Brian Cox - Wonders of Life - Expanding Universe

Our knowledge of the world comes from our experience of the world. And our experience is based on our sensory apparatus, but how do our senses work? What is it about the physical laws of the universe that make it possible for creatures like us to perceive anything at all?

In the following documentary, Brian Cox visits some interesting animals in the US (giant catfish, glowing scorpions, mantis shrimp and octopi, among others) to explore and understand how they, and we, are able to create mental representations of our environment through taste (chemicals), sound (air waves) and vision (light), and how it is that the gradual process of evolution through natural selection has slowly sculpted the amazing machinery of perception, by taking fish jaws, for instance, and slowly turned them into the ear bones that make hearing possible for you and me...

To catch that catfish, he didn't have to enlist the help of a scientist... he could have just told a redneck to go noodling :)

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Blowing the Whistle on Whistleblowers

Whistleblowing and information leaks have been spearheading news headlines recently. Among the highest profile cases in America we've had Bradley Manning and, most recently, Edward Snowden. Many have jumped on the character assassination wagon, calling them traitors, cowards, and a lot of other things, even calling for their heads!, all of which tends to distract from the more pressing issue: the information leaked, what it tells us about the sources that were trying to keep it secret, and the implications going forward.

Directly or indirectly, both men did work for the government, so a case could potentially be made that they betrayed our government. Though I disagree with that position, I'm willing to grant it for the sake of argument. What they did not betray, however, is their country. They saw that the government was violating human rights, the constitution and the principles upon we always claim our nation was founded, and they decided to stand up to power so that we could rescue our country back from the forces that want to corrupt it for their own purposes. These men are American and moral heroes. Few have the courage to stand up and risk so much when it would be so much easier to just stay silent and look the other way, and now, in their time of need, we ought to stand by them and support them.

Yes, the information they revealed is shocking and damaging to our reputation, no doubt, but our reputation ought to be based who we are, not on what we hide. And claims regarding national security, at least in these two cases, have been completely fabricated or at least blown way out of proportion. Unlike the previous administration, which actually outed individual secret agents and put their lives at real risk (all in the name of politics, I might add), Manning and Snowden have leaked information about highly questionable programs and practices that have been institutionalized without having gone through the proper checks and balances (you know, pesky little things like the Constitution and such)...

But of course, how you feel about and refer to these folks depends on where you're coming from, as the hilarious Samantha Bee beautifully and succinctly shows:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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And just to give you a taste of the backward twilight zone world we seem to be living in, here's an example of those in (financial) power trying to silence those who report on their corruption by trying to turn the law on them! (and apparently without noticing the irony and contradiction):

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Ok, this is going to sound horrible, so be warned, but was it deliberate that the public relations spokesperson sort of looks like a piggy, to make it look like they sympathize with the plight of animals, or was it just an unfortunate and ironic coincidence?

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Dogs vs. Hyenas - Chew On This!

I've never been one to like hyenas. I don't know if I find it ignoble to rely on great numbers to bring down a great beast, or if it's guilt by association, since usually where there's vultures there's probably hyenas (or is it the other way around?), or if their preposterously high levels of testosterone (especially in the females) feels somehow emasculating, or if they're just ugly as all hell... but either way I find them repulsive.

That's not to say, however, that one can't also find them interesting, indeed fascinating. For instance, did you know that hyenas are evolutionarily closer to cats than to dogs? Me either. So what else about these social animals might you not know but could learn in about two minutes?

The idea of convergent evolution could have been stated with even more strength if they had also compared dogs and hyenas to certain marsupials that hit upon the same basic adaptations, quite independently, as things usually happen, Down Under in Australia.

And if you want, there's also a poster:

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Secrets of Our Living Planet - The Emerald Band

I may not be able to blog this week, since I'm going to be spending some quality time with my family, so I'm leaving you dear readers with a fascinating documentary.

We've seen in multiple cases before the intricacies of various animals. What's different about today's documentary is that it showcases the interesting and intricate relationships between various organisms to explain why there is so much biological diversity in the Earth's rain forests, why so many of these organisms are so weird, and why these relationships and processes matter.

Part of the key has to do with the runaway result of an evolutionary arms races of specialization and ingenious manipulation between plants and pests, predators and prey, parasites and hosts. And underneath it all is the process of natural selection, that blind watchmaker that can produce incredible adaptations out of physical, chemical and biological necessity.

See you next week!

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Todd Akin, Republicans and "Legitimate Rape"

As you may be aware, Congressman Todd Akin has been receiving fire from all directions for his stupid, right-wing ideological, scientifically illiterate and insensitive remarks about how women who are victims of "legitimate rape" have natural physiological mechanisms to prevent pregnancies, implying that women who do get pregnant after being raped were not really raped. Everyone's been jumping on the response bandwagon, and so I can do no better than to summarize what's going on.

First we have the folks from Mr. Deity promoting the "mourning-after pill," for those ladies who may have "enjoyed their forced sexual encounter just a little too much":

And while Republicans are acting all offended by Akin's remarks, one should not forget that Akin's real sin is to make public what these heartless jerks really believe and have actually made their official party platform (and I'm talking even prominent Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee, not just fringe conservative outcasts).

Thankfully, the good folks at The Young Turks don't let these conservatives get away with these Republican bullshit public relations spins:

And if the whole idea that female bodies can prevent pregnancy due to forcible copulation does sound familiar to you, that's probably something you learned in this previous episode about sperm, but it wasn't about women... it was about ducks!

Here's a little more on that, plus some actual footage of the weird duck corkscrew penis...

And let's not lose focus about why conservatives are calling out for Akin's withdrawal from the race. It's not about their concern for women's health and reproductive rights, as if... it's about what will happen to the GOP come election time...

I swear... you cannot make this stuff up... If you care about women and their rights at all, make your voice heard in the elections, and vote these jerks out of office...

But of course, some of the best responses to this story come to us courtesy of The Onion.

First, we have the good news headline: Woman relieved to learn her rape was illegitimate.  The victim of a brutal sexual assault last month, Martha Byars confessed that “Being violently coerced into having sex was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, so I take comfort in knowing it wasn’t actually rape. Thank God for that,” she added. “I’m so relieved to know that my child’s father, the man who muffled my screams as he forcefully penetrated me over and over and left me hemorrhaging to death on the street, is not a rapist.” Hallelujah!

Then, in its story "I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is 'I Am Dumb As Dog Shit And I Am A Terrible Human Being'," we learn that this may have all been a misunderstanding based on a poor choice of words by Akin. What he really meant to say is "I am a worthless, moronic sack of shit and an utterly irredeemable human being who needs to shut up and go away forever. I am an evil, fucked-up man who should never have been elected to the United States Congress, and anyone who would vote for me is probably a pretty big fucking dumbshit, too. I am not a competent or respectable politician; I am, essentially, a subhuman monster of a prick, a prick as profoundly insensitive as he is monumentally unintelligent in every respect; somebody should apply dozens of layers of duct tape to my mouth every morning so that words are not able to exit my large, dumb, misogynist, imbecilic mouth at any point; I make the planet worse; I don’t know jack shit about any of the topics I spoke about in that interview, or about any topics at all, really; I should apologize every day to the women of the world, but doing so would most likely be an exercise in futility given my rock-bottom intellect and my complete and utter lack of human decency; I am, in no uncertain terms, not even worth the time it took you to read this."

And of course, while Akin may be an utter dumbshit, that in no way reflects GOP views, since Republicans Condemn Akin's Comments as Blemish on Party's Otherwise Spotless Women's Rights Record...

But even after all this, Akin has not withdrawn from the race, and in fact he's just barely behind his opponent, so before you faint in disbelief, you should be aware that Poll Reveals You Live In Country Where Mentally Ill Man Still Has Good Chance Of Being Senator.

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Horrifying Planet - Zebra: Nature's Ultimate Prey

When it comes to the philosophical problem of evil (the question of how an omnipotent and benevolent God would allow unnecessary suffering to exist), religious believers tend to argue that suffering is a necessary consequence of our having free will: sure, our freedom does tend to produce all kinds of nightmares every now and then, but overall, the net benefits of having free will outweigh the bad.

Whatever merit that answer may have (it doesn't), it's a great distraction from what philosophers call "natural" evil: the suffering created by non-human related causes: things like disease, animal suffering, earthquakes, etc., and the suffering and destruction experienced by non-human animals. So how do you explain that?

Well, The Onion thinks that you can do it through Intelligent (but evil) Design :)

I bet zebras hate giraffes and ostriches :)

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Why Are Termites So Rich in Protein?

If you are familiar with body-builders or just meat-heads in general, then you know that they are obsessed with protein (and probably human growth hormone and anabolic steroids and a bunch of other supplements). But if these folks are really serious about efficiency, then maybe they ought to consider what might be perhaps the best source of protein anywhere: termites :)

But why are they so rich in protein if their diet consists of woody material that has barely any nutritional value at all? The answer, as you are about to find out, is fascinating:

So at least two things are amazing about this video. First, the fact that these mechanisms have evolved. Second, the fact that scientists have figured them out :)

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Frans de Waal - Moral Behavior in Animals

As you probably know, one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God is known as the moral argument. There are variations on the theme, but one of the general ideas is that the human moral sense cannot be successfully explained by mindless naturalistic principles, partly because human morality seems to be an altogether unique phenomenon in the biological world, without any antecedents in our ancestors or parallels in our living cousins. Even some prominent biologists believe this!

But is it really true that there are no antecedents or parallels of a moral sense in other animals, or is that really just a straw man created by creationists and theologians to rationalize their beliefs? Well, whenever someone makes claims that can be easily verified empirically, we can simply turn to the evidence and see how such claims stand up to experimental scrutiny, and as world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal shows in the following TEDTalk presentation, there are all kinds of examples of moral behavior in the animal world, often including two crucial components of morality: fairness and empathy.

And yes, since de Waal is a primatologist, you can expect to see plenty of examples of monkey moral behavior, and since we're dealing with monkeys, of course there will be some hilarity :)

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Inside Nature's Giants - Kangaroo

When you read the title of this entry, your first reaction might be bewilderment. Kangaroos are among nature's giants? Well, yes and no. The largest kangaroos on record, who stood at an impressive ten feet tall, went the way of the dodo a long time ago, so their present-day descendants are not as impressive as you may expect. Still, kangaroos today are the largest living marsupials, so that helps them qualify.

But you've already come to love this documentary series full of fascinating lessons on evolutionary biology, so why are we quibbling on technicalities when we can just enjoy the awesome and truly surprising lessons in evolution that studying these and other lovable Australian animals (marsupials like wallabies and koalas, and monotremes like the platypus) can teach us?

Bet you weren't expecting to see what a young Joey looks like, huh?

And in case you're curious about the plural of platypus... it's either platypus or platypuses, but not platypi (you'd have to know a little bit of Latin to understand why).

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Scientists Discover Delicious New Species

Scientifically approved yumminess, thanks to The Onion!

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T-Rex - Warrior or Wimp?

For the last hundred years since its discovery, Tyrannosaurus Rex has ruled the public imagination as the greatest and most ferocious predator to ever live on our planet. While we all love dinosaur movies, or to visit museums and stare endlessly at their impressive skeletal structures, no one (except perhaps for a few adrenaline addicted junkies) would want to be in the vicinity of a real hungry T-Rex...

But was this even a predator? Could it have been no more than a mere scavenging vulture? What does the scientific evidence actually suggest? Well, because the data is limited and our access indirect and sometimes more circumstantial than definitive, there is a lot of speculation that has to go into these conjectures, so there are no conclusive answers just yet, but at least a few aspects of the evidence do raise some very interesting questions, as the following documentary shows:

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Inside Nature's Giants - The Camel

I've never thought much of camels, what with their lenky legs, their weird humps and simultaneously pretentious and dumb-looking ruminant mouths, I never thought these were interesting animals, but watching this documentary about them absolutely blew my mind!

As the team prepares to dissect one specimen, the main question guiding the exploration concerns how it is that these large animals have evolved to put up with the scorching heat of the desert, as well as with its scarcity of water. And when conditions are tough, that's exactly when evolution reveals itself to be that wise blind watchmaker capable of seemingly miraculous solutions that go way beyond anything you could have ever expected.

So join the team to explore the camel's anatomy and physiology, as well as its incredible evolution, as they travel to one of the most camel densely populated regions in the world: Australia. Say what???

Want more? Check out the entire Inside Nature's Giants series.

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Peter Singer - The Ethics of What We Eat

One of the recurring themes in human history has been the blindness that those in power experience with regard to those they manage to subjugate. The question of the interests of the latter seldom breach the surface of the former's consideration.

We may feel enlightened that we're way in the process of overcoming sexism, nationalism, racism and a bunch of other unjustified separations into "us" and "them," but if you just take a minute to think about it, our treatment of non-human animals, growing them, usually in unimaginably cruel conditions, only so that we may then slaughter them and enjoy their flesh (merely as a matter of taste, and not as survival, at least not in the so-called developed world), you may have to re-think, as I have this past year, whether you can call yourself a moral person when you contribute to what could be thought of as animal genocide, except in much greater numbers than anything Hitler himself could have ever hoped on his wildest wet dreams...

And as philosopher Peter Singer demonstrates in the following lecture, what you put in your mouth on a daily basis has ethical implications that go way beyond what you may have ever considered. Should you be a vegetarian? What kind, ovo, lacto, pescaterian? Vegan? Locavore? Conscientious omnivore? Flexitarian? Freegan? Are you contributing to the exploitation of animals? Of poor farmers in foreign countries? Are your food choices producing an environmental footprint that's unsustainable? Who's really paying the true costs of your eating habits? What about the ethics of obesity? Since most of us eat every day, these are all questions we might want to start thinking about as soon as yesterday...

Do you have any tips on how to transition to a more ethical way of eating? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Synthetic Biology - Playing God?

Whenever new technologies arise, such as the ability to genetically engineer biological organisms, one of the classic luddite objections is that such novelty represents human hubris as we attempt to "play God" and do something "unnatural." I've never quite understood such objections, since we run the risk of "creating life" whenever we have a few too many at the local pub and we happen to find an equally hammered partner with whom to engage in all kinds of unnatural acts. True story :)

Still, there is something to be said for the risk of unintended consequences, especially as 21st century advances in science and technology, not to mention their democratization and cheap and easy access, have the potential to produce dangers against which evolution has never had to fight. Some of these innovations are probably inevitable, so while we might not always be able to stop them, we might want to become acquainted with them so we can then start to think about how to manage and regulate them. And to introduce some of these advances, here is Adam Rutherford as he explores some of the truly state-of-the-art advances that synthetic biology is producing, starting with the spider-goat:

Unless by "playing God" people mean that he's the only one allowed to wipe most of life out of the face of the Earth...

There was an interesting interview in The Atlantic recently with philosopher Nick Bostrom on the question of whether we are underestimating the risk of human extinction. He thinks we are, and bases his calculations on what looks to me like an analogy of the Drake equation, so I'm not fully convinced (since the values we assign to such probabilities seem somewhat arbitrary), but the arguments are interesting nevertheless.

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Meet the Lampyridae (or firefly) Again

You didn't think that just because scientists have figured out how to isolate the genes that help fireflies produce light and use it to produce life-saving antibiotics, that there weren't still a hell of a lot of other applications to which these little bugs might be put to use, right?

Consider the fact that light is energy, and since the energy that goes into producing the light at the tail end of fireflies comes from ATP, and ATP is found in all living organisms (I know, high school biology flashback), now we have ourselves a little life-detecting test that can be used even in outer space exploration. Voila!

Fireflies contribute to the accumulation of knowledge through their butts... how about you? :)

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Louie Schwartzberg - The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

As a new year begins and we do what we can to leave the past in the past, however unsuccessfully, it seems rather appropriate to think about new beginnings, not only as they apply to our own individual lives but as they relate to life in general, and to the fact that life is only possible because of new beginnings.

The following captivating short film by Louie Schwartzberg captures in exquisitely fine and beautiful time lapse detail some of the intricacies that take place among the many insect, avian and mammalian animals that are responsible for helping plants perpetuate their legacy. You may think you've seen it all, but trust me, some of this footage, like the hummingbird doing acrobatics with a bee, will blow your mind.

Don't forget to check out more TEDTalks.

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Seven Wonders of the Microbe World

Bacteria, and the fact that we have to use antibiotics against them every now and then to combat powerful diseases, may conjure up nasty and scary feelings for many people, but let's not be too quick to come up with sweeping generalizations, since you yourself are more bacteria than human :)

The following video, from The Open University, illustrates some of the awesome ways bacteria have exerted an incredible influence in the world for as long as we have historical records.

You like your beer, for instance? Next time have a toast for our fellow unicellular organisms because without them, your beer would just be some nasty, bitter juice that tastes like piss :)

Oh, did I mention they also write some awesome romantic poetry? :)

And for more, check out how viruses invade your body. It's scary, but a testament to the blind ingenuity of evolution.

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Meet the Lampyridae (or firefly)

One of my favorite aspects about science is that since it's an attempt to discover how the world works, we can't assume that our a prioris and preconceived notions and expectations will be confirmed by new discoveries, or even that we could easily foresee whether and how some discoveries might turn out to be relevant to us.

Take a pretty basic and interesting question: what's up with fireflies? Why do they glow? Well, it turns out that when scientists try to answer that seemingly simple question, they end up coming up with applications that could literally save your life one day, as the following animation shows:

I totally want a glowing hamster now :)

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Inside Nature's Giants - The Big Cats

Their loud and guttural roars can send chills up and down your spine, even from great distances. If they're running for you, and you're not protected by some sort of fence, you're dinner. If giraffes, crocodiles, zebras, wildebeests and elephants all succumb to these cats' strong jaws and sharp teeth and claws, you don't stand a chance.

Lions and tigers are the largest felines in the world, and becoming top predators has required the development of some impressive adaptations.

Continuing with the Inside Nature's Giants series, the team dissects a lion and a tiger to understand the details of the anatomy and physiology of the hunt, starting with a dissection of the larynx (which produces those frightening roars), and making their way to understand their retractable claws, their muscular bodies and their powerful jaws and sharp teeth.

And while dissecting a tiger is basically enough to get a decent understanding of their evolutionary success, lions are a different story, particularly because their survival depends upon social cohesion and cooperation, since it is not unusual for them to have to take down some massive pray that no single lion could do on his/her own. But their strict social hierarchies also have some disturbing consequences...

Watching these documentaries helps me realize that I would not survive in the wild...

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Inside Nature's Giants - Polar Bear

Continuing with their exploration of the anatomy and physiology of the giants of nature, the team travels to the North Pole in search of a polar bear: the largest land mammalian predator in the world. Because of the difficulties of finding polar bears at all, never mind fresh carcasses, this episode requires the collaboration of a local hunting community whose survival depends on using every last scrap of these animals without wasting anything. And because of the weather conditions, every move is a race against the freezing clock.

Now, the first and most obvious question is just how these bears manage to withstand the intense freezing temperatures of their natural habitat. The answer, it turns out, and this should throw you for a loop, is that a polar bear is a black animal with transparent fur that looks (but isn't) white. Yeah, I was floored too.

But that's not the whole story. We also get to understand, among other things, exactly why there are polar bears to begin with and how they manage to cope with diets that would literally kill us.

Did you see the polar bear attacking that walrus that was probably twice its size?!?

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