jlynch
Posts by this author
February 1, 2007
OK, I promise this is the last Comet McNaught photo. But it was too cool to pass up - the comet and the Southern Lights. Here is a larger version.
February 1, 2007
February 1st
1462 - Birth of Johannes Trithemius, German cryptographer
1761 - Birth of Christian Hendrik Persoon, South African mycologist
1897 - Death of Constantin von Ettingshausen, Austrian geologist
1903 - Death of George Gabriel Stokes, Irish physicist
1958 - Death of Clinton Davisson,…
January 31, 2007
Today I ran a workshop for my freshmen on argumentative writing, so this seems appropriate:
Remember folks, an argument is "a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition" not "the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes."
January 31, 2007
The more astute among you will have noticed that I have been awol more-or-less for the past week. I have a major deadline to hit on Friday and once that is done (and I have rested) I will resume my usual posting.
For the moment, check out four books that I am currently reviewing for various print…
January 31, 2007
January 31st
1632 - Death of Joost Bürgi, Swiss clockmaker and mathematician
1868 - Birth of Theodore William Richards, American chemist, Nobel laureate
1881 - birth of Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel laureate
1896 - Birth of Sofya Yanovskaya, Russian mathematician
1929 - Birth of…
January 30, 2007
January 30th
1720 - Birth of Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist
1822 - Birth of Franz Ritter von Hauer, Austrian geologist
1858 - Death of Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Dutch zoologist
1899 - Birth of Max Theiler, South African virologist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1925 - Birth of…
January 29, 2007
January 29th
1688 - Birth of Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist and philosopher
1810 - Birth of Ernst Kummer, German mathematician
1846 - Birth of Karol Olszewski, Polish scientist
1886 - Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
1926 - Birth of Abdus Salam, Pakistani…
January 28, 2007
In memory of those that slipped the bonds of Earth on this day in 1986.
I was a freshman in college. The flight started at 11:08 EST - just after four in the afternoon in Ireland - and I remember watching the launch on CNN which was the only channel that was showing the event live.
Here James…
January 28, 2007
January 28th
1540 - Birth of Ludolph van Ceulen, German mathematician
1608 - Birth of Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist
1611 - Birth of Johannes Hevelius, Polish astronomer
1622 - Birth of Adrien Auzout, French astronomer
1687 - Death of Johannes Hevelius, Polish…
January 27, 2007
Today in 1967, Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.
January 27, 2007
I am: Arthur C. Clarke Well known for nonfiction science writing and for early promotion of the effort toward space travel, his fiction was often grand and visionary.
Which science fiction writer are you?
PZ made me do it.
January 27, 2007
As I noted earlier, today is the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Willis in 1621. Willis is remembered as the father of modern neurology with his publication in 1664 of Cerebri Anatomi. He was also co-founder of the Royal Society of London in 1662 and discoverer of the circle of Willis (…
January 27, 2007
Rush Limbaugh yesterday had the following to say about women serving in the US military:
So what does it tell you they of the military? Its nothing but a little social playground for experimentation, by the way since they're liberals they'd love to weaken it and love to tear it apart and cause all…
January 27, 2007
January 27th
1621 - Birth of Thomas Willis, English physician
1851 - Death of John James Audubon, French-American naturalist, ornithologist, and painter
1860 - Death of János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician
1880 - Thomas Edison files a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
1888 - The…
January 26, 2007
January 26th
1630 - Death of Henry Briggs, English mathematician
1697 - Death of Georg Mohr, Danish mathematician
1823 - Death of Edward Jenner, English physician
1904 - Birth of Ancel Keys, American scientist
1911 - Birth of Polykarp Kusch, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1942 - Death…
January 25, 2007
Widgeon
For Paul Muldoon
It had been badly shot.
While he was plucking it
he found, he says, the voice box -
like a flute stop
in the broken windpipe -
and blew upon it
unexpectedly
his own small widgeon cries.
Seamus Heaney
January 25, 2007
January 25th
1627 - Birth of Robert Boyle, Irish chemist
1736 - Birth of Joseph Louis Lagrange, Italian-born mathematician
1794 - Birth of François-Vincent Raspail, French chemist
1796 - Birth of William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist
1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander…
January 24, 2007
Darren Naish ("Tetrapod Zoology") has joined our merry band. Wander over, say "Hi", and learn about the evolution of vampires.
January 24, 2007
A few of my SciBlings have posted on the frilled shark (Chlamysoselachus anguineus) that turned up off Japan. Shelley and PZ have two different videos to check out. A CNN story notes that the species "sometimes referred to as a 'living fossil'
because it is a primitive species that has changed…
January 24, 2007
This little beauty is a new species of Pemelodus catfish. P. tetramerus was described from the Rio Tapajos and Rio Tocatins in Brazil. It is related to the Pictus catfish that are available in many fish stores.
January 24, 2007
Our HPS lab meeting discussed historian Peter Dear's The Intelligibility of Nature today and will be continuing to do so next week. One of Dear's statements regarding Darwin is so wrong it is not even funny:
[Darwin] never paused to ask whether the very meaning of the category 'species' might have…
January 24, 2007
January 24th
1877 - Death of Johann Christian Poggendorff, German physicist
1928 - Birth of Desmond Morris, British anthropologist and author of the pop-sci work The Naked Ape.
1939 - Death of Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician and nutritionist
1966 - Death of Homi J. Bhabha, Indian…
January 23, 2007
January 23rd
1556 - The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits resulting in a death toll perhaps as high as 830,000.
1719 - Birth of John Landen, English mathematician
1785 - Death of Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician
1840 - Birth of Ernst Abbe, German physicist
1857…
January 22, 2007
Scanning electron photomicrographs of two fossil embryo specimens from the 600-million-year-old Doushantuo Formation in South China.
From EurekaAlert:
A decade ago, Shuhai Xiao, associate professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech, and his colleagues discovered thousands of 600-million-year-old…
January 22, 2007
I'm going to be a bit distracted until the weekend and maybe even longer. My annual self-evaluation is due to our Personnel Committee fairly soon, and I also have book reviews, letters of recommendation, student theses, and a few lesser service requirements to clear off my desk. And of course there…
January 22, 2007
January 22nd
1561 - Birth of Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher
1592 - Birth of Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist
1767 - Death of Johann Gottlob Lehmann, German mineralogist and geologist
1779 - Death of Jeremiah Dixon, English surveyor and astronomer
1840 -…