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Can religion reduce crime?
Studying links between religious belief and crime is notoriously difficult. On a crude level, people in prisons in the USA are more likely to be religious than the general population. Of course, there...
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A Skinny Waist is Not That Important
Female Clitemnestra bipunctata carrying prey back to its nest. Copyright Bill Johnson.It's time for another post on crabronid wasps! The hard-working individual in the photo above is Clitemnestra...
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Hawaiian shirts making a come back
What?? Hawaiian shirts are making a fashion come back. When did Hawaiian shirts ever go out of style? Certainly none of the tropical biologists TPP associates with have ever stopped wearing them, and...
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Neighborhood vandalism
Vandalism just about tops the list of urban dwellers pet peeves, so when a neighbor reports being the target of vandalism, everyone gets concerned. When the vandalism kept occurring they called the...
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Winter survival supplies - fresh batteries
The Phactors were just sitting around the other evening reading the Sunday papers and assorted other periodicals, and eventually it came to their attention that they were cold. Say what? Yes, the...
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How to evolve intelligence in 7 easy steps
The September issue of Scientific American is about human evolution. It includes articles by Frans de Waal, Gary Stix, John Hawks, and others. And this one by Ian Tattersall, paleoanthropologist at the...
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Christmas present for a cat
All cat people know that the only thing to get a cat for a present is a catnip toy. Here's another of those terribly clever animations of Simon's cat. It perfectly captures the usual reaction of a cat...
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Rape Culture and Parenting
Enough with the rape threats already.As the father of a pre-teen I have concerns about the internet and online trolling/cyber-bullying. Well those birds have finally come home to roost. Today I get a...
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My New Magnets
There are two other issues that I see with the scientific name. Can anyone else find them? Add your thoughts in the comments section. This was part of my birthday present from a friend who lives in...
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Birth of a lichen
Lichens are symbiotic organisms consisting of a highly organized fungal mycelium enclosing algal cells. What's strange about lichens is that without the algae, the fungus just looks like a fungus....
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Bad arboriculture - This isn't going to turn out well
Sadly the first time TPP saw a picture like this was on a bulletin board in a school of forestry and the caption attached said, "Here's what happens when you chain your bike to a tree and come back 10...
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Tree tunnel in N. Ireland
Tree tunnels are pretty cool things. TPP pointed you to a photo essay about them once before, and this particular tree tunnel, the Dark Hedges, was included, but only one image. The link provided here...
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Tea transitions
Tea bag is paper. Vapor is from phase transition of waterIntroductory chemistry at my college has a broad audience. My students are not just potential chemistry major and pre-meds, but I teach...
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The Little Tike that is Tychus
Male (left) and female of Tychus niger, copyright Lech Borowiec.Another brief beetle post for today. The species in the image above is the type species of Tychus, a genus of about 150 species of...
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New York governor must decide today about law that protects doctors offering...
Lyme disease is carried by tiny ticks; lower right above.On Monday, the day this article appears, New York will get a new law that protects doctors who offer illegitimate therapies for a non-existent...
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Dirt vs. soil, disease vs. disorder
OK, let's get some things clear, by definition if necessary. So a lot of plant experiments, especially those done in glass houses in pots require a growth medium for the plants. While mixing up a batch...
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Hunt them varmints & vermin
Well, good old Bobcat Bill got his bobcat hunting bill (HB4226) through both houses of the Lincolnland legislature without even considering or allowing biological or ecological testimony. Here's a...
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Return home from SciAm Blogs
Greetings and welcome to this particular pond of microbes.I'm back! My wonderful time at Scientific American at The Ocelloid has come to a close, as I am currently not in the right place in life for...
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The demise of SciAmBlogs
So I hear that SciAmBlogs is undergoing a radical overhaul and shedding no less than half of its bloggers, many of whom have been with the network since its inception. This includes many whose...
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A brief history of video game graphics
Part 1: Pixel PioneersPart 2: Sprite SupremePart 3: Polygon RealmPart 4: Voodoo BloomPart 5: Future Crisis
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