What kind of funeral should one as a semi rational person insist on? My immediate reflexive answer is “don’t give a something, stuff me in the thrash chute if you must”. However, a burial or cremation is not about the deceased but about those left behind. I thought something up, but before writing a post, one better searches the internet - surely somebody has covered this already much better.

What I found searching for “Atheist Funeral” and similar however was a bunch of crap, like replacing religious themes with 'spiritual' ones. Toss the bible out to roll the crystal ball in – great.

PHILADELPHIA, April 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire plc today announced positive results from a signal-finding study of Vyvanse(R) (lisdexamfetamine dimesylate) Capsules (CII) assessing its effect in a prospective examination of adults with negative symptom predominant schizophrenia. This study met its pre-defined primary end points. Vyvanse is a prescription medicine currently approved in the US, Canada, and Brazil for the treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Vyvanse should only be used to treat ADHD. 

CLEVELAND, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Simbionix USA Corporation has announced its new training simulator for pelvic floor repair, to be exposed for the first time at the ACOG 59th Annual Clinical Meeting in Washington, DC, April 30- May 4, 2011. 

CRAWLEY, England, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- As image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) techniques have enhanced radiotherapy precision, Elekta continues working to decrease treatment session times through automated IGRT tools. Odense University Hospital (OUH, Odense, Denmark) clinicians are the first in the world to use a 3D seed matching feature of Elekta's Intuity(TM) IGRT package. The software quickly and automatically pinpoints the position of gold seeds that doctors implant in the prostate to confirm the organ's position before each treatment.

3D detection provides boost to proven gold seed method

Little is known of the ancestry of Africans captured and transported by Europeans and Arabs during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.   A new website launched at Emory University this week,  African-Origins, provides some of the identities of Africans aboard early nineteenth-century slaving vessels.  This information might make it possible to trace the the origins of Africans forcibly transported to North America before President Thomas Jefferson signed the law banning importation of slaves in 1807, and to other countries well after that.   Public participation will be critical to piecing together the missing history.   

I have once before put down some thoughts about computing devices and the situation for scientific use of computer technology, hoping to get some response and start some fruitful discussion. It remained with the hopes, some comments appeared there, but not really in the direction I think is important.

In his recent blog post "The World Is Not Woven From Real Stuff", Sascha Vongehr wrote:

Some merely claim that we need quantum mechanics so that the electron does not fall into the atom’s nucleus. Any classical electric charge would spiral into the atom's nucleus. The material that they make up would collapse.... Well, how convincing is this argument? Does it convince you? It would not convince me without a severe dose of already knowing at least a bunch of electromagnetism. Why could there not be some other, more intuitive explanation of why atoms do not collapse?

The last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour will be both manned and squidded.

If you are in science and you have heard the name Paul Feyerabend, it is likely because you have heard the term "post-modernist" and, if you know about post-modernism, you likely do not think much of deconstructionist silliness like that evolution and creationism are both 'cultural traditions' because sociology and psychology play a role in how science is done.

Last night on PBS's NewsHour, Robert MacNeil answered viewers' questions.

ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, perhaps he's right.
We tried to concentrate on what we thought were urgent issues, urgent problems. And a lot of adults with autism, particularly those who describe themselves as a kind of neurodiversity community, are high-functioning people with autism, who have busy and productive lives in the world, who serve a wonderful purpose of helping the community at large to understand and witness autism and be tolerant of it.