Greater than One?

Nothing increases my faith in science like seeing a highly cited article that experimentally measures a probability larger than one. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Toilets Evolved?

How awesome is evolution?

Using isotopic analysis, they estimate that shrew feces deposited in N. lowii’s pitchers are a significant source of nitrogen for the plants...Tree shrews visit the plants to eat nectar that oozes from the bowl’s open lid, positioning themselves directly over the bowl

Nature, how about you evolve me a starship? I promise I'll provide it with nutrients.

Errrrr, maybe I'll just build it myself.

Also, this is at least my fourth post on toilets, and those are just the ones I've tagged. How disturbing.

Short Rant: Lack Of Transparency in Online Media

Some Japanese scientists think that riding motorcycles is good for you. The study sounds pretty suspicious to me...funded by a motorbike company? Studying only twenty men? The other group rode either bicycles or cars? Only looking at whether scores go up, not starting levels?

So I want to call b$#!+ on this study....except I cannot find it. I googled "Kawashima motorcycle", but not one of the top five Google results links to the study or reports where the study is published. Kawashima's publication pages currently lack the study (hopefully this will change later on).

It drives me crazy when the media reports the results of a study without linking directly to it (or at least stating where said study was published). How can people state a conclusion without offering insight into the supporting process and information? This "internet" thing lets you link to the original data if it is available. At the very least there could be a link to a gated version.

Shame on Yahoo! News for failing to leverage the transparency of the internet.

And stay off my lawn!

Experimental Data

We have some data that is supposed to be quadratic in nature. What does it looks like?



Great parabola to start with, but what happens? An interesting new phenomenon? Oh, nope, just a crappy cable.

Sometimes I hate you, science. Could you make pursuing you a little easier? You don't have to be such a @#*$( about random crap ruining good data, you know?