Science and (culture, politics, policy, media)
Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the CSTPR. (More in the about.)
email: kevin {/at/} nosenada.org
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(listed in semi-random order)
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October 31, 2006
Category: Blogs • Earth Science (general) • Geology
Just stumbled upon Louise Kellogg's blog. Louise (webpage) is the Chair of the Geology Dept. at UC Davis and was one of my undergraduate advisors. Her flavor of geophysics is the deep-earth/mantle convection stuff and she writes papers with titles...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 5:11 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Science+culture
A while back the guys at Meme Therapy asked me to contribute to their regular Brain Parade feature. The question posed was, "Do you perceive a growing sense of mistrust from the public with respect to science?" They must have...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:41 PM • 1 Comments
Category: NASA/space
Depending on how you look at it, NASA was either on a precipice or at a fork in the road. In the wake of the Columbia orbiter disintegration, former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe decided in January 2004 that a shuttle...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:13 PM • 7 Comments
October 27, 2006
Category: Bare politics • Natural hazards/disasters
In my mid-October haze I missed a major development in a story I cover fairly closely -- FEMA and disaster response. I covered back in September the Collins/Lieberman coup to get new FEMA language passed. What I missed recently (Oct...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:25 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Friday Politics
I'm guessing that most of you Colorado-based readers live in the 2nd Congressional district (Udall's district), but there are probably some of you that work in the 2nd but live (and thus vote) in the 4th. The 4th district's seat would be held by Ms. Musgrave, not known as the most tolerant or charitable Representative of the 435 duly sworn and elected.
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 12:41 PM • 3 Comments
October 26, 2006
Category: Bare politics • Friday Politics
Walking home today, best bumper sticker I've seen in a long time: "I study ferns and I vote" Speaking of studying and voting, if you didn't catch the SMIP (Karl Rove) on NPR Tuesday, you should take a listen. I...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 11:31 PM • 0 Comments
October 25, 2006
Category: Earth Sci Article Abstracts
Ahhhh. A spontaneous week and a half off. Quite nice. Sometimes you just need to step away from the blog and go looking for elk. And not find anything but lots of other people in bright orange. And a massive...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 1:07 PM • 2 Comments
October 13, 2006
Category: Sports
You guys are killing it. You really are. You have hired one of the best announcers around in Joe Buck (although Jon Miller would have been the better choice, of course), but your camera work is absolutely atrocious. Who decided...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 11:35 PM • 27 Comments
Category: Annoucements • Blogs
Ah, anniversaries. Celebrations. I'm not above them. (Did I mention I have a birthday coming up?) Anyway, out of the many milestone metrics I could pick to celebrate the blogging here, I'm choosing comments. One of you lucky saps is...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 4:18 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Climate change • Earth Sci Article Abstracts • Environment • Oceanography • Weather
Only three abstracts to bring out from last week's AGU email alerts, but one is a gem. 1- Infrasound events detected with the Southern California Seismic Network by E.S. Cochran and P.M. Shearer of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Just a...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 4:02 PM • 4 Comments
October 12, 2006
Category: Academia
Ed has already pointed out Lee Bollinger's statement on free speech at Columbia University. I'm in total agreement with Ed and have nothing substantive to add, but I do have a quirky story that relates. My wife and I are...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:46 PM • 3 Comments
Category: NASA/space
What originally brought me into science was an astronomy class in junior high and the astronomy bug has never left me. So I was pretty geeked to find this article (thanks to Pete Modreski) on tracking Iridium satellites from Sky...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 2:55 PM • 3 Comments
October 10, 2006
Category: Bare politics
I just got this from CQ Today: Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., promised today that anyone who covered up improper contacts with underage pages will be punished. Hastert defended actions of his staff, but said he would dismiss any aide...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:59 PM • 3 Comments
October 9, 2006
Category: Science at work
If any of you guys can see the North Korea test (01:35 GMT / Oct 9) on available seismograms, please email me or put it in the comments. None of the LCSN instruments show anything and while the USGS has...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 4:05 PM • 30 Comments
Category: NASA/space
Very cool photo I just caught on spaceweather.com: From their caption: "Two nights ago, Ed Morana was watching the full moon over Tracy, California, when the International Space Station flew by--almost eclipsing the crater Tycho. Using a video camera and...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 1:48 PM • 3 Comments
October 6, 2006
Category: Annoucements • Natural hazards/disasters
Let's put it this way: Anybody even remotely connected to natural hazards studies would identify Gilbert White as The Man of the field. They called White the Father of Natural Hazards. His Ph.D. thesis wrote the book on human interactions...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 5:24 PM • 0 Comments
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