Education
grrlscientist | February 23, 2009tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Rock Wren, Salpinctes obsoletus, in Chaco Canyon.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].
Birds in Science
Scientists fitted tags to wood thrushes and purple martins in the north-east of the US before the birds began their journey to central and South America. Data recovered from the devices showed that the birds took much longer to complete the autumnal migration than the return journey north in the spring. "Never before has anyone been able to track songbirds for their entire migratory trip," explained co-…
oracknows | February 23, 2009One thing that's become apparent to me so far in 2009 is that, while 2008 was the year of the antivaccinationist, 2009 is already shaping up to be a very bad year for antivaccinationists. A very bad year indeed, and this is a very, very good thing--if it can be sustained.
But first, let's take a look at last year. In 2008, Jenny McCarthy was the new and fresh celebrity face of the movement that believes that autism and all manner of other neurodevelopmental disorders are caused by vaccines and that the government and big pharma are suppressing The Truth. She had emerged in the fall of 2007…
jlynch | February 22, 2009Creationists have long used credentials to make their case for them. Demsbki has posted a link to a SSRN (i.e. grey literature) paper by Edward Sisson (who is an architect and lawyer) in which he “relates lessons learned not only about evolution, molecular biology, and ‘intelligent design,’ but also about the accumulated ‘bad habits’ that have developed and encrusted the conduct of science in the 130 years since the foundation of the research-oriented universities in the 1870s.” It’s actually an address to architecture students, but I guess by the standards of ID literature it counts as a…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2009tags: guest blog essay, fishkeeping, aquariums, Celebes Rainbowfish, Celebes Sailfish, Telmatherina ladigesi, pets
Adult male Celebes Rainbowfish (also known as a Celebes Sailfish), Telmatherina ladigesi.
Image: Orphaned. Please contact me so I can award proper attribution. [larger view].
As most of my readers know, I am an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist by training, and an aviculturist and birder by experience, so imagine my surprise when I was recently asked to write a guest blog essay about fishkeeping for an aquarium hobbyist blog site, The Reef Tank. How the heck did they…
terrasig | February 19, 2009The complicity of revered academic institutions in the promotion of pseudoscience today takes another step forward.
The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP), known formerly as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PCP&S), will bestow an honorary Doctor(ate) of Science on John A Borneman, III, to celebrate their Founders' Day.
From the university press release:
Borneman has spent his lifetime committed to the development and regulation of homeopathic medicine within the United States. He is the third of four generations of "John Bornemans" to attend the Philadelphia…
sciencepunk | February 17, 2009
A letter appeared in yesterday's Guardian calling on Science Museums to cancel planned 'Israel Day of Science' events in London and Manchester. The letter carried 383 signatories including well-known figures such as Ian Gibson MP and Professor Jim Al-Khalili. Full details below the fold.
There's no doubting that Israel punches well above its weight when it comes to science and technology - website www.isracast.com regularly announces new advances such as impenetrable armour, missile interceptors, and unmanned aerial and ground drones. Each of these is undoubtedly a fantastic innovation…
pharyngula | February 16, 2009This was kind of a lost weekend for me — Darwin Day on Thursday, Columbus on Saturday, St. Paul on Sunday, with all the flitting about through the air and on freeways in between, so I'm a bit swamped now on Monday morning, struggling to catch up with all the real important stuff that I get paid for in my job, and that I usually get done on the weekend. So no, Greg, I don't have much to say about our panel discussion on evolution/creation education on Sunday — you'll have to do it for me!
It was a good discussion, though, with a whole gang of UM educators up front talking about our diverse…
clock | February 15, 2009Hamsters On Treadmills Provide Electricity Through Use Of Nanogenerators:
Could hamsters help solve the world's energy crisis? Probably not, but a hamster wearing a power-generating jacket is doing its own small part to provide a new and renewable source of electricity. And using the same nanotechnology, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have also generated electrical current from a tapping finger - moving the users of BlackBerry devices, cell phones and other handhelds one step closer to powering them with their own typing.
Cupid's Arrow May Cause More Than Just Sparks To Fly This…
drorzel | February 13, 2009
Notes on sociopathy
"Sometimes, a day of interacting with the rest of the human race on the roads and streets leaves you convinced that the world would be a much nicer place if most newborn humans were tossed in a burlap sack with some stones and then deposited in the nearest pond.
But hereâs the funny thing - thereâs the rest, which we tend not to notice. "
(tags: blogs society culture)
blarg? » Additional Songsmithery
"That Johnny Cash thing is the one thatâs going to keep the developers of Songsmith awake at night, staring at the ceiling and hoping thereâs no afterlife in which…
oracknows | February 13, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging. Because I foresaw this day coming, however, I did set up a series of "Best of" reposts to autopost for you while I am in mourning. Some I have even updated and/or spiffed up with actual editing. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don'…
oracknows | February 9, 2009Not again.
I have no way of knowing if the media in my hometown happen to be more credulous when it comes to pseudoscience than average, but, given the number of stories referred to me emanating from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, you'll forgive me if I'm very depressed right now. For instance, we have "investigative reporter" Steve Wilson of WXYZ Channel 7 Action News, who, although claiming the title of "Chief Investigator" for that station, clearly couldn't investigate his way out of a paper bag--at least when it comes to medical stories--given that he is known for routinely…
jlynch | February 7, 2009Letâs look at what the Republicans in the Senate are currently fighting against in the stimulus bill:
$40 billion in aid to state governments for education and other programs; money that economists say is a relatively efficient way to pump up the economy by preventing layoffs, cuts in services or tax increases.
$20 billion for construction and repair of schools and university facilities. Those funds would have supported many construction jobs.
Short version: the Senate Republicans (including McCain and Kyl) are not willing to help their own states out when suffering an severe educational…
skookumchick | February 4, 2009Acmegirl and DLee facilitated a ScienceOnline2009 session about race and science, stemming from what happened last year where the session on gender and race really focused on gender and not race. I've finally written up my notes, and what follows is a rough summary of the conversation. For those who attended, please feel free to annotate -- and note again the presence of the new "Diversity in Science" Carnival! More after the jump.
DLee started with talking about the image of scientists, and in particular the question of why images persist that scientists are white men. One way is…
drorzel | February 2, 2009
Feministe » A Story in Pictures
See if you can spot the difference.
(tags: politics news gender pictures law history)
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
""The earth will quake and the sea will boil and the moon will be as blood and every knee shall bow before the coming of the Fafblocalypse!" says Giblets.
"Or we could take the bus home," says me."
(tags: silly SF fafblog)
Gender bias found in student ratings of high school science teachers
"Researchers at Clemson University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University have found that, on average, female high…
jstemwedel | February 2, 2009It would seem that the Los Angeles Times is uncomfortable around people who don't hide their advanced degrees:
[Jill] Biden [who earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware and is currently teaching two courses at Northern Virginia Community College] is thought to be the first second lady [i.e., spouse of the Vice President] to hold a paying job while her husband is in office.
"I think she is unique," said Joel Goldstein, a professor at St. Louis University School of Law and an expert on the vice presidency. Other second ladies -- Cheney, Quayle, Tipper Gore and Joan…
sb admin | February 2, 2009By Myra L. Karstadt, Ph.D
Whether you Twitter, IM, text or use plain old-fashioned English, hereâs an important message for occupational health professionals: material safety data sheets (MSDSs) are deeply flawed, and something has to be done to change that situation. Steps are needed to improve the sheets and to ensure that the major OSHA toxic chemicals hazard communication program, the HazCom (hazard communication) standard (OSHA 1983 and amendments), which is based on those flawed sheets, is altered to provide workers with useful information that they control concerning the toxic…
terrasig | January 31, 2009I've been terribly behind on a billion things lately, most importantly spending time with my family and calling PharmSis and PharmMom.
However, DrugMonkey's post on Mentoring 101: Let's Talk About the Money drew from me a comment I feel I should post here despite coming after 60+ other comments there.
The bulk of the discussion was on 1) what do you do to educate your lab on the actual budget of running the show, 2) do NIH research grants really support graduate and postgraduate education? and 3) does recovery of indirect costs (ICRs) represent a boondoggle for university administration, an…
edyong | January 30, 2009On Tuesday, I wrote a short essay on the rightful place of science in our society. As part of it, I argued that scientific knowledge is distinct from the scientific method - the latter gives people the tools with which to acquire the former. I also briefly argued that modern science education (at least in the UK) focuses too much on the knowledge and too little on the method. It is so blindsided by checklists of facts that it fails to instil the inquisitiveness, scepticism, critical thinking and respect for evidence that good science entails. Simply inhaling pieces of information won't get…
purepedantry | January 29, 2009I was struck by this post over at the Well blog. In spite of media attention, teens are not engaging in more sex:
The news is troubling, but it's also misleading. While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today's teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.
Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.
A less recent report suggests that teenagers are…
pharyngula | January 28, 2009If you've been following the creationist strategy lately, you know that one of their efforts is to push a new and awful textbook, Explore Evolution, in conjunction with the various political bills to endorse a "strengths & weaknesses" theme in the public school science curriculum. Explore Evolution is the type specimen for that teaching technique; it contains nothing but imaginary problems in biology presented in a dueling opinions format, with creationists writing sloppy distortions of biological ideas coupled with creationists writing laudatory explanations based on Intelligent Design…