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Single-payer and the cost game

Having written the below as a comment on my previous post , I realized it should perhaps be its own post. My previous post drew notice to Malcolm Gladwell's recent article and blog posts about the competitive disadvantage our employer-based health-insurance system (and retirement system) inflicts on many American industries. Only hours passed before a commenter offered the (well-worn) argument that providing the obvious solution to this problem -- a national single-payer system providing universal health care -- "would be disastrous ...[if done] before tackling the cost issue." This "but…

Chemists can, sometimes, do pretty work

One of the advantages of working at a small university that puts a variety of disciplines cheek-by-jowel in a single building is that I get exposed to all sorts of different stuff. It sometimes has its downsides — I'm on an interdisciplinary search committee, so next week is consumed with seminars in statistics and computer science, all very mathy, that will sorely strain my brain — but I get to learn stuff all the time, which makes me happy. So this semester I'm always trundling stuff up and down between the second and third floors for my genetics lab, and the third floor is where all the…

Just what every child needs!

Just what every kid wants! For children of extreme fundamentalists looking to be raptured, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spider-Man, or Superman just won't do! What would Jesus think when He returns? Harry Potter represents witchcraft, an abomination! Star Wars replaces God with The Force. Superheroes are too frivolous, and Superman is too obviously a Christ-figure. So what's the answer if you're a concerned fundamentalist parent who wants to maximize the chance that her child will be one of the chosen when the Rapture comes? Why, Armor of God PJ's, of course! Yes, according to the manufacturer…

Let's Face It - All Roads Lead to Celery

A report from MSNBC identifies seven food items commonly thought to be nutritious (or at least harmless) but actually either filled with nasty ingredients or stripped of healthy ones. If I may be permitted, I'd like to summarize the author's findings. The seven deadly snack foods (and their sins of comission and omission) are these: 1. Granola bars - aw, c'mon - that ain't true...they are good for you...I refute it thus! [kicks display rack full of Three Musketeers] (sugar and chocolate, little protein/fiber/vitamins) 2. Bottled tea beverages - (full of sugar and spices, but little tea,…

The Blight of the American Chestnut

Paleoecologist Margaret Davis' work has become legend among ecologists. She analyzed layer upon layer of pollen buried in lake sediments in the Appalachian Mountains to determine the natural history of trees in the area. She found an interesting pattern: Spruce (Picea) pollen dominated the area 12,000 years ago. Beech (specifically Fagus grandifolia) pollen appears 8,000 years ago. The American Chestnut pollen did not show up in the sediment record until 2,000 years ago; it quickly vanished around 1920. Cryphonectria parasitica, a type of blight (type of fungus), was transported to North…

Barcelona Blues

I just returned from the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, where 8,000 of conservation's "best and brightest" (along with plenty of the "most important") gathered to discuss, talk, and work toward a more diverse and sustainable world. I wish I had good news to report - but it is mostly more along the lines of "it's worse than we predicted". Some highlights: 1. Of the 223 species listed on IUCN's Red List whose status has changed since last year, 82% are now closer to extinction. 2. 22% of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction. 3. 31% of the world's amphibians are…

Amazon "caves"

From the amazon web site: ....ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book..... (Source. Hat tip) For some back ground and discussion, see this earlier post and links among the comments that describe the situation. I gave the specific quote because I love how Amazon notes that…

Disrupt PalKid's routine at your own peril

The kiddo started kindergarten this year. She went from complete freedom to getting up at dawn five mornings a week for a seven hour school day. It is my fortunate task on four of those mornings to help her on her way. Like many of the Pal clan, she is independent of thought, and rather stubborn; once she's out of sorts, well, to paraphrase Colin Powell, you broke it, you buy it. So I've developed a very careful morning routine, designed to ease us into our day as painlessly as possible. I'm a morning person, so I get up and take care of my ablutions before I get her up. Then I walk into…

A "Well, duh!" study

Occasionally, while perusing EurekAlert!, I come across studies that I like to call "Well, duh!" studies because they seem to come to conclusions that are mind-numbingly obvious. For example, this one: If women want the best possible service at a clothing store, they had better be looking fashionable and well-groomed before they hit the mall. A new study found that well-dressed and groomed women received the friendliest and, in some cases, fastest service from salesclerks. Researchers secretly observed interactions between customers and salesclerks at three large-sized women's clothing stores…

Belated Darwin Day post

I meant to post yesterday on Darwin Day, but I was swept up in doing tasks around the house that some have posited women are better at and/or care about more for reasons that lie deep in our evolutionary past. I don't buy it (nor do others, who you are encouraged to read), and the Free-Ride household seems to me a good example that tidiness is not a sex-linked trait (or, if it is, it's riding on the Y chromosome). Anyway, first I wanted to link a fine appreciation of Darwin written by Michael Weisberg and Richard M. Leventhal, both of the University of Pennsylvania. The closing paragraphs…

Health insurance is a good thing

Via Tyler Longpine, a report finds that health insurance reform would significantly reduce the number of uninsured in Kansas: About 228,000 uninsured people in Kansas would gain coverage by 2019 under the Senate health reform bill, according to a new report by Families USA, a national group advocating for health reform. Without comprehensive reform, an additional 59,000 people in Kansas will lose health care coverage by 2019, according to the report, increasing the number of uninsured Kansans from about 338,000 to 397,000. Nationally, the number of uninsured is projected to increase to 54…

Using published images from scientific papers in blog posts

Pedro did some digging to figure out what are various journals' policies regarding use of images - figures from the papers - in blog posts. It is all very vague and most journals do not have anything specifically targeting online republication, but the Fair Use rules should apply. I have often used images from papers in my posts, usually only one, sometimes two from a single paper, which should be OK under the Fair Use system. In some cases I used figures that are many decades old, reprinted in every book and textbook in the field, used in every chronobiology college course in the world,…

Will Scientology be defeated?

Once upon a time, everyone trembled in fear at the thought of antagonizing the Church of $cientology. Everyone knew their response to any criticism would be heavy-handed and unconscionable, and that they'd harrass you persistently if you ended up on their enemies list. That's changing, though, and the stupidity and viciousness of the cult is seeing more and more exposure. The latest is Lawrence Wright's big exposé in the New Yorker and upcoming book on the subject. The article is well worth reading, all 28 online pages of it. I hope the book casts a wider net, though. The New Yorker article…

HOW BELIEVABLE WAS BUSH'S IRAQ SPEECH? Watch How Focus Groups Rated the Speech in Real Time

What was the impact of Bush's Iraq speech? Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post has an excellent round up of media and pundit reaction to the president's primetime TV appearance. Meanwhile, ABC News and CBS News have posted revealing results from overnight polls. Yet the most entertaining, if not the least scientifically valid guage of public response comes by way of Slate magazine. The online commentary site partnered with HCD Research, a market-research company, in a project to investigate "real time" viewer reaction to Bush's Tuesday night speech. HCD surveys people over the Internet by…

My Debut in Harper's

Not that it hasn't been noticed already...but I was fortunate enough to contribute to the latest issue of Harper's magazine, for a feature section entitled "Undoing Bush." In the piece, I lay out some suggestions for what the next president can do to restore scientific integrity to the apparatus of the U.S. government (assuming that is indeed a priority for the new administration). The piece isn't online unless you're a subscriber, but the Cliff Notes version is that the approach to reform on this issue must be guided from the top--and facilitated by a strong presidential science adviser--…

New mapping tools bring public health surveillance to the masses

by Kim Krisberg Many of us probably look into cyberspace and are overwhelmed with its unwieldy amounts of never-ending information. John Brownstein, on the other hand, sees points on a map. Brownstein is the co-founder of HealthMap, a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children's Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. But instead of depending wholly on traditional methods of public health data collection and official reports to create maps, HealthMap enlists helps…

Around the Web: Herding undergrads, The Great Geek Sexism Debate, NYPL reno and more

So you got a job with your prof: advice for undergrads Undergrad Herding The Great Geek Sexism Debate New York Public Library Shifts Plan for 5th Ave. Building New York Public Library Dials Back Plan to Move Books New York Public Library Board of Trustees Approves Construction of Additional Book Storage at Landmark 42nd Street Building Lions in Winter, Part One and Part Two Amanda Palmer’s Million-Dollar Music Project and Kickstarter’s Accountability Problem Why Reducing Faculty Stress Should Be An Explicit Goal of Academic IT Mature Market for Online Education MOOC Host Expands (Coursera…

Food Aid with Strings Attached

Most public health advocates are probably already aware that U.S. funds for international AIDS relief come with counterproductive strings attached â specifically, requirements that one-third of HIV prevention money go to abstinence-only education and that entities receiving PEPFAR grants explicitly denounce prostitution. (Laurie Garrettâs recent LA Times op-ed provides a good summary of the policies and whatâs wrong with them.) The strings attached to food aid donât get as much attention, but itâs another situation where U.S. policy overlooks a lifesaving solution while pleasing an…

GMO trees: Saving the American Chestnut tree

Ive mentioned this technology on ERV before: Saving the American Chestnut tree from extinction with GMOs Well the scientists involved think they have finally done it. They have finally made American Chestnut trees resistant to the blight that is literally driving the species to extinction: Breakthrough at SUNY-ESF: Genetic engineering may save the nearly extinct American chestnut After 25 years of research, a pair of professors at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry say they have used a gene from wheat to create an American chestnut that could withstand the blight that wiped…

Book Review: "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow

I was recently fortunate enough to get a review copy of Cory Doctorow's new book, Little Brother">"Little Brother". I've never read Doctorow before, but the book was edited by Patrick Neilsen Hayden, who I think is the best editor in the business, and Patrick says that this book is one of the best things he's ever worked on. In his words, it's "one of the books that, should I happen to be run down by a beer truck next tuesday, I'd most like to be remembered for having helped into print". So when Patrick posted on his blog that he had review copies available, I jumped at the chance. As…

Are You a Failure if You Can't Grow Carrots?

Erica at Northwest Edible Life has a great post about her imperfections as a garden, and very relevant, because all of us have our Waterloos in the garden, and it is probably a bad idea to take them too seriously. But we do. I've imbued my personal Golden Grass Fed Cow of urban homesteading with magical properties and strapped it to my identity one cheerful blog post at a time. The Punk Gardening Angel of Reasonable Expectations pats me on my shoulder and consoles me: "It's really okay...Carrots are healthy and your kids like to eat them, and you do buy the bulk organic bag, after all, and…

it is always the little ones who suffer

The US financial crisis is causing an implosion in Iceland, which is forcing a cascade into the European financial system. Serious talk of a bank holiday and food hoarding has been heard. Head of largest oil company says oil imports may cease because of lack of US dollars. Last week one of Iceland's commercial banks went bankrupt and was nationalized over the weekend. The root cause of the implosion is that the Icelandic commercial banks overextended aggressive investments and were over leveraged, so when the world economy went bad they got squeezed. The proximate cause of the collapse is…

Kids Keep You Young

A week or so ago, this statistical analysis of listening trends in pop music got a bunch of play on Twitter and Facebook, but I was too busy to do anything with it. The headline result, reported with all the accuracy you should expect of such things is people stop listening to popular music at 33. By coincidence, in another part of the social-media universe, some friends were sneering at Top 40 music by way of highlighting a list of the current Top 40 chart to show how little of it they knew. As I'm currently marking time until I can call my doctor to get some help with what I suspect is a…

My favorite restaurant is closing, but I don't seem to care.

If the restaurant was being forced closed by the city making dumb tax-related decisions and the public works department acting almost vindictively against a certain neighborhood, as was the case when JP's closed, I'd be pissed. If it was a restaurant that was really trying to do well but failed because of the economy or because people did not appreciate it, I'd be unhappy. If it was a restaurant that served as the only anchor in a neighborhood at an uncertain tipping point, I'd be concerned. But none of those things are true. This is the restaurant where a small handful of friendships formed…

Will donations fund dichloroacetate (DCA) clinical trials?

I came across an interesting tidbit about dichloroacetate (DCA), the compound that the media and all too many bloggers are touting as some sort of cheap "cure" for cancer whose development is being ignored or suppressed by big pharma because it wouldn't be profitable enough. I poured a bit of cold water on all of them yesterday, because most of their comments were based on false hope, given how few drugs that show promise in cell culture and animals actually pan out in human trials, and ignorance of how clinical trials for new cancer drugs work. This particular tidbit is posted on the…

A year of books: 2012

I'm including here a list of all the books I've read in 2012, as well as some commentary my year in reading. I always enjoy when people post these sorts of lists online and actually rather enjoy doing so myself. I've been doing this for a few years now: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007. If you've posted such a list online somewhere, please post a link in the comments. I'd love to see it! The list of books I'm posting below includes all the books I started and finished in 2012, with the exception of books that I'm currently reading. As it happens this past year I only abandoned one or two books…

Third GOP Presidential Debate: Who won, who lost?

The big loser in this debate was CNBC. The network chose to not let anyone who was not a subscriber see the debate live. Then, apparently, the moderators trivialized the debate and annoyed the debaters, who then attacked CNBC and the press in general. Then, today, when we look at the news stories about the debate, there are hardly any. Nobody seems to really care what happened last night. Another loser was Ben Carson. I've come to think of the online unofficial polls as useful to indicate overall opinions, and to show how those opinions change (we can discuss another time why this is a…

Great professional development for K-12 science teachers

For five decades, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) has been an national resource for science education and teacher development in the somewhat unlikely setting of Colorado Springs, Colorado. In addition to a variety of print resources, often developed with NSF support. Among their greatest personal resources for teachers is the Keys to Science Institutes that provide an intensive, 5-6-day-long on-site experience for science educators together with a year-long web-based community that reinforces the skills and tools gained during the institute workshops. While not inexpensive…

Links 6/13/10

It's a grey, shitty Sunday. Here are some links that probably won't cheer you up. Science: Primary care antibiotic resistance for common infections The Arc of Evolution Is Long and Rarely Bends Towards Advantageous Alleles: Why Does Popular Science Ignore Neutral Theory? Two modest proposals Are science journalists being overly criticised? Jeremy Laurance: When Science Journalism Goes 'Meh' Other: Union Life: What the Obama White House Fails to Understand about Worker Safety, Security Why Economic Advisors Are Paid to Be Economic Advisors Challenged and gifted: A lesson on dyslexia from…

Around the Web: The coming apocalypse: jobs, higher ed, libraries, MOOCs

After Your Job Is Gone Disruptions: The Echo Chamber of Silicon Valley MOOCs as a Lightning Rod The Stories We Tell about MOOCs Fixing the Digital Economy Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in the Academic Library Stop Scaring Students An Avalanche is Coming: Higher education and the revolution ahead Role of librarians changes in digital age Exploring the future of academic libraries: A definitional approach Why You Should Never Have Taken That Prestigious Internship Notes From an Academic Nobody What's a Library? The End of Ownership If you live in a surveillance state for long enough, you create a…

Around the Web: Why we need blue-sky research, Internet con men ravage publishing, Why I pirate and more

Why we need blue-sky research Internet con men ravage publishing Why I Pirate - An Open Letter To Content Creators Open Access Tenure: Put it in the File Bletchley Park tweet saves Alan Turing computing papers The little guys stand up to Amazon: Book distributor IPG fights for say in e-book pricing Are books and the internet about to merge? Reflective Teaching for Librarians Comments -- The Weakest Part of Blogs, the Weakest Part of Online Journals Censorship is inseparable from surveillance Libraries as Community Publishers: How to Turn the Tables Fighting HEARSE: Higher Ed Apocalpyse…

Around the Web: Students & eTextbooks, PLoS Open Access Collection, A vision for scholarly publishing and more

College students will stick to paper books Open Access Collection (PLoS) A Vision for the Future of Scholarly Publishing How to Become A Social Media Influencer: Ten Small Steps The Declining Value of Subscription-based Abstracting and Indexing Services in the New Knowledge Dissemination Era Scholars Seek Better Ways to Track Impact Online Attempt to replicate "arsenic life" experiment fails A Most Optimistic Unconference: Publishers, Libraries, and Independent Bookstores at Digital Book World 2012 Publishing's Ecosystem on the Brink: The Backstory Saint Zuck Is uncivil behaviour hijacking…

Weizmann Institute Annual Report 2011

Our latest annual report is now online, and we think the results are worth looking at. We started with a favorite theme -- art and science -- and took it a step further. Ten short pieces on scientific research that deals with movement -- of proteins, electrons, black holes or theoretical random walkers -- are paired with works of art on a similar theme. Then we added poetry and fiction written by scientists, for good measure. The Insomniac City Cycles Ran Slavin Still from film, 2004-2009 It might all seem a bit exuberant, in light of continuing economic crises and regional politics. But if…

The Buzz: Information Science on ScienceBlogs

A new channel made its debut last week on ScienceBlogs: Information Science. Through feedback from the approximately 10,000 librarians who regularly visit ScienceBlogs, we came to realize that information and library scientists are positioned to offer a unique perspective on subjects that are pertinent to all working scientists: Open access and open science; digital and print publishing; information property and ownership, and more. Check out the newest bloggers on ScienceBlogs, John Dupuis of Confessions of a Science Librarian and Christina Pikas of Christina's LIS Rant, to get a taste of…

Are you ready for the Festival? Start planning NOW!

With the Festival quickly approaching, we've debuted a new look to our website. It's time to start planning for the pre-Expo activities as well as register for them as well as plan your time at the Expo. View all exhibits and stage shows, print your Expo map, view the pre-Expo event calendar...Teachers, check out our Teacher Resources page, and much more...Check it out! Pre-Expo events are now posted on our Online Calendar - while free of charge, many require pre-registration because seating is limited. Register now! During the expo we will be tweeting @USAScienceFest and will have real time…

Chess

A couple of years ago I could beat my son at chess every time. Not any more. He's been studying from books, playing online and beating his sister relentlessly over the last few weeks. Then he challenged me. He won. Then he won again. Then he won again. In the fourth game I finally realized I had to play really carefully and managed to win, but it was not easy. Then he challenged my wife, who is a much better chess player than I am. And he beat her. A number of times, though they are more evenly matched. Then he joined his school's chess club. Today was their first meeting. He beat…

Off to SF

Leaving RDU at noon, arriving in SF in the afternoon. If Janet remembers to bring her camera to dinner tonight, she'll post them on her blog so check it out later tonight or tomorrow. If she brings her laptop, I'll check my e-mail and comments (and of course my Sitemeter!) briefly - if not, I'll be back online on Friday. I have scheduled just a couple of little things to show up here automatically while I was gone....and you can always read the long post from earlier this morning. I forgot, while there was still enough time, to pick up Professor Steve Steve, so he is not coming with me.…

BP Executives Deeply Affected by OilSpill Parody

tags: BP Executives Deeply Affected by OilSpill Parody, oilspill, petroleum, Gulf of Mexico, television, Ray Suarez, NewsHour, Bob Dudley, parody, streaming video As part of an hour-long live online interview with the NewsHour's Ray Suarez, BP executive Bob Dudley responds to questions from the public, including a video parodying the BP response effort. I do feel sympathetic towards the BP peons -- you know, those people whom the executives depend upon but who are constantly trying not to be screwed out of pay raises, or their health insurance or retirement benefits as the result of the…

New in Science Publishing, etc.

From Pierre, we hear about a new system for calculating individuals' research impact - Publish Or Perish, based on Google Scholar. Deepak, Pedro, Mark and Deepak again take a first look at Clinical Trials Hub and like what they see. Jeff published a paper, but his Mom was more worried (in the comments) about the way he looks, with Congrats relegated to the afterthought. SXSW Podcast on Open Knowledge vs. Controlled Knowledge has now been posted online. Worth a listen. There is an article in Wired on science video sites, including JoVE, LabAction and SciVee and Attila provides deeper…

Tangled Bank Available .. I think!

The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Greythumb, however, I am having trouble accessing that site. Can anyone else see it? If so, what is the magical OS-browser combination that you are using? I linked to the expanded link, and managed to see it just now, but PZ still can't see it and he tried to access it approximately 2 minutes after I did and he is sitting across the table from me! Tangled Bank is looking for volunteers to host future editions once again. If you are interested in hosting, please send email to PZ. I know that I have my most favorite time slot lined up already…

Some AAAS links

Links in this post are those that pertain to me or the session I was in - I will link to some others later (and I already did on Twitter): Columbia Journalism Review: Online and Overseas: Less hand-wringing over state of science journalism Physicsworld.com: Researchers! Join the Twitterati! Or perish! Thoughts From Kansas: AAAS Day 3: Social media in science Scientificblogging.com: Science Journalists Have Met The Enemy, And They Are Bloggers UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering: Interesting session at AAAS john hawks weblog: AAAS A Blog Around The Clock: AAAS 2010 meeting - the Press…

Disapprobation

This word is from the 29 October 2006 New York Times Magazine's feature, entitled "Islam and the Bomb" by Noah Feldman (now online). This week's issue is particularly good because, in addition to the article that I cite (below), it also contains a piece about the Taliban, several articles about bipolar disorder, an interview with a psychiatrist about depression and a piece about Alzheimer's disease. Disapprobation (dis-ap-ruh-BEY-shuhn) n. Moral disapproval; condemnation. an expression of strong disapproval; pronouncing as wrong or morally culpable. Usage: In the immediate aftermath…

KITP: Quantum Reality

"...we really do not understand the quantum theory in an intuitive manner because quantum laws are so radically different from the classical laws of physics. The dichotomy that the modern world is quantum, but the precise meaning of the quantum remains elusive, disturbed the stalwarts of physics such as Einstein, Schrodinger, and Feynman, and continues to baffle physicists even today. This lecture will explore this curious state of affairs..." A few weeks ago, Prof Sankar Das Sarma gave a public lecture at the Kavli Institute on "Quantum Reality" The online lecture is here - video and…

Fornvännen's Spring Issue On-line

Fornvännen 2013:1, last spring's issue, is now on-line in its entirety on Open Access. Joy Boutrup et al. on openwork braids of silk and metal thread that decorated 15th century elite fashion garments. Påvel Nicklasson on zoologist and archaeological trailblazer Sven Nilsson's travels in England and France in 1836. Nils Harnesk on High Medieval log canoes from a farming frontier site in Norrbotten. Soon-to-be-Doctor Ny Björn Gustafsson on Viking Period bronze and silver craft sites on Gotland (in English). Mats G. Larsson on geophys in the Meadow of Mora where Medieval Swedish royal…

Swedish Skeptics 30 Years

Today is the Swedish Skeptics Society's 30th birthday! It was started in 1982 on inspiration from the American organisation CSICOP (est. 1976). I've been a member since 1996 and now I'm the society's sixth chairman. So, what does a skeptical society do? We're a science-friendly resistance movement. We fight quack medicine, newspaper horoscopes, spiritualist mediums, climate change denialism, anti-vaccine propaganda, technophobic scare mongering etc. We make the New Age a Past Age. This we accomplish by publishing a quarterly journal, organising lecture series and pubmeets, handing out prizes…

Is the Karmic Release Ubuntu's Vista?

After six or seven weeks of Windows, I've finally gotten Ubuntu linux to run again. My installation crashed when I tried to upgrade on-line to the most recent version, Karmic. And then I couldn't boot Karmic from a USB stick. I thought the copy on the stick had gone corrupt. Yesterday Tor lent me a CD burner, and I found that Karmic simply won't boot on my netbook. It crashes midway through bootup in the same way regardless if I try a USB stick or a CD. So I downloaded the previous version, Jaunty, and it installed just fine. Is the Karmic release Ubuntu's Vista? Is it a dud release, like the…

Don't get cocky

Hemant thinks he has a shot of winning an online poll to determine the sexiest atheist blogger. No way! I'm going to send you, my minions, over there to … uh … wait. You people are probably still in shock from that time I exposed my chest, aren't you? Dang. I need to wait at least 20 or 30 years before those memories fade if I'm to stand a chance. I voted for Greta Christina, anyway, and my second choice was C.L. Hanson. People, what are you doing voting for me? That's insane. Unless, of course, you're one of those people who likes a bad boy with a hint of danger, even if he does look like…

R.I.P. H.E.Taylor

I have a sad announcement to make, further to my previous posting about a missing edition of A Week of GW News. Harvey E. Taylor, aka het, died Monday, July 14, 2014 at his home in Portage la Prairie, a small town in Manitoba, Canada.  All I know of it is from one brief online obituary and one more detailed one at the website of a funeral home. It says he died peacefully and in his home. I have appreciated the hard work and dedication it must have taken to provide his amazingly comprehensive weekly survey of climate change related news and science over the years, and I am sure many others…

Anthro Blog Carnival

The fortieth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Remote Central. Archaeology and anthropology, and all relating to the Plzen Plaza! The Plzen Plaza is a new large (20,000 square meters) shopping mall and entertainment center in PlzeÅ, Czech Republic. The facility built by Plaza Centers was opened on December 5, 2007, on the former land of Ex PlzeÅ, gastronomical exhibitions located very near the center of the city, more precisely 250 meters from the central Square of the Republic. The next open hosting slot is on 18 June. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to…

CJR Launches New Dept. Covering Science Journalism

The Columbia Journalism Review has formally launched a department dedicated to science and environmental reporting. Curtis Brainard, who has been covering the beat at CJR, will be chief reporter. His first online article details the problems and challenges ScienceDebate 2008 faces in gaining news coverage and public attention. From the announcement about the new CJR dept: The Observatory will monitor science journalism-covering the coverage-with an eye toward improving the journalism and thereby improving the discourse. It will be a guide to the best and worst of science and environmental…