May 8, 2012
... and it is starting to look like they are mainly tilting at windmills, but still:
Confidential memo seen by Guardian calls for climate change sceptics to turn American public against solar and wind power...
A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to…
May 8, 2012
The Heartland Institute is tonight's tool time for putting out insane ads attacking the theory of climate change. The Heartland Institute is a deep pocketed conservative organization that counts Koch industries, Phillip Morris and Microsoft among its well-heeled donors. The Institute is funding a…
May 8, 2012
The author of the historically transformative and widely loved book "Where the Wild Things Are" had died. He was 83.
Standing with a character from his book Where the Wild Things Are, author and illustrator Maurice Sendak speaks with the media Jan. 11, 2002, at the Children's Museum of Manhattan…
May 7, 2012
This was just posted on State Farm's facebook page:
State Farm is ending its association with the Heartland Institute. This is because of a recent billboard campaign launched by the Institute.
That was a result of this: An Open Letter to State Farm about Climate Denial
Bwahahahaha...
Go "like" it…
May 7, 2012
Shawn Otto, author of Fool me Twice, will be on Science Friday this week talking about Science Debate with Ira Flatow and Vern Ehlers.
Fri 1-2 CT, 2-3 ET
May 7, 2012
A more sophisticated form of underwear bomb has been developed, but the CIA has thwarted an attempt to deploy it to blow up a US based plane.
The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009. [it has] a more refined…
May 7, 2012
Here it is on film in case you wanted to see it:
May 7, 2012
Discussed: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality, which I've got my copy of and am now reading, and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion which I'm probably never going to get to.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and…
May 6, 2012
Tom Levenson will be on Skeptically Speaking later today, talking about his book Newton and the Counterfeiter.
May 6, 2012
This just in:
Diageo announces it is to end funding of Heartland Institute
Diageo, one the world's largest drinks companies, has announced it will no longer fund the Heartland Institute, a rightwing US thinktank which briefly ran a billboard campaign this week comparing people concerned about…
May 6, 2012
We had a hella storm come through the Twin Cities last night. Some hail, some wind, but piles of lightning. And then this happened in Dinkytown: Lightning struck a high power line, which fell across a couple of parked cars and stayed "live." The live line heated up the pavement on the street…
May 4, 2012
Here in Minnesota, and in surrounding states, there is some real tension between Native and Immigrant communities. The poorest, most drug-ridden, down trodden and repressed communities here are often Native, and conveniently these communities tend to be (but not always are) located far away from…
May 4, 2012
Thank you to all the bloggers and others who jumped immediately on the Heartland Institute for putting up horribly offensive billboards equating scientists with the scientist/mathematician killing terrorist Unibomber. I have heard unofficially that Heartland will be taking down those billboards.…
May 4, 2012
.... comparing holocaust survivors to Hitler? Hmong refugees to Pol Pot? Well, maybe not exactly but there is a structural similarity.
People at the Heartland Institute have very little to do with science and very little experience in that area of academics. Otherwise they would remember the…
May 4, 2012
As is the case with most things that are important, we as a society have done a very bad job of developing an effective conversation about Global Warming. The vast majority of electronic and real ink that I see spent on the discussion of Global Warming (outside of the peer reviewed literature) is…
May 3, 2012
Have a look at this story.
The first blind patients to be fitted with electronic eye implants in a UK clinical trial have regained "useful vision" only weeks after surgery....
The implants are basically little camera chips that get hooked up to the neural circuitry in the eye. The results are not…
May 3, 2012
These are two of a series of videos made by faculty and students at various Twin Cities area schools as part of a contest to get a local furniture store to help them improve their teacher's lounge. These are my two favorite videos of the bunch.
Nellie Stone Johnson Community School, in North…
May 2, 2012
PBS has something coming out tonight about teaching climate change in American Classrooms.
From a press release I just got in the mail:
The PBS NEWSHOUR examines the struggle over teaching climate change Wednesday
The PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan will report Wednesday (May 2) on how the…
May 2, 2012
Martha and I were walking down the street...Downer Street, if I recall correctly...heading north from the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. We were close to the Kinko's, which was on the west side of the north-south trending street, and about to cross. We were in fact off the…
May 1, 2012
Sometimes it's spelled "Waco" but we all know that it should be Wacko. Yet Another Zany Thing (YAZT) has happened there which you may find amusing.
Bill Nye the Science Guy gave a talk there in which he made the claim that the Moon does not emit its own light. Rather, he said, it reflects the…
April 30, 2012
Yes. But don't assume you know a stupid person when you see one.
Our governor just vetoed a bill passed by our Pointy Headed Republican Legislature which would have significantly reduced regulation on dangerous fireworks in the state, allowing everyone access to explosives that are currently…
April 30, 2012
The latest in Cat Scan Research:
Read the rest here, and contribute
April 30, 2012
I don't know if this phrase ...
... originally from Adam Savage or if he's quoting someone. I think it might be his.
Today, I was in an internet argument with someone (can you believe how many people on the internet are WRONG???) and I used a phrase like that. Then I instantly lost the argument…
April 30, 2012
So you can help them collect data????? OMG, this is so cool!
The USGS is trying to achieve a denser and more uniform spacing of seismographs in select urban areas to provide better measurements of ground motion during earthquakes. These measurements improve our ability to make rapid post-…
April 29, 2012
Here's the real thing:
April 29, 2012
Technically, it was a few days ago, but I missed it. Here's Rachel Maddow's coverage:
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