Random Thoughts

An Animal Cruelty Rant

A story in the local newspaper related how a pit bull was turned into the animal shelter after having been found abandoned in a ditch with all of its teeth filed down to the exposed roots, emaciated by starvation (weighing less than 40 pounds), and having ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Nov 15 2009 - 10:33pm

Lunchtime Science Quote

No fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated extermination of its inhabitants.- Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle Read the feed: ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Nov 16 2009 - 1:43pm

3,500-Year-Old Mummies Prove Ancient Origin Of Heart Disease

Heart disease is commonly considered a modern condition, but that may change thanks to research conducted by a collaborative team composed of imaging experts, Egyptologists and preservationists who have discovered evidence of the disease, which causes hear ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 17 2009 - 4:28pm

Reporting As Science

Call it contrarian stubborness, but I believe there remains that print journalism a critical aspect of American society. That said, what's journalism? Matt Bowden, in the October issue of The Atlantic, proposes that we are in a "post-journalistic ...

Article - Rod Rose - Nov 19 2009 - 1:44pm

Policy Experts Face Off Over Poverty Eradication

Many politicians see government welfare as the best way to address the problem of poverty in society. President Barack Obama, for example, recently promised to halve poverty within ten years, and his Republican opponent, John McCain, similarly vowed to mak ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 19 2009 - 5:55pm

Empty Anti-Government Rhetoric

In today's political hotbed of ideological divisions there seems to be no end to the catch phrases that are used to convey some sentiment regarding the evils of government.  A popular bumper-sticker notes " I love my country, but I fear my govern ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Nov 22 2009 - 3:05pm

Global Warming Causes Civil War--And Probably Everything Else, Too

Ignoring all of the likely reasons why Africa may see more civil wars in the future, a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that global warming could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan A ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 23 2009 - 5:30pm

How Do We Weather The Impacts Of Climate Change? Free Trade, Economist Says

While most of the proposals put forth to address climate change so far have called on governments to play a more active role in society, perhaps one of the best things they could do is promote free trade and then get out of the way.  According to research ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 23 2009 - 7:55pm

Oversimplified Macroeconomics Won't End Recession, Economist Says

The recent financial meltdown was perhaps the biggest economic crisis since the great depression, and a team of economists says that current macroeconomic models used to diagnose and treat the causes of the ongoing recession are woefully inadequate. Their ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 24 2009 - 1:12pm

Weird Cephalopod Slang

Today, I learned from the Wall Street Journal that "frying cuttlefish" is Cantonese slang for being fired. As a result, cuttlefish fishing trips are deliberately misnamed squid fishing trips, to avoid the negative associations of losing one' ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Nov 26 2009 - 9:33pm