Chatter:
For those of you who are interested in science blogging -- either to ask questions or to start one of your own -- I will be participating in a panel discussion about science blogging next week (Wednesday, Oct. 1st at...
Posted on September 24, 2008 10:42 AM • 0 Comments •
Sorry about the light blogging everyone. I am super-busy at work preparing for an upcoming vacation, so I just don't have the time for it at the moment. I expect light-blogging between now and the middle of October, so check...
Posted on September 23, 2008 3:41 PM • 0 Comments •
From Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek: There are two ways to reduce the connection between politicians and money. One is to reduce the role of money. The other is to reduce the role of politicians. I choose the latter. I...
Posted on September 10, 2008 12:23 PM • 2 Comments •
OMG! This is the best commercial ever. Check out this commercial for epMotion automated pippeting machines by Eppendorf....
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Posted on September 6, 2008 1:53 PM • 4 Comments •
Too good. What do atheists yell during sex? Stephen Colbert asks Lori Lippman Brown, director of Secular Coalition for America....
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Posted on September 2, 2008 12:48 PM • 3 Comments •
I have been meaning to update about this, but Presh at Mind Your Decisions blog discusses another example of Game Theory in the movie the Dark Knight. He talks about the first scene where the robbers are let us say...
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Posted on August 27, 2008 3:38 PM • 0 Comments •
We were discussing game theory and the Dark Knight. Mike at The Quantitative Peace has an excellent post that discusses all the possible iterations: I think this calls for a new villian in the third movie of the trilogy: The...
Posted on July 22, 2008 10:56 AM • 2 Comments •
Have you ever said any of the following? 1) That Jake fellah (or other ScienceBlogger) has insightful things to say. By Heaven, I would like to meet him and discuss said insights. 2) That Jake fellah (or other ScienceBlogger) is...
Posted on July 22, 2008 10:47 AM • 1 Comments •
Found in an abstract: The medial PFC, as well as the ventral tegmental area, also seem to participate in the generation of pelvic thrusting....
Posted on July 7, 2008 11:19 AM • 1 Comments •
Presh has a great post on game theory and voting power using nominations to the Israeli Supreme Court as an example. Take homes: Here is what you can take away when creating your own voting structures: 1. Vote size does...
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Posted on June 24, 2008 1:17 PM • 0 Comments •
Encephalon is up at Neuroanthropology....
Posted on June 23, 2008 11:28 AM • 0 Comments •
George Carlin died yesterday. I always loved his comedy, but more important to me Carlin affirmed my atheism at a time in my life when I didn't really know anyone else who felt that way. He poked fun at religion,...
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Posted on June 23, 2008 7:35 AM • 40 Comments •
This is pretty funny: Why God Never Received Tenure at the University 1. He had only one major publication. 2. And it was in Hebrew. 3. And it had no cited references. 4. And it wasn't published in a refereed...
Posted on June 18, 2008 9:13 AM • 0 Comments •
1) Send you payment check in with the dollar value listed only as a complex limit. Hat-tip: Zeitgeist...
Posted on June 3, 2008 5:20 PM • 4 Comments •
A cat hit by a motorcycle in Port Harcourt, Nigeria allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman. Good thing there were lots of people around to kill a second cat-person and beat the accident survivor into a confession of witchcraft. What...
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Posted on May 31, 2008 9:26 AM • 3 Comments •
Another crane has collapsed in NYC. This is the second crane to collapse in the past several months, and this one is even closer to my house. Yikes. I would say that I would never walk under these things, but...
Posted on May 30, 2008 11:42 AM • 1 Comments •
Don't tell my boss... Prospects for work this summer are not improving...and fast....
Posted on May 27, 2008 3:42 PM • 1 Comments •
So I saw Indiana Jones last night, and in spite of what I am about to say I really did enjoy it. My random musings are under the fold, but I will warn you that I spill a good bit...
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Posted on May 23, 2008 10:59 AM • 3 Comments •
Not Exactly Rocket Science has a great post showing that sloths in the wild may be slow, but aren't actually that sleepy: Rattenborg captured three female brown-throated three-toed sloths in the Panamanian rainforest and fitted them with the recording cap,...
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Posted on May 14, 2008 9:55 AM • 0 Comments •
In honor of Mother's Day, NPR has a great piece on the difficulties of being a modern Mom and delaying having children: Fertility seems to peak at about age 22, says Marcel Cedars, director of reproductive endocrinology at the University...
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Posted on May 8, 2008 12:49 PM • 0 Comments •
Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Down with that imperialist aggressor Napoleon III! (The painting to the right is Manet's Execution of Maximillian. Supposedly, the chap on the right looks like Napoleon III, in a zinger to his administration which Manet...
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Posted on May 5, 2008 1:32 PM • 0 Comments •
Check out this video of synchronizing metronomes......
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Posted on May 4, 2008 10:43 AM • 2 Comments •
This is from the Onion: University of Iowa neuroscientists studying spatial learning and the effects of stress on memory announced Tuesday that a little son-of-a-bitch mouse ruined an experiment on cognitive performance by effortlessly navigating a maze that researchers spent...
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Posted on April 21, 2008 1:37 PM • 2 Comments •
Eddie Izzard eyes entering European Union politics. Well that would at least make things more interesting. So much excellence on NPR lately. Robert Krulwich explains why -- though radio and television communications have long been projected into space -- it...
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Posted on April 21, 2008 1:37 PM • 0 Comments •
This is Megan McArdle on Cindy McCain's gaffe. She passed recipes from the Food Network off as her own: The honorable thing to do is attribute, of course, but the McCain team still seems to be intent on pretending that...
Posted on April 17, 2008 5:12 PM • 4 Comments •
Encephalon 43 is up at GNIF Brain Blogger....
Posted on April 16, 2008 11:08 AM • 0 Comments •
On my books to read list, Bonk by Mary Roach explores the cross-overs between science and sex. She is interviewed by NPR here. (Hat-tip: Daily Zeitgeist) Also on NPR, does teeth whitening using light actually work? Not better than at-home...
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Posted on April 10, 2008 12:14 PM • 0 Comments •
Encephalon is up at Of Two Minds, Paris Hilton-style. Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) do not improve mortality at home. This contrasts AEDs in public places. The authors of the paper, in NEJM, attribute the difference to a much larger population...
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Posted on April 1, 2008 1:24 PM • 1 Comments •
The Biggest Toy Theory of Scientific endeavor: Science is not driven by curiosity or the desire for fame. Rather it is driven by the desire to accumulate bigger and more complex scientific gadgets. By this standard, particle physicists are gods...
Posted on March 27, 2008 1:02 PM • 1 Comments •
Megan McArdle posts about the psychology that causes parents to associate their child illnesses with vaccines, but she also reminds us what we can look forward to if parents fail to vaccinate their children: * Leg braces and iron lungs...
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Posted on March 26, 2008 12:33 PM • 3 Comments •
For some reason, Eurekalert has a more than the average number of interesting press releases today. Take these with a grain of salt -- press releases are usually nonsense -- but still very interesting. People who wear glasses are not...
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Posted on March 25, 2008 12:11 PM • 0 Comments •
...this has got to be in the top ten at least. I haven't been following this much, but Ben Stein is coming out with a movie called Expelled. The movie purports to challenge Darwinism's monopoly of classroom instruction -- which...
Posted on March 21, 2008 9:04 AM • 1 Comments •
Paul Krugman on an economic theory of trade for interstellar trade (Hat-tip: Slashdot): This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be...
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Posted on March 13, 2008 1:13 PM • 1 Comments •
1) Two of my favorite bloggers -- Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle and Steve Higgins of OmniBrain -- have teamed up to form at group blog called Of Two Minds. Adjust your links accordingly. 2) Encephalon 40 is up at Mind...
Posted on March 3, 2008 12:05 PM • 0 Comments •
I don't know if you have seen these, but Florida Orange Juice started a new ad campaign featuring commercials with the voice of Tom Selleck. (Magnum PI does like his orange juice.) Anyway, the commercials show a beaker into which...
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Posted on March 3, 2008 10:23 AM • 2 Comments •
Over for the last week I have been mulling whether I want to continue doing Friday Rants, and I have come to the conclusion that I think I going to end the whole business. It is not that they aren't...
Posted on February 22, 2008 9:41 AM • 4 Comments •
The reignited Encephalon is up at Sharp Brains. The next Encephalon is being hosted on March 3rd at Mind Hacks. Email encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com to submit....
Posted on February 19, 2008 12:18 PM • 0 Comments •
Happy President's Day! I've heard about these "holidays." Apparently they are days when people with real jobs don't have to go to work. Fascinating stuff. Someday I hope to have a job like that. A Canadian friend of mine also...
Posted on February 18, 2008 10:15 AM • 0 Comments •
You may remember Encephalon, a biweekly neuroscience carnival, that we used to participate in regularly. Well, it kind of lapsed there for a bit because the organizer, Mo, was very understandably busy with other things. Sharp Brains has graciously agreed...
Posted on February 12, 2008 1:03 PM • 0 Comments •
Important Announcement #1: ScienceDebate2008 is actually going to happen. Here is the press release: ScienceDebate2008.com, the citizens initiative calling for a presidential debate on science and technology policy, today announced that it has formally invited the presidential candidates to a...
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Posted on February 12, 2008 12:45 PM • 0 Comments •
People, you suck. When I was younger (and less of a calloused bastard), I was willing to believe that human beings' pernicious behavior was restricted to particular unsavory individuals or select groups. Likewise, I would write off unscrupulous behavior as...
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Posted on February 8, 2008 8:29 AM • 9 Comments •
My Friday rant about intellectuals triggered lots of interesting comments, both positive and negative. Treb: I know it was a "rant", but, wow, is it ever funny to hear someone rant that they are open-minded and someone else is not....
Posted on January 30, 2008 11:00 AM • 0 Comments •
I took the Jeopardy contestant search exam online last night on a whim, and quite frankly it kicked my ass. Did anyone else take it?...
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Posted on January 30, 2008 9:47 AM • 2 Comments •
Here I am. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Honestly, I'm happy to be back in the blogosphere. The world is chock-full of great reproduction, sex, and parental research, and I'm thrilled to have...
Posted on January 24, 2008 10:29 AM • 1 Comments •
I am pleased to announce that Pure Pedantry is being joined by another wonderful, erudite and articulate co-blogger: Kate Seip. Kate formerly ran a blog called Anterior Commissure that many of you have probably read. She is a PhD student...
Posted on January 23, 2008 12:48 PM • 6 Comments •
kevin had this to say on my post about cosmologists speculating that floating brains could appear in empty space: A good scientific principle: if you theory yields results that are patently ridiculous... I disagree with the way you wrote this....
Posted on January 22, 2008 12:20 PM • 0 Comments •
xkcd is not only awesome, but also wise. Exhibit A:...
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Posted on January 21, 2008 4:33 PM • 1 Comments •
So some of the SciBlings have been playing with one of the newer "rate-your-impact" websites called QDos. (The Internet is such a narcissistic place.) Basically, through an algorithm I don't entirely understand, it calculates the impact factor of your name....
Posted on January 16, 2008 5:58 PM • 1 Comments •
In response my book review of Russell Korobkin's Stem Cell Century, John Thacker responded: The sad fact of the matter is that Korobkin may have identified the moral premise underlying Bush Administration policy generally, not just for stem cell research....
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Posted on January 15, 2008 10:38 AM • 3 Comments •
Ronald Bailey at Reason also argues that whether a Presidential candidate believes in evolution matters: Does it matter what presidential candidates believe about biological evolution? After all, they are running for commander-in-chief, not scientist-in-chief. For example, why not practice educational...
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Posted on January 14, 2008 11:21 AM • 0 Comments •
Two commercials are driving me insane.
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Posted on January 11, 2008 10:00 AM • 3 Comments •
Presh from Mind Your Decisions has this exquisite game theory post explaining how you maximize your chances of finding your true love by dumping the first 37% of people you date: For the sake of this discussion, I define true...
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Posted on January 10, 2008 10:09 AM • 1 Comments •
So good: Although Dr. Phil -- whose full name is Phillip McGraw -- announced Monday that he is shelving plans for a show on Spears' latest breakdown, some in the mental health community say just showing up at her hospital...
Posted on January 8, 2008 11:40 AM • 6 Comments •
In my post ranting about the Iowa caucuses, I unintentionally set off an argument about whether "I could care less" is fine or whether you should say "I couldn't care less." vavatch had this to say: There's nothing wrong with...
Posted on January 7, 2008 11:24 AM • 1 Comments •
ScienceBlogs has a new blog entitled A Good Poop which is quite apt because it is funny as shit: In other news, they have a disease called Bird Fancier's Lung. Or, as my good friend Frat Boy Steve calls it,...
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Posted on January 4, 2008 11:11 AM • 0 Comments •
Happy New Year to everyone! I'm back from my lovely New Years vacation, and I wanted to take a moment to look back on my first full year as a blogger for ScienceBlogs.com. (This will be for the last year...
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Posted on January 3, 2008 11:35 AM • 3 Comments •
Gregory had this to say about the post on why you sometimes feel like you are falling when you are going to sleep: there is a spiritual explanation for this, it is the moment when awareness stops identifying with the...
Posted on December 23, 2007 8:48 PM • 3 Comments •
Encephalon 38 is up at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Highly Allochthonous discusses an issue I had never heard of before: geovandalism or the destruction of geological samples that could be used in research. There are clearly trade-offs involved here: you...
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Posted on December 19, 2007 12:53 PM • 0 Comments •
Sadly we are all susceptible. I spent like thirty minutes trying to ponder the answer to the question in this cartoon. Thanks xkcd. (Click to enlarge.) This is a real issue for me. In order to get any work done,...
Posted on December 14, 2007 12:39 PM • 0 Comments •
What does Jake do when he has nothing to do? (Actually Jake has quite a bit to do, but he is desperately avoiding writing a manual for the use of MATLAB for his labmates, and for this purpose nearly anything...
Posted on December 11, 2007 5:13 PM • 1 Comments •
Here at Seed we take pride in at least pretending to not be English-centric. I mean yours-truly is actually horrible at languages. There was an abortive attempt to learn Mandarin in my past that culminated in me only knowing when...
Posted on December 11, 2007 2:29 PM • 0 Comments •
They have oh so many more. Hat-tip: PZ...
Posted on December 7, 2007 12:24 PM • 1 Comments •
Daniel Drezner in reference to the altered US position towards Iran: Tomorrow in Bizarro world politics -- Dick Cheney buys Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a flower. UPDATE: Quote of the Day, Part 2 from Christopher Preble at Cato@Liberty Were that question to...
Posted on December 5, 2007 1:47 PM • 1 Comments •
Sean at Cosmic Variance does Q&A on why time has a direction: Is the origin of the Second Law really cosmological? We never talked about the early universe back when I took thermodynamics. Trust me, it is. Of course you...
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Posted on December 5, 2007 12:21 PM • 1 Comments •
Having a ball pit in your living room may be expensive, but it is still totally awesome. Comic from xkcd....
Posted on November 26, 2007 11:56 AM • 2 Comments •
Working on for scienceblogs.com, I would say that I receive more interesting emails than the average person. Most of these emails are legitimate such as offers to send me books to read, and those are always appreciated. Some of the...
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Posted on November 8, 2007 12:57 PM • 16 Comments •
Times Online details 10 of the most bizarre experiments ever devised. I rather doubt some of these would have made it past institutional review today: 7) Turkey turn-ons Martin Schein and Edgar Hale, of Pennsylvania State University, devoted themselves to...
Posted on November 5, 2007 4:07 PM • 0 Comments •
I don't remember the last time I found two Onion articles funny in the same calendar year. Here is another one: "If you're looking for some button-down traditionalist who relies on so-called induction, conventional logic, and verification to arrive at...
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Posted on October 10, 2007 4:12 PM • 4 Comments •
The illustrious Shelley Batts, fellow ScienceBlogger and author of Retrospectacle, has been nominated for a blogging scholarship for yet another year -- she won some money last year as a runner -up. Shelley is an excellent blogger and a truly...
Posted on October 9, 2007 3:57 PM • 1 Comments •
Ouch: A Chicago woman who became enraged after discovering her longtime boyfriend's stash of pornography shot and killed him in their South Side home over the weekend, prosecutors said. Jeanette Strowder, 58, is facing a first-degree murder charge in the...
Posted on October 8, 2007 11:13 AM • 0 Comments •
Check out this must-read long post on heritability and IQ: One of the sound tenets of a lot of conservative social and political thought is an insistence on the importance of tradition and tacit knowledge, its transmission through families and...
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Posted on October 3, 2007 3:23 PM • 0 Comments •
Possibly in response to Kara's earlier post, sales of Belgian flags have skyrocketed. They are selling like they are going out of style...and they may well do so: A growing debate about the potential division of Belgium has led to...
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Posted on October 1, 2007 5:16 PM • 1 Comments •
I don't catch the Onion much anymore, but this is just priceless: Top physicists from several major American universities appeared before a Congressional committee Monday to request $50 billion for a science thing that would further U.S. advancement science-wise and...
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Posted on September 28, 2007 4:43 PM • 2 Comments •
Encephalon 32 is up at Living the Scientific Life. The Chernobyl reactor will be encased in a huge steel arch. This business sounds suspiciously similar to the Simpsons movie....
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Posted on September 24, 2007 2:59 PM • 0 Comments •
Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.
