elerner
Posts by this author
September 1, 2010
Last week, "The Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjørn Lomborg announced that he was skeptical no more. Timed with the release of his new book "Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits" Lomborg now says that the world needs an investment of $100 Billion a year to fight global…
August 31, 2010
Though the "publish or perish" life of an academic never rests, it can't help but be infused with the rhythm of the school year. Perhaps that explains a recent surge in bloggerly analysis of the institutions and infrastructures that infuse this scientific lifestyle. From peer review to data…
August 26, 2010
When we last left Darren Naish of Tetrapod Zoology, he was analyzing a famous crytpozoological photograph, purported to be an undiscovered species of big cat, or perhaps the last surviving member of a Tasmanian cat-like marsupial. Of course, Naish generally prefers to write about strange and…
August 24, 2010
Do you like volcanoes? Italian volcanoes? If so, it's not hard to guess the one you're thinking of: the largest volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world, Mount Etna. And if you have any questions about this famous fulminator, head over to Eruptions, where guest blogger Dr. Boris…
August 20, 2010
"Photographic evidence" is sometimes taken as shorthand for cold, hard proof. Seeing, after all, is believing, and if we have a permanent record of an image that anyone can examine, what more verification can be necessary? Of course, we can't really trust our eyes or memories, something that has…
August 19, 2010
Letters and numbers are often mentally grouped together; they're both simple sets of symbols that are the building blocks for much more complex concepts, and mastering their relationships is a cornerstone of early education. But while illiteracy becomes a major social stigma almost immediately…
August 18, 2010
The science song is a strange beast; people have surely converted information to rhythms or rhymes as a mnemonic device for millennia, though the idea of "educational music" as a genre has only recently crystallized. Its target audience has oscillated since then; while Tom Lehrer was playing for…
August 17, 2010
While the superstar of the particle physics world, the Large Hadron Collider, gets all of the attention (and the glamor shots), there's plenty of interesting science that can be done on the atomic level within an otherwise ordinary laboratory on the campus of an update New York university. Consider…
August 13, 2010
From "quantum teleportation" to "Superconducting Super collider", there's nothing like an unusual word or intriguing turn of phrase to draw someone into a science story. Yesterday, the New York Times' lead tech writer Nick Bilton took a shine to "charismatic megafauna," after reading a post on The…
August 12, 2010
Every August, the Earth passes through a patch of space that's a tad grittier than usual; the planet's orbit intersects with that of the comet Swift-Tuttle, the latter being filled with the cast-off from the slowly melting ice-ball. When this detritus hits Earth's atmospheres, the massive energy of…
July 7, 2010
Yesterday, ScienceBlogs launched Food Frontiers, a blog sponsored by PepsiCo. This isn't the first time we've hosted sponsored blogs--recent ones included GE, Shell, and Invitrogen--but it is the first time we've received this level of criticism about it.
Frankly, we at ScienceBlogs did not do a…
July 1, 2010
Before Zombie Day comes to a close, I want to do a little braaaaaaaaaaain dump on where zombies actually fit into the scientific landscape (and to thank Joseph Hewitt for the amazing art he provided for all of us. As a huge Evil Dead fan, I especially appreciate my copy of the Necronomicon. Groovy…
June 28, 2010
Team USA's World Cup dreams may have been dashed by Ghana over the weekend, but there's nary a bad word to be said by the performance of its goalkeeper, Tim Howard, who again proved he's capable of hanging with his peers from the global soccer powerhouses. But besides his spectacular saves, the one…
June 3, 2010
...is over here, where you can also see a live stream and comment thread. I'm in there via the Kimmel Center's liveblogging booth, but you can also follow me (or the #WSF10 tag) on Twitter.
We're going live to Norway as we speak, so tune in!
Update: Your 2010 Kavli Prize Winners:
Astrophysics…
May 28, 2010
For those following the progress of BP's "top kill" maneuver, whether via reports or their underwater webcam, it's hard to tell what exactly is going on. It seemed that the injection of drilling mud, assisted by the previously unsuccessful "junk shot" method (which involves shooting shredded tires…
May 26, 2010
Martin Gardner, polymath, puzzle-master, and philosopher, died on Sunday at the age of 95. Though he never formally studied math more complicated than calculus at the high school level, Gardner was perhaps best known for his interest in "recreational mathematics," the series of math and logic…
May 25, 2010
After years of painstaking research and experimentation, genomic pioneer J. Craig Venter has accomplished a long-awaited goal: he and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute have introduced a synthetic genome into bacterial cells that can grow and replicate itself. Some have gone as far as…
May 20, 2010
We are just two short weeks away from this year's World Science Festival, and things are heating up. For those not in the know, the World Science Festival is a one-of-a-kind series of talks, tours, performances, and panels all designed to convey the wonder and awesomeness of science to the rest of…
May 19, 2010
Kenny Rogers may have outlined a comprehensive life philosophy in terms of poker strategy, but in his pantheon of axioms, more important than knowing when to hold and/or fold 'em is knowing when to walk away. Unfortunately, life is more often like a slot machine than a game of poker. According to…
May 17, 2010
As one clever commenter at Effect Measure's farewell post observed, the past tense of Revere is "Revered." And while we're sad to see one of the longest running ScienceBloggers go, Revere's departure is matched with the arrival of The Pump Handle, fantastic public health group blog, principally…
May 17, 2010
Space has a way of inspiring the imagination more than almost any other scientific field. When we talk about making huge investments of money and brainpower to solve some looming problem--say, the need for renewable energy--we talk about making a new moon shot. And while some of the most exciting…
May 11, 2010
Tony Stark, the man behind the mask in the blockbuster Iron Man movies, doesn't have any super powers, but he is supernaturally gifted in terms of intelligence, ingenuity, and sarcasm. His most amazing ability, however, may be the ability to make movie audiences suspend their disbelief regarding…
May 10, 2010
Chemistry is nothing if not a double-edged sword. The complex interplay of atoms and molecules is the very foundation of life (and better living) but that complexity also means that a even a slight alteration of a safe substance's chemical composition can make it into something exquisitely deadly.…
May 6, 2010
This fall, more than 500 science and engineering organizations, thousands of scientists, and even more young people, will gather in Washington D.C. for a one-of-a-kind festival. The USA Science & Engineering Festival has made ScienceBlogs its blogging partner for the run up to the big event,…
May 4, 2010
Two weeks ago (on Earth Day, no less), what is destined to become the biggest ecological disaster in history began as the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. Situated 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, the well is still gushing oil and the growing slick is now making landfall. While this…
May 3, 2010
On Friday, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Chris Mooney presented "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere," a conference that brought together Seed, Discover, The Boston Globe, ClimateProgress, and more. The ScienceBlogs contingent included Joy Moore, Seed Media…
April 30, 2010
There's an old parable about blind men and an elephant; each touches a different part of the great beast and comes to a wildly different conclusion about what stands before them. This parable shares some similarities with science, since we're all probing the secrets if the universe in different…
April 27, 2010
Stephen Hawking may have been the only person to play himself on Star Trek, but that doesn't mean he's ready to sign Earth up for the United Federation of Planets. The world's most famous living scientist recently reiterated his warning that the search for intelligent life on other worlds could…
April 26, 2010
After a week of excitement—complex volcanism, the 40th Earth Day, and cinematic cephalopods—the weekend brought us the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch. On April 24, 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery lugged the silvery tube of mirrors, circuitry, and solar panels into low earth…
April 23, 2010
Back at the height of volcano-mania, I wrote that "Eyjafjallajökull's ill temper been an unexpected object lesson in the complexity and interconnectedness of our environment, technology, and social networks." Jason Goldman of The Thoughtful Animal added further dimensions in his post Intelligence…