gregladen | January 25, 2012Vesta is the second biggest asteroid in the famous asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It has generally been thought that Vesta would get enough sun over its entire surface that water would not survive, but a recent survey of the surface indicates that deeply buried water has a chance of remaining on the asteroid near the poles, or possibly at the bottom of some deep craters.
Vesta Up Close (image by NASA)
This is interesting, in part, because of questions about the role of water in the early formation of the solar system. One of the main objectives of the Dawn spacecraft mission is to…
gregladen | January 25, 2012In a very interesting way.
As a regular reader of this blog, you know that IQ and similar measures are determined by a number of factors, and for most "normal" (modal?) individuals, one's heritage (genes) is rarely important. Putting it another way, variation across individuals in IQ and other measures have been shown again and again to be determined by things like home environment, diet and nutrition, and even immediate social context. Here's another finding supporting this:
Our cognitive abilities and decision-making skills can be dramatically hindered in social settings where we feel…
gregladen | January 25, 2012I liked Obama's State of the Union Address, and I liked the fact that a lot of other people seemed to like it. He made strong and positive statements about energy.
Imagine what we could accomplish ... A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world....
Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values....
... and his comments…
gregladen | January 24, 2012Google will now follow you around the internet, as you use e-mail, search, YoutTube, and so on and so forth, as you use web browsers or your Android phone, and you can't opt out. This starts March 1st.
I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not. It depends on exactly what they are doing. It will certainly make the Google experience a bit creepier: As you search for YouTube videos on some topic, Google may make suggestions based on information on your Google Calendar, or if you have a business trip to a certain city on your Calendar, Google may suggest which of your circled contacts on…
gregladen | January 24, 2012Can you imagine driving around on roadless terrain with a four wheel drive vehicle for eight years and not ever changing a tire, getting a tuneup, adjusting the suspension, replacing the hydraulics or brakes, or doing any other service whatsoever on your vehicle? I've actually done that, and I'm here to tell you, you can't do that!
But Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has, in fact, done it.
Opportunity was tasked to took around on the Martian surface for three months. The Space Robot landed on Mars on January 25th, 2004. During the last eight years, Opportunity has traveled great…
gregladen | January 24, 2012Go look at this:
PUPPETS ON A STRING: US THINK TANK FUNDS NZ SCEPTICS
The Heartland Institute, the US organisation that plays a key role in organised climate denial, has directly funded New Zealand's most prominent sceptics, a search of US Inland Revenue Service documents has revealed. In 2007, Heartland granted US$25,000 (NZ$32,000) to the NZ Climate "Science" Coalition, sending the money to NZ CSC member Owen McShane. They also gifted the International Climate Science Coalition US$45,000 (NZ$59,000), forwarding the cash to NZ CSC webmaster and ...
Read all about it here.
gregladen | January 24, 2012Free-Dos Fearless Leader and IT Manger Jim Hall has a post at Almost Diamonds that some of you will be interested in.
Some time ago, I posted an online poll to survey the relative importance of four qualities at various levels in an IT organization. With the help of other bloggers, and through retweets, we got the word out to as many IT folks as possible. We received responses from all across the globe (though most were from the U.S.) representing private industry, higher education, and government. The poll was up for about two months, but most of the responses came within the first few…
gregladen | January 24, 2012There is a story going around that there is evidence of life on Venus. The evidence would be very convincing if some descriptions of it were true: Scorpion or crab like creatures walking around on the surface sounds a lot like life to me! And, the research is published in a peer reviewed journal put out by one of the big publishing houses, and the paper is by a mainstream Russian scientist who's done a lot of work. But is seems to be very wrong.
The research is by Leonid Ksanfomaliti, and looks at photographs from the 1980s period landing probe. What looks a lot like a crab seen in two…
gregladen | January 23, 2012People look at Fox News and wonder how the heck it manages to be taken seriously. Most of what is done on that station is not news, and it isn't even commentary by any reasonable journalistic standards. Fox News is much of the time a mouthpiece for the Right Wing and the Republican Party. The rest of the timt, Fox News, astonishingly, seems to be giving the Right Wing and the Republican Party its marching orders. It seems to me that we can have news agencies that range across the liberal-conservative spectrum that also carry out their activities in a professional manner. In the old days…
gregladen | January 20, 2012The More than Men Project is an effort initiated by the Women Thinking Free Foundation to develop a space where men, often white and/or straight and/or Of Priv, could spend a little time and energy telling their fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists something useful or interesting about diversity, and to encourage the promotion of said diversity.
When I was asked to contribute to this project (which was being cooked up last July) I had some concerns. I wasn't sure if I needed a space to do this, since I have a widely read blog in which I am constantly telling my fellow Hetero-…
gregladen | January 17, 2012When my daughter was little, she had a series of ear and throat infections that were frequent enough that the pediatrician finally said "One more in the next two months and Imma recommend we consider taking out her tonsils" or words to that effect. Interestingly, Julia stopped getting the sore throats and ear infections just then. (Kids do stop getting the sore throats and ear infections eventually, and I guess it was time!) Had she continued to suffer these infections and the question of tonsillectomy come up, I'm sure I would have researched it and made a scientifically informed…
gregladen | January 17, 2012
Gleick is the new board member of the National Center for Science Education.
gregladen | January 17, 2012There are animations!
Florida couple escape from sinking Italian cruise ship:
Cruise ship Costa Concordia salvage options animated:
gregladen | January 16, 2012
Why is NCSE Now Concerned with Climate Change?
Press Release
Book excerpt: "The Denial of Global Warming" (from "Merchants of Doubt")