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Who won last night's Republican presidential debate?

UPDATE for Feb 6th debate: This post was originally written for the previous GOP debate. Here are a few comments on last night's debate. I watched the debate at a debate watching party of DFL activists, so naturally I saw very little of it because we were a loud and raucous crowd. But this morning I re-watched portions of the debate, and checked out the online commentary and polls. Once again, most of the commentary by experts has little to do with the on line polls. The on line polls show Trump as having won by a huge landslide, while the experts are talking about this or that lower level…

Dichloroacetate (DCA) Phase II Trial To Begin

Do you remember dicholoroacetate (DCA)? In a letter dated 24 September (PDF here), Dr Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta announced that his group had received approval from Health Canada and U of A's institutional review board to begin a Phase II clinical trial of dichloroacetate (DCA). The trial will enroll 50 patients with astrocytomas or glioblastomas, two classes of malignant brain tumors, who have either been newly diagnosed or have not responded to previous therapies. The purpose of a Phase II trial is to provide an initial assessment of drug efficacy in a small…

Anthro Blog Carnival -- Pulp SF Edition

The thirty-seventh Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Hot Cup of Joe. Archaeology and anthropology from outer space!!! And check out the new Skeptics' Circle!

ScienceOnline'09 - Sunday blogging

And here is what bloggers wrote so far today: The Logical Operator: Not-so-live blogging Science Online '09 The Logical Operator: Science Fiction on Science Blogs - Science Online '09, Day 1 The End Of The Pier Show: Lines Written At 1.20 am ET Sunday 18 January The End Of The Pier Show: Prevarication, 7.30 am ET, Sunday 18 January Highly Allochthonous: ScienceOnline Day 1: generalised ramblings Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted): Nature Blogging 101 White Coat Underground: Carolina dreamin' Makroskop, laboratorium przyszÅoÅci: Science Online '09 The Flying Trilobite:…

Clock Quotes

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Multimedia Friday : Brain Power - the shirt and video!

I swear I'm not being paid... but it does follow the theme of our blog. Check out their merchandise as well :) Ok.. who is going to buy me one of these shirts? HT: Sandra!

The Bush Administration Modus Operandi...

...find anything the government does that works and break it. I really never thought that we would be debating lead standards: The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments. Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits. A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The…

Friday Fun: Starbucks Trenta + Whisky in a Can = ??????

Two recent developments that I think are connected in a strange way. Starbucks just came out with a new drink size, the Trenta, where the volume of coffee is bigger than the human stomach. Wow, that's a lot of caffeine. In the same vein, there a company out there that's come up with a 12 oz "Whisky in a Can" product. Yeah, that's 8 full shots of whisky. In a non-resealable can. Ok, so my idea is this. Buy the coffee, empty out a little of it and dump in all booze from the can. Instant Scotch coffee. Or Irish coffee. Or rotgut coffee, more likely, given what they're probably putting in…

Quick Picks on ScienceBlogs, August 8

Editor's picks for your reading pleasure on Tuesday, August 8: "Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut" Benjamin Cohen on a book that stands up after a dozen readings. "Buy Stock in Abloy" Tim Lambert reports on a report that new innovations in thievery have made the pin-tumbler lock obsolete. "Psychics at the Atlanta Zoo" The Atlanta Zoo has hired psychics to predict whether their panda is expecting; Orac is not amused. "Carnivalia, and an open thread" Don't you love open threads? I do. They're like the digital equivalent of a Quaker meeting. PZ's got one up now over at Pharyngula... "Where…

Half-Life

Time goes on and turns our attention, but radioactive isotopes take a long time to decay. On Greg Laden's Blog, Analiese Miller and Greg update us on the nuclear crisis in Japan. Although the dangers faced at the Fukushima power plant have diminished, the long term consequences have just begun. Greg writes "it has been a while since extensive fission has occurred in the leaking reactor" and "there is real progress in hooking up the plants to outside power sources." Meanwhile, Ana's extensive news feed documents irradiated produce, neglected and euthanized livestock, and a widened evacuation…

The Laboratory is Open -- and we're there

Bora Zivkovic (aka Coturnix) is the Scienceblogs.com maestro at Blog Around the Clock. He is also a bona fide circadian rhythm researcher, which explains how he is able to blog so prolifically, orchestrate the community participation of PLoS One and still have time left over to compile the only anthology of scientific blogging, Open Laboratory, now in its second offering covering 2007. He's figured out how to go without sleep. We didn't submit a post for consideration last year (our goof), but we did this time. I am glad to say we were one of the 50 posts selected (out of 486), so we are…

Desk? No: Head-desk! McCain is....Jesus Christ!

Little Light explains the strange tale about the school desk from Huckabee's speech. As we should have known by now - it is a dogwhistle: Sound familiar yet? Please tell me it does. This is the doctrine of "Grace, Not Works" or "Grace Alone," a theological position expounded during the Reformation, cuddled by Calvin, and popular among evangelical Christians. It's not a desk, it's a place in Heaven. And it's not soldiers we're talking about, it's Jesus Christ. Don't buy the connection of this story as an allegory for the doctrine of Grace Alone? Here's a few ways to put it. And the guy…

Darwin Quotes

Here, poor Forbes made a continent to N. America & another (or the same) to the Gulf of weed. - Hooker makes one from New Zealand to S. America & round the world to Kerguelen Land. Here is Wollaston speaking of Madeira & P. Santo "as the sure & certain witnesses" of a former continent. Here is Woodward writes to me if you grant a continent over 200 or 300 miles of ocean-depths (as if that was nothing) why not extend a continent to every island in the Pacific & Atlantic oceans! And all this within the existence of recent species! If you do not stop this, if there be a lower…

Darwin Quotes

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is…

Michael Pollan's new book

Nice interview in Grist magazine: The new book is called In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. It's a book that really grew out of questions I heard from readers after Omnivore's Dilemma, which was basically so how do you apply all this? Now that you've looked into the heart of the food system and been into the belly of the beast, how should I eat, and what should I buy, and if I'm concerned about health, what should I be eating? I decided I would see what kind of very practical answers I could give people. I spent a lot of time looking at the science of nutrition, and learned pretty…

Gift Ideas to Give to your Favorite Scientist

My friend, Sara, sent me two Yellow Ibis t-shirts so I could postpone, by a couple more days, that long and lonely trudge through ten foot high snowdrifts to the laundromat. Yellow Ibis is a small company that sells science-based products such as mugs, engravings, prints and t-shirts. The shirt that I am wearing today is light blue with Darwin's "I Think" Tree of Life on it. This tree is copied from the first one ever drawn by Darwin (pictured) in his notebook, Transmutation. As I see it, this shirt is essential apparel for any practicing evolutionary biologist. I am anticipating that PZ…

Our politicians are bozos

So, nothing new there you may well say. My morning paper tells me that Broon has won a pointless victory over the bizarre 42-day-detention stuff. He had to buy off the Ulstermen to do this, and the Lords will veto it, and he is only doing it for cheap popularity, and he will fail, and it will all be useless. If he actually wants to increase our security, perhaps he might stop his people leaving "intelligence" documents on the train. But in a stunning bid to make Broon look competent by competitive incompetence, Tory David Davis has decided to resign and fight a by-election errrm, for some…

Foul-mouthed old ladies...

Or, why public transport will never be popular. Although in fact the only reason I'm writing this is because the train was crowded so I had no choice about where to sit, so it *is* popular. The story: I'm travelling back from Norwich to Cambridge, and sit in the only available seat, opposite two sweet looking little old ladies. Who talk *constantly* on the 1:20 h journey back. And I do mean it... its as if they were afraid of silence, or of the possibility of thought... and (just like the yoof of today are supposed to) most sentences had "bloody" in them. They talked about... the bankruptcy (…

Most-played Boardgames of 2014

Here are the ten boardgames I played the most during 2014. Sechs nimmt / Category 5 (1994, gets swift intense buy-in even from non-gamers) * Innovation (2010) Magic: the Gathering (1993) * Plato 3000 (2012) * Keltis (2008, travel version, very handy) Glass Road (2013) * Archaeology: the Card Game (2007) * For Sale (1997) Qwirkle (2006) * Samurai (1998) * These are mostly short games that you can play repeatedly in one evening. Only Glass Road, Qwirkle and Samurai are a bit longer. Another long game that I played a lot was Elfenland. All are highly recommended! Except Archaeology, a game of…

links for 2007-12-29

Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: The Identity Studies for Everyone The latest literary-studies fad: Age Studies. (tags: academia literature) village voice > art > Meet the East Village "It" Couple of Young-Adult Lit by Carol Cooper A profile of Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier, whose books you should go buy. (tags: books SF literature culture society writing) The 50 Most Loathsome People in America "35. Tim Russert Charges: [...] Impossible to watch him interview any woman on "Meet the Press" without fearing he'll suddenly waggle his…

Linux to get faster

The next version of the Linux Kernel will be very noticeably faster on computers with limited memory. Most "improvements" of certain unnamed operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows) involve more demand on hardware, so upgrades slow your computer down and eventually you have to throw it out and buy a new one. It is not the primary objective for Linux to make each major improvement include improved rather than degraded performance, but it is a side effect of excellent OpenSource engineering. The latest? Currently desktop software slows down when its path jumps to a part of the code…

Faith trumps science. Again

The idea of holding a presidential candidates debate on the role of science in running the country was always a long shot. But those behind Science Debate 2008 must be crying in their coffees this morning with the news that Clinton and Obama have agreed to a CNN-televised forum a week from Sunday on -- wait for it -- "faith, values and other current issues." I suppose if we're really lucky the moderators will buy Al Gore's argument that climate change is a moral issue, as is stell cell research, energy independence, the teaching of evolution.... But we all know that's not where this thing is…

Wouldn't it be great if Richard Scarry was still around to do a new Busytown book on science or sustainability? (I'd buy it anyway)

Yesterday, I was playing with my kids and having fun with the Find Lowly Worm game that seems to be a rite of passage when looking through a Richard Scarry picture book. Anyway, in our edition of "What Do People Do All Day?" I was amused by a substantial 4 page spread about coal as a source of energy (titled Digging coal to make electricity work for us). I guess it got me thinking that wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a similar children's book produced that can have the same degree of cultural prevalence, but also includes graphics looking at energy alternatives like wind, solar, wave,…

This never happens to me, either

Tara Smith is off at a science conference, and she tried to buy some souvenirs from a Retail Sales Guy. [RSG]: But you can't be a scientist! [Me]: I can't? [RSG]: No, you don't look like a microbiologist. [Me]: Um, what exactly does a microbiologist look like, then? [RSG]: Uh... [Me]: Because I'm pretty sure that I am one. (Rummaging through bag, digging out ASM nametag). Yep, that's my name, and that's the microbiology conference logo right there. [RSG]: But you're too pretty! You should be in Hollywood. Wait, you mean it's not just an atheist problem? Women, I don't know how you cope: you'…

Relayed Without Comment

From the blog of Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map and Mind Wide Open Go Buy Microcosm Right Now Carl Zimmer may be my favorite science writer around today (others seem to agree), so I'm excited to report that his new book Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life hit the shelves yesterday. I had the opportunity to read it in manuscript form, and it's really an exceptional book -- what Carl calls an "(un)natural history of E. coli" -- the world's most famous microbe. Having just published a book that partially starred a bacterium myself, I know how hard it is to make a book about…

Responses to my post on Lottâs cherry picking

Hunt Stilwell asks: since the gun lobby's statistical claims have been debunked so thoroughly and so often, why do they continue to use them, and why do people continue to buy them? Brian Linse thinks there has been some progress, since not many progun bloggers linked to Lott's piece, whereas I remember the days when Instantman would have linked it within seconds of it being posted. John Ray boasts that he quoted Lott in an attempt to bait me. He also offers an explanation for his earlier conduct in refusing to link to my post that he was responding to. Apparently it was "too…

Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth

Have you got kids? Are you tangentially related to any young people? Are you young yourself? Do you know anyone who just likes a good story and interesting science? Well, then, I'm sorry, but reading this article will cost you $12.89. Jay Hosler has a new book out (illustrated by Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon), Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and I'm afraid it's going to be required reading for everyone, and you're also all probably going to end up buying multiple copies for gifts. Really, it's that good. It's a comic book about aliens from Glargalia explaining…

Never Overpay for Bear Bile Again!

So what's worse than buying powdered black rhino horn from a back alley Shenzen apothecary to cure your impotence? Paying too much for black rhino horn at aforementioned back alley apothecary! Luckily, I came upon an interesting table at Havocscope, which provides indexes of black market industries, including animal trafficking. While these metrics are certainly depressing, this sort of information helps conservationists understand the economic challenges they are up against, and plan their strategies accordingly. The sources for these numbers are listed at Havocscope. As any longterm…

Why do women shop?

Yet another study on why women shop, from an evolutionary perspective: In an unconscious attempt to outdo female rivals, ovulating women buy sexier clothing, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Not unlike the chimps featured on the Discovery Channel, women become more competitive with other females during the handful of days each month when they are ovulating. The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women," write authors Kristina M. Durante, Vladas Griskevicius (…

Allofmp3.com and Piracy

I'm probably breaking some obscure copyright law by simply mentioning this website. For those who don't know, allofmp3.com features ridiculously cheap mp3 files: a song usually costs a dime, not a dollar. The catch? They are a shady Russian company that uses a loophole in Russian law to not pay royalties. Whether or not to buy music from them is a continual test of my conscience, a daily moral dilemma. (Needless to say, my selfish impulses usually win. Sorry, iTunes.) But now the U.S. government is making Russia's admittance to the WTO dependent on allofmp3.com going out of business. If I was…

The Amygdaloids

Joseph LeDoux helped make the amygdala famous - his seminal studies of fear conditioning illuminated, among other things, the importance of unconscious processing - so it's only fitting that he would be part of a rock band called The Amygdaloids. Imagine Jefferson Airplane, with perhaps a dash of the Eagles and a lot of a neuroscientific puns, and you've got a pretty good idea of what The Amygdaloids sound like. "All in a Nut," for example, begins with a slightly psychedelic guitar solo and a plaintive question: "Why do we feel so afraid?/Don't have to look very far/Don't get stuck in a rut…

Repower America

My fellow climate bloggers over at Desmog Blog have notified me and asked me to pass it on to AFTIC readers that there is a very cool new online push by former Vice-President Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection called the "Repower America Wall." The idea is to have videos from thousands of everyday people - friends, neighbors and colleagues -as well as high-profile leaders from business, faith groups, politicians etc adding their voices to a collective call to action on climate change. These videos will be used as the basis of campaign ads on TV, print, billboards and online.…

RETHINKING DEMOCRATIC STRATEGY: New Online Journal Targets Ideas for Long Term Political Success

I've been meaning to start blogging about this site launched last week, and as it turns out, I just received this press release via email. I am sure I will be coming back to the site with posts this week and in coming months. Definitely a new relevant resource on framing to check out. Below is the press release. NEW ONLINE STRATEGY PUBLICATION SEEKS TO HELP DEMOCRATS ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE MAJORITY Strategists Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira, and Bill Galston launch TheDemocraticStrategist.org Washington, DC. On June 19, 2006 Democratic strategists Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira, and Bill Galston…

TQC 2009 Registration Open

Dear Colleagues, Online registration is now open for the 4th Workshop on Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (Waterloo, May 11-13, 2009) at the following website: http://www.iqc.ca/tqc2009 The deadline for early registration with a reduced registration fee is March 29, 2009, which coincides with the deadline for booking accommodation with guaranteed rate. Online registration will be closed after May 3, 2009. The program consists of invited talks, contributed talks, and poster presentations. (1) Invited speakers include: Masato Koashi (Osaka University) John…

Another nice thing about the beginning of the school year

Now that the school has started, we (meaning 'ScienceBloggers') are getting feedback messages from science teachers who were able to buy supplies for their classes because you, our readers, pitched in back in June and donated mountains of money through the DonorsChoose program. I want to thank you all again for doing such a good deed. And, as far as I can see, none of us has removed the DonorsChoose button from our sidebars, so you can always add some more to the science teaching projects of your choice. P.S. The first note I got very early and do not have it any more in my mailbox The last…

Hungry = Verboten at the USDA

In an outrageous and arrogant move, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has banished the use of the word "hunger" from its documents that describe, umm, you know, hungry people. Instead, the USDA prefers to camoflage reality with a new government double-speak phrase, "very low food security". Just a week before most of America sits down for that excessive meal we call the Thanksgiving feast (second- and third-day snacking while watching football is optional) came a new definition for the millions among us who are more likely to turn up at a food pantry than at a well-set dining table.…

Where do you buy your food

If it is in a supermarket in the UK, here's all the rotten details from an undercover scoop by BBC. This isn't new. Those in the US have grown up with the likes of Walmart and McDonald's for years. Compared to the US giants, the UK supermarkets are toddlers, still they pack the same sick punch that's the hallmark of obscenely large businesses. Mass production and consumption is, as everyone knows, not geared towards quality; in the case of food, quality is treated strictly as a legal issue, and is met in word, not in the spirit of the word. From the origin to it's eventual sale, there's…

Neurosurgical Tools of the Early 19th Century

What looks like a bevy of medieval torture tools is actually a early 19th century set of German neurosurgical tools. I think I would be terrified if a doctor walked into my room and opened that innocuous-looking velvet-lined case to reveal all those gleaming edges and tongs and probes, all meant for the purpose of carving the human brain. It contain 17 compartments which accommodate a full set of instruments made from unplated polished steel, brass and horn. They are signed by Zitier, Heine and Sandill and it is likely that the boxed set was made specifically to accommodate these…

Seed, Conflicts of Interest, and Sleaze

As my friend Pal wrote about, Seed Media Group, the corporate overlords of the ScienceBlogs network that this blog belongs to, have apparently decided that blog space in these parts is now up for sale to advertisers. We've been advertiser supported since I joined up with SB. I've never minded that before. Providing a platform and bandwidth takes money, which has to come from somewhere. The way that ads have been handled before has been no problem: the ads are clearly distinguished from the content. There's no way that you're going to mix up one of my posts with a paid advertisement. Until…

The best science blogging from 2006

Bora Zivcovic has just accomplished the impossible. He has not only sorted through hundreds of pearls to find those that dazzled most brilliantly, he's also tamed legions of wild rats, herded a flock of irascible cats and squirrels, and done it in just three weeks, all without mixing a single metaphor. That's right, Bora has created an anthology of the 50 best science blog posts from 2006. It's called The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs from 2006, and Greta and I are exceedingly proud that one of our posts (actually written in 2005) has been selected for inclusion. The book…

Gender Smog - Dell Version

Hat tip to reader James Ramsey... What do women really need in computer? Because, what with our vaginas and all, our computing needs are so, so different from those of men. Thank the goddess Dell is looking out for us, with its helpful marketing strategy that emphasizes "color schemes, cases and dieting tips". Oh my god, I can accessorize my laptop? I must have died and gone to heaven! Here's a "Tech Tip" from the Della site (isn't that so cute??? get it? Dell, the real site, is gendered "guy", while Della is for us girls. I mean, who would want to buy a laptop from a guy site, right…

Brain & Behavior and Technology Weekly Channel Highlights

In this post: the large version of the Brain & Behavior and Technology channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Technology. Refueling a Tesla Validation Prototype 9 with electricity. From Flickr, by jurvetson Brain & Behavior. From Flickr, by Barb Henry Reader comments of the week: In David Brooks on Genetics and Human Intelligence, Mike the Mad Biologist posts an excerpt from a New York Times opinion piece by columnist David Brooks; Brooks ponders over the growing intersection between science and the humanities as both strive to understand human…

Volvo and the Black Swan

More on the continuing saga that surrounds the Black Swan reported at the New Straits Times. This is going to get pretty confusing so I will provide it as sequential list time series. Volvo launches a media spectacle that has the public looking for a sunken treasure as tie in to the festering heap of movie titled Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Volvo hires Odyssey Marine Exploration to scout sites around Mediterranean to drop the Volvo's treasure chest. During the scouting expeditions, Odyssey stumbles upon a ship codename the Black Swan in international waters. Separately,…

If a paper is not available online, do you go to the trouble of finding a print copy?

Dorothea found an intriguing survey - If it's not online... - in which physicists and astronomers say, pretty much, that 'if an article is not online then it is not worth the effort to obtain it'. An interesting discussion (with a couple of more links added by others) ensued here. What do you assume if a paper is not online? Do you track it down anyway? What are your criteria for choosing to do so?

Happy New Year! Now who are you again?

I've been spending a lot of time with family and friends lately, something I don't often get the chance to do. And while I'm not happy about the reason for it, I'm still thankful for all the friends I sometimes forget I have. One thing I found out from many of my friends is that if I post a piece on my facebook page, they'll read it. But they won't necessarily come here to read my other stuff. Why not? The ongoing discussion here in the blogosphere sometimes needs an interruption, a break to remember what it is we do here, if anything. I'm not big on "Top 10" or other similar New Years…

Teaching in the digital world, part 1a. Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs?

In part I, I wrote about my first semester of teaching on-line and talked about our challenges with technology. Blackboard had a database corruption event during finals week and I had all kinds of struggles with the Windows version of Microsoft Excel. Mike wrote and asked if I thought students should be working more with non-Microsoft software and what I thought the challenges would be in doing so. I can answer with a totally unqualified "it depends." First, I think knowing how to use a spread-sheet program is an advantage in many different kinds of fields and even in real-life, outside of…

Friday Find: Robert Frost and Fred Melcher

Our regular Friday Find feature was delayed by a day due to technical issues. On receiving the Emerson-Thoreau Award, Robert Frost told the crowd: You may be interested to know that I have right here in my pocket a little first edition of Emerson's poetry. His very first was published in England, just as was mine. His book was given me on account of that connection by Fred Melcher, who takes so much pleasure in bringing books and things together like that. Among the most precious gifts I ever got is a first edition of North of Boston by Robert Frost. It is precious to me because a good…

Darwin Quotes

Without speculation there is no good and original observation. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

Darwin Quotes

...it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

"Don't judge me, man!"

A lot has been said lately about judgementalism and blame. Well.... I just think everybody has to watch this video before they buy their next goat: Anybody know what the point of all this is? Hat Tip Rob.