We may be even more alone in the universe than we thought
Two scientists propose that the jump from bacteria to complex life might be much riskier than previously imagined. Even on planets with earthlike conditions, plant and animal life would therefore be incredibly rare.
Yeah, I've always wondered about that. Life originated on Earth very quickly (in evolutionary terms)(maybe a few million years?) once the Earth was ready for life, but it took billions of years of more evolution before we got complex, multi-cellular life. So the jump to multi-cellular life may be a much more rare event in the universe when compared to the formation of single-celled life.
After three nights of not sleeping well, I decided to take two ativan last night, so I slept like the dead from a little after 10:00 to a little after 5:00, and then off and on until 6:45. It was AWESOME.
Also, it's Friday!
What are people doing this weekend?
My alarm clock was broken this morning. By which I mean for some reason kripkat did not jump on my chest and meow in my face at 7 in the morning. We are still trying to figure out this mystery!
What are people doing this weekend?
Tonight hanging out with the mister and making a fave fall/winter dish--roasted chicken thighs w/ yukon gold potatoes and carrots. Except w/ sweet taters instead of carrots possibly. And working out some wedding business.
Saturday, Bob flies to Chicago for his bach party evening (and then work through next week) and I go for a walk w/ a friend and yardsale shop for glassware for centerpieces. Sat. eve spraypaint glassware and have dinner with friends who are helping me.
Sunday go to Wilmington for family-thrown bridal shower. Hilarious! Should be fun though.
What are people doing this weekend?
Going to see Gary Numan tonight (the Pleasure Principle tour!), with Rasputina opening.
Chilling the rest in anticipation of my trip next weekend. Maybe see The Social Network and/or The Town.
Weekend- hm, I don't know. Definitely need to do some cleaning and bug spraying the front door.
Other that that, chilling out, cooking, doing fun stuff.
Tonight Happy Hour and maybe a bit of Blue Goose [link] . Tomorrow Taste of Greenville [link] while Jon cooks for a friend's party and probably more Blue Goose for football. Then a birthday party for a friend of ours at The Windmill [link] Sunday cleaning and Saints!
bon! I met a dog named Barksdale this morning.
Rick, I read that post and had no idea it was you! How would *you* summarise your study?
It's mostly pretty technical and boring, using a mathematical model to decompose the part of social memory that is influenced by variation what is to be remembered (women in this case) and the part that is influenced by the characteristics of the person doing the remembering (men, in this case). There is some Jezebel-worthy stuff in the study. For instance, one hypothesis would be that if a woman is very attractive or is dressed in a sexually provocative way, men will be distracted by that and will be less likely to encode (and therefore remember) her emotional response. The alternative hypothesis is that if a woman is very attractive or dressed in a sexually provocative way men will pay more attention to everything about her, including her emotions, so they will be more likely to encode (and therefore remember) her emotional response. Based on our previous research, we expected the former, but we got the latter. But no one at Jezebel actually read the paper, so their description makes it seem like it was about accuracy of perception.
