Funny advert placement

I'm sorry to my more serious readers, but I just could not resist when I saw this. The ad placement next to a story about our work on sexual versus asexual reproduction is priceless. The full story appears here on the UPI site. The paper is here on the Molecular Biology and Evolution site.

Mary Roach orates on orgasms

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff, Spook, and most recently—and very relevant to me—Bonk . She gave a very entertaining TED talk on "Ten things you didn't know about orgasm". It's both funny and informative.

I read Bonk last summer (?) and while I enjoyed much of it, I also had some mixed feelings. Perhaps I'll put together a review sometime.

In the meantime, enjoy...

Thanks to Pleiotropy for the lead.

Dodos: Free in Iowa City!

Tomorrow (Monday, Sept. 22) in Iowa City I will be co-hosting a free public screening of "A Flock of Dodos" in Biology Building East (BBE) 101 at 7:00pm. This event is part of Scienceblogs 10^6 comment festival, via our two Iowa City-based ScienceBlog-ers, Tara Smith (Aetiology) and Evil Monkey (Neurotopia). It is also associated with the Evolution undergraduate course (Biology, 002:131) that I teach with Bryant McAllister (can you say "extra credit"?)

According to Wikipedia:

"The film attempts to determine who the real "dodos" are in a constantly evolving world: the scientists who are failing to promote evolution as a scientifically accepted fact, the intelligent design advocates, or the American public who get fooled by the "salesmanship" of evolution critics. While Randy Olson ultimately sides with the scientists who accept evolution, he gives equal air time to both sides of the argument..."

Thanks to the filmaker Randy Olson for allowing us to screen this film for the public! I'm looking forward to it, since I have not seen it yet.

Green Porno

I can't believe that I missed this, but thanks to a colleague, I can now share....

In a series of short films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Isabella Rossellini plays the part of various invertebrates in various acts of sexual reproduction. You can now see them all online at the Sundance Channel website.

According to the press release:

"Green Porno is a series of very short films conceived, written, directed by and featuring Isabella Rossellini about the sex life of bugs, insects and various creatures. The films are a comical, but insightful study of the curious ways certain bugs “make love”.

Each film is executed in a very simple childlike manner. They are a playful mixture of real world and cartoon. Each episode begins with Isabella speaking to the camera “If I were a…(firefly, spider, dragonfly etc.). She then transforms into the male of the species explaining in a simple yet direct dialogue the actual act of species specific fornication. The costumes, colorful sets and backdrops as well as the female insects (all simple paper cut-outs and sculptures) contribute to the playfulness of the films. The contrast of this “naïf” expression and filthy sex practices adds to the comicality of Green Porno. This child-like manner allows us to describe things that could possibly come across as offensive to some."

My favorite is one of two non-arthropod shorts: the Snail (pictured above).

Here is a short piece I found on You Tube:



The vignettes remind me of the Dr. Tatiana televison series that was apparently too bold for US sentiments (but that I have been lucky to see!).

It looks like it's hitting the blogs now (Wired), so I had better get this posted. Enjoy!

Darwin Day is Today!

Just a short post to wish everyone a happy Darwin Day! Today is the 199th anniversary of Charles' birthday. We are busy here in Iowa City finalizing the arrangements for our celebration.

Update: we got some nice press from the local blog, CorridorBuzz.com

Iowa City Darwin Day

Reposted with light editing from the Iowa Citizens for Science site:

Darwin Day is fast approaching, and we’ll be celebrating with two and a half days’ worth of festivities here in Iowa in February, put together by Iowa City Darwin Day Inc. along with co-sponsors.

We’ll kick off Thursday night, February 14th at 7:00 pm, with Dr. Massimo Pigliucci reading from his latest book at Live from Prairie Lights, with drinks and snacks following at a location TBA.

Friday February 15th will consist of academic talks by Dr. Pigliucci and Dr. Martha McClintock.

On Saturday February 15th there will be a series of public talks followed by an informal reception in Iowa Hall.

• University of Iowa paleontologist Dr. Christopher Brochu will kick off the afternoon, whose topic will be “The Dead Speak: What we learned from the Tyrannosaurus.” Dr. Brochu was the lead researcher on the analysis of “Sue” the tyrannosaurus at Chicago’s Field Museum.
• Dr. McClintock will follow, discussing “Social Isolation and Breast Cancer: Psychosocial Regulation of Gene Expression”.
• Dr. Pigliucci will be the last of the afternoon’s talks, speaking on “What’s science got to do with it? When scientists misspeak about religion”–a topic sure to bring about some interesting discussion.
  

A panel discussion and Q&A session with all of the speakers will wrap up the afternoon, and the reception will follow.

Please join us! It promises to be an exciting and stimulating few days–and we’re also looking for ideas (and manpower!) for Darwin Day 2009.

Tom Vilsack: Talking to Americans

In all fairness, Gov. Vilsack got hit too. These are so funny. We really enjoyed them when we were "Americans" living in Canada.

Mike Huckabee: Canadian National Igloo