Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
August 8, 2006
PP brings up the infamous Katz letter, and Chad furthers the discussion.
It is topical, although the source is quite dated. Check out the discussion at Chad's place, I am too jaded to pontificate right now.
PS: Is anyone really offering $35k for postdocs still?
August 8, 2006
Dr Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, has a book out: "The Language of God". It is about his conversion to evangelical christianity and he tries to lay out a case for religion in no conflict with science, while also tackling creationists and religions fundamentalists.
Haven't read…
August 7, 2006
XKCD - comics
They're funny, they're science, and everyone is blogging them.
For a good reason. Pile in, and link.
August 7, 2006
From NASAwatch:
"How do we motivate students to study astrobiology if this science is not favored in the budget?" asked a teacher. "If they want to work for government money, they must look at what the government wants - not what they think it should want. If they want to work with something the…
August 4, 2006
WaPo's Froomkin is scary today.
Short version: White House aides have regular study groups, on Biblical Revelations, the Imminence of the Apocalypse, "Left Behind" trash literature, and Intelligent Design.
Read it all the way through...
I suppose this makes the root of some of the policies coming…
August 4, 2006
Friday, and I'm late.
Oh mighty iPod, we gots to know, will OJ 287 go into outburst this autumn as predicted by one of the main binary black hole models?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Cranberry Singers
The Crossing: Il Menuetto and Trio - Mozart…
August 4, 2006
Doc Charles examines the joy of blueberries,
and all the wonderful reasons why we should enjoy them.
It has been a good year here for blueberries, warm and sunny with just enough rain, and not too heavy mostly. The strawberries and cherries were beat up, but the raspberries seem to be doing ok,…
August 3, 2006
Tara has shown me the error of my ways.
The correct answer is Real Genius.
Closely followed by The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
I should also give a nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show for their representation of the lives of scientists, although the actual science was…
August 3, 2006
Hurra Torpedo Rock
seen on Making Light - Teresa is a lucky woman.
PS in case you are wondering about the title Matt explains
August 2, 2006
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
Er, Bladerunner?
Forbidden Planet - if only for subversively introducing Shakespeare to teenage boys.
Deep Impact had…
August 2, 2006
Somewhere out there, in some splendid ivory tower, a Professor of Theoretical Law is working on a new Grand Theory of the Unified Executive, which he hopes will overturn the increasingly obsolete Standard Model of three independent sources of Law, Justice and Executive Power (who ordered those…
August 2, 2006
Tangled Bank #59 is up at Science and Reason
Charles also proposes a Unilateral Declaration of Independence - that physical science blogs have their own blog carnival. Tangled Bank is heavy on bio, it is true.
The two could of course co-exist peacefully, but only if the new carnival comes up with…
August 1, 2006
RS Ophiuchi is a famous recurrent nova.
Recently it had an outburst, brightening from magnitude 11 (hundred times fainter than faintest star visible to the naked eye) to fifth magnitude - faint but visible to the naked eye.
Recent analysis of the outburst (and here) suggest that RS Ophi is high…
August 1, 2006
So, I sorta dropped my beloved 12" a few weeks ago, and ignoring the cosmetic dents, a couple of the interfaces are not quite their helpful normal selves, and I infer imminent SuperDrive failure. Plus there's the ominous light rattle sound...
So... the MacBookPro: worth getting Real Soon Now, or…
July 31, 2006
i humped your hummer - video blogs
seen on Boing Boing strangely enough
this offsets the incredibly obnoxious tofu hummer ad, almost
July 31, 2006
The issue of what to do with surplus frozen embryos has had high profile recently
As has a recent french study on nature vs nurture in IQ development, in particular both the elasticity of IQ (is it sensitive to nurture early on but "rebounds" towards the genetic mean as you age?) and the role of…
July 31, 2006
Good catch by Cocktail Party Physics...
Prof Blair Hedges applies genetic error clock techniques to date manuscripts and books!
Ok, so I don't read PSU Press Releases either...
"The discovery that the wood blocks and metal plates used for printmaking deteriorate at a clock-like rate means that we…
July 31, 2006
About ten years ago I heard Fred Hoyle give a talk where he argues that "junk" DNA segments in fact must code for something else - his particular conjecture was that they coded for structural instructions (the example he used was the shape of leaves).
It was intriguing, there is a lot of junk DNA…
July 31, 2006
Avida is Caltech's Digital Life Laboratory "auto-adaptive genetic system".
I first came across it when I heard one of the DLab researchers (Adami, I think) give talk at Astrobio'04.
Thought it was neat. And filed under "check it out sometime".
The recent discussion on evolution and synthetic life…
July 31, 2006
WaPo ponders the possibilities of synthetic virii and genetically modified bacteria
Yawn. been there, done that.
Ok, they go in depthish as benefits a proper newspaper. Only slightly hysterical.
Or we could just read some Greg Egan, Charlie Stross or Vernor Vinge for perspective.
Certainly more fun…
July 30, 2006
Hotz at the LA Times Sunday Book Review looks at three books on evolution and intelligent design..
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
David Quammen
Intelligent Thought
Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement
Edited by…
July 28, 2006
So, I never answered the original question: Why do scientists work hard?
Because we like it.
Science is fun. You get caught up doing it, you can't help yourself.
And there is so much to do.
only bad thing is they make you wear hairnets while analysing crashed flying saucers...
see, this is why…
July 28, 2006
Bora wants some scientist rock stars
Astronomy obliges!
Brian May of Queen
The lad gave up a serious astronomy career as a PhD student in astronomy at Imperial College, London.
This is the career dilemma most astronomers face on a regular basis - do you continue writing Nature papers on MgI…
July 28, 2006
It is a sticky friday and news are mixed...
So, we ask the Mighty iPod One: will RS Ophiuchi in fact become a type Ia supernova?
Whoosh goes the randomizer...
Whoosh.
The Covering: Funky Kingston - Toots and the Maytals
The Crossing: Walking Back - Cranberries
The Crown: Learning our Long Vowels…
July 27, 2006
A sergeant in the rangers, on patrol in Afghanistan works hard;
so do nurses, deep sea fishermen, coal miners, sole proprietor restaurant startups.
They guys who painted my house this summer worked outside, 10 hour days, physical labour at half my pay. They worked hard.
I've worked hard.
In the…
July 27, 2006
Chad has kicked off a thematically linked discussion:
A response to Jonah on why science is so much work
and, Why they're leaving a pointer to an InsideHigherEd article
My very personal response: poor math prep, lack of professional opportunities, acute labour shortages, and It Is Not A Lot of…
July 26, 2006
The Daily Show just drew my attention to the irreconcilable promises allegedly made by that G-d person to different tribal faction on different occasions
Which leads us to the conclusion that War is an extension of Gazumping by other means...
...clearly the English are at fault, somehow.
July 26, 2006
I heard that within 15 years, global warming will have made Napa County too hot to grow good wine grapes. Is that true? What other changes are we going to see during our lifetimes because of global warming?...
Er, I don't know.
The detailed claim is that 1) the number of extremely hot days (T >…
July 26, 2006
Doug Hamilton has a nifty Astronomy Workshop web page, with lots of fun little tools.
I had used some of these for my "Stars for Poets" course, but was reminded of them when looking at Bad Astronomy this morning.
Doug has a Generic central force integrator, an issue which came up recently of…