Kirk Cameron is not a CCOCK

CCOKC - Child Celebrities Opposing Kirk Cameron - watch more funny videos

Just overwhelm them with the data

I've been arguing with folks on facebook a lot lately, because they claim they don't "believe in" climate change. I quickly realized that I don't have to explain the mountain of data from scratch, because there are groups already set up to do this. So, here's the 4th IPCC report on global climate change:

https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/wg1-ar4.html

Sorry single ladies . . .

Our very own resident Bullshitter, Tony, got hitched last weekend. Massive B^3 Congratulations!

Well, this is embarassing . . .

Another great article in the Science Times about the appalling state of biology education in this country.

Pike Brewery "Monks Uncle"

My wife was kind enough to bring me back a few souvenir beers from local breweries in Seattle. One of them was Monks Uncle, a tripel made by Pike. (http://www.pikebrewing.com/beers_PikeMonksUncle.shtml)

Outstanding beer. Great complexity, nice floral aromas and highly drinkable. I'm looking forward to trying more of their products whenever I get a chance to visit.

Life on Arsenic

I was reasonably excited to hear what NASA astrobiologists might have to say today after all the hooplah. As it turns out, it's a pretty neat finding, but not paradigm shifting in the way the blagospore had built it up to be.

Turns out, bacteria grown in an environment with tons of arsenic and very little phosphorus can learn to not only tolerate the arsenic, but to replace some or all of their phosphorus with it.

This is really a pretty cool demonstration of the flexibility of bacteria if it holds up. It is not terribly surprising though. Bacteria are the dominant life form on the planet for a reason: They are incredibly adaptable. Scientists have really only scratched the surface of the bacterial species on earth, most of which have never been successfully cultured in the lab. For that matter, ~90% of the cells in our bodies are non-human cells, mostly bacteria, and we still know very little about those.

I'll probably post a follow up when the results of this study are published. What's been released so far has just been media hype and teasers without any data.

Go read XKCD

Linky

I thought this was a brilliant little summary chart. Of course, he is really good at brilliant little summaries.

(I originally had the original figure posted here, but that felt a little too plagiarized.)