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Posts made in August, 2012

Jonah Lehrer And How The Fetishization Of Brain Science Died

Funny how you can go from darling of the intelligentsia to pariah in a short amount of time.  As I have mentioned before, when he was at Scienceblogs.com and then Wired.com, a few of us used to joke that whatever we wrote was going to end up in a Jonah Lehrer column next week.  Now its August of 2012 and even the rumor that Lehrer (who resigned from The New Yorker last month) was back...

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Deformed Fish: Nothing To See Here, Folks…

A short while ago, a member of Sierra Wave Media took a picture of about 15 dead and deformed fish. They were abnormally swollen and had 'tumor-like' lumps. They sent Andrew Hughan, Public Information Officer for Fish and Game in Sacramento, the photo and he responded. “These fish are not representative of what we hope the public identifies as a DFG planted fish. There are always...

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Males 18-54? Nope, Stoners Are Now The Premium Advertising Demographic

If you've seen the rash of 'open late' advertisements for junk food, you probably thought it was appealing to some long-tail demographic of fat people who absolutely must have a taco at 1 AM.Nope, and it isn't for the usual 'males ages 18-54' or whatever demographic package advertisers usually go on about.  It's stoners. read...

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Environmental Dilemma: Use Herbicides On Mount Tam Or Watch It Burn

Mount Tamalpais in Marin County is public land that has redwood groves and oak woodlands and a spectacular view from a 2571-foot peak. It also has a problem that isn't going to go away. Until August 2005, government scientists used the herbicide glyphosate, the chemical found in Roundup, to rid Mount Tam of French broom and other invasive shrubs that are a fire hazard and threaten...

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Fast Start Energy About To Go Online In California

California is cursed with a need to regulate energy deregulation, so it can't do the obvious thing like let utility companies buy transmission lines or sign long-term contracts - instead, companies have to buy on the spot market but they can't pass that cost along to customers either, so in times of high energy demand, like right now, you are going to get rolling brown outs.But we have a new $500...

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