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Black Death not initiated by a plasmid OR a moron? Turns out it *we* were the morons!

Me, September 1, 2011: Black Death not initiated by a plasmid? My money is on a moron. Phages can encode for gene groups called morons. I am not joking. These are viral genes that dont code for anything the virus wants, like structural proteins, or enzymes the virus needs-- They are genes that make having the virus around attractive to the bacteria. And few things are more attractive to a pathogen than making you sick, thus spread the bacteria faster than if you werent pooping/oozing/puking/etc. I bet its a moron. Nature, October 12, 2011: A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the…

The Advent Calendar of Physics: Using Energy

For the sixth day of our advent countdown to Newton's birthday, we have the first equation that really departs from the usual notation. I've gotten to kind of like the way the Matter and Interactions curriculum handles this, though, so we'll use their notation: This is what Chabay and Sherwood refer to as the Energy Principle, which is one of the three central principles of mechanics. The term on the left, ΔE represents the change in the total energy of a system, while the two terms on the right represent the work done on that system by its surroundings, and any heat energy flow into or out…

Links for 2011-08-19

Jason Gay: Recreational Sports: It's Not Mortal Combat - WSJ.com "Everybody who plays a sport for fun has encountered a Serious Guy (or a Serious Girl). A Serious Guy turns 3-on-3 into a curse-filled nightmare. A Serious Guy makes backyard badminton feel like tax preparation, and elevates meaningless Wiffle ball into Game 7. A Serious Guy groans when you swing and miss. A Serious Guy can't believe you sliced that Titleist into the woods. A Serious Guy just smashed a volley into your face. You don't even have to be playing with a Serious Guy to upset one. A Serious Guy will howl if you hit a…

Threading the Helpfulness Needle

When I came up for my reappointment review three years into my professorial career, I was given a list of required materials to submit, which included a "statement of teaching philosophy." The same thing had been required for my job application, and at that time, I wrote about techniques and methods that had seemed particularly useful to me as a student (I had basically no teaching experience when I was hired), so for my reappointment, I wrote a statement looking back at what I wrote when I applied and talking about how I tried to incorporate those things into my teaching. I passed the review…

At Least He's Honest?

The topic sucking up all blogospheric oxygen at the moment is the great elevator incident. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find lots of good summaries and explanations, including from Phil Plait and Josh Rosenau. The core of the story is that Rebecca Watson was propositioned in an elevator by a skeevy guy at a convention, and said "Guys, don't do this." Leading Nü Atheist Richard Dawkins scoffed at this because "nothing happened," and basically said Watson was overreacting, and has dug in his heels in the face of numerous people telling him he's wrong. I'm not going to…

Non-Famous Non-Fiction

I kicked off the week with a grumpy post about the Guardian's flawed list of great non-fiction, so let's end the week with a slightly more upbeat take on the same basic idea. The New York Times did a slightly lighter list, asking their staff to pick favorite nonfiction. The lack of consensus is pretty impressive, but the list is still heavy with books that are famous-- even if you haven't read them (I mostly haven't), you'll recognize the titles. So, famous works of non-fiction are pretty well covered. Which leaves non-famous non-fiction as a decent bloggy topic. So: What are some of your…

Survey-Related Inadequacies

I recently participated in a survey of higher education professionals about various aspects of the job. It was very clearly designed by and aimed at scholars in the humanities and social sciences, to the point where answering questions honestly made me feel like a Bad Person. For example, there were numerous questions about teaching methods that just aren't applicable to what I teach-- things like learning through community service. while there is some truth to the old cliche that you never really learn something until you have to teach it, something like turning a bunch of would-be engineers…

Build Your Life on Eternal Truths

I just popped out for a burger at Arbee's, and I chose a seat with a good view of the full moon riding high over a Shell gas station. On the wall of the station was a large luminescent white sign bearing the words "Build Your Life on Eternal Truths". Chapel Hill has a huge number of churches, most being very small and privately run by their pastors, so I guess what the Shell proprietor really means is "Make sure to follow a culturally sanctioned subset of the many commandments in the Bible". Or perhaps "Spend a lot of your time participating in church rituals and talking about Christian…

Carnival of the Godless 79 -- Pie Now on Earth

Welcome everybody to the Carnival of the Godless, a bi-weekly collection of good blogging from a perspective unclouded by notions of friendly guys in the sky who provide pie when you die. Alexander the Atheist explains why both Christians and the god they worship >need Satan. Franklin's Journal tells us why >Franklin is an optimist. Austin at About.com gives us a run-down of the various ways in which religion, religious groups, and religious beliefs are privileged. Aerik at The Science Ethicist relays three Kansan newspaper letters-page entries about atheism. Greta Christina…

Village of Shame and Honour

In recent years I've been involved in some archaeological fieldwork at Skamby in Kuddby parish, Östergötland, Sweden. I like to get a handle on the names of places where I work, what they mean, how they used to be pronounced in the Middle Ages. I was particularly interested in learning about Skamby, because read in modern Swedish, this very uncommon name means "Shame Village". There are two explanations for the name: a less entertaining one supported by linguistic scholarship, and a funny folk-etymology of recent centuries. I'll give you the scholarly interpretation first. Names ending in "-…

Chasing Ancient Kings

Dear Reader, let me tell you about my on-going research. Written history begins late in Scandinavia. The 1st Millennium AD is an almost entirely prehistoric period here. Still, Scandinavian archaeologists have long had a pretty good general idea about late 1st Millennium political geography. The most affluent and powerful regions show up e.g. in hoard finds and expensively furnished graves. The distribution of Romanesque stone churches from the 11th and 12th centuries appears to correspond closely with the political heartlands of the preceding centuries, and with where there's good arable…

Analysis* of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si?

I like the "Analysis*"; it reminds me of Tesco's "Finest*", where I think they intend the "*" to mean "star" as in quality; but I always read it as "*" as in "footnote: may not actual contain fine quality ingredients". But I digress. In this case, the "*" really is a footnote: Note that scientists only assessed information related to climate science. The following analysis is not an endorsement of the economic, political, or moral content of the encyclical. One can quibble whether reading only a small portion of a document is a useful overall assessment, but clearly if we're interested in…

Economists agree: economic models underestimate climate change?

Tis David Roberts, at Vox. I say that up front because although I'm pretty sure I've disagreed with him on just this kind of stuff before, I can't find it now. Although maybe I was thinking of the related How much is climate change going to cost us? at Grist, which is presumably much the same thing. DR starts with: It's fairly well-established at this point that there's a robust scientific consensus about the threat of climate change. But analysts and journalists often say (or imply) that there's less of an economic consensus, that economists are leery of the actions recommended by…

Expelled, coming up fast

The new preview for the movie Expelled looks very slick and professional — there are some deep pockets behind this effort. You'll catch on to the major themes of the movie right away: God and paranoia. It begins with Stein setting the stage for a conflict between two worldviews: it's "Everything on earth was created by a loving god" vs. "Some think we're nothing but mud animated by lightning". It's interesting that Stein is very open about the religious underpinnings of Intelligent Design creationism, something the Discovery Institute would rather hide, while so grossly misrepresenting…

Links for 2012-06-03

In which we look at one of the great spoofs of all time, a clever twist on a viral physics video, one of the great cartoons of all time, the puzzling lack of relationship between violence and the NFL's popularity, the new approach of the US National soccer team, one of the greatest musicians of all time, and the diary of a Yankee. ------------- The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 In which Richard Adams Locke wins the Internet 150 years before it existed. Day 170: Horizontally Dropped Slinky - Noschese 180 You probable know what happens when you drop a slinky vertically, but what happens when you…

Conflict Between Universities and Former State Church of Sweden

Sweden's secularisation process has been going on for about a century, usually pretty quietly, with the anti-Christian polemics of philosopher Ingemar Hedenius marking a brief period of open conflict in the 1950s. As is the case in most European countries, Sweden's university system was born in the Middle Ages with the main aim to educate priests. Some of the older ones still have a Faculty of Theology. The other day another one of the National Agency for Higher Education's evaluations was published. They recently checked out the country's archaeology departments. Now they've done religion…

Neal Stephenson's Anathem

Neal Stephenson's 90s science fiction novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age are unforgettable, but his 2003-2004 suite of historical novels failed to pull me in. So when I learned that his 2008 effort Anathem is a science fiction story, I was very happy. This is a 900-page brick of a book, told in the first person by a young man wise beyond his years. The first third of the book is Harry Potter meets Hesse's Glass Bead Game: we are in a co-ed convent where science monks do science-monkish things inside high walls that cut them off from the general public. Then we leave the convent and have…

Kuhnian Huns

Back in August I blogged about a manuscript where a scholar appealed to Thomas Kuhn's old theory of paradigm shifts in order to evade criticism of their work. At the time I couldn't give the real details as I had received the manuscript in my capacity as journal editor. I've said before that I consider it an editor's duty to correct muddle in debates, both in the interests of scientific advancement and to help contributors avoid looking silly. So I wrote to the scholar in question and asked her to work some more on her contribution, specifically to address more of her opponent's substantive…

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sockpuppet investigation block: aka Chase-Me and Grant Shapps

Its all over bar the tidying up; see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sockpuppet investigation block/Proposed decision - which, somewhat confusingly, is the real decision. Chase-Me is stripped of all priv: CheckUser, Oversight and (once Arbcomm grew a spine) Sysop too. Oh, and independently, Contribsx is unblocked. See my prior post for context. The page I've linked to contain the "findings of fact" in this case; most of them are fairly self-explanatory, one that is worth pulling out is Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry: Discrepancy in timeline: When asked about the timeline of events…

The British political establishment seems to be moving more towards climate change denial, which is worse than the previous stance of acknowledging the problem while doing virtually nothing to address it?

My, what a long title. But its a quote from RN in a comment on my IPCC 5th Assessment Review post. And since this butts head on into something I've been thinking for a while, but not said, I'll write it down. Don't call me too bitter or cynical, please. And just for the moment, don't demand references either - this is all stream of thought. So: for a number of years now, starting at some unknown point - possibly around Cameroon's ridiculous dancing-with-huskies moment, but most likely more nebulous and earlier - the British political scene went soppy green. Windmills sprouted, solar panels…

Blagging advice!

I love blogging. Ive learned a ton, Ive had a helluva lot of fun, Ive made great connections with people all over the world-- Its been a very positive experience for me. So I thought Id share a few tips/tricks Ive learned over the past couple of years for readers who are thinking about taking up blogging: 1. Write for yourself. Write for you. Make blagging a journal, something fun, not 'work'. The second posts become an 'obligation', youll stop doing it. So write about something funny your dog did that you want to remember forever. Write about a paper you have to read for class anyway (…

'Twas the night before Squidmas

A mysterious person going by the name Red Mage sent me the following poem. If your kiddies are still awake and having trouble sleeping, you might want to read it aloud to them. Then they'll really have trouble sleeping. 'Twas the night before Squidmas, and all through the house Not a cultist was stirring, not even a Dagon. The sacrifices were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that Cthulu would not pass past there. The cultists were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of things man was not supposed to know writhed in their heads. And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had…

Sunday Chess Problem

This week I have one more problem from Milan Vukcevich for you. This one was published in Chess Life magazine in 1986. It later won first prize in the tourney. It caught my eye when the award was published, and it was one of the problems that got me interested in composing in the first place. The diagram calls for mate in eight: Loyal readers of this series might remember the term “Nowotny.” It is one of the main interference themes employed by problem composers. A Nowtony occurs when one side plays a move that simultaneously interferes with two line pieces, usually the rook and…

Sunday Chess Problem

My new issue of Chess Life showed up in the mail, and it included coverage of the Sinquefield Cup from this summer. (Chess Life has a long lead time). Anyway, in the game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, Nakamura played the Queen's Gambit Declined as black. He was very lucky to draw the game. Nakamura is better known for playing very aggressive openings like the King's Indian and Dutch; the cramped maneuvering of the QGD is less well-fitted to his style. Commenting on the game, Gary Kasparov recommended that Nakamura stop playing the QGD. He said, “At least if you lose with…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E.Taylor - Chapter 84

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 83 Table of Contents Chapter 85 Chapter 84 The Sorceror's Apprentice, January 27, 2060 A couple of days after the December UNGETF meeting, I got a call from Drew Matheson in Yellowknife. He was a field worker slash forester reporting to Group10. Behind him as we talked I could see great swathes of lichen, covering a stand of pine trees. I assumed it was EF1 --- it was blue-grey. He wanted to know if I had investigated the interactions of EF1 and northern pine before I released it. When I admitted that I hadn't, he looked more annoyed than…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E.Taylor - Chapter 65

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 64 Table of Contents Chapter 66 Chapter 65 Matthew Fontaine, December 11, 2058 Over the course of that summer and fall, the number of sunshades slowly increased. It became part of the weather report. "And today the sunshade count is ..." On clear days the sun was too bright, but on cloudy days the smudge on the side of the sun was easily discernible. One morning in early December, I had the radio on during the usual rush to get ready and they mentioned a food riot in Brazil. As ususal I wondered if Matt were still in South America, but didn't…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E.Taylor - Chapter 64

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 63 Table of Contents Chapter 65 Chapter 64 The Eclipse Machine, September 7, 2058 I woke up early from a bad dream. My father was talking about the animals of the north that were disappearing --- caribou, muskox and bears. Then I was a bearman breaking into a shack. Some guy was shooting at me. I woke up with a start, when a bullet hit me in the shoulder. I lay in bed totally still --- listening. The house was quiet. The clock read 5:13 and there was no way I was going back to sleep. With a sigh I rolled out of bed and into the washroom. It's…

Michigan's Impending ID Lawsuit

The Thomas More Law Center, the same legal group defending the school board in Dover, PA, is threatening to file a lawsuit against the Gull Lake Public Schools for telling two junior high science teachers that they could no longer teach creationism in their classrooms. Michigan Citizens for Science, an organization whose board I sit on, has been involved with this case for several months behind the scenes, since being notified of what was being taught there by a parent whose child was in the class. That parent is a biologist and was shocked when his daughter brought home not only pro-ID…

Official Report on Terri Schiavo

This is worth reading, for those who aren't completely sick of this entire situation. It's a PDF file of the entire report of the Guardian Ad Litem that Jeb Bush appointed to investigate the entire situation and recommend what the state should do in 2003. Amid the flurry of vicious charges that have been leveled against Michael Schiavo, this report points out a great many things worth knowing. It notes, for example, that for the first several years that Terri was in a vegetative state, Michael held out hope that she would recover, despite all evidence to the contrary, and that he was so…

Judge Rules Against Bush in Padilla Case

In a major ruling with enormous implications, a federal judge has ruled that the government has 45 days to charge Jose Padilla with a crime, prove that he is a material witness and must be held, or release him. Padilla, a US citizen, has been held for over two and a half years in a military prison with no charges filed against him and no chance to have his day in court to challenge his detention, in clear violation of at least three amendments in the Bill of Rights. A suit was filed in federal court last year, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction and…

Press Complicity and the Budget

In thinking about the exchange below with Sandefur, it occured to me that there is a great example going on right now of how the press interacts with the two major parties - the new budget. In this case, both parties are trying to sell the same line, that the President's proposed budget contains "deep spending cuts", and the press is blissfully passing that lie along. The President's proposed budget is 10% larger than last year, yet they announced it with a flurry of press releases talking up the strong focus on fiscal discipline and the deep cuts in many programs found in it. The White House…

Rosenhouse Hammers O'Reilly

Jason Rosenhouse, a fellow Panda's Thumb contributor, has written a thoroughly blistering post about Bill O'Reilly's ridiculous take on Intelligent Design. In a segment about ID, O'Reilly interviewed a University of Colorado biologist, and in his typical smugness-meets-stupidity style, he made quite a fool of himself in the process. This exchange is especially amusing: O'REILLY: OK. But science is incomplete in this area of creationism, is it not? GRANT: Science is always incomplete in all areas. O'REILLY: Well, I don't agree with that. Science is not always incomplete and I'll give you an…

Casey Luskin Misses the Point Again

Mr. Luskin has posted a brief addendum to his article, ostensibly to answer criticism of his article, but he completely misses the point. He writes: There is very little that needs to be said in response how some people on the internet are responding to this article. The fact that some people are actually defending the tactic of making comparisons to Holocaust deniers completely speaks for itself, and so little response is necessary. Additionally, I applaud those from all sides who have joined in this truce to agree that such comparisons do not belong in this debate. Some have blown my…

Bork, Islamic Radicals and American Culture

Sandefur points to this article in Reason, responding to this article in the Washington Times about American popular culture's dominance over the rest of the world. Sandefur is quite right to point out that Bork has far more in common with the Taliban than he or his followers would like to admit. Witness this comment: Robert H. Bork remembers his ambivalence in 1989 as the Berlin Wall came down and dungarees and rock music poured into the former East Germany. "You almost began to want to put the wall back up," says the former Supreme Court nominee, a tart critic of American popular culture…

A general predilection for delusion

The first review of my talk yesterday is in! Too bad it is from somebody who wasn't there and who is a world-class fool. Yes, it's Michael Egnor again, and he's got a lengthy post up with the pretext of giving me advice on future talks, but is really an attempt to preempt my arguments and chide me for my crazy materialist position. He doesn't even come close to any of my arguments, and he makes false assumptions all over the place about what I and the audience think. I'm used to straw men from creationists, but this is ridiculous. Here's what I actually said at the talk. The first half was…

Keyes' Latest Lunacy

A reader named James Cameron emailed me a link to an interview with Alan Keyes that is pretty much par for the course for him (incidentally, I hope this isn't the James Cameron who directed Titanic or I shall forever have to hate him for foisting that damn Celine Dion song upon the world - your heart may go on, but your brain shut down years ago). See part one of the interview here and part two here. Keyes trots out a new argument, at least one I've never heard him use before, which is to blame abortion and gay marriage on the invention and use of contraception: Take the issue of same-sex…

WorldNutDaily Still Lying About Terri Schiavo Case

Joseph Farah is always good for a laugh or two, and this morning's ridiculous screed is no exception. The column is titled Republican Judges Killed Terri, and he points to conservative judges like William Pryor who "ignored the will of the people and the U.S. Congress and the president of the United States." There's just one little problem with that: the "will of the people" was squarely against Congress and the President on this one. Even a majority of Tom DeLay's conservative district believed that they should have stayed out of it and that their involvement was politically motivated and…

The Specter Situation Gets Even Weirder

Not content with trying to destroy all moderate voices within the Republican party, religious right groups have now moved on to eating their own for the crime of not being fully on board with their purge for purity. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette is reporting that not only are they after Specter, they're also going after Rick Santorum, one of their staunchest political allies and the junior senator from the same state, because he's not joining in their political witch hunt. The groups noted that they already were upset with Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, for supporting Specter…

Rowe on DiLorenzo on Straussians

Jon Rowe has an interesting post up about an article by Thomas DiLorenzo. DiLorenzo's article was about a book called Intellectual Morons, by Daniel Flynn. Flynn's book, at least in part, was about the philosophy of Leo Strauss and his followers, the Straussians. The Straussians have been a subject of much discussion and posting between myself, Rowe, and Timothy Sandefur (who was a scholar at the Claremont Institute, home of the West Coast Straussians, but is not a Straussian himself). Flynn is himself a conservative, and so are the various followers of Strauss, but there are some major…

Moonies on the Federal Payroll

We all know that President Bush is passionate about "protecting the sanctity of marriage", especially from people who want to get married. One of the programs he has proposed to do so is the Healthy Marriage Initiative. As the Heritage Foundation described it: The President's Healthy Marriage Initiative has been included in the two major TANF reauthorization bills. One of these is the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2003 (H.R. 4) that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2002 and again in February 2003. The Healthy Marriage Initiative has also…

A Sports Guy Prediction

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Part of it is the weather, part of it is the smell and the crispness of the air, and part of it is that basketball is starting again. Midnight madness, the official kickoff for the college basketball preseason, is this weekend, and the NBA is going through its preseason schedule as we speak. And while in the middle of football season, the Sports Guy is already making a prediction: I gave you Jonathan Papelbon, I gave you Laurence Maroney, and now, I'm giving you Rajon Rondo. And without giving away too much -- I want to write about him in detail at some…

Mr. Powell Gets It Wrong Again

In the comments in response to a post on New Covenant about whether scientists can objectively analyze creationist/ID positions , Matt Powell writes the following, in obvious reference to me and our recent discussion: In some of the recent discussions on morality, religion and Biblical philosophy, the same crew was just as quick to mock, deride and question my education and knowledge, despite the fact that I am trained in those areas. That makes me instantly suspect similar statements they make regarding the expertise of people like Johnson, Behe and Ross. For the record, Matt, at no time in…

The Science Fiction of the Gaps

A little while ago, James Nicoll posted about the shifting subject areas of SF: In fact, a fairly consistent pattern in SF is to retreat away from areas that have come under the light of scientific examination. When probes began to visit the planets, SF retreated to the stars (There are very few novels these days set in the solar system). In fact, Trouble on Titan starts off with an essay by Nourse explaining that the attraction of Titan for him was that so little was known about it that he could set almost anything there and not have to fear contradiction from scientists. It's the same…

The Grand Contraption, by David Park

Some time back, I was offered a review copy of Why the Sky Is Blue by Götz Hoeppe by Princeton University Press. Looking at their web site, I noticed a forthcoming book by an emeritus professor at my alma mater, so I asked if they'd send me a copy of that, too. I'm all about the free books. The Grand Contraption is an excellent example of what I call a Smart People Book, in which the author pulls together a wide range of material to take an exhaustive look at some topic or another, and basically show what a smart person he or she is. This particular book is subtitled "The World as Myth,…

Hugo Nominees: Best Short Story

As Kate and I will be attending the Worldcon in Japan, we're eligible to vote for the Hugos this year. In an effort to be responsible voters we downloaded the electronic version of the short fiction nominees that are available from the official nominations site, and I've been working my way through them. To this point, I've finished the Best Short Story nominees: "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"Neil Gaiman "Kin" Bruce McAllister "Impossible Dreams" Tim Pratt "Eight Episodes" Robert Reed "The House Beyond Your Sky"Benjamin Rosenbaum If anybody would like to make a passionate argument in…

The Power of Screechy Monkeys

The current tempest in the teapot of the academic blogosphere is the stalking of Scott Eric Kaufman. John Holbo has a decent summary, with links to most of the relevant original posts. The short form is this: Scott commented negatively on the "Jesus' General" blog about what he thought was an overreaction to a post by a Nashville blogger. As a result, he offended a commenter there, who responded by sending a bunch of letters to the administration of Scott's university accusing him of being a white supremacist. Things went downhill from there. This whole episode is yet another sad example of…

Tuna Salad

This is a couple of days old, but I only got around to reading the story last night. The New York Times has an occasional sports magazine supplement, and this week, they published a nice article on Bill Parcells: Bill Parcells is the only coach in N.F.L. history to take four different teams to the playoffs, but that only begins to set him apart. In 1983, in his first N.F.L. head coaching job, he took over a New York Giants team that had one winning season over the previous decade, turned it around on a dime and led it to Super Bowl titles in the 1986 and 1990 seasons. In 1993, he became head…

Paranoia, the Destroyer

I'm in the middle of what is either a fall cold or a seasonal allergy flare-up-- I lean toward the latter, for various reasons that don't really matter. The important thing is, my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton balls and vacuum pump oil. This isn't the real gripe of the moment, though. The main complaint I have today is that my stomach problems are preventing me from doing anything about my cold/allergy problem. Not for any good reason, but because the gastroenterologist made me paranoid. (Cut for whinging-- if you click below the fold, you've brought it on yourself...) What I…

Precision Machining and Baking Supplies

I end up buying a lot of weird things for my lab-- really expensive sand, for example-- but the latest purchase was a little strange even by my usual standards: The other day, on my way into work, I stopped by the store and bought a roll of parchment paper, for use in the lab. It actually makes perfect sense, though it'll require a little explanation, below the fold The brass thing in the picture above is a length of 3" diameter pipe, which is intended for use as a holder for a magnetic field coil. The coil, one of a pair used to produce a magnetic trap for neutral atoms, will consist of…

College Admissions: Inside the Sausage Factory

It's weird how I get into ruts here. I'm not usually obsessed with the subject of college admissions, but it came up recently, and now there's just one article after another about it (because, of course, it's college admissions season). I'm getting a little tired of it, but not so tired that I want to pass up interesting articles. The latest, via Inside Higher Ed is an Los Angeles Times article about UCLA's new process. They've moved to a "holistic" admissions process, which will no doubt cause many people to roll their eyes and say "Oh, those California hippies..." but this is actually the…