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Evolution 2008 is for teachers

Teachers, come to Minneapolis this summer! Not for the Republican convention, but for the other great big important meeting that will be taking place: Evolution 2008. Teachers in particular get a really good deal: a special workshop is planned, specifically on the teaching of evolutionary biology in the schools. We've got some good speakers (and me) lined up, and the registration cost of a mere $20 not only gets you into the workshop, but into the regular meetings as well. Here are the details: Evolution 101 Workshop for K-12 Educators Friday, June 20, 2008 Bell Museum of Natural History…

World's largest telescope will revolutionize the future of astronomy (Synopsis)

"For my confirmation, I didn't get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift." -Wernher von Braun Sure, going to space is great for overcoming Earth’s atmosphere, but it’s no substitute for the sheer size of what we can build on the ground. The current record-holder for largest telescope is 10.4 meters in diameter, and that takes 36 hexagonal segments to get there. But single mirrors can be cast up to about 8 meters in diameter. Thanks to a revolutionary design, the Giant Magellan Telescope will stitch 7…

Thrilling Tales of Astrophysics

Over in LiveJournal Land, James Nicoll is pining for the good old days: I'm going through one of my "I would kill for some new SF" phases, SF in this case being defined in a narrow and idiosyncratic way. In particular, I want the modern version of those old SF stories where SF writers, having just read some startling New Fact [Black holes could be very small! Mercury isn't tide-locked! The Galilean moons are far more interesting than we thought!], would craft some thrilling tale intended to highlight whatever it was that the author had just learned. I suspect this is mostly due to James's…

Bad News for the LHC

As you undoubtedly already know, the Large Hadron Collider suffered a setback this week: The start-up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN could be delayed after three of the magnets used to focus and manipulate the accelerator's proton beams failed preliminary tests at CERN earlier this week. The magnets were built at Fermilab in the US, which announced the failure on its Web site. Although CERN has not yet issued a formal statement on the set-back, it looks increasingly unlikely that the LHC will come on-line this year as planned. (See also the official Fermilab release on the…

links for 2008-02-04

Locus Online: Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading: 2007 A few books and stories to pass those quiet moments. (tags: books stories SF) Science in the 21st Century Conference participants include a bunch of really smart people with innovative ideas about the future of science and the interplay between science, information technology, and society. And they invited me, too. (tags: academia science computing society publishing internet) ...My heart's in Accra » Searching for common ground with Andrew Keen "Keen [author of _Cult of the Amateur_] has some very important points. But he's also…

I get no respect

Here's the difference between me and Michael Bérubé: he gets labeled a dangerous radical and profiled in David Horowitz's new book, while all I get is a mild squeak in our weekly campus newspaper and our local conservative rag. While perusing the UMM main page, I happened upon the website http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula which belongs to UMM's own Professor of Biology Dr. Meyers. Upon closer inspection I found content relating to my religious beliefs that offended me beyond belief. Not only was this speech sacrilegious and offensive, but it was readily available to anyone who happens across…

The Republicans on Evolution

There were a number of interesting tidbits in the Republican candidates debate tonight. There was the spectacle of Mitt Romney desperately trying to explain away his flip-flop on abortion. There was the stampede to declare embryonic stem-cell research immoral and unnecessary, culminating with Colorado representative Tom Tancredo's declaration that such research is “reprehensible.” But the one that really caught my ear was the brief discussion of evolution. John McCain was asked directly, “Do you believe in evolution?” The answer, after a brief pause, was a simple, if somewhat uncomfortable…

Links for 2010-10-08

A Nobel prize for levitating a frog - The Dayside "Unlike the graphene discovery, frog levitation hasn't begotten a vast worldwide research effort whose fruits include thousands of research papers and scores of patents. Nevertheless, as Novoselov recounted in an interview with ScienceWatch, the two projects have something in common: 'The style of Geim's lab (which I'm keeping and supporting up to now) is that we devote ten percent of our time to so-called "Friday evening" experiments. I just do all kinds of crazy things that probably won't pan out at all, but if they do, it would be really…

Mountain Top Removal Update: Oprah's In On It Too!

Grist has been posting many excellent links, discussions, and interviews about Mountaintop Coal Removal in the Appalachians. It's been a while since we added to our MTR posts (one, two, three, four), so allow me to do so now. photo source: Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition First is an article in Blue Ridge Country by Peter Slavin. Slavin reports on the anti-MTR movement over the past year, with successes in Tennessee, large protests in West Virginia, with sit-ins, congressional action, and with new popular press articles ("Features have appeared in 2006 in Orion (January), National…

Blogging and history of science

Ben Cohen over at The World's Fair has gotten me thinking about something: is there really a readership for blog posts about the history of science [HoS]? My own experience is that there may not be such a readership, or at least may not be one that engages in commentary. Admittedly, my evidence is fragmentary. Over the past two weeks I have been posting HoS-based material, namely a series of book reviews and a commentary on the value of HoS for science education. The former series generated virtually no comments and the latter a meager nine comments (it also wasn't picked-up by any other…

Wanna Live Longer? Move to Maryland!

A recent Yahoo news story reports that life expectancy is tied to race, income, and where you live. Although not unexpected, it makes for quite interesting food for thought on the disparities that exist in the current health care system in America, as well as genetic factors involved in life span. Asian-American women living in Bergen County, N.J., lead the nation in longevity, typically reaching their 91st birthdays. Worst off are American Indian men in swaths of South Dakota, who die around age 58 -- three decades sooner. Compare those longest-living women to inner-city black men, and the…

New York, New York, New York

I'll be giving three talks in the next couple weeks in New York. First up, my lecture at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn Tuesday. It's possible I'll be able to post the video of the lecture later--I'll let you know. (Out of curiosity--anybody know a good way to combine video and powerpoint slides online? I've seen it done, but not on any open social video sites.) Then come two appearances in the World Science Festival. First up: Thursday, May 29th 7 pm, I'll be moderating a panel about Steven Kurtz, the bioartist who was charged with terrorism. (He was also the subject of a movie,…

Mouse Brains on a Screen Near You - In Great Detail

Researchers at Duke University have recently invented a technique for improving the spatial resolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by a factor of nearly 100,000x. Whereas routine clinical MRI scans contain 3-dimensional pixels ("voxels") approximately 1mm x 1mm x 1mm, this new technique allows for voxels as small as 21.5 thousandths of a milimeter on each side. This is fortunate for many mice, who in the future might no longer need to be sacrificed - but rather merely sedated - for precise neuroanatomical analysis. It is also fortunate for neuroscientists, as older histological…

Ozone depletion denial, part III

I wrote earlier about ozone depletion deniers John Ray and Sylvain Galineau. I've found another such denier and his name is John Lott. Lott wrote a positive review\* of Environmental Overkill, a book written by Dixy Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo. In his review, Lott calls ozone depletion an "environmental myth" and a "scare story". Now, Lott's false statements about ozone depletion might have been forgivable if Ray had made a good case against ozone depletion, but the quality of the science and scholarship in her work is appalling. Robert Parson has written a…

Does your name dictate who you are?

If you believe that a name can have an impact on how people treat you, your future career and if you also like math you should name your daughter (or change your name) to something further down this list: Isabella 1.21 Anna 1.04 Elizabeth 1.02 Emma 0.97 Jessica 0.93 Samantha 0.83 Sarah 0.78 Olivia 0.74 Hannah 0.70 Emily 0.68 Lauren 0.66 Ashley 0.63 Grace 0.50 Abigail 0.48 Alex 0.28 If you want your daughter to be a beautician, home maker or a monarch the names on the top of the list are fine. Something bothers me about studies like this but I'm not sure if it's just that I don't want things…

The Biology of Pink

Perhaps you don't remember an entry I wrote about a year ago titled Pink Is For Boys, Blue Is For Girls. I linked to a Fairer Science post that was debunking a Times Online editorial suggesting girls had a biologically determined preference for "pink fluff". Fairer Science quoted a June 1918 edition of Ladies Home Journal thus: There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate…

Poetry for Physicists?

The Chronicle of Higher Education had a great piece this week about A. Van Jordan and his new book of poetry, Quantum Lyrics. Unfortunately, I think you need a subscription to read the article online. It's the June 22, 2007 issue, p. A48, if you have access to the print version. "Physicists talk in metaphor all the time," says Mr. Jordan, 41, who weaves theories and theorems into his latest poetic examinations of history, race relations, memory, and grief. The centerpiece of Quantum Lyrics is a lengthy cycle of poems about Albert Einstein, but the book is alive with a wide array of…

7th Scientiae Up For Your Reading Pleasure!

Yes, it's Scientiae Carnival time again! FemaleCSGradStudent has asked us "How We Are Hungry", and has collated and contextualized a most interesting set of responses. Maybe you want to go visit Kat on a Wire and leave her a comment. Online communities can be very, very important for those of us deprived, for whatever reasons, of that community in the meat world. Addy wants to be taken seriously. I swear, when I read this: I was recently introduced to a professor emeritus in another department and he asked "are you a grad student?" My first reaction was, "Hey, why is she writing about…

Another meaningless online test

I'm sick, my head hurts and I have a fever. That is why I did this, and why I got a lower score than anyone else who may compare themselves to me. Lynch made me do this. It' seems I'm a Modern, Cool Nerd, like that's news... Modern, Cool Nerd 78 % Nerd, 60% Geek, 43% Dork For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored…

Toronto New Years and a Sad Rose Bowl

So, I've been in the North Country for the weekend, and have mixed feelings about Toronto. On the one hand, its the metropolitan city that Detroit could only dream of being (I live in Ann Arbor, MI). Cool underground mall, pretty decent public transport, fun and safe nightlife. On the other, getting a cab or decent service in any bar or restaurant is quite a challenge. Me and a few friends went to a nightclub called Fluid for the countdown to party, and while it was a pretty ok club, I almost lost it at the plethora of Canadian thug wannabes. Hello, I'm more likely to be packing a piece than…

Can you calculate your risk of lung cancer?

Sloan-Kettering's online lung cancer risk calculator tells smokers what their relative risk of cancer would be if they quit. I'm all in favor of getting people to quit smoking, but this kind of risk can really only be calculated for groups, not individuals. Will people using the calculator understand that? Sloan-Kettering recommends the tool for "people who meet all of these conditions: Age: 50 to 75 years old; Smoking History: 10 to 60 cigarettes a day for 25 to 55 years; Current Status: Current smokers, and former smokers who quit 20 years ago or less." My mom is one of those people, but…

Wait, you're saying ignorance *is* a defense?

And you're really a lawyer? The verdict came back in the Los Angeles trial of Lori Drew, the Missouri mother who facilitated cyberbullying of a former friend of her daughter, who subsequently committed suicide. Since cyberbulling isn't an easy crime to prosecute, the trial focused on whether, in setting up a fake MySpace page as a 16-year-old boy (whose online identity was used to befriend and then harass the girl who killed herself), Drew violated MySpace terms of service. So, here's the legal point- counterpoint, as reported by the Associated Press: Among other things, Drew was charged…

Moon jellies.

There are lots of cool things to see at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but my favorite by a fathom is the assortment of jellyfish. And somehow, among all the jellies they have, it's the moon jelly that sticks in my mind as the canonical jelly. As it turns out, probably it shouldn't. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Online Field Guide, the moon jelly (Aurelia labiata) is somewhat unusual in having a fringe of cilia around its bell to sweep in the food. (Other jellies get the job done with dangling tentacles.) Like other wildlife we know and love, the colors of the moon jelly are…

Stay tuned to see Steve Novella on The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday!

UPDATE 4/27/2011: Dr. Novella has written up a detailed description of his experiences on The Dr. Oz Show. Please read it. Also note that the online video for Dr. Novella's appearance is now available: Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 1 Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 2 Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 3 I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want you all to tune in to The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, April 26. Either that, or DVR it. Why am I asking you to do this? Have I lost my mind? Have I suddenly gone woo? Of course not. The reason is that…

More RIAA stupidity

This time, as part of their campaign of intimidation, they're suing a family that doesn't even own a computer: A Rockmart family is being sued for illegal music file sharing, despite the fact that they don't even own a computer. A federal lawsuit filed this week in Rome by the Recording Industry Association of America alleges that Carma Walls, of 117 Morgan St., Rockmart, has infringed on copyrights for recorded music by sharing files over the Internet. The lawsuit seeks an injunction and requests unspecified monetary damages. The lawsuit states, "Plaintiffs are informed and believe that…

Kicking Off the Book Club, Round Two: Autism's False Prophets

Hello. Thanks for stopping by the ScienceBlogs Book Club. It's my pleasure to introduce our next title, and the panelists who will be discussing it with you. Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, by Dr. Paul Offit, describes how the belief that vaccines might cause autism arose and gained popularity during the early years of this decade. The book discusses the scientists, politicians, and parent groups that helped fuel the fears that vaccines, or a mercury-containing preservative in them, accounted for a sharp rise in autism cases worldwide, and the…

Do You Work on E. Coli?

If so, you should check out EcoliWiki, which you might find a useful resource, and you might even find yourself compelled to contribute some of your knowledge to it. Since I'm already blogging about E. coli today, I thought I would also bring up an interesting project I found out about earlier this week. I'm currently wrapping up a short visit to my alma mater, Texas A&M University, and while there, I've met up with two local science bloggers that I know of: Matt Springer of Built on Facts (a fellow blogger here on ScienceBlogs.com) and Jim Hu of Blogs for Industry. Hu is an associate…

Ideas for development: Playlists on LoveFilm / Netflix

So here's a modest proposal for film rental / streaming companies like LoveFilm and Netflix: why don't you have shareable playlists like Spotify? You see, I was reading Time Out's 100 Best Horror Films and I thought, there must be loads of these lists out there, on all kinds of criteria, for all kinds of audiences. Why isn't there a button at the end labelled "ADD THESE TO MY LOVEFILM"? There are buttons to tweet it, Like it, add it to Reddit, Dig, and a dozen other aggregation sites, but none that actually serves the purpose of the list: getting these films in front of my eyes! I don't…

Science, Faith, and Compromise

Scientific American has an online review of four books: God's Universe by Owen Gingerich, The Language of God by Francis Collins, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan. Here's a choice quote: "In my view," [evolgen's least favorite NIH director, Francis] Collins goes on to say, "DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God." Evolutionary explanations have been proffered…

Minneapolis: Ritmos Unidos Tonight

The World of Emetrece Productions presents: "Ritmos Unidos" 3rd Annual Afro-Latin Tribute to MLK Day Featuring Maria Isa & CubanÃa Sunday, January 20th, 2008 // First Avenue Main Room Doors 8PM // Show 9PM - 2AM // $8 Advance // $10 Door // 18+ In remembrance of King's legacy, "Ritmos Unidos" celebrates the hyphen between Afro & Latin. Advanced tickets available on-line at First Avenue & Ticketmaster In contrast to the American 'One Drop Theory,' of African racial classification, in Latin America there are various names for differing degrees of Blackness such as prieto, negro,…

Arginylation and Cell Migration

In my last post, I forgot to link to these great movies of migrating fibroblasts (available as online supplements to the arginylation paper), that illustrate how beta-actin arginylation can alter cellular behavior. So the assay is simple, grow fibroblasts until they fill up the coverslip as a single layer of cells (or monolayer). At this stage the cells will stop dividing (by a process known as "contact inhibition of cell growth"). Then the researcher can scratch the monolayer thus removing a strip of cells. The surviving cells present at the wound edge will at once migrate into the wound.…

The trouble with NOVA

A clip form the 1993 PBS documentary The Dinosaurs! For everyone who missed it (or wanted to see it again), the NOVA documentary on Microraptor is available for viewing online here. I started watching it, but there were so many little things that irked me that I couldn't keep my trap shut. My primary gripe is that documentaries are still using Deinonychus and large dromeosaurs as the model for the bird ancestor, especially since birds like Confuciusornis were already flying by the time the larger, terrestrial predators were on the scene. Further, while the trees-down/ground-up issue…

Say hello to…PepsiCo??!? WTF?

It's nice when we add another blog to the stable here at Scienceblogs — it means another human face added to the collection, another set of opinions to enjoy or destroy, yet more scientific minds committed to engaging in discussion with the culture. After all, that's what we're all about, putting a human personality to this weird enterprise of science. And as everyone on this blog is particularly aware, we encourage all kinds of diversions and digressions and transgressions, freely stomping on sacred cows and stuffed shirts because we can. Feels good, doesn't it? So what's with the corporate…

Los Angeles Times

A note to readers: For the next few weeks, this blog is going on a book tour. So if you're averse to self-promotion and blatant shows of immodesty (I promise to also link to the negative reviews!), or just aren't interested in Proust Was A Neuroscientist, then I kindly suggest you check back in December, when I'll be back talking about lots of other things beside myself. I promise this book related chatter won't last forever... With that warning out of the way, the LA Times ran a very generous and thoughtful review of the book yesterday: Jonah Lehrer, a science journalist with a neuroscience…

Is it a Falsehood that Humans Evolve from Apes?

This is another falsehood, but a tricky one. Remember the point of falsehoods: They are statements that are typically associated with meanings or implications that are misleading or incorrect, and in some cases downright damaging. "Humans evolved from apes" is an excellent example of a falsehood because it is technically correct, yet the implied meanings that arise from it are potentially wrong. Even more importantly, you can't really analyze the statement "Humans evolved from apes" without getting into an extended analysis and discussion of what an ape is and what a human is. When…

Should You Buy The $50 Kindle Fire Tablet?

This is a review of the Kindle Fire with 7" Display and Special Offers by Amazon. In short, this is a tablet/eReader that a lot of people will want, as long as certain needs are extant and certain expectations understood. I have one, and I'm very happy with it. It would take very little convincing for me to get a second one. One of the main reasons to give serious thought to getting one of these is the fact that it will put you back a mere fifty bucks. Don't expect a brilliant tablet for fifty bucks. You may want a nice full blown Android tablet, or if you prefer, an iPad. That will cost…

A DonorsChoose challenge update, some new proposals, and what those proposals say about our screwed-up national priorities.

I can't begin to thank the people who have donated to the DonorsChoose campaign enough. As of today - four days into the campaign - we've raised $1045. That's more than was contributed during all of last year's 15-day campaign. That's absolutely fantastic. As of now, all four of the projects that I picked have been fully funded, but we haven't hit the goal yet. (Either someone donated to one of the projects through this campaign without receiving credit, or someone donated to one of the projects independently of the campaign.) At this point, we're still about $550 short of my goal for the…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: And now for something completely different...

Ever since I started Your Friday Dose of Woo (YFDoW) back in June, I had always intended that someday I wanted to expand this loving deconstruction of various forms of woo beyond just medical woo and quackery. True, having a little fun with woo that claims to treat disease or restore health is something that I've gotten pretty good at. You may wonder why I would want to move beyond medicine occasionally. After all, there's no shortage of medical woo to deal with every Friday, and I'll almost certainly return to it next week. Sometimes a skeptic needs a change of pace, and this is one of…

Watch as Marvel Takes Over the Galaxy

Like Rocket—a genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced raccoon—Guardians of the Galaxy is a strange beast. Wanting to make a little cash, Rocket and his talking tree-buddy Groot try to collect a bounty on that guy from Parks and Recreation (and Zero Dark Thirty [Chris Pratt]). But the human, who wishes he were known as Star-Lord, not only has a 40,000 unit bounty on his head, but a softball-sized orb of power that every bigwig in the galaxy wants to steal or buy. Gamora, a femme fatale working for her supervillain step-daddy, crashes the party as Rocket and Groot try to bag Star-Lord,…

Fukushima Radiation Issues

From Time/CNN: The ongoing struggle to snuff out the nuclear crisis occurred amid mounting confusion about key elements of risk now in play. At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko, called the radiation levels at one of the plant's units "extremely high." He added that "for a comparable situation in the United States, we would recommend evacuation for a much larger radius than is currently being provided in Japan." And he said his information suggested that there was no water left in the pool containing the spent…

Defeat Zombies with Your Victory Garden

Damn, I wish I'd written this! John Michael Greer takes up the Victory Garden, and puts it in its proper place - economically, politically, socially - and for zombie slaying. What's not to love? And I think he has it pretty much exactly right here - that while growing your own is never the solution to all problems, it often does mediate our potential suffering - which is why as long as there has been modernity it has been a solution to its difficulties. (Before the Victory Garden movement, there was the British cottage garden movement, a direct response to the disruptions of early…

How Does One Defeat Matt Hughes?

UFC 65 was a night of surprises. Who knew that Tim Sylvia had a ground game, almost choking out a guy (who looked like the love child of Danny DeVito, that guy from The Shield, and a neckless Uncle Fester on steroids) to defend the heavyweight title? Who knew James Irvin would do a better job of knocking his own ass down than would Hector Ramirez? Who knew Joe Stevenson's shirt would put up a better fight than his opponent? Who knew Vera would make Frank Mir his bitch? Ok we kinda saw that last one coming. But what about the big event of the night... the Welterweight Title Fight? Unless…

Interview with the gang at EngineerBlogs.org

Welcome to the long-awaited latest instalment in my occasional series of interviews with people in the library, publishing and scitech worlds. This time around the subjects of my first group interview are the gang at EngineerBlogs.org. From my welcome-to-the-blogosphere post, here's a condensed bit about them: Cherish The Scientist (EB) I am an electrical engineer with an interest in various areas of electromagnetics, including antennas and numerical simulation techniques, as well as IC packaging. I have completed a master's degree in electrical engineering and am currently pursuing a…

Actual comps response: Information Retrieval

Now that I'm not scared to look at my responses...  This one doesn't look so bad, so I'm sharing.  Please do keep in mind that this was written in 2 hours, by a tired person, with tired fingers! --- Christina K. Pikas Comps Information Retrieval (Minor) July 20, 2009 Question F2: Design an information retrieval system for scientists that covers full-text peer-reviewed articles as well as blogs and wikis 0. Introduction Today, scientists use more than just the peer-reviewed journal literature in their work, but our information retrieval systems such as our library research databases and…

As 2013 draws to a close in the skeptical world...

As I write this, 2013 is drawing to a close, with only a little more than 12 hours to go before the crowds now gathering at Times Square and elsewhere ring in 2014. For some of you, 2014 has already arrived or will arrive many hours before it does for me. I'm not normally one to do much navel gazing, but 2013 has been a mixed year. As far as this blog goes, for instance, readership is up, with over 3.5 million page views for the year, although that's still a little below the blog's height before the whole "Pepsigate" thing. (It's really hard to believe that was almost three and a half years…

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Genome Sequence

I recently was in a conversation with a collaborator who isn't in the genomics biz, and said collaborator remarked that there was a lot of online criticism of the quality of the genomic data that has been generated for the E. coli O104:H4 outbreak isolates. I've been following it very closely (not surprised by that, are you?), and I'm not sure what the collaborator was referring to. On some blog, in some comment, there probably is criticism, but these are the intertoobz: that sort of thing happens. But then it dawned on me that much of what appears to be 'criticism' is probably just a…

Bird flu: Treating early, treating late, but treating

New scientific information travels in various ways. The internet is the lastest. Sometimes it's the quickest, too, but often the old ways also work. The oldest method of communication between scientists used to be correspondence. Leibniz was famous for his extensive letter writing to other scientists during the scientific revolution of the 18th century. Even before the appearance of scientific journals, there were local or regional meetings, where scientist would gather periodically and exchange ideas and information through presentations, debate and discussion. These meetings are still…

Physical Benefits

Of the four new articles online on our website, three happen, purely by accident, to be on physics research. The three are very different, and yet each is an illustration of the ways that basic physics research changes our world – in small and large, practical and enlightening ways. And each is situated at a different intersection between the technological and the theoretical – a technological breakthrough that resulted from a successful attempt to provide proof for a theoretical construct, new inventions based on elementary physical principles of light, and a theory substantiated through a…

Costs and Benefits of Appalachian Coal

Miningâs environmental costs are high, but many residents of coal-mining communities support continued mining because they rely (directly or indirectly) on mining jobs. Now, reports Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette, two researchers have put price tags on the economic costs and benefits of coal mining in Appalachia, and found that the benefits donât even come close to covering the costs: Writing with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, [West Virginia Universityâs Michael] Hendryx reports that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic…

The so-called Facebook Scandal

[rant]So, if you organize a study-group online instead of in meat-space, the old fogies who still remember dinosaurs go all berserk. A student is threatened by expulsion for organizing a Facebook group for studying chemistry. Moreover, as each student got different questions, nobody did the work for others, they only exchanged tips and strategies. See the responses: The Star: Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation. Yes, they are. Greg: How much of this is a matter of administrative fear of the internet? 100%. Larry: Today, that sense of "…