Random Thoughts
Not a bad way to end a paper:
The past is difficult to recover because it was built on the foundation of its own history, one irrevocably different from that of the present and its many possible futures.
From "An epistatic ratchet constrains the direction of glucocorticoid receptor evolution", Jamie T. Bridgham, Eric A. Ortlund&Joseph W. Thornton.
Thanks to the Redneck Geneticist for finding this paper and not emailing me about it.
Read the feed:
The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific "truth." But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment itself helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create from these hints the great generalizations - to guess at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns beneath them all, and then to experiment to check again whether we have made the right guess.
- Richard Feynman, The…
I have been a CrackBerry user for several years, and am rarely seen without it in my hand or on my belt. Last week I traded my 8700 for the Bold (9000) -- wow, what a good move! The Bold is faster, sleeker, and has 3G capabilities for functions that I would not have tried on the older EDGE network. Anyhow, I have been having fun looking for additional apps for it, and have come up with a good list. Here they are...
PoyntAn absolutely outstanding free app with local searches for people, businesses, restaurants, and movies, including the ability to watch trailers.
LaunchPadAn easy program that…
If Airlines were armies, United and Lufthansa would be invincible. Their meals betray it -you know, the stronger an army, the worse the food it distributes. I am just out of a flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, and not only all my bones are complaining, but my stomach is sending me serious SOS signals: of course, since after close examination of the provided chicken dinner, I bailed out.
If you are still deciding on what career to undertake and you like to travel with class and comfort, do not pursue Science. Scientists -most of them, at least- get to travel a lot, but the default is…
Happy. punctuation day; everyone!1
1 Technically the 6th National Punctuation Day was yesterday, but I was still recovering from tuberculosis/black plague, so I'm a day late.
"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteins' brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".
Stephen Jay Gould
A recent LiveScience article argues that part of the problem in health care costs is the poor dietary and health habits those in the U.S. have.
"Americans get sick more. Why? Some argue that rather than an effective healthcare system, the United States has a "disease care" system, whereby far too many people are sedentary and eat poorly, leading to obesity and other health issues (obesity, in turn, raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and other diseases). Add smoking into the mix — the elimination of it would cause U.S. life expectancy to rise significantly…
Are plants really demonic oxygen stealing crooks that will sneak up at night and kill us all? Can plants kill you by simply respiring? This is what I want to look at with this post.
I’m sure you are all familiar with plants being removed from hospital wards at night or people (older people in particular – but not always) taking plants out of their bedroom.
The theory behind this is simple. During the day plants take in carbon dioxide and water (plus some light) this is then made into glucose for the plant to use and oxygen that we breathe. However, at night the glucose is broken down to…
Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary, died of complications from her leukemia treatment at age 72. You probably know the 1960s folk trio's songs, If I Had a Hammer, Lemon Tree, John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane, Dylan's Blowing in the Wind, Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and Puff (The Magic Dragon).1
As I was reading her obituary in the Telegraph and the blurb in People, I wondered where singer activists like Mary have gone. As Ricky Gervais said in Out of England, Vietnam was the war with the best soundtrack. (NB: Gervais' current tour is titled Science. Awesome.)
Although…
In keeping with Hank's recent article (and the fact that he's terminally obsessed with Greek mythology), we've developed something new for our good readers / authors here to use:
The "Which Character from The Iliad Are You?" Quiz, now hosted by the wonderful people over at Facebook.
We're using this as a test platform for some other apps we want to do in the future, so please use this opportunity to tell us what you think of the quiz, and more importantly, tell your friends about the app!
(Note: we hate Facebook apps that make you spam your friends in order to use them properly just as much…