September 2009
29 posts
Hello world, from Posterous
If everything has worked out, then the Posterous blog I created is working. (The Posterous blog’s URL is: http://reiver.posterous.com/ ) And this post has been propagated to my Tumblr blog. In fact, I’ve created this post from my GMail account, instead of a web-based form. And e-mailed my post into Posterous. (Isn’t that cool.) There’s some interesting possibilities...
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There’s some people on Tumblr I really wish had commenting on their Tumble Blogs. (Maybe go use disqus to add commenting like so many other Tumblrs do.) Because there’s times where I’d like to comment on what people post.
That’s one of the complaints I actually have about Tumblr. Having a conversation isn’t easy. Don’t get me wrong, I love...
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Build an analog TV station
libert:
Build an analog TV station
via Hack a Day by Zach Banks on 9/2/09
With the transition to digital TV, the FCC has abandoned the old analog format. Luckily, you can take advantage of this and set up your own analog TV station. The FCC has a tool on their site to see what channels are open in your area to broadcast in. To broadcast, you...
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fuckyeahfacts:
August 2009 had 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays, all in one month. This only happens once in 823 years.
Submitted by anelle
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First Genetic Link Between Reptile And Human Heart... →
metousiosis:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2009) — Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles.
The research, published in the September 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how a specific protein that turns on genes is...
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If We Spend Twice as Much on Health Care As Other... →
One of the often heard arguments for government health care is that the U.S. spends twice as much as other rich countries on health care and gets worse results. Try this thought experiment: Right now government (federal and state) payments already account for nearly 50 percent of all health care expenditures in the U.S. So if the goal of health care reform is to cut in half what...
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The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana →
That’s damn interesting! (Although I already knew it before.)
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“Finland and the Baltic states show an unusual amount of testosterone for Europe,...”
– Jason Malloy
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MBA Recommends New Secondary Market Framework →
crazynutjob:
Are you kidding me?
Note, some of this is not contained in the article, as I had to look through a few different sources. This article had some pretty diagrams to make the whole vomit-bucket look a little more desirable.
The investor in this new mortgage backed security faces only interest risk. The credit risk is absorbed by the MCGEs, who will replace Fannie Mae and Freddie...
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First $50,000 Genome Delivered →
The genome sequencing company Illumina has just delivered the results of a complete human genome sequencing to a customer.
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“The bottom line is this: A variant of a gene (an “allele”) that...”
– Greg Laden
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“The appearance of altruism [in nature] is usually underlain by selfish motives.”
– Greg Laden
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Acting for the survival of the species (a... →
An interesting post. Worth a read.
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Mitochondrial Echoes of First Settlement and... →
Here’s the quote from the paper…
Background
From Paleo-Indian times to recent historical episodes, the Mesoamerican isthmus played an important role in the distribution and patterns of variability all around the double American continent. However, the amount of genetic information currently available on Central American continental populations is very scarce. In...
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Model Suggests How Life's Code Emerged From... →
Here’s a quote…
In 1952, Stanley Miller filled two flasks with chemicals assumed to be present on the primitive Earth, connected the flasks with rubber tubes and introduced some electrical sparks as a stand-in for lightning. The now famous experiment showed what amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could easily be generated from this primordial stew. But...
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Is Tetris Good For The Brain? →
Looks like the answer is “yes”.
Here’s a quote…
Brain imaging shows playing Tetris leads to a thicker cortex and may also increase brain efficiency, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Research Notes. A research team based in New Mexico is one of the first to investigate the effects of practice in the brain using two...
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WatchIrreducibly Complex Edition
This is a BloggingHeads video with John McWhorter and Michael Behe. It goes into evolution and genetics.
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Of 13 Million Abortions in China, Most Are Forced,... →
Here’s a quote…
Strictly enforced population control
Forced abortions in China are not a thing of the past. Under the one child policy, many women in late term pregnancy are still forced to abort their children. Chinese provincial authorities are responsible for mass forced sterilizations, and abortions are often performed by people with inadequate...
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How do you have a critical political or economic discussion (with the non-educated) when so many people confuse the meanings of important words?
People really seem to confuse the words “Communism”, “Socialism”, and “Fascism”. What people are often calling “Communism” is actually “Socialism”. What people are often calling “Socialism” is actually “Fascism”. And people make it difficult...
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A Many-Body Field Theory Approach to Stochastic... →
Here’s a quote…
Background
Many models used in theoretical ecology, or mathematical epidemiology are stochastic, and may also be spatially-explicit. Techniques from quantum field theory have been used before in reaction-diffusion systems, principally to investigate their critical behavior. Here we argue that they make many calculations easier and are a possible...
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How Humans Differ from Other Animals in Their... →
Here’s the abstract…
Animal species come in many shapes and sizes, as do the individuals and populations that make up each species. To us, humans might seem to show particularly high levels of morphological variation, but perhaps this perception is simply based on enhanced recognition of individual conspecifics relative to individual heterospecifics. We here more...
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Fishy Sixth Sense: Mathematical Keys To... →
Here’s a quote…
Fish and some amphibians possess a unique sensory capability in the so-called lateral-line system. It allows them, in effect, to “touch” objects in their surroundings without direct physical contact or to “see” in the dark. Professor Leo van Hermmen and his team in the physics department of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen...
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Neuroscientists Find Brain Region Responsible For... →
Here’s a quote…
In a finding that sheds new light on the neural mechanisms involved in social behavior, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have pinpointed the brain structure responsible for our sense of personal space.
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August 2009
176 posts
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Too Many (Other) People →
I haven’t yet read the John P. Holdren’s book, “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions”, that a number of people are talking about. (It’s the book that he co-authored with Paul Ralph Ehrlich and Paul’s wife Anne Howland Ehrlich (born Anne Fitzhugh Howland).) So I’m still reserving judgment, until I have more facts. But here’s someone’s...
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KIAA0319 – A New Candidate Gene For Language →
(From Kambiz Kamrani.)
(The other famous gene being involved with language is FOXP2.)
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“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual...”
–
Ayn Rand
(via kabo, @questmaker)
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Have you seen those various TV commercials that urge people to send them your old, broken, or unwanted gold jewelry and they’ll send you money? My first thought when I saw that was something like… “Are you f***ing kidding me?” But then again, I think it would not be cogent to believe that there aren’t people who would fall for this, given the facts available. ...
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WatchHigh-Speed Robot Hand
(via savagemike)
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Loss of Human Monogamy?
If there is a genetic basis to Monogamy[1] (in humans), it makes you wonder… well, makes me wonder at least… if there’s the potential that Monogamy could be breed out of human populations. And if there’s a potential, are there any signs today which makes it seem like it could be happening.[2]
From a genetics point-of-view, from what I’ve read, it is easier...
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WatchFiddling With the Knobs of the Universe
This is a BloggingHeads video with Anthony Aguirre and Clifford Johnson.
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Actually, continuing the theme of this post (of what Tumblr needs), it would also be nice if Tumblr let you create poll posts and let you create quiz posts.
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Tumblr needs a way of doing definitions. In the same way you can create text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, and video posts. There should be a way of creating definition posts too. (I.e., being able to define words or phrases.)
(If would have been useful for this post.)
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What is Rationing
Government allocation of scarce resources and consumer goods, usually adopted during wars, famines, or other national emergencies.
Addendum: I.e., it is allocation done by a government. If it is done by anyone else, then it is just allocation.
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Ezra Klein's Confusion Over "Rationing" →
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Sunspots Do Really Affect Weather Patterns, Say... →
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Turning back the clock: Fasting prolongs... →
Here’s a quote…
Scientific dogma has long asserted that females are born with their entire lifetime’s supply of eggs, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. New findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published online Aug. 27 in Science, suggest that in nematode worms, at least, this does not hold true. Molecular...
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“Dogs are much more playful than wolves, and this can probably be understood as...”
– “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution”, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending
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“… the Russian scientist Dmitri Belyaev succeeded in developing a...”
– “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution”, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending
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Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox... →
You have to pay to read this article. Although, I think there’s a free version of the article here.
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On BBC right now there is a group of people talking about “over population”. Seems like there’s people trying to push this more and more as a mainstream issue. Perhaps in an attempt to try to make the idea of forced population control palatable.
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IBM Takes First 3D Image of Atomic Bonds →
(via savagemike)