Video Aluminum cast of ant nest

One of the most enduringly popular post on this blog is "A cement cast of an entire ant colony", a video of an ant nest cast. Embedded below (direct link) is another video of a beautiful cast, this time made using metal.



(H/T: Mike Breytenbach).

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for February

This is the updated African science and skepticism blogroll for February 2011... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
• Amanuensis
  
• ASSAf Blog
• Botswana Skeptic 
• Bomoko and other nonsense words
  
• Chris McEvoy
• Communicating Science, the African Way
  
• Defollyant's AntiBlog
  
• Deon Barnard 
• Digital Immigrant 
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan’s Corner
• Expensive Beliefs
• Fluxosaurus's Blog
• Free Society Institute Blog **new**
• Freethought Kampala 
• Geekery
• Grumpy Old Man
• Hello Universe, This Is Nessie
• Ionian Enchantment
• Lenny Says 
• Legends From a Small Country
• Leo Igwe's Blog
• Limbic Nutrition
• McBrolloks
• Nathan Bond's TART Remarks
  
• Orion Spur
  
• Other Things Amanzi
• Pickled Bushman
• Psychohistorian
  
• Quackdown **new**
• Quitstorm
• Retroid Raving
• Roy Jobson
• Science Blog
• Scorched
• Somali Atheism
• Stop Danie Krügel
• Sumbandlila Mission Blog
  
• Synapses
• The Indelible Stamp (used to be Tauriq Moosa). 
• The Science Of Sport
• The Skeptic Black Sheep
• The Skeptic Detective
• Updendo Wa Asili 
• Waxing Apocalyptic
• White Whale Holy Grail 

Dr. Uba... FAKE

The South African interwebs is up in arms about one  Dr. Uba, who apparently offers cash for body parts. In flyers distributed in Johannesburg and a website, Dr. Uba offers "keen cash" for eyes, penises and kidneys and more.

This, understandably, quickly drew a lot of attention. Twitter exploded with outrage, Reddit got in on the act, the police was apparently sniffing around, and I was notified about the site via email and Facebook by several independent sources. Since human body parts are sometimes used for "muti" (traditional African medicine) and since this kind of quackery flourishes in South Africa, alas, Dr. Uba existing didn't strike me as impossible. But, as I've pointed out before, doubt will set you free. With some ninja internet skills and the help of several friends, I manage to uncover that Dr. Uba is nothing more than a guerrilla marketing campaign for the upcoming South African horror-film "Night Drive" (a trailer is here).

To make a long, convoluted story very short... The first indication that Dr. Uba wasn't real was that the Whois for the site revealed it was registered to one Jonathan Merry (this is he, I think) who works for a design / marketing company. Additionally, if you phoned Dr. Uba's clinic, all you got was voicemail. Much more significantly, the Whois description of the site is "spoof site of fake doctor". That confirmed the site is a fake, but not why it was being faked. Contacting Mr. Merry revealed few additional details (he was constrained by his client, apparently), so the motives for site remained hidden. Then, rather anticlimactically, the site was edited so that clicking on any of the links showed:

Video: Optogenitics is Nature's Method of the Year

Long-time readers will remember a guest post by my friend Hugh Pastoll about optogenetics. I didn't catch it at the time, but Nature declared optogentics its 'Method of the Year' for 2010. An explanatory video below (direct link):



(Video found via Ed Yong).

Video: Hymn to evolution sung by an innocent child

Genius.


Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Picture: Sexual Psychology (summarized)

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for January

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for January... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
• Amanuensis
  
• ASSAf Blog
• Botswana Skeptic 
• Bomoko and other nonsense words
  
• Chris McEvoy
• Communicating Science, the African Way
  
• Defollyant's AntiBlog
  
• Deon Barnard 
• Digital Immigrant 
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan’s Corner
• Expensive Beliefs
• Fluxosaurus's Blog
• Freethought Kampala 
• Geekery
• Grumpy Old Man
• Hello Universe, This Is Nessie
• Ionian Enchantment
• Lenny Says 
• Legends From a Small Country
• Leo Igwe's Blog
• Limbic Nutrition
• McBrolloks
• Nathan Bond's TART Remarks
  
• Orion Spur
  
• Other Things Amanzi
• Pickled Bushman
• Psychohistorian
  
• Quitstorm
• Retroid Raving
• Roy Jobson
• Science Blog
• Scorched
• Somali Atheism
• Stop Danie Krügel
• Sumbandlila Mission Blog
  
• Synapses
• Tauriq Moosa
• The Science Of Sport
• The Skeptic Black Sheep
• The Skeptic Detective
• Updendo Wa Asili 
• Waxing Apocalyptic
• White Whale Holy Grail 

An evolutionary psychology blog (worth reading)

Two years ago I was excited by the launch of the first blog by a major evolutionary psychologist - Satoshi Kanazawa's The Scientific Fundamentalist. Unfortunately, it turned out Kanazawa is batshit insane and often face-palmingly wrong, so my search for a blog by a reasonable evolutionary psychologist continued. Luckily, a while back the interwebs provided: Rob Kurzban's ingeniously entitled Evolutionary Psychology Blog hosted by the equally ingeniously entitled journal Evolutionary Psychology. Being twice shy and all that, I didn't want to recommend Kurzban's blog before I gave it a good long look. Now that I have, I can say Kurzban's blog is well worth reading.

So... check it out.