Sloppy Drinking Dogs May Be Smarter Than You Think

Everyone knows that when they put a water bowl down for their dog, the result always involves a giant mess of water everywhere. Accordingly, the conventional wisdom is that dogs are sloppy and clumsy drinkers.

Well, some folks have researched dogs' drinking, and our canine friends might be smarter than you think.

There were key differences between cat and dog strategies. The dogs extended more of their tongues to whack the water with a much wider surface area, then used their tongues to pull the water upward into a column at a blazing rate — hitting an acceleration of roughly five to eight times that of gravity when changing direction from downward to upward. That’s much faster than cats move their tongues, Jung said. And while cats barely flick the water, dogs use a wide cross-section of tongue to plunge into the liquid.

But dogs and cats, it turns out, time one key movement in the same way: Just before the column of water is about to collapse, they close their mouths around the airborne liquid, maximizing their water intake.

“Dogs use a very smart (mechanism) to optimize their drinking,” Jung said

So maybe we should cut our dogs a little slack for the mess.

[via Ace's ONT]

The CDC Guy Isn't Filling Me With Confidence

Sorry for the lack of blog content lately, it's been a bit busy at work.

But how about that Ebola? Between the CDC telling us it's all going to be fine and people getting infected, it's not really inspiring much confidence.

For example, here's something the guy in charge of the CDC said the other day:

"I think there are two different parts of that equation," he continued. "The first is, if you’re a member of the traveling public and are healthy, should you be worried that you might have gotten it by sitting next to someone? And the answer is no."

"Second, if you are sick and you may have Ebola, should you get on a bus? And the answer to that is also no. You might become ill, you might have a problem that exposes someone around you," he said.

So let me get this straight. I can't get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus who has Ebola. Great. Got it. I feel safe. But immediately afterwards, this guys says that if I have Ebola, I shouldn't ride on the bus because I might give it to someone. Wait, what? I thought we were all good with Ebola people riding the bus. How does that work? You can't catch Ebola on the bus, but you can give someone Ebola on the bus?

Now, I'm kind of making fun of him here, because I see what he's trying to do. However, he's making his point in a horrible way. In the first part, he's saying that your likelihood of getting Ebola from riding the bus is really low, because it's highly unlikely that anyone on the bus has Ebola.

However, in the next part, he's talking about someone who actually has Ebola shouldn't ride the bus. Well, duh. Obviously. But that's apples and oranges. And it's kind of just a stupid way to say "Don't get all worried about this Ebola thing". But here's the problem: I don't think anyone would worry about Ebola very much if we all felt like the guys at the CDC were really worried about it on our behalf. However, that's not really the vibe they're sending out. The CDC guy keeps sending out the "This Is No Big Deal" vibe to me, and they keep screwing up the protocols.

Over at Brad's blog-o-rama the other day, Brad mentioned how in Tom Clancy's books, there were always competent and diligent professionals who were combating the bad guys - specifically in the situation where bad guys use Ebola against the US as a weapon.

I don't think that the current guy in charge of the CDC fits that mold. He just seems so reactive and passive. He's not an assertive kind of guy that I feel confident is going to do all the things necessary to really contain this disease in an aggressive manner. He seems mostly concerned with PR.

Which I'm sure really worries the Ebola virus.

Does Your Toddler Hate Itchy Clothing and Recoil from Loud Noises?

Why is everything a "disorder" these days?

For most toddlers, tantrums and clumsiness are just a part of life, something they grow out of. Yet a burgeoning number of parents, like Pamela Trigg, are reporting that their children exhibit baffling, intense behaviors. Some overreact, recoiling from loud noises or refusing to wear itchy clothes. Others underreact, showing little reaction to pain or crashing their bodies into walls.

Wait, what? First of all, no one that I know of (adult or child) likes to wear "itchy clothes". So let's just make sure we're not confused here. There's no such thing as "itchy clothes disorder". That's called wanting to be comfortable. And "recoiling from loud noises" is a symptom as well? Are you serious? If you find that baffling, like this "burgeoning number of parents" do, you may need to consult a therapist - for yourself.

Apparently, I've been suffering from "itchy clothing disorder" AND "loud noise aversion disorder" all my life.

Sure, sometimes kids just overreact to stuff, and sometimes they're pushing limits. However, under this theory of "sensory processing disorder" there is a whole new world of stuff opening up.

Parents can invest in “sensory-friendly” products and attire, from weighted vests to chewable jewelry. They can fit their homes with sensory gyms (some parents have launched crowdfundingcampaigns for home therapy equipment). They can send their children to schools that cater to students’ sensory intolerances and allow them to move around, take breaks and wear headphones. Public libraries host sensory storytimes, theaters stage quiet performances with modified lighting, museums conduct out-of-hours tours with cool-down rooms. Even hair salons are beginning to offer “sensory friendly” cuts.

Sensory friendly attire? Is that like the t-shirts that don't have the little tags in the back? Weighted vests? Are you kidding me? I would never put a weighted vest on a toddler. That sounds ridiculous, and it's probably not super-safe.

But quiet rooms actually sound nice. Maybe we could all benefit from some quiet rooms from time to time. I don't mean to discount actual disorders, but I think we're getting a little far afield here...

(via Althouse)

"95% of models overestimated actual temperatures"

According to a chart of actual satellite and surface temperature observations (reality) vs. what was predicted by ninety different climate models, 95 percent of models overestimated actual temperatures. 95%!

Nothing says Science™ like predicting stuff incorrectly over and over and over again. Hey, the science is settled! Don't look at our failed climate models!

Lunar Eclipse on April 15 Should Be Cool

Blood Moon a/k/a a lunar eclipse

Taxes aren't the only thing happening on April 15 this year - we'll be getting a total lunar eclipse.

Sky watchers are getting ready for an evening of special viewing when a total lunar eclipse arrives just after midnight on April 15. What's more, this begins a rare sequence of four total lunar eclipses expected over the next two years.

I've always found astronomy to be really interesting, but I haven't ever been committed enough to buy a telescope. I've got too many other hobbies as it is right now. The nice thing about lunar eclipses is that you can pretty much see them with the naked eye or a fair set of binoculars.

You may hear someone refer to a lunar eclipse as a "blood moon". The term blood moon came about because the moon nearly always appears copperish-red during an eclipse. This has to do with dispersed light from all the Earth’s falling on the face of the moon at mid-eclipse. It's the same thing that makes the sky turn the same color at sunrise and sunset.

Cool Link of the Day: How Big Space Really Is

Space is big. No, it's really big. Normally, when you see a map of the solar system, it looks like this:

But the thing is, this isn't to scale. What this map fails to show you is all the space that's out there in space. If you want to really get an idea of how much empty space there is out there in space, check out this scale map of our solar system.

It takes a bit of time to scroll through it all, but there are some little bits of information in the empty space as you journey through the solar system. I would say that the first bit is the hardest, but the real hard part is once you get past Saturn. Our brains just cannot deal with such large numbers.

h/t @comradearthur

Fun With Magnetism

Pretty neat.

h/t Insty.

You've Lost Another Ship?

Remember the ship full of global warming scientists who are stuck in the Antarctic ice? Yeah, the ship is still suck, but that's not why I'm updating you.

You've lost another ship?

I'm updating you because a second ship (sent to rescue them) is stuck. So at this point, the score is:

Massive Anarctic Ice Sheet: 2

Scientists: 0

At some point we need to talk to these supposedly smart people who keep getting stuck in the ice. I'm not being filled with confidence that these are our best and brightest. This is comedy gold. I'm sure even the penguins are laughing at these idiots.

You know what's even funnier? When Al Gore got a Nobel Prize in 2007, he said in his Nobel acceptance speech that the arctic would be ice free in 2013. Oh well, at least I have a new theme song for the global warming dopes:

Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.

Scientists Trapped by Antarctic Sea Ice

Some scientists pushing the global warming climate change theory went on an expedition to the Antarctic to measure the decline of sea ice due to global warming. Guess what happened?

They got stuck in the record levels of sea ice.

The irony here is thick. How thick exactly? About 3 meters thick. The ice is so thick that not even a Russian icebreaker can rescue them, so it looks like they may need to be airlifted out of there.

FYI, it's summer time in the Antarctic. Good thing they didn't go in the winter, amirite?

I'm not a scientist, but it sounds like there is plenty of ice to go around.

Do You Even Know A Tea Partier?

A Yale professor learned something about people who identify with the tea party: Tea Partiers are more scientifically literate than non Tea Partiers.

 Here's my favorite part though:

“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote. “But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the tea party,” he continued.

So, this Yale professor has a negative preconception of a group of people, but he's never gotten to know anyone in that group. Guess who sounds kind of stupid to me?

Over at Brad's place, he's got a post/comment in which he compares them to "backwoodsmen who came to Jackson's inaugural and trashed the White House".

Much like the Yale professor, I don't think Brad actually knows any people who identify with the Tea Party. If he did, he would know that they're actually pretty polite and courteous people, and he probably wouldn't call them nihilists and arsonists.

It annoys me that my being in favor of smaller, more limited government and more personal liberty somehow brands me as a nihilistic, anarchist/arsonist.

Grilling: Charcoal or Gas?

Do you prefer to grill over charcoal or gas? I use propane for convenience, but when I have plenty of time, I use charcoal.

According to Wired, charcoal is better. You could read the whole article, or you could just read this summary:

Cooking over charcoal makes your food taste like bacon. Let me repeat that: blah blah charcoal blah blah BACON.

Bacon. Case closed.

Global Warming In a Few Graphs

President Obama is going to give a speech today in which he will announce his intention to sidestep Congress and start enacting policies to combat global warming, oops I mean climate change. These policies will include limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. Don't expect any specifics from the President though. He's just going to direct them to limit the carbon dioxide emissions.

Since our President is doing all this in an effort to combat global warming, oops I mean climate change, here are some graphs showing how the climate has been over the last few years. These aren't models with any assumptions - they're just factual graphs showing historical data. Check them all out, but here's my favorite graph:

 

The red line is the model that all this global warming hysteria is based on. That's what is being predicted. The green and blue lines reflect what is actually happening. Which would be nothing.

Which one of these is not like the other?

At some point the people who made the model need to look out the window and take note of what is actually going on around them in reality. I guess the environmentalists response to all this is: Shut up, they explained! The science is settled!

Are You Born With a Tolerance for Spicy Food?

Interesting piece here. As a person who loves spicy food, I can definitely say that I've almost always had this predisposition. Even as a toddler, I liked A1 steak sauce on my baby food.

According to Bryant, Mexican parents give their children packets of sugar mixed with red chili powder, which they eat straight up, in order to build their spice tolerance. “We assume that continued exposure at a young age causes nerve endings to die off,” Bryant says.

I'm pretty sure that red chili powder is hotter than A1, but maybe it's not a bad idea to start Permanent Press, Jr. on some spicier food to get his tolerance up. We'll see what Mrs. Permanent Press has to say about that, though. Just a few weeks ago, he ate some salsa right out of a cup.

Global Warming Is Biggest April's Fools Joke Ever

It's been set up for many years. Everyone from Al Gore to Orlando Bloom have been involved. They were all saying that global warming is happening, and it's all due to the carbon-dioxide that man is putting into the atmosphere. Even some scientists got in on the gag and made some scary looking charts.

However, actual facts have been revealed today showing that the Earth's temperature has been flat for the last fifteen years.

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

April Fool's!

Wow, you scientists sure are a bunch of kidders. You rascals, you. Even "Climate Change" is wrong because the temperature has been flat. Nothing is changing. Ok, you guys...great joke.

Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise. Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models (see chart 1). If they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.

Just one follow-up question though? Was all the expensive regulation part of the April Fool's joke as well? No?

Well I guess the joke is on us.

Unexpectedly!

Good news, environmentalists! The amount of CO2 being released into the air by the U.S. is at its lowest level in 20 years. I'm sure all the scientists are staying "I told you so" right now.

Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

Or not. These scientists seem like the folks at CIA, who didn't know the Berlin Wall was coming down until bricks started hitting them in the head.

As Glenn Reynolds would say: Unexpectedly!

Tree Rings and Climate Change

You know how the folks who keep pushing the global warming theory like to scream that "The science is settled! Stop being a denier!"? I think I figured out why they are saying that. They don't want anyone performing any scientific research that might prove them wrong. And that's understandable, no one wants to be proven wrong. 

Nevertheless, some brave scientists have continued to conduct studies and be all scientific and stuff. The nerve of those people.

The latest study of tree rings by some German scientists have revealed that it was warmer in Roman times than it is now, and the earth has been cooling for the last 2,000 years. It sounds like science itself is starting to be a science denier.

How did the Romans grow grapes in northern England? Perhaps because it was warmer than we thought. A study suggests the Britain of 2,000 years ago experienced a lengthy period of hotter summers than today. German researchers used data from tree rings – a key indicator of past climate – to claim the world has been on a ‘long-term cooling trend’ for two millennia until the global warming of the twentieth century. 

So over the last 2,000 years, the earth has generally cooled down. Excuse me if I don't go into a tizzy about the earth warming up a little over the last 50 years.

Frankly, it sounds like we were due for a little break from the cooling trend.

One Third of Chicken in Charleston, SC Has E-coli

I actually would have thought it would be higher, you know, like 100%, because that's why you don't eat raw chicken.

About a third of the chicken samples taken from two major Charleston area grocery store chains tested positive for E. coli bacteria, according to the results of a 10-city food safety study released last month.

 I guess I picked the wrong time to open up a chain of chicken sushi restaurants.

Safe Chicken

Clay Pot Cooler (No Electricity)

We here at Permanent Press are always trying to do what we can to save the planet from global warming, oops, I mean "climate change". Today, here's a way to keep your beer cold without all the polar bear killing electricity of a refrigerator, or earth destroying ice cubes.

See, science is helpful.