Lab flexibility

Some instructors I've taught with seem to view uncertainty in a lab setting as a bad thing. They want every student in lab to be able to collect data that clearly support the hypothesis in question, and then talk about the lab as having "failed" if some students didn't collect the "correct" data.

This mindset has always baffled me. <soapbox> How can we expect to train our students to do science if we never let them do science? One of the primary goals of any science lab should be, at least partially, learning how to implement the scientific method, which includes coming up with questions, hypotheses, and tests for those hypotheses, in addition to simply carrying out experiments and interpreting data. By restricting students to following well-known protocols that are guaranteed to produce specific results, we prevent students from practicing critical portions of the scientific method. After all, deciding how to approach a problem is as big a part of science as actually performing experiments. Having a lab where everything fails would clearly be frustrating for all involved, but as long as the general techniques are sound, why not give the students the freedom to try a few things that might not work? </soapbox>

The reason I'm writing about this is that today's lab was, for those with the data-focused lab mindset, a failure. Last week the students transferred three species of bacteria and one eukaryote (yeast) onto agar plates that were subsequently exposed to different environmental variables (e.g. temperature, UV light). Unfortunately, the media had some moisture on it when the students were doing the plating (it had only been mixed up that morning by our lab tech), so the bacteria ended up growing in smears instead of well defined colonies on some plates. I had intended to have a thermophilic bacterial species in lab (one that prefers to grow at higher temperatures than most bacteria), but that culture had been misplaced before lab, so the first lab section wasn't able to grow it. And, finally, something went wrong with our yeast cultures (or the yeast wouldn't grow on our media), because we got all of about five yeast colonies across over a hundred plates.

So, to summarize, the plates the students saw today weren't anything close to how they "should" have looked. However, the students didn't know this, and I never said that anything had gone wrong in my intro to today's lab. Instead I directed them to collect as much quantitative data as they could (without specifically telling them how to collect the data), and they went right to work trying to figure out what effects their manipulations had.

The groups came up with a variety of different methods to collect data. Some groups whose microorganisms had low survival rates (e.g. UV light) counted the total number of colonies growing on their plates. Most groups, however, found that their colonies had grown together into large masses (confluent growth), and thus colony counting was impossible; these groups set out to estimate the surface area the bacterial colonies had covered. A few groups created grids on clear plastic sheets to help them estimate the growth (counting the # of squares or line intersections with bacteria under them), though one group measured how much surface area they had initially covered with bacteria, and then measured how much surface area the bacteria were currently growing in. I could have provided each group with a detailed handout telling them exactly how to quantify bacterial growth on agar plates, but doing so would have done little except prevent the students from having to apply their scientific reasoning skills.

While the students were collecting data, they independently figured out that something went wrong with the yeast, and after a while they all came to conclusions regarding what their data told them about the variables they had tested. Each group presented their data to the class (each group tested only one environmental variable), and we wrapped up the lab with a short discussion of why they saw the effects they did, complete with some comparative data from species we hadn't used in lab. Sure, some groups saw odd peaks or spikes in their data, but everyone seemed to leave with the main ideas the lab was trying to introduce. Nobody complained that their yeast cultures didn't grow, and nobody seemed to mind that some of their bacteria weren't growing in discrete, easily countable colonies.

A thankfully short week

I've been getting further and further behind on my grading and lecture/lab planning, so having Thursday and Friday off this week is a much-needed respite. After Thanksgiving I only have four more lectures left to give before finals week, so I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On one hand I'm relieved to know that my work is almost done, and I can't wait to be able to get a good night's sleep free from worry about planning and grading, but I know I'll also miss my current group of students.

Some links

I've spent most of this weekend both writing my own test questions and evaluating other people's test questions for a side project I'm working on, so I haven't had much spare time. However, I have run across a few topics of interest:

• Kevin Sites, a reporter and blogger who has been covering the war in Iraq, is the cameraman who recorded the widely discussed footage of a marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi who had surrendered the day before. Yesterday, in a post titled Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1, he discussed the incident in thoughtful detail on his blog. (via BoingBoing)
  
  
• BoingBoing links to some stunning pictures of the G-Cans project, a massive underground water drainage project in Tokyo. "The underground waterway is the largest in the world and sports five 32m diameter, 65m deep concrete containment silos which are connected by 64 kilometers of tunnel sitting 50 meters beneath the surface. The whole system is powered by 14,000 horsepower turbines which can pump 200 tons of water a second into the large outlying edogawa river."
  
  
• Keith Olbermann is one of the only major journalists who's been regularly discussing the election fraud/error issue. His most recent blog post, "Relax about Ohio, Relax about the guy tailing me," is a well-done piece summarizing many issues. Here's one interesting observation: "The Ohio newspaper coverage suggests that even the mainstream media is beginning to sit up and take notice that, whatever its merits, the investigation into the voting irregularities of November 2nd has moved from the Reynolds Wrap Hat stage into legal and governmental action."
  
  
• Nader's recount of New Hampshire is currently underway (via votenader.org).
  
  
• And, to end on a cheerier note, PZ Myers recently linked to The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, a site that sells, among other things, stuffed dolls of notable thinkers. Of specific interest for me is their adorable doll of Darwin; it would go great with those Giant Plush Microbes that I'm still hoping to get some day.

Cran-raspberry-pineapple gelatin conglomeration

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, so I absolutely have to post something Thanksgiving-related for my end-of-the-week recipe blogging. Thus, this week I present to you one of my family's most prized traditional Thanksgiving foods: Cran-raspberry-pineapple gelatin conglomeration. This dish is more affectionately known as "Cran-raspberry salad" by my mom, though I find a dish entirely lacking in fresh ingredients to be the antithesis of a salad.

This recipe is straight out of the 1950s: it's made from raspberry jello ("ooh, look, it gels!"), canned pineapple, canned cranberry sauce, and sour cream ("it's like cream, but sour"). This dish has started every home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner that I can remember, and every other Thanksgiving dinner I've eaten has seemed incomplete without it. Even my SO, who didn't grow up eating it, finds it delicious and would be disappointed if we didn't have it every Thanksgiving (which is just one of many things that makes my SO the perfect one for me).

This takes a few hours to set properly, so give yourself time to make it.

6 ounces raspberry gelatin powder (sugar-sweetened)
1 3/4 cups water, boiling
20 ounces crushed pineapple, in juice
16 ounces cranberry sauce, whole berry type
1 cup sour cream

1) In a large bowl dissolve the gelatin in boiling water.
2) Add undrained pineapple and cranberry sauce, stirring until the cranberry sauce melts.
3) Pour half of gelatin mixture into a 6 1/2 cup ring mold (we always use this Vintage Tupperware 3-Piece Jell-o Bundt Mold, which wasn't "vintage" when it was bought).
4) Chill gelatin in mold in the fridge until almost firm. Almost-firm gelatin will appear to be set, but should feel sticky to the touch. The mixture should also flow slightly when the mold is tipped to one side. Leave remaining gelatin at room temperature.
5) Stir sour cream until smooth, then spread evenly over the almost-firm gelatin in the mold.
6) Gently scoop the remaining gelatin mixture on top of the sour cream.
7) Chill until firm. Unmold onto serving plate.

The main problem with this dish is layer separation; the top often tries to slide off as it warms up and is sliced. One trick I use is to not spread the sour cream to the edges of the mold, which allows the gelatin to form a solid bond around the entire circumference of the mold, reducing slippage.

If you don't have a ring mold, you could probably make this in a shallow bowl.

Friday night nap blogging

Friday nights used to be filled with gaming, relaxing, or doing something generally fun and non-work-related (like driving out of state to see my SO). This semester, however, I get home on Friday night and, assuming I don't have anything work-related to do, I tend to fall asleep on the couch within an hour.

Yep, that's the exciting life of a full-time faculty member teaching a new class ...

More election links

More and more keeps getting written relating to errors or fraud in the 2004 election, so here are a few more links for those who are interested.

• Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting recently reported finding official optical scan "vote rolls" in the trash outside of a Volusia county elections office. Apparently the official rolls do not match the unsigned vote rolls BlackBoxVoting workers were given based on their freedom of information act request. Limited information is available right now, but you can read about it at CommonDreams, Orlando Sentinel, or in Ms. Harris's post on Democratic Underground.
  
  
• Problems in the 2004 general election - a page by VotersUnite! cataloging published media reports of problems encountered in our recent election. They have a PDF map showing the distribution of a subset of the problems.
  
  
• Hack the Vote - an article by Chuck Herrin about how easy it is to change vote totals on Diebold's GEMS software.
  
  
• Glitch causes Franklin Co. recount - a report in the Indianapolis Star about how some Democratic votes were recorded as Libertarian, forcing a recount.
  
  
• Florida of 2004?: Election exposes serious flaws in North Carolina voting system - an AP report (published on SF Gate.com) discussing problems in North Carolina that might result in a statewide revote on some issues.
  
  
• Unofficial Audit of NC Election - A post on Democratic Underground comparing election-day polling and early voting results in North Carolina (based on data from the State's election website). While early voting and election-day polling results were similar for most races, there were major differences between the two for the presidential and gubernatorial contests. I've posted some graphs of these data here.
  
  
• The Empire Strikes Back - a post on the blog cannonfire responding to a recent New York Times article that argued there was no evidence for voter fraud or errors.
  
  
• Spano maintains lead over Stewart-Cousins in 35th District - Another update on the New York senate race wherein the margin of victory shrunk dramatically after a recount.
  
  
• Kucinich Supports Green Party Demand for Ohio Recount.
  
  
• The 3,893 extra Bush votes in one Ohio Precinct - a post on Democratic Underground demonstrating that one Ohio county's erroneous vote totals can be achieved by a simple programming change.
  

Tangled Bank #16

Welcome to Rhosgobel, home of Radagast. I've been rather busy recently, so haven't had time to clean up properly for your visit. But hey, you're here, so come on into the living room, push those papers off the couch, sit down, and enjoy another edition of the Tangled Bank.

It's hard to believe that we're up to edition number 16 already, and for this magical sixteenth edition we've got a grand total of eight submissions. If I'm remembering correctly, I'm the first blogger to have hosted the Tangled Bank twice, other than our esteemed founder (and hey, 16/2=8). How exciting!

Well, here goes:

• Leah at Penn submits The theory of it all, in which "the author outlines the difference between a scientific theory and the colloquial use of the word. As well, she briefly walks through the process of taking a hypothesis (the colloquial theory) toward a theory." (Thanks, Leah, for summarizing your post so nicely!)
  
  
• Richard at The Friends of Charles Darwin submits Are you calling my fox terrier stupid?, a post examining the scaling of brain size and body mass with regard to Homo floresiensis.
  
  
• Mike submits a webpage, not a blog, (gasp! I didn't even known people wrote those anymore ...) titled On Evolution and Creation. He discusses the evolution of creation theory from, well, creationism to evolutionary theory as we've gained more scientific knowledge.
  
  
• PZ Myers of Pharyngula submits Rhabdomeric and ciliary eyes, a very detailed post looking at the evolutionary history of photoreception in animals. PZ puts it best himself: "It's a solid story that ties visual system history in protostomes and deuterostomes together, resolving the differences between them into a convincing evolutionary account."
  
  
• Jacob of Eternal Recurrence submits The Mystery of the Five-Inch Bull Balls, in which he introduces bull mating behavior by looking at nothing other than prosthetic testicles.
  
  
• Sya of Syaffolee submits Not Just Another Passive Bacterial Paradise, "a short summary about how extracellular pathogens are detected even though all the sensors are located inside the cell." (Thanks, Sya, for the summary!)
  
  
• Mike of 10,000 Birds submits a Puerto Rico Trip Report, which, as you might guess from the title, is a report of the birds he saw in Puerto Rico. The best line is quite possibly: "Despite the nagging sense that this 'vacation' might be more relaxing if we actually slept a bit, we rose early to embark on a brief rainforest tour."
  
  
• Your host has, unfortunately, been rather distracted with baby mice, election results, and teaching, so doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, or as detailed, as our other submissions. However, I recently did write a brief bit on a field lab I did with my students, and talked about eating insects, so those will have to do for now.

The host of the next Tangled Bank will be Leah Penn Boris (lapenn (at) gmail (dot) com), who writes at Penn. Send your submissions directly to Leah, host@tangledbank.net, or to PZ Myers. As always, the Tangled Bank is looking for hosts for future editions; send an e-mail to PZ if you're willing. Your blog gets traffic, you get e-mails from people you've never met before, and, best of all, you have the ultimate power that comes with compiling the world's preeminent biweekly science blog compendium.

Oh yes, before you leave, I must be a typical host and swamp you with pictures of the new family members. If you haven't done so already, take a look at my recent one-month old baby mouse pictures, their birthday post, and their new cage (and you absolutely have to see them at four days old).

Mouse birthday pictures

My SO and I realized that we couldn't let our baby mice's one-month birthday pass without some pictures, so we had a photo shoot the day after their birthday. We've also finished renaming the mice, so I've also included their new names. Click on any of the small images to see a larger version.


Genie says hi.


Athos, also known as Ace.


D'Artagnan, also known as Deuce.


Genie, the one mouse whose name hasn't changed. On the left you can see her name-inspiring pattern, and on the right Genie is playing her favorite game of "What's between these two fingers?"


Meryl, formerly known as Narrow Stripey.


Tomoyo, formerly known as Wide Stripey.


Vash, formerly known as Runt.

Getting outside

I've spent most of this semester inside, either working at my computer, teaching in a classroom, or blogging. Since the topic of my new course is diversity, I figured there was no better way to demonstrate diversity than to lead a class field expedition to the rocky intertidal zone.

The rocky intertidal zone is the shoreline area that is alternately covered and uncovered by the tides. The bounds of the zone are the portion of land that is covered by only the highest high tides, and the portion of land that is only uncovered by the lowest low tides. An amazing diversity of life can be found in this narrow strip of land: in less than an hour into each trip my students had found examples of all the major types of algae (brown, red, and green), and representatives of at least six phyla of animals (cnidarians, annelids, arthropods, mollusks, echinoderms, and some invertebrate chordates).

Since my class is relatively large I led two separate trips, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The goal of the lab for the students was to quantify the species diversity in the different intertidal zones, as well as testing previously developed hypotheses about a specific species. Each group spent about three hours at the interidal zone, and everyone seemed to have fun, even the ones who got their shoes soaked and got splashed by waves (actually, they seemed to have even more fun).

The day was especially nice for me, however, because I got to spend two afternoons in the intertidal soaking in the sun and fresh air. The students did a great job of finding new and unique specimens for me to ID, which kept me happily engrossed the entire time.

Most of the organismal biologists I know decided to study biology because they love the organisms they study and enjoy spending time outdoors. It's a shame that so many of our labs have to be taught inside, often with non-living materials. Since introductory courses are often large, organizing field labs can be difficult, but watching my students today made it clear that there's no substitute for the real thing when it comes to teaching biology.

Mashed turnips and potatoes

My SO and I have recently discovered the tastiness of the underappreciated turnip. Last night we made some mashed turnips and potatoes based on a recipe from Joy of Cooking (our all-time favorite cookbook). They turned out great, so I thought I'd post them up as my end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

For those of you who aren't initiated into the cult of the turnip, it's a root vegetable from the cabbage family. Turnips are firmer than potatoes, similar to broccoli stalk or kohlrabi (which makes sense since they're all in genus Brassica). Turnips have a pleasant, mildly peppery taste (with a hint of sweetness) that mellows upon cooking. If you're looking for something new for Thanksgiving dinner, this dish could make a lighter, more vegetable-y alternative to traditional mashed potatoes.

All ingredient amounts are somewhat flexible (note that some ingredients are listed twice).

2 1/4 pounds turnips, peeled (and quartered, if large)
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled (and halved or quartered if large)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2-3 scallions, finely chopped
Ingredients to add to the mashed potatoes - we used some butter (~2 tablespoons), cream (~2 tablespoons, or milk), sour cream (~2 tablespoons), and salt (to taste, maybe 1/2 teaspoon?)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

1. Add the turnips to a pot of boiling water and boil for 6 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add the chicken stock to another pan and bring to a boil, then add 4 tablespoons butter, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, stirring to mix.
3. Remove the turnips from the boiling water (save the boiling water to cook the potatoes in) and add them to the chicken stock pan (the turnips should be mostly covered). Simmer, covered, until the turnips are nearly tender throughout (~10-20 minutes).
4. Meanwhile, add the potatoes to the pot of boiling water and cook them until tender throughout (~15-30 minutes depending on the size of the pieces).
5. When the turnips are close to done (we just approximated), add the scallions to the turnip mixture and simmer for a few minutes more (until the scallions are cooked and the turnips are completely tender).
6. When the turnips are done, remove them from the cooking liquid. Reduce the cooking liquid until it is reasonably thick (a few minutes of boiling).
7. Puree the turnips with the reduced cooking liquid until smooth; we used our Cuisinart food processor. (We also added a bit more butter here, but it's probably not needed.)
8. Mash the potatoes with their ingredients (butter, cream, sour cream, and salt, or whatever you desire) in a large bowl.
9. Fold the turnips into the mashed potatoes, add parsley, and serve.

Rombauer, I. S., M. R. Becker, and E. Becker. 1997. Joy of Cooking. Scribner, NY.

[Update: A reader named John added the following in the comments: "In Scotland where turnips are known as swedes or neeps this mixture is called Clapshot and is often associated with the Orkney Islands."]

Tangled Bank #16: Call for submissions

EXTRA! EXTRA! Radagast to post on science, not politics!

The 16th Tangled Bank will be hosted right here at Rhosgobel this coming Wednesday, November 17th. If you'd like your recent science-related post to be included (see the Tangled Bank page for all the details), just send the link here to me at rhosgobel2@comcast.net or to PZ Myers. Just think, with only one simple e-mail by Tuesday night, you too could join the exclusive ranks of the Tangled Bank posters!

As always, the Tangled Bank is looking for hosts; if you're interested, drop PZ Myers a line.

More updates in Florida

The Florida Department of State's Divisions of Elections results page has been updated yet again. Sixty-three counties (out of 67 total) are listed on the County Reporting page as having updated since my last published data collection at 11pm on Nov. 10, 2004. As with all prior days, the "County Reporting" page still has a "Y" in the "Final Report" and "Absentees" columns for all counties. No counties are listed as having updated recently on the "Provisionals" page. My data tables for this most recent update can be found here.

Summing across all counties, voter turnout increased by a net total of 16,716, while 16,781 presidential votes were added (table 1). As in my previous post, no counties are reporting more votes for president than voters voting, though Osceola County still has exactly the same number of votes for president and voters voting (table 2; they last updated 11/13/2004 10:34). Counties that added or removed votes for president again appeared to add them to or remove them from a mix of candidates (table 3).

For my prior posts on Florida county election data, see here, here, and here.

Recounts in NH and OH

Some third party candidates are asking for recounts in both New Hampshire and Ohio (and no, not because they think they should have won).

• The Nader/Camejo campaign is officially starting a recount in 11 New Hampshire counties (Nader/Camejo press release). According to a recent Washington Post article, it sounds like Nader has met the requirements for a recount, so it may be happening soon (link to an earlier article). Nader is accepting donations to help pay the required fees.
  
  
• Cobb and Badnarik, the Green and Libertarian candidates for president, are both calling for an official recount in Ohio. Both parties are looking for donations to pay the $110,000 fee by Monday ($150,000 including additional expenses; Green donation page, Libertarian donation page). The recount request was announced on the Cobb/LaMarche website (the announcement was at the top on the page without a permalink, and can also be found here). Cobb also released a statement on November 5 explaining more of his reasons.

Other organizations are also popping up to help fund recounts. One linked to on the DemocraticUnderground forums (post) is the Help America Recount Fund, a new 527 group.

Insects as food

Here in the United States we don't consider eating insects, other than as stunts on reality shows or in novelty candies like Chocolate Crickets (sold by Fluker's Farms). However, in many parts of the world, insects have formed a major portion of people's diets for years, and it's only through the westernization of these cultures that they've started to think that insects don't make proper food (DeFoliart 1999).

Thus it's refreshing to see that a recent UN study suggests that insects could be used as food sources to counter food-supply problems in some areas. In fact, the article points out, "Contrary to what many may think, caterpillars are not considered an emergency food, but are an integral part of diet in many regions according to seasonal availability. They are consumed as a delicacy." (via BoingBoing)

If you'd like to learn more about the worldwide consumption of insects, and the negative effects western culture is having on it, I highly recommend DeFoliart's (1999) review article. This article's description of the delightful taste of winged termites (better than a good steak, according to some) has made me want to try them ever since reading it.

DeFoliart, G. R. 1999. Insects as food: why the western attitude is important. Annual Review of Entomology 44: 21-50.

More election links

As anyone who's been reading progressive boards on the net knows, there's been a lot of speculation flying around about whether there were widespread voting errors or fraud in this past election; I thought I'd provide some links for people who want to read more about the topic.

While many of these articles are official media reports, some are from individual bloggers, academics, or independent writers; I've organized them roughly by type (though a few are hard to identify).

Articles from major US media sources:

• Vote counting errors found in New York - A democratic candidate for state senate from Yonkers initially was reported to have lost by 1,674 votes, but after recounting the margin shurnk to only 128 votes. "Jonathan Rosen, director of the state Democrats' campaign committee, said the recount had revealed "a highly unusual error rate."" (WNBC - article 1, article 2)
  
  
• Sarpy County (Nebraska) found evidence of overvoting in 32 of 80 precincts, for a total of around 10,000 excess votes (first WOWT article). After a recount, 3,000 "phantom votes" were found (second WOWT article).
  
  
• Warren County (Ohio) Defends Lockdown Decision - In Warren County, officials prevented media and other people from overseeing the vote counting (reported here), citing security concerns. A followup article in the Cincinati Enquirer reports that FBI and Homeland Security officials say that they never informed the county of any specific threats.
  
  
• Exit Polls to Protect the Vote - A New York Times article written before the election discussing the use of exit polling in fraud detection.
  
  
• Florida E-Vote Fraud? Unlikely - An article discussing Kathy Dopp's dataset, citing academic sources who say it doesn't prove fraud, by Wired News.
  
  
• Worst Voter Error Is Apathy Toward Irregularities - a column in the Washington Post.
  
  
• See my earlier post for a few additional articles.

Articles from other sources:

• The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy - a well-written draft academic paper (PDF) by Steven Freeman, discussing the general accuracy of exit polling, as well as detailing and statistically analyzing discrepancies between exit polls and actual results in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This is probably the most thoughtful exit poll analysis I've read.
  
  
• Odds of Bush gaining by 4 percent in all exit polling states 1 in 50,000 - The Blue Lemur
  
  
• BlackBoxVoting.org reports that they have acquired "two Ciber certification reports [for electronic voting machines] indicating that security and tamperability was not tested and that several state elections directors, a secretary of state, and computer consultant Dr. Britain Williams signed off on the report anyway, certifying it." (posted Nov 7th on their homepage; I can't find a permalink)
  
  
• Foreign monitors 'barred' from US polls - an article in the Independent Online
  
  
• An analysis of New Hampshire voting data - Invisible Ida
  
  
• An analysis of New Hampshire results using Benford's Law - lesspress.com
  
  
• Kerry Won - An analysis of data from Ohio - TomPaine.com
  
  
• Twelve ways Bush is now stealing the Ohio vote - written before the election, by The Free Press
  
  
• Problems with Ohio vote tallying early in the election - Oliverwillis.com
  
  
• Errors plague voting process in Ohio, PA. - an article on Vindy.com
  
  
• On The Front Lines in Florida - an essay discussing voting problems in Broward County, FL.

Happy Birthday!

Our baby mice turned one month old today! So, for a change of pace from my recent posts, I thought I'd post up some cute baby mouse pictures. These pictures were all taken last Friday; I haven't had time to get them posted due to all my recent election-related posting (I can't help it if I'm easily distracted).

The first thing you'll notice about the babies is how big they've gotten:


Narrow Stripey (tentatively renamed Meryl)

If you're wondering why the hand in that picture looks all shiny and wet, that's because we've developed a super-secret new method for getting the babies to walk onto our hands: feed them ice cream.


Five babies around a hand with some melted vanilla ice cream in it.

Of course, the problem with feeding them ice cream to get them into your hands is that sometimes you get, well, a handful:


Five baby mice in two hands. From left to right: Vash (the mouse formerly known as Runt), Narrow Stripey (tentatively renamed Meryl), Wide Stripey, Athos (aka Ace, in front), and D'Artagnan (aka Deuce).

What's especially fun is to compare the above pictures to when they were only six days old (link to picture), when they could easily fit into one hand.

The babies have also developed a keen sense of adventure, and as soon as they crawl onto anyone they try to go everywhere. D'Artagnan recently climbed up my ear to get onto the top of my head, Genie likes to crawl down the backs of people's shirts, and most of them seem to love crawling into shirt sleeves:



And, as a final picture, here's Rem, the proud mother of six who has done all the work to get these babies up to their one month birthday. I think she deserves a big treat tonight.


Rem

10,000

I just passed the 10,000 visit mark here at Rhosgobel. Thanks to everyone who has visited, left feedback, and just generally helped to make blogging one of the things I look forward to doing every day.

More Florida vote changes

This past Sunday I reported that there were more votes for president in some counties of Florida than there were voters voting. On Monday a number of the counties updated their data, and I posted about that as well (here).

Four counties updated their data between my Monday and Tuesday checks (Nov. 9, 2004 ~1am to Nov. 9, 2004 ~10pm), but no counties appeared to update their data between my Tuesday and Wednesday checks (Nov. 9 ~10pm to Nov. 10 ~11pm). There were no changes in voter turnout data or presidential votes cast between my Tuesday and Wednesday data collection. All data were, as usual, obtained from the Florida Department of State's Divisions of Elections results page. As with all prior days, the "County Reporting" page still has a "Y" in the "Final Report" and "Absentees" columns for all counties.

See table 1 for a summary of changes made by the four counties which updated on Tuesday. Gadsden County, which is listed as having an update at 11/9/2004 10:34, had no changes for either turnout or presidential votes cast.

Both counties that had excess votes recorded as of 11/9/04 1am (Osceola and Duval) now have no excess votes reported (table 2). Osceola County's voter turnout numbers were increased to precisely match the number of presidential votes cast; it is the only county to have such a matchup. The one county whose total number of presidential votes cast was changed had the votes distributed between a number of candidates (table 3).

In order to keep the data tables relatively short I am only posting data for the counties that have altered totals since 11/9/04 1am. If anyone needs the full dataset I can provide it upon request.

Table 1: Change in voter turnout and presidential votes cast from data obtained ~1am 11/9/04 to data obtained ~10pm 11/9/04. All changes were calculated by subtracting the 1am value from the 10pm value.

County	Change in turnout (11/9/04 10pm minus 11/9/04 1am)	Change in presidential votes cast (11/9/04 10pm minus 11/9/04 1am)
Duval	1305	0
Gadsden	0	0
Osceola	261	0
St. Lucie	0	114

Table 2: Tabulated data of total voter turnout and total votes cast for president in the Florida counties that updated their data on November 9, 2004 (for the November 2, 2004 election). Data was obtained at ~10pm November 9, 2004 from the Florida state site linked to above. Note that there are no longer any excess votes recorded.

County	Turnout	Presidential votes	T-v	(T-v)/T	Excess votes
Duval	380562	379614	948	0.25%
Gadsden	21094	20984	110	0.52%
Osceola	82178	82178	0	0.00%
St. Lucie	100374	100027	347	0.35%
Sum					0

Table 3: Comparison of vote totals for each candidate in the one Florida county whose presidential vote totals changed from 11/9/04 1am to 11/9/04 10pm. Numbers listed are the gain in votes the candidate received from 1am to 10pm.

County	Bush / Cheney	Kerry / Edwards	Peroutka / Baldwin	Badnarik / Campagna	Cobb / LaMarche	Harris / Trowe	Brown / Herbert	Nader / Camejo
St. Lucie	56	56	0	1	0	0	0	1

Update: Florida election turnout vs. presidential votes

The Florida Department of State's Divisions of Elections results page was updated Monday for a number of counties, with turnout totals altered for 42 counties (63% of all counties) and vote totals altered for 5 counties (7.5% of all counties), compared with the data I summarized in my previous post (table 1).

The changes have largely removed the excess votes from the counties that had them, though two counties still have more votes for president recorded than voters voting in the election (Duval and Osceola Counties, for a total of 618 excess votes; table 2). Duval County's last update is recorded as 11/4/04 13:11, while Osceola County's last update is now listed as 11/8/04 09:45. Orange County, one of the counties with extra votes on 11/7/04, now only has 0.09% more voters than votes for president, a value much lower than that found in all the other counties.

Overall a total of 271,137 net voters were added across all counties, while 4,493 votes were added for president. The five counties that added presidential votes each appeared to add them to a mix of candidates (table 3).

I can't find any explanation on the Florida site for why the turnout and vote totals changed, other than that the counties are listed as having updated their data on the county reporting page. The pages are all still titled "1st set of unofficial returns (pursuant to s. 102.141, F.S.)", the same as they were on Sunday, and all counties still report "Y" in the "Final Report" and "Absentees" column. The provisionals page does not list any updates having occured after 11/5/04.

Data tables:

Table 1: Change in voter turnout and presidential votes cast from data obtained ~6pm 11/7/04 to data obtained ~1:15am 11/9/04. All changes were calculated by subtracting the Nov. 7, 2004 value from the Nov. 9, 2004 value.

County	Change in turnout	Change in presidential votes		County	Change in turnout	Change in presidential votes
Alachua	284	279		Lee	0	0
Baker	-11	0		Leon	344	0
Bay	108	0		Levy	0	0
Bradford	0	0		Liberty	0	0
Brevard	0	0		Madison	0	0
Broward	1436	0		Manatee	71	0
Calhoun	0	0		Marion	0	0
Charlotte	0	0		Martin	0	0
Citrus	5	0		Miami-Dade	56169	0
Clay	86	0		Monroe	0	2
Collier	1490	0		Nassau	8	0
Columbia	0	0		Okaloosa	423	0
DeSoto	2	0		Okeechobee	4	0
Dixie	0	0		Orange	1991	0
Duval	0	0		Osceola	18328	0
Escambia	-17624	0		Palm Beach	95279	0
Flagler	20	0		Pasco	5	0
Franklin	0	0		Pinellas	213	0
Gadsden	0	0		Polk	146	0
Gilchrist	5	0		Putnam	4	0
Glades	758	0		Santa Rosa	39	0
Gulf	0	0		Sarasota	349	0
Hamilton	15	0		Seminole	359	0
Hardee	-4	0		St. Johns	0	0
Hendry	3	0		St. Lucie	0	0
Hernando	79308	3247		Sumter	2	0
Highlands	7875	0		Suwannee	17	0
Hillsborough	2481	941		Taylor	0	0
Holmes	0	0		Union	0	0
Indian River	292	0		Volusia	20046	24
Jackson	48	0		Wakulla	0	0
Jefferson	0	0		Walton	36	0
Lafayette	0	0		Washington	2	0
Lake	725	0		Sum	271137	4493

Table 2: Tabulated data of total voter turnout and total votes cast for president in all Florida counties for the November 2, 2004 election. Note that a negative number in the "turnout minus votes" column indicates that there were more votes cast for president than voters voting in the county. Data was obtained at ~1:15am November 9, 2004 from the Florida state site linked to above.

County	Turnout	Presidential votes	T-v	(T-v)/T	Excess Votes
Alachua	111571	111301	270	0.24%
Baker	10048	9955	93	0.93%
Bay	75208	74998	210	0.28%
Bradford	10913	10851	62	0.57%
Brevard	265764	265075	689	0.26%
Broward	707202	704376	2826	0.40%
Calhoun	6006	5961	45	0.75%
Charlotte	80140	79730	410	0.51%
Citrus	69696	69462	234	0.34%
Clay	81473	81230	243	0.30%
Collier	128899	128352	547	0.42%
Columbia	25075	24984	91	0.36%
DeSoto	9534	9495	39	0.41%
Dixie	6472	6440	32	0.49%
Duval	379257	379614	-357	-0.09%	357
Escambia	143559	142990	569	0.40%
Flagler	38552	38475	77	0.20%
Franklin	5973	5930	43	0.72%
Gadsden	21094	20984	110	0.52%
Gilchrist	7047	7012	35	0.50%
Glades	4204	4188	16	0.38%
Gulf	7299	7256	43	0.59%
Hamilton	5131	5079	52	1.01%
Hardee	7281	7246	35	0.48%
Hendry	9813	9774	39	0.40%
Hernando	79308	79079	229	0.29%
Highlands	41871	41491	380	0.91%
Hillsborough	464253	462461	1792	0.39%
Holmes	8349	8298	51	0.61%
Indian River	61613	61321	292	0.47%
Jackson	19898	19797	101	0.51%
Jefferson	7501	7477	24	0.32%
Lafayette	3352	3325	27	0.81%
Lake	124476	123938	538	0.43%
Lee	242434	241433	1001	0.41%
Leon	136573	136314	259	0.19%
Levy	16742	16649	93	0.56%
Liberty	3051	3021	30	0.98%
Madison	8342	8307	35	0.42%
Manatee	143901	143539	362	0.25%
Marion	140321	139644	677	0.48%
Martin	72709	72430	279	0.38%
Miami-Dade	772743	768553	4190	0.54%
Monroe	39629	39527	102	0.26%
Nassau	32748	32664	84	0.26%
Okaloosa	89908	89707	201	0.22%
Okeechobee	12247	12197	50	0.41%
Orange	388095	387752	343	0.09%
Osceola	81917	82178	-261	-0.32%	261
Palm Beach	547340	542835	4505	0.82%
Pasco	191859	190866	993	0.52%
Pinellas	457426	455203	2223	0.49%
Polk	211346	210777	569	0.27%
Putnam	31063	30964	99	0.32%
Santa Rosa	67368	67213	155	0.23%
Sarasota	196291	195530	761	0.39%
Seminole	186537	186115	422	0.23%
St. Johns	86603	86262	341	0.39%
St. Lucie	100374	99913	461	0.46%
Sumter	32000	31837	163	0.51%
Suwannee	15878	15801	77	0.48%
Taylor	8613	8580	33	0.38%
Union	4714	4675	39	0.83%
Volusia	229098	228382	716	0.31%
Wakulla	11820	11763	57	0.48%
Walton	24063	23974	89	0.37%
Washington	10452	10365	87	0.83%
Sum	7622037	7592915	29122		618

Table 3: Comparison of vote totals for each candidate in the five Flordia counties whose presidential vote totals chagned from 11/7/04 to 11/9/04. Numbers listed are the gain in votes the candidate received from 11/7/04 to 11/9/04.

County	Bush / Cheney	Kerry / Edwards	Peroutka / Baldwin	Badnarik / Campagna	Cobb / LaMarche	Harris / Trowe	Brown / Herbert	Nader / Camejo
Alachua	137	139	0	1	0	0	0	2
Hernando	1710	1515	9	4	0	0	0	9
Hillsborough	544	391	0	3	0	0	0	3
Monroe	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Volusia	8	16	0	0	0	0	0	0

Florida 1996 vs. 2004 presidential election data

My SO and I found Kathy Dopp's analysis of Florida's county election data a few days ago. Ms. Dopp's dataset compares political party registration numbers to vote counts in each Florida county, and finds a difference between counties using optical scan and electronic voting machines. I was thinking of trying to summarize the topic here, but Pharyngula, Preposterous Universe, and CommonDreams have all summarized it nicely, so I'll let them do the talking.

Ms. Dopp has also analyzed data from the 2000 presidential election, but we decided to go back and analyze the 1996 presidential election data to see if the optical scan counties showed the same Republican voting trends back then. We obtained the 2004 election data from Ms. Dopp's page, and obtained the 1996 election results from the Florida Department of State's Division of Elections Election Results page (data obtained ~Nov. 6, 2004). We did not obtain registration data for 1996.

In our analysis we calculated the fraction of total votes cast for the Democratic and Republican candidates in both 1996 and 2004 within every Florida county. We then compared the 2004 to 1996 voting percentages for each party and each county (subtracting the 1996 vote percentages from the 2004 vote percentages) to generate a percent change in votes for each party's candidate. Averaging across all counties, Kerry got a 3.4% smaller fraction of the vote in 2004 than Clinton in 1996, while Bush got a 14.9% larger fraction of the vote in 2004 than Dole in 1996, meaning that there was a total "shift" of 18.3% to the Republican candidate. A possible confounding factor was the presence in 1996 of Perot as a significant third party candidate (receiving 9.1% of the Florida vote).

As Ms. Kopp did, we also grouped the data by the style of voting machines used in 2004. We found that counties that used optical scan balloting in 2004 had an average Republican "shift" of 20.4%, while counties that used electronic voting in 2004 had an average Republican "shift" of 11.3%.

Here are a few selected examples:

• Dixie County voted 45.6% Democratic and 36.8% Republican in 1996, compared to 30.4% Democratic and 68.8% Republican in 2004, for a total "shift" of 47.2%.
  
• Holmes County voted 34.0% Democratic and 47.8% Republican in 1996, compared to 21.8% Democratic and 77.2% Republican in 2004, for a total "shift" of 41.6%.
• Putnam County voted 47.8% Democratic and 38.9% Republican in 1996, compared to 40.1% Democratic and 59.1% Republican in 2004, for a total "shift" of 27.9%.
  

Do with the data as you please.

Tables:

I have included the summary data below, and have posted the full 1996 data table separately here.

Table 1: Percent of total votes cast in the 1996 and 2004 presidential elections for the Democratic candidate (Clinton in 1996, Kerry in 2004) or Republican candidate (Dole in 1996, Bush in 2004). The shift in voting preferences between the two elections is tabulated for each party separately, which is then used to calcluate the overall "shift" towards the Republican candidate from 1996 to 2004. Voting method data are from the 2004 election; "e" is electronic voting, and "op" is optical scan.

County	Dem 96	Rep 96	Dem 04	Rep 04	Voting method in 2004	Dem 04 minus Dem 96	Rep 04 minus Rep 96	Republican "shift" from '96 to '04
Broward	63.5%	28.3%	64.3%	34.5%	e	0.8%	6.2%	5.4%
Charlotte	43.0%	44.2%	42.9%	55.7%	e	-0.1%	11.5%	11.6%
Collier	32.0%	58.7%	34.1%	65.0%	e	2.1%	6.3%	4.1%
Dade	57.3%	37.9%	53.7%	45.8%	e	-3.6%	7.9%	11.5%
Hillsborough	46.8%	44.3%	46.3%	53.0%	e	-0.5%	8.7%	9.2%
Indian River	37.2%	51.7%	39.0%	60.2%	e	1.8%	8.5%	6.7%
Lake	40.3%	47.5%	38.9%	60.0%	e	-1.3%	12.5%	13.9%
Lee	39.6%	48.7%	39.8%	59.0%	e	0.2%	10.3%	10.1%
Martin	38.2%	52.2%	41.7%	57.1%	e	3.5%	4.9%	1.4%
Nassau	34.4%	57.3%	26.2%	72.7%	e	-8.2%	15.3%	23.5%
Palm Beach	58.1%	33.7%	60.8%	38.5%	e	2.8%	4.9%	2.1%
Pasco	49.8%	36.2%	44.4%	54.1%	e	-5.4%	17.8%	23.3%
Pinellas	49.1%	40.4%	49.5%	49.6%	e	0.4%	9.2%	8.8%
Sarasota	42.7%	46.5%	45.2%	53.5%	e	2.5%	7.1%	4.6%
Sumter	45.6%	38.7%	36.4%	62.2%	e	-9.2%	23.5%	32.6%
					Average for electronic voting counties	-1.0%	10.3%	11.3%
Alachua	53.9%	34.0%	56.2%	42.9%	op	2.3%	8.9%	6.7%
Baker	34.3%	55.5%	21.9%	77.7%	op	-12.4%	22.2%	34.6%
Bay	33.0%	54.9%	28.1%	71.2%	op	-4.9%	16.3%	21.2%
Bradford	40.7%	49.0%	29.9%	69.6%	op	-10.8%	20.6%	31.4%
Brevard	41.2%	45.1%	41.6%	57.7%	op	0.3%	12.6%	12.2%
Calhoun	43.1%	41.3%	35.5%	63.4%	op	-7.6%	22.1%	29.8%
Citrus	44.5%	40.6%	42.1%	56.9%	op	-2.3%	16.3%	18.6%
Clay	28.2%	64.5%	23.3%	76.2%	op	-4.9%	11.7%	16.6%
Columbia	41.0%	46.5%	32.1%	67.1%	op	-8.8%	20.6%	29.4%
Desoto	43.0%	43.7%	41.2%	58.0%	op	-1.8%	14.3%	16.1%
Dixie	45.6%	36.8%	30.4%	68.8%	op	-15.2%	32.0%	47.2%
Duval	44.2%	50.0%	41.7%	57.7%	op	-2.5%	7.8%	10.3%
Escambia	35.1%	56.5%	33.7%	65.3%	op	-1.3%	8.8%	10.1%
Flagler	47.7%	41.0%	48.3%	51.0%	op	0.5%	10.0%	9.5%
Franklin	45.9%	34.2%	40.5%	58.5%	op	-5.4%	24.3%	29.7%
Gadsden	66.3%	26.9%	69.7%	29.8%	op	3.5%	2.9%	-0.6%
Gilchrist	41.4%	40.4%	28.8%	70.4%	op	-12.6%	29.9%	42.6%
Glades	44.6%	39.7%	41.8%	57.7%	op	-2.8%	18.1%	20.9%
Gulf	41.4%	40.5%	33.0%	66.1%	op	-8.4%	25.6%	34.0%
Hamilton	47.2%	41.4%	44.5%	55.0%	op	-2.8%	13.6%	16.4%
Hardee	39.0%	47.2%	29.6%	69.7%	op	-9.3%	22.5%	31.8%
Hendry	43.6%	43.3%	40.5%	58.9%	op	-3.1%	15.6%	18.7%
Hernando	49.1%	38.0%	46.2%	52.9%	op	-3.0%	15.0%	17.9%
Highlands	42.3%	46.3%	38.5%	60.8%	op	-3.7%	14.5%	18.2%
Holmes	34.0%	47.8%	21.8%	77.2%	op	-12.2%	29.5%	41.6%
Jackson	43.0%	46.3%	38.1%	61.2%	op	-4.9%	14.9%	19.7%
Jefferson	52.9%	38.5%	55.3%	44.1%	op	2.4%	5.6%	3.2%
Lafayette	35.7%	50.2%	25.4%	74.0%	op	-10.3%	23.8%	34.1%
Leon	54.6%	37.0%	62.0%	37.3%	op	7.4%	0.3%	-7.1%
Levy	44.6%	38.9%	36.5%	62.5%	op	-8.2%	23.7%	31.8%
Liberty	40.1%	42.2%	35.4%	63.8%	op	-4.7%	21.6%	26.3%
Madison	50.0%	39.3%	48.7%	50.5%	op	-1.2%	11.2%	12.4%
Manatee	43.2%	45.5%	42.7%	56.6%	op	-0.6%	11.1%	11.7%
Marion	41.1%	45.9%	41.0%	58.2%	op	-0.1%	12.3%	12.4%
Monroe	46.9%	37.0%	49.7%	49.2%	op	2.8%	12.2%	9.4%
Okaloosa	26.1%	64.5%	21.6%	77.6%	op	-4.5%	13.1%	17.6%
Okeechobee	48.6%	34.4%	42.3%	57.2%	op	-6.3%	22.9%	29.2%
Orange	45.7%	45.9%	49.8%	49.6%	op	4.1%	3.8%	-0.4%
Osceola	47.0%	39.4%	47.8%	51.7%	op	0.7%	12.3%	11.6%
Polk	44.4%	45.3%	40.8%	58.6%	op	-3.7%	13.4%	17.0%
Putnam	47.8%	38.9%	40.1%	59.1%	op	-7.7%	20.2%	27.9%
Santa Rosa	25.8%	62.0%	21.8%	77.3%	op	-4.0%	15.3%	19.4%
Seminole	39.2%	52.0%	41.3%	58.1%	op	2.1%	6.1%	3.9%
St. Johns	34.4%	56.3%	30.6%	68.6%	op	-3.8%	12.3%	16.2%
St. Lucie	48.9%	39.1%	52.4%	47.0%	op	3.4%	7.9%	4.5%
Suwannee	36.9%	47.3%	28.6%	70.6%	op	-8.3%	23.3%	31.6%
Taylor	44.8%	39.9%	35.5%	63.7%	op	-9.3%	23.8%	33.1%
Union	40.1%	47.3%	26.8%	72.6%	op	-13.3%	25.4%	38.7%
Volusia	49.3%	39.4%	51.3%	48.1%	op	2.0%	8.7%	6.7%
Wakulla	42.6%	40.9%	41.6%	57.6%	op	-1.0%	16.7%	17.7%
Walton	34.4%	49.7%	25.9%	73.2%	op	-8.5%	23.5%	32.0%
Washington	38.1%	44.8%	28.1%	71.1%	op	-10.0%	26.3%	36.3%
					Average for optical scan counties	-4.1%	16.3%	20.4%
					Averages for all counties:	-3.4%	14.9%	18.3%