Flying saucer galaxy!

post from Bad Astronomy on 07 April 2009 11:15:00 AM. © Bad Astronomy

Hubble spies invading saucer from space!Click to Brobdignagify.OK, it’s not an alien spaceship. But Holy Haleakala, what a gorgeous galaxy! It’s NGC 7049, a kind of hybrid galaxy, one that is part disk (like our spiral Milky Way) and part[...]

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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/04/07/flying-saucer-galaxy/

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China Gets It...Why Doesn't The US

post from blog.bioethics.net on 07 April 2009 11:07:00 AM. © blog.bioethics.net

The Wall Street Journal reports today that China is aiming to improve its health care infrastructure, to expand health insurance for all, and is starting a "decade-long plan to repair an ailing health-care system that has fueled popular discontent." Gee...

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http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/04/china-gets-itwhy-doesnt-the-us-1/

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What the science cited by the Cato Institute
really says about global warming

post from The Island of Doubt on 07 April 2009 11:02:20 AM. © The Island of Doubt

I was going to ignore the open letter-to-the-president advertisement placed in major papers recently by the Cato Institute. You've probably heard of it -- the one that says Obama should ignore global warming alarmism because the science says it isn't happening. The one signed by "over 100 scientists." But the response elsewhere has been interesting. It focuses almost exclusively on the expertise of those who signed the letter, not the merits of the argument it makes. I find myself agreeing -- ever so slightly, with the Cato Institutes' Jerry Taylor, who defended the letter last week in the National Review Online. Only slightly, though, and only on the abstract notion of ad hominem logical fallacies.

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es_defence_of.php

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Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify

post from Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) on 07 April 2009 10:59:59 AM. © Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

tags: mystery bird, identify this bird, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

[Mystery bird] photographed in South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]

Image: Terry Sohl, 18 December 2008.

Photo taken with a Canon 50D, 400 5.6L.

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

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ystery_bird_for_you_to_205.php

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Mystery Bird: Lazuli x Indigo Bunting Hybrid,
Passerina amoena X Passerina cyanea

post from Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) on 07 April 2009 10:59:59 AM. © Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

tags: Lazuli x Indigo Bunting Hybrid, Passerina amoena X Passerina cyanea, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

~~[Mystery bird]~~ Lazuli x Indigo Bunting Hybrid, Passerina amoena X Passerina cyanea, photographed in South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]

Image: Terry Sohl, 18 December 2008.

Photo taken with a Canon 50D, 400 5.6L.

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

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ystery_bird_for_you_to_205.php

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Religious dogmatism

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 07 April 2009 10:51:19 AM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

The Catholic Church, like other rigid religious belief structures such as Orthodox Islam and Judaism or fundamentalist Christianity, does not hesitate to draw lines in the sand, to state clearly what is allowed and what is not, and then follow that policy wherever it leads, even if it leads over a cliff. In the face of derision they are willing to hold on to their position for decades, even centuries, before quietly conceding that they were wrong.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/religious-dogmatism

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How scratching can stop an itch

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 07 April 2009 10:48:39 AM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

Scientists have shown scratching helps relieve an itch by blocking activity in some spinal cord nerve cells that transmit the sensation to the brain. However, the effect only seems to occur during itchiness itself -- scratching at other times makes no difference.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/how-scratching-can-stop-itch

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Has HIV become more virulent

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 07 April 2009 10:44:03 AM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/has-hiv-become-more-virulent

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A quantum leap in few-body physics

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 07 April 2009 10:42:04 AM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

In 2007 and 2008 two groups of theoretical physicists (Hammer and Platter, and von Stecher, D'Incao, and Greene) predicted the existence of universal four-body states that are closely tied to Efimov trimer states. Now, a team of scientists of the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, has proven these states experimentally in an ultracold gas of cesium atoms.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/quantum-leap-few-body-physics

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