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To the clever dicks who think they are annoying me

One of the chores I got done this afternoon, after a much needed nap, was to go through the mail that accumulated during our long absence. Part of that job is sorting out the pile of magazines that I did not subscribe to, but that some people out there think they can sign me up for and annoy me — but which, since I did not authorize any payment, and which are usually sent to me under some sloppy permutation of my name, I simply never pay for, and eventually the publisher gets tired of sending me without recompense and the subscription fades away. It's a weird mix: lots of conservative…

"looping" - keeping your teacher in lower grades

should K-12 students keep the same teacher for several grades, especially in lower grades? My current limited contact with the US K-12 system made me ponder the differences I see locally compared with my anecdotal experiences in Europe. Specifically, the local practise, which seems to be widespread in the US, is to have the teachers stay with the grade level, passing classes through to another teacher in the next grade, and to mix up the students in each grade, rather than to make an effort to keep the same basic grouping of students in a class within each grade as they progress. There are…

The Telescope: Review

Geoff Andersen is a USAF Academy physicist and he has written a book on the Telescope The Telescope by Geoff Andersen Princeton University Press 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12979-2 It is an interesting little book, as promised it only has one equation, and it is a useful one, with the rest of the semi-technical material relegated to appendices. As such, the book is aimed at general audiences, and would be well suited to an interested amateur, enthusiastic teenager or university educated layperson wanting to learn some basics about optical telescopes. The book focuses on optical telescopes,…

Worldmapper: viewing the world in new ways

Worldmapper is a web site with 366 maps of the world. These maps however, are not the kinds of maps you've seen in school, with every country shown by size. These maps are cartograms. It's a bit like seeing a cartoon version of a Thomas Friedman book. These maps present a whole new way of visualizing information about the world. In a cartogram, the size of each country or geographic region is drawn in proportion to some kind of variable. The variable could be population size, number of people who practice a certain religion, incidence of infant mortality, voting patterns, energy use,…

I pick myself up, dust myself off, and I

start all over again. MDRNA Inc., a Puget Sound area company formerly known as Nastech, announced on Monday that they'd be laying off 23 people including their president and chief business officer. This might not sound like a lot, but according to Joseph Tartakoff, from the Seattle PI, this brings the total number of layoffs up to 145 since November. These events present a challenge to those of us who teach in biotech programs or biotech-related fields. Nastech, the predecessor to MDRNA had been around for over 20 years. Who would expect a 20+ year company to shed three quarters of it's…

Open Access and using molecular structures in education

I love using molecular structures as teaching tools. They're beautiful, they're easy to obtain, and working with them is fun. But working with molecular structures as an educators can present some challenges. The biggest problem is that many of the articles describing the structures are not accessible, particularly those published by the ACS (American Chemical Society). I'm hoping that the new NIH Open Access policy will include legacy publications and increase access to lots of publications about structures. It would also be great if other funding agencies, like the National Science…

uses and meta-uses of blogging

Ouch, Chad calls me out on the use of science blogging Last night, after giving a talk on science blogging, I posted a rather frustrated rhetorical question on whether science blogging has done any good. Now, I specifically asked this excluding science policy and science communication, not because I think these are no good, but because of the context I was working with. I had been talking specifically with working scientists about what was involved in blogging and why they might consider it. The public outreach possibilities are obvious although I am not sure that much outreach blogging…

California Brinkmanship

The California "minumum wage" standoff moves closer to the edge. Universities "requested to co-operate" and cut wages. Next week, probably on monday, the California governor intends to use executive authority to "request" a cut in salary for state employees to the federal minimum wage, until the California budget issue is solved Hah. In the meantime, as noted previously, the universities have to deal with this, and the UC President has sent out the following employee morale booster... "An important message from President Yudof to UC employees regarding potential state pay cuts" July 24, 2008…

Warren Report is out

The report by Prof. Elizabeth Warren heading the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP loans to large US banks is out. Report is at cop.senate.gov (151 p. pdf)] It makes interesting reading. Section C has a discussion of European handling of the current crisis, with C.1 providing a succinct discussion of Iceland. Section D is on the way forward. Short version: Transparency: swift action to ensure integrity Assertiveness: willingness to take aggressive action ... 2) shutting down those banks that are irreparably insolvent Accountability: willingess to hold management accountable and…

KITP: The Big Questions

Today we step back and Hans runs The Big Questions past us. It is always good to think about the Big Picture. The Big Questions Most likely scenario for cluster formation: a) compressed/triggered initial conditions: cloud collisions or intersecting shells, or b) did globular clusters form as nuclei in dwarf galaxies that got accreted by our MW (dE,N hypothesis), or c) scaled-up version of open cluster formation in mol. clouds? (Pudritz papers, Krumholz talk); the role of high pressure? Relation of halo stars and globular cluster destruction ... (are Pop II stars dissolved globular…

KITP: blue straggler stars

Blue straggler stars are, formally, main sequence stars that are too blue and bright on the colour-magnitude diagram - they are more massive than they ought to be given their age, is the other way of looking at it. They are found in the field, and you might rightly ponder how we can tell, but in globular clusters there are lots, they really stick out, and they are rather fascinating. And they make great Hubble Space Telescope targets, being rather blue, in crowded regions and teach you about physics, stellar processes etc. Blue Straggler Stars (wiki): Nice illustration of Blue Stragglers…

Cockfighting Tests First Amendment

tags: cockfighting, animal cruelty, First Amendment, free speech When I learned recently that my neighbors regularly engage in cockfighting and dog fighting (illegally, of course) I was thoroughly disgusted with them. But I learned just today that cockfighting is also streamed over the internet, which shouldn't be surprising to anyone who is familiar with the 'net, but nonetheless, I think it is absolutely disgusting and distressing, since it serves to underline the basic lack of compassion and empathy that some people have for animals in general, and for birds specifically. However, the…

Harry Potter Worm Invades Computers

tags: Harry Potter, computers Those of you who love Harry Potter might be deceived into downloading a worm onto your computer via infected USB memory drives. If users plug these drives into their Windows PCs, they are liable to infect their machines with the appropriately named Hairy-A worm. Infected USB drives contain a file named HarryPotter-TheDeathlyHallows.doc, a word document that displays the phrase "Harry Potter is dead", instead of the much-desired manuscript. While the unfortunate computer user is worriedly contemplating that disturbing message, the worm begins casting its evil…

Are Republicans Really Just Confused Mice?

Where in the brain does déjà vu originate? Why it happens more frequently with increasing age and with brain-disease patients? Basically, the brain generates memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for "episodic" memories that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart. The dentate gyrus is a region within the brain that notes a situation's pattern -- its visual, audial, olfactory, temporal and other cues for the body's future reference. So what…

To Kill or Not To Kill?

tags: death penalty, murder I am a person who argues against the death penalty for ethical and economic reasons (I won't get into those here), but I was quite surprised to learn that one argument that has been made against the death penalty (but not by me) seems to have been refuted; whether the death penalty serves as a deterrent to murder. In fact, a series of scientific studies published during the last five or six years have shown that between three and 18 lives could be saved by the execution of each convicted killer. Further, if executions were sped up, the deterrent effect would be…

Ancient Shroom Preserved in Amber

tags: ancient mushroom, amber, parasites, fossils A 100-million-year-old piece of amber was recently found with an ancient mushroom embedded inside. The amber specimen was collected approximately one year ago in Burma by Ron Buckley, a registered nurse, photographer and collector of amber fossils who lives in Florence, Kentucky. "I knew right away what it was when I looked at it under the microscope," said Buckley, who has been collecting amber fossils for the past eight years. Amber is fossilized tree resin, a sticky substance that seeps from certain pine and legume trees. Because of its…

Ten Reasons to Be Against Gay Marriage

tags: gay marriage, ten reasons A reader sent this list of ten reasons to resist gay marriage as an institution. I remember seeing this a year or so ago on Craigslist, so I have no idea who originally wrote it, although I suspect this came from The Tonight Show. Nonetheless, I thought you might appreciate reading this (thanks also to my reader for sending it to me). Ten Reasons to Be Against Gay Marriage Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way…

Mystery Bird: Red-winged Blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus

tags: Red-winged Blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Red-winged Blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, photographed at Shoveler Pond, Anahuac Refuge, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 26 February 2007 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/750s f/8.0 at 500.0mm iso400. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: [Along] With House Sparrow, this is the favorite species of every…

Seattle Visit: The Ballard Farmer's Market, Part Two

tags: Seattle Washington, Ballard Farmer's Market, photoessay, autumn bounty, harvest Dahlias. Ballard Farmer's Market, Seattle, Washington. Image: GrrlScientist 26 September 2008 [larger view]. When I was in Seattle, I met a couple friends and went to the Ballard Farmer's Market, which is much much larger than when I last lived in Seattle. This is the second and last part of my photoessay of the Ballard Farmer's Market. In part one, I showed you fresh produce, and in part two, I will show you flowers and soaps. These flowers, which captivated me with their delicacy, pale purple color,…

Birdbooker Report 34

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "One cannot have too many good bird books" --Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…

Birdbooker Report 32

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "One cannot have too many good bird books" --Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…

The dilemma of the anti-creationist

Sean Carroll has a very interesting post on appropriate arguments — he illustrates it with this grid of disputation. The context is the recent bloggingheads between Paul Nelson and Ron Numbers. It was a painful display, and the problem was that Nelson is an irredeemable kook, a young earth creationist well into the Red Zone of Crackpots in the diagram, yet none of his lunacy was engaged — he was treated as if he were a sensible person, with meritable ideas deserving serious consideration, when nothing could be further from the truth. Sean makes a somewhat different point: that it is a bad…

London Update: Airlines Nickle and Dime Travelers to Death

Image: Orphaned. Already, I know which airline I plan to avoid for my flight across the pond to London: US Air. I just learned that, as of 1 August, US Air is instituting a $2 charge for all drinks on all domestic flights -- another way to nickle and dime their passengers to death, apparently. No, this won't affect me because I will be traveling on an international flight and no, I am not talking about alcoholic beverages, which already cost $7 or more, I am talking about non-alcoholic beverages; juices, soda, coffee and bottled water! Worse, since we cannot carry liquids through security…

The Death of a Toad

tags: The Death of a Toad, Richard Wilbur, poetry "A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul." -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe. I received so many poetry suggestions from you that I decided to continue to publish poetry on my site once per week for you to enjoy. One of my SB colleagues, John Lynch, posts a poem every Friday (here's his poetry archives), so -- because I don't want to conflict with John's poem of the week -- I will post a…

Survival Skills

tags: Survival Skills, Kay Ryan, poetry, National Poetry Month April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). My poetry suggestions are starting to run dry, which means I can start posting my own favorites (but you've seen many of those already) or you can send me your favorite poems, which I probably haven't read before! Today's poem was suggested by a reader, Nan, who writes "I lurk around ScienceBlogs and always enjoy your column. Geese are my passion and I…

I'm Baaaaack!

After a lengthy delay in Detroit due to high winds in NYC, I finally made it back to the city in the same number of pieces I was in when I departed. The bad news is that I left Manhattan, Kansas, and my new friends-for-life, Dave and Elizabeth. The good news is my birds missed me! The yellow-bibbed lories heard my footsteps on the stairs and screamed until I actually entered the apartment, when they fell silent, pretending to be perfect parrots. The female Solomon Islands eclectus parrot, Elektra, was clearly excited (the normally large pupil of her eye was quite small, which is how many…

The Black-Footed Ferret

tags: ferret, black-footed ferret, endangered species Today, I received an email from Jenna Bowles, who is the head of distribution for The Futures Channel. They produce "micro-documentaries" that feature industries and professions that are both innovative and inspiring. One of their newly launched videos focuses on the endangered black-footed ferret recovery program. Basically, 25 years ago, a dog discovered one lone black-footed ferret in a hole -- the last one known to exist in the wild. Since then, the recovery effort has become one of the most successful conservation programs conducted…

Ebola-like Virus Killing Fish in the Great Lakes

Scientists say that that an Ebola-like virus, viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), is killing all species of fish in the Great Lakes. Due to a lack of genetic resistance to VHS, fish populations could ultimately be damaged in the same way that the smallpox virus struck Native Americans and Dutch elm disease decimated elm trees, says Jim Winton, chief of fish health at the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle. VHS was unexpectedly found in the Great Lakes in 2005, in addition to the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Niagara River and an inland lake in New York. Last year, VHS caused large kills that…

Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer

tags: cancer, chromosomes, aneuploidy There is an article about cancer in this month's issue of Scientific American written by pioneering the virologist, Peter Duesberg. For those of you to whom his name sounds vaguely familiar, Duesberg became famous by claiming that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Fortunately, this article does not go into his radical ideas about HIV. Instead, this piece explores his more plausible hypothesis regarding the cause of cancer, which proposes that the source for many cancers is aneuploidy: a condition where the cell's chromosomes are scrambled -- duplicated, broken,…

The Birdbooker Report 7: Notes on Bird (and Natural History) Books

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books "One cannot have too many good bird books" --Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian Paulsen, which lists bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase. FEATURED TITLE: Holtz Jr., Thomas R., and Luis V. Rey. Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages. 2007. Random House Books for Young Readers. Hardbound: 428 pages. Price: $34.99 U.S. [Amazon: $23.09]. SUMMARY: Although this book is…

The Best Cigarette

tags: The Best Cigarette, poetry, Billy Collins, streaming video April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). For this first poem of the month, I found this gem by Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate and one of America's best-selling poets. It is a streaming video where the poet reads his own poem in his luscious voice, and it is wonderfully animated by David Vaio of FAD [1:42] The Best Cigarette There are many that I miss having sent my last one out a car…

I am Going to HEL Today

tags: Helsinki Finland, travel The Gates to HEL. Image: GrrlScientist, 17 February 2009 [larger view]. I am somewhere at the airport, waiting for my flight to glorious Helsinki, Finland. Since I've spent some time visiting this lovely city during the winter months, I am visiting in the summer: I've been told that Helsinki is two different cities from one season to the next. Hopefully, my flight will not crash into a bird or be zapped by lightning before I escape the dangerous NYC airspace. Last night, the storms were so heavy and dangerous that all the area airports were experiencing…

But why would Dawkins want to win a copy of his own book?

Denyse O'Leary has a contest: provide a copy of the source code to Dawkins' Weasel demo. The prizes are your choice of a copy of Dawkins' new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, or Meyer's creationist apologetic, Signature in the Cell. It must be like that television game show where you get to choose door #1 or door #2, and one door hides a free vacation in the Bahamas while the other hides a goat. It's a very silly contest because a) only Dawkins could win it, and he conjures up Bahamas-quality books all the time, and probably doesn't want a copy of Stephen Meyer's rank little goat, and b) the…

Workplace safety missing from community health rankings

by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA Every year, the United Health Foundation (UHF) publishes America's Health Rankings. Today UHF released their 22nd annual report. Rankings are a useful gimmick for getting attention as everyone surely looks at his/her own state. I was particularly proud to find my state of Vermont at the top of the list. I also looked to see how the report, titled A Call to Action for Individuals & Their Communities, might reflect changing attitudes toward the health problems caused by workplace environments, a long-term concern of mine. What I found is discouraging. Worker…

Maryland's Contraceptive Equity Act reduce barriers for women and men

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has signed into law the Contraceptive Equity Act, which puts the state at the forefront of efforts to reduce insurance-plan barriers to accessing multiple forms of contraception. When the law takes effect in 2018, insurance plans regulated by Maryland that provide contraceptive coverage will no longer be allowed to charge co-payments for FDA-approved contraceptive drugs, procedures, and devices. This list include vasectomies and emergency-contraceptive pills. The law will also allow women to receive six months of oral contraceptives at a time, and will prohibit…

“We’ve been waiting for this day" -- Blankenship gets prison time

It’s been six years and one day since 29 men were killed by a coal-dust explosion at former Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). Today, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sentenced the company’s former CEO Don Blankenship for his practices that contributed to the disaster. Berger order him to serve one year in jail and pay a $250,000 penalty. Early this morning, the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reported “…a crowd was already beginning to gather at the Robert C. Byrd U.S. Courthouse in Charleston. More than a dozen family members of the Upper Big Branch miners staked out seats when…

March Pieces Of My Mind #1

How come we have any idea of the diameter of the Oort cloud? And how does it relate spatially to the Kuiper belt? Ridiculous tiny Mac keyboard. No F keys, no delete key, tiny cursor movement keys. Research is a pretty open-ended activity that demands a certain amount of creativity. Among the many advantages of my part-time editorial job are that I've got it almost entirely scripted, what I should do first is almost always clear and it demands no creativity whatsoever. Guaranteed productivity regardless of mood. Jrette asks me why Småland province, "Little Land", is actually extremely large…

Gaming at LinCon

Junior and I went for two days to LinCon, the annual gaming convention in Linköping (est. 1984). There was a fine crowd of geeks, all ages and with a good gender balance, many in steampunk finery. I said to Junior, "Look at them closely, son. These are your people." Here's what I played. All good games! El Grande (1995). Power struggle in 15th century Spain. This is the only 1990s game currently on Boardgame Geek's top-20, and so I wasn't surprised to find that it was the best game I played. Highly recommended! Hacienda (2005). There was a room dedicated to the games of Wolfgang Kramer, so…

Happy Gamer Manages to Get Wife Interested

Yesterday my buddy Swedepat showed up at 13:30. (That's his name to help distinguish him from Irish Pat.) I hadn't been able to find a third or fourth gamer on short notice. But our plan was to try out the new games in my house, and we started off with Juniorette's Christmas present, Forbidden Island. Of course she wanted to play too, and her mother joined in just to be sociable. I'm a geek living with, not a jock girl, but more kind of a hipster. My wife's a journalist who's into fashion and literature and fancy cooking. A good thing about East Asian families is that they appear to teach…

Amnesia Was Her Name

Junior, who is a digital native and knows way more about current net fads than I do, turned me on to the multi-talented Neil Cicierega and his band Lemon Demon. Excellent synth pop that should hit the sweet spot of any Apples in Stereo fan. I know it hit mine! Here are the beautifully clever and happy-sad lyrics to the Lemon Demon tune "Amnesia Was Her Name" that has been playing in my head lately. It's from the 2008 album View Monster. Amnesia was her name By Neil Cicierega Amnesia was her name, she had beautiful eyes And every word she said, it was a little surprise Can't remember when I…

From Gaza to the Museum of National Antiquities

Back in August of 2006 I wrote about an absurd plan to relocate the Israeli embassy in Stockholm temporarily to vacant office space in the Museum of National Antiquities. This plan became reality. But the Israelis are having trouble with the building they're headed for on a more permanent basis, and so the embassy is still there, over three years down the line. The Israelis have had one or two rockets too many fired at them from the Gaza strip, and so are doing their best to cut off supplies to the area. Pro-Palestinian groups have responded by organising aid flotillas. Recently Israeli…

Major Museum Struts My Stuff

In an an artist's CV, you'll read what museums own pieces of their work and what galleries have shown their exhibitions. A field archaeologist keeps no such list, but we sure keep track in our heads of when our finds get exhibited. Because to any scholar who wants to communicate with the public, it is a source of pride to have uncovered something that people are actually interested in. Most archaeological finds are of course unexhibitable drab fragments, but we love them anyway for their scientific potential. Still, every now and then something pops up that you know is going to be able to…

Fear the philistine

I am reminded of the whole host of intellectual failings of creationists: it's not just that they reject modern science, but many of them tend to be brain-damaged peckerwoods who are also incapable of viewing literature and art without squawking in horror, unless maybe it's a tasteless photorealistic airbrushed Aryan Jesus, or perhaps some cookie-cutter landscape from a hack like Kincade. For a truly sickening example, just look at Ray Comfort's latest blog entry. He's reacting to a documentary of Gustav Klimt, which describes his work as "sensuous" and "obsessed with women", which are all…

Sea ice again

So, the question was, how much effect does removing the Arctic sea ice make to the rest of the world? In particular, what is the direct effect, ignoring all the feedbacks that would occur on SST and so on? Happily, an atmosphere-only GCM can answer this question, and happily I had one to hand, viz HadAM3. Happily also it runs fairly fast nowadays - about 20 years/day on 8 opterons - so here are results from 12 years of run, compared to 50 years of control run. The difference between the two is that I've wiped out the Arctic sea ice (in all seasons). It gets replaced with sea at (I'd guess) -1…

2011 Enlightener & Obscurantist Awards

The Swedish Skeptics, of whom I am the chairman, have just announced their annual awards for 2011 [a - b]. The Swedish public TV show Hjärnkontoret receives the Enlightener of the Year award, "...for their excellent science coverage directed towards children. Hjärnkontoret has aired for 16 years and thus contributed to the upbringing of the entire current generation of students and young scientists at Swedish universities. Thanks to its welcoming format and accessible time slot on public television, Hjärnkontoret reaches out to children of all backgrounds, thus widening and democratising…

Blogwars: the fight for faces

Nature has started a new blog, http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/. So far so good, I wish them well, and it will be interesting to see how it goes on. The fun aspect of all this is the fight for readers and commentors; a blog with no comments is hardly a blog at all. RP Jr has a post up that has so far attracted more comments at the riposte on deltoid than the original Nature blog. Whether this is because Deltoid has more readers; or Nature is heavily moderating comments; or people just like talking more at Deltoid, I don't know. Meanwhile, von S's entry on The decay of the hockey stick…

Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case

Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case says the NYT (thanks to J), and its April the 2nd not first so I guess we can trust them. In a vain attempt to blog this before the usual suspects do, I haven't bothered to more than skim the report of the decision. But it looks interesting... "In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars. Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his…

Swedish Archaeologist Gets New Aberdeen Chair

A recurring theme in my blogging is my frustration at completing a PhD at 31 and finding myself completely supernumerary. A few unwise policy decisions of the government's has allowed a generation of middle-class Swedes like myself to specialise in academic subjects for which there is no market whatsoever. Two cases indicative of what the academic labour market for archaeologists is like in Sweden reached my ears yesterday. In competition with several doctoral students and recent PhDs, a highly qualified colleague who completed his PhD in 1998 has just landed a one-day-a-week job as a…

Phil Plait is WRONG!

And he's so getting spanked for this. He suggests that perhaps Texas isn't doomed after all, because a significant majority of the Texas Board of Education has come out saying that they don't want to remove evolution from the curriculum, and they don't want to include Intelligent Design. Unfortunately, what he's missing is the fact that this is precisely the new strategy the Discovery Institute wants them to follow. They don't want a repeat of the Dover trial, so they want schools to avoid pushing the button that will trigger one … in the next round of the creation wars, expect the tainted…

Oceans are 'soaking up less CO2'

Oceans are 'soaking up less CO2' is the headline of a recent BBC News article. (Well, it is recent in most senses of the word though not in blogger-land...Rabbet Run discusses it here, Stoat did it here, and Michael Tobis blogged about it here). So the news is that a some new research indicates that the rate at which atmospheric CO2 is being absorbed into the ocean is falling. The findings are new, the authors are not sure if natural varibility is involved or not, but regardless it is a troubling sign. If it does turn out to be the case it signals the cessation of a free ride nature has…