Physical Sciences
denialism | March 31, 2008The Independent has yet another hysterical article about the potential link between cell phones and brain cancer. And I've been asked, what are we seeing here? Is this the early reporting of a potential public health threat? Or is it just more nonsense from a newspaper that wouldn't know good science if it sat on it's head? Both Ben Goldacre and I have felt the need to take on some piece of nonsense from the Independent, and their previous writing on "electrosmog", a repeatedly disproven piece of crankery, diminishes their credibility on this issue.
And guess what else diminishes their…
jrosenhouse | March 28, 2008The big Monty Hall book is rapidly coming together. I may even have the first draft done in the next few weeks. It's certainly been a lot more work than I expected when I began. Originally I envisioned a straight math book, where each chapter would present a different variation of the problem followed by a discussion of the sorts of mathematics needed to solve it. To a large extent it is still that, but I was a bit taken aback by the sheer quantity of academic literature that has been produced on the subject. My bibliography is likely to contain more than a hundred items. A discussion…
drorzel | March 28, 2008Back in the comments of one of the "Uncomfortable Question" threads, Matthew Jarpe asked (as background research for a new novel):
If someone were to hand you the keys to your own particle accelerator and you could do any experiment you wanted, what would it be?
Well, if somebody just gave me the keys to CERN, and left for the weekend, I'd be sorely tempted to steal some vacuum pumps and digital electronics. Because, dude, they've got some awfully nice stuff, and they'd hardly miss it...
I assume that the question is really intended to be what sort of particle physics experiment would I do…
drorzel | March 26, 2008Timothy Burke has a typically excellent post about the problems with academic tenure. Not the usual "It's an abomination that prevents that Magic Power of the Market from working its wonders" complaint from outside, but problems from the academic side:
Oso Raro and Tenured Radical underline one of the biggest problems with the tenure system in academia: its mystery.
They’re both trying to write about a controversial tenure case at the University of Michigan, to understand the seeming mismatch between the public transcript of the candidate’s accomplishments and the private decisions of the…
drorzel | March 17, 2008In one of his March Meeting posts, Doug Natelson writes about laser cooling experiments that explore condensed matter phenomena:
While the ultracold gases provide an exquisitely clean, tunable environment for studying some physics problems, it's increasingly clear to me that they also have some significant restrictions; for example, while optical lattices enable simulations of some model potentials from solid state physics, there doesn't seem to be any nice way to model phonons or the rich variety of real-life crystal structures that can provide so much rich phenomenology.
I would dissent…
drorzel | March 12, 2008One of the many very cool things going on in the Laser Cooling Empire at NIST is a series of experiments using optical tweezers to study various biological systems. I used to share an office with the biochemist in the group, who was there to handle the wet chemistry that physicists are notoriously bad at.
I've toyed with the idea of setting up an optical tweezers apparatus at Union-- the optical set-up is very simple-- so I spent a little while talking about it with Kris Helmerson, the PI on that project. He mentioned some cool things they were doing, one of which is explained very nicely in…
thescian | March 11, 2008The letter below is from Perfectly Reasonabe Deviations From The Beaten Track, a book of letters of Richard Feynman. It is one of the most moving letters that I have read. Tomonaga mentioned below shared the 1965 Nobel prize for physics along with Feynman and Schwinger.
A former student, who was also once a student of Tomonaga's, wrote to extend his congratulations. Feynman responded, asking Mr. Mano what he was now doing. The response: "studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere... a humble and down-to-earth…
gregladen | March 8, 2008The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.
The quote above is from Bad Astronomy, where Phil explains the latest WMAP results. Highly recommended. A very nice history of the study of the universe, accessible to all, is Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (P.S.) by Singh.
The big bang and stuff that happened in connection with this cosmic event, the so-called origin of the universe, left a signal that is visible today to instruments on earth. Careful analysis of this signal can…
clock | March 2, 2008Wow! This is nuts! And this is nuts in a different way! Fortunately, Scott McLemee, Chad Orzel, Josh Rosenau and Brian Switek bring in some reality to the topic: what goes on the living-room bookshelf? Commenters chime in. Good stuff. Read it.
So, what are "rules" in the Coturnix house?
First, the house is too small to allow too much fine planning as to what the guests will see.
Second, we do not have guests very often (again, lack of space), so the bookshelves are not aimed at them.
Third, we have about 5000 books and they have to be stored somewhere, in some fashion.
Fourth, we have…
clock | February 28, 2008This Is Your Brain On Jazz: Researchers Use MRI To Study Spontaneity, Creativity:
A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow.
More coverage from Smooth Pebbles, Mind Hacks, Wired Science, Neurophilosophy, Science A Go Go, PsychCentral and The Rehearsal Studio
Evolution Of Aversion: Why Even Children Are Fearful Of Snakes:
Some of the oldest tales and wisest mythology allude to the snake as a mischievous seducer,…
aardvarchaeology | February 27, 2008My involvement in the skeptical movement and science blogging has caused me to think about my professional relationship to the concept of science. Archaeology is a social science in the US and one of the humanities in Europe: in neither case is it seen as a natural science, the kind that gets to call itself "science" without any qualifier. Archaeology is dependent on the methods of natural science, but its object is to learn about culture, not nature, a distinction that many including myself find useful.
In Swedish and many other languages, the word for science doesn't denote the natural…
drorzel | February 27, 2008Scott McLemee writes about the shelving of books, spinning off Matt Selman's list of rules for shelving books
RULE #1: THE PRIME DIRECTIVE -- It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it. Therefore, to be placed on Matt Selman's living room bookshelves, a book must have been read cover to cover, every word, by Matt Selman. If you are in the home of Matt Selman and see a book on the living room shelves, you know FOR SURE it has been read by Matt Selman.
(has anyone ever seen Selman and Mike Kozlowski in the same place?) and Ezra Klein's…
clock | February 22, 2008John Dupuis has been writing Confessions of a Science Librarian since the time blogging software was really physically soft, being made of clay and shaped like a tablet. We finally got to meet face-to-face at the Science Blogging Conference last month - a meeting long overdue until then.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. This is going to be an interesting reversal - it is usually you who gets to ask the questions in blog interviews. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background?
Yes, it is a bit of a reversal. But I'm not crazy…
oracknows | February 22, 2008Sometimes woo jumps out and hits you from sources from which you least expect it.
Such was the case earlier this week, when I found my self in Detroit lazily watching a local newscast. Now, I realize that local news is not the place to look for skepticism. Heck, just the other day, I mentioned a really egregious example of a newscast from Oklahoma City that credulously regurgitated Generation Rescue talking points as fact. But it's rare in my experience to see such a sterling example of woo appearing in a major market newscast. So there I was, sitting in front of the TV, when I saw a story…
drorzel | February 19, 2008
Can Scientists Dance? -- Bohannon 319 (5865): 905b -- Science
A contest to see who could do the best interpretive dance based on their Ph.D. thesis.
(tags: academia music science video silly)
Conservatives Just Aren't Into Academe, Study Finds - Chronicle.com
"Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical professions, like accounting and computer science, that could earn them lots of money."
(tags: academia education politics statistics marriage social-science society jobs)
Photo Basement » 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments…
clock | February 17, 2008I've bumped into Christina's blog every now and then before, but only started reading it more regularly when she signed up for the first Science Blogging Conference. We also met at the ASIS&T meeting in Milwaukee, and then again at the second Science Blogging Conference four weeks ago.
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 background?
Hi Everyone! Thanks for inviting me to interview, Bora!
My background is a bit unusual. From high school (a small rural school in Maryland), I went to the…
clock | February 12, 2008Laelaps was a dog in Greek mythology that always caught its prey and was turned into stone (by Zeus himself!) while hunting the Teumessian fox that could never be caught. Lealaps is also a defunct name for a carnivorous dinosaur. Laelaps is also a mite that parasitizes rats. And Laelaps is the name of a fascinating blog, written by Brian Switek. You can think deep thoughts about the meaning of his blog's name later. At the Science Blogging Conference three weeks ago, Brian participated on the Student blogging panel--from K to PhD.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please,…
gregladen | February 11, 2008There is an updated version of this post here: "Is Blood Ever Blue, Science Teachers Want To Know!"
Why ask the question, "Is blood ever blue?"
According to one of the leading experts on the human circulatory system, blood flowing through veins is blue.
I'm not going to mention any names. All I'll say is this: A person I know visited a major research center last year and saw a demonstration of organ removal and some other experimental stuff. A person also visiting asked the famous high-level researcher doing this work "Is blood ever blue?" What he said was not recorded in detail, but it…
drorzel | January 29, 2008
The Edublogs Magazine : Who Are the Top Edubloggers?
"Aseem Badshah has created a listing of the Top Education Bloggers or edubloggers based upon Technorati's rankings." This page reviews some of them.
(tags: blogs education academia)
The Other Side of Graduate Admissions | Cosmic Variance
How the faculty at UW's Astronomy department choose next year's class.
(tags: academia education astronomy physics science)
The Sociology of 'Hooking Up' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
An interview with a sociologist studying campus sexual culture.
(tags:…
oracknows | January 24, 2008My post from Monday finally goaded me to do it. Yes, it's time to update the Academic Woo Aggregator. I've been far too remiss in doing so, and at least a couple of new candidates have come to my attention as I continue to keep my eye out for more.
First, from the U.S. News & World Report article, I find a "worthy" candidate for inclusion, namely Children's Memorial Hospital, which is affiliated with Northwestern University. As evidence, I submit excerpts from its website:
Energy healing: Our bodies are always trying to move toward balance and health. Energy healing encourages the flow…