The Large Hadron Collider was successfully activated, tested, and used today. Yeah, that same LHC that quite a few paranoid, moronic wingnuts said would destroy the Earth has been successfully started and used, and we’re still here.

What now, guys? Where’s that thunderous rhetoric about the destruction of the Earth at the hands of microscopic black holes? Where’s the doomsday you were warning about?

All that silence you’re hearing? That’s the sound of thousands of very embarrassed people, hoping to slink away unnoticed to wait for the next “big, scary thing” they can hate, while the rest of us perk up and get excited about the real science being done by real physicists and real engineers … right now.

That silence will soon be replaced by cheers as the scientists doing actual work start learning more about our universe with the help of this giant machine. Feel free to openly mock anyone you know who actually parroted the “we’re going to die because of this machine!” paranoia. It’s okay to point out they were wrong. The sky isn’t falling today. Read the full story...

Technorati Tags: Geeky Science Stupid People

Once upon a time, humanity’s prevailing belief about the Earth’s geography was that the entire world was flat, and that sailing a ship beyond the borders of the known world meant “falling off” the world, encountering dragons, and an assortment of other painful, invariably lethal oddities.

We know the world is round now, because a few people started using reason instead of fear in their explorations of the world. The first people to suggest the world is round were imprisoned and tortured to try to force them to recant. Naturally it was religious groups that did this — terrified that their “perfect” world view was going to be shattered (and that some dumbass idea from their precious bible was about to be proven wrong), they tried to suppress curiosity, exploration, and scientific endeavor. Read the full story...

Technorati Tags: Rants Science Stupid People

There’s a lot of appeal in the notion of devoting your entire life to the study of reproductive biology. Studying animals (and people) fucking to learn how and why stuff works has to be at least a little amusing. This article describing the phenomenon of “last guy to blow his wad wins” illustrates the more embarrassing side of the art of studying sex — sometimes you can get so buried in it that you don’t realize you’re stating and studying the obvious.

The best part of this article, though, comes right at the end. They’re talking about studying different animals, taking notice that the last male to inseminate a female tends to be the most successful in actually impregnating her. The last line reads “As for human examples, Hodgson said he couldn’t think of any.” I sure hope he’s just being polite, because I can think of one just in Palm Bay … she at least doesn’t mind letting plenty of different guys park in her garage, so to speak. Whether that happens in rapid succession or not is another question, I suppose, but when I lived there I sure as hell saw a different face every week sneak shamefully out of that bedroom. Bad jokes about whores aside, though, this kind of thing does seem to be a matter of “stating the obvious.” Read the full story...