Search Content

Displaying results 54301 - 54350 of 87947

The New York Review goes bloggy

A still from Visconti's The Leopard, via NYRB This is not new, but seems to me overlooked (and underlinked) in the blogosphere: The New York Review of Books â a long, longtime favorite of mine â has a blog stable that offers a nice variety of goodies. The current line-up gives a sense of the range: a piece on Mexican art by Alma Guillermoprieto; Sue Halpern's beef about the iPad, which I elaborated on earlier; pieces on the Vatican, Iraq, and Pakistan; and a leisurely travel post on Palermo that begins, "Everything in Palerno is slow except the traffic, which is as confusing as a…

Gleanings: genetic goofs & mutts, and where good ideas come from

  The photo above isone of several posted by NeuroDojo, who has a lovely post on them. Genetic Future ponders the 23andMe Oops-wrong-data event. Turns out it was a flipped tray. "I'm frankly astonished that this was possible at an accredited genotyping facility - plate-flipping is an age-old problem, but trivial to prevent with good plate/machine design that only allows plates to be loaded in a single orientation." Same source carried a good strong early account of this mix-up as well. Genomeboy ponders a dog's life, as glimpsed through its genome. Steven Berlin Johnson gives a peek…

Top Five Posts at Neuron Culture in November

1. Maybe it was just the headline ... but the runaway winner was "No pity party, no macho man." Psychologist Dave Grossman on surviving killing. Actually I think it was the remarkable photo, which looks like a painting. Check it out. 2. I'm not vulnerable, just especially plastic. Risk genes, environment, and evolution, in the Atlantic. The blog post about the article that led to the book. 3. Senator Asks Pentagon To Review Antidepressants 4. Gorgeous thing of the day: Sky's-eye view of the Maldives & other islands 5. The Weird History of Vaccine Adjuvants, even though it was from Oct 1…

Health-Care Secret Revealed, Again: More Is Not Better

Some things you can't hear too many times. By Jacob Goldstein If there's any way out of our current health-care morass, it's this: In health care, more expensive care is often no better than less expensive care. We were reminded of this fact by a front-page story in this morning's WSJ, which points out that Pennsylvania is the rare state that requires hospitals to publicly report a wide range of data -- and those data show hospitals with good outcomes are often cheaper than hospitals with bad outcomes, even after you adjust for the patient mix. via blogs.wsj.com Posted via…

Morning dip: reading, writing, merit pay, musical spouses, swine flu, and fire towers

photo: U.S. Forest Service Notables of the day: John Hawks ponders the (bad) art of citing papers you've never read. Clive Thompson ponders the new literacy spawned of engagement with many keyboards. A poll on public education shows how much opinion depends on framing, context -- and who else thinks an idea is good. In this case, people liked the idea of merit pay more if told Obama likes it. Mind Hacks works the placebo circuit. And Effect Measure weighs in on the weird contrasts and (limited) parallels between swine flu and avian flu. And for fun, fire lookout towers, from BLDGBLOG. You…

DSM-V Psych Bus hits more big potholes; passengers bail

As prominent neuroscientist Jane Costello resigns in protest from the DSM-V committee, Danny Carlat says the process near meltdown: The Fifth Coming of DSM threatens to rend the fabric of American psychiatry. Let's hope some cool heads in the APA's leadership can find a way out of this mess. Stay tuned. The DSM isn't just a workbook; it's the theoretical framework and the de-facto prescription guideline for American psychiatry. This level of disagreement and polarization only deepens my belief that the discipline is at crisis point and a crossroads -- and in the nasty, scratchy fight over…

Oliver Sacks meets Jon Stewart

Okay, Jonah saw this first -- but in case you missed it there, here's a snip from Jon Stewart interviewing Oliver Sacks about music and the brain. This is a nice meeting. I've not met Stewart, but I had the pleasure to spend some time with Sacks while working on a couple stories, and he once gave me a book about Alexander Agassiz because he liked my book about Agassiz -- and I'm happy to see him exert his usual charm and humor here in this Stewart segment. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Oliver Sacks thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political…

Splendid sea photos by Nick Cobbing

Perhaps because I so enjoyed the time I spent at sea learning about fish, I particularly enjoyed this collection of Nick Cobbing's photos of ice, sea, and people who work them â scientists, fishermen, adventurers. Cobbing has a great eye for color and form, particularly those of the icy north and the sea; his study of the Greenland ice, fast fading, is particularly stunning, and I very much like his photo account of the voyage of the Nooderlicht, pictured above â a 100-year-old schooner restored and then sailed from Svalbard to Greenland. And don't miss "The Watch Keeper," which is about…

Selection Bias in Torture Studies

Apparently the Bush Administration's survey of the legal literature of torture missed something. From Antemedius: George W. Bush's Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn't even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions. Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case - which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis…

Multimedia Friday - Happiest Memory

Brain Candy, a film by Toronto's sketch comedy troupe Kids in the Hall, is a satirical take on drug development. A scientist creates an antidepressant (Gleemonex) that evokes the happiest memory of the consumer, recreating that joy in the present. Gleemonex becomes a big success, until it all goes horribly wrong... a very funny film. Here's a holiday-related clip in which the first test subject takes the drug. We see the capsule enter her system after she swallows it, then the drug reaches her brain and takes effect. Her happiest memory is a Christmas visit from her son and his family. "…

Stupid Titles of the day

Ahh Press Releases.... Don't you just love it when someone who doesn't really give a shit comes up with extremely inane or obvious titles? This time around the titles are come from good ol' EurekAlert. Our first title falls under the duh category: "Brain holds clues to bipolar disorder" Ohh.... Reaalllly? As opposed to what?! Our second title falls under the "my cousins uncles brothers step-sisters boss's foot surgeons dogs breeders groomers friend" category. "Lack of sun does not explain low vitamin D in elderly who are overweight" I feel like they're forgetting another way of classifying…

Seeing color with genetic engineering

I just made it back from backpacking (pictures forthcoming) in the Chisos mountains and figured I'd post a little short neato study I found since I'm way too tired to write anything with actual content (not that I ever really do anyway). In the study, the researchers used genetic engineering to introduce a snippet of DNA that encodes instructions for how to make the red photopigment into the mice's genome. They then tested whether the mice could discriminate between two different colored lights. Pretty neat eh!? Here's the msnbc write up. -edit- ahhh it seems The Loom actually has a very…

Humans Don't Move Much

I have also imagined that high levels of mobility exacerbate the shifting baselines syndrome since the baseline would then be spatially inconsistent. But there is hope: humans don't move too much. A new study published in Nature and written up in The New York Times tracked the movements of 100,000 Europeans via their cellphones and found that they don't move far from home. This is good news in terms of being able to recognize change in one's environment. It also inspires me because travel might not add to much to our quality of life since, on average, we seem to naturally be homebodies.…

Reviews of Expelled

We didn't have time to review the film "Expelled" here at Shifting Baselines but here are a handful of reviews by a handful of interesting characters: Is I.D. Ready for Its Close-up? by Peter Manseau, Editor of Science & Spirit Hearts and Minds by Chris Mooney, science writer and Intersection blogger Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Ben Stein Launches a Science-free Attack on Darwin by Michael Shermer, Skeptic Society and Scientific American contributor Resentment Over Darwin Evolves into a Documentary by Jeanette Catsoulis for The New York Times And finally, from Fox News, a review of…

I'd Like the Shrimp, Hold the Malachite Green

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article about how China Says Its Seafood Is Safer. Regulators say that over the last year, more than 30,000 inspectors have fanned out across the country, working to close shoddy seafood operations and enforce regulations against the use of banned antibiotics, like chloramphenicol and malachite green, which is thought to cause cancer. Despite those concerns, China's booming aquaculture business grew by $8.7billion last year. The article has some good insights into Chinese politics and even comes with a sprinkling of shifting baselines: ...regulators were…

Conch Smuggling

This week, Canadian wildlife officials caught three men smuggling large amounts of Queen conch shellfish, an endangered species, before exporting some of it to the U.S. The smugglers imported an estimated 263,958 pounds (!) of conches, with a value of $2.6 million, from the Caribbean and South America between late 2003 and the end of 2006. The mollusk is protected by an international treaty but used in Asian and Caribbean cooking. The shipments were mislabeled as whelk, another large shellfish that is not endangered. This conch case is a reminder to never doubt the power of an individual (or…

Loggerhead Decline

A federal report shows that loggerhead sea turtle populations, listed as 'threatened' under the Endangered Species Act, are decreasing. The news is particularly disappointing because the last report showed that from 1989-1998, the number of nesting sites had increased about 4% each year. According to The New York Times,..."the report showed nestings in the United States dropping about 7 percent a year on the Gulf of Mexico. In southern Florida, nestings were down about 4 percent a year, and populations in the Carolinas and Georgia have dropped about 2 percent a year." The Times speculates…

Shifting Waistlines: Polar Bears and Global Warming

In his 2002 Op-Ed in the LA Times, Randy Olson wrote about the concept of shifting baselines and uses this analogy: "If your ideal weight used to be 150 pounds and now it's 160, your baseline--as well as your waistline--has shifted." But get this: Due to global climate change (which has cascaded into changes in feeding patterns), female polar bears weigh an average 20 percent less than they did in 1980. This I heard yesterday from a Program Officer for the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (which the U.S. has signed but not ratified--our "signature" move). Skinnier polar bears, just…

Mary's Monday Metazoan: As we know on the internet, that's one mode of communication

BioGraphic Watching carefully, I noticed that two other activities added to the commotion: sloughing of skin and defecation. Like other whales, sperm whales shed skin on a regular basis. This may be a mechanism to reduce the risk of infection and to rid the animals of external parasites. As the whales rubbed against one another, the physical contact dislodged flakes, sometimes entire sheets, of skin, which floated in the water like a blizzard of translucent dandruff. Group defecation also seemed to play a prominent role. When a dozen or more whales defecated simultaneously, it created a…

Maddow, The Republicans in the Senate, and Bullpuckey

A bit later than promised, here's the clip from last night's Rachel Maddow show where she so accurately described the current Republican strategy when it comes to the stimulus bill. Here's the high point: Republicans may not like it but the way to create jobs fast is through spending. It matters when you're wrong. A whopping proportion of the Republican rhetoric about stimulus is wrong - total economic bull puckey. It's time to take the radical step of privileging correct information over incorrect information. The video's below the fold. You really should watch it. */ Visit msnbc.com…

The one time it's not really acceptable to refer to yourself as "Dr."

It occurs to me that I should add a caveat to yesterday's post about the politics and pomposity of referring to yourself as "Doctor". There is in fact at least one set of circumstances that can make referring to yourself as "Dr." pompous to the point of being hysterically funny: when your "doctorate" comes out of a crackerjack box, but you then proceed to use the "Dr." title at absolutely every possible opportunity, including your listing in the local phone book. The image comes from a now out-of-date Pensacola phone book. The cropping and blurring are deliberate, and intended to…

6th Scientiae Is Up!

The 6th Scientiae Carnival is up over at Sciencewoman's pad. The topic is "mothers and others, those who influenced us along the way" but the collected posts are not limited to this topic. Scienceowoman has put together a very interesting mix of some truly thought-provoking posts. As always, the richness of writing by women scientists and engineers continues to delight me. This post by Female Science Professor on a new professorship for a woman in engineering in Switzerland sparked a lively discussion in the comments. And I very much liked this post by Jokerine on gender coding in talk…

Date of Week 2 of Joy of Science Course

I hope everyone is enjoying the course so far. I'm having a good time, and I'm looking forward to some of the readings coming up. Speaking of which, all the readings for week 2 come from Building Inclusive Science: Connecting Women's Studies and Women in Science and Engineering special issue, Women's Studies Quarterly (28:1-2). You can find the full list of readings on the syllabus. Week 2 takes place two weeks after week 1, on Tuesday, February 28. I figure we all need a little break inbetween and I need to allow time for migraines and such. Plus time to actually do the readings and…

Happy Birthday, Grace!

I'm one day late getting to this, but... ...Penny posted this comment on Let's All Have a Party! Posting this on the centenary of Grace Murray Hopper, born 9 December 1906. Math PhD from Yale in 1934, taught at Vassar till she joined the Naval Reserve during WWII and became a computer programmer. She's credited with overseeing the development of COBOL. {for bio, see here] I have a soft spot in my heart for Amazing Grace. Now THERE is a real geek goddess for you. Do visit the link for Let's All Have A Party! and see all the birthdays of fabulous women scientists and engineers that have…

Changes

I'm making a few changes to the left-hand sidebar for the blog this weekend. One of them is already in place - if you look to the left, you'll see a presidential election poll. It's linked to Newsvine's ElectionVine project. You can vote once a month, and if you play around with the widget, you can pull up different sets of results based on the entire project, not just this one site. (I cheerfully stole this idea from Joseph.) Later on this weekend, I'll be changing my blogroll a bit. I'm also in the process of re-working my categories, so expect to see some changes there, too.

New York Pictures

Here's a few pictures from the New York event. I might post a couple of more in the next couple of days, but most of the pictures I took are really similar to the stuff some of my other Sciblings have posted. Professor Steve Steve was not only kind enough to attend, he brought a puppet friend of his own. Janet was very, very careful when she made the jukebox selections. Almost as careful as she was with the shots. Josh decided to do a quick strip before the filming session started. Grrl and Mo were bad on the way home, so they had to go stand in different corners.

Thank you for telling me.

In a just-called Pentagon press conference, Defense Secretary Gates just announced that tours of duty for all Army soldiers in Iraq are being extended from 12 to 15 months. Speaking as someone who has an immediate family member deployed, I would just like to take this brief opportunity to thank the Secretary of Defense for having the compassion and decency to allow CNN and Fox to break the news to me gently, as I strolled past a friggin television in the campus center. I'm sure that a television announcement to the American people is a much more compassionate method of breaking the news than…

Quote of the Day - 21 December 2006

A little passage from Hogfather for the Winter Solstice: Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It's often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it;s really about things that have to do with gods only in the same way that roots have to do with leaves. "-the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer-" Happy Holidays to all, regardless of which holiday you might be celebrating during this time of year, as the days finally stop getting shorter and the sun begins…

The rejection letter I wouldn't mind getting

From Henry Gee's blog: Dear Professor Trellis Thank you for your manuscript entitled “On the positively negative interaction between one abbreviation and another abbreviation, conditional on the negatively double-negative interaction between a third abbreviation and one or other of the first two abbreviations”. Please be aware that I am a Servant of the Secret Fire, Wielder of the Flame of Anor, and in that capacity I’m afraid to say that the Dark Fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun. I regret that your manuscript must go back to the Shadow. I am sorry to be the bearer of what must be…

Primate researcher in Brazil gets 14 years for a permit problem

Naturalised Brazilian, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen, has been sentenced to 14 years jail in Brazil for running a monkey refuge without a permit from Ibama, the local environmental agency. Not that he didn't apply, mark you, but Ibama didn't respond, and the received local wisdom is that if they don't within 45 days, it's approved. Van Roosmalen was convicted because although this is indeed what happens, it's not in the legislation. This is egregious sucky. Brazil ought to be ashamed of itself. Late note: See Marc's own site for a background. This looks like, as I expected, corrupt…

Word from On High

The latest information from management on the impairment of service: We are still working to contain the ongoing DDoS attack, and to this end we have recently upgraded our service with Rackspace. This should restore access to our readers who have been blocked for the last week. However, some users may still be blocked, so please continue to send blocked IP addresses to webmaster@scienceblogs.com (or have them send us their IP addresses directly). As a preventative measure, please send your own IP addresses as well; we will add these addresses to Rackspace's whitelist. The problems should…

The Longest Running Scientific Experiment

This link about really, really long experiments is from the Athanasius Kircher Society, and I have no idea what that is, and I'm looking to you to tell me. But, for what it's worth, an interesting link to an interesting thread, about an interesting phenomenon. Did you want the answer? The oldest? It's this. And then we can start another "what's up with Wikipedia?" thread a bit later (since I, like the rest of the human race, just linked to it). Really been pulled into the current these last few weeks (as at The New Yorker, The Onion, and now The Colbert Report (then click the Wikiality…

The funniest thing I've seen in ages

This has nothing to do with climatology, or science in general, but I can't resist sharing it with you. From the instructions to our new DTV antenna, which until the Great Ice Storm of 2010 damaged its transformer-coaxial connection, brought in more watchable channels than expanded basic cable or satellite: For those that might have trouble reading the scanned text, which appears at the bottom of the instructions page in 6-point type, it says: WARNING Do not attempt to install if drunk or pregnant or both. Do not throw antenna at spouse. I do hope that no one at Antennas Direct gets in…

Republicans = the Borg: The Massachusetts vote proves the Many World hypothesis

I awoke this morning in a universe with a quantum signature that differs from that of the universe in which I fell asleep. I know this because it's the only way I can explain last night's Republican victory in the safest Democratic seat in the Senate. It's just like that episode of Star Trek: TNG, the one in which Worf keeps flitting back and forth between alternate realities, including one where the Borg is practically ruling the universe, Once Riker discovers there are realities in which they aren't, he's willing to sabotage the effort to heal the trans-universe rift so he can escape his…

Internet filtering opposition gathering speed

The Greens have sought explanations from Minister Against Broadband Stephen Conroy in the Senate. In particular Green senator Scott Ludlam asked Conroy to take back his claim that what the ALP wants is like what is done in Britain, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand; in these cases the filtering is voluntary and restricted. Moreover, Conroy refused to say what "unwanted content" was defined as, and who would make that determination. Michael Malone of iiNet called Conroy the "worst minister ever". In the meantime ISPs are being asked to trial the filtering. What effect a bad experience would…

Who reads RSS feeds offline?

The post on showing only part of the RSS feeds has attracted quite a lot of attention, including some rather strident comments, such as this one from "Aurora": How lazy are some people? What kind of society do we live in where people are too f**ing annoyed to click a mouse button to read an entire article? But Christopher Davis offered a compelling response: Perhaps you can tell me how to "click through" when I'm reading RSS feeds on my PDA on the subway. Not all applications have always-on connectivity. Excellent point. But I wonder how many people really do read RSS feeds offline. Sounds…

New blog on the origin of speech

Science writer Edmund Blair Bolles has begun a new blog on the origin of speech: Babel's Dawn. If it lives up to the promise of its first post, it may prove to be a valuable resource. The blog aims to become the main source of news and information about the evolution of speech, from primate vocalizations to meaningful exchanges. I say speech rather than language because speech is a concrete behavior while language is an abstraction. In order to speak our ancestors had to evolve all the general elements of language (e.g., the ability to utter words in syntactical form) along with the specific…

Tracks and Traces 6.8.10

Welcome Maryn McKenna and her blog Superbug to Sb! And, in case I forgot to mention it before, make sure to check out Deborah Blum's blog Speakeasy Science, too! Wildlife experts use civetone-containing cologne to lure big cats In a scene reminiscent of the ending of Kingdom of the Spiders, caterpillars blanket the English countryside with webs. Coming soon, Inside Nature's Giants, series two. John Lynch shares the introduction to Follies of the Present Day: Scriptural Geology from 1817 to 1857. So you want to be a scientist? Learn to write! How to make a blockbuster - the…

Catch A Shooting Star This Weekend

It's time. The December Geminid Meteor Shower is upon us--the most satisfying of all the annual meteor displays (yes, even the Perseids). For the best viewing, watch when the constellation Gemini will be rising above the east-northeast horizon. Last night's full moon may dim this year's display, but even so, try Sunday evening during the interval between twilight and the rise of the waning gibbous moon. (Find the best time at your location here.) You might even catch an 'earthgrazer'--the long, bright 'shooting stars' that streak overhead from just below the horizon and follow a path…

Twilight

Look up tonight at twilight... for the three brightest objects the sky--Jupiter, Venus and the moon (a crescent only 5-percent illuminated)--will align for a spectacular site. Regular readers know I love all things space and this evening offers a unique opportunity for enthusiasts everywhere. Gaze up at dusk (they'll set by mid-evening) and let's hope for minimal cloud cover... We'll have to wait well over four decades before the trio appears this close again. Planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts expect a spike in UFO sitings as reports flood in of bright objects…

Science And The Next President

On the dawn of what some anticipate will be a new golden age for American science, we must remember the challenges ahead for President Obama. Times of change bring enormous possibilities, and in our latest post at Talking Science, we discuss opportunities in the next Administration: President Obama cannot save science alone. He needs an army of people behind him with the resolve to realize the change that they've already dared to dream. This requires a sustained lobbying effort, not just put forth by science community, but coming from concerned citizens across America who understand that our…

What Is Second Life?

My new pal Dr. Anthony Crider gave a fantastic talk at last month's AAAS Forum on Second Life and virtual worlds. Full disclosure: I was skeptical and even mildly anxious at the thought of wandering into a simulation I'd heard might rival scenes from Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut--only with vampires and uh, furries. Then I met Tony who convinced me it opens the door, errr... 'laptop', to seemingly infinite possibilities in science education! But you don't have to take my word for it--I'll let the brilliant and funny SciLands creator explain virtual worlds himself and skeptics can decide whether…

New Comments Policy

You may have noticed that things have been a little wild here on the blog lately, argument and comment-wise. To calm things down, we've decided that all comments from now on will be moderated. This is actually going back to the way we used to do things. If comments are not on point, respectful, and intellectually serious, they do not belong. Ad hominem attacks, etcetera, won't be allowed. The general principle is that we encourage speech here, but not speech that lowers the quality of discussion for everyone else. Furthermore, please remember that commenting on this blog is a privilege, not a…

The Otis Redding excuse

Tristero thinks he has refuted my denial of the existence of souls by citing Otis Redding's soul, but I reject his refutation! He has done it by the sneaky tactic of a strategic redefinition of "soul", away from 'magic essence of personal identity independent of the material substrate of the brain' to 'smokin” hot passionate musicality', and I must call shenanigans. Shenanigans, I say! I could be refuted, however, if Redding's soul were to possess my body and set me to crooning "These arms of mine" down the hallway right now. Actually, there are many moments when it would be useful to be…

Science Debate 2008: Adding Republicans; Another University President

I'm pleased to say we brought in the following new endorsers yesterday: Congressman Vern Ehlers, R-MI, 3rd District, Michigan, Ranking Republican, House Subcommittee on Research & Science Education Mark Emmert, President, University Of Washington Harold M. Evans, Author of They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, Two Hundred Years of Innovators and of The American Century; BBC Columnist, editor at large, The Week Ehlers is our third Republican congressman to endorse the statement supporting the science debate. And Emmert is the third major university president--…

From Sheril: Bangladesh Needs Your Help

Folks, Sheril is busy today and can't post, but for the first time we have tried videoblogging--and what she has to say couldn't be on a more urgent subject, the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr. Please watch and I hope you're as inspired as I am by her words: The death toll from Sidr is up to 600 and, unfortunately, still seems to be rising. And of course that doesn't include injured, missing, displaced, newly homeless...Jeff Masters has more on the unfolding news of the disaster--including an amazing graphic depicting the population densities of the areas along the storm's path--and so…

Would you believe…

A transgendered woman is running for political office? In Oklahoma? Against crazy church lady Sally Kern? This Sally Kern? It's no secret that I have a personal belief, I believe it's a belief of most Christians, that the Bible teaches homosexuality is a sin just like gluttony is a sin... There are things that are going on today that would make my grandmother blush and there were things that when my grandmother was alive that were going on that that would have made her grandmother blush. So as we get farther and farther away from biblical principles, more and more things are accepted. And…

A Hurricane is born?

Hello, everyone. My name is Norman Doering. I'm your weather watcher for the week while Chris Mooney is away. You haven't heard from me until now because there haven't been any new hurricanes this week. However, earlier today I was checking in on the weather sites that I promised to Chris Mooney that I would watch, there were no hurricanes anywhere on the planet -- but there was a tropical depression in the Pacific, off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. It looked like this: I checked back just recently, and it's now looking like a real storm: I will check back later today to see what has…

Portrait of the blogger

The most amusing coverage of the Nature top science blogs article comes from The Technology Chronicles, which begins by calling scientists "sober, dispassionate, precise" and suggests that we've abandoned "Olympian impartiality" to compete with Cute Overload. I get the impression the author hasn't ever met a real scientist. Nick will love being called a "budding Matt Drudge." We need more cute, huh? OK, I can do cute. I had to run my photo through a face transformer to do it, but here I am, rendered a bit more adorably than in real life. Now I just sit back and wait for the fans to roll in…

Seed Nominated for National Magazine Award

...in the "General Excellence" category for publications with a circulation between 100,000 and 250,000. Details here. The issues nominated are June/July, November, December/January. I've posted the covers below, along with my pieces from each issue. Congrats to all the hardworking and visionary folks at the magazine! As Science Goes, So Goes the Nation: How the White House misunderestimated the height, width, breadth and depth of a crucial cultural meme. Science 2006: For too long scientists have approached politics with one hand tied behind their backs. This November, that's going to…