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: 342

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
Search rank: 341

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
Search rank: 324

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
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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
Search rank: 284

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: 284

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: 284

Reposted from The Conversation. This is the eleventh part in a two-week series Clearing up the Climate Debate. CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Professor David Karoly goes down the rabbit hole of Bob Carter’s climate theories.

In his book Climate: The Counter-consensus, Bob Carter describes three different realities on climate change; a science reality, a virtual reality and a public reality.

After finishing the book, I realised that there is another reality on climate change, the Carter reality, which seems to be from a different world.

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=834
6/26/2011 7:45:13 AM
Search rank: 281

In a college English class I was teaching, filled mostly with African American and Hispanic students, a reading assignment prompted a discussion of ethnic minorities' economic disadvantages in the United States. Assuming we were all on the same page, as a “liberal” I couldn't resist weighing in and expressing my own professorial indignation on the subject as well. But one slightly older student (let's call him Roberto), who until now had said little during the semester, politely demurred.

“I don't believe that,” he said. “I can't believe that.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was in the Marines,” he answered. “They told me about ‘the door.' Do you know what I'm talking about?”

No one did, so he explained: “In the Marines they taught me that no matter what horrible situation I might find myself in, there will be a door that will let me out, and if I look for that door I will find it. If you tell me because I'm Hispanic I'm screwed, I can't [...]

From Committee for Skeptical Inquiry | Main Feed
http://www.csicop.org//si/show/the_right_stuff
1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
Search rank: 272

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
Search rank: 271

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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Skeptical Science is honoured to be included in the short list of the Institute of Physics Web Awards 2010. Each year, the Institute of Physics select 35 websites in 7 different categories, including Best Blog, Best News Site, Best Podcast, etc. Skeptical Science is listed in the President's Prize category (which seems to be the miscellaneous websites that can't be categorised elsewhere).

Voting ends November 7 and on November 15, they announce a People's Choice plus the judge's choice. So be sure to register with physics.org (as only [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=430
10/24/2010 12:04:46 AM
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In February, the wizards at Shine Technologies broke new ground when they created the Skeptical Science iPhone app. Now they continue to go where no climate software has gone before, creating a Skeptical Science Firefox Add-on. The Add-on has two major features. Firstly, it lets you submit climate links to our database as you browse the web. Secondly (and this is the cool part), if you visit a webpage that has already been submitted (by you or someone else), the Add-on displays any skeptic arguments on that page, a short rebuttal from Skeptical Science and the URL of the full Skeptical Science rebuttal.

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=436
10/28/2010 9:36:06 PM
Search rank: 268

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
  Search rank: 268

  

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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As Skeptical Science readers are well aware, there is a scientific consensus that human greenhouse gas emissions are causing dangerous global warming.  The Australian Climate Commission recently concluded that we need to limit global human CO2 emissions to no more than 1 trillion tons between 2000 and 2050, which requires that we take immediate steps to significantly reduce our emissions.  Scientists generally don't offer advice as to how we should achieve the necessary carbon emissions reductions, but in its recent report, America's Climate Choices, the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that a price on carbon emissions would be the most effective way to achieve significant [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=792
6/9/2011 6:43:41 PM
Search rank: 266

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
   Search rank: 265

   

I didn't vote for her. I still feel embarrassed for the whole state of Minnesota that Michele Bachmann represents us in congress. This is a woman who worships the constitution but has no idea what's in it.

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/A86WiB90B-0/thats_our_michele.php
1/26/2011 1:46:50 PM
Search rank: 265

Sea level rises as ice on land melts and as warming ocean waters expand. Sea level rise mutually corroborates other evidence of global warming as well as being a threat to coastal habitation and environments.

The blue line in the graph below clearly shows sea level as rising, while the upward curve suggests sea level is rising faster as time goes on. The upward curve agrees with global temperature trends and with the accelerating melting of ice in Greenland and other places.

Because the behavior of sea level is such an important diagnostic aid for tracking climate change, skeptics seize on the sea level record in an effort to cast doubt on this evidence. Sea level bounces up and down slightly from year to year so it's possible to cherry-pick data falsely suggesting the overall trend is flat, falling or linear. You can try this yourself. Starting with two closely spaced data points on the graph below, lay a straight-edge between them and [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=339
1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
Search rank: 264

>> This post describes my re-analysis of the voltage-gated sodium channel a subunit (SCNA) gene family evolution, based on a previously published study. I have shared the improved results as well as all source files and datasets openly in Figshare, together with a description of the methods: link.

This is probably not my last re-analysis of the same dataset, and I'd want to encourage others to use other phylogenetic methods on our alignments, or use our alignments to analyse their own SCNA sequences.

From Ego sum Daniel
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/EgoSumDaniel/~3/tPCdp72vH4k/exercise-in-open-science-evolution-of.html
2/22/2012 9:14:00 AM
Search rank: 264

This is disgusting:

Following up on their threat, Catholic Charities of Rockford, IL, have voluntarily ended all their adoption and foster care services rather than comply with the civil unions law that will take effect next week. In doing so, the organization terminated $7.5 million in state contracts, fired 58 workers, and likely displaced 350 foster children.

Despite claims of religious freedom, this is what it's really about:

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/GtMVD_vIw2I/illinois_catholic_charities_pr.php
5/30/2011 2:55:59 AM
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I’ve been an astronomer a long, long time. Even so, I still sometimes get surprised at how different the same object can look when imaged in different ways. I just saw an excellent example of this… W5, aka the Soul Nebula:

[Click to ennebulanate.]

Pretty, isn’t it? It was taken by César Cantú, an amateur astronomer in Mexico. It’s not a true color picture. Not even close! For one thing, he used three filters which let through extremely narrow wavelengths of light (that is, the filters reject all light except for a very [...]

From Bad Astronomy
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/xWg2YNdzNyw/
4/7/2011 11:00:01 PM
Search rank: 263

This is a lion:

Click the picture for a larger version of the photograph. Photo by Greg Laden.

And here are selected blog posts about lions and related beasts:

• Amboseli Lions May Go Extinct

• From Greg Laden's Blog
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/wwZFhZzCvCo/lions.php
  2/12/2012 8:07:42 AM
  Search rank: 262