Michele Bachmann's Stance on Evolution Demolished by High School Student

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Michele Bachmann, as virtually everyone knows, is currently deciding whether she's going to make a run for the Tea Party, oops, I meant to say, Republican, nomination for president. What most don't know, though, is that her educational policies are being challenged by an amazing high school student from Baton Rouge, La. You should get to know this student, Zack Kopplin, and his efforts because he's likely to make a difference.

I've written about Zack previously because both his story and his commitment are incredibly impressive. As I first noted, he recently began an effort to repeal an atrocious stealth-creationism law in Louisiana. The law, the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008, encourages attacks on evolution to be taught in Louisiana's public schools under the banner of critical thinking. This is the only state law of its sort in the country and, as Zack so well points out, Louisiana students interested in science are being done a huge disservice by its very existence.

Zack hasn't been content to simply complain about an educationally irresponsible law, however. His organizational skills have been nothing short of phenomenal and he's gathered a collection of supporters second to none. His repeal effort has been endorsed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest general science organization in the world with over 10 million members; the National Association of Biology Teachers, the country's main organization for biological educators; The Clergy Letter Project, an organization of more than 14,000 clergy and scientists recognizing that religion and science need not be in conflict; as well as a host of other scientific groups including the American Institute for Biological Sciences, The American Society for Cell Biology, the Society for the Study of Evolution, The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Additionally, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to support the repeal.

Zack's work didn't stop there. He wrote a petition that was adopted as Change.org's featured one of the week where it has amassed more than 65,000 supporters. And, as I reported in April, in his most extraordinary effort, he collected the endorsement of 43 individuals who won a Nobel Prize in science.

Which brings me back to Michele Bachmann. Not only is Bachmann a fan of creationism and its anti-intellectual offshoot, intelligent design, she's made some outlandish claims about the pseudoscientific subject. For example, she's asserted, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact ... hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design."

Zack has now challenged Bachmann on her claims. Using a poker analogy and the huge number of scientists who have endorsed evolution, in general, and his repeal effort, in particular, Zack has written, "Congresswoman Bachmann, I see your 'hundreds' of scientists, and raise you millions of scientists."

Given the strength of the hand he has, he doesn't stop there.

    For the next hand, I raise you 43 Nobel Laureate scientists. That's right: 43 Nobel Laureate scientists have endorsed our effort to repeal Louisiana's creationism law. ... Congresswoman Bachmann, you claim that Nobel Laureates support creationism. Show me your hand. If you want to be taken seriously by voters while you run for President, back up your claims with facts. Can you match 43 Nobel Laureates, or do you fold?

It would be difficult for someone with a sincere interest in science education not to take Zack Kopplin's challenge seriously. Having said that, I fully expect that Michele Bachmann will completely ignore Zack, the voice of the scientific community, the combined pleas of 43 Nobel scientists and thousands of religious leaders.

All of this reminds me of a Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago when I was in Lambeau Field with my two sons watching the Packers play the Bears. After a controversial and costly penalty was called against the Packers, the referee began to give a convoluted explanation of his ruling. The entire crowd of 73,000 plus was completely silent while the odd explanation was being delivered over the PA system. Then, all of a sudden, one fan with a booming voice that could be heard throughout the entire stadium shouted, "Stop making shit up!"

Representative Bachmann, I urge you to pay attention to that fan.

And now the story will continue...

Osama bin Laden dead: 'crown prince of terror disappeared' during raid

A relative of Osama bin Laden disappeared during the raid by a crack team of US Navy Seals that killed the al-Qaeda leader, according to Pakistan security officials, deepening confusion over the fate of a son regarded as the Crown Prince of Terror.

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Hamza, seen here aged 14, may have escaped capture during the raid Photo: AP

By Rob Crilly, Islamabad and Alex Spillius in Washington9:00PM BST 10 May 2011

Follow Rob Crilly on Twitter

Three of bin Laden’s widows, currently in Pakistani custody, have told interrogators that one son has not been seen since the operation on May 2.
The fresh details raise fears that the al-Qaeda leader’s youngest son and closest confidante, Hamza, may have escaped capture.
The White House initially claimed that Hamza, 20, had been killed at the house in Abbottabad, about 30 miles from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
Officials later said his 22-year-old brother Khalid had been killed instead.
Last night an intelligence source in Islamabad told The Daily Telegraphthat shifting accounts of what had happened, coupled with the widows’ testimony, left them unable to account for one person who they believe had been living at the house.

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“We don’t know if it was his son. Someone, one person, may have been in the compound that we now cannot account for if - we believe what we are being told,” he said.
Bin Laden, who was married five times, had as many as 24 children.
No one knows for certain who was in the compound where bin Laden had lived, hidden in plain sight, for five years.
Hamza’s mother Khairiah Sabar has been widely reported to be among the family members in Pakistani custody.
Thought to be the youngest of the Saudi-born terror leader’s sons, Hamza has been described as the “crown prince of terror” by Patrick Mercer, a conservative MP.
He featured on an extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings in which 52 people died. He read a poem called for “destruction” of America, Britain, France and Denmark.
Intelligence agencies believe he was being groomed as a possible future leader of al-Qaeda, and he was implicated in the assassination of moderate Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
More than a week after the wives - along with 12 children - were picked up at the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, CIA interrogators have still not been given the chance to question them for crucial evidence.
US officials said they believe they will soon be allowed access to the women being held by Pakistan security.
However, a Pakistani government official denied that permission had been granted, saying local investigators had yet to finish their inquiry.
“It’s too early to even think about it,” said the official.
Amid rising tensions between Islamabad and Washington over the secret raid, US officials have blamed the ISI, the Pakistani secret service, for leaking the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad in retaliation.
They however said that the agency veteran, who spends the vast majority of his time in the US embassy compound, would not be withdrawn from the country.
It also emerged that the US Navy Seals who killed bin Laden had permission to fight their way out of trouble and kill Pakistani forces if they were challenged during the operation.
It was decided that the team sent to raid the terror leader’s compound should be large enough to resist any Pakistani forces that reacted to the night time operation, after President Barack Obama reportedly raised the prospect of a clash. As a result, two extra helicopters were deployed to protect the assault team.
“Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it,” a senior US administration official told the New York Times.
“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance.”

GREEN !!

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. 
  
The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day." 
  
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment." 
  
He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day. 
  
Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. 
  
But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day. 
  
In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store anddidn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks. 
  
But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day. 
  
Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. 
  
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. 
  
But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day. 
  
Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana . 
  
In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you. 
  
When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. 
  
Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. 
  
They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. 
  
But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then. 
  
They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. 
  
They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. 
  
But they didn't have the green thing back then. 
  
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. 
  
They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. 
  
And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. 
  
But isn't it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then? 

WOW

Ten Years of Innovation Highlighted in One Night

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I walked into my living room, flipped on the TV and saw scenes playing out in NYC that I will never forget. Both local stations and cable outlets were a buzz with speculation, stories and facts as they became available. As I drove to my office that morning under an airplane free sky, I listened to the radio for additional commentary. Over the course of weeks and months the story behind the attacks on NYC and Washington DC began to unfold. Names were named, actions were taken and lives forever changed.

Last night, after having been offline all day, I pulled out my iPhone and fired up Twitter around 9 pm. As I worked my way through my stream I began to see tweets speculating that Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed. Speculation turned to confirmation as I clicked through to view the President’s news conference on YouTube. Further upstream Google Earth views and Google Maps traces of the Pakistani compound he’d used as a hideout surfaced. Further clicking saw details being added in realtime to Wikipedia as individual contributors synthesized the available information. Bloggers surfaced a Twitter user who, unbeknownst to him as the time, had documented the scene as it unfolded the night prior with descriptions and emotions of a night’s uncertain events. My stream roared with commentary, jokes, fake Osama Twitter accounts updating from hell, people chastising those celebrating creating a 360 degree view of ways people were processing all of this information. It filled with images from strangers and friends in front of the White House and at Ground Zero in NYC celebrating, mourning, remembering those people and events that this moment signified. And before climbing into bed, I’d already seen the cover of the NYT planned for this morning’s print edition. 

The TV and radio that solely fed my information flow less than 10 years ago were noticeably absent. In their place were services like Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Foursquare, Instagram, Twitpic, Google Maps and more. All accessed on an untethered mobile device in real time. 

As I woke this morning I was struck by that fact. In less than 10 years the world and the technology we use to experience it has changed so completely. On September 11, 2001 there was no iPhone, there was no Twitter, there was no YouTube. But there was a basic human desire to connect, to share experiences and to have our experiences shared and understood by others. These shifts in technology happen over time in such a way that they seem to evolve naturally. Sometimes even imperceptibly. 

But, having these two events bookend 10 years of experience shines a light on just how much innovation we’ve been a part of in such a short amount of time. So this morning I’m grateful for the innovators pushing forward technologies that bring us together and enable us to share these human experiences. And, I can’t help but be hopeful for what the next 10 years will bring.

Laser Hole Punch Turns Hair Into Forensic Time Machine


A new laser-powered chemical analysis technique is so sensitive that it can take dozens of samples from a single strand of hair, distinguishing between the chemical signatures of each.

Existing methods destroy small samples, and don’t give exact time-based measurements. But using the new technique, forensic scientists could turn that strand of hair into hour-by-hour measurements of what someone ate or where they went.

“With a single hair, we’ve shown you can take carbon isotope measurements over time instead of just chopping up the sample and averaging everything,” geochemist Jim Moran of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, whose team describe the technique April 12 in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

Standard chemical analysis involves the use of mass spectrometers, machines that weigh and categorize particles from samples after they’re pulverized. Lasers are are typically too powerful to extract samples, as they burn organic material before it can be properly analyzed.

‘Carbon tells you what you’re eating, but nitrogen could tell you whether it’s meat or plants. Oxygen isotopes vary with the water cycle, and sulfur with bedrock, so they’re location proxies. Put them together, and you’ve got some really powerful data in space and time.’

To get around the problem, Moran’s team used an ultraviolet laser that breaks up material rather than scorching it. Once blasted from the sample, the tiny particles are burned and the gas fed into the mass spectrometer.

Moran’s team developed their technique with a focus on subtly different forms of carbon, called isotopes. Because plant species absorb carbon isotopes in different ratios, and animals maintain those ratios, they’re useful in a wide range of testing, from analyzing archaeological relics to reverse-engineering ancient diets.

“Getting [time-based] isotope readings from small samples is a problem people have been working on for about 15 years,” said geochemist Alex Sessions of Caltech, who wasn’t involved in the research. “It’s great someone finally figured out how to do it. You can ask so many more questions about a sample.”

Forensic scientists should find the technique useful, Moran said. “The carbon you eat goes into your hair, so hair is a record of carbon ratios. If you’ve been traveling, I could guess which countries you’ve been to or what you ate.”

It could also be useful to biologists exploring food pathways in microbes and paleontologists using carbon-based data to explore ancient environments. But the uses need not be restricted to carbon: The team is developing its laser-ablation system to work with other chemical isotopes, including nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur.

“Carbon tells you what you’re eating, but nitrogen could tell you whether it’s meat or plants. Oxygen isotopes vary with the water cycle, and sulfur with bedrock, so they’re location proxies,” Sessions said. “Put them together, and you’ve got some really powerful data in space and time.”

Video: An ultraviolet laser blasts a 50-micron-wide hole in a strand of hair without burning it. The hair particles are fine enough to ionize for mass spectrometry analysis, making the technology a valuable new tool for forensic investigations. (Matt Newburn/PNNL)