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Links for 2010-07-07

Physics - Keeping atoms synchronized for better timekeeping "Atomic clocks often have a limited coherence time due to the interactions between the constituent atoms. While it is usually very easy to use fewer atoms to reduce the interactions, this leads to lower signal-to-noise and less precise measurements. This tension between strong interactions and noise seems unavoidable and limits the accuracy of the world's best cesium clocks, the keepers of international atomic time. As reported in a paper in Physical Review Letters, Christian Deutsch and coworkers at three laboratories in Paris,…

Uncomfortable Question: My Bad?

Next in line of questions from readers, we have tbell with: Since science is a self-correcting process (maybe only at a statistical level, not necessarily an individual level), it would be cool if you would relate the last time you were seriously wrong about some aspect of science or research, and how you altered your thinking as a consequence. This is kind of a tough one to answer, because I'm an experimentalist. Most of the mistakes I make in the process of research are problems of a technical nature, like "I totally thought that would work, but the impedance of the vacuum feed-throughs…

Links for 2010-04-16

YouTube - Real Word Problems From My Physics Book - PH17 Amazingly, this isn't the silliest problem I've seen in an intro physics book... (tags: education physics science silly video youtube) Twitter / @busynessgirl/Calcwars Newton, Leibniz, meet Twitter. Twitter, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. (tags: silly math science history internet) Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 153202 (2010): Scattering in Mixed Dimensions with Ultracold Gases "We experimentally investigate the mix-dimensional scattering occurring when the collisional partners live in different dimensions. We employ a binary mixture…

Amazing Laser Application 7: Telecommunications!

What's the application? Telecommunications, namely, the sending of messages over very long distances by encoding them in light pulses which are sent over optical fibers. What problem(s) is it the solution to? "How can we send large numbers of messages from one place to another more efficiently than with electrical pulses sent down copper wires?" How does it work? The concept is dead simple: You take a signal and encode it in light-- this could be analog, like the SpectraSound demo LaserFest is selling, with higher intensity meaning higher signal, or it could be digital, with a bright pulse…

I Have Competitive OCD

SteelyKid is a fan of a web game called BumperStars, which my parents introduced her to. If I'm at the computer doing something, she'll march over, demand to be picked up, then point at the screen and say "Buh-Pah" until I open it up. Of course, she's a toddler, and thus has an extremely short attention span (except when she doesn't). About two minutes after I start a game for her, she'll slide down off my lap, and go find something else to do. Which would be fine, except for one thing: I have competitive OCD. I don't mean that I try to one-up other people who have obsessive-compulsive…

The Chemical Industry: Without it, you would all die of terrorism!!!!

You have noticed, no doubt, that the latest and most common banner ads on Scienceblogs are for Americanchemistry.com, a blogospheric entity representing a handful of Chemistry special interest organizations. ("Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible." and all that.) Which is fine, who cares? But what I want to draw your attention to is the ubiquitous use of the imagery of first responders in those ads. The message is obvious: Without chemicals, first responding itself would be impossible" which equals "Without the American Chemistry Industry, Osama bin Laden will eat your next…

Creationism and Evolution in the Classroom

So, yesterday Afternoon, there was a meeting of the Minnesota Atheists that included a one hour panel discussion of evolution, creationism, science education, and so on. The panel was moderated by Lynn Fellman, and included (in order from right to left as the audience gazed on) Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, Jane Phillips, Greg Laden, and PZ Myers. There were several ways in which this discussion was interesting, and I'll tell you a few of them here. Presumably PZ will have something as well. (UPDATE: PZ has this.) To begin with, this was a pretty full room (a hundred or so?) and almost…

Two chimps walked into a bar ...

... and made a real mess of the place when one of them spotted the jar of pickles on the counter. They fought over it until one of them had almost all the pickles and the other one had a number of bruises and a tiny fragment of one pickle that the other chimp dropped by accident. That would be the way it would happen if two chimps walked into a bar. Or imagine two chimps, and each finds a nice juicy bit of fruit out in the forest. And instead of eating the fruit, because they are not hungry, they carry it around for a while (this would never happen, but pretend) and then accidentally run…

Cure Diseases and Have Fun Competing at the Same Time

This beats running in one of those crazy marathons... Apparently, folding proteins is rather difficult. Or at least, the computational simulation of protein folding is processor intensive. So this is a job that has been worked up into a system that allows regular people like you and me to participate in, using our home computer to take part in curing Alzheimers, Huntington's Parkinsons, and everything. Folding@home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every…

Lemur Scent and Kin

Perhaps judging a man by his cologne isn't as superficial as it seems. Duke University researchers, using sophisticated machinery to analyze hundreds of chemical components in a ringtailed lemur's distinctive scent, have found that individual males are not only advertising their fitness for fatherhood, but also a bit about their family tree as well. "We now know that there's information about genetic quality and relatedness in scent," said Christine Drea, a Duke associate professor of biological anthropology and biology. The male's scent can reflect his mixture of genes, and to which…

Sunday Chess Problem

This week we shall continue our look at helpmates. The problem below was composed by Zivko Janevski in 2011. It calls for helpmate in two, with three solutions: Before diving in, let's review how helpmates work. In defiance of normal chess logic, white and black will be cooperating to contrive a position in which black is checkmated. The convention is that black moves first, so that, from the diagram, we are looking for a sequence of the form: Black moves, White moves, Black moves, White gives mate. Even though black and white are cooperating, normal chess rules apply. It is fine for…

You bastards!

You've hurt little Billy Dembski's feelings! You keep promoting negative reviews of his book! The Design of Life has 13 five-star reviews and 4 one-star reviews. None of the one-star reviews give evidence of the reviewer having read the book. Yet the three reviews placed front and center by Amazon are the one-star reviews and none of the five-star reviews appear there. That's because the Darwinists keep voting up the negative reviews and voting down the positive reviews. Please go to the link right now, look at the reviews, and vote on them (toward the bottom of a review are "yes" and "no"…

Sunday Chess Problem

Having devoted the last three problems to exploring the exotic world of selfmates, I think it's time for a return to the real world. So let us now consider a genre that has not yet been featured in this series: The two-move direct-mate. In the position below, it is white to move and mate in two: This problem, composed by Lev Loshinsky in 1930, illustrates one of my favorite themes: the Grimshaw. A Grimshaw occurs when two pieces of the same color interfere with each other on the same square, in two different variations. The theme's name comes from Walter Grimshaw, a British chess…

Two Happy Cats!

Here's Spider (the orange one) and Emily from yesterday, having just been loaded into the back of my car. See how happy they look! They were both expressing their joy with loud, some would say shrieking, meows. That's OK folks, no need to thank me. As it happens, I also have a very large carrier that could fit both of them comfortably. Part of me was tempted to throw them both in and say, “Time to settle your differences, folks.” I decided against it; too reminiscent of Thunderdome. Two cats enter, one cat leaves. Of course, we all knew where we were going: For my local readers,…

'Rockstars of Science' hurt the cause of science education

Dr. Oz. Rockstar of Science. Major, massive, epic moron. Homeboy invites our Dr. Pam Ronald on his show to talk about GMOs. Great public science outreach opportunity. I was excited for her and for the field and for the public. But you know 'crank magnetism'? Its never surprising when an anti-vaxer turns out to be a Holocaust Denier or (and) a 9/11 Truther, etc etc etc? I guess I shouldnt have been surprised at all that all the cranks get their moves from the same play-book. See, Oz invited Pam on his show to talk about GMOs. But he didnt 'really' want to talk to her (or anyone) about…

XMRV and HIV/AIDS: Superinfection

Knock knock. Whos there? Not XMRV in African blood donors or HIV/AIDS patients. Absence of detectable xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus in plasma or peripheral blood mononuclear cells of human immunodeficiency virus Type 1-infected blood donors or individuals in Africa. This is the third study not to find XMRV in HIV/AIDS patients. HIV/AIDS patients have every other pathogen under the sun at higher rates than healthy people. Except XMRV? Uh huh. Right. There is simply not enough evidence to believe XMRV is a real human pathogen, much less that it is the causative agent in a…

The luxury of anti-vaccinationism

There was some big news last week, that believe it or not, did not involve delusional, myopic, hypocritical bloggers on the internet. FOR REALZ! At the International Papillomavirus Conference, at a symposium sponsored by QIAGEN, QIAGEN announced that their super awesome HPV test was approved for use in the Third World: ... the careHPV test makes HPV DNA testing simple, effective and affordable for women in low-resource settings. The careHPV Test can be performed by a healthcare worker in a community facility without mains electricity or running water and offers HPV detection results in a…

Dangerous Dogs

Us owners of 'dangerous dogs' flock together. Though pits are virtually always a target (if not the only target) of Breed Specific Legislation, owners of other breeds arent stupid. First theydo-nothing politicians who need an election platform come for the pits, to play on their rich white constituents inherent racism (lol whites dont own pits!). Then theythe same morons who dont understand risk assessment come for the Rotties. Then theyshrill half-retarded parents who left their babbies at home alone with their dog come for the German Shepherds and Huskies. Then theythe government is…

GMO plants and herd immunity

On Colbert Report the other night, I saw Eric Schlosser made a new movie bitching about GMOs and food production in the US, 'Food Inc'. Im not saying anything until I see it. *zips-lips* However I will use this flurry of 'OMFG LIEK GMO FOOD IS GEIVING MAH CANKER AND MAEKING MAH FAAAAAT!' news activity to talk about a super cool convergence of fresh fruit and epidemiology! About 20 years ago, there was an epidemic of papaya ringspot virus in Hawaii. PRSV is carried by aphids, tree to tree, rendering the papaya trees dead. Well, worse than dead. More like plump reservoirs of PRSV, where…

Assault with a deadly weapon: HIV-1

If you are HIV-1 positive, you cant have unprotected sex without telling your partner your HIV-1 status. You cant get drunk with your new boy/girlfriend, go back to their place, and have a night of unprotected passion. You cant do that. Even if you are an HIV-1 Denier, you cant do that. After you know (or in the case of Deniers 'are told') you are HIV-1 positive, it is your responsibility to tell your sexual partners you are positive. If your infection is well controlled with antiretrovirals and your viral load is undetectable, and say your partner really wants a child, they might decide…

John Lynch at OU

When the hell was someone going to tell me John Lynch is Irish? Me: WTF! Youre Irish?!? John (in an Irish accent):... I dont type with an accent... Me: I DO DANG NABBIT! No one told me John was such a great presenter, either (Irish accent helped with that). A perfect combination of 'funny' and 'facts'. My favorite funny, paraphrased: "There are no such thing as 'Darwinists'. Its just a pejorative used by Creationists cause it sounds like 'MARXISTS!', and it makes it seem like scientists are in this big cult where we all gather on Darwins birthday to sing songs and eat cake... *trails off…

Rick Warren: HIV/AIDS Activist

UPDATE 1/9/09-- More RIck Warrens anti-activism. When I found out yesterday that Rick Warren was speaking at Obamas inauguration, I was pretty grossed out. Grossed out, and confused. Obama and Warren appear to be polar opposites... but whatever. Its Obamas party, he can invite whoever he wants. I didnt care. Until I read how Obama was justifying this decision: Pastor Rick Warren has a long history of activism on behalf of the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He's devoted his life to performing good works for the poor and leads the evangelical movement in addressing the global HIV/AIDS…

Arrogance and Small-Town Voters

Here's Slate's Melinda Henneberger commenting on small-town political attitudes: When I went back there, and visited similar small towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, one thing I heard over and over--from registered Democrats!--was that their national party leaders were elitists who couldn't seem to relate to their struggles. Again and again, they brought up Kerry's windsurfing and polyglot wife and Hollywood friends and brand spanking new hunting attire as proof positive of the kind of elitism that was turning them into Republicans. Perhaps worst of all in their eyes was his…

Heller Wins Templeton Prize

The New York Times is reporting that Michael Heller, a Roman Catholic Priest and cosmologist from Poland, has won the 2008 Templeton Prize. The Christian Science Monitor offers some further details here. In case you are unfamiliar with it, the Templeton Prize is a 1.6 million dollar (!!) prize given out to those attempting to reconcile science with religion. Typically it goes to people with genuine scientific credentials who are nonetheless willing to utter comforting bromides about how science and religion are two sides of the same coin. I'm not familiar with Heller's work, and short…

Nobel Season 2014

With this morning's announcement of the 2014 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, the annual Nobel season is upon us. I didn't do a betting pool post this year, because when I announced last year's winner, I was reminded that I had never paid off the prize to the previous year's winner. So I think I just don't have the time to manage that contest right now... Anyway, the Physics prize will be announced tomorrow, and while I'm not going to host a contest, I did want to offer some space for speculation about what might win. Unlike last year, when the suspense was mostly about which subset of…

Appearances and So Forth

Since somebody asks nearly every time I mention my TED@NYC appearance back in October, I can now confirm that I will not be speaking at TED this year. Which I found out the same way as everybody else: when the full speaker list for this year's TED was released today. If you're curious about the outcome of the "talent search" I was part of, the only name I recognized from that event was Zak Ebrahim, who was awesome in New York. Having said what I won't be doing, let me mention a couple of things I will be doing later this year: -- Kate and I are going to Loncon 3, the World Science Fiction…

You Don't Know How Valuable Preschool Is Until You Don't Have It

About five minutes into my class Wednesday, my cell phone rang. I silenced it right away, but recognized the number as the kids' day care. And I knew right away what it was: The Pip has had a bit of a cough for a while, and wasn't all that happy that morning. Sure enough, when I got back to my office there was a series of emails waiting for me between Kate and the director of the JCC pre-school program, about how The Pip was just feverish enough to need to be sent home. Wednesday was a particularly inauspicious day for this, as Kate had a court argument in Rochester on Thursday, and I have a…

A New Tourist Attraction for Kentucky

It used to be that Kentucky was known primarily for bourbon and horse racing. But now they seem determined to add creationism to that list: Gov. Steve Beshear said Wednesday that a creationism theme park, expected to open in Northern Kentucky in 2014, would have a $250 million annual impact on the state's economy. Ark Encounter, which will feature a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah's Ark containing live animals such as juvenile giraffes, is projected to cost $150 million and create 900 jobs, Beshear announced at a Capitol press conference. “Make no mistake about it, this is a huge deal…

Infinite Recurrence

I'm something like 100 pages ahead of the Infinite Summer spoiler line (page 283 as of last night), meaning that a lot of the stuff I'd like to discuss or see discussed isn't fair game yet. I'm still greatly enjoying the re-read of Infinite Jest, though. As I've said before, this is a dangerous book for me, in that Wallace's style has a tendency to leak over into my own writing when I read too much of his stuff(*). It's also a dangerous book in that a large number of the sections are written in a headlong style with very few breaks, and thus no place to stop until you get to the end of the…

links for 2009-06-19

DNA Evidence Frees Man From Zoo | The Onion - America's Finest News Source "Shortly after the findings were revealed, Phoenix Zoo staff tranquilized, crated, and transported Panovich by helicopter to his Mesa, AZ home, where he was released into his front yard and reintroduced to his mate and two young." (tags: onion silly animals) The Chocolate Chip Cookie Bowl Sundae - Ruhlman.com "Last Sunday morning, my son James said, "Dad, what if you made a bowl out of cookie dough?" I'm the first to admit that there are almost no truly new culinary innovations or ideas, only variations on what's…

Links for 2011-02-14

Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science "In the July issue of APS News we pointed out that Einstein's field equations for general relativity appear unexpectedly under the opening credits of the animated feature film "The Triplets of Belleville," directed by Sylvain Chomet of France. We asked our readers for their interpretation, and offered copies of the book "Physics in the 20th Century" for particularly convincing explanations. We received many intriguing replies. We reprint some of them here, and, at the end, a communication that may, in fact, resolve the mystery of how those equations…

The Trouble With Foul Trouble (Syracuse-Georgetown)

Last night was Syracuse versus Georgetown in basketball, which is THE great historical rivalry in the Big East-- these are the teams that made the league great in the 80's, and while the Hoyas had a down stretch in the late 90's/ early 2000's, they're good again, so it's a huge game. Because of that, even though I'm usually the one to put SteelyKid to bed at night, Kate took her so I could watch the game. So, of course, Syracuse lost. In the most annoying fashion possible, too: they had a small but consistent 4-6 point lead for a big chunk of the second half, and then right after SteelyKid…

In Which I Join the Century of the Fruitbat

Lookit the shiny: That's a new Droid X smartphone, and it's mine. I got it yesterday after discovering the existence of a slightly cheaper "data only" plan that is so secret only about 10% of Verizon Wireless employees know it exists. As my previous phone was a freebie LG flip phone from about three years ago that didn't even have a camera, let alone any "apps," this is a big step. I activated it late last night (early this morning, really), but haven't done anything more than really basic set-up on it. I am not allowed to play with it until after I finish the revisions to Chapter 5 of the…

Links for 2010-11-30

What correlates with problem solving skill? | Casting Out Nines "About a year ago, I started partitioning up my Calculus tests into three sections: Concepts, Mechanics, and Problem Solving. The point values for each are 25, 25, and 50 respectively. [...] I did this to stress to students that the main goal of taking a calculus class is to learn how to solve problems effectively, and that conceptual mastery and mechanical mastery, while different from and to some extent independent of each other, both flow into mastery of problem-solving like tributaries to a river. It also helps me identify…

Writing Relativity vs. Writing Quantum

Fall term classes ended yesterday, officially-- my last class was Friday-- so I'm shifting over to spend more time working on the sequel to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, which involves talking to Emmy about relativity. Progress has been slower than last time, largely because the previous book was written while I was on sabbatical and before SteelyKid was born. But there's also a structural issue that's giving me some problems. This is partly a matter of familiarity with the material-- I'm a low-energy physicist, so I've never needed to worry all that much about relativity. A bigger issue…

Links for 2010-11-07

Democrats didn't lose the battle of 2010. They won it. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine "Politicians have tried and failed for decades to enact universal health care. This time, they succeeded. In 2008, Democrats won the presidency and both houses of Congress, and by the thinnest of margins, they rammed a bill through. They weren't going to get another opportunity for a very long time. It cost them their majority, and it was worth it. And that's not counting financial regulation, economic stimulus, college lending reform, and all the other bills that became law under Pelosi. So spare…

Why Every Dog Should Love Quantum Physics 6: Superconductors

If you're still not sure whether you should be teaching physics to your dog, here's another good reason: Superconductors. The "super" in "superconductor" refers to the fact that these materials conduct electric current with absolutely zero resistance, better than the best ordinary metals. This has obvious applications in the green technology field (which dogs should definitely be interested in, as discussed in a previous installment)-- if you could remove the resistance of power lines, you would lose less energy on the way from the generating plant to your home, increasing the energy…

Links for 2009-10-20

Myth Confirmed. : Built on Facts "[U]ntil relatively recently, no one had ever actually done the experiment. It's difficult, both in terms of dropping the bullets properly and making sure the gun fires exactly horizontally. Horizontal fire is critical, because if there is an initial vertical velocity for the fired bullet, the equation will be different from the dropped bullet and they won't hit the ground at the same time. Nonetheless there is a group of experimenters who are very good at this sort of thing, and not so long ago they actually did the experiment. They are of course the…

What An Editor Does, and Why It Matters

I've had the Quiche Moraine post on editing open in a browser tab for far too long, now, but it deserves a more prominent comment than just a link in the daily links dump. It really is an excellent presentation of the important role of editing: Editing requires the strange ability to stand in the place of the audience and the author simultaneously. As an editor reads a piece, whether it be a story or a journal article, they have to understand what the author intended to say without losing track of not just what one individual reader will take away, but how the piece will come across to…

links for 2009-04-02

Hold Steady rocks for the lucky few -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY "The Hold Steady's Tuesday night performance at Valentine's was sold-out weeks in advance of the show, which left a lot of mopers without a ticket or a hope of getting in. Those who'd jumped on the chance early on, though, were treated to a walloping dose of Craig Finn and crew, the likes of which a venue the size of Valentine's probably won't see until the band is making the reunion rounds 20 years from now." (tags: news music review) When are fake forces awesome? | Dot Physics "A fake force is one of those forces…

links for 2009-03-11

Science in the open » Why good intentions are not enough to get negative results published "The fundamental problem is that the âwe need a journalâ approach is stuck in the printed page paradigm. To get negative results published we need to reduce the barriers to publication much lower than they currently are, while at the same time applying either a pre- or post-publication filter." (tags: science publishing open-access journals) Open Reading Frame "If the primary measure of a journal's value is its impact -- pretty layouts and a good Employment section and so on being presumably…

Davidson

Davidson's amazing NCAA tournament run came to an end today, as Kansas just squeaked past them, 59-57, when a shot at the buzzer went wide. The low score probably offends NBA fans, but to my mind, this game showed everything that's right about the NCAA tournament. If you watched the game, it was clear that Kansas was bigger, stronger, and faster than Davidson at pretty much every position. And yet the Wildcats were able to hang with them, and even had a four-point lead in the second half-- not because they were chucking wild shots and getting lucky, but because they played excellent…

Uncomfortable Questions: Infuriating Student Habits

Anon_student asks: You seem to enjoy teaching most of the time, but what traits/habits in students absolutely infuriate you? Hoo, boy. There are so many, it's hard to choose just one... If I'm allowed to group things together into a larger category of offense (and it's my blog, so I can do what I damn well please), I would say that the thing I find most infuriating in dealing with students is a lack of respect. I don't mean "lack of respect" in the sense of "They call me 'Mr.' instead of 'Professor,'" or anything cosmetic like that. I'm talking about general behaviors that fail to respect…

FutureBaby Playlist: O-S

You know, there are really a remarkable number of bands whose names begin with "S"... There may be more "B" or "T" acts in my library, just because I own a bazillion songs by Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, but there sure are a lot of "S" artists. This set continues to show that sing-along-ability is the most important criterion in picking FutureBaby tunes. On strict moral grounds, the Pogues have no business on such a list, not due to lyrical content, but rather the make-up of the band, but how could I not include a couple of theirs? "Murder (Or A Heart Attack)," Old 97's (Despite the title, it's…

Brazil's Independence From Foreign Oil: Doubting the Skeptics

The Washington Post today has an article on href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900842.html">Brazil's milestone achievement: this year, their oil exports will equal or exceed their imports.  This is significant for a few reasons.  For one, it shows that it can be done, at least in one sizable country.  Although the fact that they were able to do it does not prove that we could do it too, it does indicate that we could be doing a lot better than we are.  It also shows that a country does not have to be an academic or technological powerhouse to…

Workplace Violence, Risk of Depression, Musings about Trauma

This is no big surprise, although I did not expect the magnitude of the effect: href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-08/bsj-vaw080806.php">Violence at work significantly boosts clinical depression risk Work-related violence and threats and the risk of depression and stress disorders Employees subjected to real or threatened violence at work run a major risk of becoming clinically depressed, indicates research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The magnitude of the risk was in direct proportion to the amount of workplace violence experienced, the…

SciWo's Storytime: Knuffle Bunny!

Three weeks ago, I had no idea who Knuffle Bunny was. Then one of our loyal readers and DonorsChoose philanthropists, requested the Mo Willems' book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." Minnow seemed enthusiastic about the pigeon book, but when I opened up its Amazon page, she got really excited about another book by the same author. One trip to the public library later, we came home with a book that we'd read 5 times before making it out of the library building. I think she must have read the book at her former daycare, but no matter where the source of her knowledge, Minnow was more than…

Congratulations! MUSC Hollings Cancer Center awarded NCI Cancer Center designation

I just wanted to send out congratulations to my friends and colleagues in Charleston at the Medical College of South Carolina (MUSC) on the 2 March announcement of their receipt of NCI Cancer Center designation: The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center has attained National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, a distinction held by only 63 other cancer centers in the U.S. The Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) is the only institution in South Carolina with this prestigious status. Andrew S. Kraft, MD, Director of the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC), said being named one of…

Six random things with which to bore or entertain

The blogger who I thought among all held the greatest disdain for any of these silly little narcissistic blogger games, Comrade PhysioProf, has tagged me with a meme. 1. Link to the person who tagged you. 2. Post the rules on your blog. 3. Write six random things about yourself. 4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. 5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. 6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. So here are six random things about me: 1. I belong to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J2: my markers carry the path of M168 > M89…

Dr Douglas Prasher reprised on Inside Edition

We here at the Terra Sig World Headquarters have been inundated with traffic directed by search engines following our post the other day directing readers to the NPR story on Douglas Prasher. Prasher, as is now widely known, is the former Woods Hole science who cloned the cDNA for green fluorescent protein (GFP) that enabled the work leading to this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry to at least two of the three laureates. Prasher is currently driving a courtesy shuttle for Bill Penney Toyota in Huntsville, AL, for $10 (USD) per hour. Prasher had been working for NASA in Huntsville until his…