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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (and Neighbors)

This is a revised version of a post that appeared three years ago, towards the start of the recession. It seems just as relevant, maybe more relevant, now. A while back there was a study that suggested that it is more expensive to be poor in the US in some ways, than it is to be rich. And to anyone who has actually been poor, this probably made perfect sense. Among the ways that being poor cost you money: 1. Your infrastructure is limited, so you are limited to what fits in your infrastructure - for example, you don't have a car, so you can only shop at the convenience stores or those on…

"Home Stoned in Race Row"

At about this time in 1931, a black family moved into an all white neighborhood. The resident whites tried to stop it from the beginning, even offering to buy the house at a price over that paid by Army vet Arthur Lee and Edith Lee. When these early efforts failed, the denizens of the segregated neighborhood found the solution that what was most obvious to them: Thousands of them surrounded the home, screamed racial slurs and threw stones at the house and family until they finally moved out. Except that last part didn't happen. Arthur and Edith stayed, and the racist citizens of this…

Pandora Radio and the Music Genome Project

This post should actually be called, "Driving Mister Tim," in recognition of the delightful day I just spent here with Pandora Internet Radio founder and chief strategic officer, Tim Westergren. Tim was in the area for a couple of town hall meetings and chats with groups in the Raleigh-Durham community, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. What is Pandora Internet Radio? Before I talk more about Tim, let me tell you about Pandora if you have not yet experienced it. Their thumbnail give you a good idea but here is my view as a user: Pandora is a streaming…

Best Social Media Books 2011: Frogloop

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2011 lists are here. This post includes the following: Five Social Media Books you Should Read. Yeah, I know this really isn't science -- and I'm not even labelling it as such -- but this is an pretty good list of books from a marketing blog for non-profits so I do see it as being for…

Friday Fun: Some amusing pre-Scio11 tweets

As you read this, I'm on a plane winging my way to the ScienceOnline 2011 conference. It's a great learning, sharing and networking opportunity for anyone interested in the way science happens online. It's highlight of the conference year for me. It's also a serious hoot. A blast, a party, off the chain. And it's reflected in the Twitter traffic. Here's a sampling from the last little while. avflox A.V. Flox Research indicates you can basically think yourself to orgasm. I didn't believe it either until I started to follow the #scio11 hashtag. BoraZ Bora Zivkovic I set up my #scio11…

Evidence-based teaching, open access, and the digital divide

I had some strange notions when I made the jump from working at the lab bench to teaching at the white board. I thought good teaching meant interesting lectures. And I was completely unaware that people actually conducted research in science education. If I had been asked about education research, I would have replied that it was largely anecdotal, probably limited to sociologists and primary grades, and as far as I was concerned, useless. And, honestly, to me it was useless. I never saw any of science education articles or journals. No other instructors every discussed them and…

ScienceOnline2010 - introducing the participants

As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what. Stacy Baker has changed schools since last year, but she's coming back nonetheless, again with eight of her students. As you may remember, her session on the use of the Web in middle/high science classroom from the perspective of the Facebook generation was the Big Hit of ScienceOnline09. Miss Baker has developed a classroom website and blog, she tweets and also…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Adult Male Chimpanzees Don't Stray Far From The Home: When it comes to choosing a place to live, male chimpanzees in the wild don't stray far from home, according to a new report. The researchers found that adult male chimps out on their own tend to follow in their mother's footsteps, spending their days in the same familiar haunts where they grew up. Male chimpanzees are generally very social, but how they use space when they are alone might be critical to their survival, the researchers said. Solving Another Mystery Of An Amazing Water Walker: Walking on water may seem like a miracle to…

Hummingbirds' Brains Have DIfferent Structure than Other Birds Brains

After comparing the brains of hummingbirds to those of other birds, scientists found that a specific nucleus (in this case, a "nucleus" refers to a distinct brain region) that detects any movement of the entire visual world. They found that this brain nuclei was two to five times bigger in the hummingbird than in any other species, relative to brain size. "We reasoned that this nucleus helps the hummingbird stay stationary in space, even while they're flying," said said Doug Wong-Wylie, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural and Systems Neuroscience and psychology professor at the University…

linkedy links xv

yup, I'm doing a lot of these, moon, high school, hard sci-fi and california among others some randomly interesting stuff out there, some of which I mean to blog about meself, but real life interceded click to embiggen Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Photographs Apollo landing sites - this is all over the blogs, Starts with a Bang has it impressive imaging LRO does 112th Carnival of Space - bunch of lunatics if you ask me... The Angry Physicist is back - still angry online Feynman lecture videos - via the Pontiff, so I do not have to link directly to M$ - I sat through a number of…

O'Reilly Blowing Smoke

I know, I know. This isn't exactly surprising. You might have heard that Bill O'Reilly claimed recently that the FBI had visited him to tell him he was on an Al Qaeda hit list. I laughed when I heard it, knowing it was probably a bunch of crap. Turns out it was, according to Radar Online. But the reaction from some of his colleagues sounds more like disbelief. "I've never heard that before," says a correspondent for Fox News, who added that neither he nor anyone he's spoken to at the network has been warned by the FBI. "I do know the government has warned Fox about threats in the past, but I…

WEPAN's Knowledge Center: Share with and learn from others

A couple of weeks ago, I "attended" a webinar hosted by WEPAN (Women in Engineering ProActive Network) on their recently unveiled Knowledge Center. I had never participated in a webinar -- I called up a conference call phone number, and logged into a website, and saw what the presenters had on their computers. Different presenters at totally different locations could also take charge of what everyone was seeing; it was a neat experience. I was attending with participants from a few other organizations, including MentorNet, the Association of Science-Technology Centers (which is the…

How Battlestar Galactica Lost Sight of Its Realism and Disappointed Fans

When I was in graduate school at Cornell, David Kirby was a course mate while he was working on a post-doc in science studies. Kirby was re-training from his former field as a geneticist, researching the influence of science consultants on major motion pictures. One of his conclusions--published in a paper at the Social Studies of Science--was that science consultants are important to filmmakers because they can help lend a sense of realism and perceived legitimacy to a film, especially among the opinion-setting audience base who shape the success of a film via word-of-mouth and online buzz…

SLA2009: Random Vendor Updates

One of the main reasons I go to SLA is to catch up on what all of the journals, databases, and research tool providers are up to. Sometimes they save the big announcements for ALA and sometimes they make them at SLA. Other years I've spent a ton of time at the exhibits, but this year it was a bit truncated. I also didn't go to any breakfasts (even free food doesn't get me into downtown DC at 7am!) and only a couple of other things put on by the vendors. Here are a few things that I remember: Springer's bringing out an image database which seems to combine some medical image database they…

Early review of the "$100 laptop"

Fox News has a very detailed review of the so-called $100 laptop, officially called the XO. The technology sounds quite impressive: Even though bright sunshine is beating down upon the laptop screen, you're having no trouble reading the display. But the sunlight is OK, since it's powering your system through a small, low-cost solar cell. And the XO doesn't need much power since it runs at a fraction of what laptops that are considered "green" run at. The review only gets more glowing from there: I expected to be impressed simply by the economic, low-power capabilities and wireless mesh…

New Scientist Cover Story on Tornadoes and Global Warming

I didn't realize I was going to have the cover story of the latest New Scientist with this in-depth article I did about the climate-tornado relationship. Essentially, the bottom line is this--it's even more complicated than the climate-hurricane relationship. And so for all those politicians, environmentalists, and bloggers out there who want to use tornadoes (and especially this extremely active U.S. tornado year) as an excuse to talk about global warming...well, the science provides a slender foundation for them indeed. You can't read the full New Scientist article online, but let me lay…

Thanks a lot, Tim

Normally I like Tim Gueguen. He's an old trenchmate from Usenet and has been blogging longer than I have. But about a week ago, he commented on my facetious piece about a "celebrity nutritionist" with some odd ideas about medicine dating back to the 16th century and involving including dessicated animal "glands" in the supplements that he sells and how he's been rewarded with wealth, hobnobbing with rock stars, and marrying a porn star: Deliberate attempts at generating blog traffic have never really worked for me. On the other hand I often get hits for folks looking for porn for cartoons…

Dr Isis discusses conference blogging

Readers who haven't seen it already may be interested in the post and subsequent discussion on conference blogging taking place on Dr Isis' blog. I feel that Dr Isis' post misrepresents my position in several ways (see this clarifying comment from me), but she does provide an interesting argument against the notion that "open tweeting" should be the default position unless the presenter explicitly states otherwise. The discussion has given me an opportunity to clarify my thoughts on a few issues. Below the fold I've pasted some snippets from my comments on Dr Isis' post summing up some…

How much rat poison should you give a patient? Genetics helps

Warfarin (a.k.a. Coumadin, Jantoven, Marevan, or Waran) is the most widely-prescribed blood-thinning agent on the market. It's also (in the words of Howard McLeod) a "terrible drug" - it has a very narrow therapeutic window, meaning that the minimal useful dose and the maximal safe dose are very close together. (The effects of over-dosing on warfarin - reduced blood clotting - are so severe that the drug is also used as a highly effective rat poison.) To further complicate things, the dosage of the drug that is both effective and safe differs widely between individuals, and is known to be…

Broadcast: The Search for Life

Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here â Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We've got some dingers lined up... Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in the Universe, originally taped during the 2010 World Science Festival. Accompanying the broadcast, we're very excited to have live commentary and a Q/A session with the SETI Institute's Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak. Are we alone? It’s a question that has obsessed us…

Review of Judgement Day

JUDGMENT DAY PRAISED IN NATURE From the National Center for Science Education ... Judgement Day Praised in Nature Reviewing Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial -- the new documentary about Kitzmiller v. Dover -- for the November 8, 2007, issue of Nature (450: 170), Adam Rutherford was impressed, not least with the way in which the filmmakers met the challenge of retelling the story. "The makers of Judgment Day inject tension with eyewitness accounts from the people of Dover," he writes, "and home-video footage of raucous school board meetings shows how passionate and divided this…

Coral Week is ON for April

Mark your calendars for the last few days of April because the tentacles are gonna hit the fan here and across the blogosphere from April 27 to May 2 when Deep Sea News asks readers "how deep is your love" for corals. This is 2008, the International Year of the Reef! But we're gonna try to squeeze it all into one big Coral Week between April and May, kinda like an online tropical vacation from work ... or something. You may have noticed we celebrated International Polar Year just last month. Yes, it's true, it's other years, too... the Year of the Rat, the Year of Sanitation, its all…

The next Google?

The collaboration between Yahoo! and Microsoft is spawning a lot of articles about the coming duopoly in search (since the Yahoo! Microsoft deal is for 10 years, we're talking 10 year horizon times). But this got me to thinking: when did people realize Google was something big? I realized Google was something big (for me personally since I'm a data junkie) after being pointed to it from this article in Salon in December of 1998. I became a Google evangelist. Initially most people thought my enthusiasm was a bit strange, at that point there were a dozen search engines, and all of them were…

Around the Web: College Reinvented, Shirky on MOOCs, Newspapers & citizenship and more apocalypse

College, Reinvented: The Finalists Napster, Udacity, and the Academy Is the death of newspapers the end of good citizenship? MOOCs and the Future of the University Survival of the Fittest in the New Music Industry The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever How Dead Is the Book Business? Beyond Literacy and Beyond ‘Beyond Literacy’ Conservatives and the Higher Ed 'Bubble' Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics, or What's Really Up With Automated Essay Scoring Our Napster is Udacity: Quality Doesn’t Beat Access University of the future: A thousand year old industry on…

Alle Terroristen sind Darwinisten

Adnan Oktar/Harun Yahya has been interviewed in Spiegel Online (that's in German; you might want to read this short paraphrase in English). He says a number of, umm, interesting things. He dislikes Intelligent Design intensely, and sees it as a dishonest form of creationism. The Islamic terrorists aren't actually Muslim—they are all foreign-educated Darwinist atheists. That includes Osama bin Laden. In the 2009 Darwin year, he plans to celebrate the collapse of Darwinism. I don't think so. He claims that he can finance sending out free copies of the Atlas of Creation because he doesn'…

Around the Web: The problem with online reputation, eBook piracy, Green cities and more

The problem with online reputation E-Book Piracy on the Rise How to Use Social Media for Marketing Another Lesson About Cognition And The Web: Lara Logan And Hate Hawking contra Philosophy The 'Triumph Of The City' May Be Greener Email is Over Early results: public data archiving increases scientific contribution by more than a third Kobo: What Do eBook Customers Really, Really Want? Optimism in reality-based reality Does the web make experts dumb? Bring on The Live Web Social innovation: a simple model Citation tools & Future of Publishing About the preservation of databases Things I…

Support classrooms by supporting science ed!

Funding raising drives come and go but the need to educate the coming generations in science and math never goes away. With your help, teachers can help their students. DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that connects individuals, like you, to classrooms in need. The average public school teacher spends $500 - $700 on classroom supplies out of his/her own pocket, and students still go without critical supplies they need to learn. At DonorsChoose, teachers post requests for classroom equipment and supplies, like microscopes, DNA kits, even field trips to the zoo, and you can help fund…

Keep your god out of my kids' schools!

I confess to some mixed feelings about this one. Several schools in Wisconsin hold their graduation ceremonies in local churches, and Americans United is threatening litigation to block them. One the one hand, I am all for secularizing 'sacred' spaces — let's take them all over and do something useful with them for a change. On the other, I don't think that's what this particular situation is all about, since it looks like the schools are using the churches to pollute what should be a secular ceremony with religious smog. There is a poll, so you can weigh in on the topic…and like all online…

Science Anthologies Reviewed

John Dupuis, the Confessing Science Librarian, wrote a review of three science-writing anthologies, including the Open Laboratory 2006, which ended up in the highly respectable second place, nested between two professional collections. The beauty of online on-demand publishing is that one can correct errors on the go, as in "right now", not waiting for an official Seocnd Edition and such. So, I'll try to fix a couple of things John noticed before the book gets an ISBN number and starts getting shipped to the real bookstores. And, with ten months instead of three weeks to work on it, Reed…

"Computational Complexity and Fundamental Physics"

Summer continues, and the public lecture series on physics continues a pace at the Aspen Center for Physics with Dr. Catherine Heymans of the University of Edinburgh talking today on the "Dark Side of the Universe". The talk is part of one of the three workshops currently taking place: "Testing the Laws of Gravity with Cosmological Surveys" "Emergence, Evolution and Effects of Black Holes in the Universe: The Next 50 Years of Black Hole Physics" "Entanglement Matters" the public talks are recorded and will, eventually, be available online courtesy of Aspen Grassroots TV, in the meanwhile,…

A beautiful sacrament

The colossal squid that was caught last year is in the process of being thawed prior to a public dissection. The Te Papa Museum of New Zealand is pulling out all the stops and are going to have webcams recording every step of the process — the schedule of events is online. I'll be watching. This is an extremely cool thing to do, and a mark of respect for this magnificent animal — I wish I could have this sort of dismantlement done to me after I'm dead. Both my fans and my critics would enjoy it, but on the downside, my family would probably be a bit distressed, and to be honest, human…

Laziness in reporting - what's new?

You may have heard about a recent Wikipedia hoax: A WIKIPEDIA hoax by a 22-year-old Dublin student resulted in a fake quote being published in newspaper obituaries around the world. The quote was attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre who died at the end of March. It was posted on the online encyclopedia shortly after his death and later appeared in obituaries published in the Guardian, the London Independent, on the BBC Music Magazine website and in Indian and Australian newspapers Yup. Journalists check their sources carefully. Especially the despised untrustworthy Wikipedia, only a…

ConeHead Bill?

A friend saw this story and asked what is happening with my own little power bill drama. Since several others of you have also asked, I thought I'd let you all know that I checked my bill status online yesterday, worried that there would be a notice there saying that Harry and Guido were waiting in my apartment to break my kneecaps for non-payment, but I instead discovered that, after receiving a heart-stopping bill for nearly $800, I now owe .. Nothing. Well, so far (I am suspicious). My slumlor ... er, landlord, the evil vermin-loving and money-grubbing Scott, will be so relieved to know…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 7

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 6

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 5

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 4

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 3

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 2

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

ScienceOnline2010 - Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay (video) - Part 1

Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - Rebecca Skloot with guests Saturday, January 16 - 4:40 - 5:45pm Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your…

They'll Blog Anything These Days

Here's a link for Ed Brayton, who does a fair bit of poker blogging: via Dave Sez, Brian at MGOBlog is playing the the World Series of Poker, and blogging about it. You may or may not regard the WSOP as the beginning of the end for ESPN, but the broadcasts are weirdly hypnotic. I've played just enough poker for fake moneyto know that I'm not very good, but it is kind of fun to play. I occasionally think about trying to play more often, but I don't know any non-students who play locally, and really, an online gaming habit is just above "heroin addiction" on my list of things to acquire. Anyway…

Weekend Diversion: A Fun Online Game!

Sometimes, gravity and motion has the power to mesmerize me. I found this online game called "compulse" which was so much fun, that I spent about 90 minutes this week just playing this game until I had beaten every level on the "pro" setting. Yikes. (My score is 104 under par, 8 under pro.) And so, in the interest of bringing it to you, I've tried to embed it into my website. Have fun playing if it works in your browser (I told you to use firefox or safari), and if you enjoy playing with the mechanics of motion as much as I do, maybe you, too, have the interest it takes to be a physicist!…

British Metal Detectorists Do a Good Job

Since a 1997 change in UK law, metal detectorists in that insular realm are reporting ever more finds to the authorities. David Lammy, the minister of culture, said that metal detetectorists who spend days scanning newly ploughed fields in the hope that a beep will lead them to buried treasure, are doing a huge service to Britain's cultural life. "Metal detectorists are the unsung heroes of the UK's heritage. Thanks to the responsible approach they display in reporting finds and the systems we have set up to record them, more archaeological material is available for all to see at museums or…

Quick reference on "pharmaceuticals" vs biotechnology products

[Retraction 14 December 2007: Following a consideration of comments by Prof Ian Musgrave (below), I must retract my recommendation of this table - upon re-examination, I should have been much more critical of the information provided.) The Wall Street Journal online has a nice general information table comparing and contrasting small molecules vs. proteins used as drugs. Biotechnology products like insulin or erythropoeitin protein molecules whereas classic drugs like the statins or antiinflammatory drugs are termed "small molecules." In truth, both classes are pharmaceuticals so I would've…

Seamus Heaney turns 70

Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner is 70 today. To celebrate here is his poem "Strange Fruit," one of a series of poems about bog-bodies. Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd. Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth. They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair And made an exhibition of its coil, Let the air at her leathery beauty. Pash of tallow, perishable treasure: Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod, Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings. Diodorus Siculus confessed His gradual ease with the likes of this: Murdered, forgotten,…

If I was in Glendale ...

So the Arizona Cardinals moved out of Sun Devil Stadium (home of the ASU Sun Devils) and got themselves a new state-of-the-art facility in Glendale, a city in the west valley. By all accounts it is a sweet stadium. With Super Bowl XLII in 2008 on the horizon, the naming rights for the new stadium are up for grabs and the Cardinals went with ... University of Phoenix Stadium. Yup. $154.5 million later and a 20-year deal and those powerhouses of the NFL are willing to sound like a freeking college team. At least they play like one. UoP, for those that dont know is a for-profit school that is…

THE PASSION OF APOCALYPTO: Metaphor of "End Times" Prophecy Raises Questions About a Blockbuster's Impact on Audiences

Buzz is building for Mel Gibson's Dec. 8 release of Apocalypto[trailer]. The film's actual plot is still a bit of a secret. Judging by the title and the focus on the decline of the Mayan civilization, Gibson is offering a metaphor for "the end times." Like Gibson's Passion, the movie is likely to serve as a rallying point for Evangelicals, especially after the recent election and other events have taken some of the wind out of the Evangelical movement. Yet what effects is a movie with a clear, if not symbolic, political and social message likely to have on audiences? To contextualize…

THE NEXT BIG STORM: Article Examines News Coverage of the Hurricane-Global Warming Debate; Suggests Ways Scientists and Journalists Can Work Together to Improve Coverage

With Chris Mooney, over at Skeptical Inquirer Online, we have a lengthy article evaluating coverage of the hurricane-global warming debate. We interviewed the major science writers, columnists, and political reporters who have written about the topic, we also interviewed several of the major scientists in the area. We conclude with recommendations on how journalists and scientists can work together to improve coverage. The article was originally intended to appear this summer at a print magazine, but got bumped at the last minute. So we decided to get it up on the Web with timeliness and…

Digesting the literature

Many years ago, ians, really, I naively asked my lecturer who I thought knew everything in the field, how he kept up with the literature. He shrugged and said he couldn't, and neither could anyone else. I thought he was just being self deprecating. Experience taught me better shortly. But there are tools that help, and now, in this all-electric age, they are online. A Philosopher's Digest has just been started, which will give brief summaries of important papers, so those of us who do not follow every paper in every field can sound more intelligent and erudite. Damned nice of them, really.…

Philosopher threatened with prison for copyright violations

I'm very conflicted about this: An Argentinian professor who put Derrida's works in translation online because the published works were out of print or too expensive (way more than the European editions) has been charged with criminal copyright infringement, according to this page. While I think that publishers, especially academic publishers, who screw their market with exorbitant prices, or simply fail to maintain their catalogue are Bad Guys, I also know that the costs involved in publishing are nontrivial. Also, I tend to think that publishing Derrida is a criminal offense (I joke). But…