But the core finding is that most Internet users do not stay within their communities. Most people spend a lot of time on a few giant sites with politically integrated audiences, like Yahoo News.

via Riders on the Storm – NYTimes.com. Interesting one study finds that the idea of people avoiding web sites that differ from their own point of view isn’t so true. However this is hard to rationalize with my thoughts of most people that I know. It’s far more likely the ideologues only visit a few sites and most everyone else floats from site to site as the study suggests.

The food portions depicted in paintings of the Last Supper have grown larger – in line with our own super-sizing of meals, say obesity experts.

The Cornell University team studied 52 of the most famous paintings of the Biblical scene over the millennium and scrutinised the size of the feast.

They found the main courses, bread and plates put before Jesus and his disciples have progressively grown by up to two-thirds.

via BBC News – Last supper ‘has been super-sized’, say obesity experts. Not really surprising but interesting.

The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.

via Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows – NYTimes.com. Just saying.

What I started to notice was that the anti-VAX “movement” didn’t have any real evidence backing its reasoning. There were many sad stories (and many of them were truly heartbreaking) correlating autism and other diseases with vaccines. There were a lot of anecdotes. Yet no evidence. And I was looking for evidence. Facts.

via Skeparent – Posts – Why we changed our minds and started to vaccinate.. Something to consider with regards to the earlier post on vaccines.

The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR vaccinations and autism acted unethically, the official medical regulator has found.

via BBC News – MMR scare doctor ‘acted unethically’, panel finds.

The book essentially tells us to forget the notion that “genius”, “talent” or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses. Instead, as the American inventor Thomas Edison said, genius is 99 per cent perspiration – or, to be truer to the data, perhaps 1 per cent inspiration, 29 per cent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 per cent perspiration. Examine closely even the most extreme examples – Mozart, Newton, Einstein, Stravinsky – and you find more hard-won mastery than gift. Geniuses are made, not born.

via How to be a genius – life – 15 September 2006 – New Scientist.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.

via Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’ – Times Online.

So, to summarize, whether one becomes popular in middle school is largely out of one's conscious control because it is mostly based on one's physical appearance during the early middle school months. If you just don't have the right look, there is very little you can do to overcome it, except if you have amazing communications skills. If you are able to be so charismatic and engaging that people think you are cool even though you look like a 12-year-old Danny DeVito, then you can join student council and crack everyone up with your humor and get people to like you and accept you into the social elite. Often times, though, you'll notice that the people with great inter-personal skills are usually better-looking, because the two complement and reinforce one another in a positive cycle: Good-looking kids get more attention and have more opportunities and incentives to develop their inter-personal skills because they receive even more rewards in terms of positive attention, and repeat …

via Philip Guo – On Popularity.

In the newsletter Rep. Neugebaur talks about Pres. Obama’s recent decision to reverse a Pres. GW Bush era policy of restricting government funding on any new human embryonic stem cell lines created after Aug. 9th 2001. Quoting from the newsletter (emphasis mine):

Today, President Obama reversed the Bush Administration’s policy of banning federal funds from going to research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

I am disappointed in President Obama’s executive order. I strongly believe the rights of the unborn need to be protected from the point of conception, which is why I cannot support the use of tax dollars to fund research that millions of Americans, including myself, believe destroys human life.

The major advances in stem cell research have come from adult stem cells, not embryonic ones.  Several findings have recently been made that show stem cells found in umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, and bone marrow tissue have the same flexibility as embryonic stem cells.  Research using adult stem cells is being used to treat diseases, and taxpayer research dollars should go toward advances that are producing results.

Let’s discuss some of Rep. Neugebauer’s points, most importantly the “believe destroys human life”. Not that it does destroy human life, because well there is no evidence of such, just people’s belief that it does. There is no evidence of any such destruction of human life in those blog posts, articles or links presented by Google, in fact most of them talk about just the opposite, about how scientific research is making it less and less necessary for stem cells to be grown in the labs from human embryo’s.

Update: I made a mistake, but it actually works out favorably. According to Scientist and Engineers for America: “The Executive Order does not affect the prohibition on using federal funding for creating destroying, or discarding human embryos. This prohibition first became law in 1996 and is known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment. Subsequent laws appropriating money for the Department of Health and Human Services all carry this prohibition (shown here in H.$. 3043, the 2008 appropriations for HHS). After today, federal dollars can go toward research on hundreds of cell lines in existence, but not to creating new lines.” So Rep. Neugebauer can’t even claim that federal dollars are going towards destroying human embryos. Sorry about the mistake.

Which might make you ask, so what’s the big deal about the executive order then if it really isn’t needed? Two points here, first of all that science has yet to find a fully reliable source for stem cells as embryos grown in the lab. Second to quote PZ Myers: “You don’t get to hobble the horse and then complain that it hasn’t won any races!” So first of all to fully find a reliable source of stem cells that doesn’t involve growing embryos scientist need to study actual embryonic stem cells (embryonic stem cells have the unique characteristic of being the most adaptable and thus the best avenue for areas of stem cell research). Also Rep. Neugebauer wants to say that the research hasn’t presented anything of any value while at the same saying that science should somehow magically produce results with the main source of science funding cut off. Okay I have a business and decide to cut off 90% of their funding, let’s see the company produce something wonderful, sure.

My final point along this topic is that Rep. Neugebauer or more likely one of his staffers hasn’t linked to a single news article or scientific paper in any of his newsletters describing his actions or providng a more thought out reasoning for why he thinks the way he does. Though what’s to be expected when Obama is the first president “to speak about data in his inaugural address, and only the second to mention statistics.”

That to me is the absolute saddest state in American politics that our presidents aren’t more willing to use data and statistics to back up why they make decisions that they do.

My hope is that we can change this chart around at some point.

Chart Belief in Outrageous Statements