More Why I Don't Drink The Stuff

While the positive effects of Alcohol have been shown - has any proof been provided that caffineted beverages like coffee and coca cola are good for you. (Luckily, tea has abundant Anti-oxidants in its favour).

I don't know how well you can really trust UK's Mirror, but they are saying that 3 cups of coffee a day can cause "substantial sperm damage".

Kissing Monkey Cousins

via Pharyngula and Cryptomundo.

Now, despite what you learned in primary school, or sunday school, or The Flinstones Christmas Special - modern theor suggests that Neanderthals are not our ancestors. They were more our cousins. A prime example of an "evolutionary deadend". But now some research has surfaced suggesting Neanderthal DNA suddenly inserted itself and spread rapidly through the global human population 37,000 years ago.

Why do they think that it came from kinky interacial Neandrthal-human sex?

"[The scientists] found that haplogroup D differed in so many bases from other versions of microcephalin that it must have arisen very early, probably a little more than 1 million years ago, according to statistical tests. Yet it appeared in modern humans only 37,000 years ago.

The Lahn group concluded that the most likely scenario was interbreeding between prehistoric modern humans and a now extinct hominid that carried haplogroup D--most likely Neandertals."

Religious "My daddy ain't no monkey" groups, and probably a broader group of "My daddy ain't having no sex with no monkey either" people, aren't going to be to welcoming to this sort of news.

37,000 years ago is a pretty long time ago. It's way before YECs think the world was created. And I think that maybe, just maybe, such prehistoric hominids might not have been so discriminating against breeding with neanderthals, especially when presented with the harsh unforgiving European climate.

There's also the other explanation - maybe we (homo sapiens) didn't lower ourselves to having sex with them, maybe they lowered themselves to having sex with us. Cryptomundo
has some interesting records of alleged Neanderthal abductions in recent times. Now I'm not so likely to accept these scenarios (some as early as 1920s), but could similar scenarios have played out before in the past. Perhaps Ugly-Duckling scenarios occured between orphans of either species.

NB: I'm aware neither Neandertal nor Homo sapiens are monkeys - get off my back.

Elephants never forget a face, not even their own

Elephants have now been granted access to the inner sanctum of animal intelligence as evidence mounts that they can recognise themselves in the mirror.

Three Asian Elephants, known as Happy, Maxine and Patty immidiately recognised the mirror as an illusory device, and not a threatening unknown animal (typical response of a cat or other non-self recognising animal). The final test off Mirror Self Recognition involves self-directed behaviour. This is using the mirror to examine oneself, and showing that vanity is an intelligence related factor, this is tested by placing a mark or blemish on the creature and seeing if it notices. Happy was given a white cross above her eye (apparently without her noticing) and when she saw it in the mirror, she began to probe about on herself, not the reflection.

The BBC has a fact sheet on other aspects of elephant intelligence.

Other animals with shown Mirror Self Recognition are humans over 2, orang-utans, chimpanzees, and maybe dolphins. Other candidates for testing include killer whales.

*almost human*science*news*elephants*msr*mirrors*recognition*self*vanity*behaviour*animals*

You call that a SMART probe?

Wikipedia is my home page on my computers, because it means from the moment I open the internet I'm learning - or some bullshit like that. What? It has a feature article, news, DYK and on this day among other things.

Anyway...
In the news this week I noticed this:

The European Space Agency's SMART-1 satellite successfully completes its mission by deliberately crashing onto the Moon.

"Delibrately crashing" into the Moon; that's not exactly a "smart" thing, or something regarded as a success - but I think it might have actually been the point of the Smart-1. Maybe. Anyway the ESA seems to be sticking to that story. Read more at BBC.

The Amazing World of Podcasts

I am getting so into Podcasts.

What got me hooked on this phenomena:

Sexy Lala at TikiBar TV (oh, it is hilarious too)

It's educational too. You get entertained and learn how to make cocktails all in one. And even better it's free. If its not free and educational, I'm not subscribing. I guess that makes me an intellectual tightwad or something. Screw you.

Anyway, after enjoying nonstop TikiTV for 3.4 hours, I needed more. What else does iTunes offer for free subscrition? Can't go past a bit of man's man How To directives straight from French Maid TV (you can't tell me that's not educational! - there is even saftey warnings).

For true educational goodness I can go to Nature's podcast, which must be clever, it's hosted by a guy with a really annoying British accent. Nevertheless, the interviews and inside science goss is pretty good. Though it does get hard to actually concentrate on other activities when you are actually trying to listen to your background noise I've found.

Another true educational (and free!) find was TalkSushi, it may not instantly make me a magnificent Japanese speaker. But, I can feel more confident knowing that i understand pretty much the whole lesson on ordering food, and of course the one on rude Japanese slang, downright. YOSH！

Japanese, British, French, and ... errr... Tiki... these are all foreign podcasts - but Asutralians are in on this gig too.

You no longer have to stay up late, at home, till about 10pm-ish to catch Chaser's War on Everything. If you are American (or anywhereelsian) and want to learn about modern Asutralia, jump on board. I'd call it Australia's answer to The Daily Show (can't get that on podcast, Comedy Central tightwads), but don't hold me on that claim. These satirists are willing to get themselves arrested in the name of good humour.

John Safran himself has acknowledged that over 2 hours of him talking about politics, news and miscellaneous crap with aged Catholic priest Father Bob could be construed torture minus the songs, nonetheless JJJ still has Sunday Safran available (and its educational too!), and i am still subscribed to it. Safran is way better suited to TV (or at least commercially broken up radio). Editing helps some people piss you off less.

Lastly I just subscribed (like as I am typing these words...) to JTV, which apparently I can download on to my PSP if I'm game for it. However I need to delete all that porn I "accidentally" downloaded into my memory card and can't get out (sadly this true). JTV better have some good Fisting to make up for it.

I just found two more podcasts that are looking good: Ask A Ninja and SciFri (which one looks more serious?)

Rogue Grass Threatens Ecosystem.... errr... maybe

I love news@nature. But you still have to understand, that although they present science in an easy to digest fashion, they're still news, and a company. Thus, they are prone to pseudo-tabloidism at times. Journalists will produce hype, support certain sponsors, and just make the occasional boo boo.

This interesting story on the escape of a rogue strain of transgenic golf course grass from a non USDA approved site, has a title that harkens of the usual doom and gloom associated with escaped GMOs.

Escaped GM grass could spread bad news

Rogue golf course strain may harm wild habitats, ecologists warn.

Now, yes they use the word "could" and "may", but its not enough, because people tend not to focus much on these words when simply scanning news.

What does the article actually say about this bio-modified menace...

"It could persist in the wild, but we wouldn't necessarily expect it to have an advantage" - EPA Official
"bentgrass would be unlikely to encounter herbicide in the wild, so its transgenic status wouldn't necessarily be an issue"

The transgene had one bad outcome: "The rampant spreading ability of bentgrass could also pass on the transgene for Roundup resistance to other grass species through hybridization", however i don't quite get this analogy "It's like Darwin on steroids". I would have thought it was like polyploidy?

The threat the grass mostly poses is by being a grass - which means it can proliferate quickly and widely and out-compete native (possible endangered) grass species, something I suspect might be a common problem caused by golf course grass;
"Sod-forming grasses can tend to outcompete other species"
"More pressing is the effect that the grasses might have on other local grass species, says Tom Stohlgren, an ecologist at the US Geological Survey's National Institute of Invasive Species Science"

It turns out to be just your average accidental introduction of an invasive species by corporate mismanagement, which, lets not underrate is a travesty in its own right. What i would have liked a bit more focus on is why was this unnaproved grass being allowed to be grown at all. And if it was approved for testing (as opposed to use), what measures were supposed to be in place to prevent this rather obvious form of spread; "seeds and pollen from the test site were dispersed by the wind." - shit, grass have seeds, and the wind can disperse them!? How come the scientists in charge weren't informed of this minor detail....