GPOYST

It's time for Gratuitous Picture Of Your Science Thursday. This is my Western blot result from earlier today. Unfortunately there are no bands except for a ladder. Next step: Repeat!

Episode 23

The atheism and science podcast that me and my friends work on together just released our 23rd episode!  Check it out - here's the summary from the Pascal's Bettors website:

• Matt starts us off with Spreading the Bad News regarding the misconceptions about the Crusades

• Joel reads off some news items about the ACLU defending Christians, rape being declared as "God's Will" and another attempt to teach the bible in a public school

• Liz inspires us with some Words of Lizdom via Richard Dawkins

• John discusses an uplifting Church In State segment where the UK prioritized secular morality over religious hatred.

• Liz discusses some Pope-pourri, specifically a lawsuit german lawyers are using to take on the Pope

• Nik discusses the ethics of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Snyder v. Phelps case for the latest Ethics Corner

• Finally, we wrap up with a religious trivia question about the Jewish Mezuzah from Matt

We love getting feedback to, so use the "contact us" form on the website to let us know what you think and if you have any question or subject you'd like us to cover.

Going out with a ... freeze

Discoblog over at DISCOVER learned me something new today:  "cremation, which uses the same amount of energy as driving almost 5,000 miles, releases mercury into the atmosphere."  


What a terrible thing to do to the environment!  I always thought that, aside from donating your body to science, cremation was the most cost-effective and ecologically friendly way to go (avoiding wood and metal coffins, large tracts of land, etc.).  Well apparently there's a more environmentally friendly way to depart this mortal coil.


In short, a company called Promessa will freeze your body with liquid nitrogen (using no nasty embalming fluids) to the point that your frozen self becomes incredibly brittle.  Then a sonicator is used to essentially vibrate the frozen stuff into a fine powder before evaporating the water in the dust and planting your remains back into the ground.  The biggest environmental benefits appear to be no embalming fluid contamination, no inorganic burying material, and less space taken up.  Here's a depiction from Promessa's website of the freezing process:

Let this be my living will: if I die and my body cannot be donated to science, I want to be frozen and shattered into billions of tiny dust particles just like in Terminator 2.  

The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

I think more nature videos should be narrated by this guy:

Yoga for Black People

Enjoy:



It's funny because Asians can make these jokes but white people can't (as indicated by one of the commenters).

Red Riding Hood

I intend to forgive Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the movie Twilight, for redeeming herself by directing the upcoming movie, Red Riding Hood:

I Stand With Planned Parenthood

Via Liz via fousheezy:

Did you hear? The House voted to bar Planned Parenthood from federal funding.  They cut funding for HIV tests, cancer screenings, birth control, and more, putting millions of women and families at risk.  We can't let it go unanswered.  It's time for you and me to Stand with Planned Parenthood.  Sign the open letter to the reps who voted for this bill - and to the senators who still have a chance to stop it.  Don't just reblog: SIGN IT!  

I signed it - you should do it too!  Maybe these sorts of petty funding battles wouldn't be so partisan if there were more women in Congress ...

The Unseen Sea

One of the novelties of living in San Francisco is that it is foggy much of the time here.  While being in the middle of the fog is not so special, the many vantage points from high up in the city give you spectacular views of the fog rolling in or out of the bay area.

Simon Christen has produced a stop-motion video of the foggy city at different times of day and different seasons of the year.  Check it out - it's pretty amazing:

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

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UPDATE: One of the commenters has correctly pointed out that this is *not* a stop-motion but a time-lapse video.  Thanks, Mors!

Science > Religion

This comic from SMBC sums up exactly why 93% of the top scientists who are members of the United States National Academy of the Sciences are atheist or agnostic:

You Can't Explain That!

Many of you might know that conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly made a fool of himself when interviewing president of the American Atheists, David Silverman, by trying to explain the existence of god by saying, "Tide comes in, tide goes out.  No miscommunication.  You can't explain that".  Justifiably, Bill'O has become a laughing stock of the internet.  Again.

Now there's a fun meme going round that puts similarly stupid phrases above a picture of Bill O'Reilly as arguments that you just can't explain, so it must be true!  Joel shared this via Google reader.  So in the spirit of lampooning foolish TV figures that use terrible reasoning skills, I've made one of my own with the meme generator: