tqa | June 15, 2006This weeks' Ask A Scienceblogger is a relatively simple one, which would explain why I'm getting to it so quickly. We're asked to take on the following question:How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
It's simple. I'm a grad student. I'm supposed to procrastiate a lot. If you don't believe me, you're not reading the right comic strip.
Seriously, this is what I do instead of watching TV. And sometimes sleeping. But it does keep me marginally sane. On…
tqa | June 15, 2006Today, President Bush invoked the Antiquities Act to create the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument. In so doing, he has created the single largest marine protected area in the world - at 360,000 square kilometers, the new national monument is slightly larger than the 348,000 km2 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. This is absolutely fantastic news. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are a relatively untouched area with tremendous biological diversity.
Although much of the area was already protected, protection came through a complex mixture of overlapping jurisdictions, with…
tqa | June 15, 2006
Pick a Scienceblogger - any Scienceblogger - and you'll find someone who loves science, and thinks that everyone should be exposed to it. That's one of the reasons that we spend time hammering out these posts. We also, as a group, have this funny belief about science education. We think it's important. We think that it's a good thing for children to learn about the way their world works, and we're all for anything that helps with that.
That's why there are, as you may have seen on the main Scienceblogs page, a whole bunch of us clamoring for your money right now. We're embarking on a…
tqa | June 14, 2006The latest issue of Seed Magazine - the print product brought to you by the same folks who bring you us - has an article about Dr. Joan Roughgarden's work. The main topic of the article is Roughgarden's opinions on sexual selection - she thinks that it is entirely wrong, and that she has come up with a better alternative in the form of something she calls "social selection." PZ Myers took a solid whack at the article earlier this week, and I usually wouldn't waste my time trying to improve on his article - especially when I agree with him. This time, though, I wasn't thrilled with his tone.…
tqa | June 12, 2006With Tropical Storm Alberto nearing landfall, this seems like as good a time as any to talk about hurricanes and global climate change. With legions of reporters standing by to cover the storm, and scrambling for things to talk about while they're waiting, someone's bound to talk about the question of a link between this hurricane season and global warming. They've already been primed by former President Bill Clinton, who linked Republican policies, global warming, and increased numbers of hurricanes at a fundraiser yesterday. If this season is anywhere near as active as predicted, I think we…
tqa | June 12, 2006This weeks question:Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
Tough question. I've got lots of ideas about what I'd do with limitless funding within my own area, but until the question came through, I hadn't thought too much about alternative careers.
I guess my answer depends on "outside of your own discipline" means. If it means that the shift has to be to an entirely different discipline, I'd have to go with astronomy, and look at the geological history of other planets. If I…
tqa | June 11, 2006Janet tagged all of us new SBers with a mathematically themed meme. I put off answering this long mostly because I have a massive aversion to math - that's why I went into evolutionary genetics. I'm also not a big fan of the whole self-reflection thing. It makes me think too much. But I'm also easily victimized by peer pressure, so here it goes:
Three reasons that I blog about science:
1: Science is cool, and I don't think enough people appreciate that.
2: Writing helps me organize my thoughts.
3: Fundamentally, I am a science geek at heart, and I don't know what else I could blog about.…
tqa | June 11, 2006Dr. John Marburger, the current Presidential Science Advisor, has a little question-and-answer piece over at Newsweek. Nick Anthis has some comments on the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of the article over at The Scientific Activist. On the whole, I agree with Nick, but there is one point that Marburger made that I think deserves a bit more attention.
In the article, when asked about stem cell research, Marburger says:Objections to embryonic stem-cell research are rooted in ethical principles and the idea of compromising these is repugnant to many U.S. citizens. Science alone cannot…
tqa | June 9, 2006This is the first time I've been associated with a website that sells advertising space, and what with them paying the bills and all, I figured that clicking on the ad was the least I could do in return. I wasn't planning to actually post anything about it, but there's a cool little applet over at the Discovery Channel's Krakatoa site. If you click here, you'll find a small program that lets you create a virtual volcano. If you've ever wondered why some volcanoes (like Mt. St. Helens or Krakatoa) explode violently, while others (like Kilauea) produce much more sedate lava flows, head over…
tqa | June 9, 2006As I mentioned the other day, some of the kids in the neighborhood and I decided to conduct some experiments into the Mentos + Coke = geyser phenomenon. I thought I'd have pictures and/or video to show you, but due to technical problems (technically, I was the problem) the experiments didn't get captured for posterity. Still, we conducted some good experiments, got a little sticky, had a lot of fun, and learned a bit about doing science on the way.
Here's what we did:
Hypotheses:
There were three different questions that the kids wanted to look at: if the kind of candy used makes a difference…
tqa | June 9, 2006If all goes according to plan, this post should appear right about the time that this blog "goes live." (And if all doesn't go to plan, the delete feature works just fine, so no worries there.) That being the case, this is probably going to be the first post that my readers see, so I'd like to take a minute to welcome both of you to the new homestead.
If you've followed me over from the old place, thanks, and you're probably not going to find a lot in this particular post that's all that new. I've been posting here invisibly for the last few days, so there are some other posts up that you…
tqa | June 8, 2006Razib has two interesting posts up at Gene Expression (1,2) that touch on something related to my own research: the question of whether or not "species" are really "real" biological entities, or just artificial groupings that humans use to make the world easier to understand. Razib has, he admits, "serious issues with the idea of species as such," and believes that focusing on things like the best way to define "species" can get in the way of understanding what is really going on.
I certainly can't argue with the second point. Focusing on how to define "species" can certainly get in the way…
tqa | June 8, 2006By now most of you will have heard about 1LT Ehren Watada, the army officer who is refusing to obey an order to deploy to Iraq. This is an issue that's getting a fairly large amount of play on the various blogs, and it's stirring up strong emotions on both sides of the political spectrum. (One look at the results of a technorati search on "Watada coward" is enough to show that.) My own feelings are strong, too - strongly mixed.
On the one hand, I think that Lt. Watada has made an exceptionally bad decision. He has said that he cannot claim conscientious objector status because he isn't…
tqa | June 7, 2006It's amazing how often doing good science walks hand in hand with looking like a bloody fool. It's entirely possible that doing something that looks absolutely insane is a necessary step in the development of a decent scientist (if so, there are many good scientists who never escape this stage).
There are lots of good examples of this. A series of experiments published last year in the journal Nature demonstrated that some species of Amazonian ant are capable of gliding back to the tree if they fall off the trunk. Like many things in science, this was first discovered as the result of an…
tqa | June 5, 2006Last week, back at the old joint, I wrote a post about an issue that had come to my attention after reading an article at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. This particular issue involved an assault on religious freedom that was coming from the branch of the Veterans Administration that is responsible for our National Cemeteries - they were (and are) refusing to allow the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to place a Wiccan pentacle on his memorial marker. Given the long and very inclusive list of religions (more than 30, almost half of which are Christian denominations) that are…