gregladen | September 14, 2010The blogosphere is structured like a bus of tourists heading into ever new territory being spoken to by a thousand guides with microphones in the front of the vehicle. Woe be it to any guide who points out something that the bus passed several blocks back. But sometimes it is appropriate to re-mention certain things else they fall into obscurity. Well, it's great if certain things fall into obscurity, but not everything.
While doing a search for something else, I accidentally hit links to this particular issue, which played out quite some time ago. It is a wonderful story. Back in the…
gregladen | September 14, 2010I hereby withdraw my earlier prediction that a blob over Mali and Niger would be the next named Atlantic storm. Instead, I think it will be this one right here:
We shall name it Karl. If it forms into a tropical storm soon. Expect that by Thursday.
gregladen | September 14, 2010I just want to remind returning teachers of this podcast:
How are today's teachers sharing the wonders of science and critical thinking with the next generation of students?
With cognitive psychologist and university lecturer Barbara Drescher, and Mike McRae, former science teacher and current science writer for the education division of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
Click here to listen!
gregladen | September 14, 2010.... the podcast of the recent Skeptically Speaking, is here. It's a recorded live show!
This is not about women in skepticism. It is about skepticism, by women. Sort of. Anyway this episode includes:
Panelists: Kylie Sturgess of The Token Skeptic, Robynn “Swoopy” McCarthy of Skepticality, and Heidi Anderson and Jenna Marie Griffith of SheThought.
Field recordings: Donna Mugavero, Laurie Tarr, Dr. Pamela Gay, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jennifer Ouellette, Maria Walters, A Kovacs, Barbara Drescher
gregladen | September 14, 2010I've been using Dropbox for several months now, and I still like it. I have it installed on two computers, a desktop and a laptop. I recently wiped the desktop's hard drive and installed an entirety new drive and system, then I installed Dropbox, and all my files (which were stored on Dropbox) mysteriously appeared on the new installation. Not really quickly but not a lot slower than if I had used some kind of backup system, and with zero effort.
Dropbox is an off-site backup and sync program. You install the app and link it to an account (which is free for smaller amounts, a reasonable…
gregladen | September 14, 2010George Williams died on September 8th, 84 years old. He was one of the first academic defenders of evolution against "Intelligent Design" but is better known for his work on evolutionary medicine.
Lest GCW start spinning in his new grave, let me quickly note ...
... that evolutionary medicine is not evolutionary psychology. Rather, it is the idea that some symptoms of illness are adaptations. If you've ever heard that it is not a good idea to over treat a fever because the fever may be doing some good, that was George C. Williams speaking to you.
Williams also wrote incisively about…
gregladen | September 14, 2010A life science teacher should not have to know about creationism to teach evolution, other than to the extent that you may cover the history of evolutionary biology, and begin in the days before science took center stage and natural philosophy was dragged off with one of those big vaudeville hooks. But, unfortunately, you do have to know something about it, about how to recognize it, how to argue with it, and about the legal and professional context of managing creationism among your students, your peers, and your bosses. One of the most important resources a life science teacher or an…
gregladen | September 13, 2010Justin Carl Moose used his Facebook page to advocate violence against health care clinics where abortions are preformed, and urged violent attacks on people who work in such facilities. But, just like if you get stone drunk and photographs of you half naked wearing a lampshade on your head in some dive appear on Facebook then you can get in trouble, Moose's Facebook activities have come back to haunt him. A secret undercover FBI agent approached Moose and asked for help building a bomb to blow up a clinic. Moose complied, and is now under arrest for conspiracy. I wonder how many other…
gregladen | September 13, 2010Tropical storms and hurricanes are eddies in the massive current of solar energy transiting from the equator, where there is lots of it, to the poles, where there is less. And when I say equator, I mean the ITCZ.
Anyway, there are three such concentration of energy in the Atlantic worthy of a close look. Igor is a hurricane of Category Four strength that will probably turn north and avoid land, but maybe not. Julia is a tropical storm that is expected to come close to hurricane strength in about two days, but will most likely not become a full scale hurricane. Julia is likely to turn…
gregladen | September 13, 2010Cognitive psychologist Barbara Drescher joins us to discuss the common mistakes scientists make, and what happens to the science when their research goes wrong.
... and ....
Journalist David Dobbs explains the case against Marc Hauser, a prominent Harvard evolutionary biologist who was recently found guilty of scientific misconduct.
This Friday on Skeptically Speaking.
gregladen | September 13, 2010I dunno.... let's ask a expert!
In the universal moral grammar, "Using someone as a means to a greater good" is worse than many other kinds of transgressions.
Ooops. Read the analysis and description of this interesting bit of video HERE.
gregladen | September 13, 2010When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time is a book by Michael Benton on the Permian Extinction now out in paperback. From the press release:
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half of all species then living.
Far less well-known is a much bigger catastrophe - the greatest mass extinction of all time - which occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. In this cataclysm, at least ninety per cent of life was destroyed, both on land, including sabre-toothed…
gregladen | September 13, 2010My wife, a biology teacher, gets crazy in the biology classroom. She is famous for her interpretive dance renditions of numerous cellular processes. The students in the first class of the day reportedly stare in disbelief and roll their eyes, but the students in the other classes throughout the day seem to love it. Several of her students have taken to filming her pedagogical paroxysms, and you know that some day, Amanda will be a YouTube Star.
~ a repost ~
But this brings up the interesting and difficult mixture of students, personal technology in the classrooms, teachers, schools,…
gregladen | September 12, 2010We always knew Igor had what it took to be a hurricane, despite early, and rather embarrassing, fluctuations in intensity. Now, Igor is a Category Four hurricane with prospects for additional strengthening. There are no current warnings or watches, and the Hurricane Prediction center is not saying a lot about what is supposed to happen after the end of the week when Igor has drifted to the middle of the ocean, weakened slightly, and is pointing more or less a North Carolina but so far away as to not be anything like a threat. Yet.
Most hurricanes with this path make a strong right turn at…
gregladen | September 12, 2010is the title of a podcast in which Lynn Fellman interviews moi. Click here to experience the full multimedianess of it all.
gregladen | September 12, 2010Physics and marketing don't seem to have much in common, but Dan Cobley is passionate about both. He brings these unlikely bedfellows together using Newton's second law, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics to explain the fundamental theories of branding.
gregladen | September 12, 2010You've got to watch this video for the music if nothing else:
HT/ He Who No Longer Eats Bacon
gregladen | September 12, 2010It's that time of year again! Limber up your fingers, dig out the crowbar, charge the batteries in the camera; the famed International Rock Flipping Day is upon us!
Details.
gregladen | September 11, 2010Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.