Home

Advertisement

Ink-Stained Fingers [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
dru_plus_spike

[ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ]
[ archive | journal archive ]

I'm not sure what the message is... [Apr. 15th, 2009|06:21 pm]
[Tags|, ]

But this still cracked me up.
linkpost comment

Orthopedic Decapitation [Dec. 22nd, 2008|01:52 pm]
[Tags|, , ]

Double-you, tee, eff. Jordan Taylor was in a car accident that left his skull separated from his neck. And he survived.
According to the doctor who treated him;
"The energy basically made his head lift up off of his neck, and then move forward," explains the pediatric neurosurgeon who saved Jordan's life, Dr. Richard Roberts of Cook Childrens' Medical Center in Fort Worth.
It's called orthopedic decapitation. Jordan's spinal cord remained intact, but his skull separated from his neck.
He can walk, he can talk and he'll be going back to school in January.
I posted this story because we hear so many stories of medical incompetence that I think it's important to remember the amazing good that doctors can accomplish.
Also, I loved that the mother wasn't quoted (At least) as thanking god in the story, but thanking the hospital staff. I always hate when there's some natural disaster and survivors say things like, "It was by the grace of god that I survived." What about the people sitting next to you on the plane? Some compassionate god.
Finally, it's just a terribly morbid story. When this kid gets older he's going to be able to tell everyone that he was decapitated and survived.
link1 comment|post comment

Pop-Sci Book Meme [Sep. 2nd, 2008|12:51 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | curious]

Lifted from PZ Meyers of Pharyngula.
See the book meme that I fail! Bold equals all 4 books that I've read.
Micrographia, Robert Hooke
The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
Never at Rest, Richard Westfall
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman
Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney
The Devil's Doctor, Philip Ball
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Dennis Overbye
Physics for Entertainment, Yakov Perelman
1-2-3 Infinity, George Gamow
The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
Warmth Disperses, Time Passes, Hans Christian von Bayer
Alice in Quantumland, Robert Gilmore
Where Does the Weirdness Go? David Lindley
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
A Force of Nature, Richard Rhodes
Black Holes and Time Warps, Kip Thorne
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
Universal Foam, Sidney Perkowitz
Vermeer's Camera, Philip Steadman
The Code Book, Simon Singh
The Elements of Murder, John Emsley
Soul Made Flesh, Carl Zimmer
Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson
Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, Lisa Jardine
A Matter of Degrees, Gino Segre
The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss
E=mc2, David Bodanis
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold, Tom Shachtman
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin
Warped Passages, Lisa Randall
Apollo's Fire, Michael Sims
Flatland, Edward Abbott
Fermat's Last Theorem, Amir Aczel
Stiff, Mary Roach
Astroturf, M.G. Lord
The Periodic Table, Primo Levi
Longitude, Dava Sobel
The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg
The Mummy Congress, Heather Pringle
The Accelerating Universe, Mario Livio
Math and the Mona Lisa, Bulent Atalay
This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin
The Executioner's Current, Richard Moran
Krakatoa, Simon Winchester
Pythagorus' Trousers, Margaret Wertheim
Neuromancer, William Gibson
The Physics of Superheroes, James Kakalios
The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump, Sandra Hempel
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Katrina Firlik
Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps, Peter Galison
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
Consilience, E.O. Wilson
Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
Fire in the Brain, Ronald K. Siegel
The Life of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris
Storm World, Chris Mooney
The Carbon Age, Eric Roston
The Black Hole Wars, Leonard Susskind
Copenhagen, Michael Frayn
From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne
Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson
Chaos, James Gleick
Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos
The Physics of NASCAR, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais
The meme was created by Jenniffer Oulette of Twisted Physics. PZ sensed a physics bias so he added some bio books;
Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski
Basin and Range, John McPhee
Beak of the Finch, Jonathan Weiner
Chance and Necessity, Jacques Monod
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, Olivia Judson
Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Sean Carroll
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, Carl Zimmer
Genome, Matt Ridley
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
It Ain't Necessarily So, Richard Lewontin
On Growth and Form, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
Phantoms in the Brain, VS Ramachandran
The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins
The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, Elisabeth Lloyd
The Eighth Day of Creation, Horace Freeland Judson
The Great Devonian Controversy, Martin Rudwick
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment, Richard Lewontin
Time, Love, Memory, Jonathan Weiner
Voyaging and The Power of Place, Janet Browne
Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natalie Angier
linkpost comment

Strangelets [Jun. 30th, 2008|11:54 am]
[Tags|]
[mood | curious]

I say, Flip the Switch!
This comment really bothered me though:
did someone say what good will come of this?? who the hell cares what is out there??? just think if this money would have been used for cancer research.
That is the saddest attitude ever. If this experiment proves that there are more than 3 dimensions, one of those dimensions might have a cure for cancer. It might prove or disprove the existence of god. We should want to know about the universe we live in.
Fuck cancer! I've had relatives sick with and die from all kinds of cancers, but you know what? There are much more important things than human comfort.
link7 comments|post comment

Odd but cute [Jun. 13th, 2008|07:05 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[mood | amused]

Also, a refutation that the womenz has the babiez and the menz go to work. As usual, the AOL comments section reveals the dregs of humanity.
link2 comments|post comment

Happy (Belated) Darwin Day [Feb. 13th, 2008|08:17 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | tired]


February 12th was Charles Darwin's birthday. In honor of his birthday, I've decided to review the book Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle For America's Soul by Edward Humes.
Dover, Pennsylvania became the unlikely battleground over science versus religion in America, leading to an eventual victory for science and reason (From a conservative judge, nonetheless!)
Humes recounts the first famous science vs. religion trial in America--the Scopes Monkey Trial, which led to the town of Dayton, Tennessee becoming an unwitting laughingstock. The Scopes Trial was a calculated move by a town council seeking ways to increase revenue and publicity for their small town. Instead, it led to the town being portrayed as a backwater hillbilly breeding ground by journalists of the time, including H.L. Mencken.
While recounting these past trials and court decisions, Humes provides a context for what happened in Dover. By 2004, creationism in public school had been revamped as intelligent design, replacing god with an unnamed designer (aka god). The problem is that science refrains from attributing what can't be explained to the supernatural, which is exactly what intelligent design does. We gave that up when we realized that seizures weren't caused by demons and that the sun is at the center of the solar system.
Of course, the point was never about good science. The point was a minority group of fundamentalist Christians hijacking a local school board with intimidation tactics seeking a way to legally return god to the classroom (Of course, their idea of god, not a Muslim, pagan, or Shinto god). Humes tells of William Buckingham, the oxycontin-addicted former cop and current fundamentalist who was prone to rants such as, "Jesus died on a cross for us 2,000 years ago, won't someone stand up for him now?" At the trial, he failed to recall making such statements, and the tapes of the meetings were conveniently missing. Buckingham, undoubtedly guided by the kind, giving spirit of Jesus, attacked anyone who disagreed with him. The shame (For him) is that he attacked moderate Christians, people that probably shared similar beliefs with him.
For me, the highlight of the book was when Humes recounted Michael Behe's--Discovery Institute wunderkind--testimony where he confesses that by his definition, astrology is science:
"When you call it [intelligent design] a scientific theory," Rothschild asked, "you're not defining that term the same way that the National Academy of Sciences does?"
Behe nodded. "Yes, that's correct."
...
Rothschild then reviewed the National Academy's definition of a scientific theory, which did not include ID: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. Then Rothschild asked Behe: "Your definition is a lot broader?"
Behe preferred a definition that excluded "well-substantiated."
"That's right, intentionally broader..."
"Sweeps in a lot more propositions?" Rothschild asked.
"It recognizes that the word is used a lot more broadly than the National Academy of Sciences defined it."
"And using your definition, intelligent design is a scientific theory, correct?"
"Yes."
And then the next trap was sprung. "Under that same definition, astrology is a scientific theory, correct?"
Astrology. Horoscopes. Magic. Behe hesitated and at first did not answer directly, but when Rothschild pressed him, he admitted, "Yes, that's correct." The definition he used to qualify ID as a scientific theory also encompassed astrology (301)

At its heart, this book is an indictment of American scientific illiteracy, and the illiteracy of the people in charge of choosing our children's curriculae. Several of the school board members in the book admitted to not understanding EITHER evolution or intelligent design, but choosing ID because it felt morally right.
Monkey Girl was a gripping read that illuminated scientific concepts in terms that laypeople could understand. Beyond that, it also explains legalese behind court decisions regarding creation and evolution in the classroom.
At the end of the book, I could only hope that the state of science education in America gets better. Not only because evolution is right, but if we want to compete globally in fields outside of reality tv, then we really have to step up what is taught to our children.
link4 comments|post comment

Dinosaurs [Dec. 3rd, 2007|12:52 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[mood | happy]

Mummified dinosaur may have outrun T Rex
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Mon Dec 3, 7:42 AM ET
One of the most complete dinosaur mummies ever found is revealing secrets locked away for millions of years, bringing researchers as close as they will ever get to touching a live dino.
The fossilized duckbilled hadrosaur is so well preserved that scientists have been able to calculate its muscle mass and learn that it was more muscular than thought, probably giving it the ability to outrun predators such as T. rex.
While they call it a mummy, the dinosaur is not really preserved like King Tut was. The dinosaur body has been fossilized into stone. Unlike the collections of bones found in museums, this hadrosaur came complete with skin, ligaments, tendons and possibly some internal organs, according to researchers.
The study is not yet complete, but scientists have concluded that hadrosaurs were bigger — 3 1/2 tons and up to 40 feet long — and stronger than had been known, were quick and flexible and had skin with scales that may have been striped.
"Oh, the skin is wonderful," paleontologist Phillip Manning of Manchester University in England rhapsodized, admitting to a "glazed look in my eye."
"It's unbelievable when you look at it for the first time," he said in a telephone interview. "There is depth and structure to the skin. The level of detail expressed in the skin is just breathtaking."
Manning said there is a pattern of banding to the larger and smaller scales on the skin. Because it has been fossilized researchers do not know the skin color. Looking at it in monochrome shows a striped pattern.
He notes that in modern reptiles, such a pattern is often associated with color change.
The fossil was found in 1999 in North Dakota and now is nicknamed "Dakota." It is being analyzed in the world's largest CT scanner, operated by the Boeing Co. The machine usually is used for space shuttle engines and other large objects. Researchers hope the technology will help them learn more about the fossilized insides of the creature.
"It's a definite case of watch this space," Manning said. "We are trying to be very conservative, very careful."
But they have learned enough so far to produce two books and a television program. The TV special, "Dino Autopsy," will air on the National Geographic channel Dec. 9. National Geographic Society partly funded the research.
A children's book, "DinoMummy: The Life, Death, and Discovery of Dakota, a Dinosaur From Hell Creek," goes on sale Tuesday and an adult book, "Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science," will be available in January.
Soft parts of dead animals normally decompose rapidly after death. Because of chemical conditions where this animal died, fossilization — replacement of tissues by minerals — took place faster than the decomposition, leaving mineralized portions of the tissue.
That does not mean DNA, the building blocks of life, can be recovered, Manning said. Some has been recovered from frozen mammoths up to 1 million years old, he said. At the age of this dinosaur, 65 million to 67 million years old, "the chance of finding DNA is remote," he said.
A Manchester colleague, Roy Wogelius, who also worked on the dinosaur, said "one thing that we are very confident of is that we do have some organic molecular breakdown products present." That look at chemicals associated with the animal is still research in progress.
Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said he could not comment in detail about the find because he had not seen the research. But, he added, "Any time we can get a glimpse of the soft anatomy of a dinosaur, that's significant."
The findings from Dakota may cause museums to rethink their dinosaur displays.
Most dinosaur skeletons in museums, for example, show the vertebrae right next to one another. The researchers looking at Dakota found a gap of about a centimeter — about 0.4 inch — between each one.
That indicates there may have been a disk or other material between them, allowing more flexibility and meaning the animal was actually longer than what is shown in a museum. On large animals, adding the space could make them a yard longer or more, Manning said.
Because ligaments and tendons were preserved, as well as other parts of Dakota, researchers could to calculate its muscle mass, showing it was stronger and potentially faster than had been known.
They estimated the hadrosaur's top speed at about 28 miles per hour, 10 mph faster than the giant T. Rex is thought to have been able to run.
"It's very logical, though, that a hadrosaur could run faster than a T. rex. It's a major prey animal and it doesn't have big horns on its head like triceratops. Hadrosaurs didn't have much in the way of defense systems, so they probably relied on fleet of foot," Manning said.
Dakota was discovered by Tyler Lyson, then a teenager who liked hunting for fossils on his family ranch. Lyson, who is currently working on his doctorate degree in paleontology at Yale University, founded the Marmarth Research Foundation, an organization dedicated to the excavation, preservation and study of dinosaurs.
linkpost comment

Everyone should watch this [Nov. 11th, 2007|02:37 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[mood | It's feckin winter!]

Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, at 8 pm on 13 November 2007, on PBS.
Sadly, the town Dover is near where my parents live. There are some good people but there is also a loud group of backwoods retards.
link2 comments|post comment

To my love... [Oct. 12th, 2007|11:40 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | happy]

For those familiar with Michael Moore, you may know of his crush on Hillary Clinton.
I have a similar crush...on Al Gore. Between reading his awesome book, Assault on Reason, and hearing about him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm just too happy for him. This must kill the Bush administration--not only is our world a globe not at the center of the universe, it's warming up too! Prelude to the Rapture? The only rapture I believe in is sung by Debbie Harry. Maybe it's just god preparing us dirty libruhls for hellfire. Jebus, next thing you know they'll find out that there's a definitive link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy.
Anyway, weird tangent there...I'm just waiting for Al to discover me and realize that I have much better taste in music than Tipper. Call me, Al! My carbon footprint is very small!
Also, score one for science!
link1 comment|post comment

Let's play which is more offensive [Sep. 25th, 2007|12:48 am]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | thoughtful]

Or "Why I Think That Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Should Be Allowed to Speak"
Ok, I know I'm a little late getting on this, but I had a job interview today so there.
I have to make several things clear.
1. The most I know about Iran and the revolution is based on Persepolis by Marjanne Satrapi. I know it's horrible, especially considering the era we live in, but most of the Middle East bores me. I love ancient Egyptian history but that's about it.
2. I heartily disagree with 97% of what Ahmadinejad says, and the other 3% is all "the," "but," "of," and "like."
That being said--
I think he had a right to speak at Columbia University. The U.S. government saw fit to allow him into the country, so while he's here, he is, in essence, our guest. A repulsive, horrible guest that I hope leaves when Ben Franklin says so. And Columbia University is a private institution, they pretty much have a right to select whomever they want to speak.
You can protest, peacefully, if you want to, but remember--telling someone to go to an imaginary place like hell makes you look like a douchebag. Why not tell him to go to Narnia or Mordor? Or Azkaban?
Now let's play, which is more offensive--
A man who has actively participated in the formation of an Islamic theocracy denying the Holocaust or comedian Sherri Shephard, a woman born in America, with access to the American education system, saying that she doesn't know if the earth is round and doesn't believe in evolution?
Frankly, I find them both to be equally offensive. Both show how religion can pervert the mind, into either prejudice or ignorance (Or what we see a lot of in America, a healthy dose of both). One's a world leader, one's on a national talk show with millions of viewers, and every morning I wake up and wonder when I slipped into bizarro world.
linkpost comment

This is just strange [Sep. 20th, 2007|12:53 pm]
[Tags|, ]

Scores ill in Peru 'meteor crash'
Hundreds of people in Peru have needed treatment after an object from space - said to be a meteorite - plummeted to Earth in a remote area, officials say.
They say the object left a deep crater after crashing down over the weekend near the town of Carancas in the Andes.
People who visited the scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.
But some experts have questioned whether it was a meteorite or some other object that landed in Carancas.
"Increasingly we think that people witnessed a fireball, which are not uncommon, went off to investigate and found a lake of sedimentary deposit, which may be full of smelly, methane rich organic matter," said Dr Caroline Smith, a meteorite expert at the London-based Natural History Museum.
"This has been mistaken for a crater."
A team of scientists is on its way to the site to collect samples and verify whether it was indeed a meteorite.
Geologists have called on the authorities to stop people going near the crash site.
A local journalist, Martine Hanlon, told the BBC experts did not believe the meteor would make anybody sick, but they did think a chemical reaction caused by its contact with the ground could release toxins such as sulphur and arsenic.
An engineer from the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute told AFP news agency that no radiation had been detected from the crater. He ruled out any possibility that the fallen object might be a satellite.
Afraid
Nestor Quispe, the mayor of the municipality to which Carancas belongs, told the BBC that many residents had been affected.
"Lots of people from the town of Carancas have fallen ill. They have headaches, eye problems, irritated skin, nausea and vomiting," he said.
"I think there's also a certain psychological fear in the community."
Local resident Heber Mamani said a bull and some other animals had become ill.
"That is why we are asking for an analysis, because we are worried for our people. They are afraid," he said.
Another local villager, Romulo Quispe, said people were worried that the water was no longer safe to drink.
"This is the water we use for the animals, and for us, for everyone, and it looks like it is contaminated," he said.
"We don't know what is going on at the moment, that is what we are worried about."
The incident took place on Saturday night, when people near Carancas in the remote Puno region, some 1,300km (800 miles) south of the Peruvian capital, Lima, reported seeing a fireball in the sky coming towards them.
The object then hit the ground, leaving a 30m (98ft) wide and 6m (20ft) deep crater.
The crater spewed what officials described as fetid, noxious gases.
Jorge Lopez, a health director in Puno, told Reuters news agency he had an irritated throat and itchy nose after visiting the site.
Isn't this how dozens of sci-fi movies have started?
link3 comments|post comment

Apparently loonies have invaded the interwebz... [Sep. 5th, 2007|07:49 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | annoyed]

Lots of moonbat groups find sanctuary on the Wild West Internet, people that otherwise would have been rightfully ignored.
There's the people that phished my Myspace account, and my boss's (Is this grammatically correct?) Myspace account.
There's The Flat Earth Society.
There's the young earth creationists.
There's Men's Rights Wacko's.
Then, there are the animal rights wackjobs (I really debated publishing her blog link. First of all, I don't want to give her more attention than she deserves. But mostly I think it's rude to do that without asking someone's permission. Beat me to the shot, she did, and published mine without my permission. Not only that, she tells people to contact meEdit: She doesn't tell people to contact me, even though publishing my addy is basically tantamount to sending the flying monkeys. Thanks! I'm going to make fur coats out of them).
Here's my stance on animal rights;
I LOVE animals. I have literally had pets my entire life. The only time I haven't had pets is in college and now because I can't afford them.
I'd been vegan for a long time but I've quit and eat meat now. When I restrict my diet I have a tendency to keep restricting until I'm eating nothing but ice cubes and brown rice. So now I aim for health and balance. And frankly, I'm scared to be vegan again. It's scary to lose control like that.
For full disclosure, I am a current member of PETA. But someone clued me in into their anti-Semitic and racist background, so I'm definitely cancelling my membership. Mostly I liked them because they seem to be the only people calling out celebs on their use of fur. I HATE fur.
I don't think animals are the same as humans, I don't think they're conscious the way humans are. But they should definitely be spared pain and shouldn't be hurt.
So, on Feministing, Jessica's been posting pics and videos of her cute new puppy, Monty. But *gasp* she got her puppy from a breeder! OmG! She doesn't want to buy a Mystery Dog that may have behavioral problems or genetic problems. So this group of animal rights activists jump down her throat about consuming an animal (EEEEW!--not like that).
I think that's hypocritical if they've ever used medicine, benefited from medical science, wear wool or leather, enjoy movies or tv with animals, have been to the circus, etc.
I was ready to let everything go and accept that you can't debate rationally with someone basing their arguments in emotion, until the lovely woman who posted my blog address posted this fecal gem of reasoning;
There is absolutely no need to breed animals for profit, be them for pets or meat. It's slavery and it's wrong.

Unsurprisingly, those of us who haven't drank the Kool-Aid were a little offended. It's pretty insensitive to compare the suffering of animals in shelters to those who've been enslaved and tortured by other humans.
So she bounces back with;
Only people who think their lives are more important than non-human animals' lives can be offended by the comparison of human slavery to animal slavery. The definition of slavery is to treat another as property. Property is the essential concept of slavery. Property. The only way you can be offended is if you think it's OK to treat non-human animals as property.

Can I get a Doubleyou--Tee--Eff? I love animals, but if someone said "I'll kill your or I'll kill this cat--choose!" I would say "Kill the cat." Sorry, but I do think I'm more important than an animal. And I think it's totally fucked to compare animals to slaves.
That's all, I just had to get that off my chest.
link14 comments|post comment

On becoming an athiest... [Sep. 2nd, 2007|12:07 am]
[Tags|, , , ]
[music |Bjork on SNL]

Basically, I'm reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I was at the section where he discusses the Big Three's (Judaism, Christianity and Islam's) view of homosexuality. One person was condemned to be buried alive by having a wall pushed on them.
I was just horrified. For some reason, something snapped in my mind. The whole beginning of the book is devoted to considering god from a logical and statistical point of view. That part had me on the fence. Honestly, I can see a pretty 50-50 chance of god existing or not existing. If god does exist, I just don't think it cares about human affairs.
I list "wicca" on my interests, and it is an interest. But I just can't believe. I haven't seen any quantifiable evidence, and honestly, the rituals make me feel hokey. I like to meditate but I don't feel any different casting a spell than I did when I went to church when I was small. I didn't feel anything then either. I mostly liked looking at the stained-glass windows.
Yet, when I contemplate the immensity of our universe, I feel this tremendous joy to be alive. In the book, Dawkins talks about this theory that our universe may just be one universe of many, clinging to each other the way that soap bubbles cling to each other. That just blew my mind, this idea that there may be so many worlds out there to be explored, so many places where our ideas about physics and chemistry and biology could be turned upside down.
If there were incontrevertable proof that god existed, I would believe because that's what I want, the truth.
link1 comment|post comment

Oops, we did it again! [Aug. 9th, 2007|10:23 am]
[Tags|, , , ]
[mood | angry]

Dolphin Species Driven to Extinction
By Charles Q. Choi
Posted: 2007-08-09 08:09:09
(Aug. 8) - The Yangtze River dolphin is now almost certainly extinct, making it the first dolphin that humans drove to extinction, scientists have now concluded after an intense search for the endangered species.
The loss also represents the first global extinction of megafauna—any creature larger than about 200 pounds (100 kilograms)—for more than 50 years, since the disappearance of the Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis).
The Yangtze River dolphin or baiji (Lipotes vexillifer) of China has long been recognized as one of the world's most rare and threatened mammal species.
"It's a relic species, more than 20 million years old, that persisted through the most amazing kinds of changes in the planet," said marine biologist Barbara Taylor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service. "It's been here longer than the Andes Mountains have been on Earth."
In 1999, the surviving baiji population was estimated to be as low as just 13 dolphins, compared to 400 known baiji in 1981. The last confirmed glimpse of a baiji was documented by a photo taken in 2002, although unverified sightings were reported as recently as 2006.
An international team of scientists conducted an intense six-week search for the dolphin in two research vessels during November and December 2006, covering the entire known range of the baiji in the 1,037-mile (1,669-kilometer) main channel of the Yangtze River. The researchers and their instruments failed to see or hear any evidence that the dolphin survives.
"It was a surprise to everyone on the expedition that we didn't have any sightings at all, that the extinction just happened so quickly," Taylor recalled.
This would make the baiji the first cetacean—that is, dolphin, porpoise or whale—to go extinct because of humans.
The species was probably driven to extinction by harmful fishing practices that were not even devised to harm the dolphins, such as the use of gill nets, rolling hooks or electrical stunning. The findings are detailed Aug. 7 in the journal Biology Letters.
"In the past, you had this out-of-control whaling that still didn't result in any extinctions, but these accidental deaths, which are much less visible to people, are much more insidious," Taylor said.
Even if any baiji exist that scientists did not find, the continued deterioration of the Yangtze region's ecosystem—home to roughly 10 percent of the world's human population—means the species has no hope of even short-term survival as a viable population, the researchers added.
"To help save the endangered Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis) that also live in the river, we'll likely have to keep them in lake preserves or raise them in captivity, because the situation in that river doesn't look like it can be controlled at this point," Taylor explained.
With the loss of the Yangtze River dolphin, the world's most critically endangered cetacean species now is the vaquita or Gulf of California porpoise (Phocoena sinus), of which 250 survive. The vaquita and other coastal dolphins around the world now face the same peril that claimed the baiji—accidental deaths from fishing.
"We have to find a way to let small-time fishermen put food on their tables that doesn't involve putting gill nets in the water that decimate these species," Taylor said. "Unless we figure out a way to deal with this problem, the baiji may be the first in quite a long line of animals to face extinction."
2007-08-08 17:39:54
This article simultaneously made me angry & sad. I love cetaceans--they're such amazing, smart creatures. I went swimming with bottlenose dolphins when I was 11, and that was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The power & grace of the dolphins was extraordinary, as was the fact that they peacefully allowed me into their environment. That, and one of my earliest memories is seeing the life-sized blue whale at the Museum of Natural History.
It pisses me off that people have to resort to destructive practices in order to just make a living.
People accuse me of caring more for animals than people and generally, they're right. Humans are supposed to be the most ingenious species on the planet, yet we can't even protect the creatures we have to share the planet with.
Also, on a side note, I HATE that AOL now allows commenting on its news stories. This feature just attracts the worst trolls, and for some reason, every science article attracts the worst Bible-thumpers.
linkpost comment

When Worlds Collide... [Aug. 7th, 2007|01:07 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | curious]

NASA Photographs Big Galactic Collision
By Ker Than
Posted: 2007-08-07 05:38:23
(Aug. 7) - A major cosmic pileup involving four large galaxies could give rise to one of the largest galaxies the universe has ever known, scientists say.
Each of the four galaxies is at least the size of the Milky Way, and each is home to billions of stars.
The galaxies will eventually merge into a single, colossal galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way.
"When this merger is complete, this will be one of the biggest galaxies in the universe," said study team member Kenneth Rines of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, gives scientists their first real glimpse into a galaxy merger involving multiple big galaxies.
"Most of the galaxy mergers we already knew about are like compact cars crashing together," Rines said. "What we have here is like four sand trucks smashing together, flinging sand everywhere."
Galaxy collisions are a common occurrence in the universe. Our own Milky Way is fated to collide and merge with its neighbor, Andromeda, in about 5 billion years.
Astronomers have observed several clashes involving one big galaxy and several larger ones, and they have also witnessed more major mergers among pairs of big galaxies. But the new findings mark the first time major mergers between multiple hefty galaxies have ever been seen.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope serendipitously spotted the quadruple merger during a routine survey of a distant galaxy cluster, called CL0958+4702, located nearly 5 billion light years away. Spitzer's infrared eyes observed an unusually large fan-shaped plume of light emerging from a gathering of four blob-shaped elliptical galaxies. Three of the galaxies are about the size of the Milky Way, while the fourth is three times as large.
The plume turned out to be billions of elderly stars ejected and abandoned during the clash. About half of the stars in the plume will later fall back into the galaxies.
Spitzer observations also show that, unlike most known mergers, the galaxies involved in the quadruple collision are bereft of gas, the source material that fuels star birth. As a result, astronomers predict that relatively few new stars will be born in the new, combined galaxy.
(c) 1999-2007 Imaginova Corp. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
I have a question. I'm not great at physics, so, since CL0958+4702 is 5 billion light years away, does that mean that what was photographed happened 5 billion years ago?
linkpost comment

Fucking Cool [May. 16th, 2007|12:22 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[mood | geeky]
[music |Tori Amos "Tallullah"]

My science geek comes out now.
Hubble Reveals Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter
(May 16) - Astronomers have discovered an enormous, ghostly ring of dark matter 5 billion light-years away--the most blatant evidence to date for the existence of a mysterious substance hidden throughout the universe.
Dark matter makes up a vast majority of gravity-exerting mass in the universe, while only about 10 percent is matter we can see and touch. If dark matter didn't exist, scientists say, galaxies like the Milky Way would have already flown apart from a severe lack of gravitational "glue."
Researchers pointed the aging but powerful Hubble Space Telescope toward a cluster of galaxies known as cluster ZwCl0024+1652. At first glance, the then-unknown ring looked like a ripple in a pond over the twinkling galactic cluster.
"I was annoyed when I saw the ring because I thought it was an artifact," said Myungkook James Jee of Johns Hopkins University.
But it wasn't a glitch, astronomers announced at a NASA press conference today.
The more Jee and others tried to remove the ring by tweaking the data, the more the ring-like anomaly stuck out like sore thumb. "It took more than a year to convince myself that the ring was real," Jee said. "I've looked at a number of clusters and I haven't seen anything like this."
Because so much dark matter resides in the ring, astronomers said, it bends the light around it to create the ripple effect--dark matter's calling card. The complete findings will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
The ring, 2.6-million light-years wide, formed when two huge clusters of galaxies slammed together in a head-on collision roughly 1 to 2 billion years ago, puffing the mysterious matter outward, the astronomers figure. If the galactic hit-and-run had occurred outside of Earth's line-of-sight, the result might look more like the "Bullet cluster"--another cosmic impact site that astronomers view as strong evidence for dark matter.
Richard Massey, a Caltech astronomer not connected to the study, said that the finding is extremely important, especially combined with the Bullet cluster evidence. But he warned that the discovery still faces skepticism from other astronomers. "A lot of things can go wrong in producing an image," he said, explaining the shape could be produced within Hubble's camera itself.
Also, he said, the failure of Hubble's most powerful camera four months ago doesn't help. "Just as we were getting to the point to learn how to find dark matter, it breaks," Massey said.
Richard White, an astronomer with Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, said he also was initially skeptical about the ring of dark matter. "But it shows up in another Hubble camera's data as well," he said. "It's not as clear, but it's still there. We argue the ring has been seen twice now."
Unlike other dark matter discoveries, the ring is the first collection of dark matter that differs greatly from the distribution of ordinary matter.
In addition to using gravity to visualize the dark matter itself, the team also created computer simulations showing what happens when galaxy clusters collide. When the two clusters smashed together, they think, dark matter fell to the center and then sloshed outward. As it did so, gravity eventually slowed it down and condensed it into a large ring detected by astronomers.
"By studying this collision, we are seeing how dark matter responds to gravity," said Holland Ford, another Johns Hopkins astronomer on the team. "Nature is doing an experiment for us that we can't do in a lab, and it agrees with our theoretical models."
Finding dark matter is not easy because it doesn't shine or reflect light. So astronomers rely on gravity, which can bend the light of distant stars when enough mass is present, much like a lens distorts an image behind it. Thanks to the laws of physics, knowing how much light is bent tells astronomers how much mass is there. By mapping the gravity's "footprint," astronomers were able to create a picture of how dark matter ring is distributed in the cluster.
In the image of the cluster, Jee said, "the background galaxies behind the ring show coherent changes in their shapes due to the presence of the dense ring. It's like looking at the pebbles on the bottom of a pond with ripples on the surface."
link6 comments|post comment

navigation
[ viewing | most recent entries ]

Advertisement