April 15, 2008
Because Pangea Day is Coming.
April 15, 2008
QUEST visits the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, where scientists will soon aim the world's largest laser at a target the size of a pencil eraser. The goal? Nuclear fusion -- and, they say, the answer to the world's clean energy needs.
April 15, 2008
I've already announced to you, twice, the emergence of a new web site called "Expelled Exposed" developed by the National Center for Science Education. Chances are you already went and looked at the site.
But, as of a few minutes ago, the site has been totally refined and updated. The site that…
April 15, 2008
John Wheeler may have been one of the few living individuals who actually worked with Einstein, until his death at the age of 96 two days ago. He is famous for his work on the Unified Field Theory (which did not come to fruition), the Harrison-Wheeler equation which has to do with high-density…
April 15, 2008
That elephants have an aquatic ancestry has been suspected for some time now. Moreover, the idea of elephant aquatic origins and elephant origins in general is part of a growing realization that many of the world's aquatic mammals originated in a couple of regions of Africa that were for a very…
April 15, 2008
"Academic Freedom" bills seem to come in two flavors: Those that protect students from the possibility of learning certain things, and those that protect subversive teachers from getting in trouble for being bad teachers. In both cases, they are bills typically introduced into state legislatures…
April 14, 2008
I don't think this is too new, but I certainly missed it.
For the busy viewer, watch the first 15 seconds or so to get the idea, then skip ahead to 3 minutes 1 second to get to the meat of it.
(Hat tip: Frischer Wind)
It seems to me that all you need, with these devices, is a kind of "smoke…
April 14, 2008
Pangea Day is May 10th. Everybody is going to get together and hold hands to bring the world together. We'll call it "Hands Across the Mid Ocean Ridges..."
Well, OK, that may not work, but there will be events of interest. Today we have a little pre-Pangea Day warm up, with a selection of…
April 14, 2008
On April 9, 2008, numerous dust plumes blew off the Libyan coast and over the Mediterranean Sea. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image the same day. Although contrasting strongly with the underlying ocean water, the tan plumes are…
April 14, 2008
from Archaea to Zeaxanthol has Linnaeus' Legacy #6!
April 14, 2008
This is a press release pertaining to an article coming out next month in the American Journal of Public Health:
The widespread assumption that pandemic influenza is an exceptionally deadly form of seasonal, or nonpandemic, flu is hard to support, according to a new study in the May issue of the…
April 14, 2008
Check out this film. My friend Marta plays "Holy Mary, Mother of God" a part especially well suited for her.
Details:
In this video:
Adri Mehra (videos), Kristen Swenson, Louie McCoy, Lydia Schwartz (videos), Marta Haftek, Nicole LeDuc (videos), Peter Kenyon (videos), Taylor Park (videos)
We…
April 14, 2008
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time is a book by Michael Benton on the Permian Extinction now out in paperback. From the press release:
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half…
April 14, 2008
Carnival of the Godless #89 is here at The Rational Response Squad
April 14, 2008
Rokia Traore sings the moving "M'Bifo," accompanied on guitar and on the n'goni, a lute-like Malian stringed instrument with a soulful tone. A quietly mesmerizing performance.
April 14, 2008
I'm home sick, so I'm not going to be able to hug very many atheists... But you'all go hug each other now, ya hear?
Here is the facebook link to the event.
April 13, 2008
On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. In less than three hours, the unsinkable ship sank to the bottom of the sea. A total of more than 1,500 lives were lost.
The events surrounding the sinking of the Titanic may be more of a reflection of human social…
April 13, 2008
State of the Wild 2008-2009: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans (State of the Wild) is a production of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
...State of the Wild is a collection of evocative essays featuring emerging issues in the conservation of wildlife and wild places. The book…
April 13, 2008
Do you know that this is National Poetry Month?
Inspired by national poetry month, I've gone ahead and written a poem. I call it "Ode to Ben Stein" ... but really, it is only a limerick.
There once was an actor named Ben
He wrote speeches for Nixon and then
Drank too much kool-ade
While on a…
April 13, 2008
Former conservative speech writer discusses economy (he feels that the economy is very strong) and intelligent Design Creationism here.
[Hat Tip: Peter M.]
April 13, 2008
Leonardo Da Vinci's life and work is well known -- but his own face is not. Illustrator and activist Siegfried Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Here, he walks viewers through exactly how he did it.
April 13, 2008
Shouldda kept the guy with the hooker.....
New New York Governor David Paterson will likely sign a bill now working its way through the final legislative steps that will add a sales tax to items purchases on the internet by New Yorkers.
The controversial bill ends what for many New Yorkers had…
April 13, 2008
Dawkins Admits to Not Being Perfect Atheist: Consideres Possibility that Fairies and Green Unicorns May, just May Exist. (But almost certainly not.)
Hat tip: Science and Religion News
April 13, 2008
The Open Source content management system PLONE runs the newly released NASA Science web site.
The site has something for everyone (researchers, educators, kids, and "citizen scientists"). The Plone seems to be working quite nicely.
Some of it is still a little rough. The Space Calendar link…
April 13, 2008
Filmmaker David Hoffman shares footage from his feature-length documentary Sputnik Mania, which shows how the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to both the space race and the arms race -- and jump-started science and math education around the world.
April 13, 2008
While in Asia in 2007, TEDster Paul Koontz got the priceless chance to spend a few days in North Korea. He brought his two kids -- and his camera, capturing both quotidian detail (like the military bearing of a lonely traffic warden) and the grand spectacle leading up to the Mass Games. It's a rare…
