Fun with wet surfaces

This video is so great, even my anti-blogging lethargy couldn't keep me from sharing it:

A public service announcement from Greenpeace

It is perverse irony that, in our desire to find an environmentally-friendly alternative to fossil fuels, humans are causing catastrophic damage to the environment of one of closest relatives, the orangutan. The harvesting of palm oil, a potentially useful ingredient in biofuels, is a leading cause of devastation of Indonesian rainforests, areas on which orangutans rely for survival. The following clip from Greenpeace is--let's be honest--somewhat melodramatic, but it gets an important message across, and I think it's worth spreading around:



There is a right way and a wrong way to go about fixing problems like global climate change. If we do not choose our future energy sources carefully, our actions may result in the unintentional destruction of many Indonesian rainforest species, including orangutans.

A bit o' creative writing

A few weeks ago, I wrote a satirical essay for an assignment in one of my classes. I wasn't entirely pleased with the outcome, but my teacher really enjoyed it, and the class seemed amused when I read it aloud, so I'm posting it here.

Brave New Zoo

Attention, zoo-goers! After twenty years of closure due to the unavoidable mass extinction of its inhabitants, the San Diego Technological Society (formerly the San Diego Zoological Society), is proud to announce that on June 1^st, 2075 the new and improved San Diego Zoo will be opening its doors! We are excited for you to experience the many amazing exhibits we have designed for you. Unlike our predecessors—who were inordinately focused on inefficient and misguided notions like animal well being and species conservation—we are pleased to inform you that every aspect of the new zoo has been created with the convenience and gratification of you, the entertainment consumer, in mind. Let’s take a look at some of the unforgettable experiences that await you at the Zoo of the Future®.

Here at the San Diego Technological Society, we believe that some traditions are worth keeping alive (only figuratively, of course!). That’s why, when walking through the entrance, the first thing you’ll see is the familiar sight of the zoo’s flock of flamingoes. But unlike the primitive flamingoes you may be used to (which were notoriously noisy smelly and messy), our flamingoes are quiet, unassuming, and sculpted entirely out of a fine pewter/copper alloy. As the zoo’s official greeters, our flamingoes* do what flamingoes do best—absolutely nothing!

While we like to uphold some traditions, we also believe in the need for constant innovation, which is why our teams of tireless and inventive R & D engineers are always on the lookout for substandard products worth improving. Take, for example, monkeys and birds—on their own, neither even comes close to meeting our rigorous excitement quality standards, but, we thought, what if they were combined? That’s right—the zoo’s robotic amalgamation team has created the world’s first mechanical bird-monkey hybrid! What’s more, our robot bird-monkeys have been programmed to serve as the zoo’s support staff. Not only are they entertaining to watch, but they’ll take food orders, deliver refreshments, and even give your car a full wash and wax while you enjoy your day at the zoo. Now that’s innovation!

If there was one thing we hated about the old biological zoos of the past, it was all of those nagging signs ordering the guests not to feed the animals. If, like us, you loathed this particularly egregious restriction, we have a real treat for you. In partnership with McDonald’s—now with sixteen locations conveniently disbursed across the zoo grounds—we are proud to present Mei Shung, the cyborg Panda. Mei Shung’s digestive system has been specially designed to function entirely on Big Macs, and you can feed her. Truly, it is a delight to witness the insatiable hunger in her eyes as she devours burger after tasty burger!

After feeding Mei Shung, why not visit our nearby education hub, the Conservation Irrelevancy Center? There, our knowledgeable and well-trained staff will inform you the many ways in which extinction and the loss of biodiversity have made the world a safer, healthier and happier place for humans. And we haven’t forgotten the kids! While you educate yourselves about the wonders of human progress, your children will experience the hilarious virtual reality high jinks of “Petey the Pathetic Platypus.” They’ll laugh at the outrageous trouble Petey gets into as he futilely attempts to keep from being “naturally selected” out of the gene pool, and they’ll receive an important lesson about not placing too much value on out-dated, non-human forms of life. Truly, the Conservation Irrelevancy Center is fun for the entire family!

All of these fabulous experiences—plus much more!—await you at the brand new San Diego Zoo. As if this was not enough, we would also like to invite you to the San Diego Technological Society’s newly-renovated sister site, the Wild Rubbish Park. Here, you and your family will scream with delight through your gas masks at the spectacle of our majestic used battery gardens, and you’ll have the opportunity to take a guided hover-tram tour (with recorded narration provided by the upcoming Hollywood starlet, Paris Hilton III) through a pristine, 65-acre rubber and plastics dump. By itself, the full scale replica of the Statue of Liberty made from three hundred thousand car tires is well-worth the price of admission!

The thrill of progress; the joys of convenience; the gratification of entertainment—the furtherance of these, our principles, is why the San Diego Technological Society exists. As you visit the ground-breaking San Diego Zoo and Wild Rubbish Park, we hope that you’ll take a moment to reflect upon the inspiring words of our society’s motto: “Life—it’s all about you.”

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*Please note: In an effort to reduce the need for repainting after heavy rainfalls, we have altered the color of our flamingoes from the traditional pink to a pleasant orange rust hue. We’re sure you’ll love the new look.

Orangutans on the brink

Today, Reuters published an excellent (if sad) in depth article on the plight of orangutans and other forest-dwelling animals of Borneo and Sumatra:

Bound hand and foot, disheveled orangutans caught raiding Borneo's oil palm crops silently await their fate as a small crowd of plantation workers gather to watch.

Lacking only hand-cuffs and finger-printing to complete the atmosphere of a criminal bust, such "ape evictions" have become part of life for Asia's endangered red apes.

Thousands have strayed into the path of international commerce as Indonesia and Malaysia, their last remaining habitats, race to convert their forests to profitable palm crops.


Branded pests for venturing out from their diminishing forest habitats into plantations where they eat young palm shoots, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in ten years time, the United Nations said in March.

Please, follow the link and read the whole thing.

Red in tooth and claw (and horn)

Dear Diary,

Today was not a good day. It started off well enough; after a restful morning, my friends and I managed to sink our teeth into some tasty buffalo meat. We were all set to have a nice meal when who should arrive? That mean ol' nasty crocodile, that's who! We played tug-of-war for a little while, but my friends and I were tired from the hunt, and that croc has jaw of steel. Yes, that thieving bastard stole our meal! I was pretty depressed at this point, but things just got worse. As soon as I managed to come to terms with the fact that I probably wouldn't eat today, our would-be prey's family showed up--and they were pissed! I don't care how big my claws and teeth are; when I'm face to face with an entire herd of angry, horned buffalo, I'm going to do what any sensible person would do--run! They say that I'm the Queen of the Jungle, and maybe I am. But today, on the savanna, I got my ass kicked. Oy vey, I need a drink.




(hat tip to The Voltage Gate)

Odds and ends

As of last Thursday, I've finished the two classes I was taking this semester, so, in theory, I'll have more time and brainpower available for blogging. In actuality, my blogging habits are the result of complex calculation involving highly-volatile variables ([time + urge + current mental faculties]/laziness = probability of blogging), so whether or not you'll see a substantial increase in my blogging output is anybody's guess.

I should note that my sister, in an act of rank nepotism, has presented a "Thinking Blogger" award to me. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that I can't shake the feeling that the whole thinking award meme--though well-intended--might just be more than a bit ridiculous, I'm going to have to be a contrarian jerk and say that I don't feel like I'm much of a deserving recipient. Hell, I barely even blog, much less blog with thoughtful consideration. Nevertheless, thank you, Cath.

The standard response to receiving the "Thinking Blogger" award would be for me to nominate five people who I think are also deserving; I'm not going to do that. Most of the blogs I read regularly are written by professionals or semi-professionals writing--at least some of the time--on topics related to their areas of expertise. I think it would be misappropriately pretentious of me to nominate any of these blogs. Instead, I'm going to link to a few relatively recent posts that I've found especially enjoyable:

PZ Myers argues against the pervasive notion that the history of life--from "simple" single-celled organisms to the obvious pinnacle of evolution, walking and talking apes--reflects a pattern of ladder-like increases in complexity.

In his typically lucent and well-written fashion, Carl Zimmer has a great article on the findings and implications related to the sequencing of the opossum genome.

Kambiz writes an interesting and informative post about the new Digital Morphology Database, a great tool for people interested in skeletal anatomy.

Sean Carroll explains his reasons for believing that the rumours of string theory's demise have been greatly exaggerated. While my ability to consistently comprehend complex arguments related to theoretical physics is rather limited, the folks at at Cosmic Variance do an outstanding job of keeping things both informative and readable for both experts and novices.


That's it for now. Barring a case of uncontrollable lethargy, I hope to have more new content--if it can be justifiably called that--up within the next few days.

Overheard on the internets

I got a pleasant chuckle out of this:

Darwinism is something of a misnomer. Darwinism has been with us ever since the serpent beguiled Eve. Darwin was inspired by his father the devil to write his books much like Jesus inspired Moses and Paul.

Oh glorious, long-awaited day!

Tomorrow, I see Tool live in concert.


I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in my shadow.
- forty-six & 2

A plea for help

I think I know how Winston Smith feels at the end of 1984. The bastards have broken me, destroyed my will to resist, and I now believe wholeheartedly something that I know to be false. I confess, here and now, that I have become a Californian.

Being a Californian has much more to do with one's state of mind than one's state of residence. Indeed, I've lived here for almost three years now, and I wouldn't have called myself a Californian until very recently. You see, to be a True Californian (which is nothing at all like a True Scotsman), a person must be suffering from what I call "Chronic California Superiority Syndrome" (CCSS). CCSS is characterized by a persistent belief--despite all evidence to the contrary--that California is better than every other state in the country (and, in some especially severe cases, every other place in the world). While CCSS is not listed in the DSM-IV, it has afflicted many millions of people, and it's symptoms--which are, curiously, usually only apparent to those not affected by the disorder--are hideously ugly. Sadly, apart from a full-frontal lobotomy, there is no known cure for CCSS (some studies have reported that a good old-fashioned Alabama ass whuppin' may do the trick, but these results are disputed). Once CCSS takes hold, the patient is stricken with it for the rest of her life, no matter where she may later reside.

I'm not proud to admit it, but I feel the need to come clean about the fact that I have CCSS. It feelst--to quote Darwin's anguished words about becoming an evolutionist--"like confessing a murder." I first realized I had a problem just a few days ago, when I caught myself idly fantasizing about how great it would be if California seceded from the Union. I'm sick, I know. Frankly, I don't know what to do. I realize that California is not actually better than all the other states, and yet, I believe that it is! I am broken, a man without will enough to believe the truth. And yet, I want to be cured! Perhaps if I could just piss off some Alabamans. . .

Kurt Vonnegut is dead

So it goes.

Depressing

From a recent Newsweek poll:

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

Oy vey. This data really isn't all that surprising--many polls in the past have reported similar numbers--but I still find it highly discouraging that, even now, almost three out of four evangelicals could hold a view so inconsonant with all the available evidence.

It should be noted that not all of that 73% necessarily hold to a "Young-Earth" view, (some may, in fact, accept that the earth is around 4.56 billion years old, but still believe that humans are a recent creation), but even so, a person has to throw most of the basic principles of geology and paleontology straight out the window in order to reach the conclusion that humans have existed on earth for only 10,000 years.

I look forward to the day when, like geocentrism and flat-earthism, antievolutionism will be held by only the kookiest kooks of the extreme religious fringe. I can't wait for a time when reasonable people of all faiths can hardly even fathom why evolutionary biology was once considered a threat to their religions (and I guess this is an admission on my part that--contra many people with similar metaphysical opinions--I don't view religion itself as the main culprit behind the rejection of scientific reality). It will happen, someday. Unfortunately, poll results like these lead me to believe that this day is a depressingly long way off. And yet, with deeply religious scientists like Ken Miller, Wesley Elsberry, Simon Conway-Morris, and thousands of clergy all resolutely standing up for the integrity of evolutionary biology, hope springs eternal.

Inebriated Primates!

On St. Patrick's Day, an inebriated primate is not an especially unusual sight, but, sadly, I don't think I'll see anything quite as amusing as this:



Cheers!

(Via Primatology.org)

In which I try to start a new meme (or perhaps dredge up an old one)

If there's one thing the internet needs more of, it's blogging memes. So, in the interest of furthering my existence as a meme-replicator (Richard Dawkins, you better be proud of me!), I think I'll start one. Here are my "10 favorite beers of the moment":

1. Duvel

2. Arrogant Bastard Ale

3. Widmer Hefeweizen

4. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

5. Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss

6. Stone Smoked Porter

7. MacTarnahan's IPA

8. New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale

9. Shiner Bock

10. Smithwick's Irish Ale (but only on tap)

That's my list. Of course, ask me tomorrow, and some specific hankering will no doubt prompt me to change my answers. How about you, fellow discerning beer drinker? What's on your "To Drink" list? Do tell. Prost!

Message to Hillary Clinton

Your would-be supporters are sick to death of Democrats who spend more time dissembling than governing; we've had our fill of so-called liberals whose knees shake at the mere thought of offending conservative sensibilities (Here's a hint: the people you're so loathe to offend won't voting for you anyway). More than anything, we despise your inability to take a stand on things that really matter.

If you truly fancy yourself to be presidential material, it might behoove you to GROW A DAMN SPINE. Now there's a novel idea.

Boys will be boys

In my previous post, I intended to include a picture of a bonobo from my latest trip to the San Diego Zoo, but alas, I couldn't find any good enough to share. It seems that I have not yet found a method for consistently taking clear, sharp pictures through glass without getting any glare. Oh well, I'll keep trying. In the meantime, here's a short video--butchered, as always, by You Tube's uploading software--of a three-year-old Orangutan named Cinta.

The best thing I've heard all week!

It's been a long, stressful, sleep-deprived week for me, but, via Afarensis, comes a bit of news that is sure to lift my spirits--a previously unknown population of bonobos has been found (click the link for a really neat video):

March 6, 2007—A new population of bonobos, one of humankind's closest genetic relatives, has been discovered deep in a forest in Africa's Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Perhaps the largest known concentration of bonobos anywhere, the group may number as many as 3,000—a significant addition to a recent estimated total of 10,000.

Bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, live only in the Congo River Basin and are notable for using sex for greetings, reconciliations, and favors for food.

The apparently thriving new population may owe its success to its location—partly within a private ranch—and to the local Bateke people

"We consider them human, our ancestors," a Bateke man said. "We don't eat them, and we don't kill them."

I absolutely love bonobos. They are closely related to chimpanzees (and us), but, in some ways, they are strikingly different from chimps. Whereas chimpanzee societies are male-dominated and prone to high levels of aggression, bonobo societies are female-dominated, very sexual (homosexual acts are, incidentally, not uncommon), and much less violent--though not completely free of violence. I'm not sure what, if any, implications this dichotomy in gender roles and levels of aggression might have outside of a non-human ape context, but the idea that knowledge of bonobo and chimp politics might be able to inform us about the nature of our human political and social concerns is very attractive to me.

That reminds me, I really do need to read Frans De Waal's Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes one of these days.

What really matters

From the NY Times:

Leaders of several conservative Christian groups have sent a letter urging the National Association of Evangelicals to force its policy director in Washington to stop speaking out on global warming.

The conservative leaders say they are not convinced that global warming is human-induced or that human intervention can prevent it. And they accuse the director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, the association’s vice president for government affairs, of diverting the evangelical movement from what they deem more important issues, like abortion and homosexuality.

The letter underlines a struggle between established conservative Christian leaders, whose priority has long been sexual morality, and challengers who are pushing to expand the evangelical movement’s agenda to include issues like climate change and human rights.

“We have observed,” the letter says, “that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time.”

Those issues, the signers say, are a need to campaign against abortion and same-sex marriage and to promote “the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.”

The letter, dated Thursday, is signed by leaders like James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Gary L. Bauer, once a Republican presidential candidate and now president of Coalitions for America; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; and Paul Weyrich, a longtime political strategist who is chairman of American Values.

How delightful. Dobson, Bauer, Perkins--the self-appointed three musketeers of American Decency fighting the good fight to the end. How can anybody possibly care about an inconsequential little thing like global climate change--which, since the scientists who believe in it are probably liberals and evilutionists, probably isn't true anyway--when there are so many people doing things with their bodies that we think is icky and wrong? Fuck biodiversity; fuck sustainability; fuck the underprivileged--somebody somewhere is probably having an abortion or gay sex (or both!) at this very minute, and they must be stopped at all costs! Isn't it refreshing to see people take a stand for what really matters?

(hat tip to RSR)

Arachnophobia be gone!

People who have known me for a long time (ie., my family) are probably aware that, for the majority of my life, I've been afraid of spiders. I'm happy to report that this is no longer the case; I'm now quite fond of the fascinating little bastards. As evidence of this mental frame shift, I offer the following picture I took of a spider that I found in my sink. I couldn't get a decent shot of it in the dim, metallic basin, so I picked it up by one of its legs and plopped it onto my arm which, I think, made for a better photo opportunity.

Vivo los invertebrados!

Happy Birthday to me!

Another birthday has come, and I'm only one short year away from a drastic reduction in my car insurance payments. Now that will be something to celebrate! For the moment, though, I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with taking a day off of work to make an extra visit to the Zoo.

But can they work a barbeque?

I apologize for the lack of content lately (Wait, this blog has content? Since when?); work and classes have left me feeling tired and rather uninspired. While I rummage through my closet, trying to figure out where I stashed my muse, check out this juicy morsel (pun intended) from the primate news front:

In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.

Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behaviour.

And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis).

Bushbabies are nocturnal and curl up in hollows in trees during the day. If disturbed during their slumbers – if their nest cavity is broken open, for example – they rapidly scamper away. It appears that the chimps have learnt a grizzly method of slowing them down.

Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes, Pruetz’s research team says. The chimps used a “power grip” and made multiple downward stabs – much the same way as a human might wield a dagger.

Ten different chimps in the population were observed to perform this behaviour in 22 bouts. In one case the researchers saw a chimp remove a dead bushbaby and eat it.

The Fongoli chimps inhabit a mosaic savannah – patches of grass and woodland – where there are no red colobus monkeys. The absence of these monkeys, which are the favoured prey of several other chimp populations, may explain the Fongoli chimps’ unique spear-hunting behaviour.

“Given the lack of opportunity, Fongoli chimps have come up with a way to get around the problem of how to get protein in their particular environment...using tools to hunt,” says Pruetz.

Oh, and that mention of bushbabies being one of the cutest primates in Africa is no joke: