New fossils of an ancient, four-limbed creature help fill in
the blanks of the evolutionary transition between fish and the first
land-adapted vertebrates.
The so-called 'frogamander'........ one more nail in the creationist's coffin.
From the University of Calgary: _____________________________
A missing link settles
debate over the origin
of frogs and salamanders
The description of an ancient amphibian that millions of years ago swam
in quiet pools and caught mayflies on the surrounding land in Texas has
set to rest one of the greatest current controversies in vertebrate
evolution. The discovery was made by a research team led by scientists
at the University of Calgary.
The examination and detailed description of the fossil, Gerobatrachus
hottoni (meaning Hotton’s elder frog), proves the previously disputed
fact that some modern amphibians, frogs and salamanders evolved from
one ancient amphibian group called temnospondyls.
This pretty much speaks for itself, so I'll refrain from further commentary for the moment- except to say that the more I learn about this case, the more it pisses me off. Enough is enough. It's way past time to end this fucked up Drug War. --- Burrow Owl
In response to the proposed warrantless door to door searchs for firearms in DC, ACLU, Flex Your Rights, and ACORN volunteers go door-to-door in
Southeast DC educating residents about their 4th Amendment right to
refuse warrantless police searches.
This bill if passed would be a major attack on science education in Florida with potential national impact. We ask Defend Science signatories to watch this situation closely and to respond to Kathy\'s request.
My name is Kathy Savage and I am a board member of the Florida Citizens for Science <http://www.flascience.org/> . In case you are not aware, the Florida State Board of Education recently adopted new science standards <http://www.fldoestem.org/page231.aspx> that, for the first time in Florida history, include the teaching of evolution. Our joy in that was, however, relatively short-lived as a couple of our state legislators and senators introduced an <http://www.flsenate.gov/session/index.cfm?BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&Mode=Bills&S ubMenu=1&Year=2008&billnum=2692> \"Academic Freedom\" bill that passed through the preK-12 Committee on Wednesday, March 26th. We have several huge and financially well-equipped organizations working against us, The <http://www.floridafamilyaction.org/home/about.cfm> Florida Family Action and the Florida Baptists, along with the infamous Discovery Institute. <http://www.discovery.org/a/4510> They have been very successful in getting letter-writing campaigns, phone calls and speakers for this bill in huge numbers.much more so than we have been able to organize. The previously mentioned groups have already treated our legislators to a private screening of the upcoming movie, Expelled <http://www.expelledthemovie.com/> . No media, scientists, or teachers were allowed. Ben Stein himself actually spoke at a press conference to our legislators.
Would any member of your group be willing to write a letter on behalf of your group against the dangers of the bill SB2692, warning our state of the possibilities of lawsuits, etc. We would like to collect as many letters of support as we can and organize them to distribute to our legislators and senators.
If there are any suggestions you have to offer us in fighting this bill, please feel free to give them. This is important, not only at our state level, but nationally. What happens in Florida will have a domino effect throughout our country.
Toddler died after failed 'faith healing' Associated Press
Prosecutors are reviewing
the death of a 15-month-old girl a medical examiner says could have
been saved if she had been treated with antibiotics.
The Oregonian newspaper quoted Dr.
Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner, as saying that Ava
Worthington died March 2 at home from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and
infection.
He said both
conditions could have been prevented or treated with antibiotics, and
the child's breathing was further compromised by a benign cyst that had
never been medically addressed and could have been removed from her
neck, The Oregonian reported Saturday.
If prosecuted, the paper said, Ava Worthington's parents would be the
first members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ, a fundamentalist
Christian denomination, to face charges for failing to seek medical
treatment for a gravely ill child.
"We are reviewing the case, and our investigation is progressing," said
Greg Horner, Clackamas County chief deputy district attorney. He did
not release the parents' names.
When The Associated Press called the number listed for the church Saturday, the person who answered hung up.
Child-abuse detectives recently referred investigative findings to the
prosecutors, who are evaluating the case in light of a law passed in
1999 after several faith-healing deaths of children.
"This is the first time that they could be taking a shot at
interpreting the law," said state Senate President Peter Courtney, who
supported the bill.
It eliminated
Oregon's "spiritual-healing defense" in cases of second-degree
manslaughter, first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment and
nonpayment of child support.
The
Legislature passed the bill after months of debate over religious
freedom, parental rights and the state's responsibility to protect
children.
The Followers of Christ
Church came to Oregon early in the 20th century. According to church
tradition, when members become ill, fellow worshippers pray and anoint
them with oil. Former members say those who seek modern medical
remedies are ostracized.
"The sad thing is, our scorched earth drug policy in Latin America is a big reason why the entire continent hates us, and has turned to electing hostile political leaders like Chavez and Morales."
It's 8 p.m. You work an early shift
and need to be out the door before sunrise, so you're already in bed.
Your nerves are a bit frazzled, because earlier in the week someone
broke into your home. Oddly, they didn't take anything; they just
rifled through your belongings.
But the violation weighs on
your mind. At about the time you drift off, you're awakened by fierce
barking from your two large dogs. You hear someone crashing into your
front door, as if he's trying to separate it from its hinges. You grab
the gun you keep for home defense and leave your room to investigate."
By Blake Nicholson, Associated Press posted: 18 March 2008 10:25 am ET (via LiveScience)
"
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking
at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota's state
museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete
dinosaur, skin and all."
"Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus
named Dakota, a duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in southwestern North
Dakota in 2004, is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron.
It's among just a few mummified dinosaurs in the world, say the
researchers who are slowly freeing it from a 65-million-year-old rock
tomb.
"This is the closest many people will ever get to seeing what large
parts of a dinosaur actually looked like, in the flesh," said Phillip
Manning, a paleontologist at Manchester University in England, a member
of the international team researching Dakota.
"This is not the usual disjointed sentence or fragment of a word that
the fossil records offer up as evidence of past life. This is a full
chapter."
Animal tissue typically decomposes quickly after death. Researchers say
Dakota must have been buried rapidly and in just the right environment
for the skin to be preserved.
"The process of decay was overtaken by that of fossilization, preserving many of the soft-tissue structures," Manning said.
Tyler Lyson, a 25-year-old doctoral paleontology student at Yale University, discovered the dinosaur on his uncle's ranch in the Badlands in 1999. Weeks after he started to unearth the fossil in 2004, he knew he had found something special.
"Usually all we have is bones," Lyson said in a telephone interview.
"In this special case, we're not just after the bones; we're after the
whole carcass."
Researchers have used the world's largest CT scanner, operated by the
Boeing Co. in California and used to examine space shuttle parts, to
get a better look at what is encased in the rumpled mass of sandstone.
"This is the fourth dinosaur mummy that's ever been found in the world
of any significance," said Stephen Begin, a Michigan consultant on the
project. "It may turn out to be one of the best mummies, because of the
quality of the skin that we're finding and the extent of the skin
that's on the specimen."
Dakota was moved to the museum early last month and is currently
surrounded by precariously perched desk lamps and a machine to suck up
dust. State paleontologist John Hoganson, of the North Dakota
Geological Survey, said it will take a year, maybe more, to uncover it.
Amy Sakariassen, part of the team working on the project, was toiling
away with a brush whose bristles had been ground down to nubs.
"It really is wonderful to work on it," she said, as Begin used a sharp
instrument to pick away tiny bits of rock and unveil a scale. "Nobody's
seen that particular scale in 67 million years. It's quite thrilling."
Manning said his involvement has meant 18-hour days, seven-day weeks
and "more work than I could have ever imagined. But I would not change
a single second of the past few years."
Hoganson said the main part of the fossil is in two parts, weighing a total of nearly 5 tons.
"The skeleton itself is kind of curled up," he said. "The actual length
would be about 30 feet, from about the tip of its tail to the tip of
its nose."
The fossil has spawned both a children's book and an adult book, as
well as National Geographic television programs. The National
Geographic Society is funding much of the research.
"We are looking forward to seeing what emerges from the huge dinosaur
body block now housed in North Dakota," said John Francis, a society
vice president.
Many prehistoric fossils have been found in the western North Dakota
Badlands where terrain has been heavily eroded over time by weather.
Hoganson said other treasures likely are waiting to be unearthed.
"It's one of the few places in the world where you can actually see the
boundary line where the dinosaurs became extinct, the time boundary,"
he said. "In the Badlands, this layer is exposed in certain places."
Lyson, who found the fossil, eventually hopes to send it on a worldwide
tour and then bring it back to his hometown of Marmarth, where he is
creating a museum. For now, workers at the North Dakota Heritage Center
on the state Capitol grounds are getting part of it ready for display
this summer."
The guys responsible for the HBO series The Wire have a great article up over at the TIME magazine website:
"What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them
has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous
substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our
underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we've
been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and
incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American
collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and
doubles again; the drugs remain. "
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States incarcerates more people
than any other country in the world and for the first time in the
nation's history, more than one in every 100 American adults is
confined in a prison or jail, according to a report released on
Thursday.
The report by the Pew Center on the States said the American penal
system held more than 2.3 million adults at the start of the year.
The far more populous nation of China ranked second with 1.5 million
behind bars, with Russia a distant third with 890,000 inmates.
"Beyond the sheer number of inmates, America also is the global
leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing
nations like South Africa and Iran," according to the report.
OK, a fun post for a change: This is one of my latest gunstock projects: A left-handed benchrest stock for my original T/C Contender. The blank: Royal Jacaranda Laminate from Boyds Gunstocks The Finish: 3 coats Varathane Sanding Sealer #224741, followed by 14 coats Tru-oil. Misc.: I'm not a big fan of the original philips head fore-end screws, so I replaced them with stainless allen head cap screws and bored the forend for a snug fit with custom stainless flat washers (epoxied in place) for consistant torque when changing barrels. The butt cap is generic UHMW (ugly but *extremely* tough) The barrel shown in the photo is a 14" .30-30 win. built by Fred Smith & co. at Bullberry Barrel Works.
(Does anyone seriously believe that they ever stopped spying?)
White House says phone wiretaps back on "for now"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S.
telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate "for the time
being" with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between
the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance
legislation.
The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under
the current law "at least for now."
"Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being,
they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light
of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue
cooperation if the uncertainty persists," the statement said.
On Friday U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of
National Intelligence Michael McConnell said telecommunications firms
have been reluctant to cooperate with new wiretaps since six-month
temporary legislation expired last weekend. As a result, they told
Congress, spy agencies have missed intelligence.
Democrats accused the Bush administration of fear-mongering and blamed it for any gaps.
President George W. Bush has said he would not compromise with the
Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies be shielded
from lawsuits for taking part in his warrantless domestic spying
program.
The measure passed by the Senate would provide retroactive lawsuit
immunity to firms which cooperated with warrantless wiretaps that Bush
authorized after the September 11 attacks. But the House of
Representatives has opposed it, and Democratic leaders of both chambers
said they would try to find a compromise.
Democratic leaders of congressional intelligence and judiciary
committees issued a statement on Friday saying they were committed to
passing new legislation and urged Bush to support an extension of the
temporary law. Bush has said he would hold out for a permanent overhaul
of the 1978 surveillance law.
Three representatives from the Westboro Baptist Cult who showed up to picket the funeral of Brianna Denison here in Reno recieved a chilly reception in more ways than one. Thanks to everyone who, despite the wind and snow, showed up and *completely* overwhelmed the nutjobs from Kansas.
A small group from a Kansas-based church
that protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers faced off Saturday night
against more than 150 counter-demonstrators outside a memorial service
for a Reno woman killed by a serial rapist.
The tense standoff
ended peacefully when three female anti-gay protesters associated with
the Wesboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., were escorted away from the
Reno-Sparks Convention Center in a police van, Reno police Sgt. police
Sgt. Chris Lange said. “There were a couple of eggs thrown at them and that’s about it,” Lange said. Counter-demonstrators
surrounded the three church members after they waved placards reading,
“Pray for More Dead Kids,” “Don’t Worship the Dead” and “God Sent the
Killer.” Counter-demonstrators responded by chanting, “Go Back to Kansas” and “Go Home.”
A plan to reduce the penalties for possessing marijuana easily passed
the Vermont Senate last week, and the House will take up the issue
soon. The bill removes jail sentences for most people caught with 2
ounces of marijuana, but stops short of fully decriminalizing
marijuana. We talk with Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Sears about his
support for the legislation, and Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie who
opposes the idea.
Those demented fuckwits are at it again. Not being satisfied with their failed attempt to disrupt the funeral of a fallen soldier (thanks in large part to the Patriot Guard Riders) they say they're planning a return visit in order to protest the funeral of Brianna Denison. Looking over their press release, I get the distinct feeling that the Phelps Brigade didn't really enjoy their last visit to the Biggest Little City. Something tells me that they're going to enjoy this visit even less.
A team from UCL and Stony Brook University, New York, has
discovered a fossil of a giant dinosaur-eating frog in Madagascar,
giving weight to the theory that the island off Africa’s east coast was
once linked to India and South America.
The 70 million-year-old frog, dubbed Beelzebufo (‘the frog
from hell’), is of a kind previously thought only to live in South
America. Weighing 4kg and with a body length of up to 40cm, it had a
squat body, huge head and wide mouth.
Professor Susan Evans, UCL Anatomy & Developmental
Biology, said: “This frog, a relative of today’s Horned toads, would
have been the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs
and a big mouth. If it shared the aggressive temperament and
‘sit-and-wait’ ambush tactics of living Horned toads, it would have
been a formidable predator on small animals. Its diet would most likely
have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it’s
not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or
juvenile dinosaurs.”
The find is also interesting because it sheds new light on a debate about how the earth’s land masses used to be arranged.
Professor Evans continued: “Our discovery of a frog
strikingly different from today’s Madagascan frogs, and akin to the
Horned toads previously considered endemic to South America, lends
weight to the controversial paleobiogeographical model suggesting that
Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South America were linked well
into the Late Cretaceous. It also suggests that the initial spread of
such beasts began earlier than that proposed by recent estimates.”
The discovery, published in the journal ‘Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences’, adds a new species to Madagascar’s
colourful evolutionary history, which includes meat-eating dinosaurs,
plant-eating crocodiles and giant snakes.
To find out more, follow the links at the top of this article.
"The pursuit of science in an open society has played a large role in
the policies that keep us safe and healthy and protect our environment.
In recent years, however, the manipulation, suppression, and distortion
of federal government science has misinformed the public and led to
poor policy decisions. On February 14, 2008, a group of prominent scientists called on the
U.S. government to establish conditions that would enable federal
scientists to produce the scientific knowledge that is needed by a
government dedicated to the public good. In an accompanying report,
UCS details specific steps that Congress and the administration can
take to restore scientific integrity to federal policy making. The
report also explores how science has been misused, with a special focus
on systemic changes that hamper federal scientific capacity and make it
more difficult for federal agencies like the EPA, FDA, and CDC to
fulfill their missions. The next president and Congress will face increasingly complex
scientific and technical challenges. They have an historic opportunity
codify the scientific freedoms needed for federal science to flourish.
We are working to give them the tools to make this a reality." _______________________________________________________________________
Scientific Freedom and the Public Good February 14, 2008
Scientific knowledge and its successful applications have played a
large role in making the United States of America a powerful nation and
its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy. The challenges that
face the United States in the twenty-first century can only be met if
this tradition is honored and sustained.
To that end, the U.S. government must adhere to high standards of
scientific integrity in forming and implementing its policies. Breaches
of this principle have damaged the public good and the international
leadership of the United States. To meet its obligation to serve the
public interest, the government must have reliable scientific work and
advice at its disposal, and provide the public with reliable scientific
information. This requires the government to provide federal scientists
with the resources and the professional environment necessary to carry
out their missions effectively and honestly. The government should also
draw on the knowledge of federal scientists and of the larger
scientific community to formulate public policy in an objective and
transparent manner.
Scientists employed by government institutions commit themselves to
serve the public good free from undisclosed conflicts of interest and
to carry out science that is reliable and useful, while respecting
statutory limitations such as national security laws. Therefore,
government scientists should, without fear of reprisal or retaliation,
have the freedom:
to conduct their work without political or private-sector interference;
to candidly communicate their findings to Congress, the public, and their scientific peers;
to publish their work and to participate fully in the scientific community;
to disclose misrepresentation, censorship, and other abuses of science; and
to have their technical work evaluated by scientific peers.
We call on Congress and the executive branch to codify these
freedoms, to establish stronger means for gathering scientific advice,
and to take concrete steps to enhance transparency, so as to create
conditions conducive to a thriving scientific enterprise that will
serve our democracy with integrity and bring the full fruits of science
to all Americans and to the world.
Those nutjob disciples of repressed homosexual Fred Phelps over at the Westboro Baptist Cult have announced that they intend to protest at the funerals of the NIU victims. Life truly is stranger than fiction.
One of my favorite bloggers pontificates on one of my favorite subjects. Now, if only I was a hot 20 something lesbian instead of a 40 something male nerd.... I know, it may seem a bit weird for an unrepentant atheist to be plugging a blog written by a self-proclaimed Catholic... ah, hell, just click on the link.
The Red Elvises: Everyone's favorite Russian band
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