Wow…so this mysterious stuff called dark matter actually exists? Sean Carroll gives us the context and the beautiful pictures, while MarkCC explains the math.
Troutnut has put up a beautiful page of Aquatic Insects of American Trout Streams. It’s all about using insects to catch fish, but it’s still an excellent example of how outdoor sportsmen (and in this case, soon-to-be grad student) can put together scientifically interesting information, too. If you don’t know a mayfly from a caddisfly, it’s full of photographs of the different organisms that might flit out of your nearby stream and park on your screen doors to weird you out.
Forbes has an article on billionaires who oppose the stem cell ban (free reg required): the subtitle is “Billionaire cash has kept embryonic stem-cell research alive—just barely,” which really says it all. It discusses the extremely generous gifts private donors (and also some state funding by referendum) that have kept stem cell research afloat in the world of GW Bush and the religious right. There’s quite a bit of money flying around out there.
Everyone go say hello to Thoughts from Kansas and The Scientific Indian, two new provinces in the vast and expanding Scienceblogs Empire. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
These things are just sneaking up on me today: the Synapse #5 is out.
Are there any more carnivals lurking out there today?
You can get a jump on the class—I’ve posted a list of the textbooks you’ll need on the class website.
The Inoculated Mind twists a Calvin and Hobbes comic to make a point about debates with creationists…I don’t know if I should endorse that kind of tinkering with Holy Writ.
I’m sure you all remember that “It Works, Bitches” comic—you can now get it on a t-shirt.
I neglected to include the latest carnival of Animalcules in my last round up. In my defense, though, I will say that they are very, very tiny and easy to miss.
Palaeos is gone! There is a brief note about being unable to support it any longer, and then poof, it’s offline. Martin Brazeau has a comment on it’s value; you can still see fragments of this great resource in google’s cache, but even that will fade too soon.
This is troubling, and it’s one of the worrisome aspects of using the net—there’s no sense of permanence. It would be good if someone were to step forward and at least archive all of the pages, but the essential feature of the Palaeos site was that it was continually maintained and updated to reflect current information, and that’s not something that can be supported without the dedication of much time and effort by someone knowledgeable in the subject.
