Pictures from TAM

Sorry about the crappy photo's, next year I'll bring a good camera

The t-shirt that I had signed by the SGU













The Autographs of the SGU










Me and Rebecca Watson from Skepchick and the SGU

Me and Evan Burnstein from the SGU

Paris: The hotel I stayed at.

Me and Phil Plait a few minutes after TAM closed

The shirt and name tag I got from TAM

Adam Savage signing DVD's

Me and James "The Amazing"Randi

Me and Bob Novella from the SGU

Me and Jay Novella of the SGU

Me and Steve Novella, Host of the SGU

One of Phil Plait's slides

Michael Shermer's talk

The SGU's live podcast (Had a front row seat!)

Steve's talk

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's keynote speech "brain droppings

of a skeptic", ran over by 30 minutes or so. At the end of

his time we all started begging for more.

Penn & Teller's Q&A session, "what do you think about enviormentalism?

"....................(look at each other)............... Don't know."

Blog Reopened

I probably should have said that I went on hiatus to begin with but after 7 months you probably figured it out. Now the blog will reopen and hopefully stay as such, I'm sorry about the huge gap but with school and home life being a little screwed up at the time, this fell by the wayside. Everything is straightened out now, so I should be writing a bit more often.

I just got back from TAM 6 and will be uploading pictures and a post about the meeting soon.

Stem Cell Research in Humans

Back in June I made a post about new stem cell technique that made skin cells, in mice, into embryonic stem cells.A few days ago in Bloomberg a news report said that two research groups, one in US and one in Japan, have shown this to be possible in humans; They inserted four cells into the skin cells and turned them into stem cells. The stem cells are shown to be able to turn into, at least;heart, brain, muscle, fat and cartilage cells; The researchers said that over 10,000 labs could do this technique right now.
This means almost nothing but I nominate these researchers for the Nobel prize.

Review of Judgement Day

I can't believe it took me this long to get a review out. Sorry about that.

The show was awesome and is definitely was one of the best science shows I've ever seen! They got everything right, the scientist were able to talk and the IDers had their time to defend themselves (poorly). I learned a few things about evolution and a lot about the Dover trial, if you are at all scientifically bent, please watch the show. The show should be on the PBS site on Friday. WATCH IT! Coincidentally, I just today turned in my English paper, Evolution v. Creationism, I used some stuff I got off the program, by the way, the paper was actually why I was so late in posting this. As a last request, WATCH THE SHOW TOMORROW!!!!

ID on NOVA

Next Tuesday there will be a 2-hour documentary on Intelligent Design, on the T.V. show NOVA. I think this will be a great show and just by looking at the website it seems like they have the right view point, I especially like the transitional fossil and predictions by Darwin slide shows.

Go to the web site and look around, it looks like the people at NOVA really got this one right and will brand ID as the pseudoscience it is.

To see when the show will appear in your time zone go here.



The preview looks good and I am definitely watching it.

Cosmic Rays Origns Solved?

First off, I'm sorry that I haven't posted but it turns out if you blog while at the school library, they will ban you. I have my computer fixed now and my Internet will be up for good in about a week, for now I should be making a post a week or so.

Now for the cool stuff, a new study looks at the origins of cosmic rays. Here is the Wikipedia article on cosmic rays, I would really read it if you don't know much about them. This is what I understand about them, they are high energy subatomic particles that travel near the speed of light and are proppeled by enormous magnetic fields, since the 60's scientist were pointing towards supernovae for the origin of majority of cosmic rays. The proplem is that all measurements of the magnetic fields were indirect but this research directly measured the magnetic fields and showed that they were powerfull enough to propel them at the speeds measured, for spefics check the link to ScienceDaily.

Aliens--Are They Real?

Every year my school hosts a set of "Thursday Think Tanks," which are lectures, speakers, etc. that a club or group invites to speak at our dorm. These are highly attended by my school's population of 350, and even the public are invited (though they rarely show). This fall's list of events has just been released, and one in particular caught my eye. You heard me right:

"Aliens: Are they Real? Come hear two believers give their case - Dr. Rick Cazares and Andy Morgan."

Ooh! A doctor! He must be a good source. And the fact that they are labeled "believers" should make this even more exciting. It seems that they could at least have called them witnesses, victims, or something similarly concrete. This is definitely worth researching before going to, I believe, to put my skepticism to work. I'll report back afterwards, to spell out how it went; it should be fun. Especially since my school is all math and science-y; enough so that we could all band together and swallow them alive. And if anyone happens to be reading this from the North Texas area, I'd be happy to get you more information.