gregladen | September 8, 2010Because Igor is now a tropical storm.
Igor is not much of a storm yet, and is showing no clear pattern of increased intensification. However, Igor's current path will take the storm through a region where there will be very little to weaken it and a great deal of very warm water to strengthen it. There is a possibility that Igor will drift to the north, which would cause the storm to weaken. If not, there is a high potential of a large and powerful hurricane. Details.
gregladen | September 8, 2010Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.
gregladen | September 8, 2010Why does the wind blow, and why does it blow the way it does?
~ A repost for Back to School Special ~
When I teach human evolution, I feel compelled to bring in climate change. When I do that, I find it very unsatisfying to mention climate change as a thing that simply happened. I need to also discuss how climate itself works, both now (in the present era) and generally speaking. That can be hard. There are so many variables that matter, and that if you leave out will come back and bite you later when you suddenly need them to explain something. Anyway, when addressing climate and how…
gregladen | September 8, 2010It happens. A very large percentage of life science teachers are creationists. In Minnesota, and Minnesota is not that unusual, about half the population or more are creationists, but among life science teachers, that number is reduced by almost one half. In other words, one in three life science teachers are creationists, although most, one would hope, only barely so.
This does not mean that creationism is being taught in the classroom. Some, perhaps many, life science teachers who are creationists know to not teach creationism in the classroom. But I find it difficult to believe that…
gregladen | September 8, 2010.... Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it's early in the term. A student, on the way out of the room after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about "carbon dating." This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you've gotten to the "evolution module"...
Jeanne d'Arc was a very influential 10th grader. I understand she gave her Life Science teachers a very hard time. This picture is the only contemporary…
gregladen | September 7, 2010William Chaloner reminds me of a handful of people I've known. He possessed a sense of entitlement balanced by a remarkable capacity for greed and tempered with an acute sociopathy. He clearly had a keen intellect and extraordinary manual skill. When Isaac Newton murdered Chaloner (to put it the way Chaloner would put it) he did the world a favor. I'm not saying that certain people I've known should be hanged, gutted, and sliced like a chicken into five or six parts, but one can see why the idea would have been attractive back in the late 17th century when that was the usual practice for…
gregladen | September 7, 2010 Published by Yale University Press A Portrait of the Brain by Adam Zeman is a new book describing how the brain works (and does not work) in something of an Oliver Sack's experiential manner, but with a twist.
Zeman is a Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at the Peninsula Medical School. A Portrait of The Brain describes the brain with reference to a sort of hierarchical scale (mainly of size) ranging from the atom to the soul, and running through such constructs as the organelle, the cell, the brain region, and the individual.
Each of these levels is a stopping point…
gregladen | September 7, 2010Reminder: The National Center for Science Education has a new web page, as part of their ever-improving and getting really quite wonderful web site, on Creationism and The Law. Here.
gregladen | September 6, 2010Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science) is a new book by Robert Thompson. The premise is simple. The coolest thing in the world is a home chemistry set like this one from Gilbert, which combined both chemistry and microscopy:
Chemistry Set Combine the sciences of Chemistry and Microscopy in one big laboratory set! Microscope has a magnification of 60 power, plus unique Polaroid device that shows the brilliant colors of specimens under the lens. Set includes "Fun With Gilbert Chemistry", "Gilbert Microscope", "Glass Blowing" manuals and dissecting…
gregladen | September 6, 2010... In public schools. According to one Federal Judge in the US, not much.
A Mission Viejo high school history teacher violated the First Amendment by disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture, a federal judge ruled.
a repost
James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, referred to Creationism as "religious, superstitious nonsense" during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.
The decision is the culmination of a 16-month legal battle between Corbett and Farnan - a conflict the judge said…
gregladen | September 5, 2010
I just thought I'd put this up on Jaf's recommendation as an example of a non-dirty campaign ad. Substance free, perhaps, but at least it's not smear. Read Jaf's update on the Minnesota Campaigns and their ads.
As Jaf points out, Bruce Kennedy was such a nice guy, and Minnesotans are so nice, that Kennedy, when running for office, had to make his own attack ads against himself. Like this one:
And this one:
gregladen | September 5, 2010In the Gulf oil spill's aftermath, Lisa Margonelli says drilling moratoriums and executive ousters make for good theater, but distract from the issue at its heart: our unrestrained oil consumption. She shares her bold plan to wean America off of oil -- by confronting consumers with its real cost.
gregladen | September 5, 2010And now for our weekly history lesson ...
Bonus lesson: Hieroglyphics ...
gregladen | September 4, 2010Cartoonist Jim Toomey created the comic strip Sherman's Lagoon, a wry look at underwater life starring Sherman the talking shark. As he sketches some of his favorite sea creatures live onstage, Toomey shares his love of the ocean and the stories it can tell.
gregladen | September 4, 2010The Vaccine-Autism Link has been ruled non-existent by a federal court. Details.
Homeopathy still doesn't work. Even a little. Very little.
Corexit in Florida water supply?
A health related blog post, Pushing towards acknowledging sex differences in physiology and treatment efficacy by the blogger known as Michelle, has been awarded the PLoS ONE Blog Pick of the Month for August 2010. Here are the details and links to the post and the original OpenAccess article, Differences in Efficacy and Safety of Pharmaceutical Treatments between Men and Women: An Umbrella Review by Gerald…
gregladen | September 4, 2010A key binding that selects all and places it instantly on the clipboard, and works in all software. This is such a common sequence of commands it should be made into one command. It could be called "mop" or "nom."
See the whole "WANTED" list here.
gregladen | September 3, 2010Ferrel monk parakeets in Brooklyn (They've been living there long enough to get into some bird identification guides) are being poached by .... parakeet poachers! Here is the story.
Check this out:
Exelon, a nuclear giant that recently backed away from building new nuclear plants, is moving into wind.
The inside story on giant sharks at Tetrapod Zoology.