Sciencebloggers take on basic concepts January 29, 2007
Posted by Jason in Science.add a comment
The group over at ScienceBlogs have been talking about basic concepts in their various fields of study. John Wilkins over at Evolving Thoughts has been keeping a list of the topics covered.
Reading material January 29, 2007
Posted by Jason in Atheism, Politics, Pseudoscience, Religion, Science.1 comment so far
My posting will continue to be on-and-off due to a family emergency. Here’s some reading material to get you by though (since I know each and every one of you checks my blog 15 times a day 
):
First snow of 2007 January 17, 2007
Posted by Jason in Life.5 comments
We finally got some snow last night after a very long “dry” spell (we did get some rain). The weather forecast for last night was 4-10″ of snow but we only got about an inch. It also rained two nights ago so we ended up with snow-covered ice. St. Joseph got hit much harder with somewhere around 9″ of snow. It’s a little surprising that we only got an inch or two when St. Joseph is just 15 miles away!
Here are a couple pictures of the house: 
Go see Comet McNaught! January 15, 2007
Posted by Jason in Science.add a comment
The bright Comet McNaught will be visible this week with the naked-eye. I’m late on this so you probably don’t have much longer to view the comet. We’ve had cloudy weather here so I haven’t been able to see it at all. You can see the comet close to the horizon in the west just as the Sun is setting.
McNaught is so bright that it can be seen during the day. One more link: John Lynch has an image of the comet over Catalonia.
Kids and longevity January 15, 2007
Posted by Jason in Life, Science.add a comment
Jonah Lehrer reports on a study that claims that having kids lowers your lifespan:
Having children is bad for your health:
A pair of researchers, drawing on the experience of nearly 22,000 couples in the 19th century — has measured the “fitness cost” of human reproduction. This is the price that parents pay in their own health and longevity for the privilege of having their genes live on in future generations. The findings, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, manage to be both predictable and surprising.
Not surprisingly, women paid a bigger price than men. Older mothers were four times as likely to die in the year after having a child than their mates. Having lots of children was especially risky. A mother of 12 had five times the risk of dying prematurely as a mother of three. Even after their child-bearing years came to an end, women who had had many children died earlier than women who had had few.
The price of parenthood wasn’t trivial for men, either. Despite the obvious fact that men avoided the hazards of childbirth, fathering more children meant more risk of dying before their time, too.
Jonah says:
If you want to live longer, get a pet, not a kid.
That’s what I’ve been saying all along.
Idaho governor wants to take wolves back to the brink January 12, 2007
Posted by Jason in Pets & Animals, Politics.1 comment so far
Idaho’s Governor, C.L. “Butch” Otter, wants to drastically reduce the number of wolves in his state:
Idaho’s governor said Thursday he will support public hunts to kill all but 100 of the state’s gray wolves after the federal government strips them of protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter told The Associated Press that he wants hunters to kill about 550 gray wolves. That would leave about 100 wolves, or 10 packs, according to a population estimate by state wildlife officials.
The 100 surviving wolves would be the minimum before the animals could again be considered endangered.
Gov. Otter’s complaint is that the wolves, “are rapidly killing elk and other animals essential to Idaho’s multimillion-dollar hunting industry.”
“At this point there is very little evidence that the presence of wolves has caused a decline in elk numbers anywhere, especially in Central Idaho,” said Jim Peek, a retired professor of wildlife biology and a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation board of directors.
Peek, who also helped write Idaho’s wolf management plan, said elk populations fluctuate naturally and that the impacts of 1996’s particularly harsh winter, which killed hordes of elk, are still being felt.
Regardless of whether the wolf population needs reducing or not, it seems stupid to me to advocate such a massive hunt. One bad year or catastrophic event could put the wolves back on the endangered list.
The Idaho Statesman has a longer article with some more information and comments from Idaho citizens.
Friday Random Ten January 12, 2007
Posted by Jason in Memes, Music.add a comment
Another album edition.
- Nirvana – Nevermind
- Rush – Presto
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? OST
- Rush – A Farewell to Kings
- Semisonic – Great Divide
- No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom
- 19 Wheels – Sugareen
- Pushing 33 – The View From Here
- Son Volt – Trace
- Soundgarden – Superunknown
Carnivals January 9, 2007
Posted by Jason in Atheism, Politics, Pseudoscience, Religion, Science.add a comment
The three carnivals I read came out while I was gone. Here they are in no particular order:
- Carnival of the Godless #57 is up at Daily Irreverence.
- Skeptics’ Circle #51 is up at See You at Enceladus.
- Carnival of the Liberals #29 is up at Daylight Atheism.
What I’ve been up to January 9, 2007
Posted by Jason in Life.2 comments
You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much on the blog. That’s due to a couple of reasons: one, I haven’t been that motivated lately and, two, I’ve been up north visiting Kari and her family. Thanks to their generosity I now have even more books in my to-read pile. If I keep reading at the excruciatingly slow rate I have been, I could probably stretch them out to next Christmas! Maybe this year I can stop starting a book, putting it down for a month, and then finishing it in a few days.
While I was gone I finally finished Carl Sagan’s A Demon-Haunted World, which I started about a month ago (haha!). I’d recommend it to anyone interested in a book on skepticism. I’ll be starting Sam Harris’ The End of Faith next.
In other news I learned a new dice game called Zilch recently. You play it with six dice and gain points by rolling ones, fives, or three of a kind and above. It’s a little more complicated than that of course. You can search the internet for the rules. I’m thinking about creating a Zilch computer game using C#. It’s been a while since I’ve programmed anything though so we’ll see how that goes.
I hope everyone had a great New Years. 
States I’ve visited January 8, 2007
Posted by Jason in Life.2 comments
I came across this website while reading a friend’s blog. It lets you select the states and countries that you’ve visited and generates a world map of where you’ve been. Since I’ve never been outside of the US I decided to find one that restricted itself to the US. Here’s my map using the World66 website:
A few of the states I’ve only passed through and didn’t really “visit” them. Those states include Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Connecticut. In every other state I’ve done at least a little more than just fill the car’s gas tank.
*Edit* If you don’t know where those states I just mentioned are (for shame!), then go here to brush up on your US and world geography.
Jason Felton is a homo sapien in his mid-20s observed to be living in west Michigan. Observations suggest that he spends way too much time on the internet reading blogs, researching family trees, and keeping track of current events in science and politics. Other interests of his include atheism, electronics, religion, and history, among many other things.
