Neat Scientific American article on the biochemistry of sperm movement. Get your flagella flippin' and read all about it.
The article also mentions a link between marijuana use and infertility, stating that a stimulated endocannabinoid system likely leaves sperm burnt out in a matter of hours.
This would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. A judge has ruled that Colin Hay and his 80's Australian rock band Men At Work plagiarized 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree' in parts of its hit song 'Down Under'. The ruling means the current owners of the Kookaburra song stand to get as much as 60 percent of the back royalties.
I know the song they are talking about. I know the riff. Its 3 notes and yes it totally sounds like that stupid kids song. The difference is, that kids song is that riff and that riff alone. 'Down Under' has a lot more going on and could exist without that 3 note riff.
Apparently the company suing is a big greedy music company called Larrikin so its not like the money is going to some poor family of the dead lady that wrote the children's song a billion years ago.
Don't taint such a good song with your corporate bullshit!!!!
A dozen years ago, a British physician named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet that did immeasurable harm to children.
Wakefield, who back in 1998 was working at London’s Royal Free Hospital, claimed in the article that the vaccination of 12 children with measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused a reaction in their bowels that caused autism.
At a press conference shortly after the paper came out, Wakefield urged parents not to give their children the combination vaccine.
The British press went crazy over the report. The word and the fear quickly spread around the world.
Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Vaccination rates for measles have never recovered, and there are outbreaks of the disease in the U.K. every year.
And across the globe, millions of parents who choose to follow their own doctors' advice and vaccinate their children have had to face the anxiety of an alleged link to a dread disease.
All this despite the fact that no scientists were ever able to replicate Wakefield's findings.
Yesterday, The Lancet, after years of investigations, lawsuits, press complaints and accusations, took the unprecedented step of withdrawing this 12-year-old article as misleading and false...
Although there is no reliable estimate as to how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can readily be found — but not necessarily heard — in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.
The surgery usually leaves the animal with something between a wheeze and a squeak. The procedure, commonly referred to as debarking, has been around for decades, but has fallen out of favor, especially among younger veterinarians and animal-rights advocates.
Critics of the debarking procedure say it is outdated and inhumane, one that destroys an animal’s central means of communication merely for the owner’s convenience. Many veterinarians refuse to do the surgery on ethical grounds. Those who do rarely advertise it.
New Jersey bans devocalization surgery except for medical or therapeutic reasons, as do Britain and other European countries. Similar legislation is pending in Massachusetts, while Ohio restricts the surgery to nonviolent dogs.
But there are still those who perform the operation, and they and other advocates defend the surgery as a useful option for dog owners facing noise complaints and possible eviction.
Seems weird that I never heard of this. A line of cells from a Tobacco farmer's tumor have been used for decades without much information about the source. Rebecca Skloot's new book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks sheds light on the history and importance of the cells.
That's probably what House Republicans are thinking about after extending that invitation to President Obama to address their annual retreat in Baltimore today. In an uncharacteristically candid back-and-forth that consumed almost an hour and a half, Obama -- with television cameras rolling -- basically told Republicans what he thought of their health plan and their characterization of his health plan.
It made the State of the Union speech look tame. One key indication of which side was getting the upper hand? Fox News cut away after the first half an hour, notes Atlantic's political editor Marc Ambinder.
I have supplied the video below and believe every American who has given even an iota of opinion on the administration should watch. The President's starting speech is important but more importantly - in my opinion - is Pres. Obama "Q&A: From Earlier". I implore that you share this video with friends and family, this discussion is 10x more important than the State of the Union address.
Here is my breakdown of the video:
04:13 - Obama on job environment.
11:00 - Obama on future plans to encourage job growth.
12:08 - Obama on Republican interest in across the board tax relief/cuts.
14:30 - Obama on large increase in budget, freeze in spending, wasteful spending, and line item veto bill.
19:50 - Obama on embracing policies for cleaner forms of energy.
25:20 - Obama on lack of publicity of healthcare process.
28:20 - Obama on lobbyist involvement in administration.
32:30 - Obama on Republican proposals regarding healthcare reform.
36:00 - Obama tells Republicans they have made the current status of the healthcare bill out to be a "Bolshevik plot"; wild plot to impose big government.
51:00 - Obama on politicians being mindful of their tone, Capital Hill climate, interest in Bipartisanship and admitted failure in that arena last year.
54:00 - Obama discusses plans on trade.
58:00 - Obama on the Republican assertion his previous budget in the future tripling the cost of government.
01:03 - Obama on Medicare costs and partisanship.
Roboticists in search of a challenge, take note. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants to replace the weather-forecasting Punxsutawney Phil of Groundhog Day fame with an animatronic version. Robot followers that we are here at Crave, we're all for an electronic rodent, but we're also pretty sure groundhog bots have a long way to go before they can charm crowds the way little Phil can.
PETA maintains that the animal whose annual February 2 antics portend the duration of winter is mistreated--put on display year-round at the local Pennsylvania library; denied the ability to prepare for and enter yearly hibernation; and forced to endure screaming throngs of thousands, media attention, and human handling.
According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter weather will follow. If he doesn't, expect an early spring. But PETA has had enough of the tradition that dates back to 1886, and believes robotic technology could be the solution.
"If Punxsutawney frees Phil, then the bitter winter that's made him into an unwilling media attraction will end, making way for a sunny spring that everyone can enjoy," PETA writes in a post on its PETA Files blog.
In a letter (PDF) written to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and posted on PETA's Web site, animal specialist Gemma Vaughan notes that groundhogs are normally shy animals that "become stressed" when exposed to too much hubbub.
She also notes that "other popular exhibitions have featured robotic penguins and dolphins who swim and communicate just like real animals do, and we think that an animatronic groundhog would similarly mesmerize a crowd full of curious spectators in Punxsutawney.
"Tradition is no excuse for cruelty, and this opportunity would allow Punxsutawney to engage in a futuristic, interactive, versatile, and humane annual event," she writes.
So having seen time and time again that any robot that can be imagined can be created, we'll wait for the engineers of the world to come up with a cute machine version of the sleepy marmot. In the meantime, those who aren't offended by the real-life furry prognosticator can get notified by text message the minute Punxsutawney Phil pops out of his burrow Tuesday. Text "Groundhog" to 247365, the Pennsylvania Tourism Bureau instructs. And yes, standard text messaging rates do apply.
Well, in my mind PETA is going too far. I think they're just bored and looking for things to make a fuss about. I was listening to a local radio show about this topic and and a quote from president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club said the animal is [b]"being treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania" because the groundhog is kept in a climate-controlled environment and is inspected annually by the state Department of Agriculture. Lmao
Forget the Segway. Leave that jet pack behind. NASA is working on a personal flying suit.
Conceptual designs for the experimental vehicle, called Puffin, were introduced by Mark D. Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, at a meeting of the American Helicopter Society on Jan. 20 in San Francisco. The Puffin is designed to be 12 feet in length, with a total wingspan of 14 and a half feet; it would weigh in at 300 pounds (without a pilot).
Two major elements distinguish the Puffin suit from the jet packs of ’50s-era sci-fi flicks. First, it is completely self-contained: the pilot would actually step into the suit, which has a cockpit-like area and helicopter-style blades, allowing for high-altitude flying (unlike those sci-fi jet packs).
Second, it is designed to be powered by electric motors, making it relatively quiet, lightweight and more reliable (electric motors have fewer moving parts than conventional ones), and with a low environmental impact.
Of course, the Puffin is just a theory at the moment. It might be best used for covert military missions or rescue operations. But if it does emerge as an option for conventional flight, traffic jams might take on a whole new meaning.
Now, it's just a concept, but the whole superman-esque idea just doesn't seem too comfortable nor practical for a range of vision. I'm really hope (if manufactured) they don't become commercialized. I can just see how all the rich parties will end up... "Wait! Let me get in my Puffin to hold the beer bong higher"
In case you wanted to know what Frank Serpico has been up to lately. It has inspired me to go rent the movie. Ive never seen it beginning to end in one sitting. The best part about this article though is that its the first suggested reading from my father that isn't right wing propaganda.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame. Those people, as i have always suspected, are correct.
New research suggests that women may suck at math because other women sucked at math before them. Basically the study shows that women elementary school teachers pass on their own anxieties about math inferiority to their female students.
This problem doesn't occur with the boys probably because they wouldn't let the ramblings of a woman interfere with logic - plus boys are born better at math.
I thought about throwing the numbers and percentages up in my summary, but i don't want to seem disrespectfully condescending to the women here who wont understand a single iota (reaaaallly small amount, ladies) of it.
According to some numbers crunched by Thomson Reuters, China will be the world's leader in production of scientific knowledge by 2020. The announcement came after Reuters compared 4 emerging scientific leaders; those being India, Brazil, Russia and China.
China was found to be far ahead of the 3 other candidates, and is set to overtake the U.S.A. in 10 years.
The 3 main reasons cited were, huge government investments at all levels of research (school & post-doc), an organised flow of knowledge from basic science to commercial applications (not really sure what they mean), and lastly China's increasing ability to head-hunt mid-career scientists that had previously left the country to persue research elsewhere.
The Financial Times article mentions the quality of the Chinese research papers are still "mixed".
As long as this doesn't mean outright scientific fraud, I say more power to them.
The conservative christian group Focus on the Family has purchased an advertising slot for the Superbowl to discuss its anti abortion stance.
The ad will apparently be TimTebow and his mom talking about how she was advised to abort little Timmy on account of her being sick. She refused to have the abortion, as any good person does and tada Tim wins the Heisman (bama still wins the national championship).
Gregg Doyel, a CBS columnist says it best.
"If you're a sports fan, and I am, that's the holiest day of the year," he wrote. "It's not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don't care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don't care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion."
MAG is officially released today. The game is supposed to handle up to 256 players broken down into squads of 8. There is also a chain of command and while not required, incentives are doled out for following the orders of the squad leaders and whatnot.
They are sort of pitching this as never been tried, but the fact is, it has. Resistance 2 had this hierarchy as did Bad Company. While both games delivered on the scale they promised, neither had acceptable game-play and were a complete waste of money. That said, the trailers and game play videos I have seen look pretty cool. I just hope what im seeing converts to fun when played.
CBC.ca reports on a French parliamentary panel that released a report recommending all women show their faces in public places including hospitals, schools, and public transit.
Personally I'm a bit torn on the issue, if the recommendation was to combat some existing problem wherein crimes were being committed by veiled suspects then I would tend to agree. It isn't like society hasn't let go of religious based traditions in favour of public security and health (hi, bloodletting!) however upon reading the article, the motivation behind the veil-ban seems less cut and dry.
From the article: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made face-veils a political issue, saying last summer that burkas imprison women and that they would not be tolerated in France."
"The recommendations come after a committee of 32 legislators from four political parties convened six months ago to address the wearing of burkas or niqabs, which are often viewed in France as a gateway to extremism and an insult to gender equality."
Though personally I would always champion gender equality over religious tradition, Muslim representative Mohammed Moussaoui raises a good point: "It's very difficult to talk about the liberation of women through a law that constrains."
What do you think? Should issues of gender equality be raised in a legal context or should we rely on cultural inertia to phase out old traditions?
George Hotz of iPhone hacking fame is in the news again as he has claimed a successful hack of the ps3 root. Hotz, who rose to fame as the guy who made the iPhone work on any network will release the details of the playstation 3 hack to the public when he has it perfected. It requires both hardware and software modifications. Sony is nervously awaiting his report.
Last month, musician Billy Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, was rushed to the hospital in an apparent suicide attempt. She had taken an overdose of a homeopathy medication known as Traumeel, which is ineffectively used to treat joint pain seeing as it has no active ingredients. I can just picture this girl experiencing placebo induced feelings of dying to the point were others thought it necessary to rush her to the hospital. as stupid as this girl was for not knowing what kind of drugs she was ingesting it's, nonetheless, a great example of just how strong the power of belief can be over people's behaviors and actions.
a little background on homeopathy;
It was invented about 200 years ago by a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann. He believed that — contrary to what we know about pharmacology — homeopathic medicines actually become more effective the more they are diluted. Homeopathic medications are often so literally watered-down that they don't contain a single molecule of the original medicine or substance. Depending on how diluted the solution is — as expressed on the label as X (a 10-fold dilution) or C (a 100-fold dilution) — there is often literally no active ingredient in the "medication."
It is just water. If homeopathy worked, it would violate basic rules of physics and science.
You can test the homeopathic principle yourself easily at home: Using this principle, the next time you reach for an aspirin or other pain reliever, you should probably crush the pill, pick out a few of the smaller crumbs of medicine, and take those. Less is more, so the less you take of the medicine, the more effective it should be.
Okay, maybe they dont know where you live, but these bees were taught to recognize faces when rewarded with suger to do so.
Neat Scientific American article on the biochemistry of sperm movement. Get your flagella flippin' and read all about it.
A dozen years ago, a British physician named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet that did immeasurable harm to children.
Although there is no reliable estimate as to how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can readily be found — but not necessarily heard — in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.
..just kidding. The dog was actually found floating on an ice floe in the Baltic Sea and was rescued bu a crew of Polish scientists. 
Be careful what you wish for.
Roboticists in search of a challenge, take note. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants to replace the weather-forecasting Punxsutawney Phil of Groundhog Day fame with an animatronic version. Robot followers that we are here at Crave, we're all for an electronic rodent, but we're also pretty sure groundhog bots have a long way to go before they can charm crowds the way little Phil can.
In case you wanted to know what Frank Serpico has been up to lately. It has inspired me to go rent the movie. Ive never seen it beginning to end in one sitting. The best part about this article though is that its the first suggested reading from my father that isn't right wing propaganda.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame. Those people, as i have always suspected, are correct. 
The conservative christian group Focus on the Family has purchased an advertising slot for the Superbowl to discuss its anti abortion stance. 
CBC.ca reports on a French parliamentary panel that released a report recommending all women show their faces in public places including hospitals, schools, and public transit. 
George Hotz of iPhone hacking fame is in the news again as he has claimed a successful hack of the ps3 root. Hotz, who rose to fame as the guy who made the iPhone work on any network will release the details of the playstation 3 hack to the public when he has it perfected. It requires both hardware and software modifications. Sony is nervously awaiting his report.
Last month, musician Billy Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, was rushed to the hospital in an apparent suicide attempt. She had taken an overdose of a homeopathy medication known as Traumeel, which is ineffectively used to treat joint pain seeing as it has no active ingredients. I can just picture this girl experiencing placebo induced feelings of dying to the point were others thought it necessary to rush her to the hospital. as stupid as this girl was for not knowing what kind of drugs she was ingesting it's, nonetheless, a great example of just how strong the power of belief can be over people's behaviors and actions. 
Felix Baumgartner is looking to break the record for highest free fall by jumping out of a balloon when its altitude is 37 kilometers up. 
