Ancient Aliens Rule the World.

I have recently been watching a show called 'Ancient Aliens' on History channel. More due to lack of anything else to watch. So I have made it to the 4th episode fairly unscathed. But after struggling to the end of the 4th episode I am not convinced that I am going to make it any further.
For those that don't know, 'Ancient Aliens' works on the premise that thousands of years ago human kind was not doing so well until a bunch of Aliens came and helped us out.

Tsunami Time... Its a disaster...

Here in the Pacific we are subject to the possibility many kinds of natural disasters. Volcanic eruptions, tropical cyclones, tornado's, earthquakes and tsunami's. It is a constant threat that cannot be dismissed lightly. Anyone of these could strike at any time.
We all know what destruction a tsunami can cause as illustrated by the Indonesian tsunami of 2003. Hundreds of thousands of people perished. But what would happen if the worlds biggest volcano decided to do the Atkins diet and shed some weight. Check out the video after the jump of what could happen to the near by island of Oahu and the city of Honolulu if such a scenario occurred.

LHC will not Destroy the World... But,

If it does it will look like this.


Here is some information about the work that the good folk at CERN will be doing with the LHC.

New Zealand not Epically Doomed, unlike Louisiana.

Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy.com has been banging the drum about creationism and evolution for a long time now and I wholeheartedly agree with everything he has to say. If schools want to teach Intelligent Design or Creationism then it should be done in the correct forum, which is not the science class. Anyway, where am I going with this? Phil Plait has done a pretty good job on this argument so I am not going to go into the specifics here.
The governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindahl, has just signed has signed a new state bill called the academic freedom bill which will allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Evolution of course being a Theory that can be proved by scientific means and principles, creationism cannot. And now the whackjobs in NZ are having a go as well.

The floodgates have opened. www.Stuff.co.nz in New Zealand reports that, “A Christian group promoting intelligent design over evolution has sent teaching material to schools that critics say is religious propaganda and sloppy pseudoscience.”
At least the critics have a voice. The NZ Education Ministry says:
“The unsanctioned material does not breach the Education Act and there are no plans to ban its distribution. But officials stress the theory of evolution underpins the science curriculum and schools have a responsibility to teach theories that are subject to accepted scientific scrutiny.”

A groups calling themselves “Focus on the Family” (meaning of course THEIR focus on YOUR family) sent Material to 400 high schools trying to get them to teach the hack pseudo-science in class.
Waikato University sciences senior lecturer Alison Campbell said:
“The material champions creationism - the belief that God created the world as described in the Book of Genesis - claiming the universe is too perfect to have been produced by chance so must be the work of an intelligent designer.
It represented a religious viewpoint, she said, not a scientific one, and had no place in science classrooms.”

Focus on the Family's executive director Tim Sisarich said the material was intended to expose pupils to an alterative theory of cosmology.
"We're a Christian organisation so we believe that God made the planet and God made the cosmos ... Science takes a theory and tries to establish it as the truth, and that's all this is."
Education Ministry senior manager Mary Chamberlain said parents had a right to withdraw children from religious instruction.

This is amazing. I knew that NZ had a large religious community and that is totally fine, I have no problem with that. I did not think we had the same type of minds here as in the US. I suppose we are lucky that we don't as yet seem to have those types of people in power that can make the crazy mistakes as Louisiana.

If you check the article on Stuff, you will see the standard religious morons coming out of the woodwork, making the same inane arguments. "Its just a theory", "we didn't evolve from monkeys", "teach the controversy", and "why is there no half monkey/ half human" is just a random sample of the horse shit the Committee for Lying for Jesus is posting. Always with the same crap that shows more about their lack of understanding, than their intelligence. I don't think it will ever get to the same level of stupidity that it does in America, with 40% of NZ subscribing to no religion, and another 30% subscribing to religions other than christian based ones, but its still worrying to see these knobs waving their flags every now and then.

Also interesting to see this kind of crap start surfacing just before the election, with Tim Sisarich and his cronies at the Destiny Church trying to get a seat in parliament to push their evangelical nonsense. Here's hoping come election time the same thing happens as every year, and they get laughed out of the polling booth.

Theres also a poll on the Stuff hompage about teaching ID in school. Go over there right now and give them the good news!

The Beauty of Photoshop, Makeup and Time Lapse

I stumbled across this today while surfing the interweb. A neat video of a lady getting made up for a photo shoot and the subsequent photoshop retouching. Kinda cool as it was done in time lapse.
Check it out.

Read more for another video, this is the opposite of the lady. Funny too.

Ricky Gervais believes in Darwin

Here is a neat article written by Ricky Gervais about becoming an Atheist. I like Ricky Gervais, his comedy shows The Office and Extras are very funny but I think the best insight into who he is, his comedy and his beliefs comes from listening to his podcast\radio shows.

Hearing Ricky try to explain to friend Karl Pilkington the theories about life is a comedy sketch in itself. Just the other day I was listening to one his podcasts and Karl truly believed that a stick insect had 'shagged' a stick in order for it to take on the characteristics rather than evolve.

Not many celebrities have actually come out and said they are atheists, its a bit of a taboo thing to do. I think it is great, and more celebs should follow his lead. Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant (his collaborator) are both advocates for the scientific and have both mentioned their disbelief in such hocus pocus as Magic, Ghosts, Religion and other non scientifically proven theories. Hopefully they will continue to explain it to Karl the Layman thus entertaining the masses for a while longer.
If you get a chance then do listen to the podcasts, they are available on itunes and other media.

Elephants and moths evolve at blink of an eye

In a lovely little example of human intervention becoming a factor in evolution I read about today, it appears the bollworm moth has developed a resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). "WTF?" you might say - well, Bt is a common soil bacterium that is well known for its insecticidal properties, especially against moths and butterflies. We have used it in many genetically modified plants to stop pests, such as the Bollworm Moth (cotton plant eater) and the Tuber Moth (muncher of potatoes), from destroying our lovely plants and veges.

I think its important to say a little bit about GE here, and say that I support GE, but I also support the requirement for strict controls. We need to balance the need for the advancement of genetic based science and safety of the general populous. Some people advocate a wholesale ban on GE food, and others say we should just go for it - I reckon neither position is correct, but there should be a happy middle ground.

Anyway, it has become apparent that the Bollworm moth has produced a new population that is slowly increasing in size, that is resistant to the effects of BT. Although its interesting how fast this happened since the wholesale adoption of the GE cotton plants, its not surprising in the least. A simple fact of evolution is if you put some kind of life and death pressure on a population, it will likely adapt to avoid that pressure. In this case, the Bollworm moth population was originally dominated by individuals who were not resistant to BT, as it was not a major pressure on their environment. With mans intervention, and the massive introduction of GE crops using the BT gene, that pressure became critical to their survival. As the non-resistant bugs died out, they left the individuals who were resistant to BT and they mated, were more successful in their environment, and are now dominating the Bollworm moth gene pool.

What's that got to do with elephants you ask? Well, a similar thing seems to have happened there too. With the mass killings by ivory hunters, elephants with large tusks were no longer successful in the elephant population (cause they were being shot). Tuskless elephants were not targeted, so they became more dominant in their population. This is a lot slower than the moths as their life cycle is slower, so new generations take longer to produce offspring which carry the selected genes.

"African ivory hunters, by killing only tusked elephants, have given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with small tusks or no tusks at all. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has resulted in the birth of large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching 30% in some populations (compare with a rate of about 1% in 1930). Tusklessness, once a very rare genetic abnormality, has become a widespread hereditary trait." (Wikipedia)

Again, when you line up the facts this is not surprising. We see it every day in all organisms on earth from bacteria (MRSA) to shellfish (mussels) - sometimes fast, sometimes slow depending on the pressures on the population. This is why its a never ending battle against pests and diseases, and why we need to make sure we dont stop investigating genetics. If we are to stay ahead in the genetic arms race, we need to know everything we can about the mechanism's and triggers for evolution. Yay for GE and Genetic research.

Via IO9

Whale of a Time

I went to Te Papa Museum of New Zealand on the weekend and ventured the $8 for the Whales Tohora exhibit and I must say it was excellent. I took my daughter and it was an amazing way to introduce her to the concept of evolution. And I must say its such an easy idea to grasp, that even my 5 year old daughter got it.

We were wandering along looking at the fossil record for whales that had been displayed, and although it was simplified down to 4 or 5 major examples of the different stages in whale evolution, it was still easy to understand the concept. As I explained to my daughter about the fossils, she got the idea immediately - "they changed a little bit over a long time daddy." Wow. Out of the mouths of babes and all that.

Why is it that a 5 year old can grasp the simplest concepts of science and evolution, and it is impossible for weirdo creationists to do the same? They have an egotistical fascination with their own existence that says that some fictional character created everything just for them. Bollocks to that - we are only here by chance, so lets make the most of that chance and find out as much as possible.

It amazes me that people can wander along, blinkers on, saying "god did it all, and I'm not going to question anything". Isn't it far better to say "this is all interesting stuff, lets find out how it works and how we came to be here"? Science is an incredibly useful tool that allows us to investigate, every day, the world around us, and further the human understanding of Life, The Universe and Everything. Without it, there'd be no ipods, no telly, no movies, no internet, no computers, no modern conveniences that we all take for granted. It is an irony that many of the religious right rail against the scientific community using the very things science helped create.

Anyway, go and see the Whales Tohora exhibit at Te Papa - its well worth it and I guarantee you'll learn a thing or two about whales you didnt know before. Check out the virtual Seach and Destroy movie where you learn how Sperm Whales dive 1500m down and use sonar to detect and catch fish and giant squid.

Rollin rollin rollin.

The venerable Henry Rollins of Black Flag fame is here to tell it like it is in 3 minutes or less. Check out the video of Henry after the jump, laying down pretty quickly what his problem with ID and religion is. Nice to see he hasn't lost any of his presence and ability to get his point across quickly.