See, this is the kind of thing I read popular science articles for: not only do we have single-celled organisms the size of grapes (!), and the seemingly ridiculous possibility that they move under their own power, but the consequent possibility that the entirety of conventional wisdom about the fossil record can be called into question. All in around 7 paragraphs.
Tag: science
Aside
Man, AECL’s Chalk River Lab has really been going down the tubes since I left. Or really, ever since I completed my part in the three-generation tradition of my family working there.
Monday Night Miscellany
Like real-time strategy games? Like science fiction? How about a real-time strategy game where you (and your units) can time travel. Imagine sending future units back to fight alongside themselves against an enemy in the past… you thought keeping track of your units and tech tree was a headache, wait for the fourth dimension. Maybe before you get too interested… Read more →
Scary Creatures From The World Of Science
Reading a story about a colony of billions of amoeba, a colony so big that it was visible across a 40 foot area is pretty spooky. Reading further in the article about: the fact that these are “clonal” amoeba–all genetically identical copies, the fact that these amoeba can apparently work together and function as a kind of hive organism, the… Read more →
Peaks of rage
You know, if I posted every time Harper’s government took and action, or announced a policy direction, that I disagreed with or found repugnant, this blog would be one long bile-laden rant. So I mostly take the “ignore them and hope they go away” strategy, coupled with the occasional rant when something particularly ludicrous or vile happens. Here’s a couple… Read more →
Sunday Night, Not Too Serious
I’m just closing some tabs here as I’m watching the adaptation of Choke. It’s actually a pretty good adaptation. Or maybe it’s just Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston carrying it. Anyway, on to the tabs–nothing too deep tonight: I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that Sarah Palin’s daughter and her hockey player fiancee have broken up. I… Read more →
Eight links make a post
And now, for another exciting post of links and short comments: I’ve always been aware of having been gifted with a pretty powerful attention span. I have always kind of assumed it came from becoming a reader at a very young age, but I guess it’s equally plausible that things are actually ordered the other way and my resistance to… Read more →
Minor Meditations On Religion and Neurobiology
There’s lots to think about in the write up on recent studies into the relation between neural wiring and the concept religion at the New Scientist. A really simplified version would be that the brain has a couple of built in biases that make the concept of religion arise almost naturally. One is that we have different cognitive systems for… Read more →
Reality Shock
It’s pretty common these days for me to read something and react with “Wow, that’s like something from a science fiction story I read X years ago”. In addition to this being common, I’ve also noticed that X is decreasing. Some examples, just of things I read in the last day or two: Teleportation. OK, admittedly, it’s a very low… Read more →
Let Us Talk Of Webcomics: Part 1, Dresden Codak.
I read a fair number of comics–you know the old school printed kind that one buys at speciality stores these days (admittedly some of them can be purchased at the larger bookstores as well, particularly the Asian imports, but most of what I read is speciality shop only). The “direct market” has been in some trouble for a while now,… Read more →
My nocturnally-biased suprachiasmatic nuclei
For at least 20 years now, I’ve known that I’m both happiest, and most productive, with a schedule where I am awake until the wee hours of the morning (between 2 and 4AM), and sleep until roughly the crack of noon. I haven’t been able to achieve that often, and its been more than four years now since I could… Read more →
Aside
Wow. Some people are so dumb it would take them an hour to make minute rice. I want to get that site’s customer list so I can do a tour and just slap people upside the head. Or possibly sell them them my air purifying apparatus, which takes advantage of non-commutative loop space in M5-branes to make air vibrationally harmonic.
UPDATE: That page appears to have disappeared, but you can still see some of the madness at the root page of the domain. Or, at lots of other domain names all for the same thing.
A few words about “ouch”
Since an online discussion brought this back to my mind today: That’s a habanero pepper. (It’s a close cousin of, and more or less interchangeable with, the scotch bonnet pepper.) For most people in North America, it’s the hottest pepper you can easily get your hands on–indeed, there are probably lots of people who think it’s the hottest pepper, hands… Read more →
Dude has no fear of CSIS
You know, my feelings about our current PM, and his ideological associates are no secret around these parts, but my ability to rant certainly takes a back seat to that of Canadian SF author, and scientist, Peter WattsWatts has been mentioned here lots of times.. And more than being a better ranter, he appears to have no fear at all… Read more →
The Cold Ruling Class
Some recent research (here’s the researcher, by the way) might shed some light on a lot of what happens both inside modern capitalist societies and between the West and the rest of the world–or at least on how some things are allowed to happen. Not coincidentally, the same light is shed on intra-organizational behaviours, which means this is probably something… Read more →
