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Definitely passes the Bechdel test

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/26/definitely-passes-the-bechdel-test/

Published: September 26, 2025 15:48

I ignored my doctor’s advice yesterday — I’m so fed up with being trapped in my house that I decided I was going to put my knees to work and go for a careful, slow, easy walk. I did, and I feel fine, except that I’m more tired than I would have been three…

Some good news!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/25/some-good-news-2/

Published: September 25, 2025 16:51

We all know of and despise Ryan Walters, the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Oklahoma. He’s a Christo-Fascist of the worst kind who has been striving to destroy public education in his state. He has tried to purchase Trump Bibles for public…

Disappointment and despair

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/25/disappointment-and-despair/

Published: September 25, 2025 16:30

I was supposed to get surgery on my knee for a torn meniscus tomorrow. I wasn’t looking forward to the surgery itself, but to getting everything back on the path to healing. It’s been three goddamn months! Then, this past weekend, I had a blood vessel pop…

Watch this while eating your cheerios

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/25/watch-this-while-eating-your-cheerios/

Published: September 25, 2025 12:41

A sperm whale was found munching on a giant squid. I had no idea it was such a messy meal, but I should have figured that was so — all those tentacles flailing about.

I want one!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/25/i-want-one-2/

Published: September 25, 2025 12:24

I want one of these right now. This is especially urgent because our current, temporary evil cat knocked my camera down in the night and utterly destroyed a lens, and is now persona non grata, and may find herself kicked out of the house permanently.…

Caught one!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/caught-one/

Published: September 24, 2025 20:43

It was easy. Their wings weren’t fully inflated and dried, so they couldn’t escape. Another one also emerged a few feet away, and there are three more chrysalides around my door.

…and now it’s out!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/and-now-its-out/

Published: September 24, 2025 16:17

One moment it’s living on your house, the next it’s free and ready to fly away.

The monarch chrysalides are changing color!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/the-monarch-chrysalides-are-changing-color/

Published: September 24, 2025 14:33

Something is happening!

It must hurt when he ejaculates

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/it-must-hurt-when-he-ejaculates/

Published: September 24, 2025 14:17

Wow. There are actually people who still believe in spermism, to an even more extreme than Pythagoras? In case you were unfamiliar with historical embryology, this was spermism. As most of the ancient Greek thinkers were, Pythagoras was half scientist and…

I have this nightmare, too

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/i-have-this-nightmare-too/

Published: September 24, 2025 13:54

Although in my case it’s my knee that locks up, and it ends at two. Poor spiders.

It’s not the escalator that was broken

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/24/its-not-the-escalator-that-was-broken/

Published: September 24, 2025 12:40

Trump gave an embarrassing speech at the UN, full of whininess and petulance and egotism, and on social media all you’ll find is conspiracy theorists inventing conspiracies about an escalator that stopped working and a faulty teleprompter. We need to stop…

Sympathetic pains…rising, rising

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/23/sympathetic-painsrising-rising/

Published: September 23, 2025 17:00

Damn, this review hurts for a couple of reasons, but it really shouldn’t. When people say stupid, hateful, hypocritical things, they should be rebuked and their errors made public, right? Especially when they have so amply demonstrated that they are…

It’s Tylenol?

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/23/its-tylenol/

Published: September 23, 2025 13:22

RFK jr claimed over a month ago that this month they were going to find and announce the cause of autism. We all knew he was full of shit — he’s permanently full to the eyebrows with shit — and that this was a political game they were playing, because…

Don’t panic if I’m not posting tomorrow

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/22/dont-panic-if-im-not-posting-tomorrow/

Published: September 22, 2025 23:13

It won’t be because Charlie Kirk zealots showed up at my door and wreaked their misplaced vengeance on me — it’s much more likely that I will have been raptured. On June 17, 2025, a South African pastor shared his vision of the Rapture on the “I’ve Been…

Nice name

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/22/nice-name/

Published: September 22, 2025 19:21

My wife spotted this pointy katydid the other day. It has a wonderful name: the sword-bearing conehead, Neoconocephalus ensiger. Sometimes the taxonomists get it right.

I guess I’m in hiding

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/22/i-guess-im-in-hiding/

Published: September 22, 2025 17:27

I’ve gotten a few calls from the university today — I was worried that something important had happened to my lab, but no, administrators were just concerned because of this event happening this evening. Yeah, those a-holes are speaking at my university,…

A totally predictable AI delusion

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/22/a-totally-predictable-ai-delusion/

Published: September 22, 2025 14:32

Mark Zuckerberg has sunk billions into AI, and a whole slew of grifters have been doing likewise, so I really appreciate a good pratfall. He set up an elaborate demo of his Meta AI, stood on a stage, brought up a chef, and asked the AI to provide…

False idol

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/22/false-idol/

Published: September 22, 2025 11:25

Republicans are insane. Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced legislation this week that would require every public university in the state to construct “a Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza”, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign…

Fed the babies this morning

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/21/fed-the-babies-this-morning/

Published: September 21, 2025 16:10

The black widows are growing fast! The juveniles are getting their young stripes. Only a few weeks old and growing prettier day by day.

A very Chesley Bonestell future

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/21/a-very-chesley-bonestell-future/

Published: September 21, 2025 11:39

Walt Disney and Werner von Braun teamed up to tell us how we were going to get to the moon…in 1955. There’s a certain familiar esthetic to the exercise — shiny, long pointy spaceships with fins, a huge multilevel rotating wheel a 50-man (literally, there…

De novo genes in the news

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/19/de-novo-genes-in-the-news/

Published: September 19, 2025 12:18

I recently posted — and made a video about — a story about how de novo genes are made. I guess I was more timely than I expected, because The Scientist just posted on article on the same topic. It’s specifically about the work of Li Zhao, who is interested…

Rebecca Watson spills the tea

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/18/rebecca-watson-spills-the-tea/

Published: September 18, 2025 18:24

Yeah, he was a nazi.

Proving that free speech was never the goal

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/18/proving-that-free-speech-was-never-the-goal/

Published: September 18, 2025 11:34

I guess we aren’t done with Charlie Kirk. The talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, made a few entirely accurate remarks that were mainly critical of Trump and the Right’s efforts to capitalize on an assassination, and on Trump’s infantile mental ability. On…

Must-see TV!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/17/must-see-tv-3/

Published: September 17, 2025 16:01

Donald Trump is visiting England, why I don’t know. I hope all my friends in Great Britain are prepared to boo and hiss and shout rude things at him while he’s there. It seems some in the media are prepared to respond appropriately to him. More than 100 of…

Looking forward to going under the knife

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/17/looking-forward-to-going-under-the-knife/

Published: September 17, 2025 15:49

I have arthroscopic surgery scheduled for the 26th of September. Hooray! I first went to this doctor in July, and he had hopes that I’d heal up with time — I guess that I was hobbling in on a cane and grimacing with every step told him that he’s going to…

It’s going to be hard going back to work in January

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/17/its-going-to-be-hard-going-back-to-work-in-january/

Published: September 17, 2025 13:15

I’m relieved to not have any teaching obligations this term. I’ve been doing weekly homework problems/quizzes using the university standard Canvas tool, and I’ve always been pretty liberal with that: if students want to work together on the problems,…

Still falling apart

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/16/still-falling-apart/

Published: September 16, 2025 10:42

My lower limbs have been making this sabbatical half-year hellish. First, there was an unexpected meniscus tear in my right knee; that pain is still there, a sharp needle in that one joint. Then my left knee started swelling up and protesting every time I…