2-4-6-8 Nature is Good, Nature is Great

When I text my friend and all I get back is "K"

Fri, 10 May 2013 06:06:13 -0700

whatshouldwecallme:

Tywin vs Olenna: A Summary

Fri, 10 May 2013 06:03:41 -0700

Tywin vs Olenna: A Summary

bestnatesmithever: There really needs to be a show where it is...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:40:53 -0700

bestnatesmithever:

There really needs to be a show where it is just Anderson Cooper interviewing bigots and he makes that face for an entire hour.

ecocides: The Sabi Sand game reserve has launched South...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:40:40 -0700

ecocides:

The Sabi Sand game reserve has launched South Africa’s first large-scale operation to counter the ravages of rhino poaching. The horns are infused by a non-lethal chemical mixture designed to sicken anyone using it as a traditional medicine. A key additive to the Sabi Sand treatments is an indelible pink dye which exposes the presence of smuggled horns on airport scanners worldwide and warns consumers that the ground-up product is hazardous. The picture shows the toxification process under way at Sabi Sand this month. | image by David Smith

wolveswolves: By Hubert Klein

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:40:30 -0700

wolveswolves:

By Hubert Klein

superpretty: justamus: All cats love boxes. All cats. this is...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:40:20 -0700

superpretty:

justamus:

All cats love boxes.

All cats.

this is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.

judgemilkman: dark-shade: marydoyouwannasmoke: r-o-s-e-p-e-t-a...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:40:10 -0700

judgemilkman:

dark-shade:

marydoyouwannasmoke:

r-o-s-e-p-e-t-a-l-s:

this looks way to perfect on my blog

and its transparent

This is the most calming gif I have ever seen

THIS LOOKS SO SICK ON MY BLOG

It’s just a happy little walking wolfie! :3

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Tue, 07 May 2013 12:39:58 -0700

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Tue, 07 May 2013 12:39:43 -0700

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Tue, 07 May 2013 12:39:33 -0700

wolveswolves: Gray wolves (Canis lupus) by Tim Fitzharris

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:37:57 -0700

wolveswolves:

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) by Tim Fitzharris

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Tue, 07 May 2013 12:37:44 -0700

Let’s go exploring!

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:37:36 -0700

Let’s go exploring!

scinerds: “Just a Theory”: 7 Misused Science Words Feel like...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:37:20 -0700

scinerds:

“Just a Theory”: 7 Misused Science Words

Feel like you need to make serious distinctions within the language of science? Maybe brush up on a few key concepts of the subject? Perhaps you feel an article is using word tactics to get people to believe in something false. Scientific American (originally on LiveScience) has a great article highlighting 7 misused science words that are sure to put things into perspective for the public:

1. Hypothesis

The general public so widely misuses the words hypothesis, theory and law that scientists should stop using these terms, writes physicist Rhett Allain of Southeastern Louisiana University, in a blog post on Wired Science.

“I don’t think at this point it’s worth saving those words,” Allain told LiveScience.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for something that can actually be tested. But “if you just ask anyone what a hypothesis is, they just immediately say ‘educated guess,’” Allain said.

2. Just a theory?

Climate-change deniers and creationists have deployed the word “theory” to cast doubt on climate change and evolution.

“It’s as though it weren’t true because it’s just a theory,” Allain said.

That’s despite the fact that an overwhelming amount of evidence supports both human-caused climate change and Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Part of the problem is that the word “theory” means something very different in lay language than it does in science: A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. But to the average Jane or Joe, a theory is just an idea that lives in someone’s head, rather than an explanation rooted in experiment and testing.

3. Model

However, theory isn’t the only science phrase that causes trouble. Even Allain’s preferred term to replace hypothesis, theory and law — “model” — has its troubles. The word not only refers to toy cars and runway walkers, but also means different things in different scientific fields. A climate model is very different from a mathematical model, for instance.

“Scientists in different fields use these terms differently from each other,” John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in an email to LiveScience. “I don’t think that ‘model’ improves matters. It has an appearance of solidity in physics right now mainly because of the Standard Model. By contrast, in genetics and evolution, ‘models’ are used very differently.” (The Standard Model is the dominant theory governing particle physics.)

4. Skeptic

When people don’t accept human-caused climate change, the media often describes those individuals as “climate skeptics.” But that may give them too much credit, Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in an email.

“Simply denying mainstream science based on flimsy, invalid and too-often agenda-driven critiques of science is not skepticism at all. It is contrarianism … or denial,” Mann told LiveScience.

Instead, true skeptics are open to scientific evidence and are willing to evenly assess it.

“All scientists should be skeptics. True skepticism is, as [Carl] Sagan described it, the ‘self-correcting machinery’ of science,” Mann said.

5. Nature vs. nurture

The phrase “nature versus nurture” also gives scientists a headache, because it radically simplifies a very complicated process, said Dan Kruger, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan.

“This is something that modern evolutionists cringe at,” Kruger told LiveScience.

Genes may influence human beings, but so, too, do epigenetic changes. These modifications alter which genes get turned on, and are both heritable and easily influenced by the environment. The environment that shapes human behavior can be anything from the chemicals a fetus is exposed to in the womb to the block a person grew up on to the type of food they ate as a child, Kruger said. All these factors interact in a messy, unpredictable way.

6. Significant

Another word that sets scientists’ teeth on edge is “significant.”

“That’s a huge weasel word. Does it mean statistically significant, or does it mean important?” said Michael O’Brien, the dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri.

In statistics, something is significant if a difference is unlikely to be due to random chance. But that may not translate into a meaningful difference, in, say, headache symptoms or IQ.

7. Natural

“Natural” is another bugaboo for scientists. The term has become synonymous with being virtuous, healthy or good. But not everything artificial is unhealthy, and not everything that’s natural is good for you.

“Uranium is natural, and if you inject enough of it, you’re going to die,” Kruger said.

Natural’s sibling “organic” also has a problematic meaning, he said. While organic simply means “carbon-based” to scientists, the term is now used to describe pesticide-free peaches and high-end cotton sheets, as well.

Check out the full article written by Tia Ghose and LiveScience

ecocides: A Bruce Effect in Wild Geladas Female rodents are...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:32:42 -0700

ecocides:

A Bruce Effect in Wild Geladas

Female rodents are known to terminate pregnancies after exposure to unfamiliar males (“Bruce effect”). Although laboratory support abounds, direct evidence for a Bruce effect under natural conditions is lacking. Here, we report a strong Bruce effect in a wild primate, the gelada (Theropithecus gelada). Female geladas terminate 80% of pregnancies in the weeks after a dominant male is replaced. Further, data on interbirth intervals suggest that pregnancy termination offers fitness benefits for females whose offspring would otherwise be susceptible to infanticide. Taken together, data support the hypothesis that the Bruce effect can be an adaptive strategy for females.

via Science.com | image: source

WHENEVER I EAT FOOD OFF CAMPUS

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:29:19 -0700

howdoiputthisgently:

the-science-llama: Particle Collisions Could Create Twin Black...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:29:10 -0700

the-science-llama:

Particle Collisions Could Create Twin Black Holes at Large Hadron Collider

Back in 2008, physicists repeatedly assured us that a black hole produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was not going to swallow Earth. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t hoping to make one. Collisions between high energy particles, like the LHC’s protons, could theoretically squeeze enough mass and energy into a small enough space to create a tiny black hole—and making one might be a bit easier than physicists believed. It takes 2.4 times less energy than previously thought to create a black hole from a particle collision, according to a new paper in Physical Review Letters. That’s because when two particles smash into each other, their gravitational pull traps energy at two points on either side of the crash site. If enough energy gets concentrated at those points, it collapses into twin black holes that quickly gobble each other up and merge into one, as seen in the simulation above. Even with the new energy estimates, the chances of making a black hole in a particle accelerator are still vanishingly small. But because spotting one at the relatively low energy of the LHC would be solid experimental evidence for extra dimensions, physicists are keeping their fingers crossed.

Via sciencemag.org

invaderxan: I’d argue about bundling brown dwarfs in with types...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:28:55 -0700

invaderxan:

I’d argue about bundling brown dwarfs in with types of planet; even though they’re not massive enough to fuse hydrogen like true stars, they do fuse deuterium. Sometimes lithium too.

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Tue, 07 May 2013 12:26:45 -0700

science-junkie: Biodiversity and Disease Risk for Humans More...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:26:26 -0700

science-junkie:

Biodiversity and Disease Risk for Humans

More than three quarters of new, emerging or re-emerging human diseases are caused by pathogens from animals, according to the World Health Organization.

But a widely accepted theory of risk reduction for these pathogens – one of the most important ideas in disease ecology – is likely wrong, according to a new study co-authored by Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Senior Fellow James Holland Jones and former Woods-affiliated ecologist Dan Salkeld.

The dilution effect theorizes that disease risk for humans decreases as the variety of species in an area increases. For example, it postulates that a tick has a higher chance of infecting a human with Lyme disease if the tick has previously had few animal host options beyond white-footed mice, which are carriers of Lyme disease-causing bacteria.

If many other animal hosts had been available to the tick, the tick’s likelihood of being infected and spreading that infection to a human host would go down, according to the theory.

If true, the dilution effect would mean that conservation and public health agendas could be united in a common purpose: to protect biodiversity and guard against disease risk. “However, its importance to the field or the beauty of the idea do not guarantee that it is actually scientifically correct,” Jones said.

Read more

Image Credit: Walter Siegmund. The Western fence lizard, which harbors ticks but doesn’t transmit the Lyme disease bacterium, should be considered unique in any study of disease risk within its habitat, the researchers say.