There's a new Zogby Poll on political bias in academia that should warm whatever it is that David Horowitz uses as a heart: As legislation is introduced in more than a dozen states across the country to counter political pressure and proselytizing on students in college classrooms, a majority of Americans believe the political bias of college professors is a serious problem, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. Nearly six in 10 - 58% - said they see it as a serious problem, with 39% saying it was a "very serious" problem. That sounds pretty bad, but I suspect it's really a non-story. Why?…

A man in Oregon tied 105 helium balloons to a lawn chair, and flew into Idaho, 193 miles away. Do you believe that? A man tied 105 helium ballons to a lawn chair, and flew into Idaho! He flew 193 miles. In a lawn chair, with balloons tied to it. He used 105 balloons. That's a lot. Can you count to 193? Can you say "Idaho?" Good! Sorry. I needed to get some work done on my car, and spent an hour and a half sitting in the customer lounge at the dealership, where a small girl was watching "Dora the Explorer" and related shows on tv, with the volume turned way up. To paraphrase Travis Hime, this…

You may or may not remember that we did a ScienceBlogs fundraiser last year for a group called "DonorsChoose" that provides small grants to teachers in poor school districts around the country. We'll probably do another in September this year (discussions are under way), but right now, they're involved in the Members Project run by American Express, with a chance to win up to $5,000,000 from Amex. From the mailing they sent me: DonorsChoose has just been selected as a quarter-finalist in the American Express Members Project. The prize is up to $5 million, and if we win, we'll dedicate all the…

From EurekAlert, we learn that corporate executives are a bunch of cheaters, when the incentives are right: According to the authors, "Our results demonstrate two factors substantially increase the likelihood of financial misrepresentation: extremely low performance relative to average performance in the firm's industry, and high percentages of CEO compensation in stock options." The study also determined that approximately 1 in 10 of the financial restatements examined by the authors was linked to fraud and illegal practices. Over five years, there was a 9% likelihood that a company…

The Paper of Record, unafraid to tackle the really important questions, today addresses the perennial favorite: Is it dangerous to stand near a microwave oven? You'll be happy to know that the answer is still "No." I would've preferred "No, you dolt," but you take what you can get: Although microwave ovens can in fact leak radiation, the levels that might be released are fairly minute. According to the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, a unit of the Food and Drug Administration that regulates microwave oven safety, every microwave that reaches the market must meet a requirement…

Dave at the World's Fair is trying to start a "meme" based on a Science Creative Quarterly piece about physics envy among biologists and vice versa. He's asking other science bloggers whether there's another field that they wish they were working in. While I have occasionally joked that if I had it to do over, I would become a biologist studying coral reefs, so I could justify spending my sabbaticals snorkeling in the tropics, I'm really very happy doing what I do (at least when things work). I enjoy experimental work, I like the fact that my lab is fairly self-contained, and I think AMO…

I don't read the local paper regularly, so it took a LiveJournal post to alert me to this story from the Times Union: The unannounced inspection by TSA officials took place early last week. [Albany International Airport's] security measures failed in five of seven tests, most of the problems occurring at the passenger checkpoint, the sources said. In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport…

So, you may or may not recall that last week, Matt Nisbet posted about a study purporting to show that religious people were more generous in their charitable giving than atheists. One of his commenters opted to go for the "sour grapes" response, claiming that religious charities were all stupid, and asking rhetorically: How many religious people will back programs for the poor that include sex education, birth control, access to low-cost abortions, health education, job training, home economics, how to eat better when money is tight, and so on? This annoyed me, so I asked for…

Another pop-culture question for the audience: Jason Hare, in the course of recapping a Top Ten from 1985 makes a shrewd observation: "Sussudio" was a damn catchy song in 1985 and while nobody will admit to liking it now, I guarantee you that once an indie band covers it, Stereogum will lose their shit. So, the question is, who should cover it? I'm not going to be terribly strict about the "indie" classification, as I have trouble keeping track of who has sold out these days, so let's leave it open: Some band working today is going to cover Phil Collins's "Sussudio," and it's going to be…

Pete Vonder Haar at Blog 9 from Outer Space is not enthusiastic about a Sex and the City movie. Neither am I, really, and this wouldn't rate a post except for a passing mention: At any rate, I'm sure a movie about a quartet of promiscuous 40- and 50-somethings will be much better than that Magnum P.I. adaptation Hollywood seems unable to make. That made me stop for a second. I'm aware that Hollywood is utterly unable to come up with any good original ideas these days, but so far, they've mostly remade tv shows that I either had never seen, or didn't much like when they were on (I hated The…

An insane audiophile of my acquaintance recently remarked (in a locked LiveJournal, otherwise I'd link to it) that while live classical music is clearly superior to recorded classical music, it's crazy to go to a live performance of pop music because "you're not hearing actual instruments/voices, you're hearing them miked and amplified through speakers just like you would at home," and if speakers are going to be involved, you might as well not be there. This is space-alien logic, of course, but not all that far out there as insane audiophilia goes. Remember, kids, friends don't let friends…

I still have one Hugo nominee to read, but I needed to take a break between Glasshouse and Blindsight, so I rewarded myself with the latest in Steven Erikson's epic Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Reaper's Gale. We're still a few books behind in the US, so this is a gigantic UK trade paperback that I got as a birthday present. There's really not much point in doing a highly detailed entry on this, because it's the seventh book in a series of books that average about 800 pages (this one is 907, not counting the character list and glossary). If you've read this far, you're obviously…

The slow-motion "meme" of the moment is this "eight things about yourself" list. Doctor Pion tagged me a while back, but I've been bad about actually responding, because I'm lazy. This seems like a good weekend topic, though, so here are some random facts about me (I'll try not to repeat any from previous versions of this sort of thing: I have horrible eyesight, and wear Coke-bottle glasses when I'm not wearing contact lenses (as I am in the picture at left). Once, in college, a guy I played rugby with looked through my glasses and exclaimed "What, did your parents lose a bet with God?" I…

Andre at Biocurious points out an interesting piece in Nature. They interviewed four prominent SF authors--Paul McAuley, Ken Macleod, Joan Slonczewski, and Peter Watts about biology in science fiction. The resulting article is a good read, with lots of interesting anecdotes and examples, and if you go to the supplementary information page for the article, you can get a longer version, including bits that were cut out of the print edition. That is, of course, assuming that you are surfing the Web from an institution that happens to have a site license for Nature, or have a personal…

Inside Higher Ed reports today on a new brainstrom from the ETS With criticism growing that standardized tests and grades fail to convey the full picture of applicants, the Educational Testing Service is preparing a standardized way for graduate schools to consider students' non-cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Under the "Personal Potential Index," which was developed at the request of the advisory board for the Graduate Record Exam, three or four professors or supervisors would answer a series of questions about candidates' non-cognitive skills in various areas, as well as a more general…

I know, it's "Live Earth," but they've got this giant blue-green circle at the left of their logo, which makes it look like an illuminated initial capital... So, the latest charity rock specatcle is scheduled to start tonight. I can't say I've been paying any attention-- I only noticed it today because the New York Times had a feature article about the event that somehow slipped into the "Science" RSS feed. I'm pretty ambivalent about the giant charity rock spectacle. Of course, as a good child of the 80's, I remember the Live Aid shows, but I can't say I was all that invested in those,…

"Ahhhh... summer at last. No more classes. No more committee meetings. Do you realize what this means?" "Ummmmm.... no. What does it mean? What are we going to do this summer, Brain?" "The same thing we do every summer.... Try to do PUBLISHABLE RESEARCH!!!" ------------ "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so, Brain, but diffusion pump oil is all stinky and viscous, and won't the chickens get upset?" "You are the very quantum of imbecility, Pinky." ------------- "The first step in our plan is to use a grating-locked diode laser to-- yes, Pinky?" "Um, Brain?" "Professor Brain." "Um…

Just in time to drive parents into a panic for the rest of the summer, the New York Times has a big article about sunscreen: Dr. [James] Spencer [a dermatologist in Florida] said that an S.P.F. 15 product screens about 94 percent of UVB rays while an S.P.F. 30 product screens 97 percent. Manufacturers determine the S.P.F. by dividing how many minutes it takes lab volunteers to burn wearing a thick layer of the product by the minutes they take to burn without the product. But people rarely get the level of S.P.F. listed because labels do not explain how much to use, said Dr. Vincent A. DeLeo…

I suppose I really ought to say something about the "demonstration" of Steorn's perpetual motion machine that's supposed to start today, but, really, I don't have much to say. I mean, if they were claiming that their device extracted free energy from extra dimensions thanks to their revolutionary new theory of quantum gravity, I might need to think about it for a few seconds before dismissing it as crap, but that's not their claim: Orbo is based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. The core output from our Orbo technology is mechanical. This mechanical energy…

Looking back at the archives, I see that I never did get around to blogging about Jennifer Ouellette's Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, which I finished back in May. This is a particularly shameful oversight, as she visited campus in late May, and gave two excellent talks for us, so the least I can do is to post a measly book review. Jennifer Ouellette (pronounced "Woah-lette," more or less, in case you were wondering) should be no stranger to regular readers of this blog, as I fairly regularly link to her blog, Cocktail Party Physics. If you're not reading it, you ought to be. And if you are…