jlynch
Posts by this author
September 29, 2007
Events
1977 - The Apollo program’s ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are terminated.
2004 - The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat are taken. PZ Myers is ecstatic.
Births
1530 - Geronimo Mercuriali, Italian philologist and physician
1870 - Jean Baptiste Perrin,…
September 29, 2007
So let’s put this in perspective ...
ASU hadn’t won in California in fourteen games.
ASU hadn’t won in Stanford since 1997.
Nine of the top-25 teams lost over the weekend.
Colorado - whom ASU beat - went and won against #3 Oklahoma.
The Cal/Oregon game was a good one. Cal should rise through the…
September 29, 2007
Being a little quiet here ... combination of a looming Sunday deadline, grading, and the fact that I threw my back out on Thursday afternoon and am now in constant pain. Ah, the joys of life! There will, however, be some exciting news on Monday, so stay tuned.
Here’s your Today in Science ....…
September 28, 2007
Births
1605 - Ismael Bullialdus, French astronomer
1852 - Henri Moissan, French chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1939 - Stuart Kauffman, American biologist
Deaths
1694 - Gabriel Mouton, French scientist
1895 - Louis Pasteur, French scientist
1953 - Edwin Hubble, American astronomer
1979 - John…
September 28, 2007
Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue; I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way, And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in…
September 26, 2007
Events
1937 - Balinese Tiger (Panthera tigris balica) declared extinct after the last specimen was shot in 1925.
1956 - Milburn G. Apt becomes the first man to exceed Mach 3 while flying the Bell X-2. Shortly thereafter, the craft goes out of control and Apt is killed.
Births
1818 - Adolph…
September 26, 2007
In the past, he asked "Is our children learning?" Yesterday, when commenting on No Child Left Behind he said "As yesterday’s positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured" (source). No comment is necessary.
September 26, 2007
Just a quick note to point out that my colleague, Tom Martin, who occupies an office just down the corridor from me, has won the Second Annual Seed Science Writing Contest with his essay "Scientific Literacy and the Habit of Discourse." Take a look.
September 26, 2007
Births
1877- Ugo Cerletti, Italian neurologist
1887 - Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, British scientist, engineer and inventor
Deaths
1802 - Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician and physicist
1877 - Hermann Grassmann, German mathematician and physicist
1951 - Hans Cloos, German geologist
1976 - Lavoslav…
September 25, 2007
Births
1644 - Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer
1773 - Agostino Bassi, Italian entomologist
1798 - Jean-Baptiste Ãlie de Beaumont, French geologist
1839 - Karl Alfred von Zittel, German palaeontologist
1866 - Thomas Hunt Morgan, American geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1986 - Nikolay…
September 24, 2007
The following is posted on behalf of Naomi Oreskes:
On September 3, I was contacted by Mr. Schulte, who asserted that statements made in my response - specifically that "The Schulte piece misrepresents the research question we posed," that "the piece misrepresents the results we obtained," and that…
September 24, 2007
September 24th is also the anniversary of the birth (in 1724) of Arthur Guinness, the real patron saint of Ireland. In 1759 he opened the St James’s Gate brewery in Dublin and by 1778 he was brewing the elixir than bears his name. In his honor, I give you "The Workman’s Friend" by Flann O’Brien…
September 24, 2007
Births
1801 - Mikhail Vasilievich Ostrogradsky, Ukrainian scientist
1802 - Adolphe d’Archaic, French paleontologist and geologist
1870 - Georges Claude, French chemist and inventor
1895 - André Frédéric Cournand, French physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1541 - Paracelsus, Swiss…
September 23, 2007
Maybe our own little Aussie snowflake needs to change his image to this cantankerous little antipodean? Details here.
September 23, 2007
W00t! ASU are back among the ranked teams - #23 in the AP and #25 in the USA Today poll. That means four Pac-10 teams are currently ranked - USC (#1), Cal (#6), Oregon (#11) and ASU (with UCLA also receiving votes).
Week 3 of last season was our last time in the rankings (#22), so hopefully this is…
September 22, 2007
My grandfather - now dead 28 years - and I used to coil up laughing to this.
September 22, 2007
Events
1846 - Discovery of Neptune by Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and John Couch Adams
1884 - Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine.
1999 - NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
Births
1791 - Johann Franz Encke, German astronomer
1819 -…
September 22, 2007
I spent Saturday night in Sun Devil Stadium watching ASU beat Oregon State 44-32, to go 4-0 for the season. This after spotting the Beavers 19 points in the first seven minutes and given that OSU had the second-rated run defense in the country. Five interceptions and a lot of big third-down plays (…
September 22, 2007
There’s a common misconception about academics. It sees us as spending perhaps six to nine hours a week actually working and then sitting on our asses for the rest of the working week absorbing money from the public. Wish it were so. This week, I had nine hours of in-class time, five hours of…
September 22, 2007
Births
1715 - Jean-Ãtienne Guettard, French physician and scientist
1717 - Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin, Swedish astronomer
1741 - Peter Simon Pallas, German zoologist
1791 - Michael Faraday, English scientist
1900 - Paul H. Emmett, American chemical engineer
1901 - Charles B. Huggins, Canadian-born…
September 21, 2007
Another poem by Nizar Qabbani.
When I Love
When I loveI feel that I am the king of timeI possess the earth and everything on itand ride into the sun upon my horse.
When I loveI become liquid lightinvisible to the eyeand the poems in my notebooksbecome fields of mimosa and poppy.
When I lovethe…
September 21, 2007
Events
2001 - Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
2003 - Galileo mission terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.
Births
1853 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1866 -…
September 20, 2007
Events
1633 - Galileo Galilei is tried before the Inquisition.
Births
1842 - James Dewar, Scottish chemist
Deaths
1884 - Leopold Fitzinger, Austrian zoologist
September 20, 2007
John Mashey has informed me that the much bally-hooed paper by Klaus-Martin Schulte (see here and here) will not now be published by Energy & Environment. More details at DeSmogBlog. Feel free to Digg! the DeSmog post.
September 18, 2007
Births
1759 - William Kirby, English entomologist
1889 - Sadie Delany, American physician
1926 - Masatoshi Koshiba, Japanese physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1710 - Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer
1843 - Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, French scientist
1935 - Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky…
September 18, 2007
Births
1819 - Leon Foucault, French physicist
1907 - Edwin McMillan, Chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1951 - Benjamin Carson, American neurosurgeon
Deaths
1896 - Hippolyte Fizeau, French physicist
1967 - John Cockcroft, British physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
September 16, 2007
Events
1976 - The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, was unveiled by NASA.
Births
1677 - Stephen Hales, English physiologist, chemist, and inventor
1857 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian rocket scientist
Deaths
1836 - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, French botanist
September 15, 2007
Births
1725 - Nicolas Desmarest, French geologist
1827 - Jean Albert Gaudry, French geologist
1853 - Albrecht Kossel, German physician and Nobel Prize laureate
1893 - Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1736 - Gabriel Fahrenheit, German physicist
1925 -…
September 15, 2007
Events
1835 - The HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin, reaches the Galápagos Islands.
1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
1968 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft…