Were the Neanderthals wiped out by global cooling?

John Tierney is blogging on science.

I’d never really given this much thought, but how come plants can contain proteins, but animals are a hundred percent noncarbohydrates?

[Update a while later]

A commenter points out I’m mistaken. OK, but that still seems like trace amounts, relative to how much protein that you can get from, say, soy. And when I look at any package of dead animal in the supermarket, it always has zero grams of carbs. So even if it’s not a hundred percent, there still seems to be a big disparity. Also, the example given, blood sugar, really part of the animal? I mean, yes, it can’t function without it, but it’s produced by absorbing food and has to be continually replenished. I was thinking about the animal itself. It seem like, for the most part, structurally, we’re meat, fat and bone, not sugar and spice and everything nice. (And does that mean that little girls contain more carbs than little boys, what with the snips and snails and puppy dog tails?)

Some Japanese marine biologists claim to have gotten video of the elusive giant squid at depth.

I had no idea there were so many sperm whales in the western Pacific. Two hundred thousand. That’s a lot of cetacean.

Some Japanese marine biologists claim to have gotten video of the elusive giant squid at depth.

I had no idea there were so many sperm whales in the western Pacific. Two hundred thousand. That’s a lot of cetacean.

Some Japanese marine biologists claim to have gotten video of the elusive giant squid at depth.

I had no idea there were so many sperm whales in the western Pacific. Two hundred thousand. That’s a lot of cetacean.

John Miller reveals the truth about the slandered lemmings.

Several websites do a good job of debunking the myth. Take your pick among snopes.com, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the San Francisco Chronicle, etc. Although lemmings migrate due to population pressures and are known to fall from heights and drown in water, they don

Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.

No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.

[Update in the afternoon]

I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.

Try it with two, as suggested.

a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18

Ergo, a = 2.

In fact, do it with 1.999…

a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2

As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.

Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.

No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.

[Update in the afternoon]

I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.

Try it with two, as suggested.

a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18

Ergo, a = 2.

In fact, do it with 1.999…

a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2

As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.

Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.

No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.

[Update in the afternoon]

I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.

Try it with two, as suggested.

a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18

Ergo, a = 2.

In fact, do it with 1.999…

a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2

As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.