Education
laelaps | October 19, 2007While the a number of my classmates spent their evening at the football stadium I hopped the train to New York to attend the "How various media outlets are used to popularize, communicate, and promote science" panel discussion, part of a series in the Science Communication Consortium. Even though the discussion didn't necessarily answer the questions posed at the beginning of the seminar (namely where is science communication going, although Christopher Mims had a bit to say about this, as we'll see), there were some interesting points made all around.
Kitta MacPherson of the Newark Star…
pharyngula | October 16, 2007UMM recently hosted the University of Minnesota board of regents, and we got a look at the status of the whole U of M system. It's not a happy story. We have an administration with ambitious goals (that's good), but they seem to be a bit divorced from reality — they want to turn us into one of the top three public research universities in the world. That sounds like a great 50 year plan, but I'd rather see an ambitious and feasible 5-year goal, myself.
One of my colleagues at the Twin Cities branch campus has analyzed some of the statistics. The most telling one to me is that, despite our…
goodmath | October 15, 2007 Today we've got a bit of a treat. I've been holding off on this for a while, because I wanted to do it justice. This isn't the typical wankish crackpottery, but rather a deep and interesting bit of crackpottery. A reader sent me a link to a website of a mathematics professor, N. J. Wildberger, at the University of New South Wales, which contains a long, elegant screed against the evils of set theory, titled "Set Theory: Should You Believe?"
It's an interesting article - and I don't mean that sarcastically. It's over the top, to the point of extreme silliness in places, but the basic idea…
grrlscientist | October 15, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Male SincoraÌ Antwren,
Formicivora grantsaui.
Potentially a new bird species that was recently discovered in Brazil.
Image: Sidnei Sampaio. [larger view].
Birds in Science
When male birds know they're about to get it on, that action is more likely to spawn a bigger brood of eggs compared to spontaneous copulation, a new study finds. Previous studies have shown that when two male birds mate with a female in a competition to pass on their genetic material, they end in a draw and both become fathers to an equal number…
drorzel | October 15, 2007In the spirit of the newly clarified regulations governing the Academic Competitiveness Grant and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant Programs administered by the Department of Education, I am pleased to announce the Uncertain Principles Physics Scholarship Program. Under this program, I pledge to personally pay the full tuition for any student who is:
From a low-income family, or a historically disadvantaged group,
Enrolled as a full-time student at an accredited four-year college or university, and
Taking courses toward a degree in physics or related…
tlambert | October 14, 2007When last we heard from Christopher Monckton he was too gravely ill to answers questions about how someone claiming to be him and using his ISP had altered his own wikipedia entry and added on obvious fabrication, to wit,
The Guardian "is reported to have paid Monckton £50,000 in damages.". Monckton seems to have made a rapid recovery, because within a week or two he was speechifying at Cambridge University:
He challenged Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, describing it as the "Best Sci-Fi Comedy Horror" film of the year, and claimed to have found serious and deliberate scientific errors…
tqa | October 14, 2007
Late last week, the IRS released figures showing that the income gap in the United States is larger now than at any time since they began tracking that data in 1986, and may be worse now than at any time since the 1920s. The figures, which are based on 2005 tax returns, reveal that the richest 1% of Americans accounted for 21.2% of income, up from about 20.8% in 2000. The bottom 50% of families earned 12.8%, which is a drop from the 13% that they took home in 2000.
When the Wall Street Journal asked President Bush about the widening income gap, he said:
First of all, our society has had…
cmcclain | October 12, 2007If you haven't heard our Seed overlords are offering $15,000 in matching funds. Seed is also offering some sweet prizes to donors which you can enter to win:
1 fresh, new iPod nano
21 "Seed Hearts Threadless" tee shirts (design here )
21 ScienceBlogs mugs
21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
9 copies of "The Best American Science Writing 2007"
Sweet indeed! Interested? Just forward your email reciept from DonorsChoose to scienceblogs@gmail.com.
There well be three prize drawings, each on a Tuesday: Tuesday the 15th, Tuesday the 22nd, and Tuesday the 29th (3 Tees, 7 mug, 7 subscriptions,…
revere | October 11, 2007There are a lot of medical schools in the US (126 regular and 28 osteopathic schools), and you probably thought there must be a lot of schools of public health, too. It's true there are a lot more now than there used to be, but even with recent additions there are only 39 schools accredited by the Association for Schools of Public Health (ASPH), the official accrediting body (and in effect the trade association for the schools, although it wouldn't like to be referred to that way -- tough). So there are four times as many medical schools as Schools of Public Health. Says something.
The news…
mikethemadbiologist | October 10, 2007In one of the more controversial posts I've written (or at least one that got me a lot of hate email), I described how "hatred is the Republican base":
The Washington Post recently reported about the failure of the anti-segregation amendment to pass in Alabama (it was essentially 50-50). According to the CNN exit poll, 73% of Alabama voters were white. Assuming that the vote to keep the segregationist amendment was negligible among non-whites, this means that 68.5% of whites voted against the anti-segregationist amendment (or for segregation).
One of the lame excuses given was that some…
thusspakezuska | October 10, 2007From the Chronicle of Higher Education, Home-Schooled Students Rise in Supply and Demand:
"Home schooling often really allows students to develop a passion," says Sabena Moretz, associate director of admissions at Richmond. "With a traditional high school, most of the time you don't see a kid who's gotten so excited with the history of Monticello or got themselves onto an archaeology dig."
Recognizing that sense of passion is what led Virginia Commonwealth University to create two engineering scholarships this year for home-schoolers, says Russell Jamison, dean of the engineering school. "We…
grrlscientist | October 8, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Can anyone out there identify these mysterious birds? I have no information about the birds, such as location, but several experts are already proposing their guesses (one thinks it's a Chough, another one disagrees). Several ornithologists think these birds are captives rather than wild birds. [larger view].
Birds in Science
Urban birds are regular tough guys compared to their country cousins. The avian urbanites adapt to changing environments and noisy, crowded habitats, a new study shows. Birds that hang out on…
omnibrain | October 6, 2007Music education in the United States has typically been one of the first thing to be cut when it comes to balancing the budget. This is a horrible shame since music is one of those things (above any of the other arts) that has a wide ranging effect on peoples intellectual achievement. One of the holy grails in education and psychology is skill transference. Imagine being able to train one ability that positively affects the performance of many many other abilities. Sounds a bit ridiculous eh?! Well, music seem to be one of the only things that can have this effect. Psychologists have…
sb admin | October 4, 2007by Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
Over the last 2 days, we've seen two political leaders speak out on the need for science and evidence to drive our policy decisions in areas such as health, food safety, enviroment, climate change, and renewable energy.
Yesterday (Wednesday, Oct. 3), Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and related agencies, gave a policy address on the Future of the FDA at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Much of her presentation was focused on the need to dramatically…
petnoyer | October 3, 2007
Frederick "Ted" M. Bayer, 85, a retired Smithsonian curator in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology and one of the world's leading experts on marine invertebrates, passed away earlier today after a long illness at Washington Home in Washington, DC.
Dr. Bayer published over 130 papers and books on the taxonomy and natural history of soft corals (i.e., octocorals: sea fans and sea whips), describing over 170 new species, 40 genera, and even three new families. He was long acknowledged as the doyen of soft coral research, attracting visitors and collections to the Smithsonian from all parts…
tfk | October 2, 2007Making Light addresses Ben Stein's descent into hackery, and other such cinematic chicanery. Stein is the star of a new movie the Disco Inst. is touting. To gather interviews, the producers of the film misled various folks about the name and nature of the film, and have produced a gross misrepresentation about the way science works. Teresa Neilsen Hayden explains:
It’s not possible to produce such programs honestly. Chopping logic and falsifying arguments like that can only be done by someone who knows that he or she is doing it. To put it another way: if you know enough about the Book of…
drorzel | October 1, 2007I missed the New York Times article about Rutgers professor William Dowling, who is campaiging against college sports, and has written a jeremiad on the subject and gotten it published by-- slight irony alert-- Penn State University Press.
There are a lot of things to dislike about big-time college sports, starting with the rank hypocrisy of the NCAA, and continuing on through the lack of a meaningful championship in college football. I have to say, though, that Dowling kind of puts me off the book when he describes it to the Times:
"I wanted this book to be a monument," Dr. Dowling, 62, said…
jstemwedel | September 27, 2007Somehow, the Florida State University Office of Athletic Academic Support Services had in its employ a "Learning Specialist" who seemed to think it was part of his or her job to help a bunch of student athletes cheat.
As reported by the Orlando Sentinel:
A months long Florida State University investigation into the FSU Office of Athletic Academic Support Services has determined that two faculty members during the 2006-07 school year "perpetrated academic dishonesty" among 23 FSU athletes, 21 of whom are still enrolled at the university.
University president T.K. Wetherell today shared with…
sb admin | September 25, 2007By David Michaels
Days before the House will vote on legislation to force OSHA to regulate diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans), the agency has apparently decided that perhaps it is finally time to begin the rulemaking process for this substance. Yesterday, fourteen months after we petitioned OSHA for an emergency standard, the agency has called for a stakeholder meeting to discuss how it might address the problem.
Although OSHAâs press release claims that the agency is âinitiating rule-making,â if you read the small print, it is clear that…
pharyngula | September 19, 2007Got a creationist coming to your town or school? A commenter from Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education left an excellent summary of how to counter these travelin' frauds effectively. The key is simple: recruit. Get the information out. Don't let them come in and babble unopposed or with an audience imported from the local fundie churches — get informed people there, and the creationists will crumple easily.
Notice that this isn't about suppressing their information (or even expelling them) — it's shining the light of open public criticism on their shenanigans.
A little more…