tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:57:54 +0000http://www.wildbard.com/lunartalks.htmlpeterBlogger475125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-830879238499876613Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:35:00 +00002006-11-23T11:59:34.799Z(geddit?) a lovely site by an enviably talented wildlife artist who also has a great sense of fun. A brilliant birthday card to Charles Darwin (sporting a finch and a comb-over), a Valentine's Day superhero (click through at the bottom of the post) and George and a timetravelling Australopithecus sharing a beer. (Not worksafe: ancestral penis on view.) His latest post is a wonderfully http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/olduvai-george.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-6738312815067838530Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:33:00 +00002006-11-22T15:55:33.355Zmake a guest appearance at top climate science site Real Climate. Not only are we growing some award-winning wines (good: the last English wine I tried triggered my gag-reflex), we're growing wine-producing grapes as far north as Leeds.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/english-vineyards.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-1246248737061934712Wed, 22 Nov 2006 12:50:00 +00002006-11-22T13:05:27.049ZThe BBC correspondents generally agreed that today's bout was 'sober': David Cameron led on foreign affairs in troubled places so there was less playground behaviour than usual. Ming asked about the replacement to Trident*, specifically whether MPs would get a vote on the options following a white paper. (BBC's Daily Politics perception panel recorded a lot of public sympathy for Ming on this http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/pmqs-ming-done-good.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-54655465843733757Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:14:00 +00002006-11-22T00:34:07.186Zfrom PZ Myers at Pharyngula. PZ's is consistently one of the most combative (and entertaining) blogs when it comes to intelectually smiting Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents. When he demolishes an argument he does it with rigour and with no little literary grace. He's also a damn fine science communicator, as this piece on evolution in the pre- and Cambrian period (600-510 http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/finest-kind-science-writing.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-5310847619041405350Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:16:00 +00002006-11-21T16:19:13.317Zor this is what happens. Clue: a Floridian python decided to make a snackette of a passing alligator, and got the once and for ever grandfather of all indigestions.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/never-try-to-eat-anything-bigger-than.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-3913747879663860919Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:31:00 +00002006-11-20T14:36:12.537ZPenguins beat Bond at US cinemas, according to BBC Entertainment.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/licence-to-chill.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-2848314991357908214Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:32:00 +00002006-11-20T11:44:56.514Z'If you keep digging, you'll come out in China.' (Australia was another version of the same foul untruth). How often were you told that as a kid? Well, they've been found out with this site which works out exactly where the hole would come out. They were wrong and we'd be in big trub if we kept digging: we'd emerge onto the Pacific abyssal plain south east of New Zealand, under a few miles of http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/liars.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-8023442708665525200Sun, 19 Nov 2006 01:08:00 +00002006-11-19T16:00:42.851Zthe Sunday Times is reporting a prison-funding spat between John Reid and Gordon 'Bosola' Brown. You read it would here five weeks ago.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/according-to-radio-5-live.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-7929918601816093637Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:35:00 +00002006-11-19T00:56:22.947Ztold by a wildlife film maker. A group of five New Zealand lifeguards were on an open water training swim when they were mobbed by dolphins. The dolphins circled them, swimming very close and in such a tight pattern that the swimmers couldn't push their way out. They became alarmed, thinking that the dolphins were about to turn ugly and that being done to death by a load of dolphins would be http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/another-true-one.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-8685694210278149881Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:22:00 +00002006-11-18T17:28:01.036Zthat never squeaks. Turns out it's illegal to own a ferret in New York. The place is named after York, old time capital of Yorkshire where Ferret Legging is practically our only leisure activity, since watching Leeds United has become such a dispiriting pasttime.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/i-wanna-to-wake-up-in-city.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-3965556179529325831Sat, 18 Nov 2006 12:36:00 +00002006-11-18T12:58:17.594Zinto a strain more suited to infecting humans, according to an article in Nature, written up for the rest of us in New Scientist. Their conclusion: mutated strains of bird flu have improved their ability to infect human cells but that there is no evidence of routine human to human infection. The virus may never make that mutation, limiting it to rare jumps into humans. If it does acquire the http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/h5n1-has-mutated_18.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-7692198951873037690Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:22:00 +00002006-11-14T18:27:11.316Zaccording to biology in science fiction, which reports that someone had a look at the epidemiology of vampirism: "Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month -- turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire -- after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/homo-sapiens-undead-since-1602.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-6015480089150336757Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:30:00 +00002006-11-14T16:11:10.714Zin today's Guardian. It seems the Sunday Telegraph have published a lengthy rebuttal of climate change science which same its readers regard as The Last Word on the matter, and have emailed GM at length and with some abusive vigour. (A creationist sends similar to PZ Myers at pharygula and gets thoroughly vivisectioned in reply. Monbiot doesn't have the space to do a complete hatchet job on http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/george-monbiot-is-on-form_14.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-1116046279260107588Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:46:00 +00002006-11-13T20:49:17.071Z"What happened to tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?"http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/suggested-heckle-for-lord-mayors.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116344749462547938Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:43:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:36.147ZA local dinner-nanny (the lady who patrols the school playground at lunchtime) recently noticed that two children had wrapped a skipping rope around the neck of a third and were about to heave it tight. This childish prank (used to execute put of favour Turkish rulers in the not too distant past) was happening some distance away, so she uttered a playground stilling bellow then ran to save the http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/this-is-true-story.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116336211099375643Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:59:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:35.924ZAwful news from Iraq: four soldiers dead and three seriously injured after a bomb attack on their boat. The unit and names haven't been released, but I'm sure all our sympathy goes out to their families and comrades.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/sorry-end-to-rememberance-sunday.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116324574238022666Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:27:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:35.475Za game for all the political family. How much sea level rise before the sea laps at your doorstep: zoom and and choose your sea level rise here. I've posted this link before, but for newcomers it's a grimly amusing way to spend five minutes turning parts of the map blue, and not in a political sense.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/flood-your-ward.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116309292057361501Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:40:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:35.211ZAn inexplicable childhood ambition was to sail the Skagerrak. Did it in some pretty grizzly weather, so was pleased to see these NASA pics of North Sea storms. During one North Sea crossing, a crew mate (who had made millions in the food industry, and knows of what he speaks) warned me against eating farmed shrimps and prawns . He said they're 'farmed in pools full of shit and chemicals'. NASA http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/skaggerak-prawn-alert-and-space.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116303823918679671Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:43:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:34.891ZTwo weeks ago we were hit by an 18 hour power cut. Several villages hereabouts were knocked out overnight, our bit of the village was hard to reconnect (owing to a raw sewage leak...) and for the next three days I had an industrial-sized generator parked outside my house bellowing night and day (no problem there) and cutting out sometimes three times an hour, which did give me the arse. Now, I'mhttp://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/on-fragility-of-society.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116303657097238932Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:39:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:34.607Zif Iraq holds a reality TV show to select who drops Saddam. They could call it the X-ecution Factor.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/western-values-will-have-triumped.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116293042281215141Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:36:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:34.301ZNewcastle University's North East Stem Cell Institute has made the headlines again: this time with place to place a human nucleus in a hollowed out cow egg and (hopefully) harvest some stem cells from the resulting embryo, which will be destroyed before a fortnight old. Here's the BBC report, and here's the Newcastle University press release, in many ways a better read. Best read of all is PZ http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/making-moo-cytes.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116263253898786201Sat, 04 Nov 2006 09:10:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:33.502Zthe Today programme reported the arrival of the world's largest ship the Emma Maersk, due in Felixstowe around 5.30pm. 397 metres long, loaded with 45,000 tonnes of coal-produced Chistmas tat from China. I'm with Lovelock. We're done for.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/on-day-of-stop-climate-chaos-march.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116256352265533189Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:49:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:33.250ZHere's a test of Tony's newfound scientific ardour. For the past five years scientists have recommended leaving the North Sea's under-the-cosh cod stocks to recover. And for the past five years politicians have ignored them, the UK (Prop: A Blair) included. Here in Whitby there is a small fishing industry but one to which the town is intensely emotionally attached. The idea that we should stop http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/fish-having-its-chips.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116255490424615320Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:47:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:33.038Z..about science as part of 'Our Nation's Future', a 'series of lectures from the PM on vital issues'. Mr. Blair also spent 20 minutes with New Scientist editor Jeremy Webb. Podcast here or read the transcript here. Update: BBC news Become scientists, Blair urges young.http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/tony-blair-talks-turkey.htmlpetertag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6401831.post-116248286956307780Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:51:00 +00002006-11-13T20:29:32.722Zis calling for posts for CoTL 25. The host has asked for posts on the question of how politics should be conducted. Some examples of specific issues one might explore here include: ◦ The relative merits of conventional advocacy, or "working within the system", vs. radical activism. ◦ Which is more important in politics: means or ends? Liberals are often committed to both first-order ends (http://www.wildbard.com/2006/11/carnival-of-liberals.htmlpeter