purepedantry
Posts by this author
February 7, 2007
"So I am a Libra. I enjoy science and blogging. I dislike dogs, people who talk in movies, and other people's children. I am looking for a woman who breathes regularly and is at least partially heterosexual." -- so speaketh the Speed-dater. (Actually, I have never been speed dating, but I have…
February 7, 2007
This will never end. Ever. There will always be some yo-yo who feels it necessary to protect me from reality:
First it was cell phones in cars, then trans fats. Now, a new plan is on the table to ban gadget use while crossing city streets.
We all seem to have one -- an iPod, a BlackBerry, a cell…
February 6, 2007
This is the best advertisement for a video game ever. The researchers compared people who played Unreal Tournament for 30 hours with people who played Tetris. They found that the Unreal Tournament players had an increase in visual processing speed:
Video games that contain high levels of action,…
February 6, 2007
Good news for sufferers of osteoporosis. There is more calcium in the universe than theoretical physicists had predicted:
According to Jelle de Plaa, space researcher at SRON, many answers can be found in distant clusters of galaxies. "Clusters are in many ways the big cities of the universe", he…
February 6, 2007
Photons can carry enormous amount of information, but one of the problems in using them to encode information is that they are difficult to store for even short periods (they are moving at the speed of light after all!). University of Rochester scientists have taken a step in solving the practical…
February 5, 2007
After surveying parents of overweight children researchers found that the majority are not even aware their child is overweight:
Researchers with Deakin's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research surveyed more than 1200 families to find out if parents had concerns about their children's…
February 5, 2007
Ghost authorship is the omission of the name of someone who contributed to a scientific paper from that paper's list of authors. Sometimes this can be because what the individual contributed is not considered critical to the creation of that paper. Sometimes this can be because the inclusion of…
February 5, 2007
(That would be Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- the Supreme Court Justice.)
Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oh, there are times
When all this fret and tumult that we hear
Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear
His own dull chimes.
Ding dong!…
February 2, 2007
I was reading the article that is currently was on the Buzz in Scienceblogs. It is about President Bush issuing an executive order to the bureaucracy curtailing the use of guidance statements and insisting that political appointees evaluate the costs and benefits of these statements. The story…
February 2, 2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is out today, and I was shocked to discover that it is already being misreported. It was being mis-reported before, but that was just leaks. You can lie with leaks. They are easily selective.
Now the mis-reportage is being done with the…
January 31, 2007
There is no reason that you would know this (and frankly I doubt you really want to), but I have a problem when women stay over. There are hot as hell, and they always want to cuddle and make me hot as hell too. I end up scooting over to one side of the bed to avoid the personal sweating lodge…
January 31, 2007
There is a big controversy among doctors and patients as to the wisdom of C-section vs. vaginal delivery. It is a complex issue.
For the first birth, there is no evidence that I am aware of that C-section or vaginal delivery are superior to one another with respect to the child's health. Still…
January 30, 2007
We have had an ongoing discussion on this blog about whether the disparity between women and men in the sciences is the result of a innate difference in cognitive ability or the result of some social phenomena such as selective participation or discrimination. Unfortunately, one of the…
January 29, 2007
Jeffrey Toobin, writing in the New Yorker, has an excellent article on Google's plan to scan all the books they can get their hands on into digital:
The legal assertion at the core of Google's business plan is its purported right to scan millions of copyrighted books without payment to or…
January 29, 2007
Will we really be going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? Michael Barone had this story in the WSJ on the emerging tendency towards political dynasty in American politics:
Not that anyone assumes that family members are all alike. It would not do for candidate Bush in 2000 and for candidate Clinton today…
January 29, 2007
At a zoo in England, a Komodo dragon has laid eggs that have hatched even though she has never been exposed to a male:
Scientists unveiled five squirmy black and yellow Komodo dragons Wednesday that were the product of a virgin birth, predicting that the hatchlings offered hope for breeding the…
January 29, 2007
Residents of New Jersey must be warned not to eat too many toxic squirrels:
New Jersey has warned squirrel hunters near a toxic waste dump about consuming the critters because they could be contaminated with lead.
It is the first time the state has cautioned Ringwood residents _ many who are…
January 29, 2007
Not to suggest that Americans wouldn't:
Ignoring health warnings and threats of prosecution, hundreds of people foraged among containers washed from a stricken cargo vessel on the southern English coast on Monday, hauling off booty that included BMW motorcycles, shoes, diapers, beauty cream and…
January 29, 2007
When I was a kid my Mom would always set the clock in the car forward about 15 minutes arguing that if she did that she would never be late. First of all, we were always early -- sometimes ridiculously so -- regardless of the clock. Second, I was always a bit skeptical of this strategy because…
January 28, 2007
The Age Demanded
by Ernest Miller Hemingway
The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.
The age demanded that we flow
And hammered in the bung.
The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.
And in the end the age was handed
The sort of shit that it demanded.
January 25, 2007
People can be really, really dumb sometimes:
Reports about a study that found microwave ovens can be used to sterilize kitchen sponges sent people hurrying to test the idea this week -- with sometimes disastrous results.
A team at the University of Florida found that two minutes in the microwave at…
January 25, 2007
German scientists are having trouble getting their sloth to work:
Scientists in the eastern German city of Jena said Wednesday they have finally given up after three years of failed attempts to entice a sloth into budging as part of an experiment in animal movement.
The sloth, named Mats, was…
January 25, 2007
The binding problem is one of the great mysteries of modern neuroscience. Briefly, we know from a variety of studies in humans and primates that the specific features of the sensory world -- particularly the visual world -- are broken down into their separate components by the brain to be…
January 24, 2007
Ronald Bailey at Reason has an interesting theory: Federal funding drives out private funding for research resulting in a net loss (or at least no change) for researchers. His best example is what has happened during the ban on Federal money for embryonic stem cell research. Since the Federal…
January 24, 2007
It would appear that today will be Sex Day at Pure Pedantry. So be it.
I didn't know this but mouse and rat sperm have funny shaped hooks at their tips. To the right is a picture of sperm from a variety of mouse and rat species (click to enlarge).
A) Variation in hook design across nine murine…
January 24, 2007
Researchers have discovered a way to prevent premature ejaculation. You just cover your penis in lidocaine, the stuff the dentist uses to numb your face:
Patients with premature ejaculation who used a topical anaesthetic spray were able to delay ejaculation for five times as long, according to a…
January 23, 2007
Anyone who has ever had an annoying child sit behind them in the plane will crack up at this:
AirTran Airways on Tuesday defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff.
AirTran officials said they…
January 23, 2007
I have to admit I was a little skeptical of this argument, but it is growing on me.
Basically, he is saying that executives are paid ungodly amounts because people are willing to pay them that. If it isn't my money I have no right to begrudge them theirs. And furthermore I really have no idea…
January 23, 2007
Recently this model, Gisele Bundchen, speculated that the fashion industry is not to blame for anorexia. Rather parents are to blame:
Gisele Bundchen has entered Brazil's growing debate over anorexia, saying families are to blame _ not the fashion industry.
"I never suffered this problem because…