Scintilla

There have been some rogue postings here as I have tried to get to grips with an alternative blogging system for other purposes; I have deleted them, and apologize for any confusion. If anyone found some windfarm stats and a list of Copenhagen side events useful, I’m glad, but this ain’t the place for that. Secondly, but of more lasting significance, belated apologies to David Schwartzman for mispelling his name in Eating the Sun. He is a man of single n. He is also a man with some interesting views about the origin of photosynthesis derived, in part, from his belief that the early earth was a very warm place indeed. If you want to catch up with these beliefs, try “Cyanobacterial Emergence at 2.8 Gya and Greenhouse Feedbacks” David Schwartzman, Ken Caldeira & Alex Pavlov, Astrobiology 8, 187-203 | doi:10.1089/ast.2006.0074 The idea of a hot early earth was questioned in a recent Nature paper

The Machinist, a 2004 film directed by Brad Anderson, features the emaciated skeleton of Christian Bale as a haunted character named Trevor Reznik. He suffers from chronic insomnia ("haven't slept in a year" [which is impossible]), a cleanliness obsession that compels him to scrub his hands and bathroom floor with bleach, and a massively unhealthy case of anorexia complete with regular weigh-ins.Reznik was involved in a horrible tragedy, is an outcast at work (even before causing an accident that amputates a co-worker's arm), and begins interacting with elusive individuals. You wonder how he has the energy to do anything, let alone work in a machine shop. He can only find solace in the arms of the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold, with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the typecast role. While they're in bed together, it seems the petite Jason Leigh might crush him.I recently watched the film for the first time, and Bale's anorexic body obviously played the starring role.

Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York confirmed that the Hobbits, or Homo floresiensis, are indeed a separate “human” species instead of a population of diseases Homo sapiens. The 7th Human Evolution Symposium, Hobbits in the Haystack: Homo floresiensis and Human Evolution was held this year at Stony Brook. A recent full-body reconstruction of LB1, the ‘little lady of Flores’, by the Parisian paleoartist Elisabeth Daynès. (©2009, S. Plailly/E. Daynès—Reconstruction Atelier Daynès Paris). Photo from The geometry of hobbits: Homo floresiensis and human evolution. Cranial comparison between LB1 (Homo floresiensis) and modern human. Photo from www.bbc.co.uk Height comparison between modern humans and Homo floresiensis. Illustration from www.amnh.org

In shocking news just in, record heavy rain in the Lakes and extensive flooding has not been linked to global warming. Dr Bogus, spokesman for the Made-Up Institute of Twaddle, said "This is completely unprecedented. Normally, any unusual - or even merely somewhat uncommon - weather event is immeadiately linked to global warming. All of the usual Pinko suspects have failed us in this case. The best we have so far is "David Balmforth, a flooding expert at the Institution of Civil Engineers, said deluges on a similar scale will become more frequent as a result of climate change." and that is very weak. But in breaking news, the Torygraph has supplied the void with "The flooding in Cumbria is part of a pattern of weather which shows that global warming is occurring faster than anyone expected, says Geoffrey Lean."

Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America:

by shaferlens Amaizing: Corn genome decoded: [Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news] In recent years, scientists have decoded the DNA of humans and a menagerie of creatures but none with genes as complex as a stalk of corn, the latest genome to be unraveled. [More] Sweet corn story begins in UW-Madison lab: [Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news] This week, scientists are revealing the genetic instructions inside corn, one of the big three cereal crops. Corn, or maize, has one of the most complex sequences of DNA ever analyzed, says University of Wisconsin-Madison genomicist David Schwartz, who was one of more than 100 authors in the article in the journal Science. [More] New maize map to aid plant breeding efforts: [Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]