What we're talking about 
Monday, May 20, 2013
Beyond 400 PPM
Here’s a template for a letter I hope you will consider sending/emailing to all of your elected representatives at the municipal, state, and federal levels, if you are in the US. Thanks Dear [elected official] I am writing to ask you to join the very small but hopefully growing number of elected representatives and executives…
The Last Time Atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million Humans Didn’t Exist
Significant Figures by Peter Gleick May 10, 2013
The planet has passed a disturbing landmark, a marker on a continuing highway to climate disruption. On May 9th, the NOAA and the Mauna Loa observatory reported that atmospheric CO2 levels touched 400 parts per million. Before humans started burning fossil fuels, they were around 280 parts per million. The last time atmospheric CO2…
Channel Surfing
Life Science
I was just digitally flipping through a new book called “Crime Against Nature“, which describes various reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. It is written by an artist, Gwenn Seemel, not a scientist, so I cannot vouch for the scientific accuracy of the book as a whole. However, the illustrations are quite nice and the content is seemingly scandalous,…
(via Australian Geographic)
Physical Science
There’s a famous story about Richard Feynman at Cornell suffering from the science equivalent of writer’s block, after WWII. He was depressed and feeling like everything he did was pointless, until one day he spotted a student throwing a plate up in the air in the cafeteria. As the plate spun, it wobbled, and the…
Have you complained about the weather recently? On the gas giants at the edges of our solar system, Uranus and Neptune, hurricane-like storm systems as big around as Earth blow 1000 km/h winds for years on end. Voyager II image of Neptune, showing storm features. Image: NASA But wait…What exactly constitutes weather on a giant…
Environment
Confessions of a Science Librarian
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn’t believe in…
After this, it seems to me that the human race has realised its ultimate potential; no further progress is possible. We might as well all go back to bed. Some things I see, I think: yes, you’re doing that very well. But I understand what you’re doing, and I could, if not do it myself…
VV has a thoughtful post about the value of peer review, looked at mostly through the lens of a couple of recent poor papers. Peer review (or whatever system you choose for choosing which papers will see the light) has to balance weeding out dross with not suppressing the unusual but good. It is primarily…
Humanities
During our weekly trip to the Schenectady Greenmarket, we took refuge from the rain in the Open door bookstore, where a short while later I saw the following scenes at opposite ends of the kids-book aisle (also the “Featured Image” for this post, but I’ll reproduce it to save the RSS folks from having to…
I was discussing SciArt on several occasions with different people recently and was fishing for a way to classify different SciArt in order to make a particular point – the point being that the type of SciArt I find most interesting and valuable is in the minority. Basically, it seems there are 3 (or maybe…
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” -Frederick Douglass I thought we were past this, I really did. Having grown up in New York, having lived in eight different states and traveled to 39…
Education
I was discussing SciArt on several occasions with different people recently and was fishing for a way to classify different SciArt in order to make a particular point – the point being that the type of SciArt I find most interesting and valuable is in the minority. Basically, it seems there are 3 (or maybe…
I was just digitally flipping through a new book called “Crime Against Nature“, which describes various reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. It is written by an artist, Gwenn Seemel, not a scientist, so I cannot vouch for the scientific accuracy of the book as a whole. However, the illustrations are quite nice and the content is seemingly scandalous,…
USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog
In Praise of Unsung Heroes in Science at the USA Science & Engineering Festival
Heroes should never be forgotten, but unfortunately too many of them in the field of science go missing from our classroom textbooks. Equally disturbing is that a disproportionate number of these heroes overlooked are women and minorities. While the average American young person will likely have no trouble detailing the latest antics of such stars…
Politics
Confessions of a Science Librarian
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn’t believe in…
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” -Frederick Douglass I thought we were past this, I really did. Having grown up in New York, having lived in eight different states and traveled to 39…
It is being debated in the US Senate! (Unofficially.) Here’s Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the issue: See also: Sen. Whitehouse destroys colleague who said God won’t allow climate change And this: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Medicine
I should have known it. I should have known that the reaction wouldn’t take very long. I should have known it based on prior history. The news story to which I am referring is, of course, the revelation yesterday in the New York Times editorial page by Angelina Jolie that she had decided to undergo…
Last week the European Union voted to ban neonicotinoid pesticides in an effort to fight colony collapse disorder among honeybees. Although research has clearly fingered these pesticides in bee behavioral problems, the ban is still something of a shot in the dark, as multiple environmental factors may be at play in CCD. Greg Laden writes…
Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at Uppsala University (Sweden) who specializes in comparative genomics and Dr. Åke Hedhammar, SLU (Sweden) recently identified a novel gene in German shepherd dogs, PKP-2, that encodes a protein (plakophilin-2) important for regulating proper skin structure and function. This protein was found to be associated with canine atopic dermatitis (i.e. doggy eczema), a…
Brain & Behavior
I was just digitally flipping through a new book called “Crime Against Nature“, which describes various reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. It is written by an artist, Gwenn Seemel, not a scientist, so I cannot vouch for the scientific accuracy of the book as a whole. However, the illustrations are quite nice and the content is seemingly scandalous,…
Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at Uppsala University (Sweden) who specializes in comparative genomics and Dr. Åke Hedhammar, SLU (Sweden) recently identified a novel gene in German shepherd dogs, PKP-2, that encodes a protein (plakophilin-2) important for regulating proper skin structure and function. This protein was found to be associated with canine atopic dermatitis (i.e. doggy eczema), a…
Hilarious! And, as always from The Onion, so true…
Technology
Scientists in Maine have converted two Cold War bunkers at Loring Air Force Base into winter havens for bats in an effort to protect the animals from the fungus that causes white nose syndrome. What is nice about using a man-made space is that they can actually clean up the area as opposed to trying to kill…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 38 Table of Contents Chapter 40 Chapter 39 A Walk in the Park, April 26, 2056 I got a bit of a surprise when I got home. Edie caught me just as I was entering and asked, “Do you think we are descending into a New Dark Age?”…
It is critically important that the community participate in the current ongoing discussion for the NASA roadmaps. Particularly if you are an early career researcher. This is your opportunity to make the case for what you think is interesting and important. NASA is going through a series of Roadmap exercises by the different directorates, trying…
Information Science
Confessions of a Science Librarian
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn’t believe in…
I have to admit — I’ve always been more of Star Trek fan rather than Star Wars. The Star Trek universe has always seemed more open, more diverse, with a lot more opportunities for telling different stories not just about the rebels versus the empire. It seems that Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees. “I’m old-school with…
Confessions of a Science Librarian
Around the Web: OMG still with the librarian angst, Forking the academy and more
Yes, We Should Talk About the MLS On Big Name Librarians The Loon’s job Why am I getting my MLIS? Because I have to. So You Think You Want to Be a Librarian? The Adjunctification of Academic Librarianship Your candidate pools Fork the Academy (github as a model for scholarly communcation) Massive (But Not Open)…
Jobs
The Pump Handle
Wage theft in South Florida: Nation’s first county with wage theft protections reports on progress and perils
Earlier this month, Florida lawmakers wrapped up their latest legislative session. And nearly 500 miles south of Tallahassee in Miami-Dade County, workers’ rights advocates breathed yet another sigh of relief.
The Pump Handle
Study: Peer-to-peer training can improve safety, knowledge among Hispanic construction workers
Eric Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Latino Union of Chicago quite literally meet workers where they’re at — on the city’s street corners. Many of the day laborers who gather there are hired to work construction at residential housing sites. Work arrangements are hardly formal and day laborers are frequently subjected to unnecessary and illegal dangers on the job. Unfortunately, worker safety is often kicked to the curb in the street corner marketplace.
A quick review of the bi-partisan Senate immigration reform bill reveals a few provisions related to workplace safety.
