{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44219: Bob Davis — 10/17  at  01:18 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} A vile show.

Now the Venture Brothers are good stuff. Hope Season 2 starts soon... {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44223: — 10/17  at  01:44 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} After an oddly succesful study party, my friends turned on the tube hoping to get Aquateen, but we got that weird thing and I had more nightmares about squidwomen trying to eat me.
I'm not sure I like this show. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44225: — 10/17  at  01:47 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} If you're going to browse Adult Swim, some of the squidier monsters in Aqua Teen Hunger Force might appeal to you more. Tentacular. I saw the Squidbillies pilot they played a few months ago... and, eh, not so good.

Also:

Go Team Venture! {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44228: — 10/17  at  01:50 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Not related to the suggested topic, I want to mention something else. I've been unpacking some stuff I had in storage, and among those things were the first issue of a British magazine Another Magazine (autmn/winter 2001). It's mostly fashion and culture, but I could help noticing while flipping through past the ads and interviews, that there were no less than three articles with a somewaht scientific content:

1) An article about the Hubble Space Telescope. Fairly short (3 pages) with little content, but containing some good pictures.

2) An article about language, and how the teaching of sign language to primates. Only two pages, one of which is a picture, but interesting.

3) An article about the mimic octopus, which I am sure PZ would love. Just a quick description of how they were found, and some spetacular photos - it contains this lvoely paragraph:

The scientific viewpoint that a creature doesn't exist until someone with the right qualifications has made an official classification can become absurd, particularly when the local community have been aware of an "unrecognized" species for generations. In the case of the mimic octopus, when, after five weeks without success, the crew decided to ask the Indonesian locals if they recognised the creature in the photographs, the first word they said was "bagus" which roughly translates as "mmm tasty".

While these articles all were pretty lightweight, I still love the fact that the magazine decided to included three such articles in their premiere issue (they also had a very interesting portrait/interview of Alberto Korba, the Cuban photograph).
I would love that more such magazines would contains such articles - the spread of science, even popular science, is always a good thing. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44229: — 10/17  at  01:51 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Man I can't wait for the new season of Venture Brothers. I can't believe there was ever any question of bringing that back. It's hands down the funniest show on TV.

From Tag Sale-You're It!
Henchmen #21: Here's where you are wrong, my friend. This women has killed before.
Henchmen #24: Allegedly!
Henchmen #21: Ok, whatever, but she was a big girl. We are talking about a large, healthy women of questionable stability.
Henchmen #24: Oh, you are totally underestimating the "never say die" scrappiness of a survivor!
Monarch: Hey guess what! Nobody cares who would win in a crazy fantasy fistfight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden!

And Dr. Girlfriend is teh hawtness. Even if she might have a baboon's uterus. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44241: — 10/17  at  02:38 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Just wanted to add another huzza for the Venture Brothers.
That show is brilliant in so many different directions at once it's just astounding. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44249: Republic of Palau — 10/17  at  02:53 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Mountain squid. The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Could they perhaps be related? I think we should be told.

I await with bated breath the no doubt imminent discovery of a previously unknown, prairie ruminating cephalopod. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44250: — 10/17  at  02:54 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Can you be off topic on an open thread?



Quite often I'm amazed that people can be so er, stupid as to subscribe to creationism.

But then I see things like this:

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2005/usa-invade-p1.php {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44251: — 10/17  at  03:03 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Kristjan Wager mentioned "the mimic octopus".

I think I saw one of them at a local open mike night. Terrible act! 'What would happen if Cthulhu was a high school guidance counselor? And a kid came in who was worried about his future? I think it might go something like this....' {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44268: — 10/17  at  04:14 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Who to invade next?

In the interests of raising the intlligence and survivability of our species, I want the US to nuke itself. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44269: Reed A. Cartwright — 10/17  at  04:20 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Naw, Mothman, a much better exchange is in "Are you there, God? It's me, Dean."

Henchman 2: Come on! They have one female servicing a large group of males. That implies a species that lays eggs.
Henchman 1: Oh my God, you're crazy! They're so obviously mammals!
Henchman 2: Please! She'd be in estrus 24/7 if she didn't lay eggs.
Henchman 1: Smurfs don't lay eggs! I won't tell you this again! Papa Smurf has a fucking beard! They're mammals! {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44270: Adam Ierymenko — 10/17  at  04:24 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} It's a guilty pleasure of mine... kooky fringe stuff. I sometimes enjoy reading or listening to shows about things like aliens, UFOs, conspiracies, etc. It's not just for entertainment value but also because I see such things as sources of insight into the hidden underbelly of human thought. It's quite fascinating sometimes to see what bubbles up on the fringe.

Anyway, I've heard more and more intelligent design "memes" bubbling up lately. Check this out:

http://db2.networkssupport.com/21stcenturyradio/tree/frame.asp?page=21audioarchives.html

Go and listen to the lectures by Douglas Kenyon about the "suppressed origins of civilization."

I've always thought these ideas would make their way to the realm of the new age, and it looks like they are.

It is the dawning of the age of aquarius! the age of aquarius! {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44275: — 10/17  at  04:37 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Reed,

The Smurf thing was good, but it had already been done (albeit, more crudely) in Donnie Darko.

Sean Smith: Beer and pussy. That's all I need.
Ronald Fisher: We gotta find ourselves a Smurfette.
Sean Smith: Smurfette?
Ronald Fisher: Yeah, not some tight-ass Middlesex chick, right? Like this cute little blonde that will get down and dirty with the guys. Like Smurfette does.
Donnie: Smurfette doesn't fuck.
Ronald Fisher: That's bullshit. Smurfette fucks all the other Smurfs. Why do you think Papa Smurf made her? Because all the other Smurfs were getting too horny.
Sean Smith: No, no, no, not Vanity. I heard he was a homosexual.
Ronald Fisher: Okay, then, you know what? She fucks them and Vanity watches. Okay?
Sean Smith: What about Papa Smurf? I mean, he must get in on all the action.
Ronald Fisher: Yeah, what he does, he films the gang-bang, and he beats off to the tape.
Donnie: [shouts] First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, well, it just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have... reproductive organs under those tiny, white pants. It's just so illogical, about being a Smurf, you know? I mean, what's the point of living... if you don't have a dick?
Sean Smith: [pause] Dammit, Donnie. Why you gotta get all smart on us?

Appropriately, my password is "sperm". {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44292: — 10/17  at  06:26 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Now, now, enough of these Smurf references...it'll get you on a government watch list. Aren't you aware that the Smurfs promote Communism? {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44331: ACW — 10/17  at  09:45 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} PZ, if you read this far, I've got a biology/evolution question.

If I were a biologist, I think I know what I'd like to pursue as a research topic. I'd want to find out how fast selection can happen under fairly intense selective pressure, and after it had happened, I'd want to try to figure out how the organism had managed to adapt. The way that occurs to me is selective breeding of E. coli.

So I want to know if people are trying this sort of thing. One possible experiment: incubate a standard strain of E. coli in a standard culture medium, altered by increased concentration of something, say, salt. Keep hiking the salinity until the little guys are barely surviving. Then transfer the survivors to fresh overly-saline medium. Repeat for a long time, hiking the salinity as often as you can still get survivors.

Then, examine the cells to see if there's any morphological change (probably not). And, most interesting, sequence their DNA and compare the genome with wild type. What mutated? What has been altered? How do the changes confer resistance to increased salinity?

Now do the same thing with all kinds of other selection criteria: resistance to heat, cold, Agent Orange, T2 phages... what happens if you breed E. coli for traits like increased average cell volume, increased cell aggregation, orange coloration ... ?

Have people been doing this sort of thing? How could I find out? {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44350: Alon Levy — 10/18  at  01:09 AM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Now, now, enough of these Smurf references...it'll get you on a government watch list. Aren't you aware that the Smurfs promote Communism?

I didn't know about Smurf communism, although I did hear a theory that it was an anti-Semitic show, where Gargamel represented the Eternal Jew. {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44371: — 10/18  at  07:42 AM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE}

Have people been doing this sort of thing? How could I find out?

Yes. That's how they came up with oil-eating bacteria, for example. Those weren't E. coli, but they found some naturally ocurring bacteria that were resistant to oil, and started upping the concentration.

A related technique is to go out into the real world, where organisms have been evolving for a long long time rather than try to reproduce it in the lab. Organisms (bacteria and archaea) have been found in all sorts of environments, from super-hot water to ice floes.

Test Tube Evolution Catches Time in a Bottle


Switching subjects:
The God-bloggers {/if}

{if FALSE} Trackback: Open Thread Tracked on: () at {trackback_date format="%Y %m %d %H:%i:%s"} {/if} {if TRUE} {if FALSE} {/if} #44595: — 10/18  at  10:22 PM {/if}
{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} PZ,
I'd love to hear your take on this:

Life's Building Blocks 'Abundant in Space'
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051018_science_tuesday.html {/if}