huxley identified only about a dozen (like plesiosaurs and pterodactyls) that had gone entirely extinct. Indeed, at the level of Order, extinction was seen as a rarity. Still, the members of Orders differed the deeper one looked in the strata. Life had changed. Where the second lecture had been packed with geological tidbits, Huxley prefaced the third (on the subject of "The Origination of Living Beings") by reiterating that science was not a modern "black art." Huxley took aim at those who would prefer "miraculous" explanations of nature; To such sincere and earnest persons, I would only say, that a question of this kind is not to be shelved upon theoretical or speculative grounds. You may remember the story of the Sophist who demonstrated to Diogenes in the most complete and satisfactory manner that he could not walk ; that, in fact, all motion was an impossibility ; and that Diogenes refuted him by simply getting up and walking round his tub. So, in the same way, the man of science replies to objections of this kind, by simply getting up and walking onward, and showing what science has done and is doing, -- by pointing to that immense mass of facts which have been ascertained and systematized under the forms of the great doctrines of Morphology, of Development, of Distribution, and the like. He sees an enormous mass of facts and laws relating to organic beings, which stand on the same good sound foundation as every other natural law ; and, therefore, with this mass of facts and laws before us, seeing that, as far as organic matters have hitherto been accessible and studied, they have shown themselves capable of yielding to scientific investigation, we may accept this as proof that order and law reign there as well as in the rest of nature ; and the man of science says nothing to objectors of this sort, but supposes that we can and shall walk to the origin of organic nature, in the same way that we have walked to a knowledge of the laws and principles of the inorganic world. Indeed, while the previous lectures dove directly into what was essentially data, in this lecture Huxley took great pains to explain that science could understand nature, the basic logical toolkit of science being accessible to everyone (and commonly used in day-to-day life). Armed with these tools, Huxley then reviewed how the hypothesis of spontaneous generation had been tested and refuted. Huxley could only admit his ignorance about the origin of life, but the "perpetuation of living beings" (the subject of the next lecture) provided more fertile grounds for discussion. Huxley started, as with the other lectures, from the bottom up. Living organisms reproduce themselves, and those offspring vary from their parents. In farm animals those variations can be selected to create entirely new breeds. Yet variations between members of a population or species were not due to random mixing; certain traits or conditions were inherited from one generation to the next. The point of all this was to show that if certain heritable traits were selected for they could bring about the origin of new varieties of organisms, and Huxley kept on the details of artificial selection in the fifth lecture. Was there a natural equivalent to human selective breeding? The actual origin of a natural variety had never been witnessed, said Huxley, but organisms in the wild both varied and were subject to certain causes that could act as selective forces. If it could happen before our eyes in the barnyard then why not in nature? Variation was certainly a fact, and the "struggle for existence" provided the selective force. To Huxley, the natural world was constantly embroiled in a kind of war, organisms replacing and extinguishing their predecessors and competitors as they evolved. Finally, in the last lecture, Huxley set out to tackle the theoretical framework of Darwin's theory. Rather than directly trying to convince his audience Huxley took a critical approach, asking what if Darwin's predictions had been confirmed by the evidence. The splint bones in the leg of the horse and the teeth in fetal whales signaled in the affirmative, as did the graded succession of fossil forms in the geologic strata. Other evolutionary theories were consonant with such information, as well, but the piece of evidence that tipped the scale in Darwin's favor was the persistence of fossil forms. Under Darwin's environmentally-driven framework it would be expected that some groups of organisms would evolve under changing conditions and others, if subject to relatively stable conditions, would not change much at all. This concept of stasis coupled with evolution did more for Darwin's theory than any evidence of progressive change. Something about artificial selection troubled Huxley, however. Domesticated animals had been bred to take on a variety of forms yet they could still interbreed. Natural selection seemed to offer no explanation for why this should be, particularly if the selection of humans was comparable to selection in nature. Why could some distinct species interbreed yet some more closely-related varieties not produce viable offspring? Huxley could find no satisfactory answers, yet as he said, "There is a wide gulf between the thing you cannot explain and the thing that upsets you altogether." Huxley thought that the vexing question may eventually be understood, and the fact that there was still more to learn did not overturn Darwin's theory. Nothing else seemed to come close to offering an explanation for the unity and diversity of life. "I really believe the alternative," Huxley opined, "is either Darwinism of nothing ..." With the vast body of evidence about nature strongly in favor of Darwin, Huxley decided to drive home the point that humans were not exempt from evolution. Our power of speech might separate us from the rest of the animals, but what "separated us from the animals" was very slight and delicate. Indeed, where naturalists in the past had exalted the "fine tuning" of organisms to signal their creation by a benevolent deity, Huxley created his own watch analogy to demonstrate how slight differences can have enormous effects; Take a couple of watches -- made by the same maker, and as completely alike as possible ; set them upon the table, and the function of each -- which is its rate of going -- will be performed in the same manner, and you shall be able to distinguish no difference between them ; but let me take a pair of pincers, and if my hand is steady enough to do it, let me just lightly crush together the bearings of the balance-wheel, or force to a slightly different angle the teeth of the escapement of one of them, and of course you know the immediate result will be that the watch, so treated, from that moment will cease to go. But what proportion is there between the structural alteration and the functional result ? Is it not perfectly obvious that the alteration is of the minutest kind, yet that slight as it is, it has produced an infinite difference in the performance of the functions of these two instruments ? Whatever made us distinguishable from other creatures was certainly minute; little changes could have enormous effects. Darwin's theory perfectly meshed with this concept, and Huxley closed his series by noting that Darwin's On the Origin of Species would serve as a guide to nature for the next three or four generations. I wonder what he would think of next year's evolutionary celebrations... Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 8:04 PM / New Scientist - Latest Headlines / Cosmic particle accelerator pinpointed in Crab NebulaCharged particles are being accelerated to near-light speeds by a doughnut-shaped magnetic field around the nebula's famous pulsar
August 28, 7:59 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Bombycilla cedrorum [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]tags: Cedar Waxwing , Bombycilla cedrorum , birds , nature , Image of the Day Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum , at the A&M Tract on Pelican Island, Texas. Image: Joseph Kennedy , 18 May 2007 [ larger view ]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/250s f/9.5 at 800.0mm iso400. Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 7:59 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Free Us. Now. [The Island of Doubt]The We Can Solve It campaign has a new ad. Subtle it is not. One could argue that clean electricity in 10 years is far too ambitious a schedule, but you know what they say about a journey of 10,000 miles. Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 7:52 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Book Review: Alsdorf, Auf den Spuren [Aardvarchaeology]A few weeks ago, Kai gave me an interesting book on a subject of which I am almost entirely ignorant: recent military history. Auf den Spuren des "Elbe-Kommandos" Rammjäger by Dietrich Alsdorf (2001) deals with an episode toward the end of the Second World War, the so-called " Sonderkommando Elbe ". Things were grim in the Third Reich in the spring of 1945. Germany had effectively lost control of her own airspace, allowing Allied bomber fleets to operate with murderous efficiency far into Eastern Europe. The Germans had ample numbers of fighter planes and pilots, but hardly any aeroplane fuel. Possessing no oilfields, they had to make their fuel from coal, and the refineries had been high-priority targets for bombing. Furthermore, the development of German piston-engine fighters was lagging behind that of the Allied planes they had to get past in order to have a shot at the bombers. The first jet fighter models , though German, had not been -- and would indeed never be -- built in significant numbers. In those end-times, desperate measures were tried. The Japanese had employed kamikaze suicide attacks since October 1944. Colonel Hajo Herrmann (born in 1913 and still with us) hit upon a similar idea for the air war: using fighter planes to ram Allied bombers. Herrmann envisioned a thousand fighter planes employed in this manner, which might set back the Allies thousands of airmen and give the beleaguered German war machine a much needed reprieve to make fuel, build Düsenjäger jet fighters and train pilots in their use. Himself a seasoned fighter pilot with 350 kills to his name, Herrmann understood perfectly well that a pilot's chances of surviving a ram attack would be slim even if he got out and parachuted before the collision. (Those few ram pilots who did survive tended to do so by staying in their seats, hitting the vulnerable tail end of a bomber and then making an emergency landing.) But Herrmann was/is apparently a batshit Nazi idealist who felt that the end justified the means. After the war and ten years in Soviet prison, he became a lawyer, "focusing his activities mostly on the defence of former Nazis and Neo-Nazis, deniers of the holocaust and political activists of the far-right" as Wikipedia puts it. Due to fuel shortages and a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Herrmann's superior, General Karl Koller, only 120-150 fighter planes flew on the single mission that came out of the initiative, on 7 April 1945. Most of the pilots were very young and barely out of basic training. They volunteered for the mission for reasons including a desire to avenge themselves for loved ones lost to bomber raids, unwillingness to be sent as foot soldiers to the Eastern Front, and general end-of-war fatalism. Surviving pilots quoted in Alsdorf's book emphasise that they had several chances to back out of the mission, that they were ordered to save themselves if they could, and that Sonderkommando Elbe thus should not be seen as "German kamikaze". But H.M. Kruchem describes his sense of disillusionment when the nature of the secret mission he had signed up for became clear: "... in that moment I knew with absolute certainty that we had lost the war. There was no wonder weapon. There was no atom bomb. We would simply be sent to the slaughter. And only to prolong the rule of the Third Reich's big boys by minutes. ... My world finally fell apart." (p. 25) Fortunately for him, due to last-minute technical difficulties Kruchem's fighter plane never got off the ground. Only about 20 Allied bombers were hit by the ram attacks. Not all of them were destroyed. One ram pilot, Werner Kölsche, was lucky enough to hit a bomber, then hit another, then see one of them crash into a third flying alongside it, and finally make a successful emergency landing. But to put the 20 rammed bombers in perspective, note that the Allies sent over 1300 of them into German airspace on that day. About a third of the Sonderkommando's members who started from the airfields died that day. On 17 April the unit was disbanded and the men were allocated variously to infantry units on the Eastern Front or to a final last-ditch effort of Hajo Herrmann's: the Sonderkommando Bienenstock. German forces across Europe surrendered piecemeal from 29 April to 8 May. Hitler shot himself on 30 April. The book is full of fascinating details. Many of the pilots were issued with brand-new Messerschmitt fighter planes, straight out of the factory, which had never left the ground before. Some hadn't even been painted. Yet when they asked to take their machines for a spin over the airfield to make sure everything worked, it turned out that there wasn't any extra fuel. The mission fuel had in fact largely been collected from other planes. Several pilots died or were forced to land simply because their untested machines didn't work very well, while others never got into the air at all. To save weight (and thus fuel), the planes were relieved of their armament. To avoid detection, their radio transmitters were removed. All the pilots could hear in the headphones as they left the airbases was morale-boosting marching-band music, and now and then a female voice reminding them of all the innocent people who had died in Dresden. The pilots' inability to communicate among themselves proved fatal to several members of the Sonderkommando , as their mates were helpless to warn them of approaching enemy aircraft. Little thought had been given to the well-being of the pilots. Remembers survivor Werner Zell, "... they gave everyone of us a set of summer gear, known in pilot parlance as 'the bone bag'. Were we supposed to wear that at more than 11 000 meters? Assurances about cabin heating weren't convincing, because what would you do if it failed though some technical glitch? ... This was pretty depressing. At heights like that we would certainly have to deal with temperatures from minus 40 to 50 centigrade [-58 to -40 Fahrenheit]. As little consolation, electrically heated gloves would keep our hands from going numb ...". But up he went. After his ram attack, when Zell was about to parachute for the first time in his life from his damaged Messerschmitt, he found that the canopy had gotten jammed in place. He only got out of the machine because presently a passing Mustang fighter shot the hood clean off! The reason that Kai chose this book for my edification wasn't primarily the historical angle. Alsdorf is not an historian, he's an archaeologist with the Spurensuche workgroup at the Sandbostel POW camp memorial site. The subtitle of his book is Schicksale - Schauplätze - Funde : "Fates, Battlegrounds, Finds", and much of it concerns finds made at sites where planes crashed on 7 April 1945 due to the activities of the Sonderkommando Elbe. Finding the sites is tricky, as the final weeks of the war were characterised by what the Germans with a wince and a shudder call Durcheinander , "through-each-other", that is, disorder. It's battlefield archaeology on a grand scale, where the traces of an individual battle are found scattered across many kilometres of landscape. In lucky cases, the identity both of the shot-down pilots and of their killers can be ascertained. Most of the crash sites were excavated by scrap metal collectors shortly after the war or in the 1950s, when the Korean war sent aluminium prices soaring. In the rare cases where an untouched site is found, you will encounter a deep funnel-shaped crater filled with fragments of the plane's fuselage, and at the bottom, the engine and propeller. In cases where the pilot went down with the machine, you will also find severely fragmented human bones and clothing accessories. The plane's wings and tailplane usually ended up in pieces on the surface around the crater and rarely remain to be found. Judging from the examples in the book, fieldwork methodology has generally been crude at the crash sites. There are many pictures of mechanical excavators ripping chunks of tortured metal out of the ground while men in rubber boots pick through the debris. No sieves or folding rules there. I enjoyed the book a lot and learned much, including bits of German aircraft terminology. Dragfläche! Flugzeugtriebwerk! Luftschraubenblatt! However, I'll end with two points of criticism. First, the archaeology is almost exclusively used to illustrate the historical narrative. The book is full of pictures of young airmen and of wreckage, but the text hardly ever refers directly to them. The book does not actually offer much of the Neuzeit-Archäologie advertised on its cover. Secondly, this is pretty much dead-end popularisation. It offers no pointers on where to go next if you want to learn more. It contains sporadic references to an apparently quite extensive literature, usually just the surname of an author and a page number. But there is no list of cited works for the reader who would like to dig deeper. The main reasons to study these air battle remains, and I don't mean to say that they are necessarily poor reasons, seem to be a) to lay to rest the memory of individual airmen who disappeared in the war, b) the excitement and glamour inherent in military aircraft. Archaeology has added a few interesting details to our knowledge of the Sonderkommano Elbe's single hopeless mission, but it has not changed, and cannot change, the picture dramatically. Maybe, one day in the very distant future when today's historical knowledge has been obliterated by the grind of the millennia, these crash sites will come into their own as important sources of knowledge about a forgotten war fought way back in the 20th century. [More blog entries about history , archaeology , germany , ww2 , worldwar2 , aircraft , books , review ; historia , arkeologi , tyskland , andravärldskriget , flyg , böcker , recension .] Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 7:51 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Orange Caps iPhone 3G Speeds At 384 Kbps - InformationWeekdBTechno Orange Caps iPhone 3G Speeds At 384 Kbps InformationWeek - 5 hours ago Users have complained that the French wireless provider's capping of network speeds violates the company's service agreement. Report: Orange backs off iPhone 3G throttling CNET News Orange France admits to capping iPhone 3G speeds BetaNews Ars Technica - IntoMobile - Macworld - Motley Fool all 93 news articles
August 28, 7:45 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Apple applies for touchscreen Mac patent - CNET NewsKPIC Apple applies for touchscreen Mac patent CNET News - 5 hours ago Apple appears to be working on the concept of a Mac tablet again, based on a recent patent application. Rumors of Apple working on a touchscreen Mac have been circulating for years, and will only grow with the revelation that the company is hoping to ... Even critics give Apple a pass on iPhone 3G woes The Associated Press Juice Pack just as sweet for iPod touch Boston Herald Yahoo! Tech - Macworld - The Mac Observer - TG Daily all 152 news articles
August 28, 7:41 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / War, rape and group selection [Gene Expression]Fortune favours the brave; but the brave are motivated by favours of another kind : If courage makes it significantly more likely that small bands of tribes-men will win military confrontations with their neighbours, its overall advantages can easily outweigh its risks, a mathematical model has shown. Some men who carry genetic variants that promote bravery might perish because of them, but the ones who survive may win more battles through their greater daring. The resulting opportunities for rape and pillage can create a net evolutionary benefit. The study is published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society , but it doesn't look like it's online yet. So I'll have to wait on the details, but it what they're describing seems like group-level selective events which might be vulnerable to "cheaters" who attempt to hold back and allow others to "bite the bullet," so to speak, and reap the glory that goes to victorious tribes. Multi-level selection theorists such as David Sloan Wilson would make the argument that the way humans work against these "cheats" is through complex cognitive adaptations which allow for the policing of these anti-social traits, as well as the conventional rise and fall of groups who go through a life cycle of vigor, decline and dissipation. I am still skeptical of higher than individual level selection in general, but, I am becoming less and less skeptical in terms of humans. I think in many ways our complex sociality is atypical enough to warrant the explanations of higher level selection and dynamics. Peter Turchin , Robert Boyd , James F. Crow and L. L. Cavalli-Sforza have also convinced me that we need to take these ideas more seriously for humans. Related: Cooperation and multilevel selection , W. D. Hamilton & group selection & ideology and Selection on many levels.... . Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 7:34 PM / CNET News.com / Apple applies for touch-screen Mac patentA recent patent application filed on behalf of Apple describes technology for controlling a touch-screen Mac tablet with iPhone-like gestures and controls.
August 28, 7:32 PM / CNET News.com / Best Western details hack of German hotelHotel chain admits systems in a Berlin hotel were compromised but claims only 10 customers have been affected, not the 8 million cited in a newspaper report.
August 28, 7:30 PM / Google News - Sci/Tech / Fly's brain 'senses swat threat' - BBC NewsBBC News Fly's brain 'senses swat threat' BBC News - 5 hours ago By Matt McGrath Researchers in the US say that they have solved the mystery of why flies are so hard to swat. They think the fly's ability to dodge being hit is due to its fast acting brain and an ability to plan ahead. Why You Can't Swat a Fly Newsweek Fancy Footwork Helps Flies Cheat Death Science Now guardian.co.uk - Independent - Times Online - Reuters UK all 32 news articles
August 28, 7:25 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Not shabby at all [A Blog Around The Clock]A few minutes ago - 3 million pageviews! Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 7:08 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / The 94th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: The Skeptic Games [Respectful Insolence]I lamented how much I needed it, given the persistence of a couple of particularly annoying and obtuse antivaccinationist trolls over the last couple of weeks. Finally, it's here! We're talking the 94th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle over at Reduce to Common Sense . It's just what I (and hopefully you) need: A dose of science, rationalism, and skepticism to combat the rampant credulity of the blogosphere. It's even based on an OIympic theme, complete with gold medals! Next up two weeks hence, on September 11, is Skeptimedia . Uh-oh, I don't like the date it coincides with, but on the other hand perhaps we might have an appropriate theme and emphasize posts taking on the idiotic conspiracy-mongers known as 9/11 Truthers. Everyone, head over to Screw Loose Change for a primer! Actually, though, it's up to our host to decide. In the meantime, if you have a blog and are interested in skepticism, science, and critical thinking, you really should think about hosting one of these puppies. If you're a new blogger, it's a great way to get exposure (and traffic). If you're an established blogger but have never hosted before, why not make a splash in the skeptical community? And if you've hosted before, don't you remember how much fun it was? Don't you think it's time to do it again? Whatever the case, head on over to the archive, schedule, and instructions to see what we're looking for, as well as the guidelines for hosts . If you're still interested, then drop me a line. I'll peruse your blog, just to make sure that you're not the secret love child of Deepak Chopra and Sylvia Browne seeking to subvert the Circle, and get you on the schedule. Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 6:58 PM / CNET News.com / Sex ads on Denver Craigslist spike with Democrats' arrivalCorrelation or causation? You decide: as Democrats gathered in Denver, sex-wanted ads increased roughly 70 to 80 percent on Craigslist.
August 28, 6:57 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Don't vote for Dole in North Carolina [Pharyngula]Every time I see the disregard the Democratic party shows for secular values — which is painfully frequent — I wonder why the heck I'm even voting for these addled con artists. But then the Republicans remind me by showing up and being even worse. The latest is from the Elizabeth Dole campaign in North Carolina, which has decided to vilify her opponent, Kay Hagan, because she dares to actually meet with atheists . How horrid! Hagan has probably got godless cooties now. Here's what a Dole press release says, expressing disgust that Hagan is actually going to meet with the Secular Coalition for America. "Kay Hagan does not represent the values of this state; she is a Trojan Horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups bent on policies that would horrify most North Carolinians if they knew about it," [Communications Director Dan] McLagan said. "This latest revelation of support from anti-religion activists will not sit well with the 90% of state residents who identify with a specific religious faith." Fair enough, actually. It does represent a difference in values: that Hagan may not be an atheist but is willing to speak with them says one thing about her values, and that Elizabeth Dole thinks atheists are un-American says something else about her values. It also says a lot about Dole that she is willingly affiliated with the party of bigotry and incompetence, the Republicans. These are choices made by candidates that are legitimate issues to help voters decide who they should elect. It says to me that people should vote for Hagan , or almost any other Democrat, over almost any other Republican. Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 6:51 PM / CNET News.com / Veoh decision setback for Viacom, but Google not off hookIn the Veoh video copyright case and in Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube, there's a key difference: whether the plaintiff sent take-down notices.
August 28, 6:43 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Carpenter Technology: Litigation Forever, Cleanup Never [Thus Spake Zuska]This article was bizarrely stashed in the business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer , rather than reported as Science news, or even just as general news. Going back to 1969, a chemist with no soul named Manfred DeRewal bought a local farm and then used it as a chemical waste dumping ground, hiring himself out to local companies as their cheap waste solution. This went on for, oh, a really long time. Litigation is now ongoing in the federal courts over who is responsible for cleanup. Now this: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 6:39 PM / CNET News.com / McCain grabs top Google ad spot for searches on Joe BidenObama usually outshines McCain on the Web, but McCain campaign manages to outbid Obama campaign for top ad spot on Google linked to searches for Joe Biden.
August 28, 6:19 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Mercola---still lying after all these years [denialism blog]It's no secret that I have no respect for Joe Mercola . Every time I read one of his promotional emails or make a visit to his website, I see more fantastic claims. Usually, I don't see blatant lies...until now... Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 6:14 PM / CNET News.com / Google announces Android Market for phone appsThe search giant is fleshing out its mobile-phone effort with the Android Market to let users find, buy, and download applications.
August 28, 6:02 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Three white guys to leave ScienceBlogs: an opportunity for increasing diversity? [Terra Sigillata]All of us at Terra Sig world headquarters are sending out hearty congratulations to the boys over at Deep Sea News - Peter Etnoyer, Craig McClain, and Kevin Zelnio - on the announcement of their September move to the Discovery Channel online. I've had the good fortune of meeting all three gentlemen in person, even breaking bread with Craig. I can tell you that they are individually and collectively superb stewards of the deep sea and tireless promoters of conservation and habitat preservation. Best wishes to you fellas - we'll miss you but we'll keep reading (plus the Zelnio family is soon to become near-neighbors in meatspace). Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
August 28, 6:00 PM / ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed / Leave John Alone! [Dynamics of Cats]Cpt. J.S. McCain III has come under a lot of unwarranted criticism recently. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...