knittinggoddess, posts by tag: biology - LiveJournal

Political Correctness in Modern Age
AfterEllen discusses Sarah Silverman's raunchy humor
The Discovery Channel's show "Bizarre Foods" and the phenomenon of the Stupid American.
In which a student believes that sex is a basic human right.

Gender and Sexuality
The first FTM?
Dakota Fanning is modeling for women's clothing now? Why this freaks people out.
A video of an artist drawing the internal structures of female genitalia, focusing on the clitoris. IT LOOKS LIKE AN ORCHID. I mean, the external structure does too, but JESUS, the internal really does.

Science is Cool
Silent mutations
Chromatophores and the potential for scifi plots
The above post links to this article on cephalopod color-changing in Discover

The World Needs More of You
A waitress and a bartender stop a rape
A fifth grade English teacher's excellent class activity involving A Wrinkle In Time

Obligatory BSG Link
A look at how scifi's portrayal of women has changed since Kirk's Star Trek.

What is your squid quotient? (mine's 170! I beat Pharyngula!)

In an alternate timeline, biochemistry could look like this.

Late for Valentine's: the neurology and anthropology behind love.

A psych study reinforces what feminist blogs have been saying all along: sexed up images in pop culture call attention to our own inadequacies and lead to decreased self-efficacy. The study in question seems odd to me, though. Sweaters versus swimsuits?

And completely unrelated to any of the above, least of all the theme: Venus Flytrap ahahahaha, trap.

ps: firetruck firetruck firetruck!

A wonderful thing to come home to.

Oh man! Niko Tinbergen was Richard Dawkins' doctoral adviser? How many hardcore points do you get if your doctoral adviser was as influential in his field as the guy who came up with the four questions that structure ethology?

I've felt incredibly antisocial for the past few days. So why have I not intentionally hidden from social interaction? Because I'm a crazy masochist, apparently. But now nobody's home but the dog, so I finally get some quiet.

BSG links:
Pharyngula asks his readers to convince him to watch BSG.
The intro to the A-Team. Notice anything...interesting? (Note of interest, Dirk Benedict, the guy in the clip in question, played Starbuck in the original BSG. So there's context to it.)
It's a music video love letter to the new series. I got this from the SCIFI CHANNEL.

Science links:
Opensource MacClade? Dude. Does Keith know about this? Would it be really weird for me to email him out of the blue with a link?
Who the hell hacks a server devoted to phylogenetic projects? I know! Creationist black hats!

Other Geeky Links:
An article about Allison Janney from a Welsh newspaper.

The sole sober feminist link of the day:
Corporal punishment a feminist issue? Corporal punishment as sexual abuse? Interesting.

the science/geeky links:
evo bio and others are mat/sci majors uneligible for federal grants
more info on the story
holodeck janitor's weblog
ethical stem cell lines

Scary/depressing links:
guess how many teenage girls are getting boob jobs?
Rapist pretends to help victim

feminist/ranty links:
this one's for Josh: things that are in incredibly bad taste
Where have all the lesbians gone, gone to be men, every one (thanks to Sam)
on women, property and behavior

other/assorted links:
18 ways to stay focused at work
studio art tutorials

I haven't really read any of these yet, but here's what looks good both from the Carnival of Feminists and The Internet At Large.

A statistical look at gay marriage opposition. Can someone tell me why it makes sense to have one variable measured on a 1-100 scale and the other variable on a 1-7? If I were doing the study, I would have had more similar magnitudes simply because the distribution of responses would reflect the other more easily. But perhaps I'm missing something. Rachel?

how to be a good liberal real nice guy. Reedies, take note.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a blog! And this post is about the economic cost of being poor. Okay, you've probably heard it before, especially if you read Nickel and Dimed. If you prefer, then read her post about the sharp turns feminism is making.

A bit of a rant about PMS and misconceptions thereof.

Domestication, or, why ethology is still totally interesting to me. (Obviously not a feminist link but a bio one.)

Completely unrelated to feminism but related to scientific curiosity, the little scab where the doc took a cell sample appears to cover more non-mole skin than mole. I understand wanting to take non-hyperpigmented skin as a control, but that much? The sample site is maybe 2mm in diameter and only maybe 0.5mm is on top of the mole. But maybe the spot is healing over mole-free. That would be interesting.

And why does lidocaine or whatever local injected anaesthetic burn shortly after injection?

I need a timeline

I also like the clade name "Enantiornithians"

This yarn chronicles the violent end of Pippi Longstocking. (Starting at $88 on Ebay!)

Dating textbooks using theories of mutation and speciation.

How Chopin is like jazz, complete with crazy graphs.

Text-messaging shortcuts using server response codes. It's better than leet speak!

Mythbusting fuel economy strategies for your car. AC or windows? Cruise control? Slower speeds?

JAMES WATSON was on the DAILY SHOW.

And Barney Frank was on the Colbert Report!

Pharyngula is asked: "If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?"

I like his answer, and I'm tempted to use that as my own. But in light of this rage-inducing news bit, I'll settle for a thorough understanding of gender equality. It's not strictly a scientific idea, and any animal behavior class will give you the impression that females are baby factories. But I'm still choosing it on the basis that science has become used to the idea of altering body chemistry, why can't other people understand that too?

As for good news, the FDA's advisory committee unanimously approved the HPV vaccine. Let's hope the FDA fully approves it, and that it isn't cockblocked.