gregladen | September 24, 2010Official opened floodgates on two dams causing flooding that required over two million people to move. It is not clear that residents were warned in advance. The dams are normally opened this time of year to track rainfall patterns in the region.
Details.
gregladen | September 24, 2010A sidebar in a marine science textbook recommended for approval in Florida is "packed with good ol' fashioned creationist language," Florida Citizens for Science charges. The text in question, Life on an Ocean Planet (Current Publishing, 2011), was recently recommended for state approval by the state's instructional materials adoption committee on a 7-2 vote, according to the education blog of the St. Petersburg Times (September 22, 2010). But as FCFS's president Joe Wolf wrote to Florida Department of Education Commissioner Eric Smith, the sidebar on "Questions about the Origin and…
gregladen | September 24, 2010A National Academies report Thursday warned of a crummy economic future unless fixes are made to U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
Included below are longer reactions to the "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," report:
here
gregladen | September 24, 2010After all, the distance between the bits my coffee cup is made of and the distance between the bits the coffee table is made of is absolutely hugemoungous. If you were a person standing on one atom of my coffee cup, scaled so the atom was the size of, say a Sofa, and you looked out in the direction of the next atom, it would look like a distant star. Or something.
Perhaps there is some kind of force working, I dunno.
Anyway, this is the kind of question that arises when you look at this thing. Teachers, you can use this to freak out your students!
gregladen | September 24, 2010Stagnant scientific education imperils U.S. economic leadership, says a report by leading business and science figures.
Released Thursday at a congressional briefing attended by senators and Congress members of both parties, the report updates a 2005 science education report that led to moves to double federal research funding.
source
gregladen | September 24, 2010Tonight's skeptically speaking will be on Improbable Research:
Marc Abrahams
We look at the stranger side of science with Marc Abrahams, the editor of Annals of Improbable Research and creator of the the Ig Nobel Prize. Is science that makes us laugh better at making us think?
and
Speaking up
Neurobiologist Dr. Richard Wassersug explains his research into the relative tastiness of Costa Rican tadpoles.
Details here.
And, don't forget to listen to the podcast from last week:
Bad Research
Cognitive psychologist Barbara Drescher joins us to discuss the common mistakes scientists make, and…
gregladen | September 24, 2010"Everyone needs to understand the basic facts of evolution as well as the essentials of the scientific method... When people are deprived of a scientific approach to reality as a whole, they are robbed of both a full appreciation of the beauty and richness of the natural world and the means to understand the dynamics of change not only in nature but in human society as well."
-Ardea Skybreak, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"
~ A repost for Back to School Special ~
Ardea Skybreak's new book, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and…
gregladen | September 24, 2010The stormy feature in the West Indies has formed into a named storm, and it is Matthew. Matthew is expected to remain as a tropical storm as it follows the North Honduras coast and dissipates over the central Yucatan. Well, it is possible that it will jump the isthmus and do something interesting in the Pacific, or reform in the gulf, but it is too early to say.
Meanwhile, Lisa continues to be one of the least interesting storms ever, and is expected to dissipate before Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, the ITCZ is very active with lots of storms and low pressure, but not the best conditions in…
gregladen | September 23, 2010
The Triassic is old. This book is new. That is a hard to beat combination.
~ A repost for Back to School Special ~
Let's see ... The Triassic is about here:
(You can also look it up in this PDF file supplied by the USGS.
It is situated between two major extinction events, and is especially interesting because it is during this period that modern day ecological systems and major animal groups took a recognizable form. The preceding Permian, if contrasted with modern day, would form a very stark contrast while the Triassic would be at least somewhat more recognizable.
But of course the…
gregladen | September 23, 2010When I finished reading the sixth book, I turned to Julia, then about 12 years old or so, and said "Oh crap, now we have to wait for the next book to come out" and she said "Welcome to my entire life, Dad!"
Anyway, we all love the movies, and here's the trailers for the next one:
gregladen | September 23, 2010Andrew Brown has written a blog post about the atheist rally in England at which Dawkins gave his now famous speech. Brown quote mines Dawkins in a way that is utterly abominable. Dawkins, in his speech, discusses a somewhat complicated relationship between certain facts ... not too complicated but complicated enough that an ignoramus would misunderstand, as Brown had demonstrated. Here's what Dawkins was saying, nice and slow:
1) Pro-pope interlocutors have stated that even if Adolph Hitler was baptized as a catholic and went to church and stuff, he really can't be counted as a catholic.…
gregladen | September 22, 2010Once again, I have been awarded an Editors' Choice award on Peter Janiszewski's Research Blogging Blog. They tell me that this is somewhere between an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize. Thank you thank you thank you. And, I'd like to point out that I share this award with several other excellent bloggers and their blog posts, including those on creativity and mental illness, sports injuries, modernization and dietary issues, and the link between stress and suicide. Click here to see summaries and links to all these wonderful posts!
gregladen | September 22, 2010A piece by Historyguy Five Three Seven One Six:
Did I mention this was the most boring job in the world? Mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly, stab-yourself-in-the-leg-with-a-pen-to-get-them-to-call-an-ambulance-so-you-can-escape-this-meeting- boring. If she wins this seat, she will spend days in meetings discussing the logistics of textbook acquisition, and politely sitting through hours of public comments from people who think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to listen to Jesus preach the Sermon on the Sanctity of Tax Cuts for the Rich. Now, for some reason, she actually likes this kind of…
gregladen | September 22, 2010You can get it here.
This is a nefarious Canadian version of a plot to guarantee that whack-job religious nut parents get to jam their beliefs down the throats of ALL the children, not just their own. Or something along those lines, perhaps I am understating it a tad.
gregladen | September 22, 2010 Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming I've been putting off posting my review of this book until just the right moment. Perhaps that moment is now, with the juxtaposition of a serious storm ... hurricane Gustav ... arriving in the vicinity of New Orleans and the opening day of the Republican National Convention, since both charismatic hurricanes and not so charismatic politicians play such a large role in the book at hand.
Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, by Chris Mooney, is a well written, informative, captivating,…