“Transformer Owl.”

This and the gibbon video below from Wired’s Top 10 Animal Videos.

Turns out gibbons are super agile.

“Balloonist” art, seen on woostercollective.com.

Bonnie’s whistling isn’t so surprising to her caregivers. The 140-pound (63.5-kilometer) orangutan at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., has been whistling for about two decades.Now a new study suggests that the sounds she makes could hold clues about the origins of human language.

“The assumption is that someone was whistling and she probably picked it up from them,” said animal keeper and study co-auther Erin Stromberg.

Lisa Stevens, the zoo’s curator for great apes and giant pandas, said the key point is that the orangutan was not trained to whistle.

While orangutans can be taught new sounds with extensive training, Bonnie is the first indication that the animals can independently pick up the sounds from other species.

“It’s something she spontaneously developed,” Stevens said. “It wasn’t a trick.”

Full article.

Hobbyists Try Genetic Engineering At Home

SAN FRANCISCO - The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.

The ‘Gee-whiz’ factor  runs rampant -

“People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process,” she said.

And even better-

“We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game,” he said.

At least we get these drops of common sense-

But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster.

And

Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms in the hands of amateurs could escape and cause outbreaks of incurable diseases or unpredictable environmental damage.

Does it stifle innovation to question the wisdom of this totally uncontainable scientific masturbation? Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Happy Holidays from Gonzo Science and Nora the piano playing cat, who is really feelin’ it.

The nominees for the Golden Duke Awards from TPM Media. A great overview of this past year’s political scandals.

AMY GOODMAN: Alright, well, we had you on right before the election, because that’s when Mike Connell was being deposed. This news that came out of his death in a plane crash on Friday night, talk about what you understand has happened.

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we’re obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when Wellstone’s plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We’re told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at-and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck-also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell’s life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first-who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He’s also very connected. And all these people were saying Rove is making threats, the White House is very worried about this case.

The rest.

Jim and I share a fascination with squids owing to their sheer weirdness. National Geographic offers these new insights into squid booty-

The cephalopods’ intimate encounters include cutting holes into their partners for sex, swapping genders, and deploying flesh-burrowing sperm.

These and other previously unknown reproductive strategies were documented in a survey of ten squid species living worldwide at depths of between 984 and 3,937 feet (300 and 1,200 meters).Study leader Henk-Jan Hoving, a Ph.D. student at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, examined squid caught during research voyages as well as preserved museum specimens.

Cutting and Burrowing

Hoving’s findings suggest males of the bioluminescent species Taningia danae use their beaks and sharp claws to slice two-inch-deep (five-centimeter-deep) wounds into their partners.

Sperm packets, or spermatophores, are then inserted into the female’s cuts using a penis-like appendage, according to Hoving.

Meanwhile, males of the species Moroteuthis ingens were found to have sperm packets that, once deposited onto a female, burrow into the body.

I’m going to be sick…

Get your Yuletide on with this video of an electric eel-powered Christmas tree.

Scientific American-

Pesticide DDT, industrial lubricants PCBs and now plastic BPA (bisphenol A) are all widely used industrial chemical compounds that have been discovered to cause ills such as cancer and/or environmental damage. Worried that the latest chemical craze—nanoparticles (molecules and even atoms engineered at the scale of one billionth of a meter or smaller)—may follow suit, a panel of scientists is urging federal government agencies to assess the potential risks posed by such engineered chemicals and particles before they are used in any more substances.

The National Research Council, one of The National Academies  in Washington, D.C., (scientific advisory bodies for the federal government) charges that the 18 government bodies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tasked with assessing chemical safety, have failed to prove that the diminutive particles are not dangerous. The group also charged in a new report that the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the government body created to oversee such efforts, lacks a coherent plan for ensuring that current and future uses of nanotechnology do not pose a risk to human health or the environment.

The Gonzo Response: No Duh

By Jerry A. Padilla
 The Taos News
  What happens when you have Miguel Santistevan from Taos, of Sembrando Semillas and Cultural Energy; Percy Schmeiser, canola farmer from Canada; Charles Martin, researcher from the NMSU agricultural station in Alcalde; Zelig Kevin Golden, attorney with Center for Food Safety, San Francisco, and many concerned New Mexicans in the same room?
  The result Saturday (Dec. 13) at University of New Mexico­Albuquerque was inspired dia­logue on how chile farmers, sci­entists, and those concerned all over New Mexico can help each other without going ahead with plans for developing GMO chile in New Mexico.
  The presentation on the con­troversy overproposedgenetical­ly modified chile in New Mexico resulted in not only a good reminder by Percy Schmeiser and Kevin Zelig Golden of the dangers, but in animated dia­logue among many in the audi­ence. Schmeiser and Golden were speakers at the Annual Feast of Fields 2008 presenta­tion at the UNM-Albuquerque.
  Schmeiser is the Canadian canola farmer who was sued by Monsanto Corp., when he refused to pay a $37 per hectare fee to the biotech giant when his canola fields became con­taminated by Round-up Ready canola (which he never bought or planted) he was taken to court. Rather than settle out of court Schmeiser fought back. His landmark case went before the Canadian Supreme Court, drawing much attention to the reality of biotech versus tra­ditional and organic farming worldwide.
  San Francisco’s Center for Food Safety attorney Zelig Kevin Golden works on legal and poli­cy issues related to agricultural biotechnology and food safety, GMO crops, animal cloning, food irradiation, and sustain­able and organic agriculture. Zelig and the Center for Food Safety recently won victories in cases involving the USDA for not preparing an environmen­tal impact statement addressing the impacts of biological con­tamination on organic farming.
  For the first time, a federal court decided a GMO crop can harm the environment and halt­ed the sale of Roundup-Ready alfalfa seed until the USDA addresses the risk.
  Schmeiser and Golden agreed on the question, “Does anyone have the right to patent life forms?”
  Martin and Santistevan took the lead in discussion during the question-and-answer ses­sion, inspiring several audi­ence members to offer sugges­tions, help and share ideas. The moderator was all over the Sub Ballroom making sure everyone had their say.
  Martin explained the role of New Mexico State University in chile research, both tradition­al and why some commercial growers hope GMO will solve their problems. Santistevan explained how the New Mexico Legislature first passed a memo­rial in 2007 asking protection for traditional chile farmers, and then in 2008 allocated funding for chile research including GMO varieties.
  An American Indian farm­er explained about tobacco as organic insect repellent. Norte-os spoke about crop rotation, and old-time methods that still work.
  After all spoke, the consen­sus was that NMSU, large and small growers, north or south, not be demonized, but all work together to help the New Mexico chile industry, and bring about mandatory labeling of American food products already contain­ing GMO’s.
  For more information access-GMOfreeNM, PercySchmeiser.com, Center for Food Safety, Cultural Energy

The man who brought down Nixon has died.

Richard Dawkins should crawl into a hole and stroke his own ego until death do him part, while the rest of us conduct true scientific exploration on the nature of reality, not just what a few pseudoskeptical biologists think is worthy of inquiry.

From the DailyGrail:

Soon before Enemies of Reason was filmed, the production company, IWC Media, told me that Richard Dawkins wanted to visit me to discuss my research on unexplained abilities of people and animals. I was reluctant to take part, but the company’s representative assured me that “this documentary, at Channel 4’s insistence, will be an entirely more balanced affair than The Root of All Evil was.” She added, “We are very keen for it to be a discussion between two scientists, about scientific modes of enquiry”. So I agreed and we fixed a date.

…

The previous week I had sent Richard copies of some of my papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, so that he could look at the data.

Richard seemed uneasy and said, “I don’t want to discuss evidence”. “Why not?” I asked. “There isn’t time. It’s too complicated. And that’s not what this programme is about.” The camera stopped.

The Director, Russell Barnes, confirmed that he too was not interested in evidence. The film he was making was another Dawkins polemic.

In that case, I replied, there had been a serious misunderstanding, because I had been led to believe that this was to be a balanced scientific discussion about evidence. Russell Barnes asked to see the emails I had received from his assistant. He read them with obvious dismay, and said the assurances she had given me were wrong. The team packed up and left.

Time to find some wacky philanthropist to fund extensive experiments, and pour a dump truck load of evidence on the true pseudoscientists, welding their mouths shut forever.

Unrelated thought: oh boy how I would like to see the results of experiments testing subjects for telepathy under the influence of psychedelics. Now that would be some truly gonzo shit.

Tasty clip from Uncle Bill’s Nova Express.

Parkour-style stunts from 1930s. The leap off the crane is my favorite.

Heavy-machinery acrobatics.

May be difficult to play for Firefox users for some reason.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2008) — Massive swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations into veritable jellytoriums that are intermittently jammed with pulsating, gelatinous creatures. Areas that are currently particularly hard-hit by these squishy animals include Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the east coast of the U.S., the Bering Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Australia, the Black Sea and other European seas, the Sea of Japan, the North Sea and Namibia.

Todays Buzz Word: Jellytorium

Delightful. Courtesy of The Anomalist.

Several offerings from the highly amusing failblog.org

Shocking video.

The £12m defences of the most heavily guarded power station in Britain have been breached by a single person who, under the eyes of CCTV cameras, climbed two three-metre (10ft) razor-wired, electrified security fences, walked into the station and crashed a giant 500MW turbine before leaving a calling card reading “no new coal”. He walked out the same way and hopped back over the fence.

All power from the coal and oil-powered Kingsnorth station in Kent was halted for four hours, in which time it is thought the mystery saboteur’s actions reduced UK climate change emissions by 2%. Enough electricity to power a city the size of Bristol was lost.

Yesterday the hunt was on for the man dubbed “climate man” or the “green Banksy”.

Prototype laser powered spacecraft. Seriously the coolest thing I have seen in a while.

Fav. quote from video:

“The laser had to be vertically blocked because it could severely damage a passing satellite or plane”

Awesome.

PS: You will see why I checked “UFO” box :)

These guys work there asses off to raise awareness of the poison of fluoride in our drinking water. They have begun their 2009 annual fund drive.

Sexual stereotypes are not the preserve of humans. Male dolphins, it seems, are not interested in learning how to use a sponge, but their sisters are.

Dolphins were first seen carrying sponges cupped over their beaks in Shark Bay, Australia, in the 1980s.

Janet Mann of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and colleagues have now reviewed data collected during 20 years spent monitoring this group of dolphins and found that, while mothers show both their male and female calves how to use sponges, female calves are almost exclusively the only ones to apply this knowledge.

“The daughters seem really keen to do it,” says Mann. “They try and try, whereas the sons don’t seem to think it’s a big deal and hang out at the surface waiting for their mothers to come back up.”

The scoop.

Might makes cop around the country rethink those illegal raids they so often do. Totally awesome.

More here. 

Must be natures compromise for it being harder for us geeks to get laid.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2008) — Can radiation from cell phones affect the memory? Yes — at least it appears to do so in rat experiments conducted at the Division of Neurosurgery, Lund University, in Sweden. Henrietta Nittby studied rats that were exposed to mobile phone radiation for two hours a week for more than a year. These rats had poorer results on a memory test than rats that had not been exposed to radiation.

Can you imagine the gibbering masses of brain-fried people that may result from the unchecked technology, myself included? Gadzooks.

I am surprised van Flandern doesn’t have this included in his metaresearch page, unless it is in the full paper, and not just the abstract.
Notice the asymmetrical cratering.
Near side.

Far side

I wonder how many more moons display this kind of asymmetry?

[Jim here hacking Matt’s post. I wanted to make sure Matt’s idea here gets understood in the context of Van Flandern’s observation of “distribution of black material on slowly rotating airless bodies (the ‘black axiom’)”, which is evidence of a blast wave moving through the solar system from an exploded planet. Matt is also on-bounds in questioning the origin of the lunar seas in that identifying the origin of craters as impact-related or volcano-related is not always so cut and dry. This wikipedia article mentions a couple of the problems that might lead to currently-accepted models being overthrown:

Some volcanic features can resemble impact craters, and brecciated rocks are associated with other geological formations besides impact craters. Non-explosive volcanic craters can usually be distinguished from impact craters by their irregular shape and the association of volcanic flows and other volcanic materials. An exception is that impact craters on Venus often have associated flows of melted material.

The distinctive mark of an impact crater is the presence of rock that has undergone shock-metamorphic effects, such as shatter cones, melted rocks, and crystal deformations. The problem is that these materials tend to be deeply buried, at least for simple craters. …

• High-temperature rock types, including laminated and welded blocks of sand, spherulites and tektites, or glassy spatters of molten rock. The impact origin of tektites has been questioned by some researchers; they have observed some volcanic features in tektites not found in impactites. Tektites are also drier (contain less water) than typical impactites. While rocks melted by the impact resemble volcanic rocks, they incorporate unmelted fragments of bedrock, form unusually large and unbroken fields, and have a much more mixed chemical composition than volcanic materials spewed up from within the Earth. They also may have relatively large amounts of trace elements that are associated with meteorites, such as nickel, platinum, iridium, and cobalt. Note: it is reported in the scientific literature that some “shock” features, such as small shatter cones, which are often reported as being associated only with impact events, have been found in terrestrial volcanic ejecta. ]