gregladen | June 3, 2012Tonight, on Skeptically Speaking, Desiree Schell will interview Bruce Schneier, author of Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive. From the Amazon page, the author notes: "This book represents my attempt to develop a full-fledged theory of coercion and how it enables compliance and trust within groups. My goal is to rephrase some of those questions and provide a new framework for analysis. I offer new perspectives, and a broader spectrum of what's possible. Perspectives frame thinking, and sometimes asking new questions is the catalyst to greater understanding.…
gregladen | June 1, 2012The study is on Science and Society and they would like you to fill out a survey. Thanks.
The link to the study is here.
gregladen | May 30, 2012DJ Grothe has done some great things and he's taken the James Randi Educational Foundation a long way; he's made an important mark and we should all appreciate him and his prior efforts. Hell, we should create an award named after him and give it to people every year. Thank you DJ Grothe for all you've done for the skeptic movement.
Read the rest here.
gregladen | May 30, 2012Perhaps.
The project is a collective effort funded by the European Commission, and led by British company Ricardo which develops engines, transmissions, and vehicles systems among other things. Chief among the consortium’s participants is Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo.
Utilizing Volvo’s own automobiles, the project works by stringing together a group of cars in order to form a road train. This train (or caravan if you prefer) allows a group of cars to follow one another along any road autonomously. Guided by a lead truck driven by a professional driver, the group of autonomous autos can…
gregladen | May 28, 2012First, I want to say that tomatoes are a fruit. Here is a scientific definition of fruit:
Fruit noun, plural: fruits
(1) (botany) The seed-bearing structure in angiosperms formed from the ovary after flowering.
source
See? Tomato is a fruit.
Having said that, in common English parlance we do not call a tomato a fruit. We put the tomatoes in with the vegetables. Is this because we are unknowledgeable? No. It is because we are wise. Anyone who reads Fortune Cookies knows this:
Knowledge is knowing that a Tomato is a Fruit. Wisdom is not putting a Tomato in the Fruit Salad.
There are two…
gregladen | May 26, 2012Timothy Caulfield's book, The Cure For Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness, attempts to be a corrective in the area of personal heath (as in diet and exercise) management.
From the publisher: "In The Cure for Everything, health-policy expert and fitness enthusiast Timothy Caulfield debunks the mythologies of the one-step health crazes, reveals the truths behind misleading data, and discredits the charlatans in a quest to sort out real, reliable health advice. He takes us along as he navigates the maze of facts, findings, and fears associated with…
gregladen | May 26, 2012Elizabeth Norton has an interesting write-up in Science Now. Some years ago, after a long period of suspicion, it was seemingly demonstrated that neurogenesis (the formation of new neurons) happened in the human nose. This research was based on the identification of proteins that would be associated with the early formation of baby neurons. Therefore, it was not possible to prove that full grown and functioning neurons were being grown in the nose, but it was assumed to be a reasonable possibly.
However, it really isn't a reasonable possibility. If there was an Intelligent Designer, then…
gregladen | May 25, 2012I just happen to come across this interesting cameo and snapped this fair use impromptu screen shot...
Who is it, what show is this, and if you are that good, what episode!
___________
posted from my iPad
gregladen | May 25, 2012According to the Dr. Who Fan Site on Google+
Matt Smith will be carrying the Olympic Torch this weekend when it reaches Cardiff in the latest leg of its 70 day trip around the United Kingdom.
Smith will bear the torch early on Saturday morning, at the start of its journey from Cardiff, the capital of Wales and home of Doctor Who, to Swansea a few miles along the coast. The day will see the torch visit the communities of Barry, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda and Bridgend.
"To carry the Torch is an honour, one I thought I'd never get, I'm very excited!"
Daleks will be following close behind, saying of…
gregladen | May 25, 2012I know of a couple of cases where high schools are switching to the use of iPads or other tablets, replacing existing computer infrastructure with the handy and very cool computing device. When it comes to technology, I've never been particularly impressed with school administrations, and K-12 technology departments tend to be a little under-resourced as well, so it does not surprise me that this decision is being made. It is, of course, the wrong thing to do.
I'm not talking about using iPads, I'm taking about canceling funding for future hardware cycles of laptops and desktops so the…
gregladen | May 24, 2012At the moment, Scienceblogs is still undergoing technical difficulties. This is fully expected. The database this network is built on is many gazugabites in size. Despite its power and elegance, the WordPress platform (especailly the multi-user version) is complex and there are all sorts of tweaky things that must happen between the server's system software, the database server, the PHP installation, the core Wordpress software, and the localized version. When FTB.com upgraded a while back it took a few days for the dust to settle and a few weeks for things to top breaking and screwing up…
gregladen | May 23, 2012As you can see, Scienceblogs.com has a new look. There is no more left sidebar and the right sidebar looks different, the cute banners different blogs had is replaced with a new standardized banner usually with a picture of the blogger. The 24 hour page and some other bits are (depending on when you read this) not functioning yet but will be soon. And, up there in the upper right is the National Geographic Brand.
I no long have an "about" page but pages can be created and I will eventually do that. I think pages will be accessible from a drop down or menu or something on the right sidebar…
gregladen | May 21, 2012A while back, the National Geographic Society entered into an agreement with Seed Media Group, the latter being the owner and operator of Scienceblogs.com. This agreement had to do with advertising (simple version: NGS will broker the ad space on Scienceblogs) and branding (simple version: Scienceblogs.com will look all golden-yellowy and otherwise be updated to have National Geographic stuff on it). There really aren't any major interactions to speak of other than this, yet, though you may have noticed if you read NGS's blog that Scienceblog posts are often linked to over there.
But…
gregladen | May 21, 2012Missouri, the "Show Me State," had two bills in the state house that wuld have promoted Intelligent Design in the public school science class. The legislature adjourned a couple of days ago without advancing the bills, and that is how a bill dies. RIP bad bills in Missouri.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Evolution is Real! The Asbury Park (as in The Boss) carried out a poll along with Monmouth University which asked if citizens "believe in" evolution. 51% said yes, 42% said no, and 7% said they didn't know. I would apply a 1% correction to that to account for Snarky Skeptics who would say "Believe…
gregladen | May 21, 2012Science Magazine is running a "Science Voices" series of short essays by members of the science community on the topic of Human Conflict. So far there are four or five, and they cover conflict from a wide range of perspectives. You can see them all here.
I've written one on conflict in the blogosphere which will probably be up on the Sciencemag site by the time you read this.
The topics I touched on in my short essay are very familiar to you as readers of this and other blogs, and they mostly have to do with social and to a lesser extent political problem in "meatspace" and how those…
gregladen | May 21, 2012Peter Gleick has been cleared of faking a key memo. Who is Peter Gleick, and what is this memo of which we speak? Here is a refresher of events over the last 3 1/2 months:
You will recall that last February 14th, we were all given an interesting Valentine's Day present: A cache of documents had been acquired from the Heartland Institute, and these documents revealed important details about Heartland's effort to interfere with science education and otherwise agitate and lobby to promote climate science denialism. The documents were released to the public by an as then unknown activist, and…
gregladen | May 21, 2012Today is Minnesota Senator Al Franken's Birthday. In honor of that, I'm reposting this historically accurate and important essay, which first appeared on this blog on April 23, 2009 at 3:56PM:
I personally put Al Franken in the Senate
Al Franken is about to be seated as the Junior Senator from Minnesota after a long and costly battle between loser Norm Coleman and Senator Franken. Al won the election by just a few hundred votes, and three of those votes are mine.
So, we have me and about 100 other people just like me to thank for overthrowing the Coleman Regime. Let this be a lesson to…
gregladen | May 19, 2012Here's the attempted Launch this morning of the SpaceX rocket ship, which would have been the first non governmental flight to the International Space Station. Listen to the chatter to learn all sorts of great jargon!
Details here.