Well, I’ve done it. I’ve created a new Blog Carnival.
It’s called “Carnival of Evolution” and you can find the first edition HERE, which includes my own post on Building a Better Human.
Despite the presence of several really good blog carnivals dealing with science, skepticism, or atheism, which all touch on evolution now and again, there [...]

Today in his Pharyngula blog, PZ Myers went off on Democrats for highlighting their commitment to religion and faith and the compassionate accomplishments faith-based groups can make in the world.
Let me first say that in essence, and in principle, I am in complete agreement with PZ. Liberals, progressives, and the Democratic party that we liberals, [...]

Today, once again, I witnessed a not-too-uncommon display of ignorance and primitive barbarism in the rural south.
I was driving along a small country back road near my home in North Carolina, listening to a book on CD (no it’s too embarrassing to tell…OK, fine – it was “Twilight” the first novel by Stephenie Meyer about [...]

C. L. Hanson over at Letters From a Broad: The Adventures of a Friendly Ex-Mormon Atheist Mom Living in France Switzerland (I love that title) has composed the 98th biweekly edition of Carnival of the Godless, a blog carnival containing a myriad links to thoughts on atheism or tangentially related topics. This edition is particularly [...]

Transhumanism, to quote Wikipedia is
“a term often used as a synonym for “human enhancement“, is an international, intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and overcome what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, [...]

3D animation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This is a render that I modeled and animated in two nights. Bathe in the glory of his Noodly Appendages.
Created with the opensource Blender and the GIMP, and Adobe After Effects.
For you CG animators out there, I am providing the .blend file here. Do whatever you wish with [...]

For those of you who have yet to partake in the skeptical arts, check out the latest edition of the 93rd Skeptic’s Circle Blog Carnival, by City of Skeptics, who hosted the latest edition using a clever ironic Tarot reading (with the final card shown here).
My own most recent post about the second coming of [...]

“Hail, Earthen brothers and sisters, children of the Universal creator. As promised to you millennia ago, I come to you again to bring you unto the Heavens.”
The man raised his hands outward toward the gathered masses, the red scars still visible upon his wrists. The throngs cheered in unison as a great wave of pent [...]

Today on Digg, an article was linked in which it talked about some astronomers who think that we will likely contact extraterrestrial civilizations within the next two decades.
However, the point of this post is to highlight what may well be the funniest comment I’ve ever read on a Digg post. The second comment down, [...]

I read a couple of interesting articles today about a plant of which I have become very fond: the Agave plant. The first is Drink it or Drive it: The Promise of Agave for Ethanol, by Sarah Lozanova, and the second is Mexico & Agaves: Moving from Tequila to Ethanol
For you non-botanists, the [...]

In a previous post I highlighted one of the great questions facing science today: how did we evolve and what specific genes make us different from our cousins in the animal kingdom?
In a new study reported in this month’s issue of PLoS Genetics, Carolin Kosiol and colleagues have demonstrated the most complete analysis of the [...]

There is hope for skepticism, reason, and science in America yet! Today on NPR I heard an awesome story about a camp called “Camp Inquiry” (read the story here). It’s a summer camp for kids ages 7 to 16, in which instead of learning about the bible as in bible camps, they learn how to [...]

I grew these mouse embryonic stem cells on a plate, and through various molecular trickery, I made them turn in to the crazy cell types you see here. (Click for larger images)

Check out the next two images. They are the same cells viewed in two different ways (normal light, and epifluorescence).

Long neuronal axons stretch [...]

It now appears that the lowly worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, has evolved a new sensory perception heretofore unknown to science. In the current issue of PLoS Biology, Stacey L. Edwards, Kenneth G. Miller, and others have shown that these nematodes can detect ultraviolet light using receptors completely unlike any other light receptive molecule in visual systems. [...]

Ever since the evolution of the sensory neuron, organisms have been using the these amazing peepholes into existence to direct the course of their lives. Now, humankind has elevated the role of these senses, and even created technological extensions of them, in order to find order and true knowledge of this Universe in which we [...]

Update: This essay can now be found on the NPR “This I Believe” website.
Recently, I wrote an essay for This I Believe, an NPR radio series that asks Americans to answer this simple question. My essay has not yet been reviewed; however I doubt my chances of getting selected on the radio program. It is [...]

First, for the last two summers my property has been overrun by the Northern Black Widow (Latrodectus variolus). These are distinguishable from the Southern Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans) by the fact that Northern Widows have broken hourglasses on their abdomen, while Southern widows have complete hourglasses. Note the broken hourglass on the female below.

Next [...]

Here’s something some of my fellow biologists might find useful: http://www.vadlo.com/.
It’s a search engine, like Google, but restricted to biology. It seems to work pretty well. Pulls up quite a few protocols and the like. A potentially more useful search category is the ability to search for powerpoint presentations. This could come [...]

Most people who believe in the presence of a soul, also believe that that soul contains some sort of information about who “you” are. They believe that it contains some essence of your self, your memories, your personality.
However, there now exists within the realms of neuroscience, a plenitude of evidence that such a soul does [...]

These are mouse embryonic stem cells that I coerced to differentiate into brain cells. The neurons are green, red represents the radial glia (they proved a scaffold for the neurons), and the blue are the nuclei of the cells (that houses the DNA).

All life and human experience is devoid of meaning. The Universe is nothing more than an enormous cosmic accident. It is an accident that will be corrected in due course, as the Universe and its inhabitants are fated to be destroyed in an equally pointless cataclysm of some kind or another – whether it be [...]