What Separates Us From Chimps? As It Turns Out Not Much

Dr. Robert Sapolsky discusses his work as professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and as a research associate.  Click here to see the video...

Need a Physics Refresher? This NFL Cheerleader Has You Covered

Who says NFL cheerleaders can’t also be science geeks?

Wendy Brown, who just completed her first season as an Atlanta Falcons cheerleader, is actually wrapping up her fifth and final year at Georgia Tech, where she’s pursuing a degree in biomedical engineering. And it was her geeky, science-centric tendencies that led her to becoming a spokeswoman for NBC’s Science of NFL Football educational series. 

And, as it turns out, she’s not the only Falcons cheerleaders pursuing higher education in science, as seven of her colleagues are also going through a science-heavy course load. And when she’s got some free time during class, Brown will take to her Twitter account and have a little fun at the expense of her classmates.

For the rest of the article, click here

Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert Explain the Universe!

"How'd the moon get here? Look, you pinheads who attacked me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the moon get here? How'd the sun get there? How'd it get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it?" -Bill O'Reilly

Once upon a time, humans looked at the tides -- going out and coming in -- and we had no idea what caused them. At high tides, the sea level would rise, and the coast would get swept up by the oceans, while at low tides, the water would recede, leaving tidepools behind.

(Image credit: smugmug.com.)
Low tides and high tides would each happen twice a day. But we started noticing that the highest high tides and the lowest low tides -- spring tides -- happened during new Moons and full Moons. On the other hands, the most moderate tides, where high tides were relatively low and low tides were relatively high -- neap tides -- happened during the first and last quarter Moon phases.
It wasn't long before we put this picture together.
(Image credit: James Irwin.)
Sure enough, the Moon is the dominant cause of the tides, with the Sun responsible for about 30% of what we get. And thanks to the laws of gravity we understand how the tides work, even in more extreme cases.
But apparently, this isn't good enough for Bill O'Reilly. After stating that nobody can explain the tides and this proves the existence of God, many people (rightly) threw the Moon in his face.
But instead of retracting his statement, O'Reilly went one step farther into it, and delivered the rant quoted atop, complete with his five great questions. Some people attacked him, others defended him, but no one's tried to teach him.
Lucky for you, Bill, I am a patient man.
1.) How'd the Moon get here? I've tackled this before, but it's been years. The Giant Impact Hypothesis is the leading theory, as simulations and measurements of the Moon and Earth's interior both support it.
Basically, in the young Solar System, you've got a star with a thin disk of matter orbiting it. Small gravitational instabilities create the first small objects. They then gravitationally attract larger ones, and the more mass you get, the more mass you pull in towards yourself.
Mercury managed to clear its orbit, as did Venus. But out by us, we had two large objects -- one roughly Venus-sized, one roughly Mars-sized -- and they finally caught up to each other.
The densest elements, of course, were primarily at the center, so when they collided, only the light elements in the crust and mantle should have gotten ejected to form the Moon, while the heaviest elements migrated down to the Earth's core. And in fact, our observations confirm that this is, in fact, the case.
(Image credit: California's Imaginarium.)
The Moon is almost completely devoid of iron, the densest abundant element on Earth. And the rocks the Apollo astronauts have brought back from the Moon have, conversely, demonstrated that the rocks on the Moon's surface -- unlike asteroids, meteorites, and Mars' rocks -- are identical in composition to the rocks on Earth's surface. So that's why we're pretty sure the Moon came from the collision of two proto-planets that collided, forming the Earth and the Moon as we know them today.
2.) How'd the sun get there? Well, there's the entire scientific field of star formation devoted to the study of it, but here's the basic story. A molecular gas cloud -- many of which exist in our galaxy -- collapsed under its own gravity, probably triggered by the explosion of a dying, massive star.
(Image credit: Canada-France-Hawaii telescope.)
And that gave rise to the Sun, along with a proto-planetary disk of gas and dust that collapsed to form the planets, comets, and asteroids, among other things.
(Image credit: David Hardy.)
3.) How'd it get there? Well, I assume you mean in context with everything else that's there. Our Sun lives in this place we call "the galaxy."
(Image credit: Axel Mellinger.)
A collection of hundreds of billions of stars, our star formed about 4.6 billion years ago out of a combination of pristine hydrogen gas from the Big Bang and recycled material from at least two previous generations of stars. Gravity holds our star in a stable orbit, about 25,000 light years from the center of our galaxy.
4.) Can you explain that to me? Over time, galaxies grow and evolve through gravitational mergers with other galaxies. The Milky Way was likely a much smaller object in the past, that has since cannibalized other galaxies and grown to its present size. In fact, headed into the future, the Milky Way is likely to merge with the Andromeda galaxy, perhaps headed for an intense gravitational interaction like NGC 4676, above.
5.) How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it? Mars doesn't have one big moon, like we do. It has two little ones, Phobos and Deimos, which give Mars its own annular eclipses.
But Mars has its own interesting story that we're just figuring out, and this little guy has truly helped uncover it over the last six years.
Now, you may tell me that science doesn't have all the answers, and you'd be right. After all, I don't have a good explanation for what caused inflation, which is the thing that sets up the Big Bang. But everything starting from that point or afterwards, we learn, and science is how we do it.
(If you need an image credit for this, you aren't paying attention.)
And if you want an alternate take on Bill O'Reilly's latest, you can always listen to Stephen Colbert's extremely informed opinion on it.

Thanks to my buddy and loyal reader Dave for tipping me off to this one! And for everyone else out there, have a great weekend!

Autopsy Cutbacks Reveal 'Gray Homicides'

by Sandra Bartlett, of NPR News Investigations

There's no way that we can look at every case we should probably be looking at. When you only see 1 in every 3 cases, the possibility that a homicide's going to be missed are pretty great.  - Craig Harvey, chief death investigator, Los Angeles Coroner's Office

Many underfunded and understaffed medical examiner and coroner offices have stopped doing autopsies in some categories of deaths. In some states suicides are not autopsied, in others people who die in car accidents, and many jurisdictions have stopped performing autopsies on people over the age of 60 unless it is an obvious violent death. In Oklahoma, for example, they lower the age limit to 40.

An investigation by NPR, PBS Frontline and ProPublica found concerns among law enforcement and health care professionals over the trend to assume the elderly always die of natural causes. They fear there's a quiet epidemic of what they call "gray homicides" going undetected and unpunished.

The article mentions one case in which justice was done, involving a caregiver that had been arrested in connection with the death of one of the residents, and proved to be connected tp that of another which had already been dismissed as natural by the medical examiners office, that of Richard McDonough...

"The deaths are complicated," Allen says. "But we can't just say it's complicated and push it aside. We can't just say they're old and they're going to die soon and not look at it as something that is significant."

Allen says if autopsies on the elderly are stopped, the truth about a suspicious death may never be learned. 

"In this particular case, the truth did go to the grave; it was buried, it was 6 feet under with Mr. Kittower. And this abuse would have just continued," Allen says. "It was only that death that actually got someone to come forward. And I think [if] these secrets go to the grave ... more and more people will just get abused in the process."

For the rest of the article, click here

 

 

25 Years Later, Challenger & Teacher McAuliffe Still Remembered 

I was about 20 years old when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded soon after takeoff. I used to live not too far away from Cape Kennedy, where they launch the shuttles, and would often drive up to Cocoa beach to watch the shuttles take off, especially the night time launches. Way cool... 

I remember that I happened to be in an auto-supply shop when I first heard the news, and we all rushed out side to look up. I still feel a chill when I remember seeing the erratic plume of smoke and debris, and just not believing that it could happen. 

At the time, teaching was not in my master plan, but we all new of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was going into space. We all died a bit inside when that happened, but at the same time, I know that many of us felt great pride that a normal person, not too different than me, had "the Right Stuff," and she has always inspired me, to this day...

 

Dog Might Provide Clues on How Language Is Acquired

From the New York Times.com

Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language.

Cass Sapir/Nova Science Now

Cass Sapir/Nova Science Now

Chaser belongs to John W. Pilley, a psychologist who taught for 30 years at Wofford College, a liberal arts institution in Spartanburg. In 2004, after he had retired, he read a report in Science about Rico, a border collie whose German owners had taught him to recognize 200 items, mostly toys and balls. Dr. Pilley decided to repeat the experiment using a technique he had developed for teaching dogs, and he describes his findings in the current issue of the journal Behavioural Processes. 

For the rest of this article, click here

Jan. 15, 1929: Birth of a Moral Compass, Even for Science

from Wired.com 

1929: Martin Luther King Jr. is born. Though his work for civil rights and peace will become widely known, he will also deliver an important warning on the perils of technological amorality. King delivered a lecture at the University of Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 11, 1964, the day after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He argued that progress in science and technology has not been equaled by “moral progress” — instead, humanity is suffering from a “moral and spiritual lag.”

At 35, King was then the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was recognized for using nonviolent methods, including civil disobedience and the boycott (as well as the power of his oratory), to fight racial segregation and advance the civil rights movement in the United States.

King, a Baptist minister who was the son of a Baptist minister, preached that material advancement was meaningless without an accompanying moral structure. A visit with Mahatma Gandhi’s family on a trip to India only reinforced this conviction, while at the same time strengthening King’s commitment to nonviolence as an instrument of change.

In his Oslo lecture, King acknowledged the advances made by science and technology, but said that growing abundance was undermining the human spirit. “The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually,” he said. “We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”

Placing too much value on material advantage while ignoring what he called the “spiritual lag” was a path fraught with peril, King said.

“Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the ‘within,’ dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.”

King was killed by a sniper’s bullet on April 4, 1968, as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He had gone there to lend support to striking city garbage workers.

Scientists at Work... in Madagascar

Through Mud, Sand and Water, the Long Road Home

 Two days with only light rain at night have provided us a window to make our way out. The obstacles will be mud, sand and water. But we are ready. Our vehicle recovery kit includes the following tools I would recommend to anyone traveling in Madagascar: We have a high lift jack (for lifting the car up, so you can shove rocks underneath a stuck wheel), jacking plate, three lengths of towing straps, two U-clamps, two pulleys, two shovels, two spare tires, two sand ladders and, most important, a winch. If you don’t bring a helicopter to the field with you, your next best miracle tool is a winch. I can’t tell you how many times the winch has come to our rescue, saving us from another night in the mud.

For the rest of the article, click here 

Welcome new & old students to Block III!

As we discussed in class, this is my science and stuff blog. At least once a week, usually more often, I will post a link to a story, video,or image that I think you may find interesting. 

To get extra credit, all you have to do is visit the link, come back to the blog page, and comment on the link (see the comment button below), making sure to include your name and class period in the comment. As an alternative, you can send me an email at: jgiacobbe_southpoonte@cox.net again being sure to list your name and class period in the email.

For today, all you have to do is visit the blog, and just leave a message telling me you were here, and you earn 25 extra credit points! Piece of cake!

As an added incentive, please find below a scene from my hometown beach, so imagine you're kicking back and enjoying the waves, dudes...

World's oldest human remains claimed in Israel

World's oldest human remains claimed in Israel

Israeli archaeologists have discovered human remains dating from 400,000 years ago, challenging conventional wisdom that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, the leader of excavations in Israel said on Tuesday.

What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010

It's unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them.  Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold.  

But what's startling is how many citizens and, especially, "journalists" now vehemently believe that as well.  In light of what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world about numerous governments, just fathom the authoritarian mindset that would lead a citizen -- and especially a "journalist" -- to react with anger that these things have been revealed; to insist that these facts should have been kept concealed and it'd be better if we didn't know; and, most of all, to demand that those who made us aware of it all be punished (the True Criminals) while those who did these things (The Good Authorities) be shielded:

That reaction has not been weakened at all even by the Pentagon's own admission that, in stark contrast to its own actions, there is no evidence -- zero -- that any of WikiLeaks' actions has caused even a single death.

Jan Brewer - Not Afraid To Do What The Federal Government Won't And Shouldn't

Arizona Governor

December 16, 2010 | ISSUE 46•50

This April, when she signed into law Arizona's tough new anti-immigration policy, Gov. Jan Brewer bravely showed the nation that if the federal government wouldn't take the most draconian measures imaginable to deal with illegal aliens, then she would do it on her own.

By demanding that police check any suspicious- looking individual's immigration status, Brewer stood up for the kind of racial profiling that other politicians wouldn't, and under any circumstances shouldn't, have the guts to support. Refusing to bow down to sense or reason, Brewer also made it possible for citizens to sue police officers who fail to carry out the troublingly vague terms of the new law, no matter how much it might tie up the state's court system—a bold stance the federal government simply couldn't be bothered with.

And shouldn't be bothered with, because it's a really, really awful idea.

Like the growing tide of up and coming conservative politicians, Brewer understands that real change—the disturbing, almost surreal kind of change that drives a wedge between Americans, increases fear and xenophobia, and makes Arizona, and by extension the nation as a whole, seem impossibly backward—has to start at home.

The loon.

Posted on http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/09/18666107.php

Some of the "Operation Payback Manifesto" 
 
Hello World. We are Anonymous. What you do or do not know about us is irrelevant. We have decided to write to you, the media, and all citizens of the free world to inform you of our intentions, potential targets, and our ongoing, active campaign for the freedom of information exchange, freedom of expression, and free use of the Internet.

Not quite sure what to make of these guys yet. This sounds fine and dandy, but attacking corporate websites for infringing on free speech rights sounds a bit wrong-headed. Will they not become what they most despise?

Here are some more sites to check out and learn more about this:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/12/more_wikileaks


http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/09/technology/amazon_wikileaks_attack/index.htm?hpt=T2

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/splashpage.html


and here's a guy to follow who seems to have a more reasoned viewpoint:

http://twitter.com/#!/JPBARLOW


William Gibson, here we come!

Still Missed....

ASU’s Ask A Biologist website wins prestigious SPORE prize

		IMAGE: Charles Kazilek is a winner of the SPORE prize for online educational innovation. Click here for more information.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has chosen Arizona State University's "Ask A Biologist," an online resource for children's science education, to receive the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, or SPORE, award.

The prize, established to "encourage innovation and excellence in education, as well as the use of high-quality online resources by students, teachers, and the public," recognizes the website's creative content and its developer, Charles Kazilek, director of technology integration and outreach in ASU's School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

What set Arizona's Ask A Biologist apart? Reading interventionist Joan Howell with the Phoenix Elementary School District, a teacher for 20 years, says that it is Kazilek. "Charles simply knows how to connect with children," she says. "He has combined science and art and created a wonderful vehicle for learning. It keeps you aware of the Web, it's something local, it shows that ASU is a leading institution and it's infectious. We are very thankful at our school and in our district. He has opened up a world of possibility."

Kazilek's virtual world is kaleidoscopic, encompassing coloring pages, image and zoom galleries, games, stories, science career pages, teacher's resources, experiments, and language translations into Spanish and French. Entrancing more than a million visitors a year from across the globe, favorite offerings from amongst the 2,500 pages of content are the Ugly Bug contest and the Ask A Biologist's podcast, which injects children's voices, as co-hosts, in the website's audioprogramming (http://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/watch_listen).

"The Ugly Bug contest teaches kindergarteners to sixth graders how to look at things closely," says Howell. "The details of the bugs inspire all sorts of questions. It's a wonderful skill for children to develop. They don't even realize that they are learning."

The numbers are telling: more than 10,735 votes have been cast to determine 2010's ugliest bug since it debuted on Oct. 31. Locked in battle are top contenders, the assassin bug and yellow dragonfly (http://askabiologist.asu.edu/activities/ubc).

Inspiration for the unusual comes easily to Kazilek, a double-ASU alumnus with a bachelor's degree in fine arts and a master of natural sciences degree, an avid photographer and aficionado of microcomputers and microscopy. Kazilek embraces the world, its challenges and puzzles with the same questioning approach as his charges.


Kazilek credits the perplexed public with much of the website's content development. "The Q&A feature has been one of the greatest tools for developing content for Ask A Biologist," he says. "It is our barometer to measure what topics and concepts excite interest, are fresh and intriguing and might be important to add to the website."

Besides showing that science is fun and answering more than 25,000 biology questions from children, teachers and parents in the last decade, Kazilek has also actively pursued building connections with the public he serves. In one year alone, he met face-to-face with 1,600 educators and nearly 1,000 K-12 students in Arizona, Washington, D.C, Indiana, and Texas.

Kazilek has likewise worked to expand his online partnerships, which have broadened his ability to expand online access to science learning. The more than 150 contributors involved in Ask A Biologist, including scientists, artists and experts from ASU and other learning institutions in the United States, such as Harvard and MIT, have grown to embrace the talents of volunteers from Panama, Columbia, India, France, England and Canada. Kazilek has also worked to bring other virtual technologies into K-12 classrooms to expand real-time access of youth to scientists at ASU and the Smithsonian Institution.

Laura Martin, director of science interpretation with the Arizona Science Center, points out that she and her staff can "refer students, teachers and families to his exceptional resources knowing that they offer good science, good pedagogy and up-to-date modes of access."

Martin is also quick to acknowledge Kazilek's enthusiasm, energy, generosity and "the creativity that has been invaluable to many of our own science center projects."

ASU and Kazilek join 11 other awardees selected in 2010 from entries from the United States and abroad. Other institutions recognized by the AAAS include Baylor College of Medicine, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University and the universities of Utah, Washington and Johannesburg, South Africa. A complete list of winners and their essays can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/spore.

AAAS, who publishes the journal Science, created the SPORE competition to recognize that "being an outstanding science educator is as valuable to society as being an exceptional research scientist."
ASU and the School of Life Sciences have offered fertile ground for Kazilek's development of Ask A Biologist, the launch of a podcast series and other innovative educational approaches. Robert Page, dean of the School of Life Sciences, says "We, as a public institution, have a responsibility to reach out and make what we do accessible and relevant. Ask a Biologist is premier example of how we can and should engage the public in understanding what we do as scientists and the world around us."

###

To learn more about Ask A Biologist, which is part of the National Science Digital Library, and which is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation: http://askabiologist.asu.edu.

Maybe this is the kinda thing we need more of?

V for Vendetta hacker broadcasts video at Washington State University

An anonymous hacker who calls himself "V" hijacked the projector systems in more than two dozen classrooms at Washington State University (WSU) last week. The hacker asked students to stand up to administrators and then invited them to meet on November Fifth, in one year, to take action on campus.

 In V for Vendetta, V broadcasts a video message calling the British public to take action on November 5. "Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November."  According to Wikipedia, November Fifth commemorates the anniversary of when Guy Fawkes's tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I.

According to WSU 1812 on Facebook, Google offered the hacker a job. Will the hacker's video have any lasting impact at the university or be remembered as only a prank? We'll find out what happens next November Fifth.