March 15, 2009
I haven't written much about basketball this year, for the simple reason that I haven't watched much basketball this year-- between SteelyKid, the book, and my day job, I just haven't had time. This weekend, though, I watched a whole bunch of hoops, mostly involving my two teams, Syracuse and…
March 15, 2009
Cocktail Party Physics: measles, mumps, rubellaor autism
"Let me throw just a few statistics at you, just to illustrate how important vaccines have been in the increasing quality of public health in the US alone.
* The incidence of polio dropped to nearly zero by 1960 (polio vaccine…
March 14, 2009
One of last year's highest-traffic posts was, weirdly, Talk Like a Physicist. I say "weirdly" because it wasn't much more than a link to Tom at Swans On Tea.
It's that time of year again, and Tom's back with an updated list of vocabulary for your physicist-talking needs. I don't have much to add,…
March 14, 2009
One of my colleagues in biology just finished his Comparative Vertebrate anatomy course. For the final class projects, he has teams of students make little videos presenting the results of their research into some aspect of vertebrate anatomy. Such as, for example, this Sesame Street episode on…
March 14, 2009
The Washington Monthly
"Watching the evisceration, I couldn't help but wonder why it takes a comedian on Comedy Central to do the kind of interview the non-fake news shows ought to be doing. When the media establishment marvels at Jon Stewart's popularity, they tend to think it's his humor. It's…
March 13, 2009
I have an official release date for the book-in-production: December 22nd. There's no lay-down date, though, so they may turn up in stores before then. Mark it down on your Christmas list now...
There's also an official title and cover:
Emmy's slightly miffed that she's not the dog on the cover,…
March 13, 2009
SteelyKid's hard at work on tooth number five, and as a result, her nose has been running like a deranged ultramarathoner. Yesterday, it tipped over into a bit of a sinus infection, so there was no way to get a good Baby Blogging picture. She made up for it this morning, though, as Kate snapped a…
March 13, 2009
My plans to write long and smart blog posts today was thoroughly derailed last night by a combination of a slightly sick SteelyKid (she's had a runny nose for a while because of teething, but it seems to have slid into a bit of a sinus infection) and an incredible basketball game. Syracuse and…
March 13, 2009
Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Did the Phoenix spacecraft find liquid water on Mars?
Maybe.
(tags: science astronomy news space planets)
How Vise Grip Pliers Saved My Life - Stories about How Vise Grips is a Toolbox Hero - Popular Mechanics
"Can Vise-Grips save a life? Sure, and they can…
March 12, 2009
The Female Science Professor has been having a hard semester, and recently caught some students cheating on an exam:
In the situation I had to deal with recently, I saw one student glancing repeatedly at another student's exam. I kept the two exams separate when they were handed in, compared the…
March 12, 2009
There's a really good article from Martin Rees in the latest issue of Seed, on the scientific challenges that won't be affected by the LHC:
The LHC hasn't yet provided its first results, the much-anticipated answers to questions we've been asking for so long. But they should surely come in 2009,…
March 12, 2009
Inside Higher Ed has an article on grade inflation this morning, which reminds me of my improbable research theory.
Academic scolds are always talking about grade inflation, saying that the average grade years ago used to be lower than it is now. Medical scolds are always talking about the obesity…
March 12, 2009
Matthew Yglesias » The DC Voucher Program Has Nothing to Do With Sidwell Friends
"Virtually none of the recipients of the DC voucher program could go to Sidwell Friends like Barack Obamaâs kids. For one thing, they couldnât get in. And for another thing, they couldnât come close to affording the…
March 11, 2009
"OK, here's your profile.""
"You used the good picture of me, right?"
"Of course. Look here."
"Oooh. I like that one. I look regal."
"Yeah, I guess. So what do you want to add?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you can add applications, and become a fan of various things. Here, I'll make you a fan of…
March 11, 2009
Most people's first exposure to the ideas of modern atomic physics comes through the Bohr model of hydrogen, which treats the atom as something like a little solar system, with the positively charged nucleus as the sun, and negatively charged electrons orbiting in well-defined circular orbits. It's…
March 11, 2009
Via FriendFeed, Daniel Lemire offers a suggestion on "branding":
Stop saying you are "John from school X". Say that you are "John who works on problem Y". Don't rely on your employer to carry your message!
Of course, this is only the second of the three possible options. You could also be "the…
March 11, 2009
One of my coaches, back in the day, always used to say that basketball was a game of quickness. Usually when he had just stolen the ball from somebody thirty years younger than him.
It's true, quickness is a big asset in basketball. But it's also a game of timing-- knowing when to shoot, when to…
March 11, 2009
Science in the open » Why good intentions are not enough to get negative results published
"The fundamental problem is that the âwe need a journalâ approach is stuck in the printed page paradigm. To get negative results published we need to reduce the barriers to publication much lower than they…
March 10, 2009
The Gordon Research Conferences are a great program, if you're in a field that offers them. These are mostly in New England in the summer, and involve a lot more down time than most professional conferences, to allow for more informal interaction between attendees. At past Gordon conferences, I've…
March 10, 2009
The book is now starting through the production process, and people at Scribner are thinking about publicity. I got email asking whether I could set up a Facebook page for Emmy as a promotion.
I'm not sure whether that meant a fan page for the dog, or a Facebook profile for her, as if she were a…
March 10, 2009
A few weeks ago, Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on the Daily Show telling stories about Pluto, and mentioned getting a letter from a little kid who added the postscript "Please write back, but not in cursive, because I can't read cursive yet." We were talking about this in the car yesterday, because Kate'…
March 10, 2009
The Business of Academic Publishing
"This statement by Deutsche Bank is an astonishing comment on the profitability of the industry. The notion that Elsevier, and therefore the other commercial publishers, add âlittle value to the publishing processâ and cannot justify the high profit margins is…
March 9, 2009
Why in hell is there soy in Italian soft rolls?
Parents of sensitive-stomached babies everywhere would like to know.
March 7, 2009
The Flamewar That Ate LiveJournal continues its livejournophagy (I've only caught the edges of it, and that alone is a carnival of suck-- if you want to know more, Jo Walton's recent post gets the feel, and contains links to more). In one of several efforts to bring something positive out of this,…
March 7, 2009
It's March now, which means that we're at the absolute peak of the college basketball season. Small conferences have already started their tournaments, playing for the one shot those teams have of getting into the NCAA's. Big conference tournaments start next week, with the Big Dance the week after…
March 6, 2009
Michael Faraday, grand unified theorist? (1851) « Skulls in the Stars
"The common thread of many of these discoveries is their goal: demonstrating that all the physical forces of nature are but different manifestations of a single, âuniversalâ force. This idea was a surprisingly modern one for…
March 6, 2009
Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau is bemused by his students' reaction to unusual numbers:
[I]t is fascinating how we condition people to be used to numbers in a certain range, and as soon as a number is either very big or very small it becomes disconcerting. On one level, I'm glad that they…
March 6, 2009
The much-promoted science blogging anthology is now complete, and available in paper or electronic format from Lulu. If you're dying to have dead-tree copies of the best science blog posts of last year, here's your chance.
March 6, 2009
SteelyKid turned 30 weeks yesterday, and to celebrate this arbitrary numerical milestone, she shows off what a big strong baby she's become:
"Look at me! I can lift a whole bison by myself!"
March 5, 2009
For Free Throws, 50 Years of Practice Is No Help - NYTimes.com
"Since the mid-1960s, college menâs players have made about 69 percent of free throws, the unguarded 15-foot, 1-point shot awarded after a foul. In 1965, the rate was 69 percent. This season, as teams scramble for bids to the N.C.A.A…
