The American Physical Society has sent out another of its email alerts encouraging people to write to Congress in support of more funding for science. Actually, they're urging people to send two messages: a thank-you to Speaker Pelosi for the generous science funding in the House stimulus bill, and a letter to your Senators asking for more funding. The explanation from the message: As you may be aware, the U.S. Congress is currently formulating a stimulus package to help spur the recovery of our economy. In addition to the tax cuts in the draft packages being discussed, the packages include…

Mike the Mad Biologist : To Restore Science to Its Rightful Place, We Need to Redefine Elitism "Our Benevolent Seed Overlords ask "What is science's rightful place?" which refers to a line from Obama's inaugural address where he vowed to "restore science to its rightful place." Since ScienceBlogling Jake discussed the importance of basing policy on evidence--as well as correctly recognizing that the method we use to solve problems does not shed much light on whether we should address those problems in the first place--I want to bring up one problem that science faces: it is, to a great…

I realize it's been several years now since the World Wildlife Federation won their lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation, forcing Vince McMahon to re-brand his whole preposterous enterprise. Still, when I see a press release with the headline: WWF seeks innovative solutions to bycatch through worldwide competition I expect the "competition" to be settled by somebody getting smacked in the back with a folding chair while the referee's back is turned. And, you know, as long as it's a dolphin swinging the chair, I'm good with that.

Several other people in the department have started using WebAssign to handle homework assignments in the introductory class, because it provides a way to assign and grade daily homework without forcing the faculty member to do a ton of grading (the college has a policy against student graders). WebAssign takes textbook problems, randomizes the numbers slightly so each student sees something different, and automatically grades the answers as students type them in on the web. I'm a little hesitant to use it (I'm teaching the class in question next term), for two reasons: one is that there's…

Via Kathryn Cramer (on Facebook, of all places), an article from the Daily Mail about how kids these days don't get around much: When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere. It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision. Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom. He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300…

We Need a Civilian GI Bill :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs "Unlike the original bill, which rewarded service, this new bill would be a rescue measure. As in the past, a primary goal would be to decrease pressure on what today is a shrinking job market and limit growing unemployment rates. But another equally important goal would be to prepare the more educated labor force the nation needs for economic development and global competitiveness at a time when a dwindling number of jobs are available to individuals without a college education and its…

In what will surely come as a surprise to the people who say mean things about the award, the John Newbery Medal for children's literature was awarded to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Mr. Gaiman, 48, won for "The Graveyard Book," a story about a boy who is raised in a cemetery by ghosts after his family is killed in the opening pages of the novel. In announcing the winner of what is widely considered the most prestigious honor in children's literature, the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, cited Mr. Gaiman's work for its "…

Much of LiveJournal has been sunk in a sea of suck for the last couple of weeks, but there's a really interesting discussion of science education over at "Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat." The first post has to do with the idea of "gatekeeping": In my class today, a very brief discussion occurred between the teacher and another student about a topic which has bothered me for a long, long time: gatekeeping. This particular student is a grad student in mechanical engineering, and she was talking about her personal teaching philosophy. She said it bothered her that in the…

FemaleScienceProfessor posted a few days ago about "intense" editing of scholarly writing, and the different reactions students have to the experience: Although an individual student's response to being intensely edited can vary with time and mood, there tend to be typical responses from each student. These typical responses are no doubt related to very deep aspects of their psyches and stem from previous experiences with teachers, women (maybe even their mothers..), or anyone who has ever criticized their punctuation. Who knows from whence these reactions spring.. Whatever the source, it's…

Gold saved! RSC Italian Job competition is won | RSC Blog After all that waiting, you can finally know what Charlie Croker was thinking in the most famous cliffhanger in film history. (tags: science physics silly movies) Analysis of a head of a beer over time | Dot Physics Making physics relevant to student concerns. (tags: science physics blogs math statistics dot-physics) Sports Guy: One final toss for The Dooze - ESPN Page 2 Another sad story about the death of a beloved dog. (tags: sports stories animals pets) Three Foggy Mornings and One Rainy Day / Will Rot the Best Birch Fence…

Michael Brooks's 13 Things That Don't Make Sense turned up on a lot of "Best science books of 2008" lists, and the concept of a book about scientific anomalies seemed interesting, so I ordered it from Amazon. It's a quick read (a mere 210 pages, and breezily written), but ultimately a frustrating book. It took me several chapters to pin down what bugged me about the book, but it all became clear when I looked at the back cover flap, and saw that the author is a former editor of New Scientist. The really pretty much sums it up-- in physics circles, New Scientist is known for publishing three…

In his inaugural address, President Obama pledged to "restore science to its rightful place." Following up on that, the Corporate Masters have launched the Rightful Place Project, asking bloggers, readers, and scientists to define the rightful place of science. Many of these responses will focus on narrow matters of policy, but as many have said with regard to the economic crisis, this is no time for timid measures. It's a time for big thoughts and bold action. With that in mind, here's my take on the question of science's rightful place, which, in the end, boils down to defining what science…

nanoscale views: What is a polaron? "One common example of a quasiparticle is the polaron. When a charge carrier (an electron or hole) is placed into a solid, the surrounding ions can interact with it (e.g., positive ions will be slightly attracted to a negatively charged carrier). The ions can adjust their positions slightly, balancing their interactions with the charge carrier and the forces that hold the ions in their regular places. This adjustment of positions leads to a polarization locally centered on the charge carrier. The combo of the carrier + the surrounding polarization is a…

Via a bunch of people, but most directly Matt Ruff, the Guardian has published a list of "1000 Novels Everyone Must Read". Which has triggered the usual flurry of procrastinatory blog posts indicating which books from the science fiction and fantasy sub-list one has and hasn't read. I have other things I really ought to be doing, so of course, I had to follow suit. Below the fold is my list, following Matt's convention of marking in bold face those books that I've read all the way through, and putting an asterisk (*) after books I've started or skimmed, but never fully read. The Hitchhikers…

Over at Neurotopia, the Evil Monkey is offering advice on how to earn extra money in graduate school: The key to more than mere culinary survival in graduate school is to volunteer for research studies. I took part in more projects than I could count. Some don't pay squat. I once spent 2 hours a day for ten days sitting in front of an infrared tracking system that monitored shifts in my visual search patterns and movements of my finger as I followed a dot around a screen. I made about 100 bucks for that. At the time, I thought it a princely sum. Then I discovered where the real money was: in…

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Sestina: How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel. " Open a new Excel workbook. In cell B1, write your title. Leave row 2 blank. In cells A3 through A8, place the letters A through F. These letters are the cues for your repeating words (teleutons). Leave row 9 blank to denote a stanza break. In cells A10 through A15, put the letters F-A-E-B-D-C. Then skip a line. Likewise create your teleuton template for the rest of your stanzas based on the standard sestina form (left to you to find)." (tags: silly language computing poetry) The Agitator »…

The last course report covered the first six classes of the relativity unit. This week, we had the final two relativity lectures, and today was the start of quantum mechanics. Class 7: This lecture was about how you can use special relativity to show that a magnetic field in a stationary frame is an electric field in a moving frame. The basic idea is that when you move to a frame that is moving in the same direction as the (canonical) current, you see the spacing between the negative charges decrease due to length contraction, meaning that the wire no longer appears neutral. This leads to an…

Baby Blogging is late this week, because SteelyKid has come down with the cold virus that's going around the JCC day care center. Snotty, crying, coughing babies aren't all that photogenic. I finally got a decent picture of her emerging from her sling after a two-hour nap: It's a little tough to say whether the coughing has gotten better or worse, at this point. Her nose is definitely stuffed up more, though, which made it tough for her to take a bottle. Another fun visit to the pediatrician may be in order...

The Physics and Astronomy colloquium this week was by Jill Linz from Skidmore, talking about a couple of physics outreach programs she's worked on. This being right up my alley, I made it a point to get in early enough to see the colloquium (I spent the morning at home with the sick SteelyKid, and Kate was good enough to come home for the afternoon), before giving an exam in the afternoon. Linz took a somewhat different approach to physics outreach than a lot of other projects, which tend to focus on high-school students taking physics. She pointed out that if you look at the full student…

Steven Chu Addresses the National Labs | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine "The new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, addressed the national labs in an all-hands video transmission today. I was not there, but my colleague and friend Rob Roser at Fermilab was there, and sent me a very nice bulleted summary. " (tags: science energy environment politics US) What Are Freshmen Thinking? :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs "âThe American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2008,â a longitudinal study now in its 43rd year, is based on a fall 2008 survey of…