Now if you can get out there and vote in the U.S. Election today, DO IT.

(I voted by in-person absentee last week to avoid the election-day trouble)

Remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain!

I mentioned before that something seemed to be different about the science blogging world. Several genetic-engineering-centric blogs have cropped up, bringing some in-depth discussion of this field to the internet. In a discussion with someone else online, they suggested - wouldn’t it be great if there was a group of scientists who could respond to news about GE crops? I’ve had similar thoughts as well.

Well after a month or two of work, I’ve built a home for such a group, and invited some blogging scientists to contribute. Behold: The Biofortified Blog!

The scientists we have so far are Read On…

In case any of you may have been wondering why not much has been going on on this site in the last month and a half, I now have you’re answer: We just bought a house! I don’t have any fabulous photos of it, so here are a couple pictures that we took while we were first looking at the house in early September. At the end of the month, we reached a deal with the seller, and as of 1 pm Friday afternoon, we closed and join the millions of Americans who are deep in debt. Oh yeah! Read On…

Anytime there’s an exodus of talent from a major player like Disney (Pixar, Dreamworks), or in this case, Google, it getes a lot of attention because it usually means someone’s going to make something good. The internet story du jour (and discussed during a picnic at work today, too) is the new search engine Cuil, pronounced cool. After checking it out, I have decided that although it has a few nifty features, it seems almost useless compared to the Big G.

Rather than distribute searches amongst many servers around the world, Cuil sends each search to a specific computer. I tried typing “The Inoculated Mind” into Cuil, and before I was halfway, it already suggested the full title of my blog. “The Inoculated Mind” actually has a place on one of their servers, facilitating any search for it. How special! Read On…

I can’t believe I haven’t embedded this video in my blog yet. This goes out to all you lab rats out there up all night making PCR plates until your thumbs ache.

Okay, so it’s an ad for a pipetting machine made by Eppendorf… but with this production quality I can’t help but be a part of their viral marketing campaign.

I should make a music video about plant breeding…

This weekend, I participated in my first Pumpkin Regatta! Organized by Jim Nienhuis and Irwin Goldman of the UW-Madison Horticulture department, it pits students, kids, and sailors alike against each other in a rowing race of giant proportions. Specifically, giant pumpkins. Which you sit inside. And paddle.

Let me see: Boating, Squash, Competition, Horticulture, and Glory. This has just about everything I need to make a Saturday worthwhile. So I hopped down there to volunteer as the first challenger against the Hoofer Sailing Club’s racer, Bridget. Little did my professors (Jim and Irwin) know that I had won a dinghy race against all the other Sea Explorer ships back in high school, so I surprised them with a victory for Horticulture!* Read On…

Holy Gilded Irony, Batman!

Maybe you found some humor in my previous Monday Madness post about the Pope criticizing the “pagan” sin of opulence, well, now he’s at it again, declaring that the current economic problems in the U.S. and elsewhere are proof positive that the pursuit of wealth is pointless.

The global financial crisis is proof that the pursuit of money and success is pointless, Pope Benedict XVI has told a meeting of bishops in Rome.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church said that the disappearance of money as banks collapsed showed that wealth meant “nothing”.

The Pope said that people should instead base their lives on God’s word.

Those who think that “concrete things we can touch are the surest reality” are deceiving themselves, he said.

Yes, someone is deceiving themselves. Methinks it is the dude in the gold-plated hat. Read On…

Ariela and I went down to the Municipal Fortress of Justice (courthouse) this morning, and met with a judge. Why, might you ask? To get our names changed of course! Armed with our birth certificates, proof of publication affidavit, and a little coffee, we have officially, legally become Karl & Ariela Haro von Mogel. Read On…

I don’t often have the time to continue my Monday Madness posts as of late. but today I heard something so jaw-droppingly Maddening I just had to put it online. (via Pharyngula) The head of one of the largest organizations of people in the world, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) non-governmental land-owning organizations on the planet, that governs its organization from within heavily gilded halls, has just spoken out about the evils of Opulence. It’s time for some Monday Madness.

Read On…

Today marks the day that the Large Hadron Collider has finally switched on and is running its first tests. Sending subatomic particles around in circles to smash them into one another, ah, the exciting life of physicists! They are looking to test String Theory, settle a $100 bet between physicists, oh yeah, and look into the nature of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang. Heavy stuff.

But, some people didn’t want it to happen. First, you have the people who bring up the cost of the project. Then you have the people that thought that the Collider must be stopped because its going to gobble up the Earth by making a black hole. Now, I read, someone else has chimed in and believes that these particle physicists must be stopped because…. Read On…