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The Tyndall Correspondence Project

The Tyndall Correspondence Project (of which I am a participant) has now gone online. Our aim is to follow in the footsteps of the Darwin Correspondence Project and transcribe the letters of the Irish physicist, John Tyndall. The site is a little bare at the moment, but more information and resources will be forthcoming.

How much cussing happens on this blog?

I'm actually surprised it's that high: Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating Must be some of the commenters. I have been known on occasion to use the word "bullshit" with reference to, for example, David Kirby, but I really do try to keep this blog fairly clean as far as cussing goes.

Finding My Place: How We Got Here, Part I

Today is the first day of Aaron's and my new "Finding Your Place" Course (for anyone who would still like to join, we've got two remaining spots and since the class is asynchronously online, you won't miss anything by starting today or tomorrow - email me at Jewishfarmer@gmail.com). I've been teaching Adapting-in-Place, for people who intend to stay where they are and want to lower their resource consumption and build greater resilience for several years now, but this is the first time Aaron and I have taught a similar class for people who are either considering relocation or definitely…

From the Archives: The future of reputation: Gossip, rumor, and privacy on the internet by Daniel J. Solove

I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here. This one, of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, is from July 10, 2008. ======= Another cautionary book about the effect of the Internet on our lives, this one concentrating on the effect that…

Around the Web: An altmetrics reading list

I'm doing a presentation at this week's Ontario Library Association Super Conference on a case study of my Canadian War on Science work from an altmetrics perspective. In other words, looking at non-traditional ways of evaluating the scholarly and "real world" impact of a piece of research. Of course, in this case, the research output under examination is itself kind of non-traditional, but that just makes it more fun. The Canadian War on Science post I'm using as the case study is here. Here's the session description: 802F Altmetrics in Action: Documenting Cuts to Federal Government…

Swine flu: fast track publishing and marketing

It is clear that if you want to get a so-so paper published in a top tier journal, the best way to do it is to write about a breaking medical news event and get there first. We saw this with avian influenza and SARS and now it's being repeated with swine flu. The Scientist had a story yesterday about how The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and Science, two of the highest profile science journals in the world, pushed through some swine flu papers at record speed last week: An international research team led by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London published a report online today (May…

ScienceOnline2010 - evening events (and wild nights afterward)

The conference is only a week away!!!!! I have introduced the participants, and the Program over the past couple of months (there's a little bit more to come). Today, we'll go into the night....the dark side! There are three evenings during the meeting, thus three evening events for participants. Importantly, all three are also open to locals (or whoever is in town that day) who are not registered to attend the main program of the conference. On Thursday night, for those early birds whose flights from far-away places bring them in on Thursday, as well as for the locals who are already here,…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Circadian Rhythm: How Cells Tell Time: The fuzzy pale mold that lines the glass tubes in Dr. Yi Liu's lab doesn't look much like a clock. But this fungus has an internal, cell-based timekeeper nearly as sophisticated as a human's, allowing UT Southwestern Medical Center physiologists to study easily the biochemistry and genetics of body clocks, or circadian rhythms. In a new study appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Liu and his co-workers have found that this mold, which uses a protein called FRQ as the main gear of its clock, marks time by a…

My picks from ScienceDaily

What Is A Virus? Research Suggests A Broader Definition May Be Needed: The strange interaction of a parasitic wasp, the caterpillar in which it lays its eggs and a virus that helps it overcome the caterpillar's immune defenses has some scientists rethinking the definition of a virus. In an essay in the journal Science, Donald Stoltz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and James Whitfield, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, report that a new study also appearing in Science shows how the diverse ways in which…

Science21 Highlights: Open Access and Public Accessibility

I have never been a huge proponent of the Open Access and Open Data movements in science publishing, because they've always struck me as wasted effort. I've never really seen what value is supposed to be added by either project. When I think about the experiments that I've been involved with (see, for example, the Metastable Xenon Project blogging), and what the data for those experiments looked like, I doubt that anybody not directly associated with the experiments could do anything useful with the data. It's not just that many of the analysis steps required tacit knowledge of the set-up,…

BusinessWeek sends us Airborne

Many thanks to science and medical senior writer Cathy Arnst of BusinessWeek for the unexpected coverage online a couple of days ago in their Working Parents blog. Ms Arnst cited Terra Sig and one of our previous posts in discussing the additional FTC settlement funds to be provided by the makers of Airborne for false claims to consumers: For background on the charges against the product check out the informative blog terra sigillata, by a pharmacologist, which pulls apart false claims made on behalf of natural remedies (in fact, he pulls apart false medical claims in general--a blog worth…

Corporate blogging

Many of us who are principal investigators of academic research laboratories operate essentially as CEOs of our little empires. Therefore, I throw out to the Terra Sig readership a very interesting Sunday morning story entitled, "Bloggin' Bosses", by Frank Nelson of the Raleigh News & Observer. Of course, true CEO bloggers have to contend with somewhat bigger issues and must always use their real names: Angry customers swarmed Burt's Bees in November as soon as the all-natural cosmetics maker announced plans to sell itself. Critics consider the buyer, bleach maker Clorox, to be far from…

A Modest Proposal: Remember The Men

Absinthe has an announcement on her blog about a new online support group for junior female particle physicists. There is a new online discussion group aimed at junior female particle physicists (up to and including the postdoctoral level). The group allows junior females to talk openly and anonymously with other junior female particle physicists from around the world about career issues that are important to them. Most particle physicists at the junior level are based at large laboratories in Europe and the US. The unique work environment at these labs can lead to workplace issues and…

ScienceOnline2010 - evening events (and wild nights afterward)

The conference is only a couple of days away!!!!! I have introduced the participants, and the Program over the past couple of months on my blog. Today, we'll go into the night....the dark side! There are three evenings during the meeting, thus three evening events for participants. Importantly, all three are also open to locals (or whoever is in town that day) who are not registered to attend the main program of the conference: On Thursday night, for those early birds whose flights from far-away places bring them in on Thursday, as well as for the locals who are already here, we will have a…

Who has power?

Who has power? Elected officials: they write, vote for and sign laws, they decide how much money will be collected from whom and how it will be spent, they decide on starting and stopping wars, i.e., lives and deaths of people. Who else has power? Anyone who can affect the decision of an elected official, e.g., to change a vote from Yes to No or vice versa. How does one do that? By having money and using it wisely. How does one use money to affect policy? One: by directly lobbying the elected officials. Two: by buying off the media. I understand how One works, but Two? Elected officials…

Serbian Citation Index

SCIndex is a new online project that provides a searchable database of scientific publications in Serbia. Some papers are in Serbian language, others in English (and they all tend to have at least the Abstract in English) and all papers are available as PDFs for free download. KoBSON has more information about the project.

The Underwear Oracle Reveals All

Finally, an online quiz that tells you everything that you need to know about yourself, and it's all so simple, too! What Your Underwear Says About You Admit it, you've dreamed of being a underwear model. You're comfortable in your own skin - and don't care to impress anyone. The Underwear Oracle

Anthro Blog Carnival

The twenty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Hominin Dental Anthropology. Check it out! Archaeology and anthropology to send you spinning into space like a SPACE APE. The next open hosting slot is on 24 October. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me.

Back Up and Running

Well, cable and internet is installed and working fine, so I'm back online. Got a 5 mbps connection now instead of 3 mbps, so that's cool as well. No phones yet, but they'll be here at some point today. As soon as they get here and get finished, I'll be heading out to vote.

Was There A Darwinian Revolution?

My recent talk at the Sam Nobel Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is now available online on iTunes as a podcast. Here is the link to SNOMNH's podcast feed. So settle down with a fine beverage and watch me for an hour or so. Feel free to comment below. Oh, and here are the slides:

links for 2009-02-10

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ (tags: omg) MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism - Times Online THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. (tags: autism vaccines)

Discussion on "Framing" and Storm World on Point of Inquiry

Last week I did an interview with D.J. Grothe of the Point of Inquiry podcast about the new book and other issues. It just went online, and you can listen here. This is a great podcast that all defenders of science and reason should be subscribing to, so if you don't already, now's your opportunity...

Encephalon 28

Encephalon #28 is now online at the Bohemian Scientist's blog. The next edition will be hosted at Memoirs of a Postgrad on August 13th. If you'd like to contribute, send permalinks to your neuroscience or psychology blog posts to encephalonb.hoat{at}gmail{dot{com}, or use this submission form. 

Tufte's Data Analysis for Politics and Policy

A quick follow-up to my mention of Edward Tufte last week: you should be aware that Edward Tufte's brief classic, Data Analysis for Politics and Policy, is available online as a PDF here. It's worth a skim in your spare time - and worth sharing with people who don't necessarily appreciate the limitations of statistics.

The case for anonymity online

The founder of 4chan, a controversial, uncensored online imageboard, describes its subculture, some of the Internet "memes" it has launched, and the incident in which its users managed a very public, precision hack of a mainstream media website. The talk raises questions about the power -- and price -- of anonymity. Christopher 'moot' Poole:

More on Reference Managers

There's been a flurry of interest on reference managers, and especially Mendeley, so I thought I'd throw up a few links that you will find useful. Reference managers were discussed at ScienceOnline 2010. A blog post about that session:Gearing up for scio10: Online Reference Managers A handy Wikipedia page An interview with Mendeley's Victor Henning

Support YearlyKos

YearlyKos is one of those great and cool ideas, a gathering of the Kossack hordes. They are gearing up for the neoconvention, and to fund it, they are selling "unConventional," an anthology of photographs and essays about progressivism, activism, and online communities. I'm setting aside some cash for a copy, and I hope you will too.

Is Organic Food the Answer?

The journalist Marc Gunther recently posted a thoughtful article discussing public perceptions of the role of organic agriculture in a future sustainable food system. He found that many consumers believe that there are only two ways to produce food: "The first can be described, depending upon who's talking, as big, fast, modern, conventional, industrial, intensive, chemical, genetically-modified, processed and global. It's the system that delivers most of the food that most Americans eat." "The second is described as organic, sustainable, local, small-scale, family-owned, natural, agro-…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Social Behavior In Ants Influenced By Small Number Of Genes: Understanding how interactions between genes and the environment influence social behavior is a fundamental research goal. In a new study, researchers at the University of Lausanne and the University of Georgia have shed light on the numbers and types of genes that may control social organization in fire ant colonies. Regular Walking Protects The Masai -- Who Eat High Fat Diet -- From Cardiovascular Disease: Scientists have long been puzzled by how the Masai can avoid cardiovascular disease despite having a diet rich in animal fats…

April Pieces Of My Mind #2

The Christian Democrats dropping under the 4% cutoff for Parliament is a thing devoutly to be wished for in itself. But also, I just realised, if they do, then their votes will evaporate, losing the Right coalition a considerable part of their current majority. I feel really bad for people who don't know what CTRL-Z and ALT-Backspace does. Elsevier's manuscript submission site is old, creaky and slooow. TV chef reminds me that I like forehead, not fringe. Solsbury Hill that Peter Gabriel sang about has a big hillfort on top. This is pretty badass: a local amateur archaeology association has…

Casual Fridays: Are Americans geo-ignorant?

Last week's Casual Fridays study was inspired partially by reports we see in the mainstream media so often, proclaiming that Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world. If the rest of the world really is better than Americans at geography, then maybe they can beat us even on our home turf. Our quiz compared non-Americans' knowledge of U.S. states to Americans' knowledge about the rest of the world (you can see the maps and answers here). I randomly chose ten countries and U.S. states, then created a multiple-choice quiz where a map was displayed and five plausible choices were given…

Ideas for development: curated blog posts as ebooks

So, as I've said before, my mind is often occupied with how I might develop writing in new ways. For a while I've been working on an anti-blog that specifically contravenes all supposed user-interface rules (no comments, no archives, no title), which should hopefully launch soon. I've also started a new subject-specific blog that lives hidden within another website, one that isn't supposed to be for blogging. Sort of like an Easter egg. More about that soon too. Here's another idea that's been burning on my mind ever since I bought a Kindle. E-readers are marvellous things, much more than…

Those with money to lose will fight against freedom of information

While the world is moving towards an Open Science model of exchange of scientific information, there are, as expected, forces that are trying to oppose it. Whenever there is a movement to change any kind of system, those most likely to lose will make a last-ditch and nasty effort to temporarily derail the progress. So, in this case, the Big Science Publishers have decided, instead of joining the new world of Open Science and using their brand names, their know-how and their infrastructure to become the leaders in the new system, and instead opted to go all mean and nasty. Once they finally…

One in eight global deaths due to air pollution, WHO reports

The World Health Organization has released a new estimate of the number of premature deaths linked to air pollution: In 2012, approximately seven million deaths -- one in eight of those occurring worldwide -- resulted from exposure to air pollution. The vast majority of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, with much of the burden falling in South East Asia and the Western Pacific. This report deals separately with deaths from indoor and outdoor air pollution, although of course many people are exposed to both forms. Indoor, or household, air pollution comes mainly from…

My son, interviewed by Bora!

My son Sam is a budding scientist and blogger. He came to the ScienceOnline09 conference in North Carolina with me this past January and had a great time. Needless to say, Bora has tracked him down and interviewed him here. How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? How much will they in the future? In Grade 9, I had a science project to do that was supposed to be about anything that had to do with the curriculum. They were pretty loose on this definition: if it in any way had to do with space, biology, physics, or…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Another oil platform caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, but this time the crew - 13 workers - was able to escape, and no injuries were reported. No oil spill was detected, either. The Mariner Energy platform was involved in both oil and natural gas production. A Washington Post article on the fire notes that last year there were 133 fires or explosions on oil rigs in the Gulf. We're just paying attention to them this year because of the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster. In other news: Washington Post: Luis Uriza was the shift foreman in the San Jose mine in Copiapó, Chile when a mine collapse…

Occupational Health News Roundup

This week (May 13-19, 2012) is National Police Week, which honors law enforcement officers who have been killed in the line of duty. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, "On average, one law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty somewhere in the United States every 53 hours." Events are taking place all week in DC; a schedule is here. The National Police Week website has the preliminary 2011 "Roll Call of Heroes: Line of Duty Deaths" online. In addition to officers from city, county, and tribal police and sheriffs' departments, it includes officials…

Junior Live-Streams His Video Gaming Sessions

I used to play a lot of computer games, and 12-y-o Junior loves them. His gaming experience is of course different from mine back in the day, not only because the games look much better now, but also because of on-line interactivity. There are a couple of developments that surprise me a great deal. One is the Let's Play film clip. These are clips on video sharing sites where someone plays a computer game while commenting on it, and they're really popular with kids. You don't have to be extremely good at the game or record clips of hidden or hard-to-reach areas. You don't have to say anything…

Links for 2011-05-04

Blog U.: 4 Reasons Why Local Meetings Should Be Conducted with Web Meeting Tools - Technology and Learning - Inside Higher Ed "Adobe Connect, WebEX, GoToMeeting, LiveMeeting, Skype, Elluminate (what am I missing?), these web conferencing tools are not just for meeting at a distance. Here are 4 reasons why you should hold more of your meetings online, even if everyone meeting works together on the same campus:" (tags: academia meetings business inside-higher-ed culture) Princess Masako - "She's Useless" | The Royal Universe "Crown Princess Masako of Japan turns 47 on 9 December. It'd be…

A Volunteer Messenger's Responsibility

Who is responsible for a package? The sender or the volunteer messenger who carries it? Do they perhaps have a joint responsibility? This issue has led to quite a number of arguments between me and my wife over the years, and we still haven't resolved it. Here's the deal. Let's say that Jenny's in bed with a cold and asks her partner Anne to take out a book for her from the library. This Anne does, but on the way home she loses the book. Maybe she absentmindedly puts it on a shelf in the grocery store and it gets stolen, or she forgets to close her backpack and the book falls into an open…

Links for 2010-04-08

Wave interference: where does the energy go? « Skulls in the Stars The two waves cancel each other out, leaving a completely unmoving string due to destructive interference. My student asked me: what happens to the energy? As posed, it seems that we started with two waves carrying energy, but they canceled each other out, leaving no energy! This interpretation cannot possibly be correct, so where is the flaw in our description? There are actually two aspects to the answer that I want to address, each of which is rather important in the understanding of wave phenomena. The first of…

Indian experts find bacteria to beat global heat

Thanks to Crakar14, I came across this article from the India Times online: In a major breakthrough that could help in the fight against global warming, a team of five Indian scientists from four institutes of the country have discovered a naturally occurring bacteria which converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into a compound found in limestone and chalk. Based on this, Crakar thinks we should just continue business as usual and forget this whole global warming scare thing. (Oh, btw, that's what he thought that before too) Now, I don't know anything more than what it says in the article, but it…

Quest for Physics

We had a colloquium talk yesterday from the very energetic Jessica Clark of the American Physical Society's outreach office who talked about the many things that the APS does to bring positive physics experiences to a wide audience. It was a terrific talk, and brought to my attention a couple of programs I hadn't heard about before, aimed at introducing physics to a younger audience. One of these, aimed at middle-school students and teachers is the "Physics Quest" puzzle activities: PhysicsQuest is a middle school competition that consists of four physical science experiments centered on a…

Arachnophilia!: ECU biologist gives nod to Stephen Colbert

Arachnologist and diplopodologist Dr Jason E Bond at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, is most recently well-known for naming a spider (Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi) after Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Neil Young. Kristin Day of The Daily Reflector is now reporting that Professor Bond has agreed to name a spider after Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's host of "The Colbert Report." When news emerged in May that Bond had named a species of trapdoor spider after Neil Young, the biologist could not escape Colbert's web: "Where's my spider? I have lots of animals named after me: turtles,…

My brain hurts

. . . but in a good way. I'm working frantically on a project due 31 Jan and then spent much of the weekend at various blogger gatherings associated with the NC Science Blogging Conference, the second annual unconference for those interested in writing about science topics for all audiences. The conference was bracketed by a well-attended Friday evening dinner and a Sunday brunch, the former with Jim Neal, a Democratic candidate for US Senate, and the latter with Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) from Carolina's 13th District. I could go on and on about all of the great people I met but…

Fish, syphilis, and love

Before I left for Rome earlier this month, I finished up a bunch of projects. They started trickling into public view while I was away. I was going to post them all in my article archive, but I just realized I need to update the format of my site to include stories from 2008. So, in the meantime, I'll have to point you to other sites, some of which require subscriptions... [Update: I've posted the articles on my site. You can find them all here.] 1. Your Inner Fish. Last year I wrote about the discovery of the fish with proto-hands, Tiktaalik. One of its discoverers, Neil Shubin, has written…

Could cows be the secret weapon against the spread of HIV?

Image by Keith Weller, USDA via Wikimedia Commons Researchers at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative at Scripps Research Institute have discovered that cows can produce antibodies that effectively neutralize HIV. Thus far, developing an effective vaccine for HIV has been hampered by the ability of the virus to mutate. Some people who have been infected with the virus for a period of years develop antibodies that are able to attack parts of the virus that do not mutate. Cows exposed to HIV, on the other hand, begin developing these antibodies within weeks of exposure to the virus. In…

iBioSeminars

I just discovered this great resource - iBioSeminars. It's a web based resource where you can watch some of the most important Cell Biologists give talks on basic research. The website was the brainchild of Ron Vale. From the latest HHMI bulletin: Vale, of the University of California, San Francisco, also wants to illuminate the colorful side of science, though not quite as literally. His approach: online seminars that reveal scientific fact as well as the not-necessarily smooth process of discovery, the links between fields, and the more personal side of science. One of the inspirations…

Friday Sprog Blogging: more on pseudonymity.

Although I swear that the Free-Ride offspring have not read the relevant prior posts! While walking home from school: Younger offspring: From now on, in the sprog blogs, can you call me "the small, silent one"? Dr. Free-Ride: Why? You're neither small nor silent. Elder offspring: Definitely not silent. I live with you, I know. Younger offspring: Just call me "the small, silent one," OK? Dr. Free-Ride: But that would be lying to my readers. Younger offspring: But you already lie to them. Dr. Free-Ride: What? When do I do that? Younger offspring: You call me the younger sprog-- Dr. Free-…

NWF Annouces National Wildlife Week

The National Wildlife Federation is starting to sound like my mother. "Stop staring at that screen and go get some fresh air. And when are you going to clean up your apartment?" They want everyone outside during the week of April 21, challenging participants to a neighborhood bioblitz-off during that week. You can download a checklist of animals from their website, find what you can, and then share your discoveries on their website. More info from NWF below the fold. Get outdoors, enjoy the sights and smells of spring and celebrate National Wildlife Week, April 21-29! Whatever your age or…