Free Lantern » Science

New findings on deep-sea fish with tubular eyes and transparent head

Ali — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:26:48 +0000

Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently shed light on the mystery of a fish with tubular eyes and a transparent head. What an amazing fish, watch the video and if you want to read more see here.

Darwin 2009 t-shirts

Ali — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:32:07 +0000

Mikero has designed a few Darwin posters (See the other designs in his weblog). He is now selling these designs as t-shirts and posters through Zazzle.com. The income will go to NCSE so you can get a nice t-shirt for a good cause. I checked and it seems that they do international delivery, but maybe I have to find a few other interested colleagues and share the shipping cost with them. (Interested Marco?)

Teaching Creationism in Germany

Ali — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:46:49 +0000

A friend of mine send me a video documentary in YouTube (Von Göttern und Designern, Christlicher Fundamentalismus part 1) about a School in Germany in which they teach “Intelligent Design” in parallel to Evolution theory. Although they teach both “theories” to children the school teacher says that he believes in creationism and as a result influences the opinion of the students. Unfortunately the Documentary is only in German so if you can understand German here is the first part of it.
The funniest (or the saddest) part of it is about a Museum in the US where in an interview one of the museum workers explains that “the Dianasours were vegetarian in Heaven and used their teeth and nails to pick and eat heavenly fruits!”.
Yesterday I also read PZ Myers post about the Gaurdian’s article on British creationism, it seems that they are invading Europe seriously.
If you watch the documentary and/or read the Gaurdian’s paper and need to cool down you can do so by watching “Creationism: A Cautionary Tale” from atheristcartoons.com.

Obama on Science and Evolution

Ali — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:59:50 +0000

A new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don’t have an opinion either way. According to their work which is based on telephone interviews with 1,018 adults, believing in evolution has a strong relationship to educational level. I think there is not much to say. Fortunately President Obama does appreciate Darwin and Science. Listen and watch his views on Science and notes on Darwin’s Birthday:

Darwin Year 2009

Ali — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:30:23 +0000

Today is the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, year 2009 is Darwin’s year. 2009 also is the 150th anniversary of his great work, “on the origin of Species”. A few quotes from Charles Darwin in honor of his day (and year).

A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), Ch. VII, Buenos Ayres and St. Fe.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.
Charles Darwin,Origin of Species (1859)

It has often and confidently been asserted, that man’s origin can never be known: Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
The Descent of Man (1871), Introduction, p. 4

References and more reads:
Darwin Day Celebration website
Charles Darwin in Wikiquotes
Charles Darwin
History of Evolution thoughtToday’s featured article in Wikipedia

Scientist: “to be[come] or not to be[come]“

Ali — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:50:22 +0000

A few days ago a friend of mine send me an article by an American University professor Jonathan I. Katz with the title “Don’t become a Scientist!”. It is very interesting point of view.
In the last few days I have been thinking a lot about this article. Of course for me is rather late now as I have done my PhD and am doing a Post Doc but maybe it is not too late. Well I’m still leaving all options open and see what is coming next…
Talking about scientists and grad students many of you might have been wondering if the economy crisis will have an effect on grad students or not. Here is the ultimate answer by PhD comics:
The Economy Meltdown: Should you be concerned?

Ca ; De ; UK

That is called a collaboration!

Ali — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:59:20 +0000

A colleague of mine was searching for an article in Pubmed today and because of typing mistake she found this article. This is an article in Physics Journal (PDF original paper), and the reason I’m writing about it is the number of authors (I did not count but definitely more than 200 authors) and these authors are are from 74 institutions. I don’t know anything about the field of this paper but as a biochemist this number of authors was funny and surprising for me!

Beer is bad for scientists!

Ali — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:40:04 +0000

In the recent volume of Lab times I read about the (bad) effect of beer on number of publications by scientists! (You can read the online version here Page 14). Well, honestly sometimes if there was no hope of one (or a few) cold beer after work scientific work could’ve been much more difficult don’t you agree? So Cheers! )

Original article

New York Times article discussing this

P.S. The picture is the German Hefe Weizen (wheat beer) which is my favorite “publication reducing” agent.

PostDoc

Ali — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:28:01 +0000

Sometimes my friends who are not in the field of science ask me what is a PostDoc! Well I finally found the perfect answer for these questions!

Watch the series of PostDoc comics in PhDcomics to see what I mean comic1; comic2; comic3; comic4. I had also previously posted a comic from PhD comics here.

UK , US

Human rights for China

Ali — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:12:18 +0000

With 100 days to go until the Beijing Olympics, Amnesty International today (30 April) launched the first in a series of four hard-hitting animated films highlighting human rights abuses linked to the Chinese authorities’ hosting of the Games, in particular the risks of peacefully protesting in China. Watch the first animation here:

Also see: