sheril | August 25, 2008originally published January 11, 2006 by Chris C. Mooney
Well, here I am, now officially blogging at scienceblogs.com, with its whizzbang technical features and its awesome collection of other science bloggers. I have little doubt that this site will become a dominant--if not the dominant--locus for science blogging on the web. Just check out the folks who are joining me here: Tara Smith, Tim Lambert, Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and John Lynch, just to name a few.
It's exciting to be writing in this new location, though I certainly won't be getting rid of chriscmooney.com completely. For now, the…
sheril | August 22, 2008
So what do readers think?
*Update: For an extremely interesting analysis, visit Nate Silver.*
sheril | August 22, 2008
Thanks for your patience as we write and get set for a great line up next week...
sheril | August 21, 2008Yesterday, I wrote about financial speculators and their impacts on commodity markets, focusing on oil. Here, Stephen Colbert and Stephen Colbert play three-card Monte to explain what's going on:
cmooney | August 20, 2008In my latest Science Progress piece, I crusade head on at a piece of misinformation that is incredibly prominent of late--the idea that U.S. scientist production is in decline. Looking at the data, whether on Ph.d. production, bachelor's degrees, graduate degrees, or graduate enrollments, I show that the contention is simply false.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried about competition from India and China--for as I say in the piece, China's rate of increasing Ph.d. production is greater than ours. However, if we're going to do something to change the way we currently produce and train…
sheril | August 20, 2008I'm taking on speculation in commodity markets over at NexGen:
The trouble is financial speculators. The world's growing middle class is buying more food and oil and investing in large institutional commodity markets. In other words, traders are betting on rising prices.
So don't look to ANWR and offshore drilling as the solution to high oil prices. Look to the traders who do not pass price fall benefits to the consumer. The trend has not gone unnoticed in the US and the Senate is now considering legislation aimed at cutting the cost of petrol and heating oil by ending excessive…
sheril | August 19, 2008The NYTimes Claudia Dreifus recently interviewed Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff, science adviser to the secretary of state and administrator of the Agency for International Development:
Q. WHY DOES THE SECRETARY OF STATE NEED A SCIENCE ADVISER?
A. Because science and technology are the drivers of the 21st century's most successful economies.
There are more than six billion of us, and the problems of a crowded planet are everyone's: food, water, energy, climate change, environmental degradation. Other nations, even those that have lost respect for our culture and politics, still welcome collaboration on…
sheril | August 19, 2008From living reefs to humans, we're all connected. Watch, listen, and please pass the message on...
"Protect the living reef and we protect the ocean. Protect the ocean, and we protect ourselves."
- Ed Harris, Project AWARE
sheril | August 18, 2008I occasionally touch on standards of beauty and couldn't help but notice this uh, charming story:
Life can get a little lonely for bachelors in the Australian Outback mining town of Mount Isa. So the mayor has offered up a solution: recruit ugly women.
Mayor John Molony found himself under attack Monday over comments he made to a local newspaper that read: "May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa."
Beauty-disadvantaged women? Now in my opinion, valuing an individual's quality on…
sheril | August 16, 2008Jackson JBC. (2008) Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105 (Suppl):11458-11465.
No caption necessary:
sheril | August 15, 2008by Philip H.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed below are those of the author. They do not represent the opinion, policy or administrative decisions of any county, state or federal agency for which the author works or may have worked. In other words, if you don't like these opinions, contact the author, not your Congressmen.
There is a recent report out from the Keystone Center. Titled "Science and Technology Policy in Congress," the report was produced in conjunction with the Consensus Building Institute. And, with all of the House of Representatives and 1/3 rd of the Senate up for…
sheril | August 15, 2008Well, the Sb family that made it to Seed's NYC meetup that is.
(Ghostly images are anonymous bloggers)
Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon Threaten Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples
sheril | August 14, 2008A vast area of the western Amazon--arguably the most intact and biodiverse part of the Amazon--is now wide open for oil and gas development. This is a new threat to the forest, biodiversity, and many indigenous groups living in the region. Research by Finer et al. in PLoS ONE demonstrates full scale impacts, including an assessment of relevant conservation and indigenous rights policies.
Oil and gas blocks in the western Amazon
The western Amazon is the most biologically rich part of the Amazon basin and is home to a great diversity of indigenous ethnic groups, including some of the world…
sheril | August 14, 2008Scientists from the Netherlands have created a genetic map of Europe showing the degree of relatedness between populations in which nearly 2,500 subjects were analyzed by correlating their genetic variations.
Such tools help to provide insight into human migrations, survival advantages, and genetic barriers.... but my favorite part is the way they show people are so similar. On a pale blue dot fraught with conflict, it's a reminder we're not all that different in the big picture. More at The New York Times.
cmooney | August 13, 2008My latest Science Progress column is about how Bruce Ivins unfortunately reaffirms the damaging stereotype of the "mad scientist". As I put it:
Certainly science has had its dark episodes in the past--most notably the eugenics fad in the early part of the twentieth century (which is what works like Moreau and Brave New World were reacting to). But in the modern period, one could argue that most scientists, and biomedical scientists in particular, have shown strong moral consciences. The 1975 Asilomar conference, when scientists gathered to agree upon ethical guidelines for recombinant DNA…
sheril | August 13, 2008This week at NexGen, we're tackling solar power:
We hear about it all the time... Solar power as a renewable energy source. Not a bad idea considering that spectacular star of ours isn't burning out anytime soon. According to Scientific American, a massive transition to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of U.S. electricity and 35 percent of our total energy by 2050--with $420 billion in subsidies to fund the infrastructure that would make it cost-competitive. So is a solar future really on the horizon and possible on that scale?
Naturally, your resident blogger has a few…
sheril | August 10, 2008Yet again, stranded in a Jetblue terminal... needless to say this trip has not made me a fan of that particular airline--despite the complimentary Terra Blue potato chips. Since I'm biding time at JFK, here are two photos from our NYC meetup courtesy of Jennifer.
My Sb marine counterpart on the west coast
Fellow NC Scibling Bora