Posts

March 17, 2013

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2:16 PM | Closing the week 11 – Sectarianism, Syria, Europe, Dutch

Closer Blog: A weekly round up of writings on the Internet, some relevant for my research, some political, some funny but all of them interesting (Dutch/English). (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.) (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.)Read more: Closing the week 11 – Sectarianism, Syria, Europe, Dutch

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1:29 PM | Hamza Tzortzis is playing gotcha with Lawrence Krauss now

After that debate between Tzortzis and Lawrence Krauss that was overshadowed by the disgraceful anti-egalitarian exhibition of Muslim misogyny, iERA is now trying a new tactic: they’re releasing tiny snippets of the debate that they believe they can spin into anti-Krauss sentiment. Here’s a perfect example, Krauss’s reply to a question about the morality of…

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1:55 AM | Creationists prefer numerology to real scientific research

Ian Wishart is a local “investigative’ journalist and well-known conspiracy theorist from way back. He’s dabbled in climate change, creationism, health, political, crime, and other issues. He’s a firm creationist and so it’s no surprise he has picked up on … Continue reading →

March 15, 2013

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11:12 PM | The Genetic Code is not a synonym for the Bible Code

Oh, boy. The Intelligent Design creationists are all excited about a new paper that purports to have identified an intelligent signal in the genetic code. Here’s a new paper that can be added to the growing stack of intelligent-design articles in peer-reviewed journals. Even though the authors do not use the phrase “intelligent design,” their…

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4:00 PM | Gastbeitrag: Heiße Luft für Hebammen – Das Training im esoterischen Denken beginnt schon vor der Geburt

Der folgende Gastbeitrag stammt von Claudia Graneis. Er erschien in abgewandelter Form in der Ausgabe 01/2013 des “Skeptiker”, der Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken der GWUP. Um ihn auch Nicht-Abonnenten zugänglich zu machen, erscheint er nun auch hier: ______________________________________________________________________________ Heiße Luft für Hebammen Das Training im esoterischen Denken beginnt schon vor der Geburt Hebammen…

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2:08 PM | Marriage as punishment: documentary about women’s rights in Morocco

Closer Blog: The suicide of the 16-year-old Amina Filali from Larache, who presumably was forced to marry her rapist, gave Nadir Bouhmouch the idea to use her story as the main topic for a documentary about women’s rights in his country of birth: 475 – When Marriage Becomes Punishment.Read more: Marriage as punishment: documentary about women’s rights in Morocco

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11:28 AM | Friday Cephalopod: Redheads always have the most fun

(via Monterey Bay Aquarium)

March 14, 2013

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5:00 AM | Habemus nach wie vor Mittelalter

In regelmäßigen ablebens- oder neuerdings bockmangelsbedingten Abständen wählt eine Truppe böser alter Männer einen von sich aus, der der nächste böse (weiße) alte Mann und Diktator an der Spitze einer international operierenden Institution zur Förderung von Ignoranz, Armut, Unglück, Diskriminierung und Hass sein darf. So auch gestern. Senior Bergoglio aus Argentinien, der, um auf seine…

March 13, 2013

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10:41 PM | Don’t panic

Many years ago I was on a panel reviewing a scientific paper for publication. We concluded that one of the calculations in the paper was really superfluous. But it amused us because the calculation produced the answer 42! Our recommendation … Continue reading →

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3:58 PM | ¿Qué es ciencia?

Por Martín Bonfil Olivera Dirección General de Divulgación de la Ciencia, UNAM Publicado en Milenio Diario, 14 de marzo de 2013 Como comunicador de la ciencia –divulgador científico, o quizá, más bien, “comentarista” de la ciencia (el término “analista”, de moda en los medios informativos, me parece muy pretencioso para lo que yo hago en estas columnas)–, me dedico precisamente a comunicar, explicar, contextualizar, comentar y, en último término, compartir […]

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3:50 PM | What I taught today: molecular biology of bat wings

My students are also blogging here: My undergrad encounters Developmental Biology Miles’ Devo Blog Tavis Grorud’s Blog for Developmental Biology Thang’s Blog Heidi’s blog for Developmental Biology Chelsae blog Stacy’s Strange World of Developmental Biology Thoughts of Developmental Biology Biology~ Hard to believe, I know, but this class actually hangs together and has a plan.…

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10:00 AM | Surveillance: Veiligheid, Risico en Nederlanders in Syrië

Closer Blog: Het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie maakt bekend dat het dreigingsniveau in Nederland verhoogd is van 'voorstelbaar' naar 'substantieel' hetgeen betekent dat er een reële, maar niet meteen acute, dreiging zou zijn. Wat betekent dat, hoe bang moeten we zijn en hoe past dit in het overheidsoptreden?Read more: Surveillance: Veiligheid, Risico en Nederlanders in Syrië

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8:43 AM | A Logical Leap

For Wednesday Jason Lisle provides a surprisingly up-to-the-minute article, "Washing Machines on Mars."

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8:42 AM | The first German Biography of Antoinette Brown Blackwell as a sciebook

She was a contemporary of Charles Darwin and fought (finally successfully) for her right to study theology as he had done. She became a renowned speaker for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. She was ordained to be the first woman pastor in the USA and she married happily and became a mother of six. And as if all this wouldn't have been enough, she wrote several remarkable books on science, religion & philosophy, endorsing evolutionary theory as an... Read more

March 12, 2013

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9:26 AM | Talking sense about morality

Here’s a great blog post by Jerry Coyne outlining a scientific approach to morality (see How should we be moral?: Three papers and a good book) it gives a summary of his current ideas and a reading list of papers … Continue reading →

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8:44 AM | The Triune Universe

Moving backwards, this weekend the ICR released a new That's a Fact video: Three in One. The premise of the video is that the structure of the universe somehow reflects the trinity. This is one of the ICR's sillier ideas, to say the least.

March 11, 2013

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7:00 PM | Rechtsmedizin: weiterhin hip und in Bedrängnis

Oder, wie man in Berlin sagen würde: arm aber sexy. Michael Tsokos, Leiter der Rechtsmedizin an der Charité in selbigem, hat – mal wieder – ein neues Buch geschrieben. Diesmal aber keine reine Sammlung von Räuberpistolen mit den Attributen „unglaublich“ oder „spektakulär“, sondern „Die Klaviatur des Todes: Deutschlands bekanntester Rechtsmediziner klärt auf“ Hier gibt es…

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4:07 PM | What I taught today: farewell to flies (for a while)

My students are also blogging here: My undergrad encounters Developmental Biology Miles’ Devo Blog Tavis Grorud’s Blog for Developmental Biology Thang’s Blog Heidi’s blog for Developmental Biology Chelsae blog Stacy’s Strange World of Developmental Biology Thoughts of Developmental Biology Biology~ A good portion of what I’ve been teaching so far uses Drosophila as a model…

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8:35 AM | Dried Crinoids

It's time to return to the ICR, at last. Monday's article, by Brian Thomas, is called Evidence Doesn't Fade from Colorful Fossils - it's about preserved evidence of coloured tissue in 340 million year old fossil crinoids.

March 10, 2013

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10:44 PM | Calvinists can wait, but Catholics live for the moment

OK, here's the deal. I'll give you £5 right now - but if you can wait till next week, I'll give you £6. Which offer would you take? It's the sort of dilemma that mirrors a host of real life problems, and how people react to questions like this reflects their approaches to these challenges. It's called temporal discounting. Fabio Paglieri, at the Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione in Rome, and Lorenzo Colazato, Leiden University in the Netherlands ran these kinds of tests on […]

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10:40 PM | Extreme confirmation bias in action

How’s this for an egregious example of confirmation bias. This morning the local blog Whale oil presents this graphic to “prove” his assertions that current climate science is a “hoax’ and those who accept the science are either fools or … Continue reading →

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1:44 PM | Closing the Week 10 – Women’s Day, Prayer, Reverberations, Nones, News, Dutch

Closer Blog: A weekly round up of writings on the Internet, some relevant for my research, some political, some funny but all of them interesting (Dutch/English). (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.) (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.) This week special attention to the new academic blog on prayer: […]

March 09, 2013

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1:21 PM | Libel reform – Don’t kill the Bill!

http://www.libelreform.org/dontkillthebill?

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9:38 AM | Haremfeminisme: het blanke elitaire feminisme ?

Closer Blog: De feministische praktijk blijft tot nader bericht zeer blank en elitair, vindt Norah Karrouche. Wanneer het zuiden hier dichtbij komt in de vorm van een andersoortige vrouwelijkheid of feminisme, dan is het iedere feminist(e) en iedere harem voor zich. Read more: Haremfeminisme: het blanke elitaire feminisme ?

March 08, 2013

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10:45 PM | Friday Cephalopod: Fecund & Flashy

Last year, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium caught a paper nautilus that survived long enough to lay a few tens of thousands of hatchlings. It must be nice to be a member of a species that’s beautiful at every stage of life, rather than none.

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2:27 PM | Libel reform – this concerns YOU!

Dear [MP], Thank you for your letter of 5 March 2013. As time is of the essence, I will respond by e-mail. I also here acknowledge your letter of 11 February 2013 in response to my query as to your reasoning for your vote following the recent same-sex marriage debate. In the latter (to which I will be replying separately), you confusingly apologised for potentially offending me. I can assure you I was not offended in the slightest. What I... Read more

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2:14 PM | Happy International Intersectional Women’s Day

Closer Blog: Prof. Nira Yuval Davis at LSE, 25 January 2012. She discusses the ways it is often not just women and men but women and men of particular intersectional social locations which are constructed in particular roles in nationalist discourses.Read more: Happy International Intersectional Women’s Day

March 07, 2013

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10:00 PM | Eine Übersetzung und ein Gastbeitrag

Anlässlich des heutigen Tages möchte ich mit allen LeserInnen zwei Texte teilen. Zuerst möchte ich an eine großartige Frau, Emma Goldmann, erinnern und zugleich einen ihrer Texte präsentieren, den ich in seiner kraftvollen und eindrücklichen Sprache und natürlich wegen seiner Botschaft fabelhaft finde. Er heißt im englischen Original “The Philosophy of Atheism” und erschien zuerst 1916 im…

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5:00 PM | Kurz notiert: wiedeR eiNe neue Art – Zirkuläre RNA

Ich bin ja ein großer RNA-Fan. RNA-Biologie ist unglaublich spannend und vielseitig und das Feld wird von Tag zu Tag interessanter aber auch komplizierter (wer an der Geschichte der RNA-Entdeckung und -Forschung interessiert ist, dem/der empfehle ich wärmstens das Buch „RNA – Life’s indespensable molecule“ von J. Darnell). Man weiß ja nicht erst seit vor…

Memczak, S., Jens, M., Elefsinioti, A., Torti, F., Krueger, J., Rybak, A., Maier, L., Mackowiak, S., Gregersen, L., Munschauer, M. & Loewer, A. (2013). Circular RNAs are a large class of animal RNAs with regulatory potency, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11928

Hansen, T., Jensen, T., Clausen, B., Bramsen, J., Finsen, B., Damgaard, C. & Kjems, J. (2013). Natural RNA circles function as efficient microRNA sponges, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11993

Citation

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7:41 AM | Duane Gish has Died

That should really be old news to you by now, but I thought I'd better mention it here.