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Charles Dickens on Religion

Quoted at Harpers. Deliciously subversive. Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be…

Nature is a lazy bum

Nature is a lazy bum that it will always choose the path of least action. If we roll a ball on the floor, for instance, the ball will move in a path that requires the least action (energy multiplied by time) to get from the start to the end point. While we all accept Newtonian laws as intuitive we tend to look at Quantum Mechanics as weird and non-intuitive. Well, we are wrong. Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All sez Paul Qunicey. [via] Now, once you've conquered the idea that Nature is lazy, you can move on to String Theory and its competitors that aim to show that Nature is…

Poincare conjecture

A comprehensive article at The New Yorker on Perelman, Poincaré conjecture and the politics of math. Perelman, as you might have read, refused the Fields medal - the nobel prize like award for math. From the article, Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman's logic: "To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness." Others might view Perelman's refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. "The ideal scientist…

I want my own death robot!

This guy is awesome. In fact, this guy makes me wish that awesome was a verb, so that I could say that "he awesomed around like there was no tomorrow." //--> Pop Sci reports that Carlos Owens of Wasilla, Alaska built his own 18 foot tall robotic exoskeleton in his backyard because...you know...he can. He acknowledges that it may have legitimate applications for the military or construction, but this ignores it's primary function: terrifying the villagers! Owens needs to work on his evil laugh. Muahahaha! //--> (Side note: the above clip is from Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog…

How to pay for good journalism

Sources of subsidy in the production of news: a list I was asked to speak recently at a conference organized by Yale University with the title âJournalism & The New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay The Messenger?â  This irritated me. The question should have been âwho will subsidize news production?â because news production has always been subsidized by someone or something.  Very rarely have users paid directly the costs of editorial production. via jayrosen.tumblr.com At the recent Rebooting Science Journalism talk at ScienceOnline 2010 (and in posts here) I expressed optimism that…

Orchids and dandelions on the Brian Lehrer Show

Brian Lehrer I'll be talking with WNYC's excellent Brian Lehrer on his show this morning, from 11:06 to about 11:25, discussing my Atlantic article about the "orchid gene" hypothesis, which holds that many of the genes that are known to make us vulnerable to problems such as depression, hyperaggression or antisocial behavior, or distractibility -- can also make us less vulnerable to these same afflictions. update: You can listen to the segment here: You can tune in in the NYC area at FM 93.9 or AM 820; listen to a live internet stream; or go here afterwards for a podcast of the section.…

James Dobson, Santa Claus

Dang, but I seem to be too late. A Seattle newsweekly describes a generous program from Focus on the Family—you could get on to their website store, order up to $100 worth of their enlightening merchandise, and then they only asked for a donation! Pay $0, get it all for free! Unfortunately, they seem to have caught on. Now you only get a message that the resource center is closed. Keep an eye on it in case it re-opens. (via Riba Rambles) It's backup, and jeez...it worked. At least, we'll see if it works if the books arrive in about two weeks. Look at it as a way to get your hands on Wells'…

The Kew's growing seed & pollen collection

Kew Gardens (that is, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew) is trying to collect and bank the seeds and pollen from 10% of the world's plants -- a nice 21st-century continuation of the stunning collecting effort that started in the 1700s and helped supply evidence, via Joseph Dalton Hooker, that proved crucial to Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. The Guardian has put up a nice photo gallery of some of the seeds they've collected so far. A few: Seed of wild spider flower (or spider wisp) Photo: Rob Kesseler & Madeline Harley Himalayan iris pollen. Photo: Rob Kesseler…

The Onion Reports: Scientists Isolate Area Of Brain That Doesn't Like Poking

Since it's short.... here's the entire snipit from The Onion: BETHESDA, MD--After an extensive six-month study using an electroencephalogram and a finger, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered the section of the human brain that responds unfavorably to poking. "We found a direct link between this negative effect and our finger pressing on a particular area of the brain," said neuroscientist Matthew Redman Monday, who conducted the study on 12 healthy participants. "After analyzing our data and testing and retesting our subjects, we finally identified this region as…

Why low IQ kids are screwed.

Got you! haha... just kidding ;) This story is a bit less controversial than the whole Bell Curve thing ;) According to a EurekaAlert press release, Although intelligence is generally thought to play a key role in children's early academic achievement, aspects of children's self-regulation abilities--including the ability to alternately shift and focus attention and to inhibit impulsive responding--are uniquely related to early academic success and account for greater variation in early academic progress than do measures of intelligence. Therefore, in order to help children from low-income…

Nuclear & Climate Change

John McCain announced his new goal of pushing through 45 nuclear reactors by 2030. Whether you are pro- or anti-nuclear (or somewhere in between), 45 by 2030 will be too late for mitigating climate change. This is an important point that is often overlooked. Calls for carbon reductions from the IPCC and others require major actions pre-2030. The bureaucratic hurdles associated with building nuclear reactors in the US takes them off the table in terms of being a tool in the quiver to abate on-coming climate change in the next two decades. Is including nuclear in our long-term energy strategic…

A Truly High Quality Naturalist Blog, and the Question of Yawning

Last year Jeremy Jackson went to South Africa to collect a big prize at a conference. While there he met a young nature writer/photographer named Adam Welz. A few weeks ago Adam was ambling down the west coast of the U.S. and stopped by to visit for a day. In addition to breaking the news to me that more than half the plants in my yard are introduced species from South Africa (where the climate is so similar), he also is a great storyteller and amazing nature photographer (see the beavers). If you have a few minutes and care to read some excellent natural history writing and see some amazing…

Dreams of Streams

You know what a natural stream looks like, right? The Yukon in northern Canada or the Onega in Russia come to mind. If you are like me, you are pondering images of a sinuous stream with meandering channels after meandering channels. Ever since scientists started studying fluvial geomorphology - the study of rivers - those meandering channels have become the backbone that defines a natural stream. Last month, two scientists from Franklin and Marshall College rocked the [river] boat with a paper in Science Magazine. They present a slew of evidence that suggests our view of a natural stream is a…

Holy Mackerel: The Pope Could Save Fish

Holy Mackerel, an article I wrote about how religion could help relieve overfishing, was published today in Science & Spirit. Despite numerous scientific studies demonstrating overfishing and its negative impacts on marine biodiversity, global demand for seafood continues to grow. Conservationists advocate 'raising awareness' as one solution to the fisheries crisis. But I work with scientists who are among the world's most informed about overfishing and nearly all of them eats seafood without much discretion. Curbing demand for seafood needs a miracle. Or maybe, in the U.S. where four…

World's Biggest Gulp

Carl Zimmer has written another excellent article for the New York Times. It's all about scientists who are solving "gastronomical mysteries of these leviathans by creating the first detailed biomechanical model of a feeding fin whale." One of these scientists is friend and fellow UBC Ph.D. candidate, Jeremy Goldbogen. The whale grinds to a halt, the scientists concluded, by opening its mouth. Water floods in, pushing its giant lower jaws back until they hang perpendicularly from its body. Suddenly the whale is producing colossal amounts of drag. "The whales are beautifully streamlined so…

Shifting Milk

For unknown reasons, I found myself reading a USA Today from last Wednesday (Sept. 5). In it, there is a nice little article that reports on the decline in milk deliveries. The reporter 'frames' the story in a positive light: milk deliveries have not declined any further since 2001--they've stabilized at a paltry 0.4% of the U.S. milk market. Anecdotal evidence suggests milk deliveries might even be increasing. But at less than one percent of market share, it seems silly not to reminisce. Back in 1963, milk deliveries accounted for nearly one-third of the milk we drank. Milk delivery is…

Should We Dump Iron in Galapagos Waters?

Sequestering carbon in the oceans using large amounts of iron has been proposed as one way to offset our fossil fueled lifestyles. A host of burgeoning companies (e.g., TerraPass) have responded to the public's request to sequest. One of them, Planktos, would now like to dump iron filings in the ocean around the Galapagos Islands to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (perhaps paid for by tourists to Galapagos with guilty consciences), which conservationists oppose. Dumping carbon in the ocean causes plankton blooms that can sequester carbon but the long-term effects of such an…

A Galapagos Interruption: FLOCK OF DODOS airs tonight on Showtime

Grab your seats and popcorn for the Evolution-Intelligent Design circus! Randy Olson's acclaimed film Flock of Dodos airs tonight at 5:30pm and again at 8:30 pm EST on Showtime. The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006 and has raised the heckles from many anti-evolutionists. The Discovery Institute has recently written to Showtime (what's with the 'soft touch'?) in opposition of the airing. But PZ Myers had already refuted their claims back in February. Find out what all the fuss is about tonight at 5:30pm and 8:30 pm on Showtime. p.s. For further…

And speaking of small arachnids... here's one to make you smile

Following up on my Weekly Dose of Cute, here's another little spider that is sure to make you grin. Meet Theridion grallator, perhaps better known as the Hawaiian Happy Face Spider. This little guy, like the peacock spider, only grows to about 5 mm long, so he's a just as pint-sized as the last one. They're endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiian name is nananana makakiÊ»i (face-patterned spider). Its common name comes from the distinctive marking on its backside - but not all individuals have such a face. Markings are unique to each spider, and vary by region. There are quite a few…

Now that's a real sacrifice.

The following quote is taken verbatim from the transcript of an interview that President Bush did with Politico.com yesterday. I'm presenting it without any further comment, because there really isn't a hell of a lot than can be said - and we're still stuck with the shallow little twit for the next 251 days: Q Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as…

What Graduate Students Are For

Here's a charming quote from a recent LA Times piece on neuroscience: ...Lynch said: "Several years ago, I sent a student out and said, 'Your job is to find out what the boys know about assembly.' That's what grad students are for. They're the cannon fodder of science. You throw them at problems that have no chance of being solved..." The cannon fodder of science. If I were a graduate student, I would so not go to work in Moron Gary Lynch's lab. Especially if I were a female graduate student. I mean, really - "the boys"? Sexism and infantilizing your rivals all in one handy phrase. I…

Comments Seem To Be Messed Up Temporarily...

I don't know what is going on, but most new comments seem to be getting held for moderation and/or sent by the spam filter into my junk folder. I have just retrieved a bunch of them from the junk folder (including one of my own) and gotten them published. However, I am about to leave for an overnight trip and won't be back until late tomorrow evening, and won't have computer access the whole time. Please be advised that if your comment does not show up, it may be due to whatever strange glitch is causing this weird behavior of my spam filter. I'm sorry, and will get all comments published…

Well, that stinks...

Terry Pratchett just announced that he's been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's. He's at least somewhat upbeat, though: PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry. I'll resist that "very…

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

If you watched the news at all yesterday, you probably know that we had a little bit of a shake-up out here yesterday morning. I live on the island of Oahu, which is a fair distance from the epicenter of the quake, so the shaking wasn't too bad. It was strong enough to rattle the windows, knock down a couple of poorly hung pictures, and totally freak out the kids and dog, but no real damage occurred. It was also strong enough to shut down the power grid, so we spent most of the wet, rainy day inside with no power. Things are back to normal now, and I'll have a couple of more earthquake-…

No chance in Hell of a Catholic education

Proving, contrary to the father's comments in the story, that it really is the dark ages, an Australian Catholic Church school has banned (and since rescinded) a child whose surname is "Hell". In German, "hell" means "light" or "bright". Mr Hell, of Austrian heritage, says the name means light or bright in German. "It's 2007, not 1407, it's not the Dark Ages," he said. The dark ages is much earlier than that, usually running from around 500CE to 1000CE. The 15th century was the time of the rebirth of classical learning with the translation of Aristotle's works and many Arabic works of…

Australian Easter bits

A young gorilla escaped from his enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo last night and wandered about for 20 minutes while craven visitors hid out. I would have sat and waited for him to introduce himself. And paid good money for the chance. A moron by the name of Cardinal George Pell, who has a chance at being a pope one day, has reiterated the lie that condoms do not reduce the incidence of AIDS, with anecdotal accounts filtered through the Jedi Catholic Mindshield. And to the folk who were up at 6.30am to go to Mass, and decided that everybody had to be able to hear their conversations in…

History of evolution

Ryan Gregory at Genomicron has a couple of interesting posts; One on Natural Selection before Darwin, which discusses prior presentations back to Hutton. I think he's right that prior to Darwin selection was typically not thought of as a way to form new species. It's generally not after Darwin either - speciation is usually thought of as a side effect of selection. Also he argues that abiogenesis, the formation of life from abiotic materials, is a part of evolution, but not required by evolutionary theory. I agree: but not because abiogenesis begins with replication. Rather, I think…

Teachers: Do you use CogDaily in class? How?

We've heard from a few teachers who use Cognitive Daily in class, and we know several class web sites link to CogDaily. So we were wondering: if you're a teacher, instructor, or professor, how do you use Cognitive Daily in your class? As a suggested supplemental reading? A required assignment? Or maybe you've consciously chosen not to use CogDaily in class. We'd also appreciate it if you'd let us know why you don't use it. Maybe there's something else we could do to make it more usable for your class. We're open to suggestions. Even if you feel like you're just repeating someone else's…

Which of these icons will appear on every research post we make?

The BPR3 icon contest is now complete -- here are the entries: One of these icons will be chosen for any blogger to use to show when a post is a serious commentary about a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, and not just a link to a press release or media commentary. We'll be using it on all our research posts once the icon is finalized. All the blog posts using the icon from across the blogosphere will be collected at BPR3.org, so readers will have one place to go to find the most serious, informed blogging on the net. Soon you'll be able to vote for your favorite icon. We'll let…

Here Comes Jacob

Last year, we watched as four rapidly intensifying typhoons in a row hit the Philippines in the space of a few months. Something was just up with the ocean-atmosphere system in that particular area, and it was a deadly combination. With the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the situation isn't nearly so dire. However, just after getting slammed by a rapidly intensifying George yesterday, it now appears that Pilbara will soon be hit by a steadily intensifying Cyclone Jacob--and in almost the same spot that just experienced George. How strong will Jacob be at landfall? The current…

Episode CII: The Food Pr0n thread

You know, I'm supposed to watch my diet now. I took my son to lunch the other day and he ordered and ate an entire chicken-fried steak sandwich with a giant platter of french fries right in front of me, which was incredibly cruel…but I was strong, and didn't even steal a single fry from his plate. Then I thought that the person in the everlasting gob-unstopping thread was being similarly cruel when she posted this bacon porn video: But she wasn't! I found myself completely uninterested in ever eating bacon again after watching that! Some of you may not want to watch it, then — it's a bit…

NPR Science Friday Appearance; September Tour Events

Got some news, folks: I'm going to be on NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow, this Friday, from 3:15 to 4:00 ET, debating Tom Bethell about the politics of science. If you want to call in, the number is (800) 989-8255. It's not up on the website yet that this is happening but I can confirm it. The show's website, incidentally, is here. Meanwhile, in advance of the paperback release, we've set up a lot of new book tour dates in September. I'm going back to the West Coast (San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle), but also to a number of places where I've never given talks before (Madison…

Michael Kinsley on the Obligations of Opinion Journalists

Very apropos of my previous post about George Will and Robert Novak, just found this quotation from Michael Kinsley: Abandoning the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the journalist's most important obligation, which is factual accuracy. In fact, the practice of opinion journalism brings additional ethical obligations. These can be summarized in two words: intellectual honesty. Are you writing or saying what you really think? Have you tested it against the available counterarguments? Will you stand by an expressed principle in different situations, when it leads to an unpleasing…

Republican War on Science Nominated for Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Dear friends: I'm ecstatic to announce that my first book was just named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize for 2005 in the category of "science and technology." The five finalists are: Sean B. Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (W.W. Norton) Mariana Gosnell, Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance (Alfred A. Knopf) Brad Matsen, Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss (Pantheon Books) Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (Basic Books) Diana Preston, Before the Fallout…

Blogrolling

I have started to assemble a new blogroll for this new blog--the one on my last site was extremely outdated. My general policy is going to be that I will not list blogs that are right here at ScienceBlogs, simply because anyone reading the site is naturally going to see what the other participants are posting daily anyway. (Although, I'm quite open to arguments about why I shouldn't run the blogroll this way.) So far I've just added five blogs that I can vouch for, more will be coming. Check out one of them, SciAm Observations, for a recent post from John Rennie about my debate with Ron…

More greatest hits

I've now finished posting archives up through June of 2005. There's some great stuff in there -- here are some highlights: Drumbeats alone can convey emotion Is memory better for shocking events? Why we can't all be divas What makes a wine expert? Kids' unreliability as witnesses: Hard wired into the brain? Why some of us choke under pressure Who believes in magic? Who still believes in magic? Music and IQ Why do we forget our childhood? When do we learn what colors mean? Does racial diversity help students learn? There's lots more great stuff that I skipped over, so give yourself a treat and…

Second Annual HALLOWEEN Reader Poll

Halloween 2008 and I'm dressed as GOP vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin. I tried to find a stuffed animal fruit fly to carry around as means to distinguish myself from the other Sarah Palins wandering 9th St in Durham, but to no avail. So it goes. And now for the second annual HALLOWEEN reader poll on this 31st day of October... Which of the following do you find scariest and why? (answer in comments) a) Bush's last stand against the environment b) Sarah Palin as President c) The current state of our economy d) John McCain on SNL e) Global climate change * Alternative frightening…

The Myth of Declining U.S. Scientists

In my latest Science Progress piece, I crusade head on at a piece of misinformation that is incredibly prominent of late--the idea that U.S. scientist production is in decline. Looking at the data, whether on Ph.d. production, bachelor's degrees, graduate degrees, or graduate enrollments, I show that the contention is simply false. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried about competition from India and China--for as I say in the piece, China's rate of increasing Ph.d. production is greater than ours. However, if we're going to do something to change the way we currently produce and train…

Sb Reader Meet-Up Details

UPDATE: * LOCATION CHANGED * The NYC ScienceBlogs reader meet-up is set for 2:00 pm this Saturday, August 9 at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History: Head to the cafe tables and chairs set by the trees on the upper terrace, facing the Rose Center. The terrace is accessible from the Theodore Roosevelt Park at 81st Street and Columbus Avenue. This is an outdoor location with tables and shade, which we thought was best for the large numbers we're expecting. After we're all assembled in this spot, if smaller groups are interested in grabbing a coffee or sitting in air…

'Montauk Monster?' You Decide

Friends back in my home state of New York have been telling me about a 'monster' that supposedly washed up on the beach in Montauk, Long Island. Intrigued, I checked out the now famous photograph after the story appeared on CNN. Take a look: Unfortunately, while I love a good creature mystery as much as anyone, I'm disappointed. The first thing to note is we have no perspective for scale and I'd be surprised if it was more than a couple feet long. Further, what's being called a 'beak' are more likely canine teeth, which suggest a decomposing carnivore. Now I haven't checked in with the…

ABC: Science Lies on the "Chalk-Dusted Fringes" of American Culture

I did my latest Science Progress column about last weekend's World Science Festival in New York, which I unfortunately could not attend, but which sounds like it was awesome. In my column, I simply had to rate the festival a success based upon how much of a splash it made, including in non-science media--places like the Colbert Report and ABC's Good Morning America. Still, I think this coverage itself shows the dilemma of science today. For instance, although Good Morning America was very positive on the World Science Festival, something really struck me about how they summarized its purpose…

I WANT YOU

A reminder to readers that in exactly one week, I'll be speaking at the AAAS Forum On Science And Technology Policy about 'Science and the New Media.' I encourage you to comment with thoughts on the topic HERE. I'll be showing the post live during my talk. For ideas, consider these questions: * New media addressing S&T issues - what/where/who are they? * Who do they see as their primary audiences? * What do they try to convey (or try not to convey)? * What do they see as missing from the current dialogues on S&T and policy? * How are they addressing those…

In search of John Daniel

Last week I wrote about the brief life and death of John Daniel, the "civilized gorilla." I wanted to know more about him, chiefly whether I could still see him at the AMNH or not, so I sent a query to the museum. Here's the information I got back; Gorilla gorilla gorilla From: Barnum and Bailey Gender: Male Museum #: 54084 Mounted on exhibit, 3rd floor Primates Hall He's still there (or, rather, his skin is), behind glass in the gorilla-poop-colored display in the Hall of Primates. In about two weeks I'll be heading into the city, to see the Japanese macaques at the Central Park Zoo in…

I'm doomed now

I'm in big trouble. My wife is sending me pictures of cute puppy dogs to make me feel better. Where's the slime? The chitin? The tentacles? How is this supposed to cheer me up? Anyway, I've been trapped in the hospital overnight, and this morning they promise to finally give me the really good drugs and turn me into a vegetable for a few hours while they stick knives in my heart, which will be a welcome relief from the excruciating boredom. Then I get to wake up to the pain, which won't be fun at all. At any rate, this is the scary morning, and the rest is recuperation — I'll let you all…

Just When You Thought Sea Cucumbers Couldn't Get Any Cooler...

They did. When a person's cornea - the transparent surface layer at the front of the eye - becomes damaged, it can be replaced using tissue from an organ donor. But there is a big shortage of corneal donors, as there are for every other type of organ. An ideal solution would be to develop an artificial cornea, but is has proved very hard to design and manufacture a structure so that it is optically clear in the middle and biocompatible at the edges. Now Garret Matthews, a biophysicist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, US, and his colleagues have come up with a design for artificial…

The Other Storm World

When PZ reviewed my latest book as if it was a sci-fi novel, I thought the result was hilarious. I certainly didn't think anyone would take him literally. But now across my cluttered desk comes this: Australia's Great Western Entertainment (GWE) has expanded backing for its kids and family sci-fi series Stormworld, with production, investment and broadcast partners from Canada and Australia, and now Singapore also involved. The live-action 26x30' series follows two teenage friends, Jason and Lee, who are transported to a parallel universe. It goes into production in January 2008, for delivery…

Russia Pretends To Claim The Arctic: They should've known better...

...or at least picked a B rate movie... In an apparent attempt to "sex up" a news program, the TV station has been caught passing off footage from the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster Titanic as a real-life report on the Kremlin's recent attempt to stake its claim to the riches of the Arctic Ocean. While I'm all for appealing to the general public, there's a stark contrast between sexing up science and ripping off the highest grossing film of all time. Someone had to notice and in this case it was Finnish 13 year old Waltteri Seretin: I have heard that they don't always tell the truth in Russia…

C-SPAN Broadcasts Yearly Kos Science Panel

I just heard from a buddy in Iraq that the Yearly Kos science panel aired on C-SPAN on Saturday, but I've only just now been able to track down what appears to be a temporary archive of the video. For those interested in watching great talks by Sean Carroll and Ed Brayton, as well as my own presentation, here's how it works: Click here, and then select "American Perspectives: Campaign 2008, Rep. Rogers (R-WA), Yearly Kos Convention." The science panel footage begins around 1:23:30. Also, if anyone know how to save this video and perhaps archive on YouTube or elsewhere that would be great.…

Becky Visits Vanuatu

The South Pacific island chain of Vanuatu is a kind of canary in the coalmine for global warming. A settlement on Vanuatu's Tegua Island has already had to be relocated due to sea level rise. (See also here.) The problem was that with ever rising seas, low lying islands--and those living there--are subject to ever higher surges during storms. Eventually, the assault from the ocean becomes too much and you have to move. In this context, Vanuatu may get a test with cyclone Becky, whose projected path is shown above (courtesy of the RMSC-Nadi Tropical Cyclone Warning Center). So far Becky is…

I'll bet you still don't understand error bars

Cognitive Daily gets a lot of complaints about graphs, mostly from readers who say the graphs are useless without error bars. My response is that error bars are confusing to most readers. But perhaps I'm wrong about that. Last year I posted about this issue, and backed it up with a short quiz about error bars, which most of our readers failed. After another 16 months of Cognitive Daily, maybe they've improved. So here's the test again. Take a look at this graph. It represents a fictional experiment where two different groups of 50 people took a memory test. The mean scores of each group are…