Cool profile of astrophysicist extraordinaire Neil deGrasse Tyson in Playboy by Carl Zimmer (not linked to Playboy). One thing I didn't know about Tyson was he was the first to say Pluto was not a planet.

Tyson’s demotion of Pluto only came to the public’s attention when Kenneth Chang, a New York Times reporter, noticed there were only eight planets featured at the Rose Center. When Chang asked other astronomers to comment, they called the decision absurd. Letters of protest poured into the museum. But Tyson held firm, and in the years that followed, astronomers discovered other icy bodies at the edge of the solar system that were even bigger than Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union decided to classify it as a dwarf planet.

I guess I just figured that all the dinosaurs would have been figured out by now, so it's definitely a surprise that scientists have discovered another. That's 3 or 4 in the last year!

Brontomerus mcintoshi could deliver a kick nearly three times as powerful as that from similar-sized sauropods, a weapon that males may also have unleashed on each other when fighting over females in the early Cretaceous, researchers said.

Via the Epoch Times news of a couple recently discovered dinosaurs. There's the unfortunately named Utahceratops, a 3-4 ton lizard with a 7 foot long head. There's also the Kosmoceratops, which has an extremely ornate headpiece made out of shell and bones.

Speaking seriously for a second, how many of you would support a petition demanding the name Plutoceratops be given to the next discovered dinosaur? Our lost planet must be remembered somehow! How do you go about putting together these serious internet petitions?

They took away our Brontosaurus, which was a bummer, but I tell you, the Medusaceratops lokii more than makes up for it. The Brontosaurus was kind of a ninny anyway.

Approximately 20 feet long and weighing more than 2 tons, the newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived nearly 78 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Montana. Its identification marks the discovery of a new genus of horned dinosaur.

Medusaceratops had giant brow bones more than 3 feet long over each eye, and a large, shield-like frill off the back of its skull adorned with large curling hooks. Medusaceratops lokii means "Loki’s horned-faced Medusa," referring to the thickened, fossilized, snake-like hooks on the side of the frill. It was named after Loki, the Norse god of mischief, because the new dinosaur initially caused scientists some confusion..."Although the ornamentation on the frill is pretty spectacular, it probably was not used for defense against predators; rather it was more likely prehistoric “bling” used to attract a mate."

Via Buzzfeed

We just might have the stupidest legislature on Earth:

The Democrats’ health care bill would generally require insurers to provide preventive treatment recommended by the expert panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force. But lawmakers in both parties made clear that they wanted doctors to decide when a mammogram is medically necessary and that insurers should be required to cover the cost if the procedure is needed.

“There’s much discussion about whether or not you should get a particular service at a particular age,” Ms. Mikulski said during the floor debate. “We don’t mandate that you get a service. We leave that up to a decision made with the woman and her doctor.”

Republicans, in Ms. Murkowski’s amendment and in a separate amendment by Mr. Vitter, specifically sought to set aside the task force recommendations on mammograms and to bar the federal government from relying on the findings. Mr. Vitter’s amendment was adopted without a vote on Wednesday night.

That's right. By law, we can't follow the guidelines of an independent, scientific, medical commission. God help us.

I don't think this xkcd about sharks and balloons is funny because the amount of sharks in the ocean is worrying enough, we shouldn't have to worry about them on land as well. Via Balloon Juice.

To wit:

If the scientist is Stephen Hoffman, he takes a small can and fills it with three hundred irradiated mosquitoes. He inverts the can, placing the mesh lid against his bare forearm, and a cloth over his arm to simulate night. He begins to feel a tickling sensation. Three thousand bites later, he withdraws the can. He has "vaccinated" himself. Then, two weeks later, he repeats the process, only with infectious mosquitoes instead of benign ones, and . . . waits.