Why aren’t we (the U.S.) doing this!?  “A giant telescope with a mirror up to 60 metres wide is being planned by the European Southern Observatory. The telescope would be able to detect Earth-like planets around other stars and spot the universe’s first galaxies.”  The race is to the swiftest, yet our space agency is constantly under increasing budgetary constraints and reductions while also trying to survive political interference in the science.

This is very disturbing.  A large majority of the FDA’s scientists say the agency is failing.  Most feel the agency regularly interferes with the scientists, enforces policies that require them to “inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or … conclusions in an FDA scientific document”, inappropriately inject political appointees into determinations or actions, allow commercial interests to induce or attempt to induce “the reversal, withdrawal or modification of FDA determinations or actions”, and routinely provide incomplete and inaccurate information to the public.  These are the government’s scientists saying this, not outside entities.  Should we be surprised?  Scared, maybe, but not surprised.

In honor of my own return to the job-hunting crowd, and because this is the environment I have always worked in, I present, compliments of mArniAc, My Cubicle.  Brilliantly hysterical.  You gotta listen to this.  And no, mArniAc, I had not seen/heard this before, so I thank you.

Visit Friday Ark #96 throughout the weekend for all sorts of animal news and goodies.

Have you ever wondered why hot peppers are hot?  The question has to do with function rather than preference.  Fruit (in the general sense, so that includes vegetables) evolved to help plants disperse seeds.  It’s an act of procreation.  If that’s the case, why would one or more plants evolve fruit that caused sensory pain in the mouths of its consumers?  (The burning sensation is caused by pain receptors in the mouth [and elsewhere]. -ed.)  Does that not defeat the purpose of fruit: to lure animals into eating it and dispersing the seeds?  Well, come to find out, birds don’t have the receptors needed to experience the heat effect.  That means the plants evolved specifically for birds by using a chemical defense that would (until humans came along) keep all other animals from eating the fruit.  It’s called co-evolutionary adaptation.  Very cool.

What if cows don’t fart in space?  You’d be surprised to find that’s a very legitimate scientific question, although one might argue as to its orthodoxy.  This is a fantastic discussion of the concept.