My office mate’s sixth grader brought home the following math homework: Marbles come in 10 colors. There are always seven marbles in a bag, always of seven different colors.How many bags would you need to be 100% certain of having 10 marbles of the same color? I logically arrived at 91 marbles clinching it, so […]

An interesting article on irrationality, inter alia. “In short, the evolutionary design features of the human brain may well hold the key to our penchant for logic as well as illogic.” Consider the following problems: Problem 1: “Imagine that you are confronted with four cards. Each has a letter of the alphabet on one side […]

This book is gaining attention: “Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love” by Betsy Prioleau. A study of “50 of the world’s most famous seductresses — from Cleopatra to Catherine the Great to Mae West” it makes the point “that physical beauty was not — and is not — a […]

This Economist article on the above topic is interesting, especially the graphs showing an inverse relationship between American and European responses as to “Religion plays an important role in my life” and the most important function of government is “to guarantee no one is in need.” Europe is increasingly effete for a reason. Might American […]

The frontiers of science keep expanding. New research indicates that bubbles observed coming out of a herring’s anus produce a high pitched noise that may aid in keeping the shoals together after dark.

Johannes Kepler has a good a claim as anyone to be the father of empiricism. He was the first to formulate scientific “laws” based on rigorous observation (e.g. Planets travel in ellipses- based on Brahe’s meticulous observations of Mars’ orbit). His first book, the Mysterium Cosmographicum, published at age 25 in 1596, singehandedly makes the […]

Rush Limbaugh is a junky and has checked into drug rehab. No link necessary-that’s the declarative fact. That’s the most valuable public service he has ever performed. Mark this date as commencing the United States’ treatment of drug addiction as a genetic/medical issue rather than a matter for the criminal justice system.

“52 percent of Levites of Ashkenazi origin have a particular genetic signature that originated in Central Asia, although it is also found less frequently in the Middle East,” according to a new report. “The ancestor who introduced it into the Ashkenazi Levites could perhaps have been from the Khazars, a Turkic tribe whose king converted […]

Excerpt from Tony’s Blair’s speech to the U.S. Congress yesterday: “The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify around an idea. And that […]

A dustup over Dusty Baker’s physiological assessment of certain Cubs. Baker stands by his assertion that black and Hispanic players can take the heat better than whites. Great defense: “I’m not playing the race card. I’m telling it like it is,” Baker said.

The MIT OCW “Course 7.03: Genetics” from MIT Professors Chris Kaiser and David Page features 36 Lecture notes addressing the structure and function of genes, chromosomes, and genomes. Also offered: “The 7.03 Bible,” a set of detailed study guides, problem sets, and exams from 1993 through 2001.

Imbler State University has onlined the Linus Pauling Papers, including scanning and indexing forty-six research notebooks spanning the years 1922 to 1994 : “The notebooks contain many of Pauling’s laboratory calculations and experimental data, as well as scientific conclusions, ideas for further research and numerous autobiographical musings.” Interesting stuff; see esp. books 1-13 containg his […]

Most mammals are hairy beasts. Short article on what we and naked mole rats are up to; Gene/culture evolution seems an interesting idea.Also, this NewScientist anthology loosely grouped on human nature, including Dennett on free will.

Genes are at your mercy, says Matt Ridley in this short essay, which appears to be an extended abstract of his recent book, reviewed infra by Razib.

Interesting new study: “Human beings may have made their first journey out of Africa as recently as 70,000 years ago… Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the researchers estimate that the entire population of ancestral humans at the time of the African expansion consisted of only about 2,000 individuals. -Martin Posted by martin […]