There are twenty-four elementary fermions in the standard model. Sure, they are arranged in a very tidy, symmetrical structure of three families of eight fermions (two leptons and six quarks), which is not too unpleasant to behold. And of course, if one is willing to forget the fact that the quantum-chromodynamical charge of quarks does make them different, then the picture is even tidier: 12 fermions, six of them quarks and six of them leptons, arranged in three families of four.

Attending the AAAS symposia on "Facing the Uncertain Future of International Science Journalism" I was stunned by something:   I am the most hated guy in every room I walk into.

What to look for in the next decade, as far as squid are concerned? Certainly new species will be discovered and described. Fisheries will probably spring up for species that have never been fished before. These will boom, and probably bust.

But the real question on everyone's mind: will we have a giant squid in an aquarium by 2020?

I don't know about you but, personally, I can't get enough of giant squids: great Routemaster-sized carnivores with bone-snapping beaks, eyes the size of dinner plates and churning tentacles.

A Personal Belief Tester : Batteries Not Included



We all have our personal beliefs; it's a part of being human.  Mostly, we can believe just about anything we want at a purely philosophical level.  But when we interact with others and with our environment, our beliefs may well cause harm to us, to others or to our environment.

Did music evolve before language?  It's not a trivial idea and there has been debate about it since literally the days of Darwin - Sir Charles himself proposed the notion in "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex" that a 'musical protolanguage' model could mean that music came before language.

The FBI yesterday released a 104-page report laying out its case the the 2001 anthrax attacks were committed by a US Army bioweapons researcher, Dr. Bruce Ivans. Some are arguing that this report isn't conclusive and that the FBI is closing the case prematurely. I can't speak to that, at least in any informed way, but if the FBI is correct, you've got a chilling, classic evil scientist scenario:

Doctors can now understand better chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), including how it responds to therapy, thanks to a new mathematical model for the disease developed by scientists in Portugal, Belgium and the United States. The work, to be published in the June edition of the journal Haematologica, also reveals that current therapies – which are not believed to cure CML – with the right protocol can actually get rid of the disease, and provides guidelines on how to do that. CML although rare, because of effective life-extending therapies, is now one of the most common leukaemias in the world

Assorted creationists claim variously that creation theories are falsifiable and that evolutionary theories are not falsifiable. Here, I want to quickly point out a few flaws that I see in their arguments. I will discuss these issues in a more general manner in another post that I am currently writing.

Creationism is falsifiable: This essay from the Discovery Institute provides two arguments, neither of which are satisfying.