Gay Scientists Identify Christian Gene

Via Ed Brayton at Dispatches From The Culture Wars



I hope there is some truth in this, well it tickles my fancy anyway :)))))) Grow into these trousers... >>

The Traveler IQ Challenge™

A fine test of your geographical knowledge. Accuracy and speed both count so have a couple of goes first to warm up, it's only fair.

My top score: 349093 - so far :)
It is a bit addictive.

This Traveler IQ was calculated on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 08:03PM GMT by comparing this person's geographical knowledge against the Web's Original Travel Blog's 2,931,716 travelers who've taken the challenge.

Grow into these trousers... >>

If you are out and about at night in the next few days

Look up!
















The Perseid meteor shower reaches its maximum in the early morning on August 12th but there's a good chance to see shooting stars anytime over the next few nights. Grow into these trousers... >>

Time for some Grateful Dead on this blog

Ahh, chill out time:

Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias (Part I)

Part II is below the belt.

Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias (Part II)

Grow into these trousers... >>

Weeing down my trouser leg #4 - Big style

The world's most offensive joke.
A comical documentary from Channel 4 in short (5min) chunks.
NOTE: probably NSFW

1/9 - The Holocaust


Links to the rest are below the belt.

2/9 - Race

3/9 - Disability

4/9 - Princess Diana

5/9 - Paedophilia

6/9 - Tsunami

7/9 - Scousers

9/9 - Islam (winner)


Was I offended in any way? No, but I could have been if I didn't understand comedy.

Did I laugh? Yes. Outloud.

I thought the winning joke was best because they didn't need to tell it or show cartoons. The real joke was the reaction of those claiming to be offended. They are the ones I laugh at anyway.
And I loved the VW ad:

Grow into these trousers... >>

A fishy quiz

I'm Andy and
I'm a Hammerhead Shark.
Andy, based on the results of the quiz, the fish you're closest to is a Hammerhead Shark!

As an extremely adapted predator, you use your oddly shaped head to increase your ability to find prey. Your eyes and nostrils are located on both ends of your hammer shaped head. Your vertebrae are especially designed for quick turns and maneuvering. Ranging in size from 3 feet to 20 feet long, you can weigh up to 1,000lbs. You feed on fish, crustaceans and especially enjoy eating rays. You prefer warm temperate and tropical water, and can be found swimming along coastlines and continental shelves in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean and Black Seas. You may even catch a tan while swimming in shallow waters. During the day you often swim in large schools, sometimes containing more than 100 fellow hammerheads, but prefer to hunt alone at night.

As true with most shark species, you are in danger of becoming extinct. Highly sought after, your fins are considered an expensive delicacy (used to make shark fin soup), your liver oil is often used to make vitamins, and your skin is use to make leather. While people are not legally permitted to catch you, you are often caught by longlines and driftnets, and rarely make it out alive. Grow into these trousers... >>

Cool guitar playing

Just tripped across this video of guitarist Preston Reed via Little Green Footballs. After a bit of listening around I think this track Ladies night captures his playing a bit better:



But for real skill IMHO, delve below the belt.

Martin Taylor , here's Down at Cocomo's.



Look out for Kwame (sp?) from the 4 Martins DVD, it's in the extras. Genius!
Grow into these trousers... >>

Another quiz: 'What Breed of Liberal Are You?'

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

OK, it is a bit American... Grow into these trousers... >>

The Antikythera mechanism

This object, and some other fragments found in the early 1900s off the Greek island of the same name, is a complete anachronism. Dated to 150-100 BCE nothing similar is known till a thousand years later. The mechanism seems to have been made to calculate astronomical events and positions and is of remarkable complexity for its age.

Results of a new X-ray study^[1] suggest that in addition the Antikythera mechanism also displayed the timing of the original Olympic Games.
You need a subscription to Nature to read the full article but there is a great video available here. It's worth watching.

EDIT: it seems you may not need a subscription to read the article. The video is still good to see.
--------------
1. Tony Freeth, Alexander Jones, John M. Steele & Yanis Bitsakis 'Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism' Nature 454, 614-617 (31 July 2008) Grow into these trousers... >>

Is it ice? Part 3 - Yes!

Water on Mars:
Photo credit : Rob @ Bayblab

OK, I've dithered about this. Pull up your trousers here and here.

Not that I ever really doubted that ice was present on Mars. The polar caps have been known to be composed of water ice(15%) and frozen carbon dioxide (CO2 - dry ice - 85%) from a long time back.

But you want that final cherry. The tension has been well, tense; with oven doors failing to open correctly, fears of a short circuit and claggy Marsdust but finally the robot arm has delivered a (small) scoopful of the solid stuff to a properly working TEGA slot.

This instrument gently warms up the sample and measures the molecular/atomic weight of the gases which evaporates off. Guess what, at 32°F (0°C for the non-Americans) a phase change was observed - that's something melting. In the evolved gases, a signal with a mass of 18 was detected!

H - Hydrogen : atomic weight = 1
O - Oxygen : atomic weight = 16
H₂O - Water : molecular weight = 1+1+16 = 18


What were you expecting, some alloy of Lithium and Boron? Dihydro quodrahelium (He4H2)? Nah, look it up. That was water. I am convinced, but what I want to know now is did they see any deuterium ²H or any ¹⁸O. These are heavy isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen and the isotope ratios can provide a lot of information on how the ice may have formed.

In the same press release from NASA a five week extension to the Phoenix mission was announced. This will keep data coming back until early November rather than stopping at the end of August. After that the Martian winter will be setting in, light levels will fall and the solar panels will cease to work. Phoenix will freeze :(
-----------------
Update: Emily Lakdawalla notes the sample was too small to observe a deuterium to hydrogen ratio. Oh well, better luck next time.
Grow into these trousers... >>