– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Inspired by: Cavalcanti, S.M.C. and Knowlton F.F., 1998. Evaluation of physical and behavioral traits of llamas associated with aggressiveness toward sheep-threatening canids. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 61(2): 143-158 Franklin, W.L. and Powell, K., 1993. Guard llamas. Iowa State University—University Extension Publication, Ames, IA, 12 pp. Markham, D., 1990. Llamas Are the Ultimate: Training, Feeding, Packing, Hunting, Fishing, and Care. Snake River Llamas, Idaho Falls, ID, pp. 8–14. Markham, D., 1993. Warning to coyotes; this sheep ranch is guarded by llamas. Rocky Mountain Livestock Journal, Dec.-Jan., 29–33. Meadows, L.E. and Knowlton, F.F., 2000. Efficacy of guard…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – And lo, it came to be that God was sitting around in his Lazy-God recliner one quiet millennium, and He sayeth unto His Godlike self: “God is bored and needs some entertainment.” And lo, God created the Earth and all it’s inhabitants without getting up from the Lazy-God chair, even whence God needed the occasional short beer break while working, still He did not leave His chair, but simply reached into His Almighty Demi-God Fridge which He always keepeth beside the Lazy-God chair. Late in the week, as one Godlike afternoon twinkled into evening, God…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – SETTING: A Starbucks in L.A. – three celebrities are sitting at a table with their coffees and sharing a newspaper, a fourth is walking towards the table with his coffee. FADE IN MICHAEL KEATON (Approaching the table) Man, I really need this now. (Sits down, whilst the others nod or wave). Is there a free section of paper? ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER You vant the sports section? MICHAEL KEATON Sure. (Takes the paper and starts looking at the front page) (A few minutes of silence as everyone reads their newspaper) HITLER (Slams his paper down and stands…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Parenting can be very difficult. And when you become a new parent, people will give you hundreds and hundreds of books about how to be a good parent. But what they don’t tell you is that there are secrets to parenting that you will not find in any book, even one from a bookstore. These secrets have been handed down generation to generation, parent to parent for eons. I learned them from my mother and she learned them from her father, who learned them from his Great Aunt Larry. And so on and so on.…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Because the deadly scourge of thamnophobia moves slowly, many of its social, political, and economic effects have yet to be understood. The impact is hard to overstate. But we must be up to the task. The other day, I was talking to a colleague, a highly educated and intelligent person who is usually capable of insightful logic, understatement, and restraint. When the topic turned to President G.W. Bush. Suddenly, the conversation began to sound like this: “That g@#$#$%&#$%^m@$n Bush #&$#&$%^ !!!! 2#$^@ damn 3 f$%^@k$%^@$%g neocons s#o$n%@of# b$%t@#c%h hitler!!!!! @#$%@$%^#$ Karl Rove a@s#$s%h@ #ol$%e hell…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – THEORY A public job listing for an animal euthanist will go over poorly. SCIENTIFIC STUDY 1:17 PM – The following is posted in the Jobs section of Craigslist: Seeking Experienced Euthanist for Animal Facility New Jersey animal science facility seeks an experienced Euthanist. You should be skilled in euthanizing not only standard test dogs and cats, but also horses, pigs, rabbits, monkeys and various rodentia, some birds. If you do not have this experience we will be willing to provide training to an individual with the right qualifications. This is a full-time job with health…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Let us marvel at the proliferation of the term “ome”. First off – let’s define the term “-ome”. As near as I can tell, it means “whole” or “mass”. “-ome” takes into account the totality of a thing – it defines a field. Hence the “genome” is the sum of all genetic stuff and the first “-ome” I remember encountering – “biome” – is the complete collection of living and non-living components within a defined region. In addition, my thesis (as far as I understand it) deals in the realm of pharmacogenomics, a term that…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Participants Me: Against Cloning My Younger Twin Brother: For Cloning The Moderator Introduction MODERATOR: Tonight’s debate is on a topic meriting serious discussion: the ethics of cloning. Our participants are two outspoken proponents of opposing positions. Because it is a question for all of society, we have decided to include all and not simply the ‘academic elite.’ Justin, you are going to argue that Cloning should be abandoned in any civil society? ME: That’s correct. MODERATOR: And your brother is going to argue that cloning is a scientific option worth exploring? MY TWIN BROTHER: That’s…

– FROM THE ARCHIVE – Physicists often state their belief that all biologists would rather be physicists, but became biologists only because they were not very good at math. As evidence for this, they point to such findings as the fact that the vast majority of published studies in virology, cell biology, endocrinology, and even microbiology, use few if any partial differential equations or elements of number theory, and only one paper written by a biologist in the past 25 years (in the field of neurophysiology) has ever used tensor calculus. On the surface, this would seem to be a…