Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Monday, December 28, 2015
Movie review: “Spotlight” « Why Evolution Is True
pervasive priestly pedophilia,
---Steve
Sunday, December 27, 2015
GOP Debates: The Wild Ideas You Missed While Donald Trump Was Talking - POLITICO Magazine
The good news for Republicans, arguably, is that their rhetoric has been so consistently over-the-top that it has started to sound routine; academics call this "shifting the Overton window," the range of what's considered politically acceptable. I've watched all the debates as well as the undercards live, but when I reviewed the transcripts, I was amazed how many radical statements had slipped under my radar. Ted Cruz called for putting the United States back on the gold standard. Marco Rubio accused President Barack Obama of destroying the U.S. military. Huckabee said Bernie Madoff's rip-offs weren't as bad as what the government has done to people on Social Security and Medicare. Lindsey Graham said his administration would monitor all "Islamic websites," not just jihadist ones. I had even forgotten Trump's claim that vaccines caused autism in a 2-year-old girl he knew.
Vaccines do not cause autism. Goldbuggery is crackpot economics. The U.S. military is still by far the strongest in the world. And what the government has done to people on Social Security and Medicare is give them pensions and health care. But none of those statements drew any pushback from the other Republican candidates, or, for that matter, the media moderators. Neither did Ben Carson's assertion that if the United States had set a goal of oil independence within a decade, moderate Arab states would have "turned over Osama bin Laden and anybody else you wanted on a silver platter within two weeks," which is wackadoodle on multiple
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/republican-debate-wild-ideas-donald-trump-213463#ixzz3vXRasNdZ
---Steve
Saturday, December 26, 2015
The Washington Post: Genetic engineering’s new frontier
Genetic engineering's new frontier
The Washington Post
Valentino Gantz and Ethan Bier. (Peggy Peattie/Tribune News Service) By Bradley J. Fikes | December 21 at 5:36 PM Humanity's ability to alter nature, a characteristic of our species for thousands of years, has taken a big step forward. The ability to change the genetics of life to our liking was previously confined to domesticated creatures such as livestock and crops. It now extends throughout much of the biosphere, including ourselves. Genetic engineering on a planetary scale used to be the Read the full story
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---Steve
The Wall Street Journal: How to Perfect Your Martini Recipe
How to Perfect Your Martini Recipe
The Wall Street Journal
With so many new gins, vodkas and vermouths on the market, you can keep the cocktail classic (and classy) and still find a formula just right for you, from extra dry to dirty and everywhere in between. Read the full story
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Friday, December 25, 2015
The North Korea Regime Change Debate | The Diplomat
the history of the last hundred years has taught that peace cheaply bought can lead to war dearly waged
---Steve
Binge watch
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/23/entertainment/holiday-binge-watch-feat/index.html
---Steve
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
New study indicates that metformin has the potential to prevent and treat preeclampsia | EurekAlert! Science News
Preeclampsia affects 5-8% of all pregnant women and is diagnosed by the new onset of high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine after 20 weeks of gestation. This condition is a leading cause of maternal death; approximately 100 maternal deaths and 400 perinatal deaths worldwide occur per day. Thus far, the only treatment for preeclampsia is delivery.
Feller power law fits
Theories of this nature are short-lived because they open no new ways, and new confirmations of the same old thing soon grow boring. But the naive reasoning as such has not been superseded by common sense, and so it may be useful to have an explicit demonstration of how misleading a mere goodness of fit can be." Feller (1940)
---Steve
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Top 10 Arizona hikes
Top 10 Arizona hikes
http://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/road-trips/2015/10/29/best-arizona-hikes-roger-naylor/74244862/
---Steve
Addiction and golden flow
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/21/health/vietnam-heroin-disrupting-addiction/index.html
---Steve
Monday, December 21, 2015
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Friday, December 18, 2015
Study tracks the evolution of pro-creationism laws in the U.S. - LA Times
Evolution can even explain the content changes in unconstitutional anti-evolution religious laws...
---Steve
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
Digital Photography School: 6 Photoshop Tools Every Newbie Should Learn
6 Photoshop Tools Every Newbie Should Learn
Digital Photography School
In the days before digital imaging, if you truly wanted to elevate your photography to the level of art, you learned how to process your images in the darkroom. You learned dodging, burning, masking, sandwiching negatives, flashing and fogging – all designed to get the most out of your images, and deliver your artistic vision to your viewers. The finished image after Photoshop, using the tools discussed below. With the advent of digital imaging, photographers have a new way to bring their Read the full story
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---Steve
Business Standard: Sikka supports open innovation
Sikka supports open innovation
Business Standard
Commits $1 billion for OpenAI, a not for profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company Read the full story
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Sunday, December 13, 2015
You won’t believe what Donald Trump said! (Yes you will. . .) « Why Evolution Is True
We knew when Trump criticized Cruz it would not be substantive, but we hoped it would be coherent
---Steve
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
460 foothills
July
Permit Class: Permit Type: Permit Status:
App No
043488 LITTLE ROUND TOP DEVELOPERS LLC 460 FOOTHILLS SOUTH DRIVE SEDONA AZ 86336
Customer Name
HAAS, RUTH
---Steve
Pro life idiots
-- Robert Lewis Dear
Yes Pro-Life people, this is your murderous idiot.
If you are "pro-life", it is apparently ok to murder people; proving that thugs that spew anti-abortion rhetoric, like @CarlyFiorina, are illiterate, not only literally for obliterating the meaning of what it means to support human life, but scientifically, with no knowledge of human reproductive development, the social impacts of unwanted children, or the basic right of autonomy of women.
---Steve
Shared from Twitter: Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet v. low-fat diet for long-term weight loss: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. - PubMed - NCBI
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Monday, December 07, 2015
Sunday, December 06, 2015
The dopamine switch between atheist, believer and fa...
As 9/11 suggests, the neurological line between the saint and the savage, the creative and the unconscionable, turns out to be razor-thin. Just look at the bounty of evidence showing that families of extraordinarily creative individuals often include members with histories of insanity, sometimes even criminal insanity. Genes that produce brains capable of unusually creative associations or ideas are also more likely to produce (in the same individual or in members of his/her family) brains vulnerable to loose or bizarre associations.
---Steve
Saturday, December 05, 2015
'More Light, Less Heat.' New book debunks myths about gun violence and mental illness | EurekAlert! Science News
In contrast, restricting firearm access even temporarily to people who are at high risk of fatally harming themselves or others, whether they have a mental illness or not, has been demonstrated to decrease both firearm suicide and homicide rates."
---Steve
The Believer - Anarchy in the USA
We're destroying the planet, we're killing people in the third world, we're sucking up all the resources of the earth…" The list goes on, yet somehow we manage to get up, go to work, and pretend like nothing's wrong. "That is a magic trick. And Ted Kaczynski couldn't pull it off. And anybody that can't pull off that trick can't live in this society."
---Steve
Friday, December 04, 2015
Thursday, December 03, 2015
In laptop reliability survey, one brand trumps all | ZDNet
'via Blog this'
'Daily News' provokes with cover on Calif. shooting: 'God isn't fixing this'
'Daily News' provokes with cover on Calif. shooting: 'God isn't fixing this'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/12/02/ny-daily-news-provokes-cover-calif-shooting-god-isnt-fixing/76703060/
---Steve
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Monday, November 30, 2015
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
PLOS ONE: Copper Bracelets and Magnetic Wrist Straps for Rheumatoid Arthritis – Analgesic and Anti-Inflammatory Effects: A Randomised Double-Blind Placebo Controlled Crossover Trial
Wearing a magnetic wrist strap or a copper bracelet did not appear to have any meaningful therapeutic effect, beyond that of a placebo, for alleviating symptoms and combating disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis.
---Steve
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Monday, November 23, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Monday, November 09, 2015
Thursday, November 05, 2015
Best slate comments are science comments
What annoys me about this debate is that the people who hold this anti-GMO view also tend to be staunch environmentalists. So if you were to say, "What if we had a way of increasing farm productivity so we can use less land, reduce the water needs of crops so we can use less water, make crops disease and pestilence resistant so we can use less harmful pesticides, and increase the nutritional value of crops so we can feed the poor more cheaply." They would respond, "YES! What is this magical technology?!"
But when you ask them, "Are you in favor of the development of GMO's?" they would say, "No, I want to buy 'pure' food, not to enrich corporations!" The two thoughts are seemingly incompatible.
---Steve
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Monday, November 02, 2015
Sunday, November 01, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
TechRepublic: Q&A: A powerful look at the future of AI, from its epicenter at Carnegie Mellon
Q&A: A powerful look at the future of AI, from its epicenter at Carnegie Mellon
TechRepublic
The dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science spoke to TechRepublic about the future of AI, ethics, incredible job opportunities, and how women make up 40% of CMU's incoming class. Read the full story
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
Neil deGrasse Tyson Lets the Science Deniers Have It: 'The Beginning of the End of an Informed Democracy' | Alternet
Yes, but it requires enlightened governance for that opportunity to arise. Science doesn't happen in the abstract. It pays to have science done. Frontier science, historically and in modern times, is generally paid by government-based sources – the NIH, the National Science Foundation, the research arms of the Department of Energy, even the science arms of the Department of Defense. Someone is paying for research. You can't just say, "Well, the science will save us." No, enlightened governance enabling the science will save us. Scientific solutions to society's challenges, historically, have been the most potent ways to solve problems.
---Steve
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
Appeals court rules that Google book-scanning is fair use | Ars Technica
Google's use is indeed transformative, they held, citing caselaw involving other "full-text searchable database[s]" as a "quintessentially transformative use."
---Steve
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Ben Carson Is Wrong on Guns and the Holocaust - The New York Times
If the United States is going to arrive at a workable compromise solution to its gun problem, it will not be accomplished through the use of historical analogies that are false, silly and insulting.
---Steve
Shared from Twitter: Matt Ridley: By the Book - The New York Times
Easy. The Bible. Not even the fine translations of William Tyndale, largely adopted by King James's committee without sufficient acknowledgment, can conceal the grim tedium of this messy compilation of second-rate tribal legends and outrageous bigo
---Steve
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Tweet by Bryan Donaldson on Twitter
Bryan Donaldson (@TheNardvark) | |
"Can I get 2 boxes of Sudafed?" "Sorry, by law you can only buy one at a time." "Okay then just the one box of Sudafed and these 7 guns." |
Download the Twitter app
---Steve
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Shared from Twitter: Wrong, wrong, wrong: The anti-science bullsh*t which explains why the right gets away with lies — and why the mainstream media lets them - Salon.com
Monday, October 12, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
The Atlantic: From Guns to Migrants: Not Everything Is Like the Holocaust
From Guns to Migrants: Not Everything Is Like the Holocaust
The Atlantic
Ben Carson is wrong to say armed Jews could have stopped Hitler. But so are those who compare Europe's refugee crisis to the same period. Read the full story
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---Steve
Friday, October 09, 2015
Thursday, October 08, 2015
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
www.nytimes.com: If Your Wi-Fi Is Terrible, Check Your Router - The New York Times
If Your Wi-Fi Is Terrible, Check Your Router - The New York Times
www.nytimes.com
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Why some people don't get the flu - Health - Cold and flu | NBC News
It's certainly possible that people who came in had a very high level of antioxidant precursors in their blood, and this may what protected them, but we're not saying that because we don't know. You can't go beyond the data to make these hypotheses."
---Steve
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Monday, October 05, 2015
Sunday, October 04, 2015
Article: The Battle Over Genome Editing Gets Science All Wrong
The Battle Over Genome Editing Gets Science All Wrong
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/battle-genome-editing-gets-science-wrong/
Related topics: Scientific Research, Biology, Life Sciences
Sent via Flipboard, your personal magazine.
Get it for free to keep up with the news you care about.
---Steve
The New York Times: Patti Smith, Survivor
Patti Smith, Survivor
The New York Times
In her new memoir, "M Train," the punk elder makes peace with her ghosts and finds solace in a century-old bungalow in the Rockaways. Read the full story
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Saturday, October 03, 2015
The Simple Truth About Gun Control - The New Yorker
the central insight of the modern study of criminal violence is that all crime—even the horrific violent crimes of assault and rape—is at some level opportunistic. Building a low annoying wall against them is almost as effective as building a high impenetrable one. This is the key concept of Franklin Zimring's amazing work on crime in New York; everyone said that, given the social pressures, the slum pathologies, the profits to be made in drug dealing, the ascending levels of despair, that there was no hope of changing the ever-growing cycle of violence. The right wing insisted that this generation of predators would give way to a new generation of super-predators.
---Steve
Friday, October 02, 2015
Thursday, October 01, 2015
The Atlantic: What Isn’t for Sale?
What Isn't for Sale?
The Atlantic
Market thinking so permeates our lives that we barely notice it anymore. A leading philosopher sums up the hidden costs of a price-tag society. Read the full story
Shared from Apple News
---Steve
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 28, 2015
The Implications of Defining When a Woman Is Pregnant
Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. A pregnancy is considered to be established only after implantation is complete.
---Steve
Stonewall Movie: 22 Hilarious Excerpts From Scathing Reviews
Somehow, director Roland Emmerich has made a movie even less historically accurate than 10,000 BC, the one depicting Egyptian-style pyramids being constructed with the help of woolly mammoths.
---Steve
U.S. foreign-born population nears high
U.S. foreign-born population nears high
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/09/28/us-foreign-born-population-nears-high/72814674/
---Steve
Saturday, September 26, 2015
CDC - Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System - Maternal and Infant Health - Reproductive Health
Since the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System was implemented, the number of reported pregnancy-related deaths in the United States steadily increased from 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to a high of 17.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2009 and 2011.
---Steve
Abortion safer than giving birth: study | Reuters
Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.
---Steve
Tweet by Tom Morello on Twitter
Friday, September 25, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
London Zoo: What’s up with giraffe necks?
The giraffe neck is comparable to the peacock's tail in that it promotes more mating success while also exposing the males to dangers and physical challenges.
---Steve
The Atlantic: How Rand Paul Misunderstands the Fourteenth Amendment
How Rand Paul Misunderstands the Fourteenth Amendment
The Atlantic
The Kentucky senator points to its author's intent to justify his opposition to birthright citizenship—but the clause in question has no clear author. Read the full story
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---Steve
In speech to Congress, Pope Francis urges action on immigration, climate
"We must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners."
---Steve
Study highlights which fruits and vegetables can aid weight loss - Medical News Today
- 34.9% of Americans are classed as obese
- Obesity runs at 39.5% among 40-59 year-olds, but 30.3% among those aged 20-29
- An obese person costs the public health services on average $1,429 per person per year compared with a non-obese person.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
8 rights of pregnant women at work July 28 - CNNMoney
Check out this story on CNNMoney:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/25/news/economy/rights-pregnant-workers/
Sent from my iPhone
Carly Fiorina's Ex-Husband: "She's The Ultimate Clown."
In the clown car that is the Republican Party, she's the ultimate clown.
---Steve
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
National Geographic: ‘It Wasn’t the Bear's Fault’: Grizzly Attack Survivor Stories
'It Wasn't the Bear's Fault': Grizzly Attack Survivor Stories
National Geographic
Survival rates for bear attacks are high. And those who have been mauled are often forgiving. Read the full story
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---Steve
Monday, September 21, 2015
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Saturday, September 19, 2015
PLOS ONE: The Case of Moulay Ismael - Fact or Fancy?
In general, results indicate that the Emperor could have reached his notorious reproductive success with fewer copulations than assumed so far - thus the historic reports could be facts and not fancy. With our simulation we could also provide evidence that the harem size is of lesser importance for the achievement of the reported reproductive success than thought so far. A breeding pool of 65 to 110 women leads to the maximum reproductive outcome. This highlights the importance of incorporating cost-benefit calculations – increasing the size of the breeding pool beyond that point increases the costs without additional benefits to outweigh them. Having a harem of 500 concubines might have been due to other considerations than maximization of individual reproductive outcome. For example, it could have been a means to remove the additional women from the reach of other men, thus depriving them of reproductive potential.
---Steve
The Fight for Unplanned Parenthood - The New York Times
If an elected official wants to try to drive Planned Parenthood out of business, there are two honest options: Announce that first you're going to invest a ton of new taxpayer money in creating real substitutes, or shrug your shoulders and tell the world that you're fine with cutting off health services to some of your neediest constituents.
---Steve
Friday, September 18, 2015
Science Based Cuisine
Most commonly, evolution is discussed in terms of speciation, where a common ancestor's progeny adapt to different environments across generations, and start diverging in traits - thus, the same Prunus will give rise to the cherry and the apricot. But in some cases, evolutionary pressure can take different organisms to evolve similar, or, in this case, identical traits. Coffee and tea, for example, do not have the identical enzymes, but they have evolved to produce the same effect on the raw material xanthosine, in an identical chain of events that produces chemically identical caffeine. Which probably first evolved as chemical protection against insects.
---Steve
Houdini. Skeptic. (Book Review) | Doubtful
In the conclusion he is startled by the "utter inability of the average human being to describe accurately anything he or she has witnessed." With this tendency, a medium can easily accomplish wonders. These same mediums, he said, deliberately avoid honest investigation. What was not answered in this book was how Houdini managed to get into the audiences he did to make these observations.
---Steve
Do you want a meaningful or a happy life? – Roy F Baumeister – Aeon
T
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Donald Trump accused Carly Fiorina of being a terrible businesswoman. Here’s the truth - The Washington Post
Arianna Packard, the granddaughter of HP's founder, commented when discouraging voters from supporting Fiorina in her 2010 senatorial run, 'I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded.'"
---Steve
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
The Elmore Leonard Story by Joan Acocella | The New York Review of Books
I'm sorry, Jack, but I can't shoot you."
"You just did, for Christ's sake."
"You know what I mean." She said, "I want you to know…I never for a minute felt you were too old for me." She said, "I'm afraid, though, thirty years from now I'll feel different about it. I'm sorry, Jack, I really am."
---Steve
In New York, a Win and a Loss on Health - The New York Times
The city Health Department has linked metzitzah b'peh to more than a dozen infant herpes cases, and two deaths, since 2000. The Bloomberg administration tried to discourage the practice by requiring mohels to have parents sign a consent form acknowledging the risks. But mohels, citing religious freedom, refused to use the form.
---Steve
Sunday, September 13, 2015
What the Case Against Stephen Harper Is Really About - The Atlantic
Those are his views, he's certainly entitled to them, and I expect he'll cast his vote on October 19 accordingly. That's democracy, and fair enough.
---Steve
Are Western Values Losing Their Sway? - The New York Times
But couple the tightening of Chinese authoritarianism with Russia's turn toward revanchism and dictatorship, and then add the rise of radical Islam, and the grand victory of Western liberalism can seem hollow, its values under threat even within its own societies.
---Steve
The Next Genocide - The New York Times
The quest for German domination was premised on the denial of science.
---Steve
Article: 25 Books Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Other Top CEOs Recommend
25 Books Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Other Top CEOs Recommend
http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/25-books-top-ceos-recommend-you-read.html
Related topics: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Atlas Shrugged
Shared from Flipboard Picks on Flipboard, your personal magazine.
Get it for free to keep up with the news you care about.
---Steve
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Tuesday, September 08, 2015
The Year Humans Got Serious About Climate Change -- NYMag
For human to wean ourselves off carbon-emitting fossil fuel, we will have to use some combination of edict and invention — there is no other plausible way around it. The task before the world is best envisioned not as a singular event but as two distinct but interrelated revolutions, one in political willpower and the other in technological innovation. It has taken a long time for each to materialize, in part because the absence of one has compounded the difficulty of the other. It is extremely hard to force a shift to clean energy when dirty energy is much cheaper, and it is extremely hard to achieve economies of scale in new energy technologies when the political system has not yet nudged you to do so.
---Steve
Monday, September 07, 2015
Voluntary euthanasia: beware of the godly!
Beware of the godly
Religious leaders such as Archbishop Welby have no particular authority - intellectual, moral, or otherwise - in respect of issues that relate to decisions at the beginning and end of life. Religious leaders are experts on the doctrines of their respective organisations, but that sort of expertise should cut no ice with the rest of us.
Bill O’Reilly’s nonsense “nihilism”: Now the Fox News host is even lying about God - Salon.com
far as the United States goes, it is high religiosity itself that correlates with bad crime rates, deadbeat tax payers, poverty, rampant teen pregnancy, low education, a dearth of life opportunities, early death, and so on. Faith is, in short, part and parcel of a congeries of nasty ills every society should strive to extirpate.
---Steve
The correlation of high religiosity in America with everything bad « Why Evolution Is True
The solution is easy: vote out the conservatives and loosen the grip of faith on America.
---Steve