Anti-Vaxxers Proving Stupidity, Gullibility Are Great Targets For Evil Liars

This is one of those posts that will get a lot of blowback against me. But I don't care.

As far as I'm concerned, the blowback will come mostly from selfish idiots, but I have to take this bullet, I've decided.

This is about the hot button topic of vaccinations, and why the anti-vaxxers are putting us in so much danger.

It could be because they're stubborn, want to be trendy, believe whatever is on the internet, or think there are all these grand conspiracies among hordes of people just craving to ruin their kids.  In large part, the anti-vaxxers have been manipulated by people and organizations with evil intent, both domestic and foreign.

I've long been fed up with anti-vaxxers who believe against all serious evidence that pretty much all vaccinations will give kids autism or worse.  The parents who don't vaccinate their kids also don't appear to give a crap about whether their willful ignorance kills other kids. For some, it turns into a cult-like belief.  They've swallowed bad propoganda hook, line and sinker.

In the Pacific Northwest, there's a nasty measles epidemic going on now because many parents there are anti-vaxxers.

I'm going against some advice here as I attack the anti-vaxxers. NPR recently interviewed medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo, who suggested we deal with the anti-vaccination types with less vehemence.

Sobo said most of the anti-vaxxers she talked with are not crazy people who wear tinfoil hats and spend their days reading wacko conspiracy theories on the internet. Instead, they're smart and highly educated.

OK, maybe, but why are they going against so much factual information here?

It turns out the anti-vaxxers are being "fashionable" in a way. They're trying to fit it. Sobo says think about it. For instance, your workplace might not have a formal dress code, but people at work always dress a certain way. So you do, too. That way, you fit in.

For the anti-vaxxers, this might come, for instance, as they're enrolling their kid in preschool in which there's a certain political vibe. There might already be a fair number of anti-vaxxers there, and they might convince the newcomer through their "facts" and "information" that they shouldn't get vaccines for their kids.

Then, Sobo says, if you attack the anti-vaxxer as being stupid or what have you, they'll dig in.  If you take a different tack, she says, you might change thier minds. "If you listen to them, and you allow them to say what they think without being judged, without feeling judged, without pushing them into a corner, they're absolutely ready."

Maybe she's right. For many of them, anyway. But what of the anti-vax activists that are pushing other parents to deny science, deny safety for their children?

The real "activists," the ones trying to convince parents to not vaccinate their kids are the real villains. Some of them manage to get pretty high up on search engines like Google, and people believe the top three or four hits on Google, and believe whatever it says. There's a mistaken belief that the stuff that appears first on Google is the most reliable. It isn't.

The bad stuff also seems to be coming from every dark corner, too.  The bad aspects of social media, like sponsored ads on Facebook, are a big source of the misinformation.

It also appears we can blame Russia. Again. As Oregolive.com recently reported:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't trying to mess only with America's elections. He has set loose his undercover opinion manipulators to promote fear of vaccines and set pro- and anti-vaccination Americans against one another, a recent study concluded."

Why? It's part of a much broader effort to divide and instill fear in Americans. OregonLive and many others describe it as a second Cold War.

The vaccine lies often take the form of scary ads on platforms like Facebook that fall apart within a quick pass of scrutiny.

According to Business Insider:

"A sponsored ad found by Quartz journalist Jeremy Merrill shows the anti-vaccination organization Stop Mandatory Vaccination targeted women ages 20 to 60 who have expressed interest in pregnancy living in the State of Washington, where the governor recently declared a state of emergency over the measles outbreak."

One of these fear-mongering ads stated a woman's daughter died "12 hours after being injected by eight vaccines in 2008."

Notice the statement plays on emotion. It doesn't source this information, so who knows if it's true? Even if true, why did the kid die?  If she was run over by a bus or something, that has nothing to do with vaccines.

The ad says that medical experts determined the vaccines were the cause of the kid's death. What medical experts?  Were they just some random people off the street who said they were experts?

But never mind. The ads play to emotion, not fact. Parents are scared into not vaccinating kids, then scared when measles breaks out. The situation then gets really ridiculous.

These parents then get caught between conflicting fears when a measles outbreak does arrive. It gets silly.

One anti-vax parent is the Northwest is suddenly alarmed that the measles epidemic will harm her three year old kid, and asked for advice on line as to what to do. Of course, to this parent, vaccination was still off the table.

The photo in this post shows what the parent wrote.  The parent, of course, got an earful of cutting responses. Which include:

"Build a wall around her and make the vaccinated people pay for it Sending my thoughts and prayers."

Another person sarcastically wrote: "She could try acupuncture or essential oils. If that doesn't work, how about vaccinatingt your kid."

Yet another person posted a meme that pictured a tearful little girl asking her dad, "Why do I have polio?" The dad answers: "When you were little, the internet and your mom's yoga instructor said that vaccines cause autism."

With the Northwest measles epidemic raging, one aspect of this that's getting attention is teenagers who are wiser than their anti-vax parents. They're going to health clinics, hoping to be secretly vaccinated. Or they do so as soon as they turn 18, when their parents can't do anything about it.

The kids get their vaccinations, but this causes more strife, just what the Russians and domestic social media trolls want.

One of the teenagers getting a lot of attention here is Ethan Lindenberger, an Ohio 18-year-old. He's not particularly rebellious and even though he's an adult, tries not to disobey his mother. When it comes to vaccinations, though, he did.

Ethan's mother, in the classic style of this type, made her son's wise decision all about her. She said his decision to get vaccinations was "a slap in the face."  Yeah, she feels attacked somehow, by her own son, and she's having a meltdown.

"It was like spitting on me.... saying 'You do't know anything. I don't trust you with anything. You don't know what you're talking about."

What does the mom expect? That her intelligent son is going with facts and science, or with kook conspiracy theories?

Does she think there's some massive plot  involving thousands of CDC workers, pediatricians worldwide and scientists? That all these thousands of doctors and experts and such are "trying to make millions" from vaccinations?

If all these people in the health care industry really did want to make millions, they'd be anti-vax, too. After all, there's more money to be made from people who suffer from serious complications of diseases that could have been prevented via relatively inexpensive vaccines.

Apparently, people who are anti-vax think they are smarter than doctors and other medical professionals, I guess because of what they read on the internet.

The anti-vax cult is largely rooted in the mistaken idea, or the lie that vaccines cause autism.  It's true that nobody is quite sure why autism has gotten more prevalent, but scientists are sure it's not vaccines that are causing the problem.

However, too many people think these experts are "wrong."  I guess that misinformation campaign by the Russians and others is unfortunately working.

A survey found that 34 percent of U.S. adults think they know as much or more about autism than scientists. (Remember, these scientists study autism for a living.)

Also, 71 percent of people who endorse misinformation about the link between vaccines and autism think they know as much or more than scientists.

I guess everybody is an expert. Or something.

I'm healthy. And vaccinated. Plus, I have no kids. So I'm in no danger. But this affects me like it does everyone else. One friend is undergoing cancer treatment and chemotherapy, so her immune system is compromised for now.  Another friend is HIV positive. My mother turns 90 next month, and elderly people are at risk from these people, too.

Illnesses like measles aren't always the minor ailment that some people suggest. It's often serious, sometimes fatal. There's other diseases we get vaccinations for, too. Do we really want to bring back polio?

The people I just described above have other health problems that put them at risk for even more trouble from those un-vaccinated people who are spreading unnecessary, preventable diseases.

It's certainly more than OK to question science, question authority, to make sure they're not pulling the wool over our eyes. But once the dust settles and the facts are clear, why not go with those facts instead the wackadoodle ideas that the Russians or whoever want us to believe?

Not every contrarian is trying to help us, you know.

This Awesome Worm Eats The Scourge Of The Earth: Plastic Bags. Seriously!

Will it be waxworms to the rescue in the war against
those awful plastic grocery bags?

The latest thing on environmentalists' hit list is all those plastic bags you take home from the grocery store or wherever.

They don't break down easily. They get caught in the wind and hang themselves up in trees and wires and such and look horrible. They waste space in landfills.

A lot of local and some state goverments have either banned or are considering banning these bags. It's the lateset environmental movement du jour.

Even if we stopped providing all those plastic bags tomorrow, what about the zillions of them that already exist? What do we do with them?

One answer: Wax worms.

Bear with me on this one.

According to Atlas Obscura, scientists have tried to get bacteria and fungus to break down these plastics, and they can, but the process is painfully slow. So slow that it's not worth the effort.

However, was worms are awesome. Says Atlas Obscura: 

"Frederica Bertocchini, a biologist at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology in Spain, noticed wax works had managed to eat their way through the plastic bags they were kept in. While other organisms can take weeks or months to break down even the smallest amount of plastic, the wax worm can get through more - in a far shorter period of time. 

The researchers let 100 wax worms chow down on a plastic grocery bag, and after just 12 hours, they'd eaten about 4 percent of the bag, according to findings publishes Monday in the journal Current Biology. 

That may not sound like much, but that's a vast improvement over fungi, which weren't able to break down a noticeable amount of polyetheylene after six months."

The theory is that if you get a HUGE crowd of wax worms working together, they can make real progress in the plastic bag wars.

By the way, the worms aren't just good chewers. They break down the plastic into ethylene glycol, which you can use to make polyester or antifreeze.

Great. Maybe the wax worms an also produce ways to keep your car running when it's 30 below, or create tacky 1970s-style fashion.

Awesome!

Will Poachers Use Scientific Tagging To Hunt Endangered Animals

Canadian scientist Steven Cooke is concerned that people
will hack into scientific tracking devices on animals to
harm or kill the animals. 

It seems like every day, I find new ways in which bad people use good technology to do something horrible.

The other day I wrote about the possibility of people making fake news out of virtual people to blackmail, destroy reputations or worse.

Today, I came across another one:
Scientists and researchers often put electronic tags on wild and endangered animals so they can track their movements, behavior and habitat to learn how to keep them safe and prevent them from going extinct.

That, of course, is wonderful.

Now,  however, we learn that scientists are worried that poachers will gain access to this tracking data to learn where animals are in real time, so they can hunt them down.

Nothing like the corpse of an endangered wild animal to prove you're a real he-man. Especially when you cheat and use technology to illegally kill the animal

According to Phys.org,  Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) biology professor has found lots of ancedotal evidence that tools scientists use to study and protect animals are being hijacked to cause harm or exploit animals and fish.

Cooke is the lead author of a a paper on this subject that appeared in the journal Conservation Biology.

Complicating the issue is many scientists get government funding, and people who want to access the tracking devices say that since public funds are being used to conduct the studies, the public should have access to the data.

Plus, scientists are usually eager to share data with colleagues to advance knowledge about the subject at hand, which is usually a good thing.

However, even as scientists use and share the data to gain more understanding of the natural world, others get access so they can destroy that natural world for fun and profit.

For instance, Phys.org says, anglers in Minnesota petitioned for access to data on northern pike movements, arguing that the data was publicly funded. (The anglers wanted to use the data to find the pike and gain prize catches.)

In India, there were attempts to hack GPS data on endangered Bengal tigers to engage in what's being called "cyber poaching."

Cooke said ranchers were interfering with tracking data as wolves were being re-introduced in Yellowstone National Park and divers in the Bahamas were removing satellite tags from sharks.

Phys.org said Cooke got the idea to look into this issue when he took his family on a vacation to Banff National Park in Canada last summer.

There, park rangers banned VHF radio receivers after they learned photographers used telemetry to track tagged animals.

True, the photographers did not intend to harm the animals, but the park rangers worried that too much human interaction would make the animals spooked, stressed or habituated to people.

Once again, then, we have people using technology to be total creeps.

Cooke told the CBC the issue is a wake-up calland he hopes the scientific community can discuss strategies for working with animal tracking data that advances science, protects animals and preserves the interests of the public as well.

Fido Does Understand What We Say, Duh!

Confirming what we already know, research indicates dogs like my
Jackson and Tonks know what we mean
by what words we use and how we say those words.  

Anyone who has a dog for a companion alreaady knew this, but dogs understand what we mean when we say certain words, and understand what we mean when we saw those words in a certain way.

You know how a dog reacts when you enthusiastically say "Good Boy!" The go all lovey-dovey on you when you do that, and they're very happy.

Still, for what it's worth, researchers in Hungary did some tests and figured out that dogs process words and the way they're said much like humans do.

They were able to train dogs to sit still while they did MRI's on them.

Both sides of their brains lit up, depending on what was said and how it was said.

According to the Associated Press:

"'Dog brains care about both what we say and how we say it,' said lead researcher Attila Andics, a neuroscientist at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest said in an email. 'Praise can work as a reward onlh if both word meaning and intonation match.'"

In other words, if you just say "Good Boy," like you're reading a boring text, the dog won't really register it. And if you enthusiastically say some random word like "Interstate," that won't do much for the dog, either.

However, if you say "Good Boy!" like you're excited and happy with Fido, both the left and right side of the dog's brain will light up in the MRI. That means they're understanding what the word means, and also figuring out the implications of what ou say by how you're saying it.

This is just one study on a limited number of dogs, so results may vary.

But it's fun to get some possible proof of what we already know. And what my dogs Tonks and Jackson already know.

Boaty McBoatface Won't Explore and Study The Arctic

Unfortunately, this research veseel won't really
be named Boaty McBoatface 

Never conduct an online poll when you want to name something.

That's something the United Kingdom science ministry learned after they put out the poll to name the new $200 million (actual pounds convert) polar research ship.

As you might have heard a month or two ago, the winning name on the island poll was Boaty McBoatface.  

Which really isn't the most dignified name for a serious polar research operation.

The Boaty McBoatface idea came from former BBC presenter James Hand, who proposed the silly name, notes ArsTechnica. 

The idea went viral and the there you go.

However, British scientists with the Natural Environment Research Council decided it was best to renege on the idea of Boaty McBoatface, which is too bad.

On the bright side, they decided to name the boat RRS Sir David Attenborough, named for the famed British naturalist. Also on the bright side, Sir David Attenborough did get votes on the online poll, but it wasn't the winner.

More bright sides: Although the research vessel won't be named Boaty McBoatface, remotely controlled underwater vehicles will be given that name.

As ArsTechnica says, I hope they paint a dorky cartoon face on these underwater vessels. That'll scare the hell out of any submarine life up there in the Arctic.

Sir David Attenborough said he was honored the boat was named after him and certainly bears no ill will for partisans of Boaty McBoatface.

"I am truly honored by this naming decision and hope that everyone who suggested a name will feel just as inspired to follow the ship's progress as it explores our polar regions. I have been privileged to explore the world's deepest oceans alongside amazing teams of researchers, and with this new polar research ship they will be able to go further and discover more than ever before."

Maybe a U.S. research ship could be named Boaty McBoatface instead.

After all, the Boaty McBoatface crisis won very valuable publicity for the National Environmental Research Council. 

It never hurts to be silly. Even if you're a scientist.

Justin Trudeau Knows Quanum Mechanics, And Charms Us With That Knowledge

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is
comfortable talking about science, unlike
many American politicians.  

Like many Americans, I'm swooning a bit over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

No, not because he's very good looking. He most certainly is that.  But a politician's good looks are besides the point.

One reason I'm swooning, though, is his ease, his knowledge, and willingness to learn things. His intellectual curiosity. Even about seemingly esoteric things like quantum computing.

I bring this up because I'm swooning in particular over Trudeau's knowledge of quantum computing, with is a sentence I never thought I'd find myself writing.

During a press conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada Friday, a reporter snarkily said he basically decided to not ask Trudeau about quantum computing, implying a cute prime minister like that couldn't possibly handle such a weighty subject.

But, Nope, Trudeau insisted on answering the quantum computer question. Sure he was showing off a bit, but you kind of want your prime minister to be the smartest person in the room, right?

Here's part of Trudeau's answer:

"Normal computers work, either there's one power going through a wire or not. It's one or a zero, they're binary systems. What quantum states allow for is much more complex information to be encoded into a single bit. "

Boom! He explained it and it ways that you and me can understand. By the way, physicists who heard Trudeau's spiel - people who ought to know this stuff -- said the prime minister was perfectly correct in his explanation.

Here's the video, with more thoughts below that:



I'm swooning over Trudeau, not so much because he can explain quantum computing, but because he's such a contrast to so many American politicians.

Many American politicians hate, HATE facts and research and science. So we get the spectacle of a United States Senator walking into the Capitol building in Washington DC with a snowball to "prove" global warming isn't happening.

Members of the U.S. Congress repeatedly try to cut funding on science research because the results might conflict with their political agenda.

"There is an attack on the actual substance of the science being done in an attempt to limit the type of science that federal agencies can do because the results of that investigation would be politically inconvenient," University of North Carolina-Wilmington Marine Biology professor Will White said in Scientific American last year. 

Conservative politicians offer ridiculous justifications for discriminating against gay people, relying on "studies" and "research" that aren't really science but just a politicailly motivated sham. f

Congress Creatures also try to cut funding to the National Institutes of Health because some of their research conflicts with their views on contraceptives, teen sex and other hot button issues.

Certainly, not all scientists or scientific research is wonderful. Some of it is flawed, or worse. We shouldn't accept it all at face value.

But shouldn't we demand that our politicians, our leaders, at least have the intellect to understand and evaluate research? And the intellectual honesty to accurately and open mindedly assess the value and accuracy of scientific results?

American politicians don't always deny science. Say what you want about Bernie Sanders, but it's evident he actually reads scientific research on climate change, or is at least briefed on it.

I hope more American politicians accept the model of Justin Trudeau.

No, American politicians don't have to be good looking. But it would be nice if they didn't treat science like an (un-researched) plague epidemic.













 ”

It's something that's become rare in politics, at least on the United States side of the border.

Robot Dog Vs. Real Dog Battle It Out

Boston Dynamics' robot dog isn't nearly as
pleasant and tag waggy and fun as a real dog
but it is a nifty piece of technology  

It's come to this: We have real dogs playing with robot dogs now.

I'm rooting for the real dogs, but still.

In a video posted a to YouTube a few days ago, we see a robot dog (named Spot, of course) playing with a real dog, named Alex.  You can see the video at the bottom of this post.

Alex does not quite know what to make of his metallic robot new friend, with it's fairly accurate dog movements, but he gives it a whirl.

The robot dog was created by Boston Dynamics, the same outfit that caused a bit of a stir last week when they unveiled their nifty humanoid robot that could do lots of physical things that robots could not previously do, like navigate like a human around obstacles, keep its balance, and get right back up when somebody pushes it over.

Apparently, these things would be good in warfare, as it will be machines killing each other rather than humans, goes the theory.

The robot dog can also easily get up and walk away after lying down, it can walk over curbs and rough terrain, and can walk in a variety of different ways.

Impressive robotic work, but I still prefer the real furry companions. Yeah, my real dogs Jackson and Tonks sometimes have accidents in the house, bark at inappropriate times, make a mess and get sick, something that robot dogs won't do.

Robot dogs are cool, but I'd MUCH rather hang on to
my two real furry companions, Tonks (left) and Jackson. 

But you can't replicate the excitement the real dogs Tonks and Jackson bring when you come home from a long day at work.

Robots can't really replicate the laughs you get in a tug of war game with flesh and blood dogs, and they can't comfort you the way a warm dog sits on your lap contentedly when you want to relax and chill out.  

Still, a couple Christmases ago, my young nephew Jonas from Minnesota received a toy robotic dog for Christmas that follows simple commands and "learns" the habits of its human to help make the pair friends.

While not nearly as nice as a real dog, Jonas' robot dog was oddly endearing.

Boston Dynamics' dog is not endearing at all, but obviously that's not the point. The company was just showing off its nifty robots and what they can do.

But, if you're into that type of thing, you can watch the video of the robot dog and real dog cavorting in a parking lot, below:

Morons Oppose Solar Panels Because They Will "Suck Up Sun's Energy"

Hmm. The vegetation near these solar panels looks
nice and green, so I don't think they're "sucking all
the energy away" and preventing photosynthesis.
A couple in North Carolina publicly worried
that would be the case. 

If you ever wonder why there are idiots in our Great Nation, I'm about to give you one reason why.

It's that there a few idiots among our mostly fine teachers, and these idiot teachers are "educating" kids

I bring this up because a retired science teacher of all things in Woodland, North Carolina spoke up in opposition to proposed solar panels in town, says the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald newspaper. (Note you'll have to answer a survey question to get access to the article in the link.)

The retired teacher, Jane Mann, said the solar panels would interfere with photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb sunlight to live and grow. Apparently, she thinks the solar panels would hog all the sun energy coming into Woodland and leave any left for the trees and grass and shrubs in the community.

Mann says she's seen areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight, reports the News-Herald.

Unless those plants were hidden way beneath the solar panels, I'm afraid those dead plants died of something else, dear Jane. Maybe drought? Insects? Or they gave up after exposure to your ignorance?

For the record, there are many solar panels and solar farms where I live in Vermont. Yes, the vegetation around them is brown now because it's winter. But in the summer, the panels are surrounded by lush green grass and trees.

 Mann also feared the solar panels would somehow cause cancer. Yes, if you stood out in the sun day in and day out, whether you were near the solar panels or not, you could develop skin cancer. But otherwise? Um......

Mann's husband Bobby was even worse. He opposed the solar panels because they would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland as a result.

Yes, he really said that.

Also for the record, the amount of solar energy that hits the earth in just one hour is enough to provide the entire planet its energy needs for an entire year.

Geez, if Bobby Mann were right, you'd think he'd be happy. If the solar panels sucked up all the energy from the sun, so much for global warming, right?

What does he think? Sunlight is like water poured from a bucket? If you empty the bucket into a solar panel, there's none left for anything else?

A representative of the solar company involved actually had to explain to the Manns and others at the town council meeting that the only sunlight the solar panels use in generating power is that which hits them directly.

I thought everybody knew that, but apparently not.

In the end, the town council in Woodland rejected the solar farm, so the town is safe from the dastardly solar panels sucking all the energy from the town.

I just wish solar panels had the ability to suck away the ignorance and stupidity of some people.

Crazy Ants Revolve Around A Ringing iPhone

Who knew? A ringing phone makes ants weird

It kinda drives me crazy when I'm in the middle of something and the phone rings.

That seems to be true for ants, too. Watch the video below of ants milling around an iPhone, and watch what they do when the phone rings. Totally weird!

According to 7News in Australia:

"'It's an unavoidable consequence of their communication systems,' said biologist Simon Robson, a social insect specialist at James Cook University. 'Having the ants together like that, the shape of the phone may have something to do with it and the vibration might get them a bit more excited, but a lot of ants will do it even without the phone.'"

Still, this is pretty cool. Watch:

Sometimes Your Dog Stares At You For Reasons Other Than Lust For That Cookie You're Eating

My canine companion Jackson the Cocker
Spaniel gives me a good stare in this photo from January,
when we were hanging out together in
a warm house on a cold day.  

I had to call in sick to work this morning, something I hate to do.

No worries. I have a mild medical condition that sometimes acts up briefly, to the point where I'm too sick to do much of anything for several hours. Then by the next day, I'm totally fine.

With that medical report over, I will now observe that when I was in bed all morning, not feeling well, one of my dogs, Jackson, was next to me on a pillow, staring at me. And I stared back.

Jackson seemed happy just being next to me. Also, I began to feel better with Jackson there and he might well be the reason why. There's scientific proof.

Japanese researchers say when dogs and their human companions stare at each other, it's mutual beneficial. The staring literally changes brain chemistry.

According to the Associated Press via Huffington Post:

"The brain response is an increase in the levels of a hormone called oxytocin. Studies in people and animals indicate this substance promotes social bonding, such as between parent and infant or between two lovers.

"Analysis showed that owners whose dogs looked at them longer in the first five minutes had bigger boosts in oxytocin levels. Similarly, dogs that gazed longer got a hormone boost, too."

Of course, the good feeling you get staring or resting with Fido is no news to any person who lives with a friendly dog. But the study cited by the Associated Press goes a long way toward explaining the scientific reasons why the moments I have with my dogs Jackson and Tonks are so enjoyable for all involved.

According to the AP: 

"The new work is the first to present a biological mechanism for bonding across species, said researcher Larry Young of Emory University.

Young, who studies bonding behavior, said the relationship between people and dogs is special. Human love can lost its initial exhilaration over time, he said, but he hasn't seen that with the dogs he has owned for 10 years. 

'When I come home from work every day, they are just as excited to see me now as they were when I got them,' Young said."

Note to my husband: As much as I love Jackson and Tonks, my initial exhilaration upon seeing you has not waned over the years. But you were at work when I wasn't feeling well this morning, so I settled for the dogs.

Of course, when Jackson and Tonks are staring at me, it's often because they want to eat what I'm having. But it's nice to know they might occasionally have other motivation, too.

I'm still feeling just slightly under the weather as I write this on a dreary Monday afternoon. And both Jackson and Tonks are acting a little lonely at the moment.

Time for another staring session among the three of us, I guess.

Asian Carp Attack Rowers; These Are Horrible Fish

A fishy horror movie? Asian Carp leaping
from a Midwest waterway. Yikes!  

There's a lot of funny videos circulating centering on Asian carp.

The most recent one that's going viral shows the Washington University in St. Louis freshman men's crew team gettting attacked by the fish in a recent practice run.

You'll see the video at the bottom of this post.

Asian carp are spreading rapidly through mostly the Midwest and Mississippi Valley, but threaten to cover the whole country.

Their most visible and annoying habit is leaping out of the water when a boat or something else disturbs them, which is why you get the Washington University rowing team contending with the carp.

But Asian Carp and aggressive in other ways, crowding out most native fish and leaving waterways with just thick clots of these pesky fish.

The National Wildlife Federation says this about the critters:

".....voracious filter feedes, Asian carp consume up to 20 percent of their bodyweight per day in plankton and can grow to over 100 pounds. Plankton are small floating organisms that form the foundation of the aquatic food chain and are vital to native fish."

A lot of people think it's inevitable that the fish will enter the Great Lakes, and that would be horrible. Again, the National Wildlife Federation:

"It is crucial to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. Once established in an ecosystem they are virtually impossible to eradicate. Adult Asian carp have no natural predators in North America and females lay approximately half a million eggs each time they spawn."

Ugh!

So how did these awful Asian fish get to the United States in the first place?

Well, some idiot imported them here in the 1970s because he thought they would do a fantastic job in filtering pond water in fish farms in Arkansas. Inevitably, flooding allowed the carp to escape and they've been reproducing like mad and spreading ever since.

There seems to be a long history of people importing stuff from overseas for their own convenience, without thinking about whether these imports would be an invasive species.

Anyway, Asian carp are wrecking ecosystems, but at least we get funny videos out of them. The balance doesn't work, but what can you do?

Here's the video I promised earlier:

Measles Bet: Never Gamble Lots Of Money On Silly Anti-Science Argument

This guy, Stefan Lanka, bet 100,000 Euros that
the measles virus doesn't exist. It does,
say almost all scientists, and a German
court ordered him to pay up.  

A guy in Germany learned that if you're going to place a major public monetary bet on some loony theory, you'd best be expected to pay up.

Stefan Lanka, who claims to be a biologist, and probably is, has a silly notion that measles is not caused by a virus, but is a psychosomatic condition brought on by "traumatic separations."

Yeah. I guess if you miss somebody and are upset you'll come down with the measles.

On a personal note, my husband is working out of town, and I miss him, but my skin remains unblemished and I don't feel sick. Go figure.

Measles, as you probably know, has been in the news a lot lately because some parents don't vaccinate their kids because they believe the vaccine causes autism.

A whole bunch of scientists and health experts looked into that autism claim and found the vaccine doesn't cause the disorder. Something else does, though admittedly nobody is sure what.

But a number of people still cling to the theory that the vaccines are bad.

Even most people opposed to measles vaccines concede measles is caused by a virus, but Lanka takes the anti-vax activism one stop further and says a virus has nothing to do with measles.

He's so confident of his theory that he offered to pay 100,000 Euros (a little over $95,000) to anyone who could prove measles is caused by a virus, says the gambling news site CalvinAyre.com

Lanka said his intent was "to get people to enlighten themselves."

Well, somebody was enlightened. Lanka for one.

CalvinAyre.com takes up the story:

"Enter German doctor David Barden, who saw not only the lunacy but also profit in Lanka's challenge. Barden gathered a suitably weighty collection of scientific evidence of measles' viral origin and presented them to Lanka with a request for the (100,000 euros). Lanka rejected Barden's evidence so the undeterred Barden took Lanka to court."

A panel of judges reviewed Barden's documentation and concluded there was "no doubt about the existence of the measles virus," says the CalvinAyre article.

The judges ordered Lanka to pay up.

Lanka said he would appeal the ruling against him.

If he loses the appeal, I worry he'll come down with the measles. Traumatic separation from his money, you understand.

Don't Get Stung By A Bee On Your Nose, Upper Lip, Or, Um..Researcher Says

Now that the warm spring and summer are coming in, so are the insects. Stings are painful, especially when it involves a bee.  

Graduate student Michael Smith warns us
not to let this guy sting us on our nostrils.  

We have Cornell graduate student Michael Smith here for the rescue, to tell us which part of your body is the worst for a bee sting.

He subjected himself to bee stings five times a day for 38 days by holding a honeybee with forceps to every part of his body, according to National Geographic.

And I mean EVERY part.

Smith was testing to see which part of his body would feel the most pain from a bee sting.

(Note: The linked article to National Geographic is interesting and worth the click, but be aware you'll subject yourself to something as painful as the bee stings. Like many web sites, National Geographic has one of those autoplay ads that prattle on when you open the page

Apparently, advertisers think that really, REALLY annoying you will sell their products. End of whine.)

Back to the bee stings. It turns out the most painful place to get stung is on the nostril, followed by the upper lip. His penis came in third in the pain scale. For those of you wondering, getting stung in the scrotum or butt falls surprisingly low in the pain scale, but is still unpleasant, as you might imagine.

Smith published his findings in the journal PeerJ.

Why is getting stung in the nostril so painful?

According to Smith, in National Geographic:  "It's electric and pulsating..Especially the nose. Your whole body reacts. You're sneezing and wheezing and snot is just dribbling out. Getting stung in the nose is a whole body experience."

Gee, sounds really pleasant!

OK, now us guys are wondering (sort of) what it's like to get stung on the penis. Smith says:  "It's painful, and there's definitely no crossing of wires of pleasure and pain down there...But if you're stung in the nose and penis, you're going to want more stings to the penis over the nose, if you're forced to choose."

I choose neither.

Maybe I'll just buy extra bug spray this summer and hope for the best.

Amazing Video As Drone Flies Into An Active Volcano Crater

I'm really getting sold on drones. Cameras attached to them can capture the most amazing things.

Magma and ash belch from the Yasur volcano.

The latest I found is a YouTube video uploaded in late January by Shaun O'Callahan.

It shows the view a camera on a drone had as it buzzed around inside the Yasur Volcano on Tanna Island in Vanuatu.

Yasur is one of the most active volcanos in the world, according to Volcano Discovery.

It's prone to frequent small to medium eruptions, not cataclysmic ones, so people do get fairly close to it.

Vanuatu is a collection of island way out in the South Pacific.

I found the music O'Callahan chose to accompany the video annoying, so turn the sound down (The video doesn't have the sound of the volcano.)

Still, this is one helluva fascinating video. It also made me extremely glad I wasn't there.

Here's the video:

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"Non-Newtonian Fluid" Lets You Walk On Water

If any of you have a Jesus complex out there, have I got a product for you!

Like walking on water: A person plays on something
called non-Newtonian fluid.  

It's called "non-Newtonian fluid." (The things you discover when you're bored and wandering aimlessly around the Internet!)

Apparently, non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that changes its viscosity whe you apply force to it, like hitting, shaking or jumping on it. This sudden application of stress makes the fluid get thicker and act like a solid.

This knowledge is not new. Scientists and others have pretty much been familiar with this phenomenon forever, practically.

What is new, at least new to me, is that people have now been using non-Newtonian fluid for fun and games.  People fill pools with stuff, it mixes with water and becomes non-Newtonian fluid.

I wonder if it's cheap to buy this stuff.  Apparently you can mix water and cornstarch to make a non-Newtonian fluid but you need a lot of it to get enough to have any fun.

It would certainly make a backyard swimming pool more interesting in the summer.

It looks really cool and fun, quite frankly, as the video below indicates:

Head Transplants Would Be Confusing

A few weeks ago, an Italian neuroscientist said head transplants are now within the realm of possibility, though a lot of other scientists say that's bullcrap, to say the least.

Even when you omit how complicated the surgery would be
head transplants would create a whole host of problems.  

The surgery to do a head transplant sounds  incredibly complicated, so I don't anticipate it happening anytime soon. But if it does happen, I'm afraid it will get awfully confusing.

What happens if they screw up and you get a person with the head of a young man and a body of an old woman, or vice versa?

Will the head of a young body builder type bro with the body of an elderly woman still try to pick up hot young things. Will the head of an older woman and the body of a young body builder type bro still be accepted at her knitting circle?

Will this turn into a vanity thing. Out of shape? Don't bother with all that wearying exercise, just chop off your flabby body, find another body that's totally fit, attach it to your head and your home free!

You then get the spectacle of a horrible, 60 year old billionaire walking around with the body of a 20 year old bodybuilder. For a little while, anyway. Then the body gets out of shape, so he goes out and gets another one?

Where will the constant supply of buff bodies come from?  Fit young people don't die very often, and you presumably need the person to die to get their body . Or do you pay the fit young people hugely and live the rest of their lives as just a head, sitting on a desk like a knicknack, sort of like those pendulum things that bored executives play with.

What do you do about fingerprints and other identifying features. Your head is Joe Smith, but you have the body and fingerprints of John Davis. Could cause some security issues don't you think? Especially if some dedicated terrorist obtains the body of somebody he killed and uses that as an alternative identity.

All this means that I'm not sure if this head transplant idea will work. There's lots of other transplants that seem to be working well nowadays. Heart transplants, nerve transplants, even face transplants.

These piecemeal transplants probably don't solve every problem in the world, but they don't create a whole lot of new ones, either.

Amazing Aerial Photo of Trail of Hail Left By Big Storm

In a photo by pilot Daryl Frank, a streak of hail
is left behind by a thunderstorm in Alberta 

Santa Rosa, New Mexico recently found itself getting a lot of weather publicity after a storm left it covered by more than a foot of hail,  making it look like they'd had an enormous July 4 weekend snowstorm.

But I  found an even more spectacular  photo on TVNweather.com,'s Facebook page, showing an  aerial view of farmland in Alberta, Canada after a hailstorm.

The photo was apparently take by a Catp. Daryl Frank of Jazz Aviation. The path of the hail streak resembles that left by a tornado. But instead of wind destruction, you get this bizarre streak of white in otherwise green agricultural lands.

(Click on the photo to make it bigger and get a better view)

But I imagine the crops under all that hail didn't fare too well. That hail had to be intense to leave an accumulation like that.

Here's a video of what the hail storm looked like while it was in progress. Yikes!

Will This Student's "Zero Tolerance" Case Finally Be The One That Ends the Insanity

A smart 16 year old girl in Bartow Florida named Kiera Wilmot did a dumb thing, as even the smartest teenagers sometimes do.

Kiera Wilmot's school is trying to ruin her
entire life because of her ill-conceived science
experiment which resulted in a tiny explosion and
no harm.  

Wilmot's a bit of a science geek so she mixed up some household chemicals in a bottle as a sort of ad hoc science experiment. It caused a really small explosion outside, away from everybody, and a little puff of smoke.

Nobody got hurt, and there was no property damage, and she didn't intend to cause any harm.

But, due to the school's zero tolerance laws,because of her actions, and she's as horrible a person as the Boston Marathon bomber, at least in the eyes of school administrators.

The promising student has been expelled, felony charges have been brought against her, which means Wilmot is probably going to basically lose her chance at a decent life if this sticks.

Yeah, go get her, school administrators. Kill that gnat with a nuclear bomb!

For its part, the Polk County School District is hiding behind the usual "rules are rules" line when zero tolerance punishments go over the top.

According to the Miami New Times:

"The letter of the law demanded the punishment, and school administrators believe kids should learn 'there are consequences to their actions.'

Yes, everybody should know there are consequences to their actions. But I suspect the school officials are too dumb to realize the consequences should match the crime. And if the school administration is dumb, I don't hold up much hope the students they are allegedly teaching are going to be that bright, either.

Following their reasoning to its logical conclusion, I guess I should get the death penalty if I get caught doing 80 mph in a 65 mph zone in my truck, rather than merely getting a ticket and paying a fine.

As Jesse Walker writes in Reason:

"No one was hurt. There's no sign that Wilmot was up to something malevolent. The kid's own principal thinks this wasn't anything more than an experiment, and he says she didn't try to cover up what she had done. What punishment do you think she received? A stern talking-to? A day or two of after-school detention? Maybe she'll have to help clean up the lab for a week?"

All of Walker's suggestions make sense. The girl broke the rules, and she does need to suffer some reasonable consequences.

But a felony, in which the intent of the school seems to be to ruin her life rather than guide her?  And exactly why is the school so intent on throwing this girl's life away?

This case might be an important step in finally eradicating the silliest, most stupid applications of zero tolerance that serves to ruin kids' lives rather than teach them the difference between right and wrong.

Why? Because scientists are pissed. 

Ashutosh Jogalekar, writing in Scientific American says:

When you arrest and expel students for slaking their scientific curiosity, whatever the other consequences of that action, be advised that you are almost certainly sacrificing a valuable scientist at the altar of arbitrarily wielded state and school power.

Jogelekar also says this, which makes total sense:

Yet we as a society are grabbing on to the Precautionary Principle at every opportunity. We seem to believe that ignorance is better than knowledge since ignorance involves doing nothing and always erring on the side of safety. We think this is ostensibly the safest state of affairs, but it is one which is very much illusory since it’s that same ignorance that unfavorably impacts our long-term security and progress. 

All this extreme discipline and extreme punishment is robbing our nation of future scientists. Here's another take on it, from Scientific American's Urban Scientist blog:

"I can't name a single scientist or engineer who hadn't blown up, ripped apart, disassembled something at home or otherwise cause a big ruckus at school all in the name of curiosity, myself included. Science is not clean. It is very messy and it is riddled with mistakes and mishaps.

I also love how a whole bunch of scientists are Tweeting about their youthful science mishaps, with the hashtag #KieraWilmot.

Let's hope she escapes this horrible school intact.

Why Are Morons Killing Gulf of Mexico Dolphins?

Scientific American had a very disturbing story about people who are killing and in some cases mutilating dolphins along the United States Gulf Coast. 

Perhaps what makes this more worrying than it otherwise would be is that it does not appear to be the work of some lone nut being a psychopath with the dolphins.

How can anyone harm something
as majestic as this?

It appears a number of people with a wide variety of motivations are causing the deaths of these fine animals.

According to the Scientific American article:

"Because the dolphin attacks have occurred sporadically along all 1,680 miles of the Gulf Coast, officials do not believe they are the work of  'one single madman,' as Humane Society field director Sharon Young explains. 'It may be conforting to think it's one person doing this,' she says, 'but it really isn't.'"

I see Young's point. It's hard to imagine why one person would perform such a cruel act on an innocent animal.  Even if you're a fisherman mad that dolphins are taking some of the fish you want to catch, wouldn't it be impossible to torture and kill a dolphin, given their intelligence and, for the lack of a better word, cuteness?

But then, people kill other people all the time, so what's to stop them from killing a dolphin, a guess. And it seems fishermen are murdering some of the dolphins, apparently.

Again, going back to the Scientific American article:

Herbert Nieburg, a Connecticut-based clinical psychologist and consultant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said patients with this disorder often pursue "wanton thrill-seeking" and get a pleasurable feeling of power from hurting a more vulnerable creature.

Some people stab or otherwise mutilate dolphins after they are already dead.  They take parts of their bodies, say a jaw, as a souvenir. Very weird, indeed.

I hope people who do this are caught and prosecuted. Dolphins are protected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act which forbids harassment of the animals.

Scientific American said people have been prosecuted in the past for bothering dolphins. In 2008, according to the magazine, a man was caught throwing pipe bombs at dolphins because he was annoyed they were interfering with his fishing.

He was prosecuted. Let's hope we hear of more criminal charges being filed. 

Awesome Views From Space: NASA Compiles 2012's Coolest Images

NASA put out an awesome video recently of various views of the Earth from space taken during 2012.

Some are the views a human eye would see from space  some are computer augmentations to study certain aspects of climate, topography, or other scientific fun stuff.

The whole video is a Gee Whiz That's Cool! montage. I loved it. So will you. Watch: