I think this article should have used a more restrained title, such as the one modeled here. The TOP 5 ... YOU MUST KNOW NOW!!! link-baiting technique is bizarre in an article published in Scientific American that includes over a dozen references and introductory clauses like "Much of my research" and other phrases unlikely to make your typical listmania.


But there was some interesting information in this fairly brief, cogent-yet-learned piece about current evolutionary biological research on penguins. For instance:

[T]he most ancient penguin fossils are amongst the oldest fossils discovered from any group of living birds. Waimanu ("Water Bird" in Maori) is the earliest known fossil penguin taxon...Pachydyptes was a true giant, but it is hard to reconstruct how big the species actually was because we only have a few pieces of the skeleton...we are also discovering that extinct penguin species had different body plans. Some were short and stout, while others were tall and slender.

Read it here at the Scientific American website.

Thank you Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Miss Bee and I had the good fortune to run into a keg of The Dissident last night at Papago. From my review on Beer Advocate:

In this corner, weighing in at 10.5% alcohol by volume and 30 international bittering units, a sour Flanders Oud Bruin hailing from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon: The Dissident. [Raucous cheering]

Full review here. Get some if you can. Image and more information from the Deschutes website.

"I always follow my plan 100 percent, even if I know I'm going to fail."

Ron Artest.

I can't believe I would even consider blobbing about this jackass, this jerk who punched a paying customer in the stands, got himself run out of Chicago and Indianapolis...The Brawl at the Palace.

But he honestly sounds kind of great, if a little eccentric. Extended quote:

"[H]e's raffling off the $26,000 championship ring he won to pay for school psychiatry. So far, the raffle -- go to RonArtest.com -- has raised nearly half a million dollars...the money will pay for "at least eight school therapists," he says.

"I needed a therapist when I was a kid," says Artest, who was suspended every single year of his elementary school career. "I needed one real bad. I want kids to know that what they're going through, they're not alone."

Admirable. It's crazy...it's a totally not-crazy thing to fund help for kids that teachers call crazy. And we still call Ron-Ron crazy...as Rick Reilly says "Four parts crazy, one part brilliant".

Also: "Don't all Game 7 heroes thank their psychologists?" And: "There's 1,000 plays in the Triangle. It's such a challenge. I get so frustrated about it, I have to call my psychologist."

Who is this guy? Find out more, some bits less flattering than those here, from Rick Reilly's ESPN commentary page.

More:

"I ask Jackson why he's playing Artest fewer minutes this season. "I'm not," Jackson says. "Ron overheard [substitute forward Matt Barnes] asking me for more playing time, so he's been raising his hand just to get Matt more time."

Why, Ron Ron?

"Because we're a team. I just want to win another title. Who cares about minutes? Who cares about points?"

Uh, everybody else?"

All the articles today in the Science Times were about puzzles and games. Check it out. It inspired me to do the crossword.

No Old Lace. (Sidenote: Love those old movie, ahem, picture trailers.)

Kottke comments. T. Cowen comments, with links.

*Another take: "Scientists have found a form of life that they claim bends the rules for life as we know it. But they didn’t need to go to another planet to find it. They just had to go to California."

Zing, Zimmer.

*The upshot, according to Ars Technica:

"The researchers’ discovery that bacteria can substitute phosphorus with arsenic in the backbone of DNA has significant implications for evolutionary chemistry and astrobiology, since it suggests that life won't necessarily be limited to the six elements it favors here on Earth."

*On the satire tip, Doyle Redland, of the Onion News Network, is here to tell us about concerned parents demanding that arsenic be removed from the periodic table.

"Finally, the narcissist, who longs for the approval and admiration of others, is often clueless about how things look from someone else’s perspective. Narcissists are very sensitive to being overlooked or slighted in the smallest fashion, but they often fail to recognize when they are doing it to others."

Remind you of anyone? Of course it does...

Narcissism is slated for removal from the DSM-V, along with three other personality disorders. In my neck of the woods, Asperger's Syndrome is also being left out, much to the chagrin of those who self-identify.

*Note*
All photos used on this blob are used under a creative commons license from flickr, unless otherwise noted. This one is by Cayusa.