Los Links 4/15

Another week, another collection o' superb posts.  Not that Yahoo wanted me to share them with you.  It ate my list o' links.  Every single one. 

But it's mostly back from the dead, and ready for perusing.

Big dust-up o' the week: The Templeton Prize.  Those of you who like to keep religion away from science, and those of you who aren't sure why the rest of us want to keep religion away from science, should have a look at the following:

Choice in Dying: Big Bucks, Big Splash, Small Puddle and The Betrayal of Reason.  Eric MacDonald unpacks the issues as only Eric MacDonald can.

Nick Cohen: Science has vanquished religion, but not its evils.  Absolutely no quarter given.  None deserved.

Why Evolution is True: The Guardian strikes back: Templeton and Rees are wonderful, Gnu Atheism is dead, in which Jerry Coyne takes a stick to some truly wretched pieces.

Japan's still in the news.  As it should be.

Georneys: On the Recent Japan Earthquake Sequence.  A guest post from Evelyn's friend Jean-Arthur Olive.  The new quake also caused Evelyn and her dad to continue on with their series of interviews after they'd planned to stop - the latest is here.

Highly Allochthonous: Earthquake location matters, part eleventy.  In which Chris Rowan explains why location matters so very much.

Nature: Shake-up time for Japanese seismology.  A scathing indictment of outmoded methods of thought.

I've got a ton, I mean an absolute ton, of great Science fare.  Are you sitting comfortably?  Good.  Cuz you may be here a while.

Ars Technica: Evolutionary analysis shows languages obey few ordering rules.  This one surprised me.

Bad Astronomy: A half century of manned space exploration.  Read this if you want an exploration call-to-arms.

Aetiology: Margulis does it again.  In which it is explained why one person who once got it right gets everything so very wrong.

Why Evolution is True: Lynn Margulis disses evolution in Discover magazine, embarrasses both herself and the field.  Jerry Coyne piles on.

Not Exactly Rocket Science: Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the decisions of judges.  This worries me.  It should worry you.


Chileana: The Laws of Fieldwork.  Hi-larious!

Looking for Detachment: Salt from Bonneville Salt Flats and A Tale of Two Trips.  Gorgeous, delicious, very salty photos!

Glacial Till: Meteorite Monday: My first meteorite!  She's a beauty. So cute!

UC Berkeley: Novel technique reveals how glaciers sculpted their valleys.  Fascinating stuff.

Oakland Geology: Mountain View Cemetery knocker, the big one.  Why, yes, there is some wonderful geology in cemetaries!

Agile: The scales of geoscience.  Like it from the first sentence: "Geoscientists' brains are necessarily helicoptery."

Smithsonian: When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink? Not when you'd think...

McSweeney's Open Letters: Dear People Who Think They Have Found the Artifact that Will Change Archaeology As We Know It.  Just go.  Just read.  Don't drink anything beforehand.

Scientific American: Rock stars from coastal California's past.  Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes....

Dinosaur Tracking: Tracks of Giants Created Dino Death Traps.  No, seriously, they did.  I never knew that.

Julian's Blog: Rockfall impacts from the Christchurch 'Quake.  Reminded me of cars crushed in Oak Creek Canyon by falling boulders.  Sobering shite.

The Frontal Cortex: The Psychology of Architecture.  Excuse me, I've gotta go paint my walls blue.

Mind Matters: Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors.  You'd be amazed...

Reading the Washington Landscape: Wallula Gap and John Mix Stanley.  Excellent post on a unique place.

Pharyngula: Paul Nelson takes a stab at Ontogenetic Depth again…which makes me go stab-stab-stabbity-stab.  No one can destroy a total idiot with science quite the way PZ can.

Highly Allochthonous: Backyard science: isotope hydrology style.  Mother and daughter science, absolutely beautiful stuff!

See?  Told ya I had a lot o' science.  And that last link segues in rather nicely to Women's Issues.  Oh, have we ever got issues, ladies.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett: Flaming Out and Fighting Back.  No tenure for women who wanna be mommies.

Deep Sea News: For my grandmother, who was born at the wrong time.  Think of this, the next time you meet a prickly old lady.

Pharyngula: Your body isn't yours, it belongs to the conservative Christians.  PZ applies the smackdown to a lot of states trying to legislate away women's autonomy.

Which leads rather nicely into this week's Political junk.

NYT: Behind the Abortion War.  And if you don't think there's a war, you haven't been paying attention.

Guardian: Why fiscal conservatives care about Planned Parenthood.  Sense is made of the senseless.

TPM: Conservative Defects From Anti-Gay Group, Now Supports Same-Sex Marriage.  This one actually warmed my heart and gave me hope for humanity.  Minds can be changed when good people speak out.

The Washington Monthly: Come for the Radicalism, Stay for the Fuzzy Math and We're Not Supposed to Offer the Low-Wage Workforce for Foreign Companies.  This isn't how America should be, people, but the Cons want it to be even worse.

After that, I think we need some Medicine.

NYT: Giving Doctors Orders.  On the importance of not being afraid to speak up if something's wrong.


The Daily: Cheap Shot.  In which we learn that Andrew Wakefield, fraudster and fucktard, is pedaling deadly nonsense among the even more vulnerable.

Respectful Insolence: Yet another misleading alt-med cancer testimonial.  Here's why you shouldn't be impressed by "living proof" of woo.

On to Writing!

Women in Crime, Ink: The Publishing Industry Isn't Always That Great.  If you're still buying books published by Dorchester, stop it right now.

The Wellcome Trust: Take big, wonderful and startling ideas and make them comprehensible.  A good primer on science writing.

And, finally, a Miscellany.

Outside the Interzone: Heh.  This is northwest weather to a T.

Oatmeal: The 4 Seasons of Seattle Weather.  So is this.  Thanks, Helena!

Almost Diamonds: Skepticism Is a "How," Not a "Who".  And skeptics would do well not to forget it.

Brendan Riley: On Source Code and the ethics of the modern technological era.  Great discussion of morality, but spoilers.  You've been warned.

Right.  That should keep you lot busy for a few moments.