Technology
esiegel | May 16, 2015“I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” -Charlotte Brontë
Our exploration of the Universe, near and far, continues here on Starts With A Bang, as we've looked at the entire Universe, our local corner of it, dark matter and even the most human of issues. Make sure you catch up on anything you missed, including:
The shape of the Universe (for Ask Ethan),
The friends star (for our LEGO-rich Weekend…
gregladen | April 30, 2015Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by Michael Mann and Lee Kump is everyperson’s guide to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC issues a periodic set of reports on the state of global climate change, and has been doing so for almost two decades. It is a massive undertaking and few have the time or training to read though and absorb it, yet it is very important that every citizen understands the reports’ implications. Why? Because human caused climate change has emerged as the number one existential issue of the day, and individuals,…
esiegel | April 25, 2015“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” -Marcel Proust
As another fine week comes to a close at Starts With A Bang, let's take a look back at all the topics we've taken on:
Where did light first come from? (for Ask Ethan),
Zooming into a fractal (for our Weekend Diversion),
Space turns green on 4/20 (for Mostly Mute Monday),
The illusion of reality (a great contribution from Brian Koberlein),
Everybody wants to rule the quantum world (a special extra from Paul Halpern),
Earth day in the Universe,
What is the strong force? (for Throwback Thursday),…
oracknows | April 19, 2015I didn't think I would be writing about this, but, then again, I seem to say that fairly frequently. Be that as it may, on Friday I wrote about a letter sent to Lee Goldman, MD, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University complaining about Dr. Mehmet Oz's promotion of pseudoscience on his television show, which reaches millions. When I wrote my post, my first reaction was somewhat supportive, but with reservations. However, as I read your comments and thought about it some more, I started having second thoughts. Then, over the weekend, I had a rather…
jdupuis | March 2, 2015Finally, the Canadian government's Tri-Agency funding councils (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) have released the consolidated final version of it's open access policy. The draft version came out some time ago. The consultation process garnered quite a few responses, which the Tri-Agencies were kind enough to summarize for us.
And finally it is here. I have to admit I was getting a bit concerned. The final version was rumoured to have been kicking around the various departments waiting for final sign-off for months. With the rumours of the Conservatives possibly dropping the writ and calling a spring…
gregladen | February 7, 2015Andrew Weaver is a Canadian climate scientist with numerous publications. The National Post is a Canadian newspaper generally recognized as having a conservative and Libertarian leaning. Between 2009 and 2010, the Post published four articles that seemed defamatory of Dr. Weaver’s reputation as a scientist. Weaver sued the post over this, and yesterday, the B.C. Supreme Court agreed that the articles were in fact defamatory. The defendants in the case were Terence Corcoran, Financial Post editor, Peter Foster, National Post columnist, Kevin Libin, a contributor to the Financial Post, National…
esiegel | February 7, 2015“And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is after all where this train is going.” -Bruce Catton
At the end of each week here at Starts With A Bang, it's important to take a look back at all we've gone through, and give some time and energy to all your thoughts on it. This week, there have been a lot of them, as we've covered the following:
The multiverse and you (for Ask Ethan),
Revenge, it's what's for lunch (for our Weekend Diversion),
The galactic plane (for Mostly Mute Monday),
Dark…
gregladen | January 28, 2015What happened to the Blizzard of 2015? Well, it happened. Despite breathless complaining about how the forecasters got it all wrong, they didn't. As the storm was predicted, there should have been close to about two feet of snow in the New York City metropolitan area, but as it turns out, there was between 8 and 12 inches. That means that New York City experienced a typical winter month's worth of snow in one day. Also, most snow that falls on The City falls a few inches at a time and melts more or less instantly, as few cities can match New York in its heat island effect. So, 8-12 inches…
oracknows | January 11, 2015
Now that we're solidly into 2015, it's a good time to check in on what the legislative priorities are going to be among various advocates of quackery and "health freedom" (but I repeat myself). There's a new Republican Congress, and a lot of chairmanships are going to be reshuffled, with various legislators finding themselves in control of important Congressional committees. Fortunately for us, one of the major promoters of "health freedom" (or, as I like to call it, the freedom of quacks from pesky government laws and regulations), has laid out exactly what its priorities are for 2015.…
esiegel | January 10, 2015“Do you know where to find marble conference tables? I'm looking to have a conference... not until I get the table though” -@kanyewest on Twitter
If you noticed we had a busier week than normal here at Starts With A Bang, you weren't alone. But there's a good reason: the first week in January marks/highlights the annual American Astronomical Society big meeting, and yours truly was not only in attendance, but I did my best to bring you the scoop on the biggest stories at the start of 2015! In addition to our regularly scheduled programming, we had a host of special articles. Altogether, we've…
oracknows | January 5, 2015The holidays must truly be over. I say this because, starting around Sunday, the drumbeat of blogging topics that I haven't covered but that apparently you, my readers, want me to cover has accelerated. However, before I can move on to what might or might not be greener blogging pastures, material-wise, I feel obligated to finish what I started yesterday, namely the deconstruction of an advertising supplement promoting the "integration" of "traditional medicine" (in particular, traditional Chinese medicine, a.k.a. TCM) for which Science and the American Association for the Advancement of…
carlyo | December 22, 2014
As Dean Kamen, inventor of such amazing technologies as the the Segway human transporter and one of the world's most advanced robotic arm prostheses, often says: "Our nation is enamored with sports and entertainment, but how can we groom kids to become as passionate about innovation?"
At the Festival's fascinating all-day X-STEM Symposium, presented by MedImmune next spring, you'll not only meet Dean but also a compendium of other renowned STEM visionaries to explore the passion and excitement of innovation!
Prepare to be amazed and inspired as X-STEM Extreme, set for Tuesday, April 28, 2015…
drorzel | December 12, 2014Returning to our mostly-chronological ordering after yesterday's brief excursion, we come to one of the great problems of the 1700's, namely determining the longitude at sea. Latitude is easy to find, based on the height of the Sun at noon-- we told that story last week-- but longitude is much trickier. Thanks to the rotation of the Earth, the best way to measure longitude is by measuring time-- if you know what time it is where you are, and what time it is at some reference point (now established as Greenwich, UK), the difference between those times tells you the difference in longitude.…
gregladen | December 10, 2014Matt Ridley is a British journalist whom some in the science community are now quietly referring to as an “anti-science writer.” He has taken up the cause of denying the widely held and deep scientific consensus on climate change. He has a recent blog post he seems to have been compelled to write in response to a new study on the use of tree rings as a proxyindicator for past temperatures. I’ll be writing about that research in a day or two. Ridley’s post is embarrassing, and especially annoying to me because for several years I used his book on evolutionary biology as a recommended (or…
drorzel | December 3, 2014
The fungal tea tastes vile, and not for the first time he considers dumping it on the last of the morning's fire. It does seem to be helping the pain in his gut, though, as the medicine man said it would, so he gulps the last of it with a grimace. Around him the younger members of the raiding party are packing up the camp, making ready to head higher up the mountain.
He checks the head of his axe, out of habit, making sure the copper blade is still sharp and securely fixed. Not that he had much doubt-- he had shaped it himself, and it would take more than chopping wood for last night's fire…
carlyo | November 18, 2014The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools.
Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Jennifer Elisseef
Each year in medicine the low availability of donor tissue and organs for transplantation grows even more acute, but scientists -- working in an emerging, high-tech frontier called tissue engineering -- are helping to address the crisis by…
esiegel | November 16, 2014"It's a tad easier to be proud when you come in first than it is when you finish further back. But there's no reason to hide when you don't do as well as you'd hoped. You can't run away from your problems." -My Little Pony
It's been two weeks since our last edition of Comments of the Week here on our Starts With A Bang forum, and -- to my great pleasure -- that hasn't meant a thing for the flow of great comments here! There's plenty to catch up on if you missed anything, as the last two weeks have seen some amazing posts, including:
Why is the Universe's energy disappearing? (for Ask Ethan…
carlyo | October 20, 2014The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools.
Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Alberto Gutierrez
Welcome to the age of Personalized Medicine -- an emerging era of medical science which involves the development of drugs and other treatments that are tailored specifically to an individual patient, or a group, with certain genetic…
carlyo | October 15, 2014Nearly 800 volunteers and exhibitors brought the Lockheed Martin 2014 USA Science & Engineering Festival pavilion to life last April 25-27, including more than 40 hands-on demonstrations from across the corporation in the areas of nanotechnology, data analytics, robotics, energy, advanced aeronautics, and scientific discovery.
A photo album is available online here, where you will see participants, young and old, flying cockpit simulators, trying on Antarctica cold weather gear, building and flying gliders, learning about 3D printing, and enjoying the many others activities in our…
pgleick | October 13, 2014As input to the ongoing discussions about how to meet and overcome the spreading risks of Ebola, here are some summary thoughts about the water-related components of U.S. efforts. Specifics about the operations and effectiveness of water treatment or supply technologies, or the medical and health implications of their use must be verified by the designers/makers of the technology along with medical experts from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), West African health and water officials, and related institutions.
1. Water Supply Needs and Usage
Any…