Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Here’s a horrible story: a man who bears a grossly disfiguring tumor on his face, one that threatens his life and has afflicted him since adolescence, is only now considering surgery to correct the problem.
Why not before? Because it might require (and now definitely would require) blood transfusions. And he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. You have to wonder what wretched, evil excuse for a human being among his church associates has been telling him that he shouldn’t get this life-saving surgery because God wouldn’t like it.
This week is the second to last week of the semester before finals and everything is coming down to the wire, including my neurobio lab project. PZ was so kind as to come in and help me out this past Sunday morning; the morning after the blizzard had quieted leaving everything covered in various quantities of snow. In going over my methods we found that I wasn’t adding a drop or two of water on top of the auger layer with the immobilized zebrafish. The reason this is important is that so after the spinal cord severing is accomplished, the auger layer is separated allowing water to surround the fish immediately and preventing air exposure. The fish can then be pipetted up and put into a dish of water for observations. PZ also suggested using water with an increased concentration of calcium (14g/100mL) to facilitate better fish recovery. The fish should not be left however in the calcium water for an extended period of time because it can adversely affect development.
Repeating my methods and taking into practice the slight changes that PZ recommended, I found that after one day, four of eleven fish were still alive! After slicing up more than sixty fish with a 100% mortality rate after one day and wondering what on earth I could have been doing wrong, I was ecstatic. It’s unfortunate that this success has come so late in the game and the writeup for this project won’t show much for results other than how not to butcher zebrafish. I have learned quite a bit though about the interesting techniques I’ve been using and also about the differences in zebrafish at various stages of development. So with that, back to the lab I go to continue working with zebrafish.
If you’ve ever seen John Edward or James van Praagh, or any of a thousand other idiot spirit mediums, you’ll know how conversations sound in the afterlife. Death is apparently a leading cause of brain damage.
Sex education and humor … how can anyone object to this?
I’m sure someone will.
Now the NY Times has an editorial deploring the politicization of the Texas Education Agency. This one is going to burn the creationists, I think; it’s an opportunity to turn their slogans about fairness right around and skewer them.
Why do I have this urge to send this to Stuart Pivar?
After being imprisoned and facing a lynch mob, the teacher in Sudan whose class named a teddy bear “Mohammed” has finally been freed. She has a very positive attitude and says nothing but generous things about the people of Sudan, and thanks the Sudanese government for letting her have a bed while she was in prison.
I think she’s a bit deranged, actually.
A bed is an exceptional gift to a prisoner? She was sentenced to prison for naming a teddy bear? Mobs were howling for her execution for that “crime”? And she says, “I wouldn’t like to put anyone off going to Sudan.”
Too late. I’m quite put off, and think the Sudan is a hell-hole for lunatics.
It’s time for the blogosphere’s favorite intramural charity, Gary Farber Pledge Drive Week. If you appreciate the long-running efforts of one of the fixtures of the net, help him out.
Forgive me. This is disgusting.
Glenn Beck + Ben Stein.
Stein repeats his ignorant caricature of the origin of life as “lightning striking a mud puddle,” and then…oh, man, this was unbelievable:
If they’re so sure that they’re right, what are they afraid of? If they’re so sure that their position is unassailable, let the other guy talk and then blow him out of the water and say, “You fool, you didn’t know this, this and this.”
Gosh. That sounds exactly like Pharyngula.
This is exactly what we all do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And now Stein has the gall to pretend we never engage the creationist claims?
