- Flies sniff out heavy hydrogen – And here’s coverage of the same in Science. And for once, we can even link you to the original study! Interesting research that could prove to be a much better model for how our sense of smell works.
- Over 100 people ill after attending Generation Rescue fundraiser at Playboy Mansion – It seems to be a milder form of Legionnaires disease, caused by bacteria that live in warm water like hot tubs, air conditioners, and fog machines.
- Video explains evolution by showing 500 people tracing a line – “This video depicts 500 people trying to do what should be an extraordinarily simple task: trace over an existing line. But as each person was asked to copy the previous person’s effort, the original straight line morphed into a chaotic mess of random squiggles.” From Mark.
- Antievolution legislation in Tennessee – “House Bill 368, introduced in the Tennessee House of Representatives on February 9, 2011, is the sixth antievolution bill introduced in a state legislature in 2011, and the first introduced in Tennessee since 2007.”
With the lines, it took me a while to figure out where the “odd outlier” first came from, and then I realized… someone was trying to get ink out of the pen.
“The event was a fundraiser for autism charities including Jenny McCarthy’s Generation Rescue Foundation, making it a perfectly legitimate way to round off three days of domain name seminars. And arguably tax-deductable too.”
I think the author, Joe Fay, and I have two very definitions of the term “perfectly legitimate”.
@scribe999: Yeah, that was my first feeling as well! Jenny McCarthy ought to be prosecuted for spreading potentially lethal misinformation, not considered in any way a worthy cause.
House Bill 368 (PDF), introduced in the Tennessee House of Representatives on February 9, 2011, is the sixth antievolution bill introduced in a state legislature in 2011, and the first introduced in Tennessee since 2007.
This sentence seems self-contradictory. How can this be the first such bill since 2007, but the 6th this year?
@davew:
sixth in a state, first in tennessee
i.e., the other idiotic bills were introduced in other states.
I had to think about it for a minute too ;)
@scribe999: @Kalloikagathoi: I believe that is an example of what journalists like to call “sarcasm.”
@davew: It’s the first bill in Tennessee since 2007, but the sixth bill in the US since the beginning of the year.
Thanks guys. I thought I was overlooking something, but couldn’t spot it.
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Gas expands as it gets warmer OR the air elves get mad and start punching the sides of the balloon. Teach the controversy!
@Amanda: Sorry, as a copy editor for lifestyle blogs, I read a lot of sing-songy, blurby, blog posts with a gossipy tone, and I’ve become “deaf” to badly implemented sarcasm in text. Being explicit isn’t always ideal, but the joke was pointed at the “domain nerds” described with the overly convoluted description “paying over-the-odds for get-a-peek at the Playboy mansion”, I lost that train when he went into the Generation Rescue stuff.
Just my take…and despite it being a short blog post, I’d probably ask him for a rewrite if he was one of mine.