links for 2009-01-14

"Yes !!! With some effort you can learn to see what remains invisible to most people! Without the help of any instrument you will be able to tell not only if the light you look at is strongly polarized or not, but also if it is linearly polarized or circularly polarized and, moreover, in which direction it vibrates or rotates. Any time that you raise your eyes to the blue sky you will be rewarded by the same clues that guide bees in their flight. Acquire P-Ray Vision ! "

"When people talk education reform, and the promises of charter schools, they tend to talk about the KIPP family of schools. And one of the key ingredients of KIPP, we're told, is their excellent teachers, who are treated as professionals, something that teacher's unions simply don't allow. But now the teachers at KIPP's Brooklyn charter have unionized."

"On December 10th 2008, Denis G. Rancourt, a full professor in Physics at the University of Ottawa was banned from his campus. Why? Because he refused to grade students:"

"For the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise documents a definitive increase in rates and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest increases among young adults, ages 18-24. This new growth reverses two decades of downward trends"