Skepchick Quickies, 11.18
- New site tracks how stimulus dollars flow to science.
- Placenta fluid massage to treat soccer player’s injury. (From Sydney.)
- Planetary icosahedrons! (From Paul.)
- Extinct goat tried out reptilian, cold-blooded living. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. (From Steve.)
11519
7032
4669
15 Comments
exarch
11.18.2009
Hmm, isn’t that what the world looked like in console games back in the nineties?
FFFearlesss
11.18.2009
RE: The Goat.
Yet another example of how evolutionary science is completely making this stuff up and the reason we should all embrace Intelligent Design…
Okay wipe the blood out of your eyes, just kidding. Actually this is yet another example of how evolutionary science is perhaps the most mind-blowing and wonder-filled science out there… at least for the tangible sciences (sorry, String Theory). I can’t tell you how many times I just stopped and said, “Wow, fucking WOW” while reading Dawkins’ “The Ancestors Tale”. It was chock full of stories of amazing evolutionary leaps like this one. I have no doubt that if it had been published a year from now, the goat would be in it.
Skept-artist
11.18.2009
When I clicked the link for the Planetary icosahedrons, an ad window opened behind the main window with the wonderful fake “Google is hiring people to work from home!!!one1!” advert.
I’m so excited! I’m so scared!
andyinsdca
11.18.2009
Are those the same stimulus $ that went to non-existent Congressional districts in (insert any state name here)?
Skept-artist
11.18.2009
@andyinsdca: Of course. The bill also contained provisions stating that “Obama tells mothers/fathers/grandparents/unwed mothers/mechanics/light bulb changers/babies/zombies(post-vital friends) to go back to school”.
baiskeptic
11.18.2009
Check out the comments!
“Beauty products commonly contain placenta. He should have just gone to the cosmetics counter and read the labels.”
Really? Well, mine don’t have placenta in them, but perhaps I’m buying off of the wrong counter…
busterggi
11.18.2009
I disagree about the goat!
The species persisted for 5 million years, an adequately successful span of time) and the cause of extinction wasn’t given but apparently wasn’t directly because of its metabolic adaption.
exarch
11.18.2009
@baiskeptic:
No, I think he is …
I do think it’s funny how someone on the comments thries to rationalize this.
True, placenta’s do contain hormones and probably even stem cells, and hey, maybe they do something.
But since your skin isn’t really very good at absorbing stuff (as it’s mostly meant to keep stuff out of the body), it seems like eating the placenta will probably get more hormones to the right spot than massaging it onto the skin.
Andrés Diplotti
11.18.2009
I’ll probably make you cringe, but I have to say it:
A cold-blooded mammal is so cool.
pciszek
11.18.2009
Back when Google could be used to search usenet newsgroups effectively, I was able to dredge up a gem from, I think, the late eighties that went something like:
“I know three people who claim to have eaten human placenta. All three have written device drivers for Unix. I do not think this is a coincidence.”
granular_serene
11.18.2009
goatzilla = the cryptid _they_ don’t want you to know about…
davew
11.18.2009
@baiskeptic: “Beauty products commonly contain placenta. He should have just gone to the cosmetics counter and read the labels.â€
Most of my beauty products feature silicon carbide.
Bjornar
11.18.2009
Don’t get me wrong, icosahedra are super cool, but why would I do some really fiddly work just to get a wildly inaccurate representation of a celestial object.
Oh, is Earth a celestial object? And if not, is there a term for all of the big round things in our universe that includes Earth?
exarch
11.19.2009
You could use it to make yourself a halloween outfit …
dacy_ebd
11.22.2009
What position does van persie play at?
Pla-centa forward.
Ha
There are no trackbacks to display at this time.