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What's Your Elf Name?

tags: elf name, online quiz This is an absolutely silly online quiz, but that doesn't stop me from playing with it anyway, nor should it stop you! Your Elf Name Is... Spicy Stocking Stuffer What's Your Elf Name?

Microbiologists: be your own media

Chris Condayan, ASM's public outreach and media guru (and the guy behind the scenes of MicrobeWorld), has an editorial in the latest issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology. Cleverly titled "Culture media," Condayan encourages microbiologists to get involved sharing their knowledge online (and gives examples of ways they can do so). He notes: As long as the internet remains free from regulation, every microbiologist has just as much access to online distribution as the BBC and CNN do. And in this day and age, if you don't start sharing knowledge and news online, you may run the risk of…

Homeowners Association Backs Down

I just got an email from the Thomas More Law Center. Apparently the family in Novi that was being told to take down their nativity scene contacted them and they threatened the HOA with a lawsuit. The HOA backed down and told them they don't have to take it down. Doesn't much matter to me either way, but that's what happened. Update: The Detroit News is reporting about it and some of the article is quite amusing. Like this guy: Anthony J. Dickow lives in the same Tollgate Woods subdivision as the Samona family and says the story has "stirred my blood and I am outraged!" "Let's say I wasn't a…

ScienceOnline2010 - Program highlights 7

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Sunday, January 17 at 9:00-10:05am: A. Earth Science, Web 2.0+, and Geospatial Applications - Jacqueline Floyd and Chris Rowan Description: We will discuss online and mobile applications for earth science research, including solid earth, ocean, and atmosphere subtopics. Current topics planned for discussion are Google Earth for geospatial applications, iPhone and other mobile applications, collaboration tools such as Google Wave, and cloud computing platforms such as Amazon's EC2 for…

Buy Me That Toy!

tags: Hamburger Make Up Artistry, food porn, Buy Me That, streaming video This is another video in the Buy Me That series, which is designed to teach kids how to think critically about the television commercials they are constantly bombarded with. In this episode, we see some kids playing with a toy that turns out to be the opposite of what it is advertised to be. Perhaps this video should be required viewing for all kids in the weeks before Christmas?

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is a Real Book!

Look! How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is a real book: Emmy says, very seriously, "You will buy a copy, won't you?" Of course, like everything else in this house, SteelyKid had to grab a copy: She whipped through to the last page pretty fast: Emmy says "What'd you think, human puppy?" SteelyKid says "If I knew how to read, Daddy's book would be my favorite book ever. People who can read should definitely buy it." You heard the kid and the dog...

A few questions about final exams.

Someone forgot to tell our department photocopier that finals started today; rather than being a vengeful photocopier toying with the pitiful mortals in its thrall, it was a happy photocopier that photocopied my final exams beautifully. And since I wasn't clearing any cryptic paper jams, my mind wandered into the question of how others approach final exams: Multiple choice, essay, something in between, or a combination of question formats? Scantron forms? Blue books? (If so, do the students have to buy them or does the prof provide them?) In-class or take-home? Open book or closed book?…

Can I get a loan on that?

So Orac is worth $3590 and Janet tunes in at $4875 Me? I’m worth $4050.00. Dead though. $4050.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating Mingle2 - Free Online Dating

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna

As graphic novels go, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth is every bit as good as Maus or Watchmen, if not quite as game-changing. The only other things out there that I can think of that are similar are Chester Brown's Louis Riel or Ho Che Anderson's King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. That's high praise and it's well deserved. So what's Logicomix all about? The core is the story of Bertrand Russell's and his work -- the search for the foundations of mathematics, the most basic kind of truth: logic. His search takes us through the history of mathematics and philosophy in…

Hybrids vs. Hummers

Via a mailing list, Reason magazine has an article claiming that SUV's are better for the environment than hybrid cars: Spinella spent two years on the most comprehensive study to date - dubbed "Dust to Dust" -- collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a car from the initial conception to scrappage. He even included in the study such minutia as plant-to-dealer fuel costs of each vehicle, employee driving distances, and electricity usage per pound of material. All this data was then boiled down to an "energy cost per mile" figure for each car (see here…

Early O'Brien Award Candidate

If you want to read something so stupid it will make you shake your head in amazement that anyone would publish it, try this ridiculous cautionary tale from the year 2030, as a man tells his grandson about the good old days when you could buy Christmas wrapping paper and say "Merry Christmas" without being arrested. And it's written by a freaking Rabbi, who laments that Americans didn't "take to the streets" to stop people from saying "Happy Holidays." The fact that it isn't a parody or meant ironically only shows how utterly moronic it is.

Buy The Dragon Never Sleeps! Buy it Now!

Amazon conveniently informed me today of a very positive development in SF: Night Shade Books is republishing Glen Cook's space opera novel The Dragon Never Sleeps, which I reviewed quite some time ago. I've re-read it since then, and if anything, my opinion of it improved. It's "New Space Opera" written years before there was such a thing. You can pre-order it from Amazon or get it direct from the publisher, but if you like Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Neal Asher, and that sort of crowd, you should buy this at once. It's terrific.

How much I'll be worth when I'm dead...

I'm not sure whether this is reassuring or depressing. $3590.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating Mingle2 - Free Online Dating So...how much is your cadaver worth? (Found via Attuworld.)

Science wants to reward good online science education resources

If you've been building a site for science education, you'll want to looking into this: The Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE). The Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE) has been established to encourage innovation and excellence in education, as well as to encourage the use of high-quality on-line resources by students, teachers, and the public. In 2009, the prize will recognize outstanding projects from all regions of the world that bring freely available online resources to bear on science education. Winning projects should reinforce one or more of…

Doctors and the potential pitfalls of an online presence

Everyone who uses the internet leaves some sort of footprint, even if it's just a string of visited addresses. This presence is magnified if you've ever been in the news, been listed on a website (e.g., as faculty), or if you write a blog. Social networking sites such as facebook and Twitter add a whole new dimension of online presence. Everyone should be concerned about what their online presence says about them (if your public Amazon wish list is full of sex toys, for example...) but physicians should have special concerns which fall into some broad categories. First, we'll briefly…

DNA sequencing as a school project: how do you get started?

A few days ago, I wrote about a cool project that some high school students did where they used DNA sequencing to identify seafood. One question that came up from one of my commenters was how a school would start a project like this. I'm totally biased, but I think DNA sequencing (well, actually the data analysis) is one of the most interesting things that a class can do as part of a research project. These days, getting started with this kind of project, wouldn't be so hard. Here's are some ways that I would get started: Find an existing project where my students could collaborate and…

Swedish Rules for Archaeological Finds

Linnea, one of the Salto sobrius regulars, asked two questions today on the Swedish archaeology mailing list that would be in my archaeology FAQ if I had one. Who owns an archaeological find made by a member of the public?Is it legal to sell archaeological finds? Here's how things work in Sweden, which to my knowledge has the world's strongest legal protection for sites and finds. The first thing to note is that all sites known to the National Heritage Board are protected. This protection isn't tiered like in England: to explain to you Brits, let's say that a Swedish site automatically…

I have very little sole

I have concluded that Jerry Coyne is the Imelda Marcos of evolutionary biology. I want to see a photo of the boot wing of his palatial mansion…or maybe he has a dedicated Boot Garage attached to his home, accessed by a fireman's slide and a bullet train? I confess to some disgraceful philistinery, in contrast. I tend to buy one pair of cheap tennis shoes and wear them into the ground, at which time I throw them out and buy another cheap pair. Some day I might have to acquire some style, I suppose.

Friday Grey Matters: Why Are Pet Birds Banded?

If you buy a parrot from a breeder in America, chances are it has a small metal ring around its leg. My African Grey, Pepper, also has one of these (I call it his "bling.") I'd never really given it a lot of thought, but have recently become curious as to why it is placed on a captive bird and what the code on it means. A closed band appears to be a flat solid piece of metal wrapped around the bird's leg. It may have letters and numbers embossed in the surface. Most breeders eventually start banding the baby birds they raise. Banding is a good idea because it shows that the babies have been…

Deep-Sea Creatures Are Nazis

I don't buy it but... In an issue of Superman released early in 1943, the superhero protects American navy ships from deep-sea creatures under the control of a Nazi agent. Superman manages to defeat the creatures and their master when the whistle used to control the monsters breaks and they turn on him. I know a lot of deep-sea creatures, a few are even my friends, and this is just slander.

ScienceOnline'09 - Education sessions

Today, instead of introducing people, I will introduce a session, or two or three. Feedback from participants of the last two conferences indicated a lot of interest in sessions relevant to science educators at all levels. At both the 1st and the 2nd conference, we had one session on using blogs in the classroom. But this time, we want to heed the calls and provide, if possible, three such sessions, each targeting a somewhat different audience. So, if you go to the conference wiki and check the Program page, you will see the following three sessions listed there: Online science for the…

Researchers use Ebola to study the news media’s role as a vector of fear

Analyzing online searches and social media activity has often been suggested as a way to track and maybe even predict the spread of diseases. And it’s a great idea — if it’s done right, it could offer public health workers real-time surveillance and a jumpstart at containing dangerous outbreaks. But there’s a hitch. How can we attempt to decipher between online activity triggered by the possibility of actual disease symptoms and online activity triggered by simple curiosity? That was the question Sherry Towers and her colleagues set out to answer. At the very least, they wanted to gain some…

Students Debate "Internet & Community," Part B

This spring in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. (See reading list.) For many college students who grew up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously…

Heck of a job, FEMA

This morning we discussed mosquito-borne disease in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But arboviruses are not the only potential hazard faced by displaced hurricane residents. There is also the dreaded FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), an agency that didn't do so many things it should of and did do many they shouldn't have. Like providing 120,000 trailers to residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, many of which off gas formaldehyde into the living space, making the occupants sick. 60,000 trailers are still be used. Formaldehyde is the main ingredient in embalming…

Recent Archaeomags

British Archaeology #122 (Jan/Feb) has a good feature on the origins of Roman London, presenting and collating evidence from excavations in the 90s and 00s for a military camp immediately post-dating the AD 43 invasion of Britain. The editors have slapped a silly headline on the thing though, playing up a short passage about human heads deposited in the Walbrook stream as if this were the main issue dealt with in the piece. The unsigned last page discusses the important work of Raimund Karl (in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice Oct 2011; read it on-line), who has compared the…

Buy Nothing Day

MTV is taking some heat for its refusal to broadcast an advertisment for Buy Nothing Day. MTV, the channel that markets itself to hip youth, has decreed that our Buy Nothing Day public service spot "goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels". Gangsta rap and sexualized, semi-naked school girls are okay, but apparently not a burping pig talking about consumption. The single best way to blunt the impact of climcate change is to get by with less of everything.  Mostly, what it takes is a willingness to ignore peer pressure.

The war on Youtube

From the grauniad, the paper copy even: the US military are posting their war on youtube: MNFIRAQ (the one I watched was this). I find this completely weird and disturbing. And it certainly doesn't look like the end of combat operations. Can it be long before we end up with live feeds from helmet cameras, and then probably online voting for "should he pull the trigger"? and some sort of merge with online gaming. I'm too old for this. Retirement beckons me...

Washington's Hypocritical Paternalism

And I mean the state of Washington, not Washington DC. Well, this time anyway. Next week their new law banning internet gambling goes into effect and anyone caught playing poker online could face penalties equivalent to those who are caught possessing child pornography. No, I'm not making that up, the penalties are the same. This law passed the state legislature with virtually no opposition (unanimously in the Senate and with 5 votes against it in the House), and now the state is lying to citizens and telling them that it won't really apply to them: Although the head of the state Gambling…

DEBATING THE INTERNET AND COMMUNITY, PART A: American University Students Examine 'Virtual' Society

This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. For many college students, having grown up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. One of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes introduced by…

Greg Dunn's golden neurons [bioephemera]

Gold Cortex 16 x 20, 2010 Greg Dunn I used to have a beautiful gold Japanese folding screen, which was purchased by my great-grandmother's feisty sister on a trip in the 1920s. I loved the gold patina and the surprisingly modern impact it had on my wall. At the moment, it's loaned to a friend, but looking at Greg Dunn's artwork, I couldn't help but be reminded of the best aspects of my screen: the gold leaf, crisp black patterns, and way that the scene seemed half natural, half abstract. The biggest twist Greg, a 6th year graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania,…

Hacker on Health Care

For an eloquent statement of what I have been trying to say for the last few days, have a look at this essay by Yale University Political Science Professor Jacob Hacker. Hacker is generally considered the father of the public option. In his view, the Senate health care bill still does more good than harm, and provides a needed platform for future reforms: As weak as it is in numerous areas, the Senate bill contains three vital reforms. First, it creates a new framework, the "exchange," through which people who lack secure workplace coverage can obtain the same kind of group health…

Tom Levenson Fan Boi Day: Hear Him With Ira Flatow On ScienceFriday

Just a quick note to dial up Ira Flatow's Science Friday show on NPR today at 3 pm EDT. Supporting information and the archived show can be found here. Guy-who-I-would-kill-to-be, Tom Levenson, will be on with Ira to speak about his new book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. Here is also a link to other appearances Professor Levenson will be having related to the book. For those of you who don't know Thomas Levenson, he is currently a Professor, Interim Program Head, and Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at the…

Right Wing Rejects Free Market for Glenn Beck

Twenty companies have now pulled their advertising from the Glenn Beck Program (eight of them yesterday). The right wing outrage to the free market at work continues to grow. The website DefendGlenn.com has today attacked Sargento as "the worst company in the world" because they sent the following response about why they pulled their advertising: Dear Ms. Sorensen -- We appreciate your sharing your concerns about our advertising. Our organization remains true to its mid-western roots and values. Some would say that means we're conservative. In the end, we hold true to our nation's heritage…

Greg Dunn's golden neurons

Gold Cortex 16 x 20, 2010 Greg Dunn I used to have a beautiful gold Japanese folding screen, which was purchased by my great-grandmother's feisty sister on a trip in the 1920s. I loved the gold patina and the surprisingly modern impact it had on my wall. At the moment, it's loaned to a friend, but looking at Greg Dunn's artwork, I couldn't help but be reminded of the best aspects of my screen: the gold leaf, crisp black patterns, and way that the scene seemed half natural, half abstract. The biggest twist Greg, a 6th year graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania,…

Reinventing Discovery with Michael Nielsen at York University!

If you're in the Greater Toronto Area next Tuesday, please drop by and see Michael talk. I'm thrilled that my library is co-sponsoring such a fantastic event! Presented by: Janusz A. Kozinski - Dean, Faculty of Science and Engineering The Division of Natural Science The Steacie Science and Engineering Library Location: Paul A. Delaney Gallery, 320 Bethune College Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Time: 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served courtesy of Steacie Science and Engineering Library Prof. Nielsen will describe an evolution in how scientific discoveries are made driven by…

Oh, yeah…Happy Birthday, Earth

I almost forgot — in 1658, Archbishop Ussher determined that the world was created precisely at 9am, 23 October, 4004 BC, making today the official creation day, and the earth 6012 years old. Stop laughing, people. There are some who still seriously believe that: I just got spam from Whirled Nut Daily pushing this very silly book, The Annals of the World, buy James Ussher. They call it a masterpiece. I call it a quaint old oddity.

OpenLab 2007

The second science blogging anthology, the Open Laboratory 2007 is now up for sale on Amazon.com. As the profits will go towards the organization of ScienceOnline'09, it is the best if you guide your readers to buy it directly from Lulu.com. However, it would be really nice if some of the readers wrote reviews on the Amazon.com page. Also, do not forget to keep submitting new entries for the OpenLab'08.

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is Officially Out Today

The Pip says, "Hi, folks. My daddy's book is released today, and he's shameless enough to use me to promote it:" "I can't read it yet, because I'm just a baby, but I can report that it was very satisfying to drool on. So you should definitely buy a copy, maybe two." "Also, dig the awesome stuffed alligator toy I got from my Aunt Erin and Aunt 'Stasia. It crackles, and it has a mirror! It's so cool!"

Pimp Me New Music

It's been over a month since I last hit iTunes for new music, which is a long time for me. I'm going to be going on a mini buying spree tonight, so I have a simple question for my musically inclined readers: What albums from the last couple of months should I be getting at iTunes? I know there's a new Rilo Kiley, and a new New Pornographers, but I'm sure there are other essential albums that I need to buy. So what are they?

Sprog commerce.

The Free-Ride offspring have put the wheels in motion to achieve financial independence from their parental units. They intend to make their fortune on T-shirt sales. Poor deluded kids! Anyway, they would like you to know that you can score your own copy of this artwork: on a T-shirt, mug, or totebag, at CafePress. I would like you to know that we value you as readers whether or not you buy any merchandise.

Free Old Oceanography Data Online!

The National Museum of Natural History now has the station data and original cruise logs from the research vessels Albatross and Blake online. NOAA Ocean Explorer has a nice online writeup of the importance of both these vessels and the contributions expeditions aboard them made to early oceanography. Hat tip to Kevin.

Anti-poker crusade is just ridiculous

I am not really that into online poker; I lack the patience to be truly great at poker. However, I have several friends that swear by it, and we were all quite annoyed when Congress decided to attach a ban on transfers to online gambling companies in a rider to a port security bill last year. That was annoying government paternalism about something that is really none of their business. (Furthermore, the only reason online gambling was banned was because they don't have as good lobbyists as the brick-and-mortar gambling companies. Inadequately organized lobbyists shouldn't be a reason to…

US states get some help (and every little bit helps)

CDC has disgorged $225 million to state and local health departments for bird fluhttp://www.dhhs.gov/news/press/2006pres/20060711.html. That's some good news, made better by the fact that these phase II allocations seem usable for a wider range of public health needs than bioterrorism or bird flu, narrowly conceived. The money goes to help states pay for activities above and beyond what they normally provide, said Joe Posid of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which distributes the money. "They'll use the CDC funds for more macro or public health purposes such as…

Banner Update

When I first uploaded the banner it was kinda mrky and muted. Look at it now! Clear and gorgeous! Thanks for the banner go (again) to Carel Pieter Brest Van Kempen. You may want to visit his website to check his artwork (and perhaps buy some, or comission your own banner). You can see some of his art also on this webpage. He has also recently published a gorgeous book, which you can buy either here or here. Finally, you are surely going to enjoy his beautiful blog. I hope he gets invited to be in the next wave of new SEED sciencebloggers.

Major Archaeological Journal Goes Open Access

Since a bit more than a year, Fornvännen's first 100 years (1906-2005) have been freely available and searchable on-line. It's a quarterly multi-language research journal mainly about Scandinavian archaeology and Medieval art, and I'm proud to be its managing editor. Now we've gone one step further and made the thing into an Open Access journal. The site's run of the journal is complete up to 6 months ago, and every issue will henceforth appear on-line half a year after it was distributed on paper. Here, for instance, is an excellent paper in English by my buddy Svante Fischer from last…

Online professionalism at #Scio10

Next week, Val Jones and I are leading a discussion of professional ethics as they intersect with a professional's online life. Each profession has its own set of ethics and draws its own lines but medicine is what I know best. I'd like to invite participants (or anyone, actually) to proffer ethical dilemmas related to having an online presence. Some things to think about: Some professionals bypass the issue by either staying off the internet or remaining anonymous/pseudonymous. To abandon the internet is like practicing abstinence for STD and pregnancy prevention. To stay offline without…

Links for 2011-04-20

Bill III's Blog » Have you ever printed a boarding pass? "Well this little feat has been a long time coming.  For those of you who have worked with me in Unalakleet you probably have heard about my aspiration of using the poster printer to print my boarding pass.  Well two days ago my dream became a reality.  I logged onto nwa.com and checked in for my flight.  Selected my seats and chose the option to print my boarding pass.  Well as you know Mac computers make it super easy to print things as a PDF file instead of to a printer.  So thats what I did.  I was on two different flights and…

You need a poll to start the week

This one is on CNN: Is it OK for states to issue car license plates with religious messages? Boy, when you put it that simply, isn't it obvious? Since when should a state government be in the business of promoting religious slogans? Let people buy a nice religious license plate frame from a private business, or slap a bumper sticker on their car. (It's good to see that "no" is in the lead, but this poll is about evenly split so far.)

A Hydrogen Car!

Spy shots of a new BMW that runs on hydrogen have just been released. Back in 2004, BMW promised that they would have a hydrogen car ready in 4 years. Seems like they might keep their word (unlike GM and Ford.) As far as I can tell, there is only one problem with his fine piece of German engineering (apart from the price): where do you buy the fuel? My local gas station doesn't even carry diesel, let alone explosive liquid hydrogen.

Pretty Pictures

What you need is a distraction from the drip of bad economic news. (Just remember: the stock market is a random walk that, over the long-term, has an upward slope. Besides, investors who do nothing to their stock portfolio - they don't buy or sell a single stock - outperform the average "active" investor by nearly 10 percent.) So, instead of trying to get your broker on the phone, browse through these exquisite satellite photos, courtesy of NASA: via kottke