Goodbye to Yesterday...

In case you haven't checked yet, your grades are now posted. Enjoy your summer!

Own Your Ignorance

Here's an excerpt from a podcast I listen to called Jordan, Jesse GO! Two guys in their twenties are jovially discussing a favorite topic of mine: owning your ignorance.

Other sincerely awesome stuff from them is available at Maximum Fun.

News You Can Use

Here are some links on advertising and news. The first is about the underlying intellectual dishonesty in even the most honest of ad campaigns. By the way, if you're into advertising, that entire blog is great. I'm a bit biased, though, since I used to work for Bob Garfield.

The second is a radio interview with the director of FactCheck.org, a website devoted to debunking claims in political ads. I also used to work with the guy who interviewed FactCheck's director. Yup, I'm a pretty big deal.

Now for some news stuff. Lots of people worry about conservative or liberal news media bias. But there are several interesting biases that are much less talked about. Here's a discussion of the bias toward anything that's dangerous.

What's so important about news anyway? Here's an interesting argument against caring so much about current events.

Penguin Digestion Experts? You Bet!

So you didn't believe me when I said that there are experts on the subject of penguin digestion? Oh, you did? Fine, well, I'll prove it to you, anyway. Here are some academic articles on the topic:

• Adjustments of gastric pH, motility and temperature during long-term preservation of stomach contents in free-ranging incubating king penguins from a 2004 issue of Journal of Experimental Biology
  
• Feeding Behavior of Free-Ranging King Penguins (Aptenodytes Patagonicus) from a 1994 issue of Ecology

Of course, no list would be complete without the often-cited, groundbreaking 1985 Ornis Scandinavica article:

• Differential Digestion of Fish and Squid in Jackass Penguins Spheniscus demersus

Perhaps my favorite, though, is the following:

• Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation from a 2003 issue of Polar Biology
  

If any of these articles are above your head (I think they're all above mine!), you might like this, uh, simpler video demonstration of penguin digestion.