My last Political Post, I promise!

INVESTING IN AMERICA’S FUTURE
BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN’S PLAN FOR SCIENCE AND INNOVATION

Obama and Biden released a plan for improving the United States standing in the sciences. As avid readers of my various blogs know, I was somewhat hesitant about supporting Obama back in the primaries due to his statement of cutting funding to NASA(he has since rescinded this position). America is not producing scientists or engineers of world class quality, rather those people are coming here. But that will not always be the case, as demonstrated by the Hadron Collidor that was constructed in Europe. There will be a time in the future when other countries are more attractive to the science community. That is why I find education, and in particular, science education, to be the most important issue of this or any political race.

The released plan is summarised as such:

• Restoring integrity to U.S. science policy to ensure that decisions that can be informed by science are made on the basis of the strongest possible evidence.

• Doubling over a 10 year period the federal investment in basic research by key science agencies, with a special emphasis on supporting young researchers at the beginning of their careers, and backing high-risk, high-return research.

• Making a national commitment to science education and training by recruiting some of America’s best minds to teach K-12 math and science and by tripling the number of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowships.

• Encouraging American innovation to flourish by making the R&D tax credit permanent, streamlining our patent system, eliminating the capital gains tax on start-ups and small businesses, and promoting the deployment of next-generation broadband networks.

• Addressing the “grand challenges” of the 21st century through accelerating the transition to a lowcarbon, oil-free economy, enabling all Americans to live longer and healthier lives, and protecting our country from emerging threats to our national security.
--Taken from the introduction to the linked article

I recommend everyone go read it, it only makes me feel better about the upcoming vote on Nov. 4th.

Sesame Street was an amazing show.

I thought I would share some of these old Sesame Street songs with everyone. They are not all about Math/Science, but the first one is!

Born To Add

Listen to the Bells

Rebel L

Kids Just Love to Brush (I love the squeaks she makes in this song)

Angle Dance from Square One (Credit goes entirely to Noel, I forgot about this one)

I miss being a kid and watching these.

Donald in Mathmagic Land

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Special thanks to Felicia Chávez for the suggestion.

Ernst Haeckel: Art Forms in Nature

Last week, I took a trip down to San Francisco to visit my brother. While there we tried to see the major sights of the area, and this included a trip to the Monte Ray Aquarium. It was fun, and there were lots of neat animals, but in the gift shop I picked up a book by Ernst Haeckel, called "Art Forms in Nature". I had heard of the scientist before, he is frequently used in those poorly made creationist arguments, so I was intrigued to see his work.

I thought it was beautiful and amazing. Not only is it a great scientific cataloging of marine life, but the pictures are wonderful works of art in their own right. He manages to combine organic details with an almost mathematical attention to symmetry and form. I found it fascinating, and have included some plates from the book for you to look at:

Circles

Zombie Crabs!

Today I would like to bring your attention to a pretty amazing, cool, and disgusting creature. I am talking about the fascinating Sacculina Carcini.

The female creature inserts itself into a host crab and grows throughout the body and parts of itself emerge underneath the crab(See picture on the right)

When a male Sacculina Carcini mates with it(through an opening the female creates in the hosts body) the host crabs body is filled with million of eggs. The crab itself is still alive, and in fact, somehow, it's behavior is altered, where it cares for the eggs as if they were it's own young!

Somehow this parasitic creature makes the host behave how it desires! Not only does it change it's behavior, but if the host crab is a male crab, it alters it's host physically to appear as a female crab, to help it care for it's own young.

Neat stuff, here are some links if you want to read up on it.

• Do Parasites Rule the World?
• Information from the University of Hong Kong
  

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