James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was arrested outside the White House as he joined protesters in urging President Barack Obama to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s $7 billion pipeline. It's all fine to protest but we have to find out if he took yet another leave of absence to engage in advocacy work.   If climate scientists want to be regarded as trusted guides for complex science issues, they need to stop being kooky shills.  Hansen goes to all of these things because he leverages the NASA brand - he isn't a climate scientist by degree, he is an astrophysicist.

Penn State had no issue with research by Michael Mann and, with qualifications about his 'statistical analysis techniques', the National Science Foundation cleared him as well, so why hasn't this ClimateGate thing gone away?The University of Virginia is providing ammunition for skeptics by citing 'proprietary nature' of some material requested under a Freedom of Information Act request, forcing a court order to get it.

What, no comparisons to Hitler or Nazis?There are some people, left and right, who are never going to accept climate change, just like there are some people on the left and right who think vaccines are bad for kids.   The percentages skew more toward right for the former and more left for the latter.But is it constructive to compare them to racists?  

...reductionism will never be able to account for the role of historical contingency and accident. Even if an all-powerful being could account for all biological scenarios emerging from an initial state of the universe, it could never tell us why one particular scenario is preferred over others...evolutionary accidents by definition cannot be predicted from starting conditions because they depend on chance and opportunity. 

The discovery of a new civilization, named al-Maqar after the site's location, will challenge the theory that the domestication of animals took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia, said Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism&Antiquities in Arabia.The site also includes remains of mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is one Republican who doesn't seem to be a big fan of science but, regardless of what you may read, he is not the norm.  Pres. George W. Bush was also criticized as being 'against' science despite doubling funding of the NIH and boosting a NASA program which had declined throughout the 1990s.Most people don't recall President Ronald Reagan as advocating for more spending of anything - he was distrustful of Big Government and the nation agreed with him after the bloated government spending of the 1960s and the 'stagflation' of the 1970s.But he was a fan of more spending in one area - science.

Josh Rosenau at Scienceblogs tackles some criticism leveled at people who don't think all religious politicians (and voters) should be met with scorn and derision, a la the Richard Dawkins way.The topic is, of course, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who plays to the fundamentalist base among Republicans by noting that evolution 'has some gaps', a wink to religious folks who don't believe in it at all (though they are few, and nearly as many Democrats, as I noted).

Some psychologists have decided that the ratio of face height and width determines aggression.  Yes, your facial ratio is deterministic.   How so?

In 1963, Jerry Gretzinger began doodling, a rectangle with a crosshatch that looked like a top down view of a housing plan.   Then he began expanding it until he created an entire fantasy world, composed of nothing but hand-painted maps he has created for no reason at all, other than loving it.It's alive to him, it changes.See this amazing story and you'll be wondering just like we all are; "Will Ukrainia be saved?"

On August 15th, the closeout memorandum for the Office of Inspector General at the National Science Foundation agreed with two reviews commissioned by Pennsylvania State University which cleared climate researcher Michael Mann of allegations regarding research integrity, including allegations of research misconduct, specifically (1) falsifying research data (2) concealing, deleting or otherwise destroying emails, information or data (3)misusing privileged information and