aesmael

In the past year, This Week in Virology has rapidly become one of my favourite podcasts. Although, because of the way I do my podcast listening I've only heard the first few episodes from way back in 2008. After a while of not hearing one I was getting a bit worried I'd messed something up in compiling the playlist, but it turns out they'd missed a week.

The hosts are Vincent Racaniello, a virologist, and Dickson Despommier, who studies parasites. In this 2008-10-18 episode they had these adorable exchanges while working their way round from cichlid fish to talking about rabies.

Despommier: So you start mutating this gene and you get all these mouthparts. What does that sound like to you, Vince?
Racaniello, clearly unsure where Despommier is going with this: Viruses?
Despommier: Uh, that was a question. No, no, it was a broader question. It actually mimics the same situation of Darwin's finches. Darwin's finches can be controlled in terms of beak size and strength by a single gene. And if you mutate that gene in chickens you can get all of Darwin's finches represented in domestic chickens.
[...]
Racaniello: Is evolution a theory or a fact?
Despommier: Well you know, you teach this stuff enough and you start to consider it as a fact.
Racaniello: It is a fact, it's a law, Dick. Repeat after me: Evolution is a law.
Despommier: It's a rigidly controlled-
Both: *laughing*

1. Thoughts on Day One of the DNC [Maybe I should amalgamate all the Scienceblogs postings under a single heading. I find something vaguely distasteful about this and the last post from here. Maybe it is an air of self-congratulation.]
2. Effete Hollywood Elitists for McCain

1. The Future of Books [via soltice. Was expecting "E-books: Yea or abomination?" Instead, Pretty.]
2. Laser pointers banned in New South Wales after rash of attacks on pilots [via soltice. But I want one.]
3. Super Mario Girls [via soltice. Cute, yes. Not everything needs to be done with sex appeal in mind though. And since when are "fluffy clouds with faces and bubbly turtles and blocky landscapes" unmanly? But I like the picture.]
4. Cat 5 wedding rings help nerds couple [via soltice. I, uh, don't know what these actually do.]
5. Moe Angel with Headphones [via soltice. Cute cute cute! *save*]
6. Bioware devs debate whether Wii is part of gaming [via gentle_gamer. It seems an odd question to me, since the Wii seems clearly a device for playing games, but the post is just a quick summary linking to an interview. No, wait. That was a preface too. Interview here. There are lots of words there at the beginning but I am not entirely sure these people are saying anything... a bit like reading some Post-Modern discourse. It seems like an interesting question though: what counts as gaming? I want to say "playing a game". This talk of narrative... that seems like something else to me. Something called 'narrative'. Describing the experience of playing a Wii as "toy-like", or making a distinction with sports such as tennis, this seems to me like an attempt to mark gaming as a particular kind of experience, a particular approach to an activity. I think what is being gotten at is a degree of seriousness and immersion. I think it probably does constitute a bundle of approaches, any subset of which can apply at a given time, and what the Bioware folks are talking about constitutes one of these subsets. Although reading to the end of the page I think I misunderstood them a bit. I am being vague because I am tired. Possibly follow up later with input from others?]
7. Celebrate Mario Kart Wii with alternate karts, Wii wheel substitutions [via gentle_gamer. Funny.]
8. Working NES squeezed into ... an NES cartridge [via gentle_gamer. Wow, neat! This title messes with my ideas of how it should be pronounced.]
9. SIU responds to anti-feminist email [via gentle_gamer. Oh, wow! It feels so rare to see such a desirable response, it can get disheartening.]
10. The Fag Bug is back! [via gentle_gamer. That's a pretty creative and great response to vandalism. Interesting seeing the change in tone of people's responses between the first post, in which Erin Davies starts her mission, and the second post, in which it is revealed she is getting a book and film deal out of this.]

1. David Wain Moves From Wainy Days to Role Models [Who is this guy? Why do I care what he does? I fear curiosity clicking from gmail has gotten the better of me...]
2. Time to "Free the Airwaves" [Google would like people to be activist on their behalf.]
3. Top Fun Date Ideas [These are not romantic? My idea of a going-somewhere date is to do something we will enjoy, so these seem more like standard date ideas than special fun ones. Admittedly I have been on very few dates in my life, but this makes it seem like something which is supposed to be very restrained in ways which are not interesting to me. At least now I know what an Interpretive Center is.*]

1. "To kill and cure cancer, you must first understand it" [Orac is as ever verbose.]

1. The luxury of time [I've not encountered this blog before. This is... fascinating. Not much to say because processing.]

1. It's 4am [Labs are not supposed to be flooded. Unless you work in underseaology.]

1. kimberella|Larvatus Prodeo in exile So much for the religious right [Family First made barely a blip in election; I think they were split with the Christian Democrats]
2. The Merchant of Menace|The Anti-Theist and Misoclere Society Blair Admits His Delusional Psychopathy [Faith is not a justification for anything to anyone but oneself. I do not agree with the characterisation of all religious believers as delusional or liars - I believe most are simply mistaken]
3. Heather Mallick|Comment is free Top quality sleaze [I know not what to make of this]
4. Autumn Sandeen|Pam's House Blend Beginning An Occasional  Series On Hometown Activism [California Democratic Party adopts resolution supporting anti-discrimination legislation protecting transgender people]
5. ScienceWoman|On being a scientist and a woman Minnow 36: Old science project [Had not seen this blog before (I subscribed to the Scienceblogs Combined Feed once I realised I could not read all my subscriptions anyway. Looking forward to seeing more from her.]
6. David Michaels|The Pump Handle Money Changes Everything (Still More Evidence) [Links to this very interesting article on the influence of money on how doctors look at and frame the positive and negative features of drugs]
7. writerdd|Memoirs of a Skepchick Are ratings harmful? [I think they are pretty silly]
8. Tim Lambert|Deltoid Slap happy Overington [Australian journalist accused of slapping Labor candidate for Wentworth]
9. Ed Brayton|Dispatches From the Culture Wars Promote Peace, Get Harassed [Of all the responses to students wearing peace shirts and putting up posters, scrawling swastikas over them and wearing Confederate flags shirts in opposition is surely one of the worst]
10. Orac|Respectful Insolence Takin' care of business: A triple dose of...well, you don't want to know [Blog mascot picture post - man dressed as enema bottle]
11. Joseph j7uy5|Corpus Callosum Agomelatine: A New Approach For Depression [I often find this blog enlightening and interesting. This is not an exception.]
12. Austin Cline|About.com: Agnosticism/Atheism Mailbag: Purpose of Life [Go read. I tend to agree with Austin Cline. I did actually make that assumption - reincarnation is not out of line for Christians I have met. The rest I suppose flows from the language being used (English). Or, y'know, I could accept being mistaken.]
13. JP|SF Signal When Did Star Wars Jump The Shark? [Probably]
14. Jim Downey|Unscrewing the Inscrutable This is a remarkably bad idea [Just another day]
15. Ed Brayton|Dispatches From the Culture Wars Heisman Trophy: Tim Tebow [Not something I know or care about]
16. Ed Brayton|Dispatches From the Culture Wars Scalia Hires Two Orthodox Jewish clerks [The comments are... interesting]
17. Ed Brayton|Dispatches From the Culture Wars Michigan Protects Transgendered State Employees [I am slightly less pleased after rereading and seeing it is only state employees and not everyone working in the state{1}]
18. Abel Pharmboy|Terra Sigillata Docs as drug reps: a physician's inside story [Another (longer) take on the story linked at item #6]
19. PZ Myers|Pharyngula Faith is not a prerequisite for science [Paul Davies gets on my nerves too. PZ Myers does not. Blake Stacey, also awesome.]