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PETA to UGA: Get a Robot Dawg, Morons

by Robert Lamb
December 1st, 2009
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In the wake of football mascot Uga VII’s death, PETA is demanding that the University of Georgia turn to costumed mascots or, yes, robot dogs instead of subjecting a poorly bred English bulldog to hot, humid games. What say you, football fans, robots and animal lovers?

Yesterday's Posts

The Real Sherwood Forest

by Sarah Dowdey

December 1, 2009
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Ever heard of Robertus Hood, Robert Fitz Odo (aka Fitzooth) or Gilbert Robynhood? As I learned in Jessika’s recent article, each could be the real Robin Hood (although probably is not).

But while the green-hosed bandit’s true identity has famously eluded historians and Robin Hood enthusiasts for centuries, one aspect of the legend is firmly grounded in fact: its setting. Sherwood Forest, Robin’s hangout, once covered western Nottinghamshire and stretched into Derbyshire, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

by Robert Lamb

November 23, 2009
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The latest opera from living musical legend Philip Glass centers on the life of noted 16th century astronomer Johannes Kepler. The opera’s title? “Kepler.” What a minimalist, eh?

by Robert Lamb

November 20, 2009
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Before I retired to bed last night, I caught word (via the AJC) that the University of Georgia’s esteemed mascot Uga VII had passed on into that great Varsity parking lot in the sky. As I’m not a fan of American football, my reaction was muted. I hadn’t prayed for the team’s victory against Kentucky this weekend (though how’s that for a good omen, Kentucky?*), and I didn’t lose any sleep. But it did get me thinking about the plight of purebred dogs.

by Allison Loudermilk

November 20, 2009
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I still haven’t gotten my hands on an H1N1 vaccine yet. And it looks a bunch of jolly men in red suits just stepped in line before me, too. According to Santa-America, a U.S. nonprofit organization that sends Santa across the United States to visit families dealing with various physical and emotional issues, the bearded giver of gifts wants protection from swine flu. I can’t blame him.

by Sarah Dowdey

November 13, 2009
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I love old animated Disney movies, as well as the gruesome Brothers Grimm stories or Perrault fairy tales that most come from. One of the best has got to be “Cinderella,” with its talking mice and bad cat in the 1950 film and the grisly, on-the-fly foot surgery in the Grimm’s version.

So I was pleased to see the cachet of a nice fairy tale title extended to the world of agriculture. “Cinderella species,” like their namesake heroine, are diamonds in the rough, underappreciated beauties still hidden in the obscurity of the wild. More specifically, they’re the 3,000 species of wild fruit trees that grow in areas of west Africa, southern Africa and the Sahel, largely uncultivated.

But that’s been changing since the mid-1990s, when researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre surveyed residents on which indigenous trees they found most valuable. Instead of putting timber species at the top of the list, most people chose fruit trees as valued delicacies, staples or even famine food.

by Robert Lamb

November 12, 2009
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Like a lot of you, I recently watched the season finale of AMC’s “Mad Men,” the absolute best television show in which nothing actually happens. I got to wondering what a modern day Don Draper might apply himself to (aside from, obviously, sleeping around, drinking and smoking). Perhaps he’d use cutting-edge science for the good of advertising? Consider these two real-life possibilities. Each takes high-tech science and uses it to shill a product.

by Robert Lamb

November 11, 2009
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I love the smell of old books. It’s just one of the reasons they’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming into the world of Kindles, Nooks and BeBooks. So it’s rather amusing that while the forces of technology and science seem intent on carrying out a kind of print holocaust, some scientists are hard at work creating new ways to smell books.

by Allison Loudermilk

November 10, 2009
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As you busy yourself this fall raking leaves, sipping cider and experiencing the Great Outdoors, you may want to consider ditching all that outside stuff, plopping down in your La-Z-Boy and flipping on “Gearing Up.” The new one-hour documentary premiering right now on public television takes you behind the scenes of the 2008 FIRST robotics competition, serving up a healthy dose of suspense, teenagers and, of course, robots.

The FIRST Robotics competition, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is an annual event held in Atlanta in which teams of students are all given an identical kit and challenged to build a robot that can rock some task, such as, say, slam-dunking balls into some nets.

“Gearing Up” trails four teams as they’re readying their bots for the 2008 regional competitions. The documentary follows Miss Daisy, a bunch of old hands at robot building from Ambler, Pa.; the RoboDoves, a rookie all-girl troupe from Baltimore; the Ratchet Rockers from Wentzville, Mo., and, potentially my favorite, the Rambotics, an all-boys team from a Colorado correctional facility.

by Sarah Dowdey

November 6, 2009
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Thought the “Seven Seas” were static? Nope, they’ve gone through many incarnations since the ancient Greeks started grouping their local bodies of water into one convenient moniker. European explorers expanded the definition a bit to include a wider sampling of world waters, and today we’d probably list the Arctic, North and South Atlantic, North and South Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans in the big seven — if we used the phrase at all.

But it turns out, there’s a new ocean in the making, rending the African continent right through the middle of Ethiopia.

by Allison Loudermilk

November 6, 2009
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Invasive species are gotten tired of all the bad press and have finally appealed to the U.S. judicial system for respite. Until I read Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow’s “Don’t Sweat the Invasion” post on Slate, I, too, was a hater. In my defense, as an amateur gardener and resident of the South,* it’s hard to like kudzu or English ivy — both notorious invasive plant species in the Southeastern U.S. — when they maintain a death grip on your tulip poplar.