September 21, 2011
Just wanted you to know, for those who have asked, I have indeed written something on the tragic fate of Troy Davis. Here: Day of Justice, Day of Shame: The killing of Troy Davis.
I just sent off my submission to the Minnesota Atheist Book Project. If you were thinking of doing that, better…
September 21, 2011
... or rather, Narrrr.
Arrrr is the term for "yes" spoke in a part of England whence that rascal Robert Newton hailed, so when he formed his dialect model for his stint as Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island, he threw that in. His other piratitisms he fetched from like personal background…
September 21, 2011
The details are here.
Information on changes in Google's "real name" policy that would allow people to protect their identity here.
Oh. Right. Squat.
September 21, 2011
NASA's WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer ) telescope has collected some important data on black holes, in particular, about the big jets of energy that stream out of them.
Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the…
September 21, 2011
Very cute song. But, I do find it a little poignant and even mildly disturbing that the primary motivating criteria for her raison d'être have to do with the whole journal thing and being like the established heternormativeoccidopatriarchic white guys. Instead of just discovery of things not…
September 20, 2011
Check this out. This is an animation made by the same company that made the famous Tiger Woods animation (you know the one). In this case the purpose of the animation was to reconstruct an unusual crime scene so people could see it on the news, relate better to it, and report anything they may…
September 20, 2011
Remove all cats from the room before starting this video. Especially the big ones.
September 20, 2011
How does David Attenborough crawl through a marshy Cycad forest toward an exposed rocky ledge overlooking a vast plain of grazing dinosaurs, drawing ever closer to a nesting colony of Quetzalcoatlus Pterodactlyoids (known in the business as "Flying Giraffes") camera crew in tow, nearly out of…
September 20, 2011
According to the latest estimates from NASA, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere next Thursday, Friday or Saturday. It will strike somewhere between .... well, it will strike the earth somewhere, not likely near the poles. Could hit anywhere, really.…
September 19, 2011
You'll remember that a few days ago I asked people to contribute to the Climate Scientists Defense Fun. They needed money to stop denialists from personally harassing scientists. The needed funds were obtained from your donations and all is well!!!!
However, the people who organized this have…
September 19, 2011
In order to do good climate science, you have to understand and control for the sources of variation in the system. In any system that involvs metric change over time, there are four sources of variation:
1) Measurement or observational error (goofs, inaccuracies, bad calibration). The speed was…
September 19, 2011
The asteroid Baptistina has been on trial for several years, implicated in the K/T Boundary mass extinction event that killed off the dinosuars. But the jury is finally in. Baptistina is off the hook.
Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the…
September 19, 2011
I want to say a word about what a proxyindicator is. And isn't.
I noticed that the term is not in some, perhaps many, dictionaries, so I guess this leaves me free to do what I want with it! But wait, the term "proxy" is of course in the dictionary. It is an ancient short version of the word "…
September 19, 2011
I'm going to take the unusual move and post, below, and almost complete cut and paste of a piece of corporate informational mail from Netflix. If you are Netflix user, you've already got this in your email box, most likely. Before I do this, I want to explain why.
I'm not shy about critiquing…
September 19, 2011
Check out this video my friend Lynn made:
More here, including lots of text. Teachers, you could probably find a use for this in your classroom.
September 19, 2011
... that probably ruins the whole thing. I have not yet read The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, so I could be wrong, but if you have a copy check it out and tell me if I've got it right.
Breifly, the book says: " it's a meticulously documented argument about how much…
September 18, 2011
So, the other day, I was trying to find some links to podcasts that I'd done to put on my media page, so I did something that I would never otherwise had thought to do; I entered my own name in the search box at Apple's iTunes store. Everybody has entered their own name in the Google Search box,…
September 17, 2011
Our own Eleanor Mondale has died, at the age of 51, of brain cancer.
She was the daughter of Vice President Walter Mondale, and a fellow citizen of Minneapolis.
From the Strib:
Her brain cancer was diagnosed in June 2005, after she suffered a seizure that May. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in…
September 17, 2011
Software Freedom Day is Today. So, go to your computer and see if there is any software in there you can let out.
Find out more here.
September 16, 2011
The Minnesota Atheist book project deadline is September 30th. "This is a chance to tell your story while becoming a published author, and to support Minnesota Atheists' mission of promoting positive atheism. This is an entirely volunteer effort, with all proceeds going towards Minnesota Atheists…
September 16, 2011
For the purposes of discussion in the Japan Disaster threads, I've made a graphic that very roughly approximates the zone of likely future very high rates of cancer if the Fukushima nuclear power plant were located where our (somewhat similar but smaller) plant is located, upwind during the winter…
September 15, 2011
It has been Just over six months since a magnitude 9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In the hours following that incident, nuclear power protagonists filled the blogosphere, the news outlets, and other media with assurances that little could go…
September 15, 2011
The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.
Unlike Star Wars'…
September 15, 2011
It has been something of a struggle over the years for the people of the Minnesota Planetarium Society. They've been trying to get a planetarium in Minneapolis for some time now, but for a number of reasons (not their fault) this has proved too difficult. Now there is good news. The Bell Museum,…
September 15, 2011
I have never actually seen a snake eat a crocodile or a crocodile eat a snake, but I am pretty sure I've seen a snake planning to eat a Nile Croc. And that was in the geological present.
In the geological past, about 60 million years ago (during the "Eocene" a.k.a. "dawn age") there was a rain…
September 15, 2011
My latest contribution to 10,000 Birds blog is a write up of some very interesting research that addresses the evolutionary history of the Penguin Tuxedo. Check it out. This post also has a handy-dandy downloadable PDF version of itself suitable for use in the classoom.
Also, if you haven't read…
September 14, 2011
Over the next few weeks, in the Northern Hemisphere, the mice will start moving in to your house.
There are many strategies to manage this, and there are many factors in play (including exactly what sort of "mouse" is moving into your house). But many individuals will want to live trap the…
September 14, 2011
There is now a fish that has evolved immunity to PCB's. PCB is a substance designed to use as an insulator in high-heat electrical equipment (like the transformers used in the electrical grid, or household radios and such). It is very bad for the environment, was taken out of use years ago, but…
September 14, 2011
Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.
Is he using the…
September 14, 2011
Artist Raghava KK demos his new children's book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story -- and your perspective -- changes. In this charming short talk, he invites all of us to shake up our perspective a little bit.
