One Life Stand - Sexual Cannibalism

A high resolution movie of sexual cannibalism observed in mantises. The slim male on the right approaches a female poised to attack. After capture the male's nether region remains cognizant enough to stay on target. Proud to have open access research like this published by my alma mater - SUNY Fredonia.

Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks

The Colorado

I'll be selling books for the Matter Bookstore tonight at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, CO as photojournalist Peter McBride presents his view of the drying Colorado River. I was unaware until recently that the Colorado River no longer reaches the Pacific Ocean but ends in alluvial dust before it reaches Baja California. A sad tale of  mismanagement of a most precious resource.

"REZONOMICS" - Pine Ridge Reservation South Dakota

A film by Ralf Krautburger.

Frans de Waal on Chimps, Empathy, and Religion

Dutch primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal appears on prime time to discuss his thoughts on empathy and its evolutionary origins.
 

Bernie Sanders on Bush era tax cuts

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

This is a guest-post from a friend for whom I have utmost respect.

By Teri McLain

Today I ran a Thanksgiving Day Race in downtown Fort Collins with my Sister Lisa, her friend Jen and 1432 other people. 

At the finish, everyone was milling about and I was leaning on a light pole watching for Lisa. I noticed an obviously homeless man watching the bagel table. When the line thinned, he approached and took a bagel and when he realized no one cared, he took another for his pocket. Then he turned and walked straight towards me, eating a bagel with the happiest look in his eyes that I have ever seen. It was heartbreaking, the sheer joy that could be induced by a circle of dough with a hole in the center. He looked happier than a jewel thief with a pocket full of diamonds.

Around us, half the racers were talking or texting, in their own private Idaho. Two women behind me listed all the things they had to accomplish tomorrow on their shopping spree. They sounded annoyed. Others were talking dinner plans, rehashing the race, or contemplating the best place to grab a beer at 9:47 in the morning of Thanksgiving day. Everyone was munching on bagels and not a one of them had that look of joy in their eyes. I checked. They mostly looked bored.

Did anyone notice this homeless bagel thief? Did they note that he had food now for today, perhaps tomorrow, but not Saturday? Did they see that a dirty outsider with a torn shoe had penetrated their world of dinner plans, $100 trainers, cell phones and shopping sprees? A representative of the hungry - a group of 925 million people on this earth who sleep each night with rumbling bellies and only despair on the menu for breakfast - had waltzed right through their world completely unnoticed. Did anyone see? 

No. They did not. And it is a good thing, because it most certainly would have disturbed the turkey feast when they remembered those eyes. And that left shoe with the ragged tear might have trod upon their happy, nappy afternoon dreams. No. It is decidedly better not to see old shoes like that at the end of a Thanksgiving day race at 9:47 in the morning. And it is best if you never have to see eyes like that. Ever.

Tuesday Tunege - Andrew Bird

Researchers use "Where's George" to Map Human Mobility

A Wonderful Life Indeed - REPOST

I'm gearing up to write a massive post on the cultural evolution of Santa Claus; from Odin (the one-eyed Norse Father-God) into the jolly Kris Kringle known today. I'm envisioning an overview of all Christmas traditions historically having nothing to do with Jesus but taking their ques from pagan traditions. In preparing I searched my site for old posts I'd composed about Christmas and I came across this re-hash of a debate I had with a large group of creationists. The conclusions here echo a recurring theme I keep running into lately - resorting civility and holding a parley in the culture wars.

Here's the primer...

As the nights grow to the longest of the year in the northern hemisphere I come back to the Christmas Classic "It's a Wonderful Life" year after year and take away some new "positive magic." The right to speak freely also entails an obligation to listen freely. Progress is not achieved through ideological "wars" where one idea is diametrically opposed to another, where foes are demonized and enemy lines are not to be crossed. It comes through the raising of a common consciousness, a common sense.

A book of the same name has also affected me and perhaps made me more receptive to the message in this Jimmy Stewart classic. In the fall of 2007 a "young earth" physicist named Dr. D. Russell Humphreys spoke at Colorado State University. He spent two hours in front of a podium explaining that the observed rate at which helium atoms leaked from zirconium crystal collected from a salt mine in New Mexico indicated the earth was only about 10,000 years old. When I asked the man how humans could observe stars that were more than 10,000 light years away and sometimes even millions of light-years away his response was not scientific at all. He explained that during Genesis and the "great flood" God sped up the space-time continuum to bring the light beams to our eyeballs... After the seminar I left the auditorium in shock and disbelief that this man was paid to speak at a university, then I realized why it was worth it. In the lobby I was surrounded by the student group who invited him and engaged in a two hours long discussion about the age of earth and evolution. I described to them the progression of life as evidenced in the soft bodied fossils in the Burgess shale in British Columbia. I told them how this showcase of evolution and evolutionary timescales was eloquently described by Stephen Jay Gould in his award winning book "Wonderful Life." They had never heard of the Burgess shale and I think I piqued their interest and maybe a few students followed up on investigating this evidence on their own. Even though I was initially shocked that the university would allow such a seminar to be commissioned on campus I eventually realized the beauty of it all. The ensuing conversation between 20+ creationists and myself would never have taken place had this seminar not happened. Free speech is like white light, shining in all directions. Ideas like "life is a wonderful thing" have the power to reign in the poles of the culture wars, forcing us to acknowledge one another and move forward together.