Alright, let's take a break from the SOPA/Internet censorship debacle, for something that isn't depressing and awful. The ESA's Herschel space observatory's revisit of the Eagle Nebula, or "Pillars of Creation" as it has been dubbed.

The rest of the text in this entry comes from the HSO website.

In 1995, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took an iconic image of [...]

From The Godless Geek Blog
http://godlessgeekblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/herschels-revisit-of-pillars-of.html
1/21/2012 2:39:00 PM
Search rank: 368

Five years after the National Academies released  Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a stark report showing America’s lagging capacity to innovate and compete, a sequel is out, and — no surprise —  the trends are still mostly in the wrong direction.

The update has the same name, but a new subtitle: “Rapidly Approaching Category 5.”

The report committee, led by Norman R. Augustine, the lead author of the original report and retired chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp., specifically notes, among many issues, that money for innovation initiatives from the economic stimulus package is a one-time blast when what is needed is sustained [...]

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/525724-gathering-storm’-approaching-category-5
9/28/2010 1:14:50 AM
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http://www.roozonline.com/english/news3/newsitem/archive/2010/november/22/article/hitlers-followers-...

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=193717&goto=newpost
12/3/2010 5:40:43 PM
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Links for you. Science:

Believe it: man flu is real
Ignorance, Fake Turing Tests, and Bads
MiSeq Aims for Ion Torrent
Irradiating organic food would save lives

Other:

Deforming the Graduate Degree
Current Test-Based Incentive Programs Have Not Consistently Raised Student Achievement in U.S.; Improved Approaches Should Be Developed and Evaluated

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/S13kn4kSxo4/links_62911.php
6/30/2011 7:30:28 AM
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In looking through the comments of Chris Mooney's recent post on vaccination denialism, I found this comment, which inevitably shows up in one form or another (italics mine; errors original):

i grew up in the 1960s when less than a half dozen vaccines were required for infant protection spread out over the first few years of life. outside of a rubella outbreak, i recall no advrese effects on our infant populace, neither in mortality, serious disease contraction, nor mental disfunction.

today there are well over 2 dozem vaccines required, sometimes given 6-8 at one time, spread out over 18 months. and, factually, ther IS a documentable and unhealthy increase in childhood autism. many [...]

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/Hp_E00VQRgA/well_ok_some_people_are_greate.php
5/1/2011 2:53:17 AM
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The Mid-Michigan Atheists & Humanists Meetup Group

Hello everyone,

1. From Skeptics upcoming events
   http://www.meetup.com/Mid-Michigan-Atheists-and-Humanists/events/22583761/
   6/18/2011 5:23:49 AM
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Atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other nontheistic Washington, D.C. residents will have no representation at Mayor-Elect Vincent Gray’s first official inaugural event—an ecumenical prayer service entitled “One City … Praying Together” at 8 a.m. Sunday, January 2, 2011.

“We would prefer that a government function such as an inauguration not be entwined with religion,” said Amanda Knief, a Humanist Celebrant and government relations manager for the Secular Coalition for America (SCA). “However, we find it overtly discriminatory when we request to be part of an ecumenical prayer service that is supposed to unite the entire city and are told there is no place for nontheists.”

Within hours of learning about the prayer service through a public press release on Monday, [...]

From Secular News Daily
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2010/12/30/atheists-excluded-from-d-c-mayor-elect-gray’s-inauguration/
12/31/2010 5:09:10 PM
Search rank: 289

submitted by Ponerology
[link] [comment]

From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/ne7jz/irrationality_may_be_the_result_of_mental_noise/
12/16/2011 7:34:20 AM
Search rank: 289

It's October 21st, the day religious wingnut, Harold Camping, claimed would be the last day of the Earth.  Camping convinced a large number of gullible and equally religious nutjobs that his so-called "calculations" based upon the so-called "infallible" Bible were correct.  Many spent huge sums of money to support this fraud.  Some even spent all their retirement savings to [...]

From The Mad Skeptic
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMadSkeptic/~3/qxU73R4Fq4Q/it-end-of-world-as-we-know-it-i-feel.html
10/22/2011 9:22:00 AM
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Senate Bill 893 — nicknamed, along with its counterpart House Bill 368, "the monkey bill" — is back. In April 2011, its sponsor Bo Watson (R-District 11), assigned the bill to the general subcommittee of the Senate Education Committee, in effect shelving it for the remainder of the year. But on March 7, 2012, it was revived and placed on the committee's calendar; on March 14, 2012, the committee voted 7-1 (with one member abstaining) to pass an amended version of the bill, although the exact wording of the amended version is not yet listed on the legislature's website. The bill now proceeds to the Senate Select [...]

From NCSE - National Center for Science Education
http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/monkey-bill-returns-tennessee-007251
3/16/2012 4:18:32 AM
Search rank: 284

Dr Anthony Daniels is a recently retired doctor and psychiatrist formerly working in a hospital and prison in Birmingham, England. Writing under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, he is a prolific author of numerous essays and opinion pieces carried in the Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute, The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, New Criterion, City Journal and New English Review.

His books include Life at the Bottom,

From Little Atoms
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theskepticpodcast/~3/5wGr0kUmd4M/463-selected-works-of-theodore-dalrymple
4/17/2009 10:00:00 AM
Search rank: 269

Dr Anthony Daniels is a recently retired doctor and psychiatrist formerly working in a hospital and prison in Birmingham, England. Writing under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, he is a prolific author of numerous essays and opinion pieces carried in the Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute, The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, New Criterion, City Journal and New English Review.

His books include Life at the Bottom,

From Little Atoms
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theskepticpodcast/~3/RTVDK5EQuoc/463-selected-works-of-theodore-dalrymple
4/17/2009 10:00:00 AM
Search rank: 269

Dr Anthony Daniels is a recently retired doctor and psychiatrist formerly working in a hospital and prison in Birmingham, England. Writing under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, he is a prolific author of numerous essays and opinion pieces carried in the Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute, The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, New Criterion, City Journal and New English Review.

His books include Life at the Bottom,

From Little Atoms
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/littleatomspodcast/~3/RTVDK5EQuoc/463-selected-works-of-theodore-dalrymple
4/17/2009 10:00:00 AM
Search rank: 267

It's called Staring Down the Brilliant Dream.

I'm especially excited about the new versions of Shame on You and Wild Horses

The disk is a collection of 31 songs selected from live shows during 2006-2009. Brandi Carlile and Jill Hennessey do some of the singing.

Technically, it comes out on the 29th, but Staring Down the Brilliant Dream

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/AEE_LWDpOU8/indigo_girls_has_a_new_album.php
6/27/2010 3:49:45 AM
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I liked Obama's State of the Union Address, and I liked the fact that a lot of other people seemed to like it. He made strong and positive statements about energy.

Imagine what we could accomplish ... A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world....

Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's [...]

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/DchvDojAEG4/climate_change_and_the_state_o.php
1/26/2012 5:43:53 AM
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Wee, it r Doomsday! Just over an hour until the Earth starts opening up in my time zone. (Where are all the news reports of the same happening elsewhere across the globe …?)

• Democratic and Republican leaders

  From Preliator pro Causa
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Preliator/~3/cYMsilVO7pw/daily-blend-saturday-may-21-2011.html
  5/22/2011 6:50:00 AM
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I am very bothered by the strong possibility that a there exists a large group of autistic adults who are either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Demonstrations of this come up over and over in the research literature. Such is the case with Missed [...]

From Left Brain/Right Brain
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LeftBrain/rightBrain/~3/C2r27m31Owg/
12/3/2010 4:27:29 AM
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One more small step for marriage equality, this time in Li’l Rhody:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island's House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed legislation allowing gay couples to enter into civil unions after a last-ditch effort to [...]

From Preliator pro Causa
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Preliator/~3/1q_bSdWVv7o/rhode-island-house-passes-civil-unions.html
5/20/2011 10:02:00 AM
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... biodiversity through the ages ...

There's a story that scientists like to tell about the great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Supposedly, Haldane once found himself in the company of a group of theologians. They asked him what one could conclude about the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation. "An inordinate fondness for beetles," Haldane replied.

The National Center for Science Education maintains a library of offprints and book chapters for which that they have been given explicit permission to distribute to the general public at no cost. One of these carefully selected items is a chapter from Carl Zimmer's The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/ux7ao0hYrmw/radiations_and_extinctions.php
6/10/2010 6:12:21 AM
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As announced on Episode 95 of "The Amateur Scientist Podcast," submissions are now open for the first annual Fat Jesus Art Contest. To refresh: There are some Bible scholars who subscribe to the so-called "Fat Jesus Theory," which holds that Christ was much fatter than mainstream theologians would have us believe. Much of their evidence is circumstantial, though it's also somewhat compelling. For instance, a fat Jesus would be more buoyant than a thin Jesus [...]

From The Amateur Scientist
http://www.amateurscientist.org/2010/03/fat-jesus-art-contest.html
3/31/2010 6:26:00 AM
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If you asked me about cosmology, I'd defer to physicists — I've read Stenger & Hawking & Krauss & Carroll, and I might be willing to say a few generalities about what I've learned about the process, but I'd always say you should look to the original sources for more information.

There seem to be a lot of physicists, however, who believe they know everything there is to know about biology (it's a minor subdivision of physics, don't you know), and will blithely say the most awesomely stupid things about it. Here, for instance, is Michio Kaku simply babbling in reply to a question about evolution, and getting everything wrong. It's painful to watch. This guy isn't really an idiot, is he?

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/3RVHjWvs8v8/why_do_physicists_think_they_a.php
2/17/2011 6:17:02 AM
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Let's compare teacher salaries in different countries and find out.

You go, USA! Looks like we need to bust up some teachers' unions and get those pay scales down even lower.

(That's sarcasm, for any Republicans/Teabaggers/Libertarians who might show up and find that kind of [...]

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/p92Sjpv1afA/are_teachers_overpaid.php
3/14/2011 5:50:36 AM
Search rank: 256

From Science, Reason and Critical Thinking
http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2010/06/skeptic-park-3-featuring-dr-evan-harris.html
6/26/2010 5:55:00 AM
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We have sun! Even if only for a day. Let's celebrate with some links. Science:

Changes afoot at NSF's MCB
At least one of these Horseshoe Crabs is very confused
Orlando breakthrough destroys sewage, produces power
NSF, feasibility and impact

Other:

"Mediscare" And The Conventional Wisdom
Ancient Egypt: The First Pyramid

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/nLoocmN2Dso/links_51311.php
5/14/2011 7:48:51 AM
Search rank: 255

This is what a Democratic Party Walking Caucus looks like. It is a thing we do in Minnesota. It is so arcane and complicated that the press never covers it, so no one has any idea that we are doing this to select our nominees for political office. We have a fake "primary" at the beginning of the process, and that is what the press reports, but the "primary" result has nothing to do with the outcome of the process.

In this particular caucus, in my State Senate District, one of the main issues was selecting delegates for US Congress. In this race, Sharon Sund's team more or less wiped the floor with her opponent, Brian Barnes, even though the politics and demographics here would have suggested a more even [...]

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/XAyKwOvVusk/a_dfl_walking_caucus.php
3/26/2012 7:44:41 AM
Search rank: 255