Cat. Bag. It's Out!

Ok, I am reserving this space for later. As I alluded earlier today, there's more to come on the Mikovits/WPI issue.

I am right now watching various fora and news sources and following twitter (I'm not linking as things are too fluid anyway. If you're not already following it you won't be caught up in time). One of the major reactions from people on the heels of Mikovits' unceremonious departure is surprise (even among some of the kookier people).

All that I'm going to say for the moment is stay-tuned at all of the prominent blogs on the matter as hearts will be broken, science and scientists rejoiced, and Mikovits completely destroyed in the eyes of almost everyone. Even some of the mild-grade kooks in her corner will likely distance themselves.

Edit 1: link to WSJ.
Edit 2: background, and original story by Trine Tsouderos.
Edit 3: there's a lot of speculation running around the intertubez about what is in the wind. What is the shoe that's going to drop(kick). One person so far seems to have it right!
Edit 4: new article by Trine.
Edit 5: might as well throw in Abbie's name as she broke the story about the same slide being used in two places. (also cited by Trine, naturally).
Edit 6: ok, I'm confused by the last article by Trine.  *twiddles fingers*
Edit 7: ok, the person who guessed correctly guessed that it has to do with labels being edited. What remains curious though is that Trine's article references it, but doesn't show it.  Curious indeed.
Edit 8: more background on Mikovits by @Zenmonkey

Finally. Now here's the goddamned picture I've been fuming the stupid journalist didn't put in her article.

 

This little darling is the original, unedited gel that was cropped in photoshop to be sent in to the Science paper.  So, whoever did that (oh, Mikovits - since she submitted it) knew full bloody fucking well that they were lying.  And honestly, editing in photoshop? And using the source file? 

Protip, fraudsters:   source => copy => save copy => edit copy => save edit => screen capture => then defraud the world.  Sheesh.

Noobs.

Warp Factor 1.0000001

The whole universe is all a flutter with news of the potential, maybe, perhaps, could-possibly-be-true little neutrino that could.  This is, to put it mildly, exciting news. But perhaps not for the reasons you think I think it is.  First, the result is almost certainly not true, which makes this even more exciting to me.

NASA Makes History!!!!!!!!piover6!!!!!!!9!

It's true. Pretty much every single time we launch a spacecraft of some type, we're making history.  Turns out it's not something we've done a whole in our past.  I'm waiting for the day when I see the headline "Woman Makes History, gives birth".   You know, it's an historic event after all . . .

Cosmos Updated: False Advertising Pisses Me Off!

It's to feature Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is an absolutely great science communicator.

He's supposed to host an updated version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.  I'm not happy about this one bit. Why not?

Ask A Scientist AKA Twatson (part 2; i now find science boring too)

So, I blogged before I went in for surgery about an "interview" Twatson gave to a scientific luminary.

She has taken note. PZ Lyers noted that the interviewer had no scientific credentials. Someone asked about Twatson's scientific credentials. After all, Twatson talks about science and isn't qualified (despite having a science degree from Boston University in the scientific field of communications and advertising).  In a rare moment of not heavily censoring comments on her website, Twatson let the comment be seen in a post she did about the "interview". Funny that it came after I called her out in my blog about the "interview", claiming she'd forgotten about it.

15 Second Science

This video is brought to you courtesy of Pigwigpa, the highest quality of the lowbrow, hit and run videos on no budget.  Today's experiment is on Walt Brown's Hydroplate "Theory".  Much scholarly work has been done theoretically to dispense with it. Next time, theorists, try an experiment, mmkay?