Mexico City becomes the first region in Latin America to approve gay marriage. 

With a vote of 39-to-20, legislators in the capital approved a bill that will make Mexico City the first city in Latin America to approve gay marriage – angering the Catholic Church and politicians from the nation´s conservative ruling party.

And,

Members of Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN) have said they will fight the measure in court, as has happened in the US. The bill follows other controversial moves in left-leaning Mexico City, which also legalized abortion in a woman´s first trimester of pregnancy.

But it also comes as deeply Catholic Latin America has increasingly embraced gay rights, once taboo. Buenos Aires became the first city in the region to legalize civil unions when it did so in 2002. Other cities in Mexico and Brazil have followed. Uruguay has done so nationwide. But no place in Latin America currently allows gay marriage.

With NASA’s Kepler mission, we may be seeing habitable moons like Pandora sooner rather than later.

“If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade,” said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

A National Journal analysis of new Census Bureau data found that about 1/2 of the house of representatives members represent districts in which minorities make up about 1/3 of the electorate.  Even if we assumed that the other half of the house had zero minorities (which is silly), we’d still get that 1/6 of the total public voting power over the house of representatives is covered by minorities.  That is not a small block.

But, the real focus is that, for any of the 205 members of the house who’s districts have such high numbers of minorities, there is a 1/3 pull toward the issues that matter most to them.

Now, that begs a question.  Do minorities share enough views for that block to be a persuasive force?  Or, are they so diverse that their voting power is diffused? 

And Cameron Joseph notes
the growing prominence of Hispanic voters in districts represented by
black lawmakers: “Of the 39 black Democrats in the House, eight
represent districts where Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans,
including six where Latinos make up more than 40 percent of the
district’s population…”

John Sides of The Monkey Cage doesn’t believe you when you say that you’re an independent voter.  Most self-described independents are actually Bill O’Reilly style independents.  That is, only in name.  In truth, they are closet partisans.

When asked a follow-up question, the vast majority of independents state that they lean toward a political party. They are the “independent leaners.” Here is the distribution of partisans (who subsequently identified as strong or weak), independent leaners, and “pure” independents, from 1952-2008:

The number of pure independents is actually quite small — perhaps 10% or so of the population. And this number has been decreasing, not increasing, since the mid-1970s.

I think of the modern “independent” as having an opposite approach to politics that I do.  I’m a self-declared Libertarian by philosophy, and I hold a lot of basic Libertarian beliefs:  property rights are essential; low taxes are good; keep government out of doing things it is bad at–which is most things; legalize ALL drugs; etc. 

But, I’ve never voted for anyone in my life who wasn’t a Democrat!  And that isn’t likely to change.  In fact, I’m a vocal and proud Democratic partisan, and encourage other Libertarians to be as well (a tough battle, to say the least).  So, while I don’t share the standard belief structures that most Democrats and liberals do, I still register as one.  I’m a partisan without partisan beliefs.

Modern day independents are the opposite.  They SAY they don’t hold the beliefs of any one party, and declare their independence by not registering with either one.  But, when pressed, their ideology is right in line with one or the other.  And their voting record confirms that. 

But, do should we even care about what independents do at all? 

And one further take-away: 90% of the public is partisan and about 80-90% of those voters vote for their party’s candidate. This is why the story of presidential elections is so often a story about partisans and not the fence-sitters who CNN recruits for debate dial groups.

Except in the closest of elections, the potential voting patterns of pure independents isn’t important.  Most independents are really just donkeys (or elephants) in sheep’s clothing.

Just this last week, the Discovery Channel was playing a documentary called “Clash of the Dinosaurs.”  I was too busy to watch it, but now it looks like I should wait to get it off Netflix when the DVD comes out. Why? Read on …

Carl Zimmer relays a heartening story about a little science-blogger that could. 

Matt Wedel, a paleontologist, has been blogging about his experience with a television show on the Discovery Channel called Clash of the Dinosaurs. It didn’t go well. The producers edited Wedel’s interviews to turn his words around 180 degrees. For example, remember that old notion of big dinosaurs having a second brain along their spinal column? Not true! Wedel explained this, but if you tune into the show, you see Wedel essenitally saying, True!

Thankfully the show eventually responded favorably.  But, Unfortunately, only after the show had aired.  Apparently the DVD version will contain more actual facts, and not just hype.

Science shows are getting better and better in a few ways.  And they are getting very bad in others.  On the one hand the image quality, and excitement level, is through the roof.  And the CGI is amazing (dino’s really do look like dino’s … I think).  This is all good, since getting people excited about science has been a major struggle since the days when Plato was forced to use puppets to keep Aristotle entertained.  (OK, I made that up.  But, I wouldn’t put it past him!)

The bad thing is that science TV shows have become so mainstream that they are now forced to deal with what every other TV show has had to deal with:  advertising dollars.  These shows are getting more expensive to produce, and they have bills to pay.  They have to make sure that people will be excited enough to keep watching.  So, accuracy is degraded, or completely dumped. 

But today the story has another ending. Wedel now reports that someone from the Discovery Channel called him up and is going to make things right. I can only guess that blogs do actually make a difference some of the time. Or maybe just this once.

Probably just this once.  But, I am not that worried about it all.  In the end, we can’t be relying on entertainment TV to educate the public.  All it can do is wet the appetite. 

In his essay, Church begins by pointing to the coming benefits of genetic research, refers to the need to support the “altruists” who provide their information openly for research, and ends by making a generic call for genome sharing:

As “the first genomic generation” we will set the rules that many future generations may follow. Will we treat our genomes like our faces, which we share publicly even though they reveal details about our health, ancestry, and personality? Or will we be forced to hide them from view?

Talk about a leading question! Will you remain hidden behind your genetic burka?

I’ll ask a different leading question: Is it generally a good idea to release your personal information to the internet?

Generally no.  I’m with John Hawks here.  I’m not sure what someone would do with my genetic information, unless they worked for an insurance company and found something about me that made me uninsurable.  But, it still seems a bit creepy.

The 82nd Four Stone Hearth, anthropology blog carnival, is now online at Anthropology in Practice.  Including this gem about Koala bears and reciprocity from the Primate Diaries.

Reciprocity is an intrinsic feature of human beings as well as most species of ape. Chimpanzees and bonobos regularly engage in granting gifts of food and expect a return on their generosity (those who don’t reciprocate are less likely to receive such gifts in the future) (de Waal and Brosnan 2006). This “tit-for-tat” basis of exchange exists in all human societies and becomes ritualized based on the cultural norms that are present. One of the most well known descriptions of reciprocity among indigenous societies is that of the Kula among the Trobriand Islanders near Papua New Guinea that was documented by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.

This man loves science

So, I’m on a mailing list for the journal “Science”, and I got an email today about a new policy idea about open access science.  If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know that I’m a huge promoter of such science, and tend to limit my reviews of articles to ones that most readers would have easy access to.  But, this isn’t easy, since if the article didn’t appear on Biomed central, or pubmed, then getting your hands on it may be nearly impossible unless you have access to a University library like I do.

That is a major problem.  The email said:

The Obama Administration is seeking public input on policies concerning access to publicly-funded research results, such as those that appear in academic and scholarly journal articles. Currently, the National Institutes of Health require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months of publication. The Administration is seeking views as to whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how it should be implemented.

And then broke it down into two areas:

Features and Technology (Dec. 21 to Dec 31): In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search and retrieve information, and to make it easy for others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit? How are these anticipated to change?

Management (Jan. 1 to Jan. 7): What are the best mechanisms to ensure compliance? What would be the best metrics of success? What are the best examples of usability in the private sector (both domestic and international)? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?

Each of these topics will form the basis of a blog posting that will appear at www.whitehouse.gov/open and will be open for comment on the OSTP blog at blog.ostp.gov.

If research is funded by the government, then by definition, it is funded by you (and me).  Therefore we have the right to access it right away after it is published … since we are part owners of it!  Unfortunately, it doesn’t currently work that way, which to my mind is a violation not only of our sovereign rights, but of the “code” of science.  Progress is never made when information is sequestered.

I think a simple change that would be great is simply allow the authors of the papers themselves be allowed to post the articles on their own websites or blogs.  Then, in addition to the traditional channels through which scientists can provide them with feedback, the public at large would have the ability to do so themselves.

Is the TV show The Biggest Loser bad for America?  Does it portray unrealistic results that are in fact going to discourage people from doing the hard work necessary if they’re going to lose weight?  Are the contestants put into life-threatening situations?  And what does all this have to do with Triple H?

I wrote up a full article on my fitness website here about it.  But, the connection to this site is that obesity  is fascinating from an evolutionary  and cultural standpoint.  We are the ONLY primate that has an obesity problem (when was the last time you saw a fat baboon?).  There are other fat animals on the planet, sure, but they are rather different  from us, and all of them have a good reason for their weight gain.  Some, like whales need it to stay warm in cold water.  Others, like hippos, use it for buoyancy.  We don’t have a good reason.  The only exceptions in the animal kingdom are domesticated pets–that WE feed too much.

They need a biggest loser for pets

For all the hype and craziness, the show makes it clear that losing massive amounts of fat is  possible.   It will be hard, very hard, but it is possible.

Before the recent past, the only overweight people on the planet were rich people.  Before civilization, when there were no rich people, there were no overweight people either.

The cat on the left has a similar history.   Felines are not fat by nature.   But, given enough food, and a sedentary lifestyle, anything is possible.

The real question for us as a species is, then, how do we alter our culture enough so that obesity ceases to be the norm.  That is, if we live in a cultural and physical environment now that increases (by a lot) the likelihood that you will get fatter as time goes on; then how do we change it.  And to what?

Self control is not enough of an answer, though, on the individual level, it is a good place to start.  I think we need to build better institutions–far better PE programs in school would be a huge start.

We went through nearly 20 years of people telling us that the problem is genetics.  If your parents were fat, then you’ll be fat too.  Not only is that bullshit, but it’s demotivating.  (Of course, genes for fat storage exist, but that doesn’t mean you were doomed from birth.)  How are you supposed to get motivated to get into the gym and to eat healthier if you’re told it is probably genetics, and therefore, there is nothing you can do about it.

The show makes it clear that you CAN lose the fat.  Even if they are doing some wacky stuff, huge people are losing a lot of weight.  And that is inspirational.  Hype or not.

I almost forgot about how many hours my brother and I spent trying to beat this game. The levels just kept going and going.

Games have come a long way. But, there is something fun about these games that seems to have gotten lost in all the uber mega graphics we have now.

Here’s a Youtube vid of a dude playing it.