- Australian whooping cough epidemic spreads -“DOCTORS have warned parents to keep newborn babies at home to protect them from a whooping cough epidemic triggered by the “chardonnay set and alternatives”.” From Stacey.
- NHS study tests effectiveness of hypnobirthing – From Owen.
- Cogito, ergo not ergotism – The tidy explanation of ergotism as the cause of the Salem Witch Trials is not so neat and tidy.
- Kirk Cameron makes me glad to be an atheist – “Cameron went on to say that Hawking “has an unfair disadvantage, and that gives him a free pass on some of his absurd ideas,” because what better way to disagree with someone than to imply their amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been giving them a sympathy vote when it comes to their world-renowned scientific contributions?”
- Cute Animal Friday! Elyse brings the happy sniffles with this video: Dog gets home on two broken legs after being sucked up by a tornado. Everybody likes it when the owl and the pussycat play together. This kitty prefers dolphin friends, from Kimberly.
Funny, I’d have said Hawking shouldn’t take on Cameron for the same reason…it would be like intellectually bullying a 5-year-old who raised by exceptionally stupid wolves.
Are we still doing COTW? If so, COTW.
Good “raised by wolves” joke on last night’s Bones.
Thanks for mentioning Skeptical Humanities, Amy! Best of luck on your continued amok running!
Also, I love the phrase “chardonnay set.”
Bob
*Pssssst! Amanda, not Amy* ;)
Did I write Amy? I meant Andrew. SHIT!
(headondesk) This is why I never introduce people at parties.
Are you the Bob (or was it Rob? Or maybe Bib?) from Atlanta that I met at the bar at NECSS? If/when we meet again, I will surely not recognize you, so we can have the exact same conversation all over again! Woot! (Something about Alan Sokol or my niece who will be attending Georgia Tech in the fall, IIRC? Or maybe that was a different Bob or Rob?)
At least we won’t have to listen to Kirk after tomorrow.
2nd place vote, COTW, but only because scribe beat you to the finish line by a nose.
You see cat and dolphin. I see two vicious and intelligent predators. Same with cat and owl, though I was seriously distracted by the invasive swallow-wort. This stuff is seriously nasty. Very hard to kill, breaking up the roots just creates multiple new plants, climbs over and chokes everything, and the seed pods resemble milk weed enough that Monarchs lay their eggs in them, but the caterpillars can’t digest the contents and die.
Otherwise, seriously cute.
Yes, that is me! Haha! I think it was Bob. (Again, horrible with names.) :) I didn’t recognize you with your evil goatee there. You’re in Boston, right?
Yup!
The funniest part of the comments on the Kirk Cameron article was how everyone, on both sides, assumed that Stephen Hawking is never challenged. Um, no…
Good point. For example, Hawking and Thorne’s famous bet with John Preskill about whether quantum state information could be destroyed by black holes. (Hawking conceded and paid Preskill off with a copy of Total Baseball
P.S. Googling “hawking scientific controversies” produced lots of interesting links, many having little or nothing to do with Hawking.