Abstinence-Only Drivers Education
Go read this brilliant comic strip now.
White House Ordered to Release Warming Report
The Bush Administration stonewalls, but only on days ending in “y”. They’ll ignore this ruling, too, or have it overruled by their tame Supreme Court.
U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled that the Bush administration had violated a 1990 law when it failed to meet deadlines for an updated U.S. climate change research plan [...]
But With Government Backing I Could Make It Very Silly
Cornell University scientists have modeled human walking and running strides mathematically:
Manoj Srinavasan and Andy Ruina, researchers in applied mechanics at New York’s Cornell University, drew up a geometrical model of human walking and running.
They found that, in essence, each leg is a “telescoping actuator” that can change its length.
In walking, the body vaults forwards in [...]
Old Hat?
A German archaeologist claims to have evidence of settlements among Homo erectus, four hundred thousand years ago:
Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River [...]
The Stanford Prison Experiment
In 1971, Dr. Phil Zimbardo began an experimental simulation of prison life, one that went horribly awry within days but still offers unique insight into the psychological effects of incarceration on both prisoners and guards. His slide show documents the unraveling as the student prisoners, guards and even their families fall alarmingly into their assigned [...]
The Journey of Mankind
The Bradshaw Foundation hosts this marvelous map of human migration, beginning from our origin as a species over 150,000 years ago. It’s cool.
You Can’t Handle the Truth
The Smithsonian’s 2006 exhibit on arctic climate change was tweaked to avoid angering Congress and the White House, says a former associate director:
WASHINGTON: The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.
Among other [...]
Boom
We know that some 13,000 years ago, when humans were new to the Americas, many of the largest land mammals disappeared. Theories to explain it have ranged from overhunting to disease to simple competition for food. New data suggests catastrophe:
Scientists will outline dramatic evidence this week that suggests a comet exploded over the [...]
Superdupernova
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away:
The cataclysm — a monster more than a hundred times as energetic as the typical supernova in which the more massive stars end their lives — may be an example, they said, of a completely new type of explosion. Such a blast, proposed but never seen, [...]
Kinda Like Chicken
It’s astonishing that 68 million-year-old fossilized bones can contain preserved soft tissue, sure, but what’s really cool is that protein molecules found therein can be used to demonstrate an evolutionary link to modern birds.
“I mean can you imagine pulling a bone out the ground after 68 million years and then getting intact protein sequences?” said [...]
