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I do like looking at the CBC technology and science section, every once and awhile they have some neat off the wall type articles like this one.
“Biologists at the University of Cincinnati used a laser ablation technique to remove part or all of the millimetre-long spines, which are too small to remove using a scalpel.
They then allowed the shaved males to mate to see what role the spines played in copulation.”
Apparently, male fruit flies need sharp protrusions on their reproductive organs to make coupling more successful. This is not particularly outlandish ( ducks rank high) and the whole process is called ‘traumatic insemination‘. Looks squicky, but it gets the job done.
“Those that got the full laser treatment, however, had only a 20 per cent chance of successfully mating with a female. When in competition with unshaven males for available females, the shaven males almost always lost.”
So now you know. :)
Unsurprisingly, not much happened at the latest and greatest climate conference. Many thanks to the hackers who spun up a flurry of negative PR for a meeting that only had the slightest chance of reaching a meaningful agreement in the first place.
What is utterly discouraging is that nothing will come of this. It was a waste of time (emphasis mine):
“The agreement recognizes that an increase in global temperature should be kept to two degrees Celsius — the threshold that UN scientists say is needed to avert serious climate change — but the deal is not legally binding and has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts.”
So really, in essence, let us continue to our plunder of the earth. We will make the requisite noises:
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the agreement “realistic” and said Canada was “very comfortable” with it.”
You know if Harper agrees with this particular tidbit of climate folly it is can only be a hollow shell of dank turpitude and risible half truths. In other words nothing will change.
For the eternally optimistic:
“Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, welcomed the climate deal as an “essential beginning,” but said it must be transformed into a legally binding treaty next year.”
Yep. The US will also get Israel to respect the 1967 borders, pay reparations to Iraq for ruining their country and will make peace with Osama bin Laden. I’ll also be having a piping hot mug cocoa and a blueberry scone with Pope while we discuss how he should not act like such a douche bag.
I bring this article to your attention only to illustrate the longevity of certain popular myths.
“Drinking a cup of coffee for every cup of spiked eggnog likely won’t help you drive home more safety, a study on drunken mice suggests.”
The wisdom one can find on the internet. We can all rest easy now that we know with more evidence that we had before that drinking caffeine does not help reduce the effects of intoxication. Rather, it makes you a jittery drunk as a opposed to just plain ‘ole drunk.
“His advice for holiday revelers is to be responsible and plan ahead by establishing a designated driver, or stop drinking early enough to allow blood-alcohol levels to go down before getting behind the wheel.”
Compare this to the complete anti vaccination lunacy that vaccines cause autism. It has been proven time and time 
again that this is not the case, yet the tomfoolery still persists. Why? I would suggest the stupid comes can be divided into three categories: Too lazy, intellectually/research-wise, to0 arrogant to admit they are wrong, or too deluded from the start, as their world view took a left turn somewhere and has never come back to reality-ville.
Thus ended the rant.
It is the unabashed realm of the conservative media to engage in hyperbole about issues that effect things they care about. The whole climategate nonsense is a perfect example of what happens when commentators who, being short on brain but long on wind, get a hold of a story and spin it to meet their own particular agenda.
The hacked emails from CRU seems to be the holy tinfoil jesus for climate change denialists, finally proving that it was all a lie and a hoax. Keep in mind these are some of the people that also believe that a rapture is coming and need to prepare for the coming of their lord and high-douchbag – jebus himself.
Predictably, when actual rational people look into things the picture is much different. The data in question does not contradict the last 30 years of evidence based climatological research. There is no grand conspiracy, no deliberate hoax; just much partisan grandiloquent bloviatation from ignorant people.
Thunderfoot does his usual impeccable job of describing the situation and illustrating how thick the tinfoil is for some people. Enjoy the video.
Update: More information on the ‘debate’ here and here.
Second Update June 2010 – The media admits it was wrong and prints a retraction.
Sending our best hopes that the LHC will not have any more breakdowns as they search for some of the answers in physics and quantum physics that been at the forefront of their respective fields. They ran a test and nothing blew up, a good sign to say the least. Catch the full story at the CBC.
“The operators of the Large Hadron Collider have successfully sent a beam of protons around the ring of the world’s largest particle collider.
It is the first time the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, has been operational since September 2008, when an electrical connection in the collider’s magnets melted, causing a tonne of super-cooled liquid helium to leak into the tunnel.”
So now we can continue to speculate whether we will create a micro black hole and really mess things up on a planetary scale.
This just in: Stephen Harper cares about Climate Change:
“Full global participation in cutting greenhouse gases is necessary to tackle global warming, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said at an APEC summit in Singapore on Saturday.”
There are just a few problems with all this tackling and cutting. When it comes to Canadian treatment of actually cutting greenhouse gases we need to consider a new adjective, ‘glad-handing’ for instance.
The reality of the situation:
“Ottawa will soon exceed its Kyoto limit by about 30%, yet it will face no penalty for doing so because the Kyoto parties never agreed on any meaningful punishments,” so says Michael Levi in the National Post article.
Climate change is a challenging problem perhaps we are just getting ‘up to speed’ on a Canadian solution. We need qualified scientists to lead the charge. Harper appointed Mark Mullins and John Weissenberger to key posts in the government’s science sections.
The Globe and Mail says this (this is a meta-link as the actual article is safely out of the public domain, earning a extended middle fingered salute to the asshats at the G&M):
The 18-member NSERC already includes another Harper government appointee, mathematician Christopher Essex, who wrote a book challenging the “myth of climate change.”
On the same day Dr. Mullins was appointed to NSERC, April 23, another skeptic of global warming was appointed to the board of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which funds large research projects. John Weissenberger is a close friend of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a former chief of staff in the Harper government and a geologist who works for Husky Energy in Alberta.
Dr. Weissenberger has written opinion pieces in the media and on his Internet blog expressing his “skepticism about global warming.” That and other comments by the two appointees on the public record were compiled by NDP researchers and verified by The Globe and Mail.
So we are committed to climate change, yet we seem to be appointing people who are climate change deniers. You wonder why we have no credibility on climate change, just look at the annotated Frasier Institute report.
Richard Dawkin’s latest book the Greatest Show on Earth (GSOE) is a great primer on Evolution and the important contributions Charles Darwin made to the field of biology.
I’m currently listening to the GSOE in my car, and I have the print copy fairly high up in my reading pile.
Some reviews are getting annoyed at Dawkins for taking shots at creationists, but others think that it really is not so bad.
I’m inclined to agree with Mr.Dawkins when he takes the odd jab at the rotten edifices of religion, no surprise there, but it is necessary to show exactly how wrong the religiously deluded are.
It has been great listen so far, and I would highly recommend reading the GSOE if you want to work on your evolutionary fundamentals or polish your arguments in defense of evolution.
bleatmop
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