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Displaying results 55401 - 55450 of 112149
Harris vs. Winston on Science and Faith
The Guardian has an interesting dialogue between Sam Harris and Robert Winston on the subject of science and faith. I have some problems with both gentlemen, but, surprise!, I have bigger problems with Winston. Let's consider some excerpts. Harris first: Religious language is, without question, unscientific in its claims for what is true. We have Christians believing in the holy ghost, the resurrection of Jesus and his possible return -- these are claims about biology and physics which, from a scientific point of view in the 21st century, should be unsustainable. I certainly agree with…
The Army, The Department of Veterans Affairs, and Miscommunication
Back on January 29th, NPR aired a story that claimed that the Army had taken steps to keep Veterans Administration workers from helping soldiers with their Army disability paperwork. Since then, there have been some new revelations, including a document that indicates that the Army Surgeon General was at best ignorant of all the facts, and at worst dishonest, when he was first interviewed by NPR. After listening to the NPR stories, and (more importantly) reading the documentary evidence they presented, I think that their report clearly illuminates some serious problems with the care of…
Has another celebrity embraced quackery?
I never in a million years thought I’d be writing a blog post involving Selena Gomez. Gomez, as many, if not most, of you are probably aware is currently a young pop star and actress who got her start as a child actress. Oddly enough, she was on Barney & Friends with Demi Lovato. These days, Gomez specializes in the variety of overproduced, lightweight pop that I don’t really listen to, although, ever since I subscribed to Apple Music, I’ve been known to listen to songs by performers like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato just to see if I could figure out why they’re so popular. So far, I…
Sal Strikes Again! Fourier Transforms and Advanced Creation Science
Astute readers will remember a couple of encounters I had with Sal Cordova from Uncommon Descent a few months ago (here, in the comments, and here). Not too long after that, Sal made a fairly big deal about the fact that he was returning to grad school, and had to stop blogging at UD because the dastardly darwinists would damage his academic prospects if he continued. He played the standard creationist-martyr role, poor guy, persecuted by all the horrible non-believers. Naturally, it didn't last long. He's got his own blog now, called "Young Cosmos", where he writes his usually pathetic…
Blondes have more fear
Blonde children exhibit more fear response? A new paper reports: ...Hair pigmentation was found to be significantly associated with behavioral inhibition in the sense that blond children exhibited higher fear scores. As in American samples, blue-eyed children had a higher fear score than did other children, but this difference was not statistically significant. Jerome Kagan has reported these sort of findings before. Coloration is a funny trait, for example, there is now evidence that Europeans are highly constrained on one locus which affects complexion, while being high polymorphic on…
ASPM & Microcephalin & tonal languages?
Note: The authors have a website which summarizes their research (via Language Log). Speaking in tones? Blame it on your genes: People who carry particular variants of two genes involved in brain development tend to speak nontonal languages such as English, while those with a different genetic profile are more likely to speak tonal languages such as Chinese. In tonal languages, which are most common in South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, subtle differences in pitch can change the meaning of vowels, consonants and syllables. Nontonal languages, which prevail in Europe, the Middle East and…
Morality, Utility, and Defending Evolution
Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance, in an excellent post, argues that much of the opposition to evolution stems from opposition to (mis)perceived liberal elites (bold original; italics mine): What scientists tend to underestimate is the extent to which many people react viscerally against science just because it is science. Or, more generally, because it is seen as part of an effort on the part of elites to force their worldview on folks who are getting along just fine without all these fancy ideas, thank you very much. In the old-time (1980's) controversies about teaching creationism in…
IPCC: Media Friendly?
Here's three quotes from today's IPCC press conference, which I transcribed straight from the webcast (hence the wacky grammar). The first two are from Dr. Susan Solomon, co-chair of the report committee and an NOAA researcher, an eminent scientist whom I hold in very high regard, not least for her role in getting this report through the intergovernmental committee with its forceful language intact. In the first quote, Dr. Solomon unfortunately doesn't answer the reporter's question in "layman's terms," which it clearly required. In the second, she makes a good point about the IPCC's role in…
Swine flu: cruise to nowhere
As flu season ramps up in the southern hemisphere, the US, Europe and Asia are keeping an eye on it to see what will happen as swine flu finds new pieces of meat to sate its appetite for human flesh. Sorry about the overheated image. I've been reading what's going on in Australia. Because another lesson the southern hemisphere can teach us is how not to react to a pandemic virus. Consider the Carnival Cruise Line ship, Pacific Dawn. It docked three days ago in Sydney onroute to the Great Barrier Reef to take on new passengers and let off others. But then, according to news reports (but see…
Obama, JFK and the sixties
Does the Obama candidacy signal a return of "the sixties"? It's possible. What does that mean? Even those us who were there remember the sixties imperfectly. Not because we were permanently stoned. Memory is selective. We remember it as better than it was. We were young, and that makes a difference.Yet, as tristero observes over at Digby's place, the sixties were not just a time of flowering creativity and the securing of new freedoms, but also a terrible, difficult and dark time for anyone who had any political awareness. The run-up to the sixties was in fact much like the last few years.…
Dead ducks, live ducks and bird flu [updated]
Hard on the heels of my semi-facetious prediction that bird flu would return to Germany because Germany had declared itself bird flu free, the Swiss announced an infected wild duck on the shores of Lake Sempach. Since this duck didn't have a passport on him I am sure he never strayed over the nearby border with Germany. We don't know what kind of duck this was [see update, below], a question that is of surprising interest in light of a new paper. Bird flu is avian influenza, i.e., an infection of birds by the influenza virus. The role of wild migratory birds versus human caused movement of…
Blowing the whistle on blowing the whistle on whistle blowers at NIEHS
You wonder when they will ever learn -- or IF they will ever learn. In the wake of yesterday's announcement that the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. David Schwartz, will step aside while NIH does an inquiry into allegations of turmoil at the institute and management irregularities, comes a letter sent to NIEHS employees -- and as far as we know only NIEHS employees -- asking for reporting of any contacts with Congress: Employees of the National Institutes of Health in North Carolina are being asked to report all contacts with Congress - a request that…
From the dentist's chair, remembering how they cried wolf
"Snazzy safety glasses," I said to the dental hygienist who was just about to ask me to open wide. Something about the pink rims caught my eye and led me to a remark that showed my age: "I remember when dentists didn't wear gloves, or masks, or eye protection." I not only recall the bare hands of my dentist circa 1970-1980, I also remember the hullabaloo from dentists when new federal regulations were proposed in 1989 requiring them to provide such protection for their hygienists. At the time, the term "AIDS' was less than 10 years old, and exposure to HIV in the U.S. was considered a…
Lessons from Boston about the role of community preparedness
The New Yorker's News Desk blog features an excellent piece by Atul Gawande called "Why Boston's Hospitals Were Ready." It's a riveting read about how emergency medical teams, the city's emergency command center, and hospital staff all responded immediately and with admirable coordination to the needs of those injured in the bomb blast at the Boston Marathon: The explosions took place at 2:50 P.M., twelve seconds apart. Medical personnel manning the runners’ first-aid tent swiftly converted it into a mass-casualty triage unit. Emergency medical teams mobilized en masse from around the city,…
Obama, JFK and the sixties
by revere (originally posted at Effect Measure) Does the Obama candidacy signal a return of "the sixties"? It's possible. What does that mean? Even those us who were there remember the sixties imperfectly. Not because we were permanently stoned. Memory is selective. We remember it as better than it was. We were young, and that makes a difference.Yet, as tristero observes over at Digby's place, the sixties were not just a time of flowering creativity and the securing of new freedoms, but also a terrible, difficult and dark time for anyone who had any political awareness. The run-up to the…
Swine flu: cruise to nowhere
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure As flu season ramps up in the southern hemisphere, the US, Europe and Asia are keeping an eye on it to see what will happen as swine flu finds new pieces of meat to sate its appetite for human flesh. Sorry about the overheated image. I've been reading what's going on in Australia. Because another lesson the southern hemisphere can teach us is how not to react to a pandemic virus. Consider the Carnival Cruise Line ship, Pacific Dawn. It docked three days ago in Sydney onroute to the Great Barrier Reef to take on new passengers and let off others.…
Tribalism, Cultural Cognition, Ideology, we're all talking about the same thing here
From Revkin I see yet another attempt to misunderstand the problem of communicating science vs anti-science. The author, Dan Kahan, summarizes his explanation for the science communication problem, as well as 4 other "not so good" explanations in this slide: He then describes "Identity-protective cognition" thus: Identity-protective cognition (a species of motivated reasoning) reflects the tendency of individuals to form perceptions of fact that promote their connection to, and standing in, important groups. There are lots of instances of this. Consider sports fans who genuinely see…
Tumors in a (quack) human stem cell therapy
It's almost like a bad Yakov Smirnoff joke, "In America you test therapies in animals before giving them to humans, in Russia..." All I can do is wonder, what were they thinking? Injecting stem cells into a kid's spinal fluid to correct a genetic disorder? Are they insane? Stem cells, in particular embryonic and fetal stem cells, are useful because they represent cells that are less differentiated than the cells that are working at specific functions throughout your body. Another result of being stem cells is that they are able to divide and proliferate without differentiating or…
Migraines prevent breast cancer!!!!!!!
When reporting on science, reporters and editors like sexy stories. Since most science isn't particularly sexy, there's usually a hook. If you can squeeze "risk" and "cancer" into a headline, an editor sees good headline. What I usually see is a sensationalist article that is going to get it very wrong. One of the questions most often asked in the medical literature is "what is the risk of x?" It's a pretty important question. I'd like to be able to tell my patient with high blood pressure what their risk of heart attack is, both with and without treatment. And risk is a sexy topic---the…
Eating can be bad for your health. Oh, and don't forget the phages.
Sure, we have obesity problems in this country, but we also have more direct food safety problems. Summer has brought with it news of the bungled tomato-Salmonella affair, and now, from the Midwest, contaminated beef. One of our local supermarket chains has been forced to recall hamburger meat because of over a dozen cases of E. coli-related disease. These cases have occurred over a wide area, and the bacteria are genetically linked, indicating a likely common source. erv handed me some legitimate criticism regarding my very brief post on diarrhea. It was certainly not my intention to…
World Water Week: What's in Your Tap?
By Liz Borkowski Aman at Technology, Health & Development reminds us that itâs World Water Week, and provides a great collection of water-related links for the occasion. Several of the articles are about a backlash against bottled water â apparently, a critical mass of people has just discovered that a) tap water is often as clean, if not cleaner, than bottled water and b) that buying bottled water is wasteful. Now that weâre all quenching our thirst with tap water again, this might be a good time to look at a few concerns that have been arising about municipal water supplies. Angry…
New and Exciting in PLoS ONE
There are 10 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Mineral Preservatives in the Wood of Stradivari and Guarneri: Following the futile efforts of generations to reach the high standard of excellence achieved by the luthiers in Cremona, Italy, by variations of design…
Report reveals fatal lapses in UCLA lab safety leading to death of 23 year-old lab tech
A previously confidential report prepared by the California Bureau of Investigations (BOI) reveals a reckless disregard for worker safety by a UCLA chemistry professor (and the university itself) which led to the 2009 death of research assistant Sheri Sangji, 23. Sangji was a new employee in a UCLA chemistry lab. She was hired primarily to set up lab equipment, but on Dec. 29, 2008 she was assigned to use a highly reactive liquid that spontaneously ignites when exposed to air. The BOI report calls into question UCLA's claims that the young woman was a trained and experienced chemist. The LA…
Special interest groups and White House stalling worker safety rule
During his first week in office, President Obama promised an Administration defined by "unprecedented level of openness...to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration." But that's not been the case when it comes to a draft worker safety rule developed by federal OSHA. Almost all the participation has been among special interest groups--not the ordinary workers who have the most at stake---and not in a public process that builds trust and is participatory. The proposed regulation would affect workers exposed to respirable…
They do everything
By way of Over My Med Body, I found this article that finds new virtues for seafood: it reduces anti-social behavior. This is great news! I plan to announce when I'm feeling cranky here at the Myers household, which will prompt an immediate serving of tasty salmon. I'm going to be eating fish every day! Well, maybe not…I'm really not that cranky. But it is yet another piece touting the virtues of polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially the essential ω-3 fatty acids in which sea food is rich, so it reinforces my preferences, anyway. Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids do have a record of…
Recent Archaeomags
Current Archaeology #273 (Dec) has an interesting feature on an 18th century ship of the line found hidden as a construction kit under the floor of a workshop at a naval dockyard in Kent. The timbers were re-used, but not in an economically or structurally rational way. Instead the greatest possible amount of ship's timbers had been crammed in under the floor. Markings on them and historical records identify the ship as the HMS Namur, famous in its time for the battles it fought. It was launched in 1756 and broken up in 1833-34. Investigators have put forward an interesting suggestion as to…
Stephen Carter on the ACLU
I came across this interesting article in Christianity Today by Stephen Carter. Carter is a professor at the Yale Law School and a devout Christian who generally opposes the ACLU's establishment clause position. But he writes in Christianity Today against the unprincipled demonization of the ACLU by so many of his fellow Christians. He begins by pointing out that while he disagrees with the ACLU on many establishment clause issues, when it comes to free exercise issues they are generally correct: I would like to say a word in defense of the American Civil Liberties Union. Christians--…
DaveScot's Perfect Storm of Buffoonery
You've gotta hand it to DaveScot - when he goes down, he does so while ducking directly into the punch. Here's his absolutely perfect reply to everyone who pointed out that he fell for a scam. I could not have written it to make him look more ridiculous if I'd done so myself. You could not have intelligently designed this kind of hilarity; it can only arise spontaneously: To everyone who's pointed out that the ACLU story is a fabrication according to snopes.com - that's hardly the point. The pictures of Marines praying are real. The fighting and dying to protect the interests of the United…
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Or, A child's garden of wikipedia, part 2. I've been banned from WUWT, after exposing too many of his errors. Although naturally AW doesn't phrase it quite like that. Also, he didn't much like me not showing the adoration that he gets from his fanbois either. Indeed, presumably in an effort to pretend that there is no censorship, AW can't even bring himself to say "banned": instead preferring the Orwellian you have been dis-invited from further commentary here. Even that may disappear if it becomes too inconvenient, so you can see a webcited version here. The cause of all this (dismissing as…
Carbon cycle feedbacks: tiptoeing forwards
This is me, tiptoeing towards the spotters guide to bloggers I promised. But I've been distracted, because I was pointed at Climate scientist: "Positive carbon-climate feedback is still very likely" -- and even without "a runaway feedback," warming will be "substantial and critical" Plus a review of recent research on amplifying feedbacks at ClimateProgress. I think most of it is by Brad Johnston, but there is an addendum by Romm. So, what is wrong with it? First off, you have to wade through too much foam to get to the substance, which puts me in a bad mood. Once you know the structure of…
How Sure are we that the Big Bang is Correct?
Recently, a discussion started in one of my comment threads about whether the Big Bang was necessarily valid or not, and whether there were any reasonable alternatives. The answer is that not only is the Big Bang the best theory to explain the start and evolution of the Universe, it's the only one that doesn't make incorrect predictions. Let's see this in action. This all started in the late 1920s, when we realized that spiral nebulae were not just galaxies, but that these other galaxies were nearly all moving away from us. Moreover, the ones that were farther away from us were moving away…
A shot to prevent HIV-- Maybe.
Long-time readers of ERV know that I am not a fan of Pre-Exposure Prophylactics as a regular means of preventing HIV infection. In tightly controlled clinical trials, giving people who might be exposed to HIV anti-HIV drugs does lower infection rates... but when the same protocol is let loose 'out in the wild', the results are not as good. Some are disastrously bad. And thats just following infection rates-- Thats not even addressing the long-term effects sub-optimal levels of antiretrovirals has on the HIV population. A major problem with 'The Pill' to prevent HIV is that people do not take…
Ricky Gervais: AIDS vs Rabies
I dont know why he took it down, but Ricky Gervais Tweeted the following a few days ago: Any virologists or medical experts out there? What WOULD win out of AIDS & Rabies? Maybe he took it down because he thought it was insensitive or something, but I think its a totally normal, valid question for a layman to have! What WOULD win out of AIDS & Rabies steel-cage death-match???? First, a clarification. AIDS is the syndrome caused by infection by HIV-1. HIV-1 is the virus, not AIDS :) Who would win in an HIV-1 vs rabies battle depends on how they are 'battling', and what signifies a '…
XMRV and Autism: Worst internet meme since Milhouse
The very first red flag that something was very, very wrong with the 'XMRV=CFS' paper went up before the actual paper was published. On the woo-rag Huffington Post, the anti-vaxer David Kirby posted a very, very odd comment from the lead researcher on the paper, Judy Mikovits: And then Dr. Mikovits dropped a bombshell that is sure to spark controversy. "On that note, if I might speculate a little bit," she said, "This might even explain why vaccines would lead to autism in some children, because these viruses live and divide and grow in lymphocytes -- the immune response cells, the B and the…
Weekend Diversion: The Methuselah of Mars
"In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it." -John Archibald Wheeler Sometimes, things get difficult. Sometimes, there are challenges you have to face that you never even expected, much less were prepared for. And sometimes, it seems like there's no point in even holding on to hope that things will get better. But as long, as The National would tell you, as you're no Runaway, you've still got something worth striving for. Even if there's something newer, shinier, and more powerful than you. Image credit: NASA / Hubble Space Telescope. Even on Mars. Nine years (and three…
Teacher Compensation
On Friday, Steinn was playing dictator of the universe, and presented a modest proposal to reform US public education. It's a mix of pretty good idea and cosmetic changes to make things more like Europe, and I agree with a good deal of it. I do want to highlight one thing, though: Teachers could probably do with being paid better, and they could also probably do with being quality controlled a little better. Teachers in middle and high schools ought to have BA/BSc degrees in their fields, with MEds or equivalent for pedagogy. This is particularly interesting, in light of Sunday's New York…
What to See in Japan?
The 2007 World Science Fiction Convention will be held in Yokohama, Japan this year, and Kate and I are going. It's a bit of a delayed celebration for my tenure-- I'll be on sabbatical in the Fall, so I won't need to worry about prepping a class for September, and we can make it a nice vacation. We're planning to spend about three weeks there, and have most of the itinerary sketched out (details below the fold), but there's a little time left unaccounted for. I'm pretty sure there are people reading this from Japan, and I know there are lots of people who have more knowledge of the country…
Why do you think they call it "dope"?
I had mentioned earlier the discovery of Morris the Jewish hardware store owner and Mr. Bryne the Jewish department store owner. There are two ways in which Jewish people seemed to play a disproportionate role in the retail world when I was growing up. In fact, there was an overarching ethnicity to much of the business community; Diners tended to have been owned by Greeks, sit down restaurants tended to be Italian; and clothing and textile stores Jewish. In those days, much of the clothing worn by my mother and sisters was made by my mother on her sewing machine using patterns she'd buy at…
Links for 2009-11-17
Why Wine Ratings Are Badly Flawed - WSJ.com "[A] 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more. There are eight in this description, from The Wine News of a Silverado Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 that sells for more than $100 a bottle: "Dusty, chalky scents followed by mint, plum, tobacco and leather. Tasty cherry with smoky oak accents..." Another publication, The Wine Advocate, describes a wine…
Bloggers vs. Journalists, Aleph-Nought in a Series
What with one thing and another, I didn't watch this week's Bloggingheads Science Saturday-- Kate's parents were visiting, and then there was the Snowpocalypse, and I have book edits to finish, and I don't enjoy the John Horgan/ George Johnson pairing all that much. Apparently, I really missed out, because three-quarters of the way through, Johnson uncorks a rant about a past episode featuring Ed Yong and Abbie Smith, where they said something about science journalism that he took the wrong way. This has, predictably enough, turned into yet another blogospheric kerfuffle. I believe Brian's…
Creationism evolves by jerks
I think one thing Razib says is exactly right: One of the most interesting things to me is the nature of Creationism as an idea which evolves in a rather protean fashion in reaction to the broader cultural selection pressures. Creationism has evolved significantly, but it's not exactly protean: it's punctuated equilibrium. If we had a time machine and could bring a typical creationist who came to age after Whitcomb and Morris's The Genesis Flood face-to-face with a pre-Scopes trial creationist, there would be a fabulously ferocious fight, because their theology and their basic beliefs would…
Conscientious objection by health professionals: day two
Yesterday's discussion of a pharmacist's right to refuse filling prescriptions based on moral or legal grounds generated some great discussion. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion of the commenters as well as two posts on the topic by Prof Janet Stemwedel. The first draws from her older post on the topic nearly two years ago, illustrating that we haven't come very far in this debate. As Janet noted then Obviously, we've got a tug-of-war here between the moral convictions of the health care professionals and the moral convictions of the patients. I'm also going to quote Janet heavily…
Inventing Relativity, 1860s style
By the 1860s, the classical theory of electricity and magnetism was on a very solid theoretical footing. Maxwell's equations describing the interplay of charges and currents with electric and magnetic fields were on paper by 1862, and with some changes in notation they're the exact same today. Relativity wouldn't be invented for another half-century or so, and that makes it all the more remarkable that Maxwell's equations don't actually need to be modified at all to work in a relativistic framework. Lorentz covariance is built right in, though it's a bit hidden. But Maxwell and Faraday and…
Confirming Aesop - rooks use stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher
Aesop's fable "The Crow and the Pitcher" has been confirmed in a wonderful experiment. In the classic tale, a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher until it rises within reach of its beak. This is no mere fiction - rooks, close relatives of crows, have the brains to actually do this. The aptly named Chris Bird, along with Nathan Emery, gave four captive rooks (Cook, Fry, Connelly and Monroe) a chance to reach a small worm floating in a cylinder of water, with nothing but a small pile of stones sitting on the side. All of them solved the task, and Cook and Fry…
Sleeping on it - how REM sleep boosts creative problem-solving
The German chemist Friedrich Kekule claimed to have intuited the chemical structure of the benzene ring after falling asleep in his chair and dreaming of an ouroboros (a serpent biting its own tail). He's certainly not the only person to have discovered a flash insight after waking from a good sleep. In science alone, many breakthroughs were apparently borne of a decent snooze, including Mendeleyev's creation of the Periodic Table and Loewi's experiments on the transmission of nervous signals through chemical messengers. Most of us have tried sleeping on a difficult problem before and using…
City mockingbirds can tell the difference between individual people
While the rapid expansion of human cities has been detrimental for most animals, some have found ways of exploiting these brave new worlds and learned to live with their prolific inhabitants. The Northern mockingbird is one such species. It's very common in cities all over America's east coast, where it frequently spends time around humans. But Douglas Levey from the University of Florida has found that its interactions with us are more complex than anyone would have guessed. The mockingbird has the remarkable ability to tell the difference between individual humans, regardless of the…
Human hunters unwittingly shrink their prey species at incredible rates
As a species, our unflinching obsession with size is just as apparent in our dealings with other animals as it is in our personal lives. Fishermen prize the biggest catches and they're are obliged to throw the smallest specimens back in. Hunters also value the biggest kills; they provide the most food and make the flashiest trophies. This fixation isn't just a harmless one - by acting as a size-obsessed super-predator, humans are reshaping the bodies of the species we hunt, at a remarkable pace and to a dramatic degree. Predators already put a lot of pressure on their prey to evolve new ways…
Silly Rabbit, Commodities Tricks Are For Kids
This is a little off the beaten path, but it's a silly little diversion with some classic "the press lacks numeracy skills" complaints as a bonus. Thomas Frank writing in the Wall Street Journal has written a rather wild piece - One Cross of Gold, Coming Up: How the government could get even with right-wing cranks. It's mainly in a Modest Proposal sort of vein; I don't expect he's even a little serious. Still, fun to take a look at. His proposal runs more or less as follows: 1. All those right wing cranks are hoarding stashes of gold. 2. The federal government has lots of gold in Fort…
Another Greenlandic Saga: Are we getting a break on global warming?
A story on the fate of Greenland's ice sheet published last week in The Guardian attracted the expected level of interest from those who uncritically repeat any scientific tidbit that reminds us we still don't know everything we need to know about climate change. This was because the story, as written, implied the ice sheet isn't as sensitive to global warming as is popularly thought. Something about the story didn't seem exactly right to me, though. For one thing, it was based not on a peer-reviewed paper but a presentation to the recent scientific meeting on climate change in Copenhagen.…
Fantasy Journals like Fantasy Football
This is genius. These guys are proposing that we construct Fantasy Journals -- drafted sets of journal articles -- at meetings and scientific gatherings sort of like Fantasy Football. Each player would get access to say all the papers to be presented at the meeting (or a more limited number if that is too many). Your journal is selected from that number, and the winner is determined at the next year's meeting by the citation numbers for your papers. Bergstrom et al. list the possible benefits: This is a game that one would win by being good at picking the soon-to-be hot papers. Our lab…
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