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What We're Talking About Saturday, March 13, 2010

I Choose You, Hawaiian Bobtail Squid!

Two months ago, David Ng of The World’s Fair announced the launch of ambitious science outreach and education project dubbed “Phylomon.” Coinciding with the International Year of Biodiversity, Phylomon was conceived as an open-sourced alternative to Pokemon and its trading-card game, aimed at getting kids interested in badgers and octopi, rather than Bulbasaurs and Pikachus. Since the launch, the project has dropped the “mon” from its name (it’s just “PHYLO” now), received more than 100 pieces of potential card art, and generated an active community of designers and testers who are working on developing the game’s rules. If you’re interested in helping out, drop by Ng’s blog for a progress update, or head over to the project’s homepage, www.phylogame.org where you can find links to the Flickr pool of art submissions and the forums for discussing game mechanics.

The PHYLO project (aka the artist formerly known as Phylomon) - an update

The World's FairMarch 11, 2010

“Things are humming along! We have over 100 images submitted, 30 or so queued up for card production, and over 40 folks signed up on the forum (in fact, one set of rules is arguably close to beta testing). The response has been simply wonderful, and these numbers don't even the include the numerous comments and chats culled from coffee meetings to blog posts to tweets.”

Do you kind of wish Pokemon cards had REAL creatures not FAKE creatures?

The World's FairJanuary 12, 2010

“what can we do to get kids engaged with the wonderful creatures that are all around them? They obviously have the ability and the passion to care about such things, but it appears misplaced - they'll spend a ton of resources and time tracking down fictional things, when they could easily do the same with the very wildlife around them.”

Pokemon + Phylogeny = Phylomon

BioephemeraJanuary 12, 2010

“There's nothing wrong with kids having rich fantasy worlds - far from it. But why not give them the chance to discover that real biology is also incredibly cool - not to mention complex, beautiful, and for many kids, right outside their back door?”

Video

An earnest wasp is duped into humping an orchid on Pharyngula.

Video

shotvid.jpg A river otter plays the keyboard on Zooillogix.

Community

The 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off contest is in full swing! Last year's competition was a smashing success, so we're teaming up with Serious Eats and mental_floss to make this year's prizes—for bloggers and readers—even better. Check out the official announcement for the details and get cracking (and mixing, and baking, etc.)

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In Conversation

“Maybe, perish the thought, government doesn't know how to help farmers. Or, perish two thoughts, maybe government doesn't really want to help farmers but just wants cheap food so the people can afford to buy more SUVs.”

When Cheap Food Isn't Cheap

casaubon's book

Channel Surfing

Life Science

Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

PalmenGarten Herz

This heart-shaped flower is dedicated to the one I love ..

Laelaps

An inside look at the "Killer Pig from Hell", Archaeotherium

I love the work that Larry Witmer and his students do at Ohio University. Not only is it...

Greg Laden's Blog

Science proves that God created everything out of nothing.

I invite you to review this essay and comment on its veracity and validity.

The Life Science Channel RSS Feed

Physical Science

Dot Physics

Pi: how many digits do you need?

The most basic explanation of Pi is that it is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter for a circle. That seems simple enough, but it turns out that Pi is an irrational number - so you can't just write it down. Oh, I know that you are an uber-geek and you could recite the first 80 digits of Pi. But the question is - how many digits are enough?

Starts With A Bang

The Inclined Treadmill: What Would Einstein Say?

Earlier this week, I wrote about an inclined treadmill, and talked about physical work. Physically, the amount...

The Quantum Pontiff

March Meeting Quantum Computing Schedule

The APS March meeting is next week as 10000 physicists invade Portland, Oregon. I hope Powell's bookstore has...

The Physical Science Channel RSS Feed

Environment

Greg Laden's Blog

The 'Plastiki' Expedition

Plastic in the oceans is probably a problem, but it is probably not the problem you think it...

Framing Science

Stanford Researcher: Data Show That ClimateGate Has Had Limited Impact on Public Perceptions

An innocence about social science research combined with the ideological biases of scientists and advocates accounts for the exaggerated claims about the impact of ClimateGate....

Casaubon's Book

When Cheap Food Isn't Cheap

At a minimum, we need to ask ourselves this -if the food we get industrially is unaffordable in an environmental sense and unaffordable in a practical "how do we get dinner" sense, what's the case for conventional corporate ag again?

The Environment Channel RSS Feed

Humanities & Soc. Sciences

Gene Expression

The great productivity transient

This comment from Chris is interesting: I would speculate that the the massive productivity gains were due to...

Gene Expression

Private interest + Government Cheese = for-profit education racket

In Hard Times, Lured Into Trade School and Debt: At institutions that train students for careers in areas...

Adventures in Ethics and Science

Pi Day bake-off 2010: Chocolate Almond Cherry (Tofu) Pie.

Just in time for Pi Day, a rich pie with three flavors that play well together, but no eggs, cream cheese, butter, or milk.

The Social Sciences Channel RSS Feed

Education

Greg Laden's Blog

Texas Approves Right Wing Curriculum Revisions

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum...

Greg Laden's Blog

Texas Textbook Controversy on Nightline

Fundamentalist Christian dentist promotes drastic curriculum change. Click here then click "Texas Textbook Controversy part way down the...

Uncertain Principles

Congratulations to Frederick Franke and James Morton

I think I've mentioned before that I'm on the local committee that selects nominees for the Watson Fellowship,...

The Education Channel RSS Feed

Politics

Greg Laden's Blog

Replacing the DSCC with the Blogosphere?

A few days back, the phone rang and I stupidly answered it. I usually don't unless I know...

Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Greatest. Headline. Ever.

Stolen from here....

Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Worldnutdaily and the McCain Birthers

Jerome Corsi, an endless fount of stupidity, has an incredibly dishonest article at the Worldnutdaily accusing the media...

The Politics Channel RSS Feed

Medicine & Health

Obesity Panacea

This Week's Top Stories (Mar. 7-13, 2010)

While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos,...

Effect Measure

An epidemiologist and daylight savings time

Just another opportunity to do science.

Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

Scientia Pro Publica Needs Your Writing!

Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival devoted to sharing the best science, medical, environment and nature blog writing with the public, and it is seeking submissions and hosts!

The Medicine & Health Channel RSS Feed

Brain & Behavior

Neurophilosophy

Brain scans read memories

A neuroimaging study by UCL researchers shows that individual memory traces can be decoded and distinguished from one another

Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

This is Why Futbol (Soccer) Players Desperately Need Acting Lessons

I love futbol, but OMG, these boyz are such crybabies and drama queens! These soccer/futbol players demonstrate the reasons why I think they all are in desperate need of acting lessons: their ridiculous overblown theatrics.

A Blog Around The Clock

ScienceOnline2010 - Trust and Critical Thinking (video), Part 6

Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers,...

The Brain & Behavior Channel RSS Feed

Technology

A Blog Around The Clock

Texting for Anglers at ScienceOnline2010 (video) - Part 1

North Carolina Sea Grant fisheries specialist Scott Baker talks about "RECTEXT" -- a system that lets tournament...

Universe

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction

In his seminal 1991 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction," the video...

SciencePunk

Mystery of graveyard pictures solved!

A few weeks ago I was given a vintage camera that turned out to have a film hidden...

The Technology Channel RSS Feed

Information Science

A Blog Around The Clock

Science Journalism/Communication week in review

Lots of interesting stuff this week, so I decided to put everything in a single post - makes...

Christina's LIS Rant

The evidence is: status, communication training, and intrinsic rewards are positively associated with scientists communicating with the media

Myths abound about how scientists do not talk with the media or communicate with the public and...

A Blog Around The Clock

We got cartooned!!!

ROFL! Can you recognize your favourite sciencebloggers in this comic strip by Joseph Hewitt? To see larger...

The Information Science Channel RSS Feed

Jobs

On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

Ask Dr. Isis - The Industrial Grass Looks Greener...

If you've been following the Twitter, you've seen that viruses and bacteria continue to colonize the Isis house....

The Quantum Pontiff

Quantum Computing Postdoc at LPS

A theoretical condensed matter postdoc of interest to the quantum computing folks:Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Theoretical Condensed Matter...

DrugMonkey

Your Grant in Review: The outlier proves I need to appeal!!!!

"...it seems one negative reviewer carried the day, and convinced others to pull down the score."

The Jobs Channel RSS Feed
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ScienceBlogs Super Photos

SB Basics

syntheticbiobasics.jpg

Synthetic Biology

Some engineers use cranes and steel to make their designs reality, but synthetic biologists engineer using tools on a different scale: DNA and the other molecular components of living cells. Synthetic biology uses cellular systems and structures to produce artificial models based on natural order. Read these posts from the ScienceBlogs archives for more:

Pharyngula May 30, 2007

“Playing God”

The Loom January 31, 2008

"Frankenstein Was Here": Synthetic Biology as Graffiti

Discovering Biology in a Digital World July 2, 2006

Build your own virus


See Also:

Cribsheet: Synthetic Biology
Seed’s downloadable science guide

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