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Sex Scandal Hits Creationist Museum

When you do 'faith-based' science, you have problems when you don't follow the tenets of that 'faith.' From the AP: The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love. After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears. "We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the…

The Wolfram Demonstrations Project

This was released to public today: Conceived by Mathematica creator and scientist Stephen Wolfram as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance, and a remarkable range of other fields. Its daily-growing collection of interactive illustrations is created by Mathematica users from around the world, who participate by contributing innovative Demonstrations. Interactive computational resources have…

Science Blogging Conference - Friday afternoon events

I spent a lot of time today offline (and in the car), and I am exhausted, but here is a very brief summary of the day (I'll post the pictures and update the blog linkfest later - UPDATE: I just updated the Blog and Media Coverage page). After the Blogging Skills Session, I drove a couple of participants back to the hotel, where we met up with several other bloggers for lunch. From there, we went to one of the afternoon Lab Tours - the one to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh, where the exhibit director Roy Campbell gave us a brilliant, informative and witty exclusive tour…

Links for 2012-01-16

Swans on Tea » The Scientists' Dilemma I recently had an interesting discussion with someone who is interested in science, but without training or experience as a scientist. The question was, basically: Why don't we (scientists) all just lie to each other? i.e. what compels scientists to truthfully share their research results? It's a fair question -- we're human and competitive to some degree, and at first blush there would seem to be a lot to gain from keeping competitors off-balance by feeding them false clues. I will draw a distinction here between non-cooperation, i.e. secrecy, and…

Graduate students: NSF Debating Science program.

I'm passing on information about a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation for graduate students. The program, organized by the University of Montana Center for Ethics, is called Debating Science 2008, and here's how it's described on the announcement: We are looking for graduate students who are inspired by their own research, but who are also interested in exploring the social, political, and philosophical context of that work, and who are committed to sharing science with nonscientists, in a genuine hope for a better world... To solve the toughest problems of the modern…

Peter Rost: Big Pharma's PITA.

Three pant-hoots and a grooming session to my very favorite cheeky pharma-insider monkey over at PharmaGossip (see the Chimp Refuge Blogroll) for the following, Can Peter Rost be silenced? including the link therein which led me to... ...the reprint of the article on Peter Rost in Fortune Magazine, posted on Dr. Rost's blog: Fortune: "Peter Rost has become the drug industry's most annoying - and effective - online scourge. As a pharma discovery scientist, I regard marketing as the Devil Incarnate in its current form, and it's refreshing to see someone pitbulling them. But will Rost can hold…

Links 7/20/10

Somethings going with the Notorious H.M.P. No reason for forgetting to give you some links. Science: Unscientific California: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Serpentine and Biodiversity Getting someone fired: the most fun wingnuts can have while avoiding prison The Big Green Buy Other: Conservative slams the right on New Black Panther lies Firms cancel health coverage. With cost rising, small companies turning to state RelayRides challenges Zipcar, marketing with teams on foot

Darwin Quotes

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Celebrate Darwin Day Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself. ..and much, much more...

Darwin Quotes

I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Celebrate Darwin Day Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

Now you can see "Flock of the Dodos" in the peace of your home

Randy Olson's movie had a very short and limited release. Reed rallied the troops so NCSU library got a copy and there was a public viewing that I could not attend. But now, everyone can watch it, as Jennifer reports. It is available, for instance, on amazon.com. I'll put it on my wishlist for now, so it is there, ready for me to buy it when I get some money next time.

Books on careers in science

Anne-Marie reviews two books that appear to be useful in thinking about one's career in science: The Beginner's Guide to Winning a Nobel Prize, by Peter Doherty, and The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology, by Chandler, Wolfe, and Promislow. Read the review and, if you think this is something you need, buy the books. And, if you have additional recommendations, let Anne-Marie know in her comments.

JWST in Seattle

Ok, new Mac PhotoBooth works... This is the JWST full size mockup that Northrop brought to the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. If things work out as promised I may get "JWST covered in snow" later today. Or not. The person in the foreground is the current JWST crew on guard, friendly guy. Disclaimer: Northrop served us Sushi last night, but we had to buy our own drinks, so no bias...

25 years in academia

and it comes down to this... double first, Caltech doctorate, postdocs at top research institutions, personal fellowship, tenure-track, tenure... and the forecast is for rain. The good news is that since I am tenured I can probably still afford to buy even a new pair of Nikes. The bad news is that since I am tenured I probably do not have the time to do so anytime soon. Ah well, I really hate shopping anyway.

Obama plan an obvious disaster

Hearing about the Obama plan on BBC R4, my first reaction was but this is an obvious disaster for the tax-payer; a give-away to those who invest in it. If I had spare cash and lived in the USA, I'd certainly buy in. I would blog it, but the obvious suspects have already done so and said what I would have more lucidly and with greater credibility, so I won't bother.

Bony non-naked vertebrates on parade

Since I brought up the hype for this Diesel fashion show, Phil has revealed that you can now watch it on the web. It's some kind of holographic light show on a fashion runway. I don't know what the point of all the skinny people wandering around in clothes might have been, though. It didn't make me want to buy any clothes, but a battery of lasers is looking more and more attractive.

Seasonal Food Mystery

Why is it that you can buy apple cider all year round, but apple cider donuts are treated as a seasonal item, and only in stores for a week and a half in October? Happily, these people make them year round, and they're available at the Schenectady Greenmarket. And they're awesome. Mmmmm.... cider donuts. If all "green" activities came with cider donuts, I'd be a lot more environmentally conscious. Somebody work on that.

Cleanternet: For a Cleaner and Safer Internet

tags: Cleanternet, internet security, online porn, online censorship, politics, satire, comedy, humor, cultural observation, social commentary, streaming video Cleanternet is a campaign to support European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström in her plans to introduce a website blocking system in Europe.

The Future of Online (Academic) Publishing

Talk given by Peter Binfield at the ISMTE meeting (slides and audio): The Future of Online (Academic) Publishing - Presentation to the ISMTE August 2009 Tags: journals academic publishing STM online publishing PLoS PLoS ONE article level metrics

British Museum Launches On-Line Catalogue

Gold disc brooch from King's Field, early 7th century. This cloisonné ornament has lost all the garnets that originally filled its gold-walled cells. BM 1028.a.'70. From my buddy Barry Ager at the British Museum comes big news: the museum has launched a state-of-the-art on-line catalogue. Search here. In Stockholm, being aye-tee savvy Scandies, we have of course had this sort of thing for years and years already at the Museum of National Antiquities. Search here. But admittedly our collections don't quite have the BM's scope.

Casual Fridays: Does anyone watch the local news? Anyone?

Last week we asked our readers about where they got their news. I haven't watched local news for years, and I was wondering if anyone else in the blogosphere did. As several respondents pointed out, our results aren't going to be exactly a cross-section of society at large, but it may be useful to see the relative importance of different news sources among our readers. Here's a snapshot of the results: As you can see, only two sources of local news were less important to our readers than television, and only one of those ("other print source") was significantly less important. The only…

Medium, Message, and Secondary Audiences in Public Speaking

Having just returned from a long trip where I gave three talks, one of the first things I saw when I started following social media closely again was this post on how to do better presentations. The advice is the usual stuff-- more images, less text, don't read your slides, and for God's sake, rehearse the talk before you give it-- and it's generally very good. Given the two very different types of presentation I gave over the last few weeks, though, I think it's important to add one note about the design of the visuals, which is this: when you're putting a talk together, keep the final…

Triangle Tweetup tonight

I only signed up for Twitter (@abelpharmboy) on 21 January but have found it incredibly valuable for staying up to speed on blogs, MSM articles, local and national news, and science and medicine stories. I've already accumulated 284 "followers" which is about half of our daily blog visitors. I'd say that about 60% of those are not spammers. Well tonight in the Bull City, there is an event called Triangle Tweetup, a meetup of local Twitter users at Bronto Nation Software (@bronto). I'm going as are a few bloggers our readers may know such as Bora Zivkovic and foodie, jewelry-maker, and…

Are you addicted to the Internet?

Ed and Dave on Internet addiction. If I go out of town, I am perfectly happy not to see a computer for days - there is so much more other stuff to enjoy. But at home it is a different story - it's minutes, not days, and I start shaking uncontrollably! OK, just joking. But I spend less time online than you may think, thanks to the MovableType's ability to schedule a bunch of posts in advance. I have seriosuly cut on my time spent reading other blogs. My Bloglines does not work any more. I do not go browsing aimlessly or shopping online at all. I do not watch TV almost at all. I started…

NASA Astrophysics Roadmap: The Next 30 Years

What are Origami Nanosat Telescopes? How about Kinetic Inductance Detectors? More importantly, what should we do with them? NASA's Astrophysics is doing a Roadmap exercise, with the stated intent to look at science goals, technology and capabilities up to 30 years out! White papers were solicited a few weeks ago, and about 100 were received and are archived online, about 3/4 on science and 1/4 on technology. There was originally supposed to be a workshop for presentation of selected white papers, but in the world of sequestration that was not feasible, so instead there was a two day online…

Online civility: what does it mean to be "on the same team"?

I encourage everyone to read this thoughtful post by Janet, and contribute your thoughts. Often, questions about online civility are dismissed with the comment "get a thicker skin" - as if it simply doesn't matter whether people address each other with respect online. I think it does matter. In the offline world, the "us/them" mentality fosters prejudice and misunderstanding - just turn on FoxNews. If that mentality also dominates the online world, turning it into a bunch of bickering echo chambers, we lose one of our best opportunities for constructive dialogue with people of other…

MRSA ST398 review article--free access

Just received an email from Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases saying that my recent article, The Emergence of Staphylococcus aureus ST398, will be available for free online for the next two weeks. It was submitted roughly a year ago so it's already a bit dated in this quick-moving field, but provides an overview of "livestock-associated" MRSA up to mid-2010 or so--including food-associated MRSA.

Darwin had difficult handwriting

Find out for yourself. Darwin Online has acquired a huge digital collection of Darwin's papers, everything from book drafts to personal letters, and has them scanned and available on the web. There they are in all their scribbled, crossed out, penciled over, rewritten glory — historians and antiquarians will drool over these, but me, I prefer the neatly typed versions. The collection of family photos is pretty darned cool, though.

Fornvännen’s Winter Issue On-line

Issue 2014:4 is now on-line on Open Access. Otto Blehr on Stone Age elk hunting in northern Sweden. Laila Kitzler Åhfeldt on the terminology used by 11th century rune masters to denote their own work. Pia Bengtsson Melin on High Medieval magic rings. Timo Salminen on a 20s & 30s debate over whether the Corded Ware megaculture reached Finland via Sweden or directly from the Continent. Reviews.

He's just trying to make me jealous

So Nick Anthis also has a copy of the Atlas of Creation, and I don't. I am beginning to suspect that the Muslim creationists are only sending copies to people who are smooth-cheeked and lovely in their online portraits. Oh, well. From the descriptions of the contents, it sounds like the pictures are pretty, but the story is repetitive: X looks like Y, therefore God made both!

O Solo Mio

I’m having a rough day of it today. I’m a huge fan of The Sopranos but haven’t seen the last two episodes. Reason: my better half has been out of the country and I have taped them both to share with her when she returns on Wednesday. Problem is, it’s difficult to avoid online discussion of the last episode. Maybe I should retire from the Intertubes until Thursday!

EvoDevo in the NYRB

Haven't had time to read this yet as my print copy only arrived yesterday, but there's a review of Sean Carroll's From DNA to Diversity and Endless Forms Most Beautiful along with Kirschner & Gerhart's The Plausibility of Life in this week's New York Review of Books. For those of you who don't subscribe, it's freely available online. I'm sure PZ may have something to say.

Inside the mind of the anonymous online poster

Interesting piece: ...Certain topics never fail to generate a flood of impassioned reactions online: immigration, President Obama, federal taxes, "birthers," and race. This story about Obama's Kenyan aunt, who had been exposed as an illegal immigrant living in public housing in Boston and who was now seeking asylum, manages to pull strands from all five of those contentious subjects.... Here at the Boston Globe. HT Virgil Samms

Attorneygate: Just How High Does It Go?

The more you stare at this scandal, the more you feel like one of the proverbial blind men trying to figure out what the hell that elephant is. From ThinkProgress, here is what fired US Attorney Carol Lam might have been investigating: To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier's check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated. That should raise questions about the White House…

Friday Filtered Random 16, Commercialized Version

So this is a sorta random music list, but not quite. The new version of iTunes has this "iMix" feature where it will generate a web-based collection from any playlist, so I selected the first 10 from my randomized library, threw it into a new playlist, selected iMix, and…discovered it only builds a list from music it can find in the iTunes collection. Only 3 made it. So then I threw the next ten in—seven or so made the cut. A dozen more…suddenly it spits up 16. Bleh, I wasn't going to fuss with it to get exactly ten. So here it is, the subset of a random subset of my iTunes library that Apple…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Hilary Maybaum

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked Hilary Maybaum from i.e.science to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (…

The Friday Fermentable: France's Lot Valley, by Erleichda

Another Wine Escapade: Valle du Lot by Erleichda Sweetpea and I enjoy hiking as a platform for vacationing (when we're not partaking of some beach spot). We've managed to attract a few likeminded fellow hikers, and are now able to customize our adventurers to suit our collective preferences. One of my only preferences has been that we visit a place that is known for their wines. In early May, we and three other couples set forth for the Lot Valley of SW France. Not as well known as nearby Bordeaux, or Provence, at least not by Americans, the Valle du Lot has been a thriving…

More on Science Online 2010

Yet another blogger is calling for your input and involvement in relation to a session planned for Scioten, the Science Online 2010 conference coming up later this month. Janet Stemwedel writes: #scio10 preparation: Is there a special problem of online civility?

My picks from ScienceDaily

Living Upside-down Shapes Spiders For Energy Saving: An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Spain and Croatia led an investigation into the peculiar lifestyle of numerous spider species, which live, feed, breed and 'walk' in an upside-down hanging position. According to their results, such 'unconventional' enterprise drives a shape in spiders that confers high energy efficiency, as in oscillatory pendulums. Space Tourism: Suborbital Vehicle Expected To Fly Within Two Years: A small California aerospace company has just unveiled a new suborbital spaceship that will provide affordable…

Clegg calls for gross economic stupidity

I despair sometimes at the stupidity of our politicians. More and more it becomes obvious that the less they have to do with running the economy, the better. The latest stupidity is from Clegg: Clegg calls for RBS and Lloyds giveaway. The idea is that when the government sells its (i.e., our) stakes in RBS and Lloyds that it (i.e., we) were forced (i.e. decided) to acquire, then there should be some kind of bizarre complex free-share giveaway scheme, the biggest experiment in "shareholder democracy" since the Thatcher era of the 1980 as they put it. There are some obvious problems with this,…

The Clay Aiken Press Release

Here's the actual press release from the 9 "aggrieved fans" of Clay Aiken who are considering filing a class action suit because they found out he's gay and think it was false advertising to market him to women. And it's funny stuff: "As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us" said a spokesman for the group. "We believe that this was absolutely fraudulent and that we may have actionable recourse against the record company". Presently, the group continues to interview legal…

Shackleton's whiskey; Powell's coffee

From Physorg Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. Five cases of Scotch and two of brandy, and all of it heavy. You can see the importance Shackleton put on a good nightcap This puts me in mind of John Wesley Powell's Grand Canyon expedition, as described in his classic account of same. Powell had nearly as trying an adventure as Shackleton did â an 8, I would say, to Shackleton's 10 â and when he and his party finally emerged from the canyon into the…

What you can do about "vampire appliances"

It's Friday night, which may mean that you're headed out for dinner, to hit the bars with from friends, or otherwise celebrate the beginning of the weekend. While you're out, though, some of your appliances are still going to be drawing power even when you think you've turned them off. The fact that many of us own "vampire appliances" like TVs, microwaves, and air conditions is well known, but what can you do about it? Wait around for appliance companies to make their products better at saving energy? I don't know about you, but even if appliance companies started making energy-saving…

Answer to the Monday Night Mystery

Plega sp. (Mantispidae) Who was the source of Monday's DNA? As many of you discerned from the online Genbank database, the sequence came from Plega dactylota, a Neuropteran insect in the family Mantispidae. 10 points to Aaron Hardin, who guessed it first. For future reference, these genetic puzzles are only slightly more complicated than a Google search. Go to NCBI's BLAST page, select "nucleotide blast" (because we have nucleotide data), click the box for "others" to get you out of the human genome, enter the sequence in the search box, and click the "BLAST" button.  Any significant…

Links 11/24/10

Links for you. Science: Money CAN buy happiness...well, sort of. Bridges that resist the rust: Strong, lightweight, easy-to-assemble arches with no steel bars may solve a New England problem Other: The Fastidious President Calling Bullshit on The News The ongoing, albeit amusing, battle to save Bristol Tax the transactions? Ensign played Reid in Angle debate prep; Angle once said dictators can have "good ideas" How the elections taught me to understand a comic book

We Can Haz HandCannon!

Mark, I find your post on DC v. Heller lacking in enthusiasm. It is not often that our Supreme Court finds a new constitutional right (except when big business wants more rights). We should celebrate this, thing--the Second Amendment. It must be important, right, since it becomes before the Third and Fourth! We should exercise it too. I'm a fan of the old school Colt 45 Auto: What handcannon are you going to buy?

Food Bill in the Senate this week!

Michael Pollan has the goods: However many worthwhile programs get tacked onto the farm bill to buy off its critics, they won't bring meaningful reform to the American food system until the subsidies are addressed -- until the underlying rules of the food game are rewritten. This is a conversation that the Old Guard on the agriculture committees simply does not want to have, at least not with us. In other words, contact your Senators today!

Last Second Holiday Gift Ideas: Dr. Who

If you know a Dr. Who fan and you plan to buy that person a present, consider the following: Doctor Who: The Complete Specials. This will be a much appreciated addition to anyone's library. A Sonic Screwdriver. Don't leave the Tardis without it! A Dalek Alarm Clock, which wakes you up to "Exterminate! Exterminate!!!" These were all on my short list of items to get Julia ... I ended up getting her something else, but perhaps for her birthday...

Hellish Yoghurt Diversification

There is a genre of complaints that I usually find a little silly: the Starbucks breakdown, which occurs when somebody's offered too many options. But now I've run into the problem myself. Yoghurt diversification. I buy most of our milk & yoghurt to save my wife some carrying. And the damn yoghurt, that was a single product when I was a kid, now presents me with a four-parameter choice! I need to make sure I get: Non-light Enviro-friendly Mild acidity Unflavoured

Australian bees are BETTER than American bees

So, you thought that Colony Collapse Disorder, which is causing billions of dollars in losses in American agriculture, was an act of nature? You poor fools! It's a plot, I tell yez. We Australians have hardier bees than you do, so they can carry an infectious disease that your weakly pathetic American bees just can't deal with. And it's no accident that we sent them to you. Now you have to buy our produce! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

We need a new gender

Because I'm really sick of sharing one with these pigs. Texas male Dan Patrick is proposing to buy unwanted babies for $500 a head, but only if you promise you were going to abort it if you didn't. Sleazeball male tries to dope date, gets caught be sharp-eyed female bartender. Male in pickup truck can't get a woman's attention by harrassing her, so he runs her over instead Really, they aren't my kind.