Trailer Trash Followup: Hopkin’s beliefs & The Rite

Ryan's Ramblings

The Rite hits theaters today and if you listened to episode 68 – Math of God you’ll remember our discussion was mostly about the possible endings the movie my take. We generally decided it would opt for the less than skeptical approach (to be a diplomatic as possible).

Turns out Sir Anthony Hopkins also had his doubts (yuk yuk). He’s a self-described agnostic, which was news to me. So he wrote a line into the movie that explains his own feelings towards skeptics and doubters. The clip and explanation is available at i09 but they don’t provide an embed code so you’ll have to click through to watch the video there and read his thoughts a little more in depth.

I will say that towards the end of this thoughts he gets a bit close to the “how can we know anything at all?” camp, but he was also speaking off the cuff so I’m all for giving him the benefit of the doubt.

REVIEW – Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth via iFanboy

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evolutionSometimes I really love my life. This book was kind of a perfect convergence of the things that make comics and evolution awesome. I hope you dig my thoughts. Feel free to comment here or click-through the link and comment on iFanboy.

Written by Jay Hosler

Illustrated by Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon

$18.95 / 150 Pages / Black & White

Hill and Wang

Continue reading REVIEW – Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth via iFanboy →

Do Science With Patrick!

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Addendum* Lots of traffic to this post and lots of emailed questions. I’ve put up a website specifically for this project  at http://www.hairproject.wheatleyempire.com so check that out if you think you might be able to contribute some found hair to SCIENCE *end addendum

Help me Paleoposse, you’re my only hope.

I’m working on a project that will match changes in human hair chemistry to the region that the hair was grown in. I need to look at hair from lots of different regions in order to do this well. That’s where you come in.

If you want to help, it’s pretty easy…

1) Get a Ziplock bag (quart size or even smaller is fine).

2) Go to your local barbershop or hair salon.

3) Ask them if you can have some of the hair they swept up that day (tell them it’s for SCIENCE!).

4) Put the hair in the Ziplock bag (1/3 full is plenty).

5) Write down the date you did this and the address of the place you got the hair from.

6) Mail it to me…

Patrick Wheatley

Center for Isotope Geochemistry

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

1 Cyclotron Rd. MS 70A-4418

Berkeley CA, 94720

6) Sit back and await your reward.

I’ll list you in the acknowledgements when I publish the work. I’ll also send you a Science… sort of prize or two (so make sure you give me your address when you send me the hair sample). If I get enough responses I’ll blog about some of the results before the paper comes out.

If you’ve got questions, email me patrick[at]sciencesortof.com

Thanks for being a soldier for Science… sort of,

Patrick

Bird gives bird: One-fingered dino discovered!

Ryan's Ramblings

So it’s not evolutionarily speaking a bird… yet. BUT I COULDN’T RESIST! If you listen to the show you know I have a dream of being given the finger by a bird (see hoatzin) and not we’re one step closer with this little dinosaur named Linhenykus monodactylus, which is a theropod just like the pesky Eodromaeus from Episode 70 this week. I think it’s safe to safe after discovering practically two dinosaurs in one week we’ve found all that there is to find. That’s it folks, lets pack it in and go home!

Oh yeah, ecology, my job. Why only one finger? That certainly is curious. The one finger had a claw which may have been useful for digging up food or into insect nests like a warthog’s tusks.

I personally love convergent evolution like digit lose in tetrapods. Early tetrapods had 8-10 fingers per hand! There’s been a steady decrease in most groups since, and not really any great examples of increasing digits. It has something to do with hox genes and selective pressure. I keep asking Patrick to explain it but I’m not sure he gets it either. GENETICS!

Originally spotted on the Palaeoblog.

 

Why do Engineers prefer to think unscientifically? Part 1 of 2

Jacob's Knowledge Bombs,

This is a topic I’ve been mulling over for quite some time.  It’s a hard concept to express, since it hits so close to home for me.  But after recently reading a discussion about the topic on Reddit, I felt I needed to use my “bully pulpit” and speak my mind.

So here’s the issue.  Engineers are, without a doubt, trained in hard science.  My education consisted of math topics up to Partial Differential Equations, and physics topics ranging from chemistry, thermodynamics, materials science, aerodynamics, and space physics.  I think it’s safe to say that most engineers understand Newton’s Laws of Motion, along with many other core scientific theories outside of their personal scientific discipline.

With that being said, why is it that engineers often fall into the logical traps of the un-scientific mainstream media and pseudo-scientific topics?  This is, in fact, a quantified effect, and has been given a name, “The Salem Hypothesis”, and is discussed in various forums online, including RationalWiki.

This is part 1 of 2 of my analysis of the assumptions in the Salem Hypothesis, and let me just begin by saying that I, for one, blame Ayn Rand.

FYI - She's batshit crazy

Continue reading Why do Engineers prefer to think unscientifically? Part 1 of 2 →

Trailer Trash Supplement: Kick starting Creationist

Ryan's Ramblings, ,

Ok, so that title is a little misleading but I couldn’t resist the mental imagery. Here’s the skinny. Don McLeroy is a creationist dentist from Texas. He’s also the former chair of the State Board of Education. Texas has a huge school system so the SBOE has a lot of influence about what makes it into textbooks which are then distributed to the entire nation. So it’s kind of a big deal that Don McLeroy wielded the power he did.

To shine a spotlight on the problem a team is trying to make a film, but now they need a good editor (I can relate). So they started a Kickstarter campaign to get the funds. Here’s a clip from the site, if you like it, maybe you throw in a few shekels? Donate enough and you get a special thanks in the credit. Be sure to include a shout out to Science… sort of if that happens!

Originally spotted at the Pharyngula blog.

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Ski

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Namaste PaleoPosse! I have returned from my winter-walkabout a changed man; changed in the sense that I have been SAVED by the power that is SCIENCE! PRAISE SCIENCE!

Er, actually, I haven’t been saved myself, but my ski has!  Today I’ve come to tell you a tale about how Ryan and I used SCIENCE on the slopes of SnowShoe Ski Resort in West Virginia, to find my missing ski!

Continue reading The Curious Case of the Disappearing Ski →

iFanboy REPOST: Weather Powers and Global Climate Change

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Figured most people didn’t see this originally but I enjoyed writing it a lot so I wanted to share it again over on the Paleocave. If it seems a bit dumbed down that’s because it’s written for the comic fan who may or may not be a science fan. Enjoy it for what it is!

Here’s a link if you’d like to see what comments happened on iFanboy, apparently it got heated but I wasn’t online to follow up.

SCIENCE: Weather Powers and Global Climate Change

I’ve got climate on the brain. I’ve been studying it and reading up on a lot of the nitty gritty about just how it works. Right now we’re experiencing a period of anthropogenic (mad-made) induced global climate change. (If you’ve not a fan of climate change or just plain don’t understand keep reading but also feel free to e-mail me.) I think it’s fair to assume our favorite superheoric worlds also underwent the Industrial Revolution and outside of the Watchmen, where Dr. Manhattan actually changed the course of technological history, I’d argue that they’re all getting ready to deal with some global warming too. So I got to thinking: Could any of the people with the power to control weather fix the problem?

Continue reading iFanboy REPOST: Weather Powers and Global Climate Change →

Birds are Dying! (Pretty much all the time)

Ryan's Ramblings

When something biological happens somewhere I usually get a few friends asking me about it. I’m happy to get the questions from the curious but it’s kind of like asking a doctor about a rash your friend has. Especially if that doctor was a neurosurgeon. The dude has the training to theoretically figure out what the rash is, but he hasn’t seen your friend and it’s really not his specialty. So I had to look into this a bit deeper before getting back to everyone.

Continue reading Birds are Dying! (Pretty much all the time) →

Living the Sci Life: Another Venture

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Hello out there in Paleoland!

I got kinda bored over the break, so I decided upon the encouragement of Ryan Penagos to give this tumblr blog thing a try. I’ve been having fun with it, it’s kind of like Twitter plus. All of my personal posts from this blog and the main Science… sort of site will be found over there along with the occasional less polished ramblings, photos, and other funny links I find throughout the day. If you’re looking for mini-posts every day that hopefully make you smile I say check it out. Furthermore, I say start your own! Tumblr makes it pretty easy to sign up, pick a theme and get going. If anyone does start one, or already had one, feel free to give me a follow and let me know about your own project here in the comments. The more the merrier in the melting pot of the Internet!