PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

THE SCIENCE

of the five second rule. (via Betsy).

MISSING GAS

EXPLAINED. Global warming assumptions off by a margin of 50%.

THE SCIENCE

of personal space:

This so-called peripersonal space extends to arm's length; people with longer arms have a bigger peripersonal space. And when they use a tool, a rake, a joystick or an automobile, their body schema and peripersonal space expand to include it. Moreover, perceptions change as the body schema changes in response to outside stimuli. A hill looks steeper when you wear a backpack than when you do not.

LOS ALAMOS --

all operations SUSPENDED. Perhaps the U. of California will finally be removed from an assignment the institution is no longer qualified to manage.

Scientists identify Sun as cause of Global Warming.

"Looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years. Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer. The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer. "

MORE BBC -- "Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high".

Global de-magnification.

Environmentalists blame American businesses and consumers -- also call for massive increases in the size of the U.S. government. Whoops. Not yet. Here's the real story.

I've met the man.

Legendary Darwinian biologist Ernst Mayr is 100. In my estimation Mayr is perhaps the greatest Darwinian biologist of all time. Has anyone put the major components of the theory together in a more coherent explanatory framework? Hhhmmm. Let me think. Well, actually, no.

And don't miss Mayr on "80 Years of Watching the Evolutionary Scenery".

Here are some of my favorite books by Ernst Mayr:

One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought.

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance.

This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World.

What Evolution Is.

And forthcoming(!): What Makes Biology Unique? : Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline.

Amazing.

Meteor turns night to day. Click on links to see security camera videos capturing the remarkable.

Dim and dimmer.

Scientists now say we're suffering from global dimming. What will researchers say tomorrow? Stay tuned.

New Global Threat.

Prepare for the new environmental threat of Global Brightening.

The doggie genome project.

"The researchers sorted the 85 breeds into four major groups, based on genetic similarities. Three groups turned out to share physical characteristics, geographic origins or uses: guarding, herding and hunting. The fourth group consisted of ancient breeds that showed close genetic relationship to wolves .. Most of the 85 breeds fell into the hunting, herding or guarding groups and were created primarily in Europe or North America in the past 200 years to conform with the concept of purebred dogs, defined by appearance, behavior and closed gene pools, the researchers said. The oldest breeds tend to be most distinct, while the more recent creations, like retrievers, setters, pointers and hounds in the hunting group, are less well-defined genetically .. Because most breeds come from mixed ancestral stock, the differences among them result mainly from reproductive isolation, reliance on a limited number of "founders" and inbreeding to fix desired traits, Dr. Ostrander said. The breeding practices have also left many purebred dogs susceptible to one or more of 350 genetic diseases. The "ancient" group includes 14 geographically diverse breeds that are not usually grouped together, including the Asian chow chow, Shar-Pei, Shih Tzu, Pekingese, Tibetan terrier, Akita and Shiba Inu; the African basenji; the Middle Eastern Saluki; and the Siberian husky and Alaskan malamute. MORE "Collie or Pug? Study Finds the Genetic Code".

Science genius Arnold Beckmen dead at 104.

The passing of a pioneer.

Inventor, chemist and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman died Tuesday. He was 104.

� Invented or improved: A pH meter that measured acidity and alkalinity, aiding development of soaps, paints and foods; the DU spectrophotometer, a tool that advanced the study of penicillin; oxygen analyzers for submarines, airplanes and infant incubators.

ARNOLD O. BECKMAN'S SEVEN RULES FOR LIVING 1. Absolute integrity in everything. 2. There is no satisfactory substitute for excellence. 3. Moderation in everything, including moderation. 4. Hire the best people, then get out of their way. 5. Don't be afraid of making mistakes; if you're not making mistakes, you're probably not doing very much. 6. Acquire new knowledge and always ask 'why.' 7. Don't take yourself too seriously.

"Arnold O. Beckman of Corona del Mar, the genteel son of a blacksmith who gave away $400 million of the fortune he made inventing and making instruments that revolutionized science and medicine, has died at 104. Beckman died at 5:15 a.m. Tuesday at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, where he lived for the past 15 months, said his daughter, Pat Beckman. His death culminates the life of one of the 20th century's most influential inventors and philanthropists - a man whose favorite word was "why" and who spent countless hours sitting behind a desk bearing a plaque that said, in big but unimposing letters, "THINK." Beckman and the company he formed created laboratory instruments and analytical tools that were so fast, precise and easy to use they led to everything from enriched foods for soldiers during World War II to oxygen analyzers that greatly decreased blindness among babies placed in incubators. The pensive chemist - a "meat and potatoes" guy from the Midwest - also helped advance military and civilian radar, explain the structure of penicillin, and hasten the search for molecules that might be used in drugs to better fight AIDS and many types of cancer. IN HIS OWN WORDS "I gave Einstein a ride once. Seemed like a nice person." "Unfortunately, scientific discovery, once the pride of our nation, is now relegated to the back pages of the dailies. How do we rekindle the flames of discovery?" (His answer: philanthropy.) "Today's children need fewer electronic games and more eclectic imagination. In other words, less Nintendo and more Newton." Much of the work was done at Beckman Instruments in Fullerton, one of Orange County's first high-technology companies and the firm that brought him such great wealth he almost seemed embarrassed by it. "I want to give all of my money away before I die," Beckman told The Orange County Register in 1985, more than six decades after he helped pay his way through college by playing piano at silent-movie houses. "He was one of the last great Renaissance men born in the 20th century," said biologist Michael Berns, co-founder of the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine. "Dr. Beckman was a gentleman of great intellect and integrity with far-reaching interests that he pursued with a sense of humor. He was always telling people, 'Don't take life too seriously.' " Beckman's humor was soft and subtle. A few days before he turned 100, he was asked by a reporter what he thought about most in the twilight of life. "What time do we eat?" Beckman quipped with a wink. Arnold Orville Beckman was born April 10, 1900, in Cullom, Ill., a farming community southwest of Chicago where life was simple and isolated. Movie theaters had yet to debut. Television was decades away. Cullom had more horses than cars, which provided work for his father, George, one of four blacksmiths in town. George Beckman taught the craft to his son, who helped his father attach metal strips to wagon wheels and extended his expertise beyond horses. By 9, Arnold Beckman was building his own toys. "In Cullom, we were forced to improvise. I think it was a very good thing," he told a biographer. When he was 10, Beckman went rummaging through an attic and found a dog-eared copy of "Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry," a textbook filled with practical experiments. He soon converted an old shed into a laboratory where he performed crude experiments that fused the worlds of chemistry and electricity - something that would later help him develop sophisticated instruments for use in chemistry and biology. Beckman earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Illinois in four years, then headed west to Caltech, where he earned a doctorate in chemistry after toiling in a department that has produced five Nobel Prize winners, including his friend the late Linus Pauling. He was asked to stay on and teach, which he did, for $250 a month. But he also set up a lab off-campus where he could pursue privately-supported interests. It was in that little lab that he created a revolutionary pH meter that made it quick and easy to measure the acidity and alkalinity of citrus. The meter was the first of many instruments that would have a direct impact on human welfare. Beckman and his company played a role in the creation of a polio vaccine and made it possible for emergency-room doctors to quickly detect kidney and pancreatic failure. His tools also helped enrich the diet of soldiers and sailors, let submariners analyze the dank air they were breathing, and contributed to pioneering smog studies in greater Los Angeles in the 1950s and '60s. One of his chromatographs analyzed gas on Mars. Another instrument measured the brain waves of Gemini astronauts. Beckman loved the creative process. But he allowed his company to merge with SmithKline Corp. in 1982 in a deal worth a reported $1 billion. About half of that money went to Beckman and his wife, Mabel. The merger made the couple among the richest people in California and gave birth to a second career for Arnold Beckman: philanthropy. There were times when the self-effacing chemist would wander the breezeways of his seaside home in Corona del Mar, pondering which projects to support. The Beckman donations span the fields of science, medicine and education. The University of California, Irvine, is home to one of five major research centers that Beckman's money funded. Institutions in Orange County have received about $40 million of the largesse. Beckman originally intended to give all of his money away. But he changed his mind after Mabel died in 1989. The Beckman Foundation, using investments, will operate in perpetuity. "It's fair to say that, considered in its totality, the results of his remarkable philanthropy have played a substantial part in enabling the United States to lead the world in science and technology," said Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences."

Arnold Beckman: Key dates 1910 Reads "14 Weeks of Chemistry," decides to become a chemist. 1918 Graduates high school, joins U.S. Marines, meets Mabel Meinzer, whom he marries in 1925. 1922 Receives bachelor's degree from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Earns master's degree one year later. 1928 Earns doctorate at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 1935 Invents pH meter. Founds National Technical Laboratory South Pasadena, renamed Beckman Instruments in 1950. 1940 Invents helipot, a device instrumental in radar. 1942 Develops personal radiation dosimeter for Manhattan Project. 1943 Develops oxygen analyzer for submarines, airplanes and incubators. 1954 Beckman Instruments moves to Fullerton. 1978 Establishes Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. 1982 Beckman Instruments merges with SmithKline Corp. in $1 billion deal. 2004 Dies May 18, at 104, at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla.

More on Beckman.

What can we do about

Global Dimming? Of course, all this is more bad news for "global warming" crackpots.

Science & technology - America's lost edge.

"The United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation, according to federal and private experts who point to strong evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the number of papers in major professional journals .. ". MORE "U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences".

R.I.P.

Biologist John Maynard Smith has died.

Climate change "science" -- not yet finished, not yet sound.

"[recent work exposes the] shakiness of the three main arguments which comprise the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) case for a human influence on climate change.

Argument one asserts that ground-based temperature measurements have been corrected adequately for environmental effects, including especially the urban "heat island" effect, and that the pattern of global change in temperature which results -- about a 0.60 C increase over the last 100 years -- is likely to have a human cause. In actuality, that part of the claimed increase in temperature which occurred over the last 20 years is contradicted by two alternative measurements of atmospheric temperature made from weather balloons and satellites, the patterns of which agree with each other and show little or no long-term trend of temperature change. At the very least, this discrepancy casts doubt on the adequacy of the heat island correction which has been made to the records.

Argument two, after papers by statistician Michael Mann and co-authors, asserts that both the peak magnitude and the rate of temperature increase over the last 100 years are exceptional by comparison with the preceding 900 years. But recent published papers by other scientists have demolished this argument and shown that Mann's work is statistically unsound; both its historical analysis and its projected peak of warming at the recent turn of the century are now known to be flawed. And anyway, irrespective of recondite statistical arguments, many earlier published geological studies show that the rate and magnitude of climate change over historic times lies within the envelope of natural variation.

The third IPCC argument rests upon complex computer models which attempt to predict the rate of warming for the increasing rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through to the year 2100. However, these models are unable to simulate 20th century climatic history accurately, and also fail when tested against the last 20 years of accurate data from satellites and weather balloons. A primary reason for the mismatches is probably that the computer models assume an unrealistically high temperature sensitivity for atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation.

The flaws in these three IPCC arguments are cumulatively fatal. But, in addition, it has become increasingly apparent lately that the 1,000-year interval which is the context for most IPCC advice and analysis is a completely inadequate period over which to assess global climate change. The focus of discussion, therefore, is shifting away from the short-term mechanisms studied by meteorologists and climatologists, to attending more to the knowledge base for climate change which exists in the geological record over tens and hundreds of thousands of years .. ". More "Climate Change: A Longer View".

Girls smarter than boys.

Young females learn skills earlier, spend more time studying and do complex tasks better than young males .. More on "Young Female Chimps Outsmart Males".

PNW Salmon.

Wild run vs. Hatchery Salmon and Endangered Species Act

Packing Oranges -- Kepler's Conjecture Proved.

Or is it? "A proof is sometimes a fuzzy concept, subject to whim and personality. Almost no published proof contains every step; there are just too many . .". more NYTimes -- "In Math, Computers Don't Lie. Or Do They?"..

Science & Politics.

The NY Times describes the leftist Union of Concerned Scientists as a mere "advocacy group" in a story on the Bush science team's point by point refutation of the UCS's recent partisan attack on the administation. By this definitional logic, we should stop referring to the Times as a left leaning newspaper and begin referring to it as "advocacy group".

Love Bugs.

After 16 years sucking roots, now it's time to mate. And billions of periodical cicadas -- those that didn't get squished or eaten -- will do just that across the Eastern United States. Quotable: "Up to two inches long, periodical cicadas can sound like 'hamburger meat hitting a hot skillet'."

Rats.

Humans share 90% of their genes with the Norway rat.

NY Times vs. Union of Concerned Scientists.

In a stunning turnaround the NY Times has published remarks critical of the Union of Concerned Scientists and its report on the President. The remarks come at the end of a piece on Bush science advisor John Marburger, who is described at the beginning of the the article as "a prostitute" by Harvard professor Howard Gardner.

Explaining Mars.

Positive and negative feedback explain the spiral icecaps of Mars.

As Seen on The Simpsons.

Get ready for genetically modified fish.

"Global Warming" - A Long Way from "Put-A-Fork-In-It" Science.

NY Times Headline: "Study Disputes Idea on Global Warming".

Beer bubbles.

It turns out you weren't simply drunk and seeing odd things in your pint of Guinness.

Sedna.

Make that 10 planets.

Evolution.

Of cornets and biological design -- an NY Times profile of Darwinian biologist Niles Eldredge.

Coin Flip.

"In the theory of probability, fair coin flips are the fundamental particles of randomness .. At least it seemed that way. But renowned statistician Persi Diaconis has locked the fair coin flip in the ivory tower of abstraction, forever. It started years ago with his demonstration that he can flip a coin so that it comes up heads at will .. Then he built a coin-flipping machine and showed that, when flipped the same way, coins always land on the same side ..". more SIGNAL + NOISE. (via MR)

Torts & the Corruption of Science. The lead scientist responsible for scientific study linking autism to vaccinations turns out to have been in bed with tort attorneys hoping to cash in on victims of autism. Ten of the 13 authors of that report have now retracted earlier claims, "We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism.". The study provoked a sharp drop in in the number of children getting vaccinations in Britain -- and with that a corresponding sharp rise in measles outbreaks. What to say?

Science. NY Times profile of science writer Brian Greene.

Science. Historians now agree. It was theory before practice -- even in the ancient world. For example, the ancient science of the catapult.

Science. The science of astronomy is suddenly getting very interesting -- Einstein's "greatest blunder" proves no blunder and the cosmos biggest objects are radically out of step with the prevailing theory. Cool.

Science. The Leftist Union of Concerned Scientists is accusing the Bush Administration of distorting scientific facts. For more on the Union of Concerned Scientists go here and here. Spin Watch -- the NY Times characterizes the UCS as "an independent organization" that "focuses on technical issues" rather than what it is -- a reliably Leftist anti-military & hug the trees environmentist organization with roots in Hard Left of the 1960s.

10 billion trillion trillion carats -- bling bling for the ages.

How cold is cold? The science of wind chill.

Chemical weapons found. Quotable:

The female of one firefly species that doesn't naturally produce toxic substances lures males of a species that does by faking the frequency of its mating signal and then, when a male shows up with romance in mind, quickly kills and eats him, acquiring both dinner and immunity from attack.

A review of For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner.

Got to love this:

Researchers at Oxford spent 10 years studying homing pigeons using GPS and were stunned to find the birds often don't navigate by taking bearing from the sun. Instead they fly along motorways, turn at junctions and even go around roundabouts, adding miles to their journeys ..

Once there were giants -- huge insects dominating the earth. Why then and not now? How can you not love science?

Be the first on your block to own genetically engineered "GloFish" .

James Schlesinger on the cold facts of Global Warming. Quotable:

What we know for sure is quite limited. For example, we know that since the early 1900s, the Earth's surface temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit. We also know that carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, has been increasing in the atmosphere. And we know that the theory that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide will lead to further warming is at least an oversimplification. It is inconsistent with the fact that satellite measurements over 35 years show no significant warming in the lower atmosphere, which is an essential part of the global-warming theory.

Much of the warming in the 20th century happened from 1900 to 1940. That warming was followed by atmospheric cooling from 1940 to around 1975. During that period, frost damaged crops in the Midwest during summer months, and glaciers in Europe advanced. This happened despite the rise in greenhouse gases. These facts, too, are not in dispute.

And that's just our recent past. Taking a longer view of climate history deepens our perspective. For example, during what's known as the Climatic Optimum of the early Middle Ages, the Earth's temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees warmer than they are today. That period was succeeded by the Little Ice Age, which lasted until the early 19th century. Neither of these climate periods had anything to do with man-made greenhouse gases.

The lessons of our recent history and of this longer history are clear: It is not possible to know now how much of the warming over the last 100 or so years was caused by human activities and how much was because of natural forces. Acknowledging that we know too little about a system as complicated as the planet's climate is not a sign of neglect by policymakers or the scientific community. Indeed, admitting that there is much we do not know is the first step to greater understanding.

Meanwhile, it is important that we not be unduly influenced by political rhetoric and scare tactics ...

All the way to Mars?

This pretty much looks like the view out the back of the house I grew up in as a kid. Are they really sure NASA didn't accidently crashland the Mars rover somewhere on the outskirts of Richland Washington?

Physicists are using new methods for studying the Strong Force.

A computer programmer for Chicago Rawhide of Elgin, Ill. confirms Archimedes' solution to his -- until now -- long lost tiling puzzle treatise.

Elliott Sober -- are evolutionary patterns inevitable?

The 25 most provocative questions facing science -- the NY Times. From question #18, quotable:

Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard paleontologist, crystallized the question in his book "Wonderful Life." What would happen, he asked, if the tape of the history of life were rewound and replayed? For many, including Dr. Gould, the answer was clear. He wrote that "any replay of the tape would lead evolution down a pathway radically different from the road actually taken."

In fact, to many scientists, it would seem impossible to re-evolve anything like life on earth today, given how life has been shaped by accidents large and small.

But 12 flasks of bacteria in East Lansing, Mich., are beginning to challenge such notions. In 1988, Dr. Lenski and his colleagues set up a dozen genetically identical populations of E. coli bacteria in bottles of broth and have followed their evolutionary fates.

Now, more than 30,000 bacterial generations later, Dr. Lenski and colleagues have what is becoming one of the most striking examples of repeatability yet. All 12 populations show the same patterns of improvement in their ability to compete in a bottle and increases in cell size. All 12 have also lost their ability to break down and use a sugar, called ribose.

More surprising, many genetic changes underlying these adaptations are very similar. Every population, for example, lost its ability to break down ribose by losing a long stretch of DNA from the same gene.

Other scientists studying cichlid fish have observed how the same varieties of cichlids evolve anew every time they invade a new lake. And Dr. Rieseberg and colleagues have found evidence that evolution can repeatedly produce the same species.

These scientists found that one sunflower species on sand dunes has evolved independently three separate times. And each time one of the species newly evolves, genetically it appears to turn out much the same. "With these species, there seems to be only one way to do it," Dr. Rieseberg said.

Some scientists, like Dr. Simon Conway Morris, a paleobiologist at the University of Cambridge and ardent critic of Dr. Gould's view, say the evidence for repeatability is rampant. He argues in his new book, "Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe," that some features are so adaptive that they are essentially inevitable � like the ability to see and, as his title suggests, the intelligence and self-awareness that are the hallmarks of humanity.

And note well question #9 -- "When will the next Ice Age Begin?"

Does organic food cause cancer? It does in the UK.

Brian Greene discusses String Theory with Scientific American.

Here's PBS's "The Elegant Universe" web site with lots of great stuff on string theory, including a section from Brian Greene's original book.

Earthworms -- non-indigenous invaders destructive to native American ecosystems. Who would have thunk?

Brian Greene explains string theory beginning Tuesday on PBS.

Santorini volcanic explosion of 1645 B.C. -- now considered far worse than Krakatoa, almost certainly the most powerful volcanic explosion in the last 10,000 years. Bye bye Atlantis -- and bye bye Minoan civilization.

Freeman Dyson reviews Einstein's Clocks, Poincar�'s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison.

Mars will make its closest approach to earth in 60,000 years this August 27. Quotable:

"Mars you can't miss, it's bright and red" -- Myles Standish, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Murray Gell-Mann tells his story.

Happy as a pig?

A profile of Peter Galison and his forthcoming book on the problem of the synchronization of distant clocks. Oh, and something about Einstein and Poincar� ...

Good news for so many of my high school classmates, all those years ago. It turns out there hasn't been permanent brain damage.

The key to brain differences between chimps and human comes down to regulator genes, not brain making genes, researchers believe. And then there is FOXP2:

a team of researchers at Oxford University showed that this language disorder is due to a mutation in a single gene called FOXP2. But perhaps even more impressive was a molecular analysis of the gene, again undertaken by Wolfgang Enard and colleagues. When they compared the FOXP2 sequence between humans and chimpanzees, they found that the human form differed from the chimpanzee's by a single mutation that was dated to about 200,000 years ago. This is the time when language is thought to have arisen.

Atomic level "tuning" achieved at Oak Ridge in nano breakthrough. Money quote:

The physicists' sophisticated experiments demonstrated that the Schottky barrier � the boundary at the edge of a substance where electrons are confined, long considered an inflexible limitation � can in fact be manipulated, and that "barrier height" is, in Buongiorno Nardelli's words, "no longer a problem, but an opportunity."

Hydrogen fuel: "bad for the earth" -- or cure for global warming?

Have they found our most direct human ancestors? If so, it adds still more support for the out of Africa thesis. The original Nature article is here.

Global Warming -- it was a good thing:

the warmest, or most extreme, climate for those locations over approximately the last 1000 years tended to occur sometime between the 9th and 14th centuries, in what is called the Medieval Warm Period. That period of extreme climate - long before the air's significant increase in greenhouse gas concentration from human activities - must have natural explanations. Whatever they are, the consequences of the warming, as far as man was concerned, were scarcely dangerous. Vikings made their way to Greenland, Iceland and North America in that period. England had vineyards. H.H. Lamb, the founder of the climatic research unit at East Anglia University, found that England's climate was warm enough in the 12th and 13th Centuries to support more than 50 vineyards, signifying that May frosts were rare. William of Malmesbury noted in De Pontificibus: "No county in England has so many or so good vineyards as this Gloucester." By the 14th Century, that warmth had eroded, heralding a period now known as the Little Ice Age, lasting approximately from 1300 to 1900 C.E. Europe, for example, experienced more acute winters, frost and year-to-year climate variability, and the worst of the Little Ice Age from 1550 to 1700. The human effects were tragic: In Scotland severe weather in seven of the last eight years of the 18th century produced one of Scotland's deadliest famines of the last 1000 years.

The Sloan Foundation has lanched a new program on the limits to knowledge. (One of my own specialties. See my paper Insuperable Limits to Reduction in Biology.) Worth quoting:

"A hundred years ago it seemed we could measure nature more and more precisely, and that there were no limits on our knowledge," says physicist Piet Hut of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. But the last century also brought the first hints of fundamental, inherent limits on the knowable .. "We grow up thinking more is known than actually is," says Ralph Gomory, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Because that belief can trigger misconceptions about the natural world, Mr. Gomory launched the foundation's program in Limits to Knowledge. "It's hard to get researchers interested in the question of what's unknowable, since they are much more oriented to pushing the frontiers of knowledge." In genetics, for instance, it's becoming clear that knowing the entire genome of an organism will still not tell you all of the creature's physical traits. "I am asking where the rest of the information is," says Prof. David Thaler of Rockefeller University in New York City. "For now, we don't have any way even to quantify what fraction of all you'd like to know about an organism is in its genome."

To understand some of the reason why, read my paper. Odd thing, the article fails to mention the three body problem.

Ilya Prigogine is dead.

Nick Schulz (see above) reviews The New Atlantis: A Journal of Science and Technology. Snippet:

As Levin notes, taboos like incest "all seem to revolve around the avoidance of a deep violation or corruption. � Its rationale is not generally laid out in detail." But in today's modern liberal society, when men and women are "free to choose" (in Milton Friedman's immortal phrase), and when concrete "reasons" usually must be articulated to justify prohibiting free people from doing as they wish, an appeal to a vague sense of "corruption or violation" usually isn't enough. Corrupting or violating whom? And when "rationales" generally aren't "laid out in detail", it's difficult to articulate them in 20-second sound bites on The O'Reilly Factor, or in a sentence (as Rick Santorum discovered) to an AP reporter, or even in a speech before a hostile congressional committee.

"Modern liberal democracy," Levin writes, "� prides itself on its ability and willingness to discuss all public questions openly, and lay them out fully for debate before the democratic citizen. Modern democracy may have a greater sense than any of its predecessors of the importance of separating private and public affairs, but everything deemed public is, at least in principle, fully discussed and exposed. For good and bad, very few things are left implicit or unspoken in the life of a liberal democracy."

Conservatives' most effective emotional, intellectual and rhetorical weapons often take the form of appeals to tradition, to the sacred, to moral sensibilities over cold reasons, to inchoate senses of right and wrong, to the tried and true over the untried and new. Fairly or unfairly, then, political conservatives can be at a distinct disadvantage in defending their views in today's modern liberal democracies that favor the rigor and clarity of concrete reasons over the (by comparison) flabbiness of sentiment or intuition.

As the man says, must reading.

Albert Einstein, now online. Read his original manuscripts, the majority of which have never been published.

Say welcome to a new member of the family, er, genius. Chimps is one of us, not one of them, DNA studies show.

The latest twist in the debate over how much DNA separates humans from chimpanzees suggests we are so closely related that chimps should not only be part of the same taxonomic family, but also the same genus.
The new study found that 99.4 percent of the most critical DNA sites are identical in the corresponding human and chimp genes. With that close a relationship, the two living chimp species belong in the genus Homo, says Morris Goodman of Wayne State University in Detroit .. Traditionally chimps are classified with the other great apes, gorillas and orangutans, in the family Pongidae, separated from the human family Hominidae. Within Hominidae, most paleoanthropologists now class virtually all hominid fossils in three genera, Homo, Australopithecus, or Ardipithecus. On the basis of the new study, Goodman would not only put modern humans and all fossils back to the human-chimp divergence into Homo, but would also include the common chimp (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus).

We made war, not love. The latest on Neanderthal DNA evidence.

This to me sounds like major news. Of course, it's not like it involves an East Coast country club and its lord only knows how old membership policy or anything.