Teh Internet Hookup!

So I'm flying down to Chicago early tomorrow to meet Ed Brayton, Rich Hughes, J-Dog, and others for lunch (Ed and Rich) and to visit (with Rich, J-Dog, and the merry gang at AtBC) the Darwin Exhibition at the Field Museum.

The irony is, I was never really banned at Uncommon Descent. But nevertheless, I feel proud.

I thought of it!

UPDATED: It's 11:45 p.m. on Monday and I'm finally home. No lunch with Ed, though we chatted over the phone, but I did meet Rich, J-Dog and his wife and daughter, and Nomad for the museum visit and a good Irish meal (solid and liquid) afterward. For the first time in years (can't seem to get it in Minneapolis anymore...no, not that!) I had a black-n-tan, my way - a glass of Bass Ale, followed by a glass of Guinness. Grace O'Malley's pours a Guinness properly, mind you! (In Minneapolis I think they shoot it from a soda nozzle.)

On Saturday, I spent time at the Oriental Institute Museum, the Joseph Regenstein Library, and walked around the grounds of the Museum of Science and Industry, then went to John's brother-in-law's aunt and uncle's home for ribs. *Yum* And today, we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. All around a fabulous trip! I love Chicago!

I don't have all the photos yet but here's Professor Steve Steve and a relative that he met.

And here we are posing next to the "No Photography" sign - that's a hell of an inconvenience, huh? Sorry that I broke the camera.

Abstract Thinking

My two assignments (not for the final). Feel free to comment.

Smith, Hobart M. (1956, June). Schistic evolution. Evolution, 10 (2), 228-229. Retrieved March 28 from http://links.jstor.org/.
Keywords: horizontal evolution, speciation, splitting, schistic evolution, differentiation, synchrony

Because all patterns of evolution involve some kind of speciation, this term should not appear, as it has until recently, among the three recognized evolutionary patterns: “splitting,” phyletic, and quantum. “Splitting,” a recent substitute for speciation, has a dual meaning of its own, and can also refer to the initial step in phyletic evolution. The overlap of the two terms causes confusion and controversy, and has fueled a new search for an unambiguous term. Simpson in his recent paper proposed schistic as a hierarchical equivalent to, without ambiguity with, phyletic and quantum, and Smith analyzes the term, finding it satisfactory.

Dodelson, S. (2007, May). Seeing the red limit. Astronomy, 35 (5), 40-43.
Keywords: redshift, cosmic distances, intrinsic luminosity, Hubble’s Law, spectral absorption lines

Scientists measure the vast distances between galaxies by analyzing properties of the energy that their stars radiate. Atoms absorb some energy, creating absorption lines in energy spectra. Lab experiments correlate positions of absorption lines with specific elements. The “shifting” of these lines toward the blue or red area of the spectrum indicates distance, speed, and direction with respect to the observer. Hubble’s Law states that greater distance reveals greater velocity. Because space is expanding, light speed and the universe’s scale factor cannot help scientists measure extremely distant objects. Intrinsic luminosity reveals the speed of universal expansion, which is mysteriously accelerating.