Well now I can expand on yesterday's teaser. Here's the website for the conference. Note, it requires members of the interested public to register in order to attend. Meanwhile, here's the abstract of what we're going to be considering--which, I might add, is not being considered nearly enough:
The blogosphere represents a new kind of deliberative space that is both enlarging and constraining public discourse in unprecedented ways. The key factor about this space, the issue this workshop seeks to explore, is its lack of norms. It is an unruly space in the sense that there are no rules of entry, access, or conduct, except for extreme forms of behavior that are positively illegal. The consequences of this unruliness have been specially severe for scientific communication, which depends on common standards of truth-telling and civility for its progress. In turn, the erosion of scientific standards destabilizes the foundations of democratic deliberation. Can norms of discourse be inserted into the blogosphere that would advance science and democracy? Can blogs induce deliberation or must they encourage extremism and rage to the detriment of public reason? Is science helped or hurt by the new media? What particular distorting factors enter the picture as blogging becomes ...
Wasp spiders won’t let their sisters eat them after sex | Not Exactly Rocket Science
For some animals, sex involves the ultimate sacrifice. Some species of spider, for example, redefine the concept of a dangerous liaison when the female turns around and devours her mate in a post-coital attack of the munchies. For males, it’s important that this act of sexual cannibalism isn’t in vain and that they die while impregnating the best possible mate. And for the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi, that means no sisters allowed.
Klaas Welke and Jutta Schneider from Hamburg’s Zoological Institute found that male wasp spiders are more likely to succumb to their grisly fate if they have just mated with an unrelated female than a sibling. Doing so allows them to avoid the heavy costs of inbreeding, where two copies of the same harmful or faulty genes have a high chance of ending up in the same individual. That’s bad news and both sexes do their best to avoid it, but for these spiders, the female holds all the cards.
She can mate with multiple partners and she can even control whose sperm actually fertilises her eggs. So the male must do everything he can in order to ensure that his genes pass on to the next generation. His job is even more difficult because he can only ever mate twice in his life. He has a pair of sexual organs – pedipalps – and each has only one use. And of course, his mate invariably attacks him after sex with murderous intent. Around 80% of sexual encounters end with the male becoming a meal and even if he survives his first time, the second time will kill him.
The male’s chances of living to mate again depend entirely on how long he lasts during his virgin encounter. If he jumps off the female within the first five seconds, he has a shot at survival. If he hangs around for more than ten seconds, he will almost certainly die. The trouble is that the longer he sticks around, the more sperm he can pump into the female and the greater his odds of fathering the next generation. It’s a tricky dilemma – with only two chances at mating, he should only make the choice to stay, inseminate and die if his mate is worth the trouble.
And according to Welke and Schneider, that’s exactly what happens. They found that males escaped being eaten almost half of the time (47%) if they were mating with their sisters, but just a fifth of the time (22%) if they mated with an unrelated female. This was directly related to the length of their flings – when they had sex with sisters, they left after 5.8 seconds but they kept at it for 9 seconds when it came to unrelated females.
Of course, it’s possible that this represents a choice on the part of the female – perhaps she cuts the male off early if he’s a relative. However, Welke and Schneider think that this is unlikely because females will attack any male regardless of how closely related he is. They get their say by choosing to mate with another male if they wish. The decision to end sex early appears to be the will of the male.
But why should a male mate with their sister at all, if she’s such an undesirably partner? The duo suggests that males lead precarious lives anyway, and the longer they spend searching for a mate, the greater their odds of dying before becoming fathers. So high is this risk that they’ll accept even undesirable mating opportunities; they’ll just try to move on to better things without getting eaten first.
Reference: Biology Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0214
More on cannibalism:
- March of the locusts – individuals start moving to avoid cannibals
- Attack of the pregnant cannibal fathers
Story Musgrave Thinks That The ISS is "an ungodly sin"
20 Years Later: Hubble, Humans and the Future of Space Flight, The Atlantic
[Story Musgrave] "[The Space Station] does nothing for nobody and it never has," he says. "The cost of space station is 300 Voyager-class satellites. We could have had multiple Voyagers landed or floating in the atmosphere on every planet and on every moon of every planet. That is what we gave up when we went with a jobs program, which is what the space station is. And that's an ungodly sin. And yes, I'm a human space flight person, but listen to me. That's what we could have offered the public."
Keith's note: Oh well. So much for the notion that a whole bunch of college degrees and lots of trips into outer space automatically makes you enlightened.
Faux News Update
Spaceballs - Fox News article about NASA's future stokes Cold War fears with false experts, Columbia Journalism Review
"Obama's proposal marks a dramatic shift in the U.S. program for space exploration, worthy of debate. It's unfortunate, then, but unfortunately not surprising, that some news outlets have turned questions of serious policy into political spaceballs. One week before Obama's speech, a science reporter at FoxNews.com, who frequently provides a platform for climate change skeptics (examples here, here, here and here), zeroed in on long-standing plans to retire the deteriorating space shuttle this fall, a cost-saving (and perhaps life-saving) move that will force NASA to depend on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for transportation to and from the space station."
And Now A Word From The Lunatic Fringe, Earlier Post
One KSC Worker’s Perspective on The President’s Visit
Obama's April 15th Speech at Kennedy Space Center
"Obama started out his day visiting the KSC area by avoiding the workers. Though NASA and United Space Alliance had sent down word that no personal opinions of the employees would be allowed (also no twitter, Facebook, or talking with the media) would be allowed or tolerated, many of the workers, from what I've been told, had left their jobs briefly to line the road and express their "opinion" of Obama's new policy. But Obama the coward took a back route in from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to get to his teleprompter at the Operations and Checkout Building many miles away from the workers."
Notes from Cochabamba
“The main enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism.” — Evo Morales
Bolivian Climate Conference Draws Thousands
See live coverage of Cochabamba here–until it’s over on Earth Day, April 22nd
Bolivian President Evo Morales launched the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on Tuesday, welcoming over 10,000 people from 135 countries and dozens of social organizations to what he declared to be an alternative to the United Nations climate talks.
In a moving multicultural ceremony in a stadium outside Cochabamba, amautas — indigenous cultural leaders — performed an official opening ceremony offering a gift to mother earth “Pachamama”.
A written goal of the conference is “to save the planet,” and Morales, who opposed the U.S.-backed Copenhagen Accord during the last international climate conference, was clear about where he’d like to start.”
By Claudia Lopez Pardo, from Solveclimate.com
I wrote these notes while Evo Morales was speaking live last evening. These quotes were from his translated remarks.
“The main enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism.”
“Capitalism proposes unlimited growth. 2.8 billion people are existing on less than $2 a day.
Capitalism makes everything into commodities. Water traditional cultures, human genome, if we don’t change the capitalism system then any measures that we do adapt will have limited scope.
There can only be harmony with nature if there is equality amongst humans themselves.
We need a new economic system here which respects the rights of humans and of nature.
Developing countries do need to improve but they in no way can follow the path of developed countries….”
More information can be found on OneClimate.net and the summit’s official site here.
What was Morales talking about? Capitalism is destroying the earth in a very simple way — it promotes unlimited growth, which promotes consumer growth, product growth and waste growth. Any economic system that relies on growth will eventually deplete the resources of the planet, which is now holding about 7 billion people and will hold 9 billion in 10-20 years.
It means that the rich get richer, as we are seeing now, and the poor get poorer, which we are also seeing. Capitalism sets up a system where the poor must rely on charity to survive. It’s not sustainable.
Here is another viewpoint:
Prensa Latina via Links International Journal of Socialist Revewal
April 20, 2010—Cochabamba, Bolivia — Bolivia’s President Evo Morales Ayma condemned the capitalist system in the opening session of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth today.
Morales, speaking at the April 20 conference inauguration, started his speech with a slogan, “Planet or death, we shall overcome.”
He said that harmony with nature could not exist while 1 per cent of the world’s population concentrates more than 50 per cent of the world’s riches. Capitalism is the main enemy of the Earth, only looking for profits, [...]
Works by Ernesto Michahelles (Thayaht) on display
Thayaht e Madame Vionnet: tra sperimentazione e alta moda
May 14-16, 2010
Lucca Elegance | Lucca
I bozzetti di Thayaht a “Lucca Elegance”
“Thayaht e Madame Vionnet: tra sperimentazione e alta moda” è il titolo dell’esposizione focalizzata su Ernesto Michahelles, meglio noto come Thayaht, artista divenuto famoso fra gli anni Venti e gli anni Cinquanta del secolo scorso. La mostra, allestita all’interno del complesso monumentale del “Real Collegio” e realizzata in collaborazione con la Galleria d’Arte Bacci di Capaci di Lucca, raccoglie alcuni dei modelli realizzati dall’artista toscano per la casa di moda francese di Madaleine Vionnet, una delle più innovative dell’epoca.
Severini For Sale
Gino Severini (1883-1966)
Composizione
signed ‘G. Severini’ (lower right)
pastel, brush and India ink and pencil on toned paper laid down on board
18 1/8 x 13½ in. (46 x 34.3 cm.)
Drawn circa 1949
Christie’s Sale 2312
Impressionist/Modern Works on Paper Featuring Property from the Collection of Mrs Sidney F. Brody
May 5, 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza
Estimate: $15,000 – $20,000
Provenance
O’Hana Gallery, London.
Anon. sale, Sotheby’s, Milan, 30 May 1995, lot 302.
Anon. (acquired at the above sale); sale, Christie’s, Milan, 26 May 2008, lot 150.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Lot Notes: Romana Severini Brunori has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
"The Rogue Taxidermy Kunstkammer," The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles
This just in from Congress for Curious People participant and Friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy Robert Marbury; if I was in the greater Los Angeles area, I'd surely be there:
The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists proudly presents The Rogue Taxidermy Kunstkammer
Our contemporary culture has seen a growing interest in taxidermy fueled by the internet, ambivalence about the food industry, and concerns over animal extinction. The representation of animal form is wide-ranging, and this exhibition presents the first major group show of Rogue Taxidermy. Rogue Taxidermy, a mixed-media art utilizing taxidermy materials, is more closely related to Surrealism than to mainstream taxidermy. Ranging from the macabre to the sublime, this exhibition explores the Borgesian imaginary made real.Featuring:
SCOTT A. A. BIBUS
SARINA BREWER
MELISSA DIXON
ENRIQUE GOMEZ DE MOLINA
JESSICA JOSLIN
JEANIE M
ROBERT MARBURY
ELIZABETH MCGRATH
ALAN WADZINSKI
BROOKE WESTON
MIRMY WINNThe Show runs May 7th - May 30th
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday May 7th, 8pm-11pmSQUIRREL MASTERCLASS/GAMEFEED
This event will include a taxidermy demo, followed by Squirrel Chili. A vegan "Mock-Squirrel" Chili will also be available. Sponsored by Schmaltz Brewing Company.
Saturday May 8th 6pm-10pmLA LUZ DE JESUS
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90027
Phone: 323-666_7667
http://www.laluzdejesus.com* All members adhere to a strict ethics charter. Only animals procured in an ethical and environmentally responsible manner were used, and none of the animals were killed for the purpose of this artwork.
* A portion of the proceeds of this show will be given to a local wildlife rehabilitation center.
For more information, check out the La Luz de Jesus website by clicking here. You can find out more about The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists by clicking here. Click on image to see larger version.
Richard Bransons Underwater Plane.
To make his private island even more exclusive, Richard Branson has added an “underwater plane” to the compliment of luxuries at his ultra exclusive Necker Island.
The billionaire entrepreneur, recently ranked the world’s 212th richest man, gave the Oprah Winfrey Show unprecedented access to Necker, his 74-acre Caribbean island. He gave presenter Nate Berkus a tour of his home, which he has recently finished building, his cliff top guest house and his extravagant toys.
The submarine uses its wings to create downward lift underwater and is fitted with scuba gear for its pilot and two passengers.
‘It’s like an airplane that flies underwater, a little fighter plane,’ Branson said.
And he allowed cameras to shoot as he went for his first ride on the Nymph, describing the experience as ‘brilliant’ through microphones fitted on his scuba gear
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1266111/Sir-Richard-Branson-takes-spin-new-underwater-plane-gives-sneak-peek-inside-Necker-Island.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0lSstvcdO
Dear Commenters, We Need to Talk… [Community]
We've talked about how the commenting system and those crazy tagpages work, but it seems that it's time for a different sort of discussion. Yeah, it's apparently time to talk about trolls, jerks, doo-doo heads, lousy commenters, and the banhammer. More »
Preview of Mysterious New Energy Bill
Everything is wonderful, especially for Big Oil
President Obama spoke to a group at the White House on Earth Day. He was optimistic, as he usually is. According to Politico, who had a reporter there, President Obama spent about 20 minutes at the private Rose Garden reception marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, but he only spoke for a few minutes.
Among those spotted by the pool reporter in what POTUS called a “good-looking crowd” of about 200: Energy Sec. Steven Chu, Labor Sec. Hilda Solis, HUD Sec. Shaun Donovan, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA), Dale Kildee (D-MI) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). Plus actress Sigourney Weaver. ! [Was James Cameron around too?]
Not in attendance were the three senators writing the climate change bill expected to be introduced Monday: Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Kerry (D-MA).
Maybe because the bill, to be introduced next Monday, is not a climate change bill. It’s a fossil fuel giveaway bill. And it is going to be even weaker than the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the Congress already! Here is what Mother Jones has found out about this mysterious bill that no one has seen yet:
In the teleconference, [on Thursday April 22] organized by the We Can Lead coalition, Sen. Kerry outlined specific details from the bill that have not previously been publicly available. Here’s a rundown:
The bill would remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, and the states’ authority to set tougher emissions standards than the federal government.
There will be no fee—or “gas tax”—on transportation fuels. Instead, oil companies would also be required to obtain pollution permits but will not trade them on the market like other polluters. How this would work is not yet clear.
Agriculture would be entirely exempt from the cap on carbon emissions. [holy cow that's stupid]
Manufacturers would not be included under a cap on greenhouse gases until 2016. [also weird and wrong]
The bill would provide government-backed loan guarantees for the construction of 12 new nuclear power plants.
It will contain at least $10 billion to develop technologies to capture and store emissions from coal-fired power plants.
There will be new financial incentives for natural gas. [a fossil fuel that emits CO2]
The bill would place an upper and lower limit on the price of pollution permits, known as a hard price collar. Businesses like this idea because it ensures a stable price on carbon. Environmental advocates don’t like the idea because if the ceiling is set too low, industry will have no financial incentive to move to cleaner forms of energy.
The energy bill passed by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year will be adopted in full, which has sparked concerns among environmentalists for its handouts to nuclear and fossil fuel interests.
<p [...]
ATK’s SRBs: No Longer Need?
NASA: ATK has to shrink to remain competitive, Salt Lake Tribune
"Unfortunately the solid rocket industry has been overcapitalized for many, many years," Bolden told an appropriations subcommittee as part of his push for President Barack Obama's new direction for NASA. "We are carrying 70 percent of an industry for a capability that no one uses but NASA." And NASA isn't sure to what extent it wants to use it any more either. ATK's solid rocket motors have launched the shuttle into orbit for decades and the company has been constructing the Ares rocket as its replacement. But President Barack Obama wants to drop Ares and the overall Constellation program. In its place, Obama would pay for flights on as-yet-unbuilt private space vehicles to reach low-earth orbit, while NASA would focus on creating a completely new deep-space vehicle starting in 2015."
Congress 1; Bolden 0
Obama plan to end much of Constellation program angers Republican senators, Washington Post
"In scrapping large parts of the Constellation program, however, Obama has outraged lawmakers from Gulf Coast states and Utah, where contracts and jobs may be lost. In a meeting Thursday of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) accused Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. and NASA on Thursday of ceding space exploration to the "Russians, the Chinese and even the Indians," and he accused the administration of setting up a "welfare program for commercial space industry."
Lawmakers Question NASA's Plan for Private Rockets, Wall Street Journal
"But it's the panel headed by Sen. Mikulski, who has been wooed by the White House in recent weeks, that could play the leading role in shaping NASA's future. Unbtil Thursday, Sen. Mikulski hadn't expressed her views publicly. At this point, however, many veteran lawmakers predict Congress will adopt a continuing resolution for the agency, which wouldn't resolve the controversial issues this year."
Key Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski reluctant to endorse Obama's NASA plan, Orlando Sentinel
"Right now I feel like a deep-space probe; I'm in reconnaissance," said Mikulski, after a Thursday hearing of the commerce, justice and science appropriations subcommittee. A key issue, she said, was whether commercial companies would be held to the same safety standards as NASA. "We're not sending cases of Tang into space. We're sending our astronauts and the astronauts from other countries that they provide to us," she said. "
NASA has escape plan for space station astronauts, LA Times
"The president's plan has drawn criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers in states with NASA operations. Last week, Obama announced that part of the Constellation program, the Orion capsule, was being revived to provide astronauts an emergency escape from the station and reduce U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles when the space shuttle program ends this year."
This is How Urban News Myths Start
Obama Touts Connection to Space Program in New National Ad (2008)
"BO: One of my earliest memories going with my grandfather to see some of the astronauts brought back after a splashdown, sitting on his shoulders waving a little American flag. And my grandfather would say you know boy American's we can do anything that we put our minds to."
Feud Over NASA Threatens America's Edge in Space, Wall Street Journal (2010)
"Mr. Obama, who often recounts watching NASA launches as a youngster perched on his grandfather's shoulders, says he hopes to lead the agency through a historic shift."
Keith's note: This is how urban news myths start. A single landing in Hawaii becomes multiple launches (presumably) in Florida. I first posted this a week ago. The WS Journal has not corrected their website. Nor has the author (Andy Pasztor - I sent him an email) apparently paid any attention to my citation of his overt error.
A Woman In Cables [Art]
This is Connected, a self-portrait sculpture by artist Kasey McMahon. It's made entirely of Cat 5 cables and other wires, wrapped around a steel frame. It's absolutely stunning. More »
My New Car Decal | The Intersection
For those not already familiar with the original 'mud flap girl,' compare here. In my opinion, this one's far more attractive.
How to Name a Volcano [Humor]
It's not easy to come up with a volcano name that forces people to sound like they've got something jammed down their throats, but someone's gotta do it. Here's the trick to doing it properly. More »
Life Without Gadgets, As Seen On TV [Infomercials]
What would life be like without all of those helpful infomercial technologies? Without the Awesome Auger, the Doggie Step, the Closet Organizer, the Egg Genie, or countless others? As this impressively thorough compilation shows: a big, miserable mess. [Kottke] More »
