clock | September 24, 2008At Harvard, a week ago:
Recap: Wednesday's Health and Human Rights Discussion
Yesterday afternoon at the Loeb Theater, Harvard hosted a forum celebrating the tenth edition of their journal Health and Human Rights. This edition is the journal's first to be presented in open-access format, meaning that anyone can read it without paying the exorbitant fees associated with most journal articles. Bostonist was in the front row as Agnes Binagwaho, Gavin Yamey, Philip Alston, and Paul Farmer (profiled as "a man who would cure the world" by Tracy Kidder) discussed the past, present, and future of…
clock | September 24, 2008Last week, Charlotte NC got to see Joe Biden, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama on three separate occasions. The TV (so they tell me) is full of campaign ads by both Obama and McCain. Now, Obama and Biden are appearing together in Greensboro on Saturday. The campaign has been really busy locally, organizing the feet on the ground.
Does this mean that NC is a surprising swing state of 2008? If NC is indicative of any kind of trend and it goes blue, a dozen other red states will go blue as well.
Or perhaps this is the way for Obama to utilize his money advantage and force McCain to spend money…
clock | September 24, 2008Here:
Apparently not - it won't embed so check it out at the link above...
clock | September 24, 2008
As the conference has grown from one to almost three days, and already more then 90 people have registered, we need your help - so offer to volunteer. What can you do?
* Spread the word: use online and offline tools to tell your friends about the conference
* Ask your company/organization to become a sponsor
* Donate a small amount of money
* Help us develop the Program and offer to lead a session
* Volunteer to collect and pack swag
* Volunteer to drive the out-of-town guests during the conference
* Volunteer to spend some time at the desk at the entrance,…
clock | September 24, 2008Under the fold....
Neighbors From Hell: Infanticide Rife In Guillemot Colony:
One of Britain's best-known species of seabird is increasingly attacking and killing unattended chicks from neighbouring nests due to food shortages.
GPS Navigation Devices Can Be Spoofed, Counter Measures Not Effective In Certain Cases:
Just like flat-screen televisions, cell phones and computers, global positioning system (GPS) technology is becoming something people can't imagine living without. So if such a ubiquitous system were to come under attack, would we be ready?
Abrupt Climate Change Focus Of U.S.…
clock | September 23, 2008This post (from January 14, 2005) is how I see the political/ideological landscape in the USA.
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We use the words Left and Right to describe Liberal and Conservative ideological and political leanings. The phrases stem, if I remember correctly, from the seating arrangement in the first French Parliament in the late 18th century. That was a long time ago. By now, most people realize that a straight Left/Right continuous line does not represent the ideological spectrum very well, yet the terms are still in constant use and, more importantly,…
clock | September 23, 2008Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence - neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish - it is an imponderably valuable gift.
- Maya Angelou
clock | September 23, 2008This is an old anti-Libertarian screed (from December 2004) that is bound to attract trolls (and traffic)....
Much of the stuff on this blog is based on the bimodal (bipolar?) view of the world: there are Conservatives and there are Liberals, and that's it. Lakoff, Ducat, Frank and the like spend much time explaining the two, or just trying to explain the strange Conservative animals to the Liberals.
But, as I stated before, only about a third of Americans are core Conservatives and another third are core Liberals. What about the remaining third? Also, as only about a half of Americans vote,…
clock | September 23, 2008There are 9 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Some Rare Indo-Pacific Coral Species Are Probable Hybrids:
Coral reefs worldwide face a variety of threats and many coral species are increasingly endangered. It is often assumed that rare coral species face higher risks of extinction because they have very small effective population sizes, a predicted consequence of which is decreased genetic diversity…
clock | September 23, 2008
During the months of preparation, as well as during the event itself, your starting point, for sure, is the ScienceOnline'09 wiki - you can always check the "Recent Changes" button, or watch as the Blog and Media Coverage page grows.
You can also check the news on the ScienceOnline09 blog.
You can come here and check the posts in my SO'09 category.
You can join the Facebook Event and watch the wall there (and invite your friends there as well).
Or you can join the FriendFeed room and discuss the event there.
clock | September 23, 2008danah boyd was hired by Microsoft, where she will have freedom to continue her research on online social networks at Microsoft Research New England in Boston. Congrats, danah!
clock | September 23, 2008OneWebDay is....
....an Earth Day for the internet. The idea behind OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value (this year, online participation in democracy), focus attention on local internet concerns (connectivity, censorship, individual skills), and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet. So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It's a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet's future.
There will be events organized around the world,…
clock | September 22, 2008This provocative stream-of-consciousness post was first posted on April 17, 2005.
In my persistent inquiry into femiphobia (fear of being perceived as feminine) as an explanation for Regressive behavior (including voting behavior) I have encountered blog comments that can be summarized in these two ways: first, that femiphobia cannot explain racism, and second, that femiphobia does not explain why African Americans tend to vote Democratic. Let me try to address these two common complaints. I apologize in advance for my usual blunt language.
As I have already discussed (hypothesis about…
clock | September 22, 2008Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
- Rene Descartes
clock | September 22, 2008I wrote this on January 28, 2006. Was I wrong then? Is that wrong now? Have things changed in the meantime?
Lefty Blogosphere and the Love/Hate of Hillary
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Chris Bowers on MyDD recently had a post asking why the Progressive blogosphere does not like Hillary Clinton. Here's a little bit from Chris:
Now I can explain what this all has to do with Hillary Clinton. As obvious as I thought my last point was, it is probably even more obvious by now that Hillary Clinton is, um, not exactly the most popular Democrat within the blogosphere and the…
clock | September 22, 2008So, let's see what's new in PLoS Medicine, PLoS Biology and PLoS ONE today.
First, my SciBlings Shelley, Nick and Tara just published a PLoS Biology article about science blogs:
Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy:
Scientific discovery occurs in the lab one experiment at a time, but science itself moves forward based on a series of ongoing conversations, from a Nobel Prize winner's acceptance speech to collegial chats at a pub. When these conversations flow into the mainstream, they nurture the development of an informed public who…
clock | September 22, 2008Under the fold....
Walnut Trees Emit Aspirin-like Chemical To Deal With Stress:
Walnut trees respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered.
Study Of Satellite Imagery Casts Doubt On Surge's Success In Baghdad:
By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained.
Conservation Program In Rwanda Helps Turn Gorilla Poachers…
clock | September 22, 2008Continuing with asking for your help in fixing my Blogroll:
Every couple of days or so, I will post here a list of blogs that start with a particular letter, and you add in the comments if you know of something that is missing from that list.
See so far:
Numbers and Symbols
A
B
C
D
E
Today brought to you by letter C. This is what is on the Blogroll right now. Check also the Housekeeeping posts for other C blogs I have discovered in the meantime. Check links. Tell me what to delete, what to add:
F
Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat
Forgetomori
Freelancing science
Freeresearcher…
clock | September 22, 2008Carnival of Space #71 is up on dot astronomy
Carnival of the Green # 146 is up on The Green Guy
clock | September 22, 2008
Are you or your company/organization in a position to sponsor the conference? It is organized and run by volunteers, registration is free, but putting this together still takes some money and effort. For this, we rely on our sponsors and volunteers.
There are several ways that you can sponsor the event:
Provide a grant
Cash grants provide us funds to pay for discussion leaders' travel and lodging, travel grants for students, tote bags and t-shirts (see below), wifi tech support, meals and refreshments, meeting supplies and more.
Publicity
Display ads placed in your magazine or newsletter,…