Tangled Bank 69: War on Christmas

Our verdant Tangled Bank makes war on Christmas. It's hitting Kris Kringle with all it's got, strengthened by global warming. It will not cease until lush rainforest grows up to the very foundations of St Nicholas's icy fastness at the North Pole, and his elves all take up bikini-waxing! We will not rest until Yuletide celebrations involve fruity drinks with paper umbrellas, Hawaii shirts and surfing! Then we shall bask in the light of the midnight sun, at the balmy shores of a tepid North Atlantic, as we gloat over our victory upon the red-clad hohoho's son and his polar-bear minions.

Dear Reader, this is Salto sobrius: the world's #4 archaeology blog and #5 skepticism blog. Today I bring you the 69th Tangled Bank blog carnival. Enjoy!

Medicine

• Charlie at Science and Reason comments on the Harvard Health Letter's Top-10 health stories of 2006.
• Mark of the Skwib obsesses wittily over recent penile science.
• The Fibromyalgia Research Blog reports on new advances in pain alleviation for fibromyalgia patients.

Culture & Tech

• Brian at Backseat Driving offers E.T.'s opinions on a recent pronouncement by Reverend P.Z. Myers regarding the improbability of extraterrestrial intelligence.
• Your very own carnival host waves about a new excavation report on an unusual archaeological site: a High Medieval farmstead in Sweden with finds and features indicating aristocratic contacts. And evidence that they didn't celebrate Christmas! (Sort of. Actually, no, not really. Sorry.)

Animals

• Mike at 10 000 Birds forgets about Christmas. He suggests we all spend the season staring at chicks. And counting them.
• Sunil at Balancing Life tells us about new research into sexual selection.
• Jenn at Invasive Species offers links on Australia's feral camels. What better cavalry in the War on Christmas?
• Tim at Walking the Berkshires discusses the nuisance that is semi-urban crow flocks.
• Josh at Thoughts from Kansas mourns the effectively extinct Baiji dolphin.
• P.Z. at Pharyngula takes us through new research into the evolution of vascular systems. Is a vertebrate an upside-down invertebrate?
• Bora/Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock reports on new discoveries in how mammal brains keep time with the universe.
  

Fungi

• Jbruno at the Voltage Gate tells us why fun guys form rings: fairy rings!

Cell biology

• Alex at the Daily Transcript lays out the latest news about ribosome-SRP-signal sequence structures. Makes a man glad to have endoplasmic reticuli.
  

Climate

• Daphne at Arne Naess Was Right reports on new computer models of our melting polar ice caps. Take that, Christmas!
• Beau at Seasons Under the Sun also ponders global warming.
• As does Paddy K:

"I like to give people a chance, but any fuckwit who can look around in this 10-degree December and not notice that something is fucked up with the world, is just not worth any more of my air, and is clearly beyond help."

The next Tangled Bank will open on J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday (3 January) at Viva la Evolucion! Don't miss it -- just don't. And until then: don't forget your kerosene can. You never know when you'll come across an indoor evergreen tree that needs liberatin'.

Update on Christmas Day: O jeez, I thought Santa was called "Chris Pringle". That, it turns out, is the name of many people including "one of the prime movers in Oxford Falls Christian City Church" -- but not of the obese reindeer fancier. Now I'm embarrassed.

[More blog entries about science, carnival, tangledbank; vetenskap.]