Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
It's close anyway.
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Cost Of Living Now Outweighs Benefits
WASHINGTON, DC—A report released Monday by the Federal Consumer Quality-Of-Life Control Board indicates that the cost of living now outstrips life's benefits for many Americans.B Herr
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Wow!
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via RichardDawkins.net - All Content on 2/21/12
A plant that last flowered when woolly mammoths roamed the plains is back in bloom.
Biologists have resurrected a 30,000-year-old plant, cultivating it from fruit tissue recovered from frozen sediment in Siberia. The plant is by far the oldest to be brought back from the dead: the previous record holder was a sacred lotus, dating back about 1200 years.
The late David Gilichinsky from the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Moscow, Russia, and colleagues recovered the fruits of the ice age flowering plant (Silene stenophylla) from a fossilised squirrel burrow in frozen sediments near the Kolyma river in north-east Siberia. Radiocarbon dating of the fruit suggests the squirrel stashed it around 31,800 years ago, just before the ice rolled in.
By applying growth hormones to the fruit tissue, Gilichinsky and his colleagues managed to kick-start cell division and ultimately produce a viable flowering plant.
Modern day S. stenophylla looks similar to the resurrected plant, but has larger seeds and fewer buds. Modern plants also grow roots more rapidly. Studying these and other differences will reveal how the plant has evolved since the last ice age.
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Now I have that Talking Heads song "Love for Sale" tumbling around my brain.
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via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder on 2/17/12
More fun from the self-loathing society: This American Life had a show about how young female undercover cops infiltrated a high school and flirted with boys to entrap them into selling pot, so they could charge them with felonies and destroy their lives at an early age.
Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other.Sick: Young, Undercover Cops Flirted With Students to Trick Them Into Selling Pot (Via Aurich Lawson)
One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn't smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn't want the money -- he got it for her as a present.
A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students -- including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.
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Thursday, February 16, 2012
He is such a nice guy.
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via Freakonomics » Blog by Freakonomics on 2/16/12
A new paper from psychology researchers Mark Van Vugt and Wendy Iredale finds that acts of male kindness may not always be quite what they seem. From Science Daily:
Two experiments were undertaken. For the first, 65 men and 65 women, all of an average age of 21, anonymously played a cooperation game where they could donate money via a computer program to a group fund. Donations were selfless acts, as all other players would benefit from the fund, whilst the donor wouldn't necessarily receive anything in return.
Players did not know who they were playing with. They were observed by either someone of the same sex or opposite sex — two physically attractive volunteers, one man and one woman. Men were found to do significantly more good deeds when observed by the opposite sex. Whilst the number of good deeds made by women didn't change, regardless of who observed.
For the second experiment, groups of males were formed. Males were asked to make a number of public donations. These increased when observed by an attractive female, where they were found to actively compete with one another. When observed by another male, however, donations didn't increase.
Iredale compares good deeds to peacock tails and sees room for intervention: "The research shows that good deeds among men increase when presented with an opportunity to copulate. Theoretically, this suggests that a good deed is the human equivalent of the peacock's tail. Practically, this research shows how societies can encourage selfless acts."
Ladies, we're curious: since Tuesday was a day of love, did you perhaps notice more good deeds being done by the men in your life?
(HT: Eric M. Jones)
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Virginia’s House Gearing Up to ‘Probe’ Women Who Want Abortions
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via Friendly Atheist by katied on 2/16/12
The Virginia House passed a bill 63-36 requiring that women who wish to have an abortion must submit to a "transvaginal ultrasound." This would be a mandatory procedure and women would not have the right/freedom to refuse.
The ultrasound legislation would constitute an unprecedented government mandate to insert vaginal ultrasonic probes into women as part of a state-ordered effort to dissuade them from terminating pregnancies, legislative opponents noted.
"We're talking about inside a woman's body," Del. Charnielle Herring, a Democrat, said in an emotional floor speech. "This is the first time, if we pass this bill, that we will be dictating a medical procedure to a physician." The conservative Family Foundation hailed the ultrasound measure as an "update" to the state's existing informed consent laws "with the most advanced medical technology available."
As the author of this article wrote, "This is totally medically unnecessary invasive procedure. It serves no purpose other than to humiliate and shame women and intimidate them from choosing a legal medical procedure."
Speaking in support of the bill, one delegate said:
"We hear the same song over there. The very tragic human notes that are often touched upon involve extreme examples," said [Todd] Gilbert, R-Shenandoah. "But in the vast majority of these cases, these are matters of lifestyle convenience."
Now I don't intend to turn this into a debate on the morality of abortion because it's been done a million times over. However, in Virginia, abortions are legal and this is clearly just the Conservative (and Christian) attempt at deterring women from going through with the procedure and, if nothing else, violating and humiliating them in the meantime. Regardless of what anyone might wonder, that is NOT an enjoyable experience for any woman. The violation of having such a procedure "forced" upon you before you experience the already extremely violating procedure of abortion is disgusting and deplorable.
Sadly, this bill is expected to pass through the Senate… nice going, Virginia.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
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