The Fungus in Your Cheese Is Having Weird Sex — Well, this certainly explains a lot.
Schrödinger's gardenia: Does biology need quantum mechanics? — A review of the processes that might exploit quantum weirdness.
Ediacaran study shakes the tree of life — Ah, science.
Are genes our puppet masters, or just a single link in a complex chain? — Jim Watson goes after the epigenetics fans.
PartiallyClips on the oddities of the medical pain scale — I've actually had a version of this conversation.
Health-themed greeting cards fill a supportive niche — Hah! (Via Lisa Costello.)
Google from the 1960s — This is way too much fun. It rewards time spent playing. (Via @gabrielle_h.)
The iPhone Gets an Answer to Google Now — Siri gets some competition from an app that offers answers to search queries you haven’t even made yet. Interesting but spooky.
Google Maps back on iPhone after Apple software fiasco — Finally, an end to Apple's corporate dick-waving at the expense of millions of customers. No more Apple Maps for me.
Surprising Source of Tsunamis — Meteotsunamis. Huh. Obvious enough in its way, after the fact. (Via Daily Idioms, Annoated.)
Vast Alien River System Spotted on Saturn’s Moon Titan — Ooooh. (Via
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corwynofamberDNA testing frees man who lived on death row for 15 years — Ah, justice. [A]cademic studies […] suggest that 2% to 4% of death-row inmates are probably innocent. “If that was the rate of failure of airplanes,” he says, “would you fly?” (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)
Another Tragedy, Another Missed Opportunity To Talk About Gun Control — Charles Pierce with comments on the Oregon shootings. [C]rimes involving the easy availability of firearms are swiftly isolated as individual events, pried loose from any social and political contexts, and even separated from the context of other, similar crimes. It is never time to talk about them.
Carney shuts down WH press conference after being asked about Prop 8 case — Classy, Obama administration. Standing up for what is right is part of what won you the election. You might consider it as policy going forward. If you're going to be evasive on questions like this, you might as well join the black helicopter brigade on the other side of the aisle. All you're doing is pissing off your own constituency while feeding paranoid wingnut victimization fantasies.
Do corporations pray? — [W]e are, however, living in a Golden Age of imagined religious persecution, in which the seasonal gestures of department stores are a grievous injury to the faithful, and the inability to make public policy consistent with religiously-based political views is deemed martyrdom. Yes, the erosion of Christian privilege in America from absolute supremacy to merely overwhelmingly dominant is definitely seen as persecution. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)
Lie of the Year: the Romney campaign's ad on Jeeps made in China — It was the Jeep-to-China ads that really sealed my understanding of the cheap, cynical opportunism of Mitt Romney and confirmed his poor character. Not that there wasn't plenty of evidence prior to that.
The Importance of Foreign Policy Knowledge — Despite his “clear set of principles,” Romney’s lack of knowledge about foreign policy issues frequently led him to make poor choices and caused him to say foolish things that wrecked whatever credibility he might have had. Romney is a prime example that a “set of principles and a vision to go along with it” aren’t nearly enough.
?otD: What's your favorite color?
12/13/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo brain)
Hours slept: 8.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours stationary bike ride
Weight: 219.4
Number of FEMA troops on my block enforcing international law and Kenyan Muslim socialism: 0
Currently reading: The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks