Ohio: Not quite doomed

The Bad Astronomer is fond of the phrase "State: Doomed" in the context of State approving creationism in the classroom. He'd probably be happy to hear that Ohio is not doomed, or at least only a little doomed.

An Ohio school is firing a middle school science teacher for the joint sins of teaching creationism in the science class (including keeping a Bible on his desk), and burning a cross into a student's arm. Shame it took the student abuse for the other part to surface.

Plant sensing

Plants may not have brains, but some new work shows that they may have a sense of smell that can let a parasitic creeper pick the most hospitable host from others surrounding, and let other plants choose to invade the root space of "unrelated" plants within the same species while not competing with their "relatives." Bizarre.

Greenhouse calculator

Made by the Aussies, it's a greenhouse gas calculator - it determines how much CO_2 you produce in a year (3 tonnes per year per person is the sustainable amount, 24 is the average Aussie), and therefore when you should kill yourself so you don't use more than your fair share.



I produce 15.0 tonnes of CO_2 per year (according to their calculator), and therefore I should die at age 15.4. At least I'm better than average! :-P

Browser preview

For your entertainment, here's a service that allows you to preview your blog in multiple different browsers. Here's what I got for this blog: