This is insane.
Quackery
Derek Lowe takes on (loon) Deepak Chopra et al.
As a commenter notes, one of the (many) frightening things about nationalizing health care is that these people will probably have a lot of influence over it. All part of the Democrat war on science.
Syllogism Practice
I scored a hundred percent on this quiz. But remember, it’s a test of deductive, not inductive logic (e.g., ignore whether or not the premises are valid — focus on the validity of the syllogism itself).
[Via Paul Hsieh, who got the same score as I did. Or so he says…]
A Spacefaring Society
Jon Goff and Ferris Valyn describe its attributes, and benefits, for the Obama administration. Hope they’re listening.
Thoughts On Extinction
…and scientific paradigm shifts, from A Jacksonian.
[Via Joe Katzman]
Half A Decade
Today is the fifth anniversary since President Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration (has it really been that long?).
I have some thoughts on how it’s been going over at PJM. Bottom line: not so well.
Space Info Toolbar
Here’s a handy new aggregator for those interested in keeping on top of space news.
We’re All Jeff Gannon Now
Some thoughts on a lapdog press corps.
It’s not like we haven’t seen this before. Like the last time a Democrat was in the White House.
The Origin Of Life
An interesting new theory, for those well versed in organic chemistry.
[Update in the afternoon]
This seems related:
Not content with achieving one hallmark of life in the lab, Joyce and Lincoln sought to evolve their molecule by natural selection. They did this by mutating sequences of the RNA building blocks, so that 288 possible ribozymes could be built by mixing and matching different pairs of shorter RNAs.
What came out bore an eerie resemblance to Darwin’s theory of natural selection: a few sequences proved winners, most losers. The victors emerged because they could replicate fastest while surrounded by competition, Joyce says.
“I wouldn’t call these molecules alive,” he cautions. For one, the molecules can evolve only to replicate better. Reproduction may be the strongest – perhaps only – biological urge, yet even simple organisms go about this by more complex means than breakneck division. Bacteria and humans have both evolved the ability to digest lactose, or milk sugar, to ensure their survival, for instance.
Joyce says his team has endowed its molecule with another function, although he will not say what that might be before his findings are published.
More fundamentally, to mimic biology, a molecule must gain new functions on the fly, without laboratory tinkering. Joyce says he has no idea how to clear this hurdle with his team’s RNA molecule. “It doesn’t have open-ended capacity for Darwinian evolution.”
Not yet.
Still Time To Vote
The voting for best Middle-East/Africa blog is pretty much down to Juan Cole and Michael Totten. Please don’t sully the award by allowing Cole to win.
Something I just noticed, which is typical of leftists — false advertising. From the Bolsheviks (no, they weren’t really the majority), to “progressives” and “liberals” and support of “appropriate technology,” they have to steal a base with their misleading (to be polite) names. Not to mention, of course, Democratic. “Informed Comment” is just the latest (and even more presumptuous than usual) in the sham names.