Search Content

Displaying results 14551 - 14600 of 87950

The Kanisza Virus

Scientists have been making some remarkable discoveries about viruses recently that may change the way we think about life. One place to start understanding what it all means is by looking at this picture. You can't help put see a bright triangle with its three corners sitting on top of the black circles. But the triangle exists only in your mind. The illusion is known as a Kanisza triangle, and psychologists have argued that it plays on your brain's short-cuts for recognizing objects. Your brain does not bother to interpret every point of light that hits your retina in order to tell what you…

Mundt, Gun Control, Canada and the US

Canada. Gun law in 78. Homicide rate (per 100,000 population) 74-78 2.7 3.1 2.9 3.0 2.8 average 2.9 79-83 2.7 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.7 average 2.6 (a t test on the statistical significance of the difference of the means gives p=.01) Thomas Grant Edwards said: From "Gun Control and Rates of Firearm Violence in Canada and the United States" by R.J. Mundt, in Canadian Journal of Criminology, Jan. 1990, p. 137: "The mean rate [of homicide] for Canada from 1974-1978 was 2.7, compared to a post-1978 rate (through 1988) of 2.6. One could admit the possibility that this decline resulted from the 1977…

Still More on the California Creationist Lawsuit

From the archives - the following article was originally posted on my old blog back in August of 2005. For reasons that will become clear shortly, I've been reposting this series of stories over here. There's one more after this, and I'll have that up over here later today. Someone named Emma kindly provided a couple of links to PDF files relevant to the California creationist lawsuit. One of the links is to a propaganda piece written by the Association of Christian Schools International, which is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. The second link is to a copy of the actual complaint that…

Neutrinos Disappearing at Daya Bay?

This guest post is by Brookhaven Lab physicist Steve Kettell, the Chief Scientist for the U.S. Daya Bay Neutrino Project in southern China. Kettell received his Ph.D. in 1990 from Yale University and is the leader of Brookhaven's Electronic Detector Group. Steve Kettell Neutrinos are downright weird! Produced in prodigious numbers in the sun, supernovae, nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, neutrinos are extremely hard to detect because they hardly interact with other material at all. If we think about photons from the sun hitting blacktop during the summer, it is quite obvious…

Basketball shot - real or fake?

I have seen several videos similar to this. Real? Fake? How many tries did this take? Let the analysis begin. Before I do any analysis, let me state that I think this is not fake. I do not know that for sure, just my first guess. How would I tell if it is real or fake? This is tricky. I can't really get a good trajectory of the ball to make some measurements on it because of the camera angle (next time people, make sure you set the camera up perpendicular to the plane of motion and far enough away to avoid perspective problems - thanks!) Really, the best I can do is to look at the…

Just because they're out to get you doesn't mean they don't have a point.

Since I'm in the blessed wee period between semesters, it's time to revisit some "old news" (i.e., stuff that I had to set aside in the end-of-semester crush). Today, a story from about a month ago, wherein the Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports on the University of North Carolina's troubles obeying animal welfare regulations in its research labs. You knew that the National Institutes of Health had all sorts of regulations governing the use of animals in research (and even an Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, whose webpages have a bunch of helpful links for those involved in such…

Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 17: Fukushima is now officially "a Chernobyl"

The most significant news seems to be the raising of the level of this accident, on the international scale of how bad things get at nuclear power plants, to the highest level, which is also the level set for the Chernobyl accident. This does not mean that the Fukushima Disaster is the same as the Chernobyl disaster. They are different situations, different technologies, and different things going wrong. However, it is now official: On the scale from TMI to Chernobyl, Fukushima is officially Chernobyl. But different. An earthquake on April 7th had knocked out power at the Fukushima…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 21 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Universal Behavior of Extreme Price Movements in Stock Markets: Many studies assume stock prices follow a random process known as geometric Brownian motion. Although approximately correct, this model fails…

Conservatives and the Doctrine of Standing

One of the government's primary arguments in the various lawsuits against the NSA's warrantless wiretap program is that no one can prove that they have "standing" to sue. The plaintiffs can't show that their specific communications were subject to an NSA wiretap without having the NSA reveal who they are surveilling; and since the NSA won't reveal that information they can't show standing. It's a perfect catch-22 that effectively renders the program immune to all legal challenges. But there's something going on here that deserves to be looked at, and it's the doctrine of standing itself.…

The Tet Zoo guide to rhynchosaurs, part III

Welcome to the third, and last, of the rhynchosaur articles. The other two are mandatory reading: part I is a general intro, part II is on jaws and teeth. This time round, we look at the form and function of the postcranial anatomy (well, predominantly at the limbs actually), and also at rhynchosaur phylogeny and at their place in the grand scheme of things [life restoration of Hyperodapedon shown above, from Benton (1983)]. We begin with the forelimb. The rhynchosaur humerus is stout, with large crests for muscle attachment and a wide, flaring distal end. The rest of the forelimb appears…

The Big Bang for Beginners

"It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!" -George Gamow Let's pretend that, for all of our history on Earth, we had never once bothered to look up with any instruments beyond what our own eyes could offer. Imagine that all the technology we'd have would be the same -- telescopes, electronics, GPS, etc. -- as would our fundamental scientific knowledge -- Einstein's General Relativity, the Standard Model of Particle Physics, etc. -- but we had just never bothered to turn our attentions toward the…

Brian Clement and the Hippocrates Health Institute: Cancer quackery on steroids

I think we've spent enough time on Bill Maher's antivaccine posturing for now. There really isn't much more to say for now. I'm sure he'll probably dump some pseudoscientific nonsense about medicine on his show to provide me with more blogging material. Today, I'm moved to revisit a certain cancer quack whose offenses are threatening to suck me into devoting as much attention to him in the coming days as I have over the last three years to Stanislaw Burzynski. I'm referring, of couse, to Brian Clement, the proprietor of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida. I first encountered Clement…

Etna Week (Part 2) - The current dynamics and activity of Etna

This is Part 2 of 3 from guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke. Check out Part 1 here. The current dynamics and activity of Etna by guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke The recent behavior of Etna is characterized by nearly continuous eruptive activity from the summit craters and eruptions from new vents on the flanks at intervals of a few years to decades. Summit eruptions vary from quiet lava emission to mild Strombolian explosions to high-discharge-rate Hawaiian to sub-Plinian style lava and fire fountaining accompanied by the emplacement of fast-moving lava flows; usually the strongest activity…

Pharma Spends Twice as Much on Advertising as Research

PhRMA, the lobbying group for the pharmaceutical companies, claims that drug companies spend more on research than on advertising. A recent study from PLoS Medicine debunks this claim: The value of our estimate over these others is that it is not based on extrapolating from annual reports of firms that are both diversified and multinational. Our estimate is driven by quantifiable data from highly reliable sources and concerns only the promotion of pharmaceutical products in the US. The derivation of our figure is thus transparent and can form the basis for a vigorous debate. From this new…

Neandertals: Episode II

More Neandertal news, as promised! John Hawks is getting so much traffic that his site is getting bogged down. Anyway, he posts on the two studies that came out on Neandertal genomic sequencing. No big news, Neandertals are very different, and there isn't a great deal of evidence for mixing resulting in a large load of Neandertal derived genes in modern populations. RPM has more. At my other blog p-ter excises an important point: [T]his high level of derived alleles in the Neanderthal is incompatible with the simple population split model estimated in the previous section, given split times…

Waterfront Park and Public Dock in Downtown Helsinki

tags: dock, Seurasaari, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day Public dock in downtown Helsinki, Finland. Photographed as I walked through Helsinki, Finland, from Seurasaari. Image: GrrlScientist, 4 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) Here is a lovely public dock located in downtown Helsinki (yes, that's a waterfall in the center). Standing there reminded me -- powerfully -- of the day when I sailed across Lake Washington from Seattle to Bellevue, tied up in a waterpark there that looks remarkably similar to this while I got a cup of coffee before sailing back to Seattle. Below is the…

Friday Fun: 5 things you should know before dating a scientist

All I have to say is that I'm really glad this wasn't published 20-something years ago. 5 things you should know before dating a scientist 1. We can figure things out. Understand, we're paid to dig deep, find the secrets and wade through bullshit. We can pick up on subtleties, so what you think you are hiding from us won't be hidden for long. Sure, we'll act surprised when you eventually tell us you failed freshman biology in college -- but we already knew. We don't take shit from anyone, so don't lie to us or give a load of bullshit. We spend all day separating fact from fiction, listening…

Friday Fun: 'Youngest' expedition to South Pole abandoned after 3rd day without Twitter

Kids today! They just can't suffer deprivation like we could back in my day! Take a look: 'Youngest' expedition to South Pole abandoned after 3rd day without Twitter. Plucky 20 year-old Belinda Baron had to abandon her attempt to be recognised as the youngest person to reach the South Pole on skis, after becoming cut off from all social networks for nearly 72 hours. Baron described the experience as 'chilling', claiming she hadn't experienced such feelings of isolation since switching her phone off on the flight out. Baron had spent months planning her expedition, and took advice from…

Best Science Books 2010: LacrosseTribune, StLToday and Barnes & Noble

Another bunch of shorter lists for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure. LaCrosse Tribune Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside by Brad Steiger Becoming a Doctor: From Student to Specialist, Doctor-Writers Share Their Experiences edited by Lee Gutkind How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom How It Ends: From You to the Universe by Chris Impey STLtoday The Gun by C.J. Chivers The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World by David Kirkpatrick The Immortal Life of…

Join Festival Co-Founder Larry Bock & STEM Experts for E-week Twitter Chat

Curious to know what people in STEM fields love about their jobs? Ever wonder what it takes to begin a STEM career? Join the USA Science & Engineering Festival and experts from  Lockheed Martin, Project Lead The Way and Bucknell University on Twitter to discuss their path to a career in STEM. The expert panel includes Festival Inspiration and Co-Founder Larry Bock, Jeff Wilcox, VP of Engineering from Lockheed Martin, Dr. Margot Vigeant, Associate Dean (college of engineering) and Professor of Chemical Engineering from Bucknell University, Dr. Vince Bertram, President and CEO of  PLTW and…

Round and Round

Yesterday was the winter solstice, meaning the sun concluded its six-month southward course and seemed to "stand still" before beginning its journey north. Of course, this being a heliocentric neighborhood, the tilt, orbit, and rotation of Earth are what really move the sun through the sky. But don't let that stop you from appreciating colorful crayon diagrams of the ancient "two-sphere" model of the heavens with Dr. Free-Ride on Adventure in Ethics and Science. If that's not a useful enough approximation, you can get a modern understanding of solstices and seasonal dynamics from Anne…

Learn how to use scientific articles in education at the C.R.E.A.T.E. June workshop

The C.R.E.A.T.E. strategy is an approach to making biology teaching a better model of biology, the science. From the C.R.E.A.T.E website, ...C.R.E.A.T.E. teaching focuses on on authentic published work--peer reviewed journal articles--with students reading either series of papers produced sequentially from individual labs or series of papers from different labs focused on a single line of research. This summer and next, the National Science Foundation is funding two identical workshops designed to help instructors learn how to use the C.R.E.A.T.E. strategy. These will be held in June 2012 and…

You may think you're African-American, but...

An NSF post on Twitter this morning described an interesting study from the University of Pennsylanvia and Cornell University, that found that some people who call themselves "African Americans" may only be 1% West African, according to their DNA. The University of Pennsylvania press release contains other interesting findings as well. 365 individuals were studied and 300,000 genetic markers were examined. Some of the findings were: If you're African American, the genes most likely to have an African origin are those on your X chromosome. The article didn't mention it, but I would guess…

Skrekkur: feminist slam poetry and dance in Iceland

Skrekkur is an annual talent show for Icelandic schools, roughly 9-10th grade, and it has grown to become quite a big deal. The winning act is usually stunning and original and very well executed, and I don't just say that 'cause my little cousins keep winning... This year the winning performance, from Hagaskóli, was extraordinary, and not, as far as I know, featuring any of my cousins: youtube video from Lára Hanna. "I was ten years old when I was first called "whore" I didn't understand why, now I understand I was in the way, I was bossy, I crossed the line, I tried to break out from my…

LHC: dark matters

Continuing slow live blog of the “New Particle Physics at the LHC and Its Connection to Dark Matter” workshop at the Aspen Center for Physics. Series of short talks this morning: "A WIMPy Baryogenesis Miracle" by Yanou Cui, Lisa Randall, Brian Shuve (arXiv:1112.2704) interesting and possibly useful speculation on how electroweak scale WIMPs could couple to normal matter in early universe and actually generate some or all of the normal matter, in particular in such a way as to generate the observed matter/anti-matter asymmetry. Aside: Quantum Diaries has the down and dirty details of the Higgs…

It's zebra season at the NIH

The NIH announced today that it is launching its "Undiagnosed Diseases Program". This program will evaluate patients who are referred by physicians. They will also ask for input from so-called advocacy groups. This should be interesting. I'm sure they will be receiving requests from people with "chronic Lyme disase", "Morgellons syndrome", and "chronic fatigue syndrome". From what I can tell from reading the press release, the program is aimed at the individual patient, and is does not focus on epidemiology. This has it's pluses and minuses. The individual patient is the smallest "…

Friday Blog Roundup

I've been away from my computer for the past several days, so these links are all from the early part of the week: Revere at Effect Measure reports that the situation at National Institute of Environmental Health Science is revealing more damage to federal science. Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog discusses the implications of a Supreme Court ruling on drug patents. Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata wants to see more regulation of herbal products, but fears the FDA's new guidance on complementary and alternative medicine products might backfire. Kate Sheppard at Gristmill has the…

Do you want to win a prize?

Only 10 days to go! Seed Overlords are pitching in some cool prizes for people who donate to any of the SciBlings DonorsChoose challenges, including mine. Janet has the goods: First, make a donation (from $5 on up) to any of the challenges mounted by ScienceBlogs bloggers. After donating, forward your email receipt to scienceblogs@gmail.com. If you've already donated to DonorsChoose, you're still eligible. Just send us a DonorsChoose receipt for a ScienceBloggers' challenge dated from 2008 to enter. Winners will be chosen at random every Friday from now through the end of the DonorsChoose…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Meat-eating Dinosaur From Argentina Had Bird-like Breathing System: The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. Discovering How Human-caused Sounds Affect Marine Mammals: The Marine Board-ESF published its 13th Position Paper, which presents a view from marine mammal specialists on the research needed to assess the effects of anthropogenic sound upon marine mammals.* Microbes 'Run The World': Metagenomics Increasingly Used To Characterize Them: Mostly hidden from…

Why can't journalists call it as it is?

Researchers Hope Obama Team Will Reinvigorate Role of Science Adviser: In recent years, though, some critics have charged that the science adviser's influence has reached another low under President George W. Bush.... "Some critics"? Like, the entire scientific community? The entire science blogosphere? All the science journalists? Because of the obvious fact that the Bush Presidency is the pinnacle of the Republican disdain for reality, empiricism and science. Governing from the gut instead of from the brain. Governing by listening to direct messages from the Lord. Because the…

A first hint of decency from the Irish Catholic church

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has written what Catholics should have said from the very beginning of this Irish scandal. It really didn't take much, just the recognition of failure. The church has failed people. The church has failed children. There is no denying that. This can only be regretted and it must be regretted. Yet "sorry" can be an easy word to say. When it has to be said so often, then "sorry" is no longer enough. He goes on to say that the church needs to get out of its state of denial, that they have to admit that they've done wrong, and that they have to make…

New and Exciting in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine

The Molecular Anatomy of Spontaneous Germline Mutations in Human Testes: The frequency of Apert syndrome mutations is 100-1,000 times higher than expected from average mutation rates, and it is due to positive selection in the testis increasing the frequency of germ cells carrying the defect. Enlightening Energy Parasitism by Analysis of an ATP/ADP Transporter from Chlamydiae: This paper explores the functional basis of how the intracellular P. amoebophila manages to effectively exploit the energy pool of its host cell by using the nucleotide transporter PamNTT1. Emergence of Large-Scale…

Gas prices to fall?

Gas prices are currently high and have been rising in the UK... however, British Gas is running adverts in UK newspapers offering "Fixed prices that fall in December 2007". This might or might not show you the advert, depending on when they update it. Which lead me to wonder if they knew something that no-one else does. However, looking at the small print Fix and Fall rates are at our current new standard variable prices from date of registration until the 3 September 2006. New standard variable rates apply from 4 September 2006. From this date or date of registration if later, until 30…

Tol vs Curry

KK reports on the Tol vs Curry fight. Tol is complaining that Curry is doing her usual: posting about septic junk and then saying "oh but I'm just asking". Tol may have long hair but, unlike Curry, he isn't a bozo, or irresponsible (he did call me rude things in an email once, but I forgive him). [Update: incidentally, there is an interesting exchange between KK and RP Jr (!) in the comments: KK> Do you assign lousy, error-riddled textbooks for your class to read? RP> Yes, absolutely. The Skeptical Environmentalist was a core reading... It is interesting only because that was a silly…

Mr Methane

Various wild excitement about methane emissions from the Arctic shelf... Hot Topic, Inel and The Indescribably Overhyped, which latter reveals "exclusively" what Magnus translated several weeks ago. Inel, very sensibly, asks for context: what are we to make of "millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide"? I think the best thing to look at would be the global methane concentration. If that isn't going up strongly, then this isn't a big thing at present. Whether or not its a sign for the future is another matter. Unfortunately I couldn't find the current methane concs…

Holocaust Deniers Assemble in Iran

From The New York Times: Holocaust deniers and skeptics from around the world gathered at a government-sponsored conference here today to discuss their theories about whether six million Jews were indeed killed by the Nazis during World War II and whether gas chambers existed. In a speech opening the two-day conference, Rasoul Mousavi, head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, which organized the event, said it was an opportunity for scholars to discuss the subject “away from Western taboos and the restriction imposed on them in Europe.” The…

Stuff to hear and watch

Have you see KONY 2012? You'll need a spare half hour. When you have it, click here. This podcast is out: "A Universe From Nothing" Lawrence Krauss on Atheists Talk #157, Sunday, March 4th, 2012 Dr. Lawrence Krauss is a leader in the fields of theoretical physics, science advocacy in public policy and education, and scientific skepticism. We are honored to have Dr. Krauss join Atheists Talk this Sunday to discuss his recently published book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. A Universe From Nothing tackles ideas of thrilling complexity and importance.…

RT Rybak, The Rhyming Mayor of Minneapolis

It occurs to me that many of you may not know this because you don't live in the Twin Cities or are not Facebook Friends of the Mayor of Minneapolis, but the guy is very funny and creative and produces a lot of poetry, especially this time of year. In Minneapolis, there is an arcane system of plowing snow that I will not even attempt to explain. (I come from New York and Boston where the system for removing snow from the city streets makes perfect sense.) The point is, if you mess up they tow your car to a sort of automotive dungeon and it costs a lot of money to get it back. So, when…

An MD/engineer/theologian/creationist on local turf!

I've got a copy of the student paper for Ridgewater College, the Ridgewater Review, volume 11, number 5, which contains an announcement: Can anyone know for certain how the earth began? Ridgewater's Christians in Action student club is sponsoring talks by Dr Randy Guliuzza exploring this topic and more on Wednesday, April 11th in the Ridgewater College Hutchinson campus commons area at 11:00 am and 5:30 pm. By golly, I am so tempted to attend. The earlier talk conflicts with one of my classes, but I might be able to get away in time to catch the evening session. It might be interesting —…

EGU: Wedsnesday

A few pics, just in case you think that Vienna is all beauteous; here I choose about the least attractive angle to see the Austria Centre from. . And a maybe irridescent cloud. Not sure. And Richard Alley, from his medal talk. And a slightly nicer view of the conf centre (can you spot it?) from the Donaupark . Poster: sondes. The Vaisala RS92 produces different answers to the much-used RS80, though mostly above the troposphere. Will this matter? Fans of sondes will read .../RSO-IC-2005_Final_Report.pdf, though apparently this doesn't include the RS80. Another poster: was the Younger Dryas…

Historical Interdisciplinarity Examples?

For something I'm working on, I'm trying to come up with good examples of interdisciplinarity making a difference in science. Specifically, I'm looking for cases where somebody with training in one field was able to make a major advance in another field because their expertise let them look at a problem in a different way, and bring a different set of techniques to bear on it. I can think of a decent number of examples within physics-- techniques from NMR being adopted by atomic physicists, atomic physics techniques being used to address problems in condensed matter, the whole Higgs boson…

I'm a terrorist

Or at least, that follows clearly from the latest nonsense from Wattie-land. Greenpeace enlists Justin Gillis &John Schwartz of the NY Times in Journalistic Terrorist Attack on Willie Soon – Miss Target, Hit Smithsonian Instead. If the NYT is "terrorist" then so am I. Of course, the Smithsonian is investigating Soon, so perhaps they're terrorists too? Worse for Soon, I found this in my facebook feed, from God. I'm not suggesting that God (who is currently a black lesbian regretting that she created periods) is likely to smite Soon, but this kind of publicity in the general-o-sphere, as…

Question from a Reader

I got an email from a reader asking if the title of this blog was taken from Danny Goldberg's book of the same name. I've actually gotten this question before, but I don't think I ever answered it publicly. The answer is no. In fact, I'd never heard of Goldberg or this book until long after I'd started this blog and I had to look them up. Turns out this book, which apparently deals with the importance of pop culture and music in politics, was published in June of 2003, just a few months before I started writing under the same title here. The real story of the title is that I stole it from…

Bork and Jesus?

Jason Kuznicki spotted this at Farkleberries and it's hilarious. This woman named Veronica Lueken, who claims to be in regular contact with Jesus and his mother, has interspersed quotes from the two of them along with quotes from and pictures of Robert Bork about the evils of homosexuality. It includes this juicy "quote" from the big JC himself: "And the great issue now of homosexuality in your country, that shall be on the balance that Michael holds. Unless this balance is evened by removing this evil from your country and bringing in just laws to prevent the spread of homosexuality, you…

Wednesday Hawk Blogging

On the way in from the parking lot yesterday, I caught up with a colleague from Mechanical Engineering, who was on a bike, but had stopped to look at one of the local raptors. There are at least two red-tailed hawks living on campus, and one of them was on the ground only ten or fifteen feet from the sidewalk. It had some sort of small object in its talons, and pecked at it as I was walking up. The object in question turned out to be a pine cone, and while I was watching, it sort of hopped up into the air, and pounced on... another pine cone. This was at least the fourth pine cone to get…

links for 2008-10-11

slacktivist: They need help "The reason I've been writing about/obsessing over things like the P&G rumor or the usefulness of Snopes is that I'm trying to figure out how to liberate the captives of unreality. " (tags: politics psychology US society culture education) Images of the 2008 TC3 fireball from space! - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society "It seems that no one in Sudan was able to record the 2008 TC3 fireball; the only image I've seen that was shot from the ground was one very tiny pixel in the sky seen from a beach in Egypt. But in this day and age, there are…

Pop Quiz: Michelson Interferometer

Inspired by one of yesterday's easy questions, a pop quiz for you. The figure below shows a Michelson Interferometer: A laser falls on a beamsplitter, which allows half of the light to pass straight through, and reflects the other half downward. Each of those beams then hits a mirror that reflects it directly back where it come from. The beams are recombined at the beamsplitter, and then fall on the viewing screen at the top of the figure. When we add together the light from the two paths, we find that if the lengths of the two arms (that is, the distance from beamsplitter to mirror) are…

Thursday Dramatis Personae Blogging 021011

Appa appears in all the weekly Toddler Blogging pictures, but he's not the only stuffed animal in Chateau Steelypips. the others were getting a little resentful of Appa's blog time, so here's the full cast of characters: In the back row, from left to right, we have: SteelyKid, Baby, Audrey, Appa, Dolly, Lorax, and Mommy. In the front row: a green bird whose name I don't know, a reindeer left over from Christmas, Dijon the knit giraffe, Bertha the Big Bear, and Emmy. SteelyKid was sent home from day care with a fever today, which has kind of thrown a wrench into everything, and made her…

People Dancing

I've been watching the Al Jazeera English livestream off and on this week to keep up with events in Egypt. At some point, SteelyKid came in while I had it on, saw shots of the cheering crowds from Tuesday, and said "People dancing!" Sometime on Wednesday, she marched over to me, and demanded to watch a video. I asked what she wanted, and she said "People dancing!" At that point, though, the live video was of people throwing Molotov cocktails off a hotel roof onto protesters below. I didn't think that was really appropriate toddler fare, so I showed her this instead: Three-ish years later,…

Physics Comes Marching In

The annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society is happening this week in New Orleans. This is the biggest physics conference of the year, by far, with close to 7,000 attendees-- despite what you might think from the Internet, the Condensed Matter crowd who attend the March Meeting significantly outnumber particle physicists and high-energy theorists. I don't usually go to the March Meeting-- it's just too damn big. I went to the Centennial Meeting in Atlanta in 1999 (and gave an invited talk, in fact), and didn't care for it all that much. I prefer DAMOP, which is much smaller-- a…