As if Mondays aren't bad enough, I found out today courtesy of my Wall Street Journal RSS feed that perhaps researchers have been mistaken in their calculations of calorie consumption and weight loss. So all of the little steps I was taking really don't add up to the ultimate diet equation?

Well, sort of. The problem is that the formula used for "diet math" - 3,500 calories equals one pound - isn't really all that simple.¹ This rule of thumb works well in the short term, WSJ says, and with small shifts in weight, but the rule breaks down over long periods, because as a person's weight changes, so does the body's energy needs.

Arctic News Or Science Abuse?


As I write these words, media reporters and bloggers are gleefully reporting the recovery of the Arctic ice.

There has been snow in many parts of the northern temperate zone recently, and, predictably, there have been cries of "what happened to global warming?"

It is Spring.  The evidence of global warming is all around for anyone who has eyes to see it.  But there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Propaganda

Evidence that environmental factors can contribute to autism has been around for several decades. The first clue comes from studies of monozygotic (‘identical’) twins, who share 100% of their inherited genes, but do not show complete concordance, i.e., one twin can have autism and the other not, or the two can be extremely different in terms of the severity of their symptoms. These discordant twin-pairs demonstrate that genes alone cannot tell the whole story: environment must explain part of the causal process in the neuropathology of these disorders.

A new study by scientists at the University of Michigan and Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes suggests that the evolution of morphology and physiology are controlled by different genetic mechanisms.

The finding that form and function are shaped by different evolutionary genetic processes can not only aid in future evolutionary studies, but can also be helpful in the study of human disease, the study's authors say.

The research appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A 95-million-year-old amber deposit discovered in ethopia has added 30 arthropods from thirteen families of insects and spiders. The fossils represent some of the earliest African fossil records for a variety of arthropods, including wasps, barklice, moths, beetles, a primitive ant, a rare insect called a zorapteran, and a sheet-web weaving spider.

Parasitic fungi that lived on the resin-bearing trees were also found, as well as filaments of bacteria and the remains of flowering plants and ferns.  In addition, the amber deposit may provide fresh insights into the rise and diversification of flowering plants during the Cretaceous.

The find is documented in a new paper published this week in PNAS.

The drinking habits of the people in your extended social group play a major role in determining how many adult beverages you consume, says researchers writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors suggest this social phenomenon could have implications for clinical and health interventions. Social networks could be used to exploit positive health behaviors and further support group interventions.

Madagascar's radiated tortoise is rapidly nearing extinction due to rampant hunting for its meat and the illegal pet trade. Biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) predict that unless drastic conservation measures take place, the species will be driven to extinction within the next 20 years.

The team's recent field survey in southern Madagascar's spiny forest, revealed that entire regions are devoid of tortoises. Residents also reported that armed bands of poachers had taken away truckloads of tortoises to supply open meat markets in towns such as Beloha and Tsihombe. Poaching camps have been discovered with the remains of thousands of radiated tortoises, and truckloads of tortoise meat have been seized recently.

South Dakota Exempted From Laws of Science


The South Dakota Legislature thinks that scientific laws are made up by people to suit agendas.
Accordingly, they have invented some agendist stuff to make a political declaration that climate change is a myth.  Presumably, any of the good citizens of Dakota who believe this science nonsense about photographic records of ice melting must be deluded.

Now, why does the sub-text remind me of the creationist / I.D. agenda?

Is this what students are learning in South Dakota?

How deluded will the voters be come election time?

-----------------------------

State of South Dakota 

A new review in the Agronomy Journal suggests that crop residue removal from corn, wheat, and grain sorghum may not be the most earth-friendly source of biomass for cellulosic ethanol production. 

The review found that removal of more than 50% of crop residue can have negative consequences on soil structure, reduce soil organic carbon sequestration, increase water erosion, and reduce nutrient cycling and crop production, particularly in erodible and sloping soils.

While most research is focused on the conversion of cellulosic feeedstocks into ethanol and increasing production of biomass, the impacts of growing energy crops and the removal of crop residue on soil and environmental quality have received less attention.

43 percent of people are undecided, reluctant or do not wish to have their organs and tissue donated after their deaths, according to a new survey conducted by Donate Life America.

The results shows an increase in the number of people willing to donate compared to a survey conducted last year, but also suggest that a lot of misinformation still surrounds the issue.