catdynamics | August 17, 2006Oo, yeah.
Stephen Colbert brings back Neil deGrasse Tyson and does an IAU smackdown.
Charon, Ceres and Xena get it.
Wait for the YouTube, someone will have it for us by morning I'm sure.
He was very good. Stephen was pretty good also.
Here is original Neil Tyson appearance on YouTube while we wait for someone to get last nights clip up...
And here it is
Thanks to Robert at Rev. BigDumbChimp
Awesome. Absolutely f'ing awesome.
catdynamics | August 16, 2006So... the ad hoc sub-subcommittee of the standing subcommittee for the Naming of Names has reported out: the Federation of People Who Believe No Really Important Discoveries are Made West of the Mississippi are reeling in defeat, while the Alliance of the Crusade for Consistency is handed a token superficial victory.
Millions of elementary school teachers, and their pupils, are in tears.
A Good Day for Science, indeed.
Phil has the lowdonw and here is the official word
Various ScienceBloggers chime in, here and here and here
Well, it is all over but the voting, which comes later this week.…
catdynamics | August 16, 2006News from Bíldudalur that a pair of viking era graves have been found with well preserved weapons and other items.
From local news in Bíldudal
Report in Mogginn and the official press release from The Archaeological Heritage Agency of Iceland
Hringsdalur is a small valley off Arnarfjörður - the Fjord of the Eagle, on the northwest coast of Iceland. It is one of the grandest of the WestFjords.
Two graves were found, one with a skeleton, a rusted knifeblade or arrowpoint, a decorated comb and other household items, the other, which they've just begun digging had that rather splendid and…
catdynamics | August 15, 2006No_Nym, guestblogging on Bitch PhD suggests that Princess Leia is to blame for the dearth of women in science and engineering...
Princess Leia - Return of the Jedi "slave girl" version 3.0
Hm. Not sure.
Her point on Dora the Explorer is good though, bringing in cousin Diego was a major sell-out.
Still not nearly as bad as "Princess Disney" or "Barbie".
Is this a good time to link to a favourite David Brin rant on the Evil That Is The Star Wars Meme?
I worried about this until a) Jar-Jar Binks and b) the Jedi attack at the arena to rescue He Who Can Not Act
Proof conclusive.
UPDATE: read…
catdynamics | August 14, 2006To what extent do you worry about AIDS, either with respect to yourself, your children, or the world at large?...
In this business, you tend to accumulate a lot of paper, and eventually you learn to cull it, ruthlessly-ish.
But there are always some things you keep, to remind you... one item in my stack is the 16 Dec 1982 issue of New Scientist, on page 713 is a 3 page news article on the mystery of the 500 cases of a new syndrome of "acquired immunodeficiency", including 11 cases in Europe. 175 of these had died.
The article discusses extensively the possibility that this is caused by…
catdynamics | August 14, 2006So... is Pluto really a Planet?
IAU Press Release 01/99
February 3, 1999
Recent news reports have given much attention to what was believed to be an initiative by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to change the status of Pluto as the ninth planet in the solar system. Unfortunately, some of these reports have been based on incomplete or misleading information regarding the subject of the discussion and the decision making procedures of the Union...
... 'course they can always change their minds, it is not like Congressional elections, you can do "do-overs" in science.
As I said…
catdynamics | August 14, 2006Grauniad reports Britain is in danger of running out of scientists:
commoditity markets in Europe spiked sharply on the news, with the ten year future contract on physicists rising 20% in early morning trading; spot markets also rose sharply, with PhD chemists leading the rally to $274.18 per hour in early morning trading (for the benchmark liberal educated physical chemists favoured by industry).
In the US after an initial spike in morning trading, the early gains were erased by the announcement that India was releasing some of its strategic stockpile of computer scientists, and news that…
catdynamics | August 14, 2006Penn State has a contract with an on-line plagiarism service - Turnitin.com - which allows faculty to check whether papers etc were plagiarised from other sources; it compares text with an impressive range of other sources.
Interestingly, the information to faculty about the service comes with a firm admonition to not share the access to the facility with anyone other than other faculty, instructors and TAs.
The University finds it necessary to remind faculty not to cheat on the cheating service.
The concern is not just depriving the service of licensed income, but to prevent students from…
catdynamics | August 13, 2006As manufacturers of overprized disposable size toothpaste tubes rejoice, the rest of us contemplate the tantrums and boredom of travel with no water, juice, reading material or electronics... and that is without the kids.
As usual, transport authorities are reacting and implementing meaningless nuisance measures in place of effective security.
Maybe requiring no fluids and gels on-board planes will improve airline service again, I don't think trans-continental travel without drinking is sustainable, but if everyone goes the route of the brits and bans carry-ons then there will be an implosion…
catdynamics | August 11, 2006Hot frantic friday, and we ask the iPod.
Oh, mighty one - are we classically deterministic automata, predictable by any Turing machine, or do we have that most insidious of concepts, a true Free Will?
Whoosh goes the randomizer...
Whoosh.
The Covering: Dammit Janet- Barry Bostwick et al
The Crossing: Norðurljós - Thorir Ulfarsson
The Crown: Að Lesa Og Skrifa List er Góð: - Þuríður Pálsdóttir
The Root: O Come, All Ye Faithful - King's College Choir
The Past: John Reid BBC Radio 4 Interview on Iraq (Aug 12 2005) Podcast
The Future: St Jimmy - Green Day
The Questioner: Behind the Wall…
catdynamics | August 11, 2006I wasn't going to mention it, but Tara made me...
A public policy report in today's Science shows the popular acceptance of evolution for 34 different nations, and wouldn't you know it: Iceland is #1
This is the image from Science magazine, linked through from their website under fair use.
United States, as Tara notes, is second - from the bottom, right ahead of Turkey but behind Cyprus.
I have to confess I am a bit surprised - Iceland is clustered with the usual Scandinavian liberal nations, but I wouldn't have figured us being on top, would have expected a rank lower down near Norway.…
catdynamics | August 10, 2006The Perseid meteor shower in mid August is one of the more reliable and bright meteor showers seen in the northern hemisphere.
This year they'll be back this weekend, viewing will be mediocre, especially from North America...
radiant map - from 2002, but they'll come from same location - look for the "W" of Cassiopea low to the northeast after sunset, try to catch the time after sunset but before Moon rise (not very long right now...);
for best viewing use averted vision - ie focus on Cassiopea and look down to the right, then scan the sky around this - sweep your eyes in a 30-45 degree…
catdynamics | August 9, 2006Bitch, PhD, is on form
What is it with people who either shower with their swimsuit on, or worse still, don't shower at all before or after swimming... it can't because they're afraid of getting wet?
catdynamics | August 9, 2006The iTunes selection of two random strangers in Connecticut this morning...
Joe's iPod
Waterloo - ABBA
SOS - ABBA (only from the best)
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
I wanna be sedated - Ramones
Fear is a man's best friend - Billy Bragg
Liar - Sinthetix
He Likes Me - Violent Femmes
Should I Stay or Should I Go - Clash
Bush War Blues - Johnny Cash
Vote for We - Clint Eastwood and General Saint
Ned's iPod
We Are the Champions - Queen
Mr President - Pink
Truth #2 (Live) - Dixie Chicks
The Boy Done Good - Billy Bragg
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
Ofboðslega Frægur - Stuðmenn
All…
catdynamics | August 9, 2006Random interesting snippets... Grauniad has a sudden burst of interesting science articles and features!
Blogger are busy as always.
interesting Grauniad article on ALMA
also an interesting teaser on ELT
the science weekly podcast for this week also looks good - climate porn, Hawking on survival and space, and a skeptic
Backreaction has trouble with strings, bigfeet and Lee
Rob worries about the distance to M33 - Stanek et al (not the Angry One) find it to be further away than previously estimated - intriguing, and goes with the anomalies in LMC distance moduli, but I don't think it will…
catdynamics | August 8, 2006Apparently the USAF 494th figher squadron, which is a "ready to deploy" F-15E "Strike Eagle" squadron currently based at RAF Lakenheath, is deploying soon to "southwest Asia"; but first they got the new improved GBU-39 bombs - smaller GPS guided bombs permitting each aircraft to carry eight independently targetable bombs - each smaller, but more effective with guiding than the equivalent weight of bigger and fewer bombs.
Where are they going, and why?
catdynamics | August 8, 2006So, for various obscure reasons I was browsing the NASA select schedule, and I noticed there are no scheduled SSUs - Space Science Updates from NASA HQ.
Thinking about it, I didn't recall any recent SSUs on anything I had noticed...
I don't see any on the Hubblesite, Chandra or JPL Mars website and I don't see an SSU tag on the Cassini press releases.
Have there been any SSUs this year? On what topics and when? Because I can't find any by googling and I don't recall seeing any.