Honestly, media. *polishes obnoxious academic spectacles* Is it really that difficult to comprehend the difference between "inseminate" and "impregnate"?

On Thursday I reported that a woman's mouth had been inseminated by a squid she was eating. To be specific, squid spermatophores (packages of sperm) implanted themselves into her mucus membranes, and had to be removed by a doctor.

For about a day I had been trying to read Real Clear Science, particularly the article linked Evolution Debate: Blame Atheists.  Alas, every time I visited the site I got a message:

This site is temporarily down and we are working on restoring service. Sorry for the inconvenience.

It’s now back up, but in the interim I have taken the opportunity, since I run on OScar from Sesame Street Systems, to have a Grouch.  Fear not, North Americans, it is directed at my fellow Brits.

This November, Californians will vote on an initiative that would require any food containing ingredients derived from genetically modified crops to be labeled as such.

Backers of the “California Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act” are pitching it as a matter of providing information to consumers, who, they argue, “have a right to know what’s in the food we buy and eat and feed our children, just as we have the right to know how many calories are in our food, or whether food comes from other countries like Mexico or China.”

Too often we see the "anti-science" label being tossed around and invariably we get behind our respective barricades and prepare for the barrage of arguments thrown at each side.

However, the question we should be asking is why a different point of view should automatically be considered "anti-science".  After all, how is "anti-science" even manifest?  Is it simply the denial of facts?  Is it simply the denial of research?

I suppose that any of those might be sufficient to consider someone anti-science, yet for people to have an opposing opinion, doesn't it suggest that exactly the opposite has occurred?  That they have facts and research.  They simply don't agree with each other.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s rumored retreat on fracking shows just how powerful an anti-science, fear-based campaign can be. If reports are correct, Cuomo will restrict fracking to a few counties in which gas shale is far below the water table, and allow a veto to localities that are dominated by anti-fracking radicals. It's all in the name of ensuring the safety of drinking water, he purportedly believes--or protecting his political base.

Cuomo's decision validates the anti-frackers’ “study it to death” strategy. Their goal is to create the illusion that horizontal fracturing pollutes drinking water — even though the Environmental Protection Agency has publicly (if reluctantly) acknowledged that there is not one documented case of such pollution.

A Mojave rocket company, an asteroid hunter, and a web pundit walk into a conference.  The badge person says, "what is this some kind of joke?"

Okay, we gotta get to space somehow.  Here's what's new in the private space race industry.  What ties these 4 newsbits together is it's all about having fun.

SatMagazine (March 2012) reports

It sounds like a child’s question: can you generate solar power underwater? The answer, according to Phillip Jenkins and his team at the US Naval Research Laboratory, is yes. The researchers recently demonstrated a method for harvesting solar power underwater at depths of 30 feet.

Currently, the only option for underwater energy is batteries, which shortens the amount of time an underwater system can be powered. Having a source of renewable energy underwater opens up the possibility for long-term installations of autonomous systems, including systems for communication, environmental monitoring and networks of sensors.

In the giant 'Europeans are far more anti-science than Americans' file, we can now add another section on racism.

Science can use genetic testing to understand risk factors - some groups have a greater risk than others - but that means interested groups can also do other things with the results.  Europe is terrifically racist, you will never hear a racial slur, much less a stadium-wide chant, at an American sporting event but you are guaranteed to have them at the EURO CUP 2012 tournament. Western Europe is at least trying to drive it out and all those 'end racism' banners are a puzzle to western football viewers but at least they care.

Yet now racists have a new weapon; genetics.

I'm here today to talk about a very strange paper: Penetration of the oral mucosa by parasite-like sperm bags of squid: a case report in a Korean woman.

This study, published in February in the Journal of Parasitology (?!), presents the tale of a woman eating squid who experienced "severe pain" and a "pricking, foreign-body sensation" in her mouth. A doctor found and removed "twelve small, white spindle-shaped, bug-like organisms" from her tongue, cheek, and gums.

So a young earth creationist museum put some dinosaurs in its advertising.  Ho-hum.

While the atheist panic machine lumbers into action once again - after all, kids like dinosaurs, what if they go and learn not to steal and stuff while they are there? - there really isn't much to worry about if you are not in the panic business.