Category: Science
Skepticon and Renewed Challenges
I had the awesome opportunity to spend last weekend in lovely Springfield, Missouri. Springfield is about twenty times larger than my current city of Rolla, but still only has a population of about 440,000. Despite its puny size, about 1500 skeptics and atheists descended upon the town like a plague of secular locusts to celebrate [...]
Politically Coerced By Faith
Two weeks ago, at the vice presidential debate, the important issue of abortion was explicitly addressed for the only time out of the nationally televised two-party debates. One candidate gave an acceptable answer, but the other provided a deeply incorrect, callous, and authoritarian response. The latter view particularly highlights a dire intersection of religion and [...]
My Orgasm
It starts with a warm, tingly feeling in my toes. (As I sit here trying to think of an accurate way to describe it, the only analogy that comes to mind is electricity). Then, if the proper sensation is maintained, the warm tingle quickly moves up my legs until the current hits the fuse box [...]
Dangerous Ignorance
Content Warning: It’s an Akin story, so mentions of rape abound. Todd Akin represents much of the outer St. Louis suburbs in my home metropolitan area. On a local Sunday morning news program, he was pressed about his opposition to a woman’s choice even in cases of rape. His response and his follow-ups immediately went [...]
The Missouri Constitution’s Miserable New Amendment
On August 7th, my home state of Missouri will entertain another in a long line of constitutional changes. Amendments banning same-sex marriage, banning embryonic stem cell research, and establishing American English as the official language of the state have all been ratified in just the last 10 years. The newest proposed amendment regarding “religious freedom” follows [...]
Match Tip Theology
I read this piece about a newly discovered (adorable) species… Match-tip tiny, Brookesia micra (juvenile pictured) is the smallest of four new chameleon species found on the African island country of Madagascar. With an average adult length of just over an inch (2.9 centimeters) from snout to tail, B. micra is among the tiniest reptiles [...]
Venus in Transit
There are some things worth sitting without air-conditioning in Houston traffic for. Viewing the last opportunity in my lifetime to view the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun is one such event, and it happened yesterday! Phil Plait, @BadAstronomer, requested and received pictures from all over Earth and I highly recommend checking [...]
Q&A with @BadAstronomer
This afternoon, Phil Plait announced that we was doing an impromptu UStream live Q&A about his Top 24 Deep Space Pictures of 2011, and that he could take questions via twitter. Here was mine: Here’s the answer, paraphrased – I tried to catch it all, but he had a lot to say in a fast-paced [...]
Carl Sagan Day
On November 9th, representing the Houston Atheists, I hosted a Carl Sagan Day event at Super Happy Fun Land. Other groups were invited, including the Super Secret Science Club, the Houston Science Events meetup group, and the Greater Houston Skeptic Society. The evening began with mingling, snacks and drinking as guests filtered in. As the [...]
Grounds for Inspiration
Two weeks ago, while searching for events for the Houston Atheists to participate in, I discovered that Rice University has an observatory with a 16″ scope. Open house was that night, and later in the evening I enjoyed a cool breeze on the upper deck of Brockman Hall, viewing Jupiter, the Moon, and binary pair [...]
