Social Sciences
drorzel | June 30, 2009
Acephalous: Infinite Summer: Morbid? Culturally Imperial? Morbidly Culturally Imperial?
"In the end, whatâs interesting about the 25-year-old Kleinâs post about the 46-year-old Foster Wallaceâs novel is the notion that someone who was 18 years old when the Clash first performed in America and someone who was 18 years old the year Joe Strummer died can be said to belong to the same generation. How does that work? Iâm tempted to blame it on the Internet"
(tags: blogs society culture literature music humanities acephalous)
Views: Books Aren't Everything - Inside Higher Ed
"Some in…
pharyngula | June 30, 2009There are a few people who will now appear on the blog who will be extremely peevish about Molina's talk, because he simply clearly stated the scientific consensus. We are now living in the anthropocene, when so many people exist that that we are affecting the planet's functions. CO2 and CH4 concentrations have been changing rapidly in recent decades, along with changes in temperature, and the fact of the matter is that the changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere are causally connected to changes in temperature.
He showed long term records of 450,000 years of temperature and…
drorzel | June 29, 2009
Physics Buzz: A day at the International Submarine Races
"Last weekend, travelers at a rest stop in Minnesota became alarmed when a group of college kids pulled up in a U-haul truck, carefully unloaded a large, sleek object from the back, and set to work on it with power tools. About the length of a person, it was painted white and resembled a torpedo. Fearing the worst, someone called the police."
(tags: science physics gadgets blogs physics-buzz)
Views: Poverty Studies - Inside Higher Ed
"Now that acute socioeconomic suffering has hit home or threatens to hit home among university…
sa smith | June 29, 2009This is so awesome! Women in New York can now be fairly compensated for donating their eggs for stem-cell research! WHOOOO!
With the exception for near-sightedness, a sweet tooth, and a 'bad attitude', my family doesnt have a history of genetic diseases. It would be SO AWESOME if I could donate my eggs to a research laboratory and be fairly compensated for the time/pain/risks involved!
But lots of assholes dont want me to do that.
Remember Lisa Billy? Convinced scientists will prowl alleyways, hunting for poor black women to harvest their eggs for $20? See, if I just want to donate my…
emjohnson | June 29, 2009
Sunrise on the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Vearl Brown / Creative Commons
From the beginning our human family has been on a journey. Born together, in eastern Africa about 100,000 years ago, our ancestors migrated to distant points around the globe. Our family scattered, communication was cut off and, in most cases, we forgot about them all together. We went our separate ways and lived our separate lives. Like siblings each adopted by different parents in distant lands, we came to identify with where we were raised instead of where we were from. Now, after accumulating so many years of…
oracknows | June 29, 2009A couple of weeks ago, NEWSWEEK science columnist Sharon Begley wrote an article entitled From Bench To Bedside: Academia slows the search for cures. It was a rather poorly argued bit of polemic, backed up only with anecdotes that came across as sour grapes by scientists whose grant proposals the NIH had decided not to fund, and based on many misconceptions she had regarding basic science versus translational research, journal impact factors, and how journals actually determine what they will publish. Not suprisingly, Begley's article caught flak from others, including Mike the Mad Biologist…
clock | June 27, 2009A post from December 5, 2007:
Communication
Communication of any kind, including communication of empirical information about the world (which includes scientific information), is constrained by three factors: technology, social factors, and, as a special case of social factors - official conventions. The term "constrained" I used above has two meanings - one negative, one positive. In a negative meaning, a constraint imposes limits and makes certain directions less likely, more difficult or impossible. In its positive meaning, constraint means that some directions are easy and obvious and…
terrasig | June 26, 2009
Figure 1. SouthernFriedScientist (@SFriedScientist) and Kevin Zelnio (Deep Sea News; @kzelnio) and their 40s preparing to leave to attend the 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthesis-Based Ecosystems - Hydrothermal Vents, Seeps and Other Reducing Habitats - in Okinawa, Japan. Yes, Dr Zelnio, those are absolutely gorgeous beards.
I don't know if Kim Severson of the New York Times knew this when writing her thought-provoking article earlier this week, but it coincided with the annual meetings of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) and the College of Problems on Drug Dependence (…
revere | June 26, 2009Science may know no borders but scientists have nationalities. Many live within the countries where they have citizenship, while many travel to where they can do more and better science. In the 21st century no nation can afford to squander its scientific talent. But some do it, anyway, either in small ways (failing to support science) or in Big Ways (oppressing free inquiry and free expression). No country is perfect, but some excel in this kind of stupidity. Even before the recent national uprising Iran's government was distinguishing itself in the irrationality and anti-science department (…
drorzel | June 24, 2009
Confessions of a Community College Dean: An Unmarked Car
"[A]t work, I can wear, say, a gray suit, and be both situationally appropriate and utterly impersonal. On dress down days, the alternate uniform of tie-less Oxford and khakis (or a close variant) gets the job done. There's nothing terribly interesting about either ensemble, but that's precisely the point. I don't have to think about them, and neither does anybody else. They're like driving unmarked cars. I go where I want without calling undue attention to myself.
Except that they aren't. Over the last couple of weeks, on three…
tfk | June 22, 2009I haven't blogged about Iran at all, and I don't really feel bad about it. Obviously, it's the big news story, but I don't know what will happen, and the people I'm reading don't seem to have a clear idea either. I'm optimistic that honest election results will be posted, and that the genuine winner of their election will be seated.
But those are not the issues at play. The protests are being treated as a borderline revolution, with Mousavi as a potential George Washington. I'm less sure of that. Mousavi was a major backer of the Islamic Revolution, favors an Iranian nuclear weapons…
clock | June 22, 2009Computer Idle? Now You Can Donate Its Time To Find A Cure For Major Diseases:
Not using your computer at the moment? You can now donate your computer's idle time to cutting-edge biomedical research aimed at finding a cure for HIV, Parkinson's, arthritis, and breast cancer.
1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before:
World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Brain Detects Happiness More…
drorzel | June 21, 2009
Scientists and Kool-Aid § Unqualified Offerings
"In my department weâll often produce documents that have lots of buzzwords, but nobody really takes it seriously. You can always get appreciative chuckles in a department meeting if you poke fun at your own handiwork. Higher on the food chain, they actually believe it."
(tags: academia science culture society blogs unqualified-offerings)
Sunday Function : Built on Facts
"You'd think mathematics could avoid the ambiguity of multiple meanings for the same symbol, but I regret to say it's not so. There's much less ambiguity to be sure, but…
esiegel | June 21, 2009Somewhere in my mind, I like to try and construct a timeline of all of human history. Yes, there's the obvious stuff, like the discovery of fire, the learning of what foods will and won't kill you, the domestication of the dog, and all the similar things that led us to become successful hunter/gatherer tribes. Yes, these were incredibly important steps, which allowed us to do things like eat more meat without getting sick through the power of cooking, find out that some poisonous plants are actually edible when you either boil them or eat only the proper part (hi, rhubarb), and the start of…
grrlscientist | June 21, 2009I was surprised to learn that the fringe animal rights activist group, the Humane Society of the United States, has formed the Humane Society University which was recently granted a license to grant bachelor's degrees in three areas; animal studies, animal policy and advocacy, or humane leadership. They also are licensed to grant certificates for graduate study in those same areas. Required courses are offered online or at their Washington DC site starting autumn term in 2009.
All students, who must have attained junior status elsewhere, are required to take two courses: Animal Protection…
aardvarchaeology | June 19, 2009
The Swedish Humanist Association is currently running our version of the Atheist Bus Campaign in the Stockholm subway. Gud finns nog inte -- "God probably doesn't exist". It may seem a little gratuitous in a country where few people are religious any more, but the ads make the point that there's a lot of quiet Christian influence still around in society. For instance, the country's flag carries a cross. Anyway, the campaign isn't making much of a splash as far as I'm aware, though Göran Rosenberg (a liberal columnist who contributed to a pro-Anthroposophy anthology five years ago) wrote…
clock | June 15, 2009
Poor Sleep Is Associated With Lower Relationship Satisfaction In Both Women And Men:
A bidirectional association exists between couples' sleep quality and the quality of their relationship, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Wednesday, June 10, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Less Than Half Of Older Americans Get The Recommended 8 Hours Of Nightly Sleep:
Older Americans with depressive symptoms and poor mental health tend to get seven hours of sleep per night or less, according to a research abstract that will be…
pharyngula | June 13, 2009August Berkshire, prominent Minnesota atheist, recently awarded Minnesota Humanist of the Year by the Humanists of Minnesota, and long-time leader and organizer of the state's atheist community, is on tour right now through the southwest and midwest. I'm belatedly making his schedule available — he's been cruising for a while, so you've missed some of his talks — but here's list of available events. If you're in Topeka, you've got a half hour to get to the meeting!
June 13, Saturday, 11:30 a.m. - Atheist Community of Topeka in Topeka, KSEVENT: Informal discussion of AAI and local group(s).…
jrosenhouse | June 11, 2009Ken Miller has now weighed in with a lengthy post criticizing Jerry Coyne's views on the compatibility of science and religion.
Since most of Miller's essay is focused on specific statements made by Coyne I won't go point by point through it. I suspect Coyne will post his own reply at his blog, and I look forwrad to reading it. I'll just comment that in certain places I think Miller has a point (I think Coyne is mostly right about the big picture, but there are certainly places where I wish he would have expressed himself differently.) In other places I think Miller is not presenting Coyne…
razib | June 11, 2009
There is currently a presidential election going on in Iran. The buffoon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is running against a "reformist," Mir-Hossein Mousavi. There is some controversy because Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, has been active in the campaign, and held hands with him in public! (and I thought that the principal banned PDA?) It is a quirk, though not too significant, that both candidates are from ethnic minorities. Mousavi is an ethnic Azeri Turk (as is the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) while the buffoon is Talysh (the Talysh language is mutually intelligible with standard Persian). But…