ScienceBlogs
Where the world discusses science. 75 blogs, 118,527 posts, and 1,825,991 comments.
What We're Talking About Sunday, November 8, 2009
As the World Turns
Context By Seed
As the Earth's tectonic plates shift and grind miles below our feet, we feel the effects on the surface in the form of earthquakes and volcanic activity. As Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science and Chris Rowan of Highly Allochthonous explain, earthquakes far from tectonic plate boundaries may be aftershocks of more violent seismic events along mid-continental faults that occurred hundreds of years earlier. According to a study published in Nature this week, faults in the middle of a continent take much longer—100 years or more—to return to normal activity; thus, aftershocks can occur long after what would be expected from coastal quakes. In other earthquake news, Chris Rowan also reports on Iran's decision to move their capital city to a less earthquake-prone location than Tehran. And on Eruptions, Erik Klemetti gets to the bottom of a recent Slashdot post proclaiming that recent volcanic activity in Ethiopia is causing the African continent to rift apart, forming a new ocean. In fact, explains Erik, the recent eruptions are part of a known process. "This is nothing new," says Erik. "We've known that Africa is splitting apart for decades."
The Conversation
Mid-continent earthquakes are often aftershocks of centuries-old tremors
Not Exactly Rocket ScienceNovember 4, 2009
Earthquakes are a common occurrence on the boundaries between tectonic plates, and they occur at predictable spots. But they can often strike areas that are far away from such boundaries and where old fault-lines have seen little seismic activity over the past hundred years.
Earthquakes within plates: we don't know when, and we may not know where
Highly AllochthonousNovember 6, 2009
We already know the difficulties of predicting when big earthquakes are going to occur, but it seems that in the middle of plates, predicting where they are going to happen might also be a bit more tricky than we thought.
Earthquake hazard mitigation the Iranian way
Highly AllochthonousNovember 5, 2009
At first glance a relocation seems like a fairly foresighted strategy, even if a cynic (who, me?) might wonder if the move encompasses more than the political elite and their associated minions. But population centres do not generally spring up at random.
The rifting of Africa
EruptionsNovember 5, 2009
This process has been going on for millions of years and to come out and misconstrue the study as saying that the activity in 2005 started the rifting or that the crack is the "start" of a new ocean just shows that the mainstream media doesn't know how to read science beyond what other media are saying about it.
Video
Magnetic Movie, winner of the Nature Scientific Merit Award for accuracy at the Imagine Science Film Festival, on bioephemera.
Video
Olga Nunes sings, "I love momentum, I love to engineer," in "I Love xkcd" on Science After Sunclipse.
Community
The newest blogger to join the ScienceBlogs community is statistician Andrew Gelman, author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do, among other books. Gelman is blogging at Applied Statistics, where he explores statistical quirks like the Russian Mortality Paradox and the reason so many men are named Matt. Drop by and check him out!
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In Conversation
“This is why I can't help but grit my teeth when I hear about how important a good night sleep is. I know it's important, OK? The more I want to fall asleep - the more intensely I'm trying to achieve my goal - the less likely I am to actually pass out. I'll lie awake, haunted by thoughts of white bears and cognitive deficits.”November 4, 2009
Channel Surfing
Life Science
Photo of the Day #757: Rock squirrel
A rock squirrel (Spermophilus variegatus), photographed at Dinosaur National Monument, Utah....
Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection XV: Group Selection in the Wild
In T&R XIV I showed that prejudice against group selection is impervious to evidence from laboratory experiments. It...
South African wildlife - Wait, that's not a trunk...
This is a bull elephant firmly establishing why it is he, and not the lion, who is...
The Life Science Channel RSS FeedPhysical Science
Entangled Reality
Read an interesting interview with Roger Penrose at Discover Magazine. Found this part fascinating: So Schrödinger himself never...
A matter of Life and er... Matter
As I was stuffing my face today, I wondered if the Universe cared. The short answer is no....
Check Out Amazon's List of the Year's Best Science Books
Seriously! Go have a look. It seems my book The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's...
The Physical Science Channel RSS FeedEnvironment
First Look at Carbon Capture and Storage in a West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plant?
So says Sci-Am. The article is high on pic and low on facts. Only a small percentage of...
Wadhams on sea ice
Nothing new, but M pointed me at Greenman on sea ice which has a quote from Wadhams (starts...
The Challenge of Eating Sustainably: College Edition
Is It Possible to Eat Sustainably at the University of Virginia? Four students try going vegetarian, going organic, eating under "The Six Dollar Limit", and going local.
The Environment Channel RSS FeedEducation
Islamic Creationism in the News
From the NCSE:...
And so, driven on ceaselessly toward new shores
I am traveling now far away from home towards a large lake in Zurich. What a perfect time...
Happy Carl Sagan Day!
His birthday is actually on Monday, but today marks the first annual event initiated by Broward College in...
The Education Channel RSS FeedPolitics
Acknowledging Obama's failures
We're pissed.
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Ed Infiltrates a Protest
So after the reader meetup on Saturday, I and two of my readers, Barry and Eric, wandered over...
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Health Care Passes House
The House of Representatives passed the health care reform bill Saturday night, but not before passing an amendment...
The Politics Channel RSS FeedMedicine & Health
Idiotic comment of the week
In a nod to fellow ScienceBlogger Ed Brayton, with his hilarious Dumbass Quote of the Day, I hereby...
The Detox Delusion: Kudos to Duke Integrative Medicine Nutritionist
Perhaps a valid mission of academic "integrative medicine" centers is to prevent patients from complicating their health problems with untested and dangerous alternative medical practices.
Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: more religion and child abuse
This time it's orthodox Jews.
The Medicine & Health Channel RSS FeedBrain & Behavior
What does not kill the group, makes it stronger!
I recently finished reading The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, a new book by...
On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess
An Open Letter...
...to the guy next to me in seminar yesterday morning. Dear Dr. Hot-Shot, I realize that you thought...
Response to Dan Ariely's Duke Sex Toy Study Is Predictably Irrational
An IRB-approved study by a well-known author and academic behavioral economist is criticized by a campus minister.
The Brain & Behavior Channel RSS FeedTechnology
COTS software are not off the shelf or turn-key
There's a nice rebuttal of the Sirsi Dynix anti-open source white paper done by Mark Leggott that just...
Tweetlinks, 11-07-09
Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time (all my...
Google Transparency, choice and control technology announced
From Google: Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what...
The Technology Channel RSS FeedInformation Science
The podcast of the radio show is now online
You can listen to the Friday episode of Skeptically Speaking here. I am at the beginning, first 10...
ScienceOnline2010 - Program highlights
As you know, the Program is fully set now. There is a lot of stuff there! So,...
Reprints: An Interesting Way of Looking at Sharing Science-Related PDFs
UR STEALIN TEH SCIENTISMZ!!
The Information Science Channel RSS FeedJobs
What to do when recruitment promises evaporate?
As I have noted before, if there is one modal complaint of the newly hired Assistant Professor in...
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
Fork Lift Accident Brings Down The Warehouse
This video is one of those where you find yourself laughing while you secretly hope that this will never be you.
Map That Campus XLIX
It's that time again. Here's this week's mystery campus:
The Jobs Channel RSS Feed
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ScienceBlogs Super Photos
Top Lists
- 1Can We Talk About Science? I Mean, Really? : Thus Spake Zuska
- 2On the media (or press)
- 3Won't someone please think of the coelacanths, and other lamentations : Tetrapod Zoology
- 4Happy Belated Mole Day! : Zooillogix
- 5Even without practice, sleep improves memory of movements : Not Exactly Rocket Science
- 1The world is ending, again
PZ Myers 11.08.2009
- 2Rudeness required
PZ Myers 11.07.2009
- 3Desiree Jennings "cured" of her "vaccine-induced dystonia"?
Orac 11.06.2009
- 4Ed Infiltrates a Protest
Ed Brayton 11.08.2009
- 5Health Care Passes House
Ed Brayton 11.08.2009
- 1
Earthquake hazard mitigation the Iranian way
Highly Allochthonous 11.05.2009
- 2
The rifting of Africa
Eruptions 11.05.2009
- 3
Discriminating butterflies show how one species could split into two
Not Exactly Rocket Science 11.05.2009
- 4
This Is Depressing
Corpus Callosum 11.05.2009
- 5
Dark Energy: Hard to Kill (Part 1)
Starts With a Bang 11.04.2009
From NYTimes.com
Latest science stories | More at nytimes.com
SB Basics
Hurricanes
As the 2009 hurricane season picks up speed after a remarkably mild beginning, we look to the ScienceBlogs archives for the science behind the storms.
The Island of DoubtJuly 25, 2006
The real story of the hurricanes
Neuron Culture September 11, 2008
Hurricanes & Climate Change: A Round-Up Says Maybe More, Definitely Hotter
Corpus Callosum September 12, 2008
What Ike Really Means; Introducing Integrated Kinetic Energy
From PhysOrg.com
Latest science stories | More at PhysOrg.com
- 1Scientists visualize how bacteria talk to one another
- 2Deep creep means milder, more frequent earthquakes along Southern California's San Jacinto fault
- 3Findings show nanomedicine promising for treating spinal cord injuries
- 4Developmental delay could stem from nicotinic receptor deletion
- 5Advertisers face resistance to on-line tracking
Humanities & Soc. Sciences
Uncertain Principles
The Internet Is a Weird and Wonderful Place
Eric Whiteacre's Virtual Choir, made up of dozens of indivual YouTube videos.
Gene Expression
Unitary mindfulness in collective action
In reviewing a paper which sketches out the boundary conditions under which group-level natural selection would result in...
Gene Expression
Democracy & Creationism in Turkey
Another article on Creationism in Turkey: To John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas,...
The Social Sciences Channel RSS Feed