Education
terrasig | July 14, 2009Addendum published 14 July 2009 - I began this post in the spirit of revisiting the recent case of Emory University professor of psychiatry and radiology, Dr Douglas Bremner, who write the blog (and authored the book) Before You Take That Pill. Inside Higher Ed has the story behind the request by university administration for Bremner to remove from the blog his academic affiliation after publishing a satirical but serious post on the need for a bipolar patient to continue smoking in his residence.
One may also care to note that Dr Bremner is critical of the pharmaceutical industry and Emory…
clock | July 11, 2009
This post is perhaps not my best post, but is, by far, my most popular ever. Sick and tired of politics after the 2004 election I decided to start a science-only blog - Circadiana. After a couple of days of fiddling with the templae, on January 8, 2005, I posted the very first post, this one, at 2:53 AM and went to bed. When I woke up I was astonished as the Sitemeter was going wild! This post was linked by BoingBoing and later that day, by Andrew Sullivan. It has been linked by people ever since, as recently as a couple of days ago, although the post is a year and a half old.…
jstemwedel | July 11, 2009
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future.
by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum
Basic Books
2009
In this book, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum set out to alert us to a problem, and they gesture in the direction of a solution to that problem. Despite the subtitle of the book, their target is not really scientific illiteracy -- they are not arguing that producing generations of Americans who can do better on tests of general scientific knowledge will fully address the problem that worries them. Rather, the issue they want to tackle is the American public's…
clock | July 9, 2009The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Stacy Baker, everyone's favorite Biology cyber-teacher, to answer a few questions.
Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
I'm a high school biology teacher. I've taught general, honors, and advanced placement biology for the past four years.…
jdupuis | July 7, 2009Yes, as promised I'm going to start workshopping the book I'm working on: My Job in 10 Years: The Future of Academic Librarianship. (Note title tweak.)
First of all, this is all just provisional; I'm at a point where I need to stop tinkering if I just going to get something out the door. Some parts are over-developed for an outline, others are under-developed.
I'm still thinking bout the book structurally. I'm also still thinking about what kinds of topic areas belong in or out. I've been picking nits with the TOC for a while now, moving bits here and there, and that probably won't stop,…
tfk | July 6, 2009Ross Douthat is reputed to be a pretty smart guy. He blogged for the Atlantic before being given Bill Safire's old op-ed column at the New York Times. Safire, despite being wrong in may ways, was a sharp observer with good sources in DC, an analytical eye, and a sparkling intellect. Safire was briefly replaced by Bill Kristol, whose uneasy relationship with the truth, sloppy writing, and tendency to bash his own paper led to a brief tenure. Douthat has risen above Kristol's sad mark, but not by much.
Consider his defense of Sarah Palin:
In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans…
clock | July 6, 2009The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Miriam Goldstein of the Oyster's Garter blog to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
I am a graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. I write…
clock | July 3, 2009This is going to be a challenging post to write for several reasons. How do I explain that a paper that does not show too much new stuff is actually a seminal paper? How do I condense a 12-page Cell paper describing a gazillion experiments without spending too much time on details of each experiment (as much as I'd love to do exactly that)? How do I review it calmly and critically without gushing all over it and waxing poetically about its authors? How do I put it in proper theoretical and historical perspective without unnecessarily insulting someone? I'll give it a try and we'll see…
clock | July 2, 2009The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Eva Amsen, a participant at the 2007 and 2009 meetings, to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
Hello readers of Bora's blog! I'm Eva, nice to meet you. I finished a PhD in Biochemistry…
jrosenhouse | July 1, 2009Thursday morning started bright and early, since the first talk was at eight. It goes against my grain to be out of bed at that hour, but sometimes in life you just have to make sacrifices.
I was at the big meeting room by 7:45. Got to schmooze with some of the big shots, like Genie Scott and Ken Miller:
Keith Miller (no relation to Ken), a geologist at Kansas State University was there. I met him a few times during my post-doc at K-State, so it was nice to see him again. My fellow Panda's Thumbers Richard Hoppe and Art Hunt were there as well.
The morning's session was called, “…
clock | June 30, 2009The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Dr. SkySkull of the Skulls in the Stars blog, to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
First, the name: I seem to have evolved many different aliases over my time in the blogosphere!…
laelaps | June 30, 2009Like every other night for the past few weeks my phone rang at about 9:45 PM. It was the same number again. For years the number had intermittently shown up on my caller ID, and I recalled that it was for some sort of Rutgers survey. At this point I just wanted the annoying late-night calls to stop, so I decided to pick up the phone.
I had remembered correctly. It was a survey about my experience at Rutgers. Most of the questions were pretty standard (i.e. "What did you like best about Rutgers?", "Did you participate in any activities?"), but I did not realize their more sinister purpose…
catdynamics | June 29, 2009This is going to hurt...
Not a lot of people know it, but the Pennsylvania State University is not the State University of Pennsylvania - along with Pitt, Temple and Lincoln, we have long existed in a mixed state, oscillating gently between the private and state eigenstates, maximizing uncertainty.
Now we get bitten - not only is PA's governor proposing a 13% cut in our state contributed budget (which is less than 1% of our actual budget, but cuts hurt on the margin), but the gov is claiming the stimulus funding does not apply to these four, only the State University.
I somehow don't think…
drorzel | June 23, 2009
Video analysis of hammer explosion lifting a guy | Dot Physics
Can an exploding hammer lift a guy? Inquiring minds want to know...
(tags: science physics video blogs education dot-physics silly)
The Last 100 Years: 1950s & The Tragedy of Fred Hoyle : Starts With A Bang
"This is the only instance in all of scientific history that the anthropic principle has been used to successfully predict anything. And for this, Willie Fowler won the Nobel Prize, and although he credits Fred Hoyle tremendously, Hoyle was left out. Somehow, understanding where practically all the matter on our world…
clock | June 21, 2009Plant Communication: Sagebrush Engage In Self-recognition And Warn Of Danger:
To thine own self be true" may take on a new meaning--not with people or animal behavior but with plant behavior. Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their "clones" or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard Karban of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, in groundbreaking research published in the current edition of Ecology Letters.
Mate Selection: Honesty In Advertising Pays Off:
Throughout the animal kingdom brilliant colors or…
grrlscientist | June 20, 2009tags: The Science of Story Telling, Paul Nurse, genetics, family history, narrative, streaming video
This video is a fascinating look at Paul Nurse's personal history .. Nurse, who is a biochemist, Knight, 2001 Nobel Prize Winner and President of Rockefeller University in NYC, reveals how, after 58 years, he finally learned the truth of his own family history. As a boy, Nurse always felt "a little bit different" from the rest of his family. His parents and siblings all left school at age 15 while he excelled at academics and pursued higher education. In his 30s, Nurse's mother confided in him…
jrosenhouse | June 18, 2009In 2002 I attended an ID conference near Kansas City. Among the speakers was philosopher J. P. Moreland. During his talk he unleashed a broadside against Michael Ruse, accusing him not only of perjuring himself during the famous 1981 Arkansas creationism trial but also of having publicly admitted to his misdeeds.
I had an audio recording of the talk and wrote to Ruse to ask him about it. I transcribed Moreland's exact statement and asked Ruse if he had admitted any such thing as was being alleged. Ruse flatly denied Moreland's assertion and was kind enough to give me a quote to use in…
nisbetmc | June 15, 2009
I am back from an excellent science journalism conference in Denmark and will have more to say on the meeting which highlighted several issues that speak directly to challenges faced here in the US. But for now, I wanted to return to our Commentary article "Science Communication Re-Considered" published last week at Nature Biotechnology.
Of particular interest to readers, we discuss the rise of science blogging as just one small part of the complex puzzle which is public engagement. There is a lot to like about blogs but there is also a lot to be cautious about. Importantly, despite great…
terrasig | June 13, 2009
I enjoy this regular feature in the New York Times where editors put together highlights of specific destinations that can be enjoyed in a day-and-a-half. In this weekend's Travel Section, now online, my adopted home gets the treatment.
I've always wondered how locals in each area covered might view the choices. For us, I'd say that J.J. Goode's opening paragraph captures this scientific training and career destination pretty well:
TELL North Carolinians you're heading to the Research Triangle, and they'll probably ask "Which school are you visiting?" Yet the close-knit cities of Raleigh,…
terrasig | June 13, 2009WordCampRDU is a community oriented one-day conference on all things related to the blogging and website platform WordPress. There are tracks for beginner and advanced WordPress users with presentations and useful information. WordCampRDU will be highlighted by a much anticipated keynote speech by WordPress Founder, Matt Mullenweg. http://wordcamprdu.com/2009/
This is my first "camp" conference after having gone exclusively to science-related blogger gatherings. I'm also very excited that this conference is being hosted at the School of Education at North Carolina Central University in…