October 4, 2011
I went to graduate school to study Anthropology, so naturally, there was very little funding. Some semesters, I paid the bills working as an administrative assistant for one Harvard Muckimuck or another, often at the Kennedy School of Government, but for a while, at the Joan Shorenstein Barone…
October 4, 2011
"In 1998, cosmology was shaken at its foundations as two research teams presented their findings. Headed by Saul Perlmutter, one of the teams had set to work in 1988. Brian Schmidt headed another team, launched at the end of 1994, where Adam Riess was to play a crucial role. ...
"The two research…
October 3, 2011
Threaded comments have advantages but they also have disadvantages. I won't mention the disadvantages because if you don't know what they are already than they aren't disadvantages to you. The advantages are: 1) You can keep track of a sub-conversation in a comments stream; 2) You can refer to a…
October 3, 2011
Remember last summer's tornado in North Minneapolis? North is one of the more challenged neighborhoods in the region, with a high poverty rate and where the schools are struggling against all odds. One of the schools in North Minneapolis that needs your help is one of the schools damaged by that…
October 3, 2011
Oh great, it's got healing powers. Thank you news person for reporting that as though it wasn't insane.
October 3, 2011
The prize went to Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann, and Ralph Steinman for their work on the immune system.
Beutler and Hoffmann's work enhanced our understanding of the activation of innate immunity in humans. In other words, the link between cytokine and swelling and related issues. Among other…
October 2, 2011
With a science connection. OK, I admit not much of a science connection, but really, it's hard to find them.
I'm trying to cover all the bases here, so I've got a suggestion for an adult, a child, and a dog.
For the adult, the obvious choice is this "Man in a Cage" costume, wherein a gorilla holds…
October 1, 2011
Scott Lohman will be talking to Jen Hancock, the author of Handy Humanism Handbook.
Jen blogs at Happiness Through Humanism. She is an author, blogger and humanist activist. Her website is at Jen-Hancock.com. Scott is the president of the Humanists of Minnesota.
Atheists Talk is produced…
October 1, 2011
Freethoughtblogs.com has just added seven new bloggers, and I thought you'd want to know. With this new group of bloggers, FTB.com has become too big for our own sidebar listing us! Gonna have to go drop down soon.
Here's the rundown:
Dana Hunter is a science blogger and writer of science…
September 30, 2011
A friend of mine send me this:
This was my letter to Raytheon and the National Science Foundation
To whom it may concern.
I am writing on behalf of my mother, Renee-Nicole Douceur. I am trying to figure out by what standard you consider a stroke a non-emergency. Almost a month ago I received a…
September 30, 2011
I want you to know that certain blogging and conversations are going on at the X Blog. For instance, we are speaking of The Things That Shall Not Be Named here and here. A little Dawkins, a little Watson. Go joint the fun.
Life, Death, Teenagers and Guns. A sad story but an important topic.…
September 29, 2011
Holy crap! I was just randomly pushing buttons on the TV Remote (I never actually watch TV, of course) and there was LeRoy! He's so talented! LEAN ON ME LEROY!
Musician LeRoy Bell
Very nice job, they loved you. Knocked it out of the park.
September 29, 2011
Study hard and get this guy's job:
I love that book, but when I was a kid they didn't have dinosaurs yet.
September 29, 2011
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September 28, 2011
Three words used to describe "others" in Western literature. This topic came up in a previous post, and made me wonder what Google Ngram had to say about it. I made three different graphs because the scales are so vastly different (owing among other things, I'm sure, to multiple uses of the words…
September 28, 2011
A man "lies crumpled on the sand ... Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor attempting to staunch bleeding, or even…
September 28, 2011
Damn them. The Kindle Fire is about the same price as the higher end Kindle that I bought Julia just before her trip overseas.... oh well.
The Kindle Fire is an android based tablet designed to be an ebook.
Here's why I want one: An iPad, which is also an eBook reader but that does a lot more…
September 28, 2011
One of the interesting items we have this week is a study by Greenpeace in which various organisms from the sea near Fukushima were sampled for radioactive isotopes. Let's take a closer look.
The data in the table provided (see the first item in Ana's feed for the link) show the amount of…
September 27, 2011
Animals eating1 people has always been an interest of mine, and bear attacks are among my favorite. As you know, I've got a few of my own stories, though I don 't know if I ever told this one. There were two of us canoe-camping in a state park in the Adirondacks. You had to park your car at a…
September 27, 2011
NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on Thurs., Sept. 29, to reveal near-Earth asteroid findings and implications for future research. The briefing will take place at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, launched in…
September 27, 2011
NCSE's Genie Scott in Scotland:
September 27, 2011
It seems like every time I take Huxley (now 18 months old) to the doctor, the following things happen: 1) Somebody says "Well, he won't need to get stuck with any needles for a long while now .... his next scheduled immunization is [insert phrase indicating 'a long time into the future']"; and 2)…
September 26, 2011
I don't have the same circle Google Girl has but I do have a Circle of Shame. You want to stay out of there.
