gregladen | January 6, 2008Blueberry syrup, sodium alginate and calcium chloride is all you need to make these spheres that look a little like caviar.
gregladen | January 6, 2008From a Massachusetts Institute of Technology press release:
researchers have uncovered a critical difference between flu viruses that infect birds and humans, a discovery that could help scientists monitor the evolution of avian flu strains and aid in the development of vaccines against a deadly flu pandemic.
A quick word about viruses and receptor sites. I have always found the terminology to be a bit counter-intuitive and possibly misleading. The word "receptor site" almost sounds like a feature that a cell has in order to receive, allow in, provide a reception for a virus, as though…
gregladen | January 6, 2008As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.
gregladen | January 6, 2008
Jan 06
Millard Fillmore's birthday (let's party!)
Jan 06
Children's Day in Uruguay
Jan 06
Belgium becomes a federal state, 1993
Jan 07
Christmas in Ethiopia
Jan 07
Pioneer's Day in Liberia
gregladen | January 6, 2008Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids -- and spells out 5 (and really, he's got 6) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer.
gregladen | January 6, 2008Accepting his 2006 TED Prize, Cameron Sinclair demonstrates how passionate designers and architects can respond to world housing crises. The motto of his group, Architecture for Humanity, is "Design like you give a damn." Using a litany of striking examples, he shows how AFH has helped find creative solutions to humanitarian crises all over the globe. Sinclair then outlines his TED Prize wish: to create a global open-source network that will let architects and communities share and build designs to house the world
gregladen | January 6, 2008Have you ever seen the TV show "Wife Swap?" Admit it, you have. It is a form of ethnography in its own somewhat demented way. But it is also a very specific, network-endorsed statement about class and character of society.
It seems that it is fairly often the case that one of the families, and the families are always contrasted in many different ways, home schools.
At lease one homeschooling proponent claims that the show "stacks the shelf (sic)" against homeschoolers, making them appear less mainstream than homeschoolers really are.
As a homeschooler, I really feel that I have had…
gregladen | January 6, 2008What is the relationship between what happens in these two early primary races and what actually happens later on in the election cycle?
It turns out that this is a difficult question to answer. One very simple way of asking the question is this: Does the winner of a given contest also become the nominee? We could also ask if that person becomes president, but this would involve so many additional contingencies that it might be better left alone. So let's just stick with the link between winning either race and becoming the nominee, and also consider the predictive power of winning both…
gregladen | January 6, 2008Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco says, "I'm going to take you on a journey." And does she ever. Showing breathtaking images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, she focuses on Saturn's intriguing largest moon, Titan,with deserts, mudflats and puzzling lakes, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.
gregladen | January 5, 2008Wielding laypeople's terms and a sense of humor, Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones? Can the fundamental law, the so-called "theory of everything," really explain everything? His answers will surprise you.
gregladen | January 5, 2008An innovative computer hacker stuffs a computer inside a beaver.
No everyone knows about Cabin Culture. It is a key aspect of culture here in Minnesota, though it is certainly not confined to the North Star State. Many True Minnesotans have a cabin on a lake somewhere in their life. They either own it or a family member owns it or it is part of resort they visit often.
In the cabin is a lot of Cabin Kitch. Salt shakers that look like bears. A door knocker that looks like a fish. A match holder that looks like a loon. A foot stool that looks like (and sometimes is) a baby bear.
It…
gregladen | January 5, 2008Christian Creationists are accusing scientists of being defensive, ignorant, reprehensible, and troubling. They might be right.
The NAS just published the latest version of its book on Evolution and Creationism (free, by the way: Your tax dollars at work) and we are now seeing the trickle of reaction from the largely creationist Christian community turn from a trickle to a drizzle.
I myself think it is a good book, but I believe they made two very important (and closely linked) errors. First, they should not have discussed creationism at all. It should be a book about evolution, with a…
gregladen | January 5, 2008
Redmond, Wash.-based Microvision is unveiling a fully functioning, self-contained prototype that should be available as a real product--possibly from Motorola--later this year.
Dubbed SHOW, the lensless PicoP projector is designed for home and business use, and uses tiny lasers to shoot a WVGA (848 by 480, roughly DVD resolution) image on virtually any surface that isn't a dark color or textured. It can even project onto curved and uneven surfaces. From a distance of two feet, it could project a two-foot diagonal, full-color image on a white T-shirt. From five feet away, it could show a five…
gregladen | January 5, 2008In one of the most beloved talks from TED2007, novelist Isabel Allende talks about writing, women, passion, feminism. She tells the stories of powerful women she has known, some larger-than-life (listen for a beauty tip from Sophia Loren), and some simply living with grace, dignity and ingenuity in a world that, in too many ways, still treats women unjustly.
gregladen | January 5, 2008It is interesting to see words like "doomed" and "ruined" in the context of the current election cycle in the US. Many of us had those words in our minds and on our lips during the last two election cycles. I wonder if the rhetoric of doom, which is largely accurate, will be more over this time around.
"The logic that convinces us that evolution is a fact is the same logic we use to say smoking is hazardous to your health or we have serious energy policy issues because of global warming," University of Michigan professor Gilbert Omenn told reporters at the launch of a book on evolution by…
gregladen | January 5, 2008To get his annual predictions, I mean. Actually, now that I think about it, talking to god does not work either...
I don't pay much attention to Bill Gates (and I'm sure it's mutual) but I was just noticing that today is not only his annual prediction speech in Las Vegas, but it is also probably his last one as he will shortly be stepping down from his position at Microsoft to get busy giving money away. At that point, I will start paying a lot more attention to him, I assure you.
So for fun, here are a few of the predictions Bill-o has made in the past:
Bob. Remember Bob? Not the one on…
gregladen | January 4, 2008Its name is, unfortunately, "Open Paleontology Journal." Reminds me of the Soviet/Communist Era in Asia, where such a journal might have been named "The People's Paleontology Journal."
Details are here.
gregladen | January 4, 2008In the wake of his Iowa victory, Mike Huckabee is doing the news and talk show circuit. Here are his comments this AM on evolution.
ABC's "Good Morning America" grilled Huckabee about his evangelical ties, making Creationism the issue.
ABC's Robin Roberts mentioned a new book from the National Academy of Sciences that says Creationism has no place in the classroom -- given the overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution.
"Do you agree with that -- that Creationism should be kept out of our classrooms," Roberts asked.
"In ten-and-a-half years as a governor, I never touched it," Huckabee…