Murs is a scientist too!

WARNING: Twitter Will Kill You With Swine Flu

APORKALYPSE NOW!

What is Twitter? I don't know from personal experience, but I've heard that it is something on the Internet where people post random things and then make random comments about other people's random things. And then they all pleasure each other anally. Apparently, since the "outbreak" of "Swine Flu" (otherwise known as BACON LUNG), people have been just cold freakin' out on Twitter about it and randomly stringing together words that may or may not form complete sentences. The result is a lot of misinformation about Swine Flu emanating from Twitter, not unlike the stink lines that come out of poop in cartoons. So basically, if you get Swine Flu, it's because Twitter, the end. This is certainly not a feather in the cap of the Internet's darling micro-blogging site. It is, however, a feather in the cap of this macro-blog, because - ummmm - Twitter is stupid?

Here is Another Informative Swine Flu Website:

http://doihaveswineflu.org/

OH SHIT PS PASSES 10,000 UNIQUE VIEWS

We work hard for those page views, so hard for those page views...

LOL WUT? When we weren't paying attention (between 4PM and 11PM today) Praise Science passed 10,000 unique page views. Although the awesomeness of all PS contributors and all PS articles and all PS readers is undeniable, we have to admit that many of these page views came from random Google searches. But, if we weren't so awesome to begin with, then Google wouldn't have ranked us so high in all related searches to begin with, right?

The "It's Natural" Argument

Anyone familiar with the late night ads for penis engorging or age reducing herbal supplements is also familiar with the argument that objects coming from nature are in all cases beneficial to us Humans. But let's look at some things that come from nature:

Sharp Teeth: Made by Nature

Found in a Forest near you!

I'm now on the DHS blacklist for googling anthrax

Seriously people, don't listen to Rep. Bachmann. Nature is trying to kill you. At all times. Watch out.

Should You Be Worried About Swine Flu?

Is this guy worried about Swine Flu? Not so much.

This website will answer this burning question for you: http://shouldibeworriedaboutswineflu.com/

Twitter to Facebook Swine Flu transmission confirmed

I lol'd.

Your Praise Science Swine Flu Coverage Begins Now.

Alt LOLCaption: I CAN HAZ PANDEMIC???

As most of you probably now, the world now has to worry about human transmissible Swine Flu along with its countless other awesome problems. It was suggested to us, by loyal reader Betsy, that Praise Science should have an on going special feature covering interesting, relevant, a funny news regarding Swine Flu and its funny name. This is an awesome idea Betsy. SWINE FLU COVERAGE STARTS NOW! So any of you contributors lurking out there, look for PS worthy news on SWINE FLU and make sure to include the SWINE FLU tag. Also, you readers, do the same and email us at praisescience@gmail.com if you come across anything good.

Earth Day Followup...

Comedy Central's Indecision Forever blog posted this funny (and relevant) thing entitled "Top Five Dumbest Pieces of Internet Pollution this Earth Day". Here is the best part:

Natch.

Conclusion: We need an Internet Earth Day too, where idiots and mouth-breathers are BANNED FOREVER from not only the Internet, but their computers, and summarily given a courtesy card. Hopefully, this would this help reduce the amount of soul-destroying bullshit (streaming in mainly from wing-nut message boards and comment pages) that is clogging up the Tubes. It will also single-handedly solve the global climate/energy crisis by reducing global computer usage by 95% (read: 95% of the people using the Internet are retards/Internet polluters). All problems solved, forever. BAN HAMMER FTW.

Happy Belated Birthday Hubbel

The lovable billion dollar telescope celebrated its 19th birthday on Friday.  Years before you transfered megabytes of info from your bluetooth enabled phone, the Hubbel was transferring terabytes of info a year from SPACE.  It has traveled more than 2.8 billion miles while circling the earth.  And it is one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built: scientists have published over 7,500 scientific papers from Hubbel data.  Praise science.  It outlasted GeoCities by 4 years and its still going strong.  Here's to another 19 years and continued enjoyment at the planetarium.

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

The thing about science is, it's useful for knowing things and proving things and stuff like that. Facts. Science is full of 'em. BUT RANDOMLY SAYING THINGS DOESN'T MAKE IT SCIENCE. Even if you use a fancy bar graph.

You know the one about the crazy old cat lady? Like if you don't do what girls are supposed to do and get married and have a bunch of babies, you'll end up with a bunch of cats with elaborate names, smelling like cat piss and eating microwaved dinners and watching like, Matlock?

Fast Cities came up with a hypothesis, which was something like "the cat friendliest US cities will also be the places where cat ladies dwell." They test it by comparing some data from the US Census and some other wierd ranking of "Cat Friendliest Cities" made by the "CATalyst Council." They are able to reach this scientific conclusion: "Not even close!" How do they reach this conclusion? Because more single men than single women live in these "cat friendliest" cities.

And they include a graph:





So, that means literally nothing. It is like saying sometimes it rains and also I like hamburgers. There are so many variables in this. How many cats do these single men own? How many cats do the single ladies own? Has anyone put a ring on it? Are these men moving to Tampa because they hear they treat cats real nice there? Are they in pursuit of crazy cat ladies, thus throwing off the data? Could we possibly get a psychologist in on this team of geniuses, to determine the level of crazy?

GeoCities: An Ode to Thee

My homepage from 1996-1998

10 years ago (that's 1999 people, had you even heard of the Internet then? If anything defines the dotcom boom, it is this), Yahoo bought GeoCities for over 4 BILLION DOLLARS. This is fucking insane. I never realized this. Now Yahoo has announced that it is shutting down GeoCities for good, sometime later this year.

I was going to write something funny and nostalgic about GeoCities, and how in retrospect it really sucked balls but how like half of my life on the Internet was characterized by using library computers to do WebCrawler and Lycos searches for Super Nintendo cheat codes and Star Wars trivia that yielded poorly formatted GeoCities pages. Instead, I think it's appropriate to reflect on actually how fucking badass GeoCities was for being 2.0 before anyone else ever thought of that shit. It's true. Although GeoCities was/is home to 95% of the Internet's worst HTML, it also is one of the first websites that allowed users to easily create and share their own content with other people on the web. If that concept sounds familiar, it is because EVERYTHING YOU DO ON THE INTERNET TODAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS WHAT PEOPLE ON GEOCITIES WERE DOING 15 YEARS AGO. Minus the scrolling text marquees and .gifs, that is. Unless you are still using MySpace. For Science's sake, PS is Web 2.0 as it gets. Thank Science for GeoCities!

In any event, I guess it's time to migrate my My Little Pony fansite from GeoCities to AngelFire. I hear that is the new hot ish...

p.s. I wonder if Yahoo was ever able to recover the $4bill they sank into GeoCities? HAHA WE DOUBT IT. It may have been ahead of its time in some ways, but as far as dolla dolla bills go, the 21st century has got the 1990s beat. Can you say MONETIZATION???

This one goes out to a very special planet...

"Earth (my favorite planet)" by woodleywonderworks

Earth! What's up! It's your day!

Yesterday, not so much. Sorry about that, but it's hard to aim for a garbage can when I'm speeding down the freeway in my Hummer. Especially since I can't roll down the windows and waste the air-conditioning that I have to blast! to the max! since it's getting hotter and hotter every year. Ha ha, global warming.

Anyway, I promise not to throw my styrofoam out the window, or my cigarettes, or the gasoline tanks that take up precious room in my awesome Hummer. Today is about you! It's the day to recycle! Even toilet paper! Literally, the sky's the limit, according to chemists. No hairspray in an aerosol can for me!

Actually, I figured out that while my carbon footprint is over twice the average in the world, for an American, I'm doing pretty good! My carbon emissions level is half the level of the average American, in fact! Find out yours, and what you can do to lower it, by using the Carbon Footprint Calculator.

Science, Protect Stephen Hawking!

Stephen Hawking is in the hospital and is reportedly very ill :( :( :( This is totally shitty news. Keep this true Knight of Science in your thoughts. We hope he has a quick and complete recovery!

Robot Penguins

I like robots. Their stiff, mechanical movements evoke nostalgia for the robots of Sci-Fi lore, and hope for the future were robots will clean my entire home, instead of just vacuuming the carpet. However, there is a strong Uncanny Valley effect with robots that replace rigidity with life-like fluid movements. The FEMA Big Dog video wherein they kick to robot, and it stumbles over itself before finding balance is one example. These new autonomous swimming penguin robots create the same weird feeling that soon enough, these robots will grow tired of being kicked, poked, and prodded, and just subjugate the entire Human Race.

March of the Bionic Penguins (Genre: Horror)

God Banned From Facebook for Violating TOA

TROLLZ == BANNED!!!!1

Pirates Are Suddenly News Again to People That Aren't 10 Years Old

Artist's rendition of pirate life in Somalia

Piracy is a fad that is generally considered to have gone out of style in the late 1700s and early 1800s when those that were being pirated got wise and co-opted the strategies of pirates into something that has become known as Capitalist-Democracy.

If you happen to frequent web pages such as www.newyorktimes.com or www.bbc.com or www.cnn.com or even crap like www.drudgereport.com you are more than likely aware that recently it has become trendy to lose 80 pounds and buy a zodiac boat and reenact the popular series of modern pirate documentary movies produced by America's #1 racist/fascist movie studio. Normally we wouldn't talk about crap like this on PS, but it falls into two relevant categories: the on-going Pirate vs. Ninja vs. Robot struggle (Robots FTW, duh, watch Terminator 2), as well as something that Robert Ballard might get his hands into. Anyways, you are probably being lied to about what is really going regarding this latter-day spate of Piracy. Read this to learn more.

In other pirate related news, four individuals linked to the very influential Bittorrent hosting site (aka Internet file sharing) The Pirate Bay (the site is still online. The URL is www.thepiratebay.org. You should go to it, and just, like, go crazy) have been sentenced to a year in prison in addition to significant fines. This is IRONIC because, like, Vikings from Sweden and Norway were the O.G. pirates, back in the day. This is the latest lame strategy launched by major recording studios and media companies in an attempt to remain relevant. All four of them plan to appeal, and since the trial is taking place in Sweden, they will probably be acquitted. We certainly hope that is what happens.

PRAISE SCIENCE!

Oh; Praise Science!

On this date, one year ago, this web-log came into existence! What began so long ago as a childish dialogue about Science-related topics over the Internet between friends has since evolved into an even greater childish dialogue about Science-related topics over the Internet between friends! But seriously, and I hope I speak on behalf of all other contributors, Praise Science has been, and continues to be, a huge labor of love for us. I am truly stoked that this silly blog has lasted this long with such great feedback and widespread contribution from all of you!

Anyways, let's get down to business. Since this blog clawed its way out of the primordial ooze and into the evolutionary cesspool known as the Internet , shit's been crazy, as far as Science goes. Tons of (non)relevant stuff has happened. Let's make a list:

• Praise Science answered practically every Science-related question anyone has ever had.
• NASA did awesome shit. And also sucked pretty hard.
• The Large Hadron Collider, arguably the greatest invention ever created by Man, came online. Then it broke.
• Tons of fools got courtesy cards, for not being SMRT.
• Great fun was had, via gChat
• And, uh, basically, everything. Just read the blog, and hit that 'Older Posts' button for some srs Science and lulz.

So, thanks again for a great year, all of you friends, enemies, and neutral parties. May this coming year be even more Scientific and fucking awesome for us all!

Oh, you know how girls are with sparkles

"Decorative Sparkle" by Abby Lanes

Praise science for setting me straight. I read Twilight (for, uh, research), and I was under the impression that Vampires are beautiful and cannot go into the sun because their skin is glittery and it will sparkle too much. But you know what? That is not true. 

Turns out, Vampires are dudes with rabies, and they can't go in the sun because it will give them bleeding gums and seizures. That is straight scientific fact. Wanna know what else happens to people with rabies (aka Vampires)? They become insomniacs, and also the blood-spitting seizures happen when they look into mirrors (naturally) and smell strong scents like garlic. And like, wanna know what else? Vampires started showing up (in legends) at the same time as rabies outbreaks. 

Special thanks to Stephanie Meyer and Juan Gomez-Alonso, the neurologist who realized the scientific truth in 1998. Mad props, y'all, and happy one year birthday, Praise Science! 

Pinnacle of Coziness Technology Achieved, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Snuggie

Also good for posing in, apparently.

You have probably heard of the Snuggie, especially if you are really into Harry Potter or belong to a cult.

This shitty piece of cloth with a hood and holes in it has been dubbed the 'raiment of the zeitgeist' (it's not, btw), and its creation and marketing represent one of the first stages in a growing global crisis known as the "Cold War of Comfort". Other competing blanket-garments advanced onto the stage and the resulting "Coziness Gap" between competitors destabilized the world to the brink of Global Thermo-Nuclear Blanket War, leaving millions living under a shadow of fear, uncertainty, and very comfortable lounge-wear.

As the world teetered on the edge of a comfort apocalypse, some smart fucking dudes went ahead and played their trump card: Enter the Lippi Selk Bag, the ultimate in comfort atire. I AM BECOME COMFORT, DESTROYER OF WORLDS! We are all doomed.

Oh, Here is Some News:

FUCK YEAH.

On Saturday April 18th, 2009, the Praise Science web-log turns one years old. That is craziness. Things have admittedly been slower in the past 6 months than they were out of the chute, but it's cool. We are still here, Praising the shit out of Science. So expect some sort of super-rad-one-year-commemorative-retrospective-feature(tte)/Children's Treasury of PS History. Also, if anyone has any burning Science-related questions they must have anwers to, email that shit into praisescience@gmail.com BEFORE SATURDAY, and Praise Science will make all of your 1 year birthday wishes come true.

Praise and Follow Science!

This could be you...

Hey, look over there, on the side of the page; there is a new thing! Use it, and become not only a true Praiser of Science, but also a follower of this blog. What does this 'following' mean, you ask? I don't really know. Something about a cloud and 'Web 2.0' and collaboration. Also it will make me happy. So show your support and pride for this blog and FOLLOW IT NOW!

Science Fair winner

It looks like this child won some type of award for her project. Not only for providing excellent information on AIDS, but also including all components of the traditional scientific process: hypothesis, materials, procedure, and conclusion.

Existence of Twitter Finally Justified

Okay poop is coming out.

Here is one of the greatest questions of our time: WHY DOES TWITTER EVEN FUCKING EXIST???!??!? A man, who must be a great philosopher or something, has come up with the answer to this burning question. He has programmed his office chair to "tweet" to a "Twitter" "page" every time he farts while sitting on it. Here is a link to said Twitter page and also to a technical explanation of how this latter day renaissance man hath achieved such enlightenment. There haven't been any updates in 19 hours as of this posting. We assume this is because the creator of this device achieved Nirvana and transcended this plane of existence so he can no longer provide input to the chair.

Bacterial Communication

The TED talk series has been highlighted on this blog before, but I would like to point out one specific talk on the ability of bacteria to communicate with each other. The speaker, Bonnie Bassler, speaks at a frantic pace for twenty minutes straight, so be prepared to dedicate some time to the endeavor. However, it left me quite amazed, so I would recommend the full viewing.

Bonnie Bassler: Discovering bacteria's amazing communication system

Controlling Lightning

Would you like to trigger lightning strikes?

Would you like to be able to choose where the bolt strikes?

Well, all you evil scientists are in luck. Scientists have developed a method that may be able to induce lighting, and best of all it involves lasers.

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