Tangential Science: it's not necessarily science, but it's still funny.

1. The Japanese have responded to the persistent outrage of Greenpeace over their whaling efforts by seeking to enrage the anti-GMO contingent as well.   Up next; a new line of 'super tuna' that will be possible thanks to the awesome power of genome sequencing.

Super tuna?   That's the best they could do for a name?  It makes Aquaman sound positively masculine.  'Super' and 'tuna' just don't go together.  This is why there are no cool Japanese superheroes.

If you're like us, you are eagerly awaiting those July 4 fireworks displays because you get to blow stuff up using science (not just the US, Canada too, though they picked the wrong day by using July 1 for  Canada Day celebrations) - if only we could have awesome fireworks yet not ruin the planet.

Maybe we can.  A new generation of "green" fireworks is trying to take off.  Hint: that's "green" as in environmentally friendly.  And take off as in ... oh, never mind.

Tangential Science: It isn't necessarily science, but it's still funny.

1. Want a business card made out of meat and lasers? You're in luck! Meat Cards is having a contest to win one. All you have to do is recreate a classic Frank Frazetta poster and you can win, you guessed it, a meat card, which is basically beef jerky with laser writing on it.   I kind of wish I had thought of this first.

Drosophila can't catch a break.  Even Nature, which never runs a press release about one of its studies without putting 'prestigious' in front of its name, fell prey to a glaring error regarding the little critter, as seen on the cover of Nature Methods.

The problem?  The cover attached, presumably, to "Tools for Drosophila" article is  not actually Drosophila.

If you happen to be in the San Francisco metropolitan area the week of August 16th, 2009 and can't get enough science, I'll be emcee'ing a symposium on communicating science to the public at the 90th Annual Meeting of the AAAS pacific region.

Here's a 15 minute video of Scientific Blogging featured writer Jane Poynter talking about her 2 years and 20 minutes in Biosphere 2, along with what she is doing to save Biosphere 1 (errrr, that would be Earth).

I was outside the target demographic of this dance (though I can moonwalk like no one's business) but if I were going to pick up a retro dance, this would be a cool one.

Darwin didn't miss much, I think we all agree, and came up with a lot given the limited science of his day.   One thing he missed, that by this time tomorrow will be the source of outrageous titles from every schlock science publication in existence, was that sexual selection that goes on even after actual sex.

Confusing?  It's not so difficult to understand.   Some female critters are trampy and have sex with more than one guy, for example (what, you think other parts of the animal kingdom don't have Jenna Jameson?)  so there's sperm competition but there are also other factors having to do with the internal workings of the female body (i.e. that magical place), so let's catalog a few of post-copulatory sexual selection's greatest hits:

When you go to New York City, to Central Park, to the American Museum of Natural History, to the Hayden Planetarium, to a seminar hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, on the entire cosmos, you might think it would be hard to figure out who 'the star' will be.

I wrote about the opening of the World Science Festival 2009 and Edward O. Wilson's 80th birthday at the Lincoln Center in New York City but he was not the only august personage in attendance.  Present to give tribute to him was also molecular biologist, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, James Watson.

The second World Science Festival kicked off at Lincoln Center in New York City last evening with a birthday tribute to Edward O. Wilson, everyone's favorite ant man, and science fans fron the culture world along with, presumably, science fans from the science world.

What do you think was the high point of E.O. Wilson's 80th birthday celebration?   "Happy Birthday" sung by 200 people in the lobby and the Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir?    A politically incorrect tribute from Nobel laureate James Watson (more on that later)?    Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello or a new Philip Glass composition?   No, though that was all terrific.

A few weeks ago, the 13th annual Susan G. Komen Sacramento Race for the Cure was held.    The organization raises money primarily for breast health awareness, screening and support services and a much smaller amount for research so I am always uncertain what 'race for the cure' in their name means but that's marketing.   Raising money to do breast cancer screening doesn't have the sizzle of curing cancer, though most here will note that curing cancer in itself is deceptive.

This year, Scientific Blogging did its part by buying t-shirts for a local team and we finally got some pictures.   Men in pink shirts that say "save second base"?   It's the perfect way to raise money.

If you have not yet heard, David Carradine, aged 72, was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room on Wednesday, probably of a suicide (or perhaps something more INXS-related?).    I was in my den drinking a coffee, reading science and eating some Mini-Wheats when Mrs. Hank came in:

"Did you hear your buddy David Carradine died?"

I was shocked.   "No!  I didn't even know he was sick."

"They found him in a Bangkok hotel, so I don't think he was sick."

Quick, who was the feared hitter that legendary baseball numbers guru Bill James says lost more career home runs due to playing in his home park than any player in history?   

Money does not buy happiness, it is said, and apparently it does not factor much into optimism either.   20 percent of humanity hoards 83 percent of the world's wealth but the vast majority of people, including the 60 percent of the world possessing just 6 percent of world wealth, think the next 5 years will be better for them.

Yes, despite an economic recession, famine, thousands of years without a single day bereft of war somewhere in the world and media reports about a flu epidemic afflicting the Earth, a new study from the University of Kansas and Gallup indicates that humans are optimistic.  Apparently it is just our nature.

70% of you, man or woman, will have an HPV infection at some point in your life.   There is no cure for HPV, just as there is no cure for the common cold and in most people, an HPV infection will clear up on its own, like the common cold.  It can also be passed on to other people during the infection period, like the common cold. 

What happens when a guy married to an art historian who dislikes religion writes a book using science?   "Angels&Demons", that's what.   It's the book Dan Brown wrote that made even less sense than "The DaVinci Code", because it was written before that blockbuster hit, even though the new movie seems like a sequel.  

Because it was written three years earlier, he had yet to refine his craft of jumbling vaguely non-specific pop social science with revisionist history - though he still knows he dislikes Catholics enough - and basically works in the expected conspiracy theory with some science as the weapon.

Scott Altman is a pretty cool guy.   He's the commander of the Atlantis mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (and, as noted previously, astronaut John Grunsfeld is also carrying along Edwin Hubble's basketball, another level of awesome) and being commander of a space shuttle mission is nice, though I generally think NASA has lost both its way and the imagination of the public by manning a fleet of delivery trucks instead of doing actual space exploration.

   No, Altman is cool because he was one of the stunt pilots in "Top Gun."

I have a confesson to make; I'm probably smarter than you. Don't take it badly, I am smarter than most people and I am not saying I am definitely smarter than you, because I don't know all of you and that would just be ridiculous hubris.

But I am smarter than most of you, yet I have been forced by societal norms to keep it quiet. Oppressed, even.   Still, it comes out even if I try to hide it.   I am always convinced I will be the smartest guy in every room I enter and most of the time I am right, without even saying a word.

I am part of the elite.  If you are reading this, you probably are too, given our demographics.

I'm in New York City for a variety of meetings and, of course, I brought along Bloggy, the Scientific Blogging mascot.   I know how popularity works.  People don't concern themselves much with what I write but Bloggy is popular.  Heck, there is fan fiction written about him.

He's a pretty easy travelling companion, he mostly just sits in my bag but at key moments I avail myself of his wisdom.

I took a few pictures of him in our various adventures and am posting them up here.   Off on a trip of your own?  Need a mascot to accompany you and criticize your every decision?   We'll ship him out.  Just be sure to take a swanky picture.