Major Development!! Christian Democrats agree to talks with Geert Wilders for coalition government

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Radio Netherlands is reporting:

The Christian Democrats have agreed to join informal talks with the free-market VVD party and Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) to determine whether it would be possible to form a rightwing coalition.

From Israel News"Wilders anti-Islam party to enter government talks" July 26:

Anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders has emerged as a possible member of the next Dutch government after the centrist Christian Democrats agreed to informal talks with Wilders and the VVD party that won recent Dutch elections.

Wilders says the Christian Democrats' move is "positive news" and he is prepared to start the talks as soon as possible. (AP)

Wilders' Freedom Party came in third and won 24 seats in June elections.

Moderate Republican floats secession idea for Tennessee, other States

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Political move?

A Tennessee Republican often accused in the past of being a moderate, establishment politician, has suddenly taken a sharp turn to the Right.

Congressman Zach Wamp who represents the Chatanooga/southeast Tennessee area, told CNN that American States should consider seccession, if things don't improve.

Rep. Zach Wamp, one of three candidates seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Tennessee, told Hotline OnCall that [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry had the right idea. Wamp argued that mandates forced on the states by the Obama administration's health care bill have put secession on the table.

"I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government," Wamp told Hotline OnCall Friday.

Wamp has been under fire from Tennessee conservatives for having voted for the TARP bailout.

Libertarian Republican contributor and Tennessee conservative activist JB Williams commented:

This was a calculated campaign statement from the start. Wamp is not known in Tennessee for a stiff conservative spine. He is moderate and is easily swayed across the aisle. The notion of Wamp ever seriously considering a move as serious as secession is laughable on its face. People familiar with Wamp's political career would never take that statement seriously to begin with. His recent recant of that statement is much more in line with the always politically correct Zach Wamp.

Wamp is currently one of two top Republican contenders for Tennessee Governor.

Democrat Congressmen in Texas may soon become an Extinct Species

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From Eric Dondero:

Chet Edwards is on the ropes. Edwards has represented a central Texas district for over 20 years. Early on in his career he did well at pretending to be a moderate. But since the 1990s, he's let his liberal side shine. In 1996, when Ron Paul first ran for Congress, it was Edwards who went on the attack accusing Paul in the pages of Austin American-Statesman of being a gun nut with ties to extremist groups. Since, then his voting record reflects more of a Nancy Pelosi style, rather than a Texan middle-of-the-roader. His NTU score has consistently been in the 26 to 27% range, indicating a status as a "Big Spender."

Now the Dallas Morning-News is reporting that Edwards is on the endangered list of the Democrat Congressional Committee (DCC).

Rep. Chet Edwards could see a major infusion of TV ads in October, courtesy of the national party, which has set aside $28 million to help 40 vulnerable incumbents across the country.

Safe to say, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wouldn't be spreading around that sort of largesse if it weren't at least a bit worried – about Edwards, Rep. Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio and the others and, more to the point, about fending off the GOP's assault on their 40-seat majority.

For Edwards, in particular, the rescue effort does not bode well...

Edwards and Ciro Rodriguez are among the most endangered of Texas Democrats. But other Democrats, including crazed-liberal Sheila Jackson-Lee in the heart of Houston and Lloyd Doggett in Austin, are facing stiff Republican opposition. In fact, Doggett's GOP opponent Dr. Donna Campbell was recently added to the NRCC's "On the Radar" list, indicating that the National Republican group considers him to be exceptionally vulnerable, as well.

Doggett and Edwards are among the very last standing stalwarts of the Texas Democrat Congressmen. If they go down, the Democrat Party will be relegated to virtual "third party" status in the Lone Star State.

Photos of Dr. Donna Campbell running against Lloyd Doggett in the Austin area, and Quico Canseco challenging Ciro Rodriguez in San Antonio.

Riddle Countdown; Two To Go

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UPDATE:  SOLVED by Steve at 12:33 CDT

Good morning, everyone.  I hope everyone has had a good week, and that you’re all refreshed and ready to riddle.  I’d love to add your name to the bonus riddle list.  If you’re new to the riddles, the people who solve the weekly riddles get first crack at the bonus riddle.  Yesterday’s post gives the riddle rules, if you need to look over them.  Remember all, it’s August 9th.

Moving right along into today’s riddle, you’ll be searching for an object.

This was a singular object, which became two.

It is associated with several important “firsts”.

Many people thought this wasn’t possible, but it was.

Although it seems like yesterday, this took place some thirty years ago.

For a “first”, it was considered, as a whole, a success.

We lost something here due to human error.

And there you are… your clues for today.  Not as many as you might be used to, but we have to get you trimmed down and ready for the bonus riddle!

Good luck.  You know where to find me.

10,000 years ago there were no “Southeast Asians” | Gene Expression

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Mexico Ancient WomanMexico: Ancient woman suggests diverse migration:

A scientific reconstruction of one of the oldest sets of human remains found in the Americas appears to support theories that the first people who came to the hemisphere migrated from a broader area than once thought, researchers say.
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History on Thursday released photos of the reconstructed image of a woman who probably lived on Mexico’s Caribbean coast 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. She peeks out of the picture as a short, spry-looking woman with slightly graying hair.

Anthropologists had long believed humans migrated to the Americas in a relatively short period from a limited area in northeast Asia across a temporary land corridor that opened across the Bering Strait during an ice age.

But government archaeologist Alejandro Terrazas says the picture has now become more complicated, because the reconstruction more resembles people from southeastern Asian areas like Indonesia.

I think this gets at the fallacy:

But Gillespie cautioned against comparing a reconstructed face from 10,000 years ago to modern populations in places like Indonesia, which have also probably changed over 10 millennia.

“You have to find skeletons of the same time period in Asia, or use genetic reconstructions, to make a strong connection, and cannot rely on modern populations,” she wrote. “Do we have any empirical data on what Southeast Asian women looked like … 10,000 years ago?”

A few years ago some scholars asserted that Kennewick Man resembled “South Asians.” I’m open to the possibility of a more complex peopling of the Americas, but until we get ancient DNA (something that is very difficult in the USA), it seems rather strange to make assessments of phylogenetic descent based on phenotypic similarities between one ancient specimen and modern populations.

Image Credit: AP Photo/ Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History

More To Say About “Tom Johnson”? | The Intersection

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PZ Myers now says he knows who “Tom” is. This certainly raises the possibility that someone may soon “out” him. I have not decided to do so, but the matter might be out of my hands. (Jean Kazez, by the way, has a thoughtful post about this.)

If it happens, there may also be a need to say more about “Tom’s” original story–even though, as I’ve already observed, there is no reason to believe it any longer.

We’ll see….


Comic-Con: Carl Speed McNeil on the difference (or lack thereof) between fantasy and SciFi | Science Not Fiction

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300.comic.con.logo.052708Carla Speed McNeil writes the Finder graphic novels, a work that in many ways blends science fiction and fantasy. With a hybrid work, she’s had to confront some of the definitional questions of the genres:

• Super hero comics are not SciFi. They’re stories of emotion and character embroidered with these scientific ideas.

• Fantasy and SciFi are both speculative fiction, but approached from different angles. Where SciFi builds on physics and chemistry and the laws of nature. Fantasy, when done well, draws from the “softer sciences” (McNeil’s phrase) like sociology and anthropology. When I think about the fantasy novels I’ve read, at least the good ones, I think she’s spot on. Also, by this rule, Super hero stories like Spider-Man and Superman are works of fantasy, not works of science fiction.

• I asked her thoughts on the question of breaking the rules that I raised in yesterday’s post. She pretty much admitted that one of the big problems is that a lot of SciFi and fantasy writers simply don’t know the rules of science well enough to know when they’re breaking the rules. But she also agreed with Zack Stentz, in that she said she obeys, “the rule of cool”: If it’s cool, you can break the rule. The art of the writing is making the rule breaking not off putting or boring.

A quick note for McNeil fans, she recently signed with Dark Horse Comics after years of self-publishing. She said the relationship is great so far, but still new. It’ll be interesting to see how or if the books change.


Comic-Con: An Ode to Excessive Branding | Science Not Fiction

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300.comic.con.logo.052708Here at Comic-Con 2010 it is a standard and recurring complaint that the event has been taken over by branding: An event that started out as a grass-roots gathering of comic-book culture has been overrun by corporate money, corporate product, and above all corporate advertising. Sure, it’s easy to see what they mean. The entire exterior of my Hilton hotel is covered with an ad for Scott Pilgrim (”an epic of epic epicness” — it’s a comic, soon to be a game and a major motion picture starring Michael Cera). The hotel elevators are wallpapered with promos for True Blood. Other buildings are draped in similarly vast posters for the game Red Faction and the upcoming movie Skyline.

The overall effect is a little overwhelming. It is also kind of…awe-inspiring.

First of all, there is the sheer technical achievement of making a 10-story-tall vinyl banner. The ads are an impressive showcase of what current graphics technology can do: extremely large-scale digital images printed directly onto enormous sheets of vinyl mesh. At a conference that is in no small part a celebration of the graphic arts, this kind of over-the-top element seems apt. Then there is the public art aspect of the thing. The San Diego skyline around the convention center here isn’t the most inspiring thing to begin with. The ads, garish as they may be, are more creative and personal than the jumble of generic modernist architecture they are covering.

And really, the application of digital technology to realize visuals that previously existed only in the realm of imagination is a central theme of the conference. In the “State of the Geek” session here, former Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt evocatively recalled a childhood memory of making copies of the USS Enterprise from paper plates and toilet paper tubes–and then being amazed to when Star Wars came out and showed for real the kinds of images that had been dancing around in his head. At the same session people lavished praise on the digital dreams of Inception.

In the exhibit hall, a showcase of special effect designs from Stan Winston Studios powerfully illustrated how the special-effect master progressed from latex and paint to far more elaborate and evocative imagery conjured directly from bits. His creations also blurred the boundaries between solitary vision and corporate branding. Which category do the Iron Man suits belong to? Which category properly holds the military tech from Avatar?

Looking out at the cityscape here, San Diego looks like nothing so much as a giant comic book. If that is the effect of branding run amok, I’m strangely OK with it.


I’ve got your missing links right here (24th July ‘10) | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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News

“You can just engineer a crime scene.” Scientists can fabricate blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. (Andrew Pollack, NYT)

New research suggests one reason women are underrepresented in science and math is they see such careers as impeding their desire to help others. (Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune)

Researchers implant false symptoms: we can be convinced we reported symptoms of mental illness that we never mentioned and, as a result, we can actually start believing we have the symptom itself. (Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks)

Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn’t it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes. (Janet Fang, Nature)

Is Torosaurus just an older version of Triceratops? (Brian Switek, Smithsonian Dinosaur Tracking)

Mark Henderson has had his genes tested three times by three different companies. Read about his surprising and sometimes alarming comparison. (Times; paywall (but it’s worth it))

More after the jump…

How to read a genome-wide association study (Jeff Barrett, Genomes Unzipped)

Fossil hunters in Australia have discovered a cave filled with the 15-million-year-old remains of prehistoric marsupials, including babies still in their mothers’ pouches (BBC)

The following occurs in real-time: Scientists have viewed the expression of an individual gene inside a human cell. (Brendan Borrell; Nature)

A Panamanian park has lost around 40% of its amphibian species in the past decade, with some dying out before biologists had even learned of their existence (Janet Fang, Nature)

Breakthrough? Fingers crossed. A vaginal gel used by women before sexual intercourse halved the numbers who became infected with HIV. (Sarah Boseley, Guardian)

Pure-food worshippers put their health at risk—especially when they drink unpasteurized milk (Deborah Blum, Slate)

RIP Robert Galambos, the neuroscientist who showed us how bats echolocate (Douglas Martin, NYT)

Follow a stranger on Twitter, says Jonah Lehrer. Speaking of which, Jonah is now at Wired and you must read his stuff.

An important environmental win: advocates in Hong Kong opposed a shark fin soup promotion (Bettina Wassener, NYT)

Why some snakes have slit pupils (Doctor Zen, Neurodojo)

It’s a star. A really big star. No, really, it’s BIG. It’s bigness goes up to 11. (Ian Sample, Guardian)

A 40-tonne whale breached onto a boat. Why? (Philip Hoare, Guardian)

Wow/heh

Amazing photos of deep-sea creatures at the BBC

This is a plane being shot down by a frickin’ laser beam. I’ll be in my bunker…

Is this the laziest (or best) caption ever?

Blogging/journalism/internet

This week’s must-read post – a storming history of science blogging as Bora Zivkovic says goodbye to ScienceBlogs. Check out how one person can inspire an entire community, and follow Bora to his new home. Continuing the SciBling exodus, read goodbyes from Deborah Blum (in the style of Tennyson), Zuska, Abel Pharmboy, and, er, me, and a summary in Nature News

The Guardian published a truly moronic piece on Pepsigate by one David Appell. Another David, he of Dobbs fame, absolutely destroyed the piece. “Few have ever packed as much error and folly into seven paragraphs.” Go for the eyes, David!

“If you’re worried about inspiring the next generation of scientists, listen to young people, don’t (just) feed them space-dinos,” argues Alice Bell.

How Facebook has to cope with death

“Given women will remain under the microscope indefinitely, I hope increasing numbers aim for high magnification for reasons beyond appearances,” says Sheril Kirshenbaum in an excellent post on sexism in science.

The New England Journal of Medicine sets a 65-minute embargo. Coming soon: the count-to-ten embargo.

Comic Con 1: Abusing the Sci of SciFi panel | Bad Astronomy

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At Comic Con, I moderated a wonderful panel about how science sometimes gets screwed up by science fiction. Sponsored by Discover Magazine and The NAS Science and Entertainment Exchange, it’s the third time we’ve done this panel, and it’s been really fun every year. I already talked a bit about this — we had Jaime Paglia from Eureka, Kevin Grazier from BSG and "Eureka", Zack Stentz from "Thor" and "Fringe", and Sean Carroll who is a cosmologist and blogs for Discover as well.

We showed our picks for representative good and bad science in shows and movies, and I have to commend Sean for his pick of "Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure" for good science (the consistency of the time travel in that movie is wonderful) and "Big Bang Theory" for the philosophy of science — they discuss the physics of Superman, making the assumption that a man actually can fly.

We were short on time, and had to cut the Q&A off short, but as usual we got great questions from the audience and a lot of fun back-and-forth with the panelists. We’ll have the video up at some point, and I think you’ll like it when we do.

So far, I’ve seen two reviews: one from ScriptPhD, and the other from our own Science Not Fiction. You can check out my Comic Con 2010 pix at Flickr, too.

[Update: Eric Wolff wrote an interesting piece on the discussion of when to break the rules of science. I may write more on this later, but I don't think Zack Stentz's contention that science must bend to the story would faze any of us on the panel; we know we're talking about fiction here. Science won't bend when you're publishing in the Astrophysical Journal, but it must when put under the constraints of telling an engaging fictional story.]


Newspace 2010

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Keith's note: You can watch Newspace 2010 live at Spacevidcast. You can follow it on here on Twitter as well. One interesting comment this morning from NASA HQ's Charles Miller: "NASA admits that it is not a reliable customer".

Alas, these panels are almost exclusively composed of white males in their late 40's/early 50's. No females and rarely a darker shade of skin are to be found. I know these folks, so this is most certainly not a matter of discrimination by any means. Rather, it is evidence of a total lack of imagination in terms of outreach, mentoring, and trying to embrace the real world within which space commerce is but a miniscule part. I have watched/attended these Space Frontier Foundation things year after year. Without fail, its always the same people talking about the same stuff. Lots of arm waving - but rarely any concrete solutions.

NASA is always cast as simultaneously being the enemy and the source of funds for everyone's pet project. Same thing goes for Congress. No attempt is made to get outside the box and try and be relevant to the real world and the economic, societal, and political forces that make things work. The Space Frontier Foundation used to have some radical thinking. Now it has all evaporated away. All that's left is what you see on these panels - old thinking.

If your new business idea depends on government handouts and/or favoritism then you don't have the right product or the right business plan. You are just chasing after a new flavor of pork.

Gearbox Quandary

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Most newer wind turbines are designed for a 20 year service life. However, the fact that their gearboxes are expected to last only seven to 11 years portends a major crisis for the wind power industry. How can this be averted or accommodated?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Mechanical

How Will Automation Affect Unemployment?

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A recent book review of "The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future," talks about how automation and productivity gains are cutting manufacturing jobs — not only on the shop floor but in management's ranks, too. The book, written by a Silicon Va

How Productive is a Wireless Standards War?

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Writing in an opinion piece, the editor of ControlGlobal notes that, "end users really hate standards wars!" But we've got just that in wireless sensor networks, where the WirelessHART standard is already in place (and approved by the IEC as the first global standard for wireless sensor networks), w

Vacillation Over Vaccines

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Would you get inoculated against HIV if a vaccine was available today? Recent research shows that many people would not due to perceptions of effectiveness and risk. Only 40% of people surveyed would accept a vaccine that is 50% effective against HIV, while 74% would accept a 100% effective vaccine.

Space Adventures suborbital and orbital update

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Tom Shelley of Space Adventures

Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, updates NewSpace 2010 attendees on his company's suborbital and orbital spaceflight plans.

Two months ago, at the International Space Development Conference in Chicago, Space Adventures announced a partnership with Armadillo Aerospace to develop vehicles for suborbital space tourism. At the end Friday of the first day of the NewSpace 2010 conference in Sunnyvale, California, Tom Shelley, the new president of Space Adventures, provided a brief review on the company’s suborbital plans. (Shelley took over as president about a month ago, he said; Eric Anderson is still there as chairman, but Shelley said he’s involved in more of the day-to-day activities of the company now.)

Shelley didn’t make any major announcements about the company’s suborbital efforts yesterday, instead primarily summarizing the plans to have Armadillo develop a vehicle that can serve what Shelley said could be a huge market: he noted that there are about 10 million people with investible assets of $1 million or more, and who could thus afford a $100,000 suborbital flight if they’re so inclined. Shelley went on to suggest that the fraction of those people who would be interested could be huge: he cited a survey of several hundred jet owners, 69% of whom said they’d be interested in flying into space. “There was no context to that,” he admitted, saying that survey didn’t describe what sort of spaceflight experience would be offered. “Even if it’s ridiculously wrong,” he said, offering something closer to 20% that had been noted in previous surveys, “that’s still a pretty good number.”

“There is a market, and we have barely scratched the surface,” Shelley said. One challenge the company has faced, he said, is describing what the spaceflight experience will be like for suborbital flyers, something that can be difficult to do since there are no vehicles flying yet. “What we’re missing is the actual flight, the actual moment where a real person, a real paying passenger, gets on the vehicle and we take them up into suborbital space,” he said. “At that point the market for sure is going to explode.”

Shelley also briefly discussed Space Adventures’ orbital plans, hinting that there are new developments coming soon. Asked why, given that Space Adventures has been able to readily fill seats on Soyuz taxi flights to the ISS when offered, it hasn’t yet flown a dedicated mission, Shelley said it came down to cost. “Selling expensive spaceflights is not easy,” he said. “When your price goes from $20 million to $35 million to more over the course of very short period of time, it’s a challenge to find customers who are prepared to put up that money.” However, he added, “The customers are there, and there’s going to be some fun announcements coming out of us in the next few months about future missions and future contracts that we have signed.”

20 Steps to Fight Global Warming

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There are things everyone can do to fight global warming, no matter how difficult it may seem to solve this problem.  Below is a great list of 20 things everyone can do, on their own, to fight global warming and pollution.   This list is from another positive organization that makes a difference, the Evironnmental Defense Action Fund.  The photo below is of the smoggy air over California, from Climate.gov, which illustrates one of the environmental problems that needs to be reversed.

I was surprised when reading the list how people could do even more than the list suggests.  For instance, don’t use a dishwasher at all.  Hand wash and air dry as much as possible.  Air dry your clothes too.  I have added more suggestions after some of the items.

The average American today uses enough energy to release about 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide- the major contributor to global warming- per year.  Here are 20 simple steps you can take to bring your average down. [this was originally written in 2007]

1. Urge your United States Senators to support the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act.

(Updated legislation summaries can be found here.)

2. Run your dishwashwer only with a full load.  Use the energy-saving setting to dry the dishes. Don’t use heat when drying.

[Better idea -- hand wash and air or towel dry. Why use a dishwasher at all?]

3. Wash clothes in warm or cold water, not hot.  [Dry them outside if possible.]

4. Turn down your water heater thermostat; 120 degrees is usually sufficent.

5. Monitor the temperature in your home.  Adjust your thermostat – lower in the winter and higher in the summer.

[Use a fan or "swamp cooler" instead of an air conditioner.]

6. Clean or replace air filters as recommended.

7. Buy energy efficient compact flourescent bulbs for your most used lights.

8. Wrap your water heater in an insulating jacket (but only if the water heater is over five years old and has no internal insulation).

[Better yet, get a solar powered hot water heater!]

9. Install low-flow shower heads to use less hot water.

10. Caulk and weatherstrip around doors and windows to plug air leaks.

[or get new windows installed that are more air-tight, if you can afford it.]

11. Ask your utility company to conduct an energy audit to find out where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient.

12. Whenever possible, walk, bike, carpool, or use mass transit.

13. When time and budget permits, buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle- one that gets at least five more mpg than your old car.

14. Reduce waste by buying minimally packaged goods; choosing reusable products over disposable ones.

15. Request that the coolant be recycled every time your car air conditioner is serviced.

16. Insulate your walls and ceilings to save about 25% on your home heating bills.

17. If you [...]