www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsHG3P8hBE8 Was BOUND to happen. Spot my fellow bloggers? See you at the con. ShareThis

Not as nasty as I feared, but the consecrated hunk o' Jesus I put it on was ghastly. Read the comments on this post...

As you might have noticed, ScienceBlogs picked up a couple of new bloggers recently. Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders moved their blog, Obesity Panacea, over to these parts last week. Their move gives me an opportunity that's way too good to pass up - an excuse to present my latest excuse for a prolonged gap in blogging. I've been too busy getting thin to post much. OK, maybe "getting thin" isn't the most accurate description. But it sounds so much nicer than reality - which is more like "becoming merely overweight instead of downright obese". (For starters, it's a much pithier phrase.) The combination of the time I've been putting into weight loss combined with the 45 or so hours I spend without internet access during the course of the work week combined to drastically reduce my available free time. But I'll whine more about that another time. Anyway... Two months ago, I said that I'd be joining the ScienceBlogs fitness challenge. In my typical fashion, I then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it for a week. It's quite possible that things would have stayed as they were for longer, but then an in-house version of The Biggest Loser kicked off at work. That was the little nudge I needed to get up and actually try to make the lifestyle changes needed to drop the weight. It took some effort, and some substantial research, but I seem to have found a weight loss plan that really works for me. The evidence certainly seems to be pointing in that direction, anyway. Since late January, I've lost slightly over 32 pounds (or 14.5 kg or about two-and-a-quarter stone depending on your measurement system of choice). My BMI has gone from an atrocious 33.4 to a more reasonable (if not actually good) 28.9. My body fat, resting heart rate, abdominal circumference, chin count, and clothing sizes have all also seen corresponding drops. My energy level is up, I feel better than I have in years, and I owe it all to this extremely simple, amazingly effective weight loss program I discovered: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

As you might have noticed, ScienceBlogs picked up a couple of new bloggers recently. Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders moved their blog, Obesity Panacea, over to these parts last week. Their move gives me an opportunity that's way too good to pass up - an excuse to present my latest excuse for a prolonged gap in blogging. I've been too busy getting thin to post much. OK, maybe "getting thin" isn't the most accurate description. But it sounds so much nicer than reality - which is more like "becoming merely overweight instead of downright obese". (For starters, it's a much pithier phrase.) The combination of the time I've been putting into weight loss combined with the 45 or so hours I spend without internet access during the course of the work week combined to drastically reduce my available free time. But I'll whine more about that another time. Anyway... Two months ago, I said that I'd be joining the ScienceBlogs fitness challenge. In my typical fashion, I then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it for a week. It's quite possible that things would have stayed as they were for longer, but then an in-house version of The Biggest Loser kicked off at work. That was the little nudge I needed to get up and actually try to make the lifestyle changes needed to drop the weight. It took some effort, and some substantial research, but I seem to have found a weight loss plan that really works for me. The evidence certainly seems to be pointing in that direction, anyway. Since late January, I've lost slightly over 32 pounds (or 14.5 kg or about two-and-a-quarter stone depending on your measurement system of choice). My BMI has gone from an atrocious 33.4 to a more reasonable (if not actually good) 28.9. My body fat, resting heart rate, abdominal circumference, chin count, and clothing sizes have all also seen corresponding drops. My energy level is up, I feel better than I have in years, and I owe it all to this extremely simple, amazingly effective weight loss program I discovered: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

It's been a long time coming. While Arthur C. Clarke's satellites have taken to space, and James Bond's futuristic mobile technology has become common place, still the dream of sustained personal flight has eluded us. But the future is here! Finally we can all take flight as Martin Aircraft in New Zealand releases the first commercially-available jet pack! Click here to buy your jetpack! Read the comments on this post...

We don't have a good name for this abomination. It's not bestiality, since it is cross-phylum, cross-kingdom lasciviousness. Although, I do have to admit…that is one smokin' hot orchid. Read the comments on this post...

This is straight from the main page:

Things are humming along! We have over 100 images submitted, 30 or so queued up for card production, and over 40 folks signed up on the forum (in fact, one set of rules is arguably close to beta testing). The response has been simply wonderful, and these numbers don't even the include the numerous comments and chats culled from coffee meetings to blog posts to tweets. To us, this outpouring is something else, especially in light of the fact that we've technically only seeded an "idea" out there! Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

I have yet to see a computer language that offers anything not available in Basic, in so far as the language itself goes. But Basic has been maligned as the ruination of computer coding. There is an alternative opinion out there. Read the comments on this post...

Because pi day is coming...

From here Read the comments on this post...

The official kick-off of the Melbourne Global Atheist convention is tonight, but we're starting without the the officials. I met Bride of Shrek (who is not green) and Rorschach (who wasn't wearing the cool shifting pattern mask) for dinner last night. I can't say I was exactly lively company — I was coming off something like 25 hours of total travel time with no sleep at all, and was feeling like I was staggering towards a brick wall of total unconsciousness — but I survived, mostly. Got a very good night's sleep last night, too. It's now morning in Australia. I'm heading off to an atheist blogger/podcaster breakfast meetup, just to get my day started. If I can find the place. If not, I'll be wandering the streets of Melbourne, somewhere down by the river. At noon, I'm off to the Freethought University Alliance for a free lunch. I have to say a few words, too, but I aim to brief, because I am an old geezer and these are the Youth of Australia Who Will Change the Future. They should be doing most of the talking. They can run circles around me, too, which is why there is a rumor that I may have to fortify myself with some Jesus during the talk, just to keep up. Then around 3ish, we're having a Pharyngufest with a mob of foaming-at-the-mouth, militant, crude, rude, angry internet atheists and Pharyngulators at the Young and Jackson Hotel. Bride of Shrek tells me that we have the privilege of sharing the pub with Chloe, which, with the prospects of my first Australian beer, will probably help soothe the horrifying horde. A little bit. Finally, at 6, after we've already had a full day to work ourselves up to a shrieking fever pitch, the official events begin. It should be fabulous. I'll be looking for you all. Read the comments on this post...

As we all know, the Skepchicks are all about boobs and nothing else. Typical chicks. Can't think of anything else. And their boobs have commanded me to make one more request from my readers to consider donating some money to the senseless no-account purpose-free orgy that they will be hosting here in the Twin Cities here in July. Click here for details. And if you think I'm being sarcastic, that's funny. Because you're only reading what I'm writing. Your not seeing what I'm thinking. Read the comments on this post...

Constance McMillen is a high school student in a small town in Itawamba County, Mississippi. She's also gay. I think you can guess where this is going. I can see the flames of someone's personal hell from here. It looks like Ms McMillen is a very confident person, though, so I'd guess that her situation has made her stronger. She decide to attend the high school prom with her girlfriend; Ms McMillen was planning to wear a tuxedo. Good for her: she's proud of who she is, and was going to be respectable and decorous about the issue. The flames are licking a lot higher, you can tell already. I think you can predict that Small Town Mississippi was not going to react respectably and decorously about it, though, and they didn't. The ACLU informed them that they were violating her rights. So the school cancelled the prom altogether, and let Ms McMillen's fellow students know why. Hey, I don't think that's just a small hellish fire on the southern horizon, that looks like a mushroom cloud now. The mayor is saying the community thinks this was a good decision. People are talking about putting together a privately sponsored prom…probably one that could exclude faggots (although, wouldn't it be cool if someone did put together a prom that was inclusive, thumbing their nose at the cowards in the school administration? It could happen — younger people aren't quite so hidebound as the calcified upper crust of small town USA, and that cohort also includes a lot of people who are itching for graduation day and their opportunity to escape Itawamba County forever). I predict that Constance McMillen will be one of the progressive young people who will be fleeing Small Town America as fast as she can, as soon as she can. And the old geezers and flea bag preachers will sit around in their shrinking, backwards-looking community and wonder why the young people are so anxious to abandon them. Read the comments on this post...

A while ago, I complained that the people running the LHC did not have their act together when it came to managing and disseminating information for the interested public. I took a little flack for that (see comments) but I was right. And I'm still right. We (the interested public) were just recently given a very nice overview of the potential for the next several months of research. Then, today, we find out that the LHC is fundamentally busted and will be shut down for a significant rebuild. And part of that news is that this has been the plan for a long time. But I guess they forgot. Or something. Can anyone explain to me what is going on?
Read the comments on this post...

If you are old enough to have seen the original release of The Empire Strikes Back at the cinema in 1980, you almost certainly remember the extraordinary short film that preceded it. Otherwise you won't know a damn thing about it: with not one picture or accurate plot summary anywhere on the web, Black Angel has become a bit of an internet holy grail in itself. ... check it out Read the comments on this post...

Wow. Bill Donohue is going to love Andrew Brown. Brown has written a defense of the Catholic church titled "Catholic child abuse in proportion"; you can tell right away exactly where it is going to be going. 'Only' 4% of American priests have been accused of sexual abuse of a minor, and as much as 27% of American women report a history of childhood sexual abuse (to quote just a pair of statistics he uses), therefore, Catholic priests aren't that bad. Which means… Certainly the safeguards against paedophilia in the priesthood are now among the tightest in the world. That won't stop a steady trickle of scandals; but I think that objectively your child is less likely to be abused by a Catholic or Anglican priest in the west today than by the members of almost any other profession. He doesn't mention any statistics on any other profession. So kids are more likely to be raped by your local policeman, college professor, grade school teacher, construction worker, farmer, dentist, carpenter, plumber, doctor, or whatever than your local priest? Brown hasn't shown any evidence at all that that is the case. And I think he would have an even tougher job trying to demonstrate that rapists in these other professions do it while carrying out their duties, or while wearing a uniform of propriety in quite the same way priests do. As for this claim that priests now have tight safeguards…I haven't seen any evidence at all of that. The Catholic church doesn't seem to be cleaning house at all, nor does it have any history of doing so; the pattern has been to hide and protect abusers in their ranks, until they are dragged out into the light by secular investigations. And then Brown goes ahead and lists a series of reasons why the pattern of Catholic abuse has been regarded with an especially deserved horror. Doesn't he even read what he writes? So why the concentration on Catholic priests and brothers? Perhaps I am unduly cynical, but I believe that all institutions attempt to cover up institutional wrongdoing although the Roman Catholic church has had a higher opinion of itself than most, and thus a greater tendency to lie about these things. Because it is an extremely authoritarian institution at least within the hierarchy, it is also one where there were few checks and balances on the misbehaviour of the powerful. The scandal has been loudest and most damaging in Ireland, because it came along just at the moment when the church was losing its power over society at large, and where it was no longer able to cover up what had happened, but still willing to try. Much the same is true in the diocese of Boston which was bankrupted by the scandal. Hmmm. Andrew Brown is a member of a beleagured institution, journalism, which by his own argument should have just as large a proportion of people who carry out child rape in the execution of their responsibilities as do Catholic priests. I think he therefore has a responsibility to turn whistleblower and report all of his colleagues who have gone out to interview children and abused their authority to obtain sex. Surely, the Guardian must be harboring nests of pedophiles that the newspaper protects by shuffling them out to distant assignments when their crimes become excessive. Stop protecting child-raping journalists, Brown, and come clean. You've convinced me, they must be just as bad as the Catholic priesthood. Read the comments on this post...

Back in January, at ScienceOnline2010, Sheril Kirshenbaum, Dr. Isis, and I led a session called "Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents". Shortly after the session, I posted my first thoughts on how it went and on the lessons I was trying to take away from it. Almost two months later, I'm ready to say some more about the session and the issues I think it raised. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination

Matthew Montonini discovered a treasure trove of video lectures made available on YouTube by Villanova University, celebrating the approximately 2,000 years since Paul's birth.

Here are two samples. E. P. Sanders on whether Paul's legacy remains relevant today:



David Aune on what happened to Paul on the Damascus Road:



Other videos include Joseph Fitzmyer, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Mark Nanos, and others.

Those interested in exploring the religious themes and mythology of LOST will want to check out this video podcast (HT DocArtz) featuring an interview with Matthew Fox, exploring Jack's character as both man of science and man of faith:



Those looking for something less weighty and serious may enjoy this LOST meets Baywatch video (HT IO9):

New research is ROCKING the notoriously arrogant carnivorous plant scientific community: It appears that the largest carnivorous plant, the giant pitcher plant of Borneo (or the Nepenthes rajah for those in the know), has not evolved into its immense size in order to capture and eat small rodents, but to be a large toilet for furry tree shrews to deposit their nutrient rich feces in.
Don't nobody go in there for thirty-five...forty-five minutes! Since their discovery in the early Eighteen...ahem...hmmm...(sorry, we're animal guys), the giant pitcher plants have been rumored to ingest not just bugs and worms as most carnivorous plants, but also small vertebrates. In the previously linked to article from bbc.com, however, Dr. Charles Clarke of Monash University in Selangor, Malaysia explains, "This species has always been famous for its ability to trap rodents, but I've been looking at the pitchers of this species on and off since 1987, and I've never seen a trapped rat inside." Yeah, what's up with that? Dr. Clarke did notice all sorts of tree shrew feces in the bottom of the plants, leading him to reconsider the plant's evolution. As it turns out, the plants have large openings, but they also have concave lids which are covered with nectar-producing glands. The distance between the front lip of the pitcher and the glands happens to correspond directly with the average size of the local tree shrews. In other words, when the shrews come to eat the nectar, the plants reap the sweet rewards of being pooped into. You can follow his research more closely by googling "eating animal feces." Good luck with that! Right now, my head is spinning with so many off color jokes on this subject that I may possibly have a nervous breakdown, but I'll just leave it at this. Somewhere, right now, an obsessive carnivorous plant geek is seriously questioning his entire existence. Can I please tell you all what a wonderful resource NVDH is? He is like an entire research department for Zooillogix. My man! Read the comments on this post... Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Collective Imagination