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Bunnies Made of Cheese

The dog is standing at the window, wagging her tail excitedly. I look outside, and the back yard is empty. "What are you looking at?" I ask. "Bunnies made of cheese!," she says. I look again, and the yard is still empty. "There are no bunnies out there," I say, "and there are certainly not any bunnies made of cheese. The back yard is empty." "But particles are created out of empty space all the time, right?" "Have you been reading my quantum physics books again?" "It's boring here when you're not home. Anyway, answer the question." "Well, yes, in a sense. They're called 'virtual particles,'…

Strain to SEE

When I'm in the right mood, I'm a sucker for really awful sci-fi movies. For example, Saturday night I stayed up far too late to watch the end of the tv-movie version of The Andromeda Strain, based on the book by the prolific and recently deceased Luddite Fiction writer Michael Crichton. It's been twenty-plus years since I read the book, but I recall it being a whole lot better than this piece of garbage. Crichton's original novel about a crack research team dealing with a disease of alien origin is remarkable for being somewhat understated. The action focusses on the scientists attempting to…

The Pointlessness of Punditry

In the wake of the debate the other night, there's been a lot of talk about the disparity between the way tv pundits "scored" it-- most of them thought McCain did well-- and post-debate polling of actual voters, which gave a huge edge to Obama. Kevin Drum, Mark Kleiman, and Steve Benen all comment on this, and they have links to other people saying similar things. None of them take the logical next step, though. The important question isn't "Why are the pundits so wrong?," the important question is: Given that the tv pundits are so far off, why are you watching them? It's not like Wednesday'…

A Longitudinal Study of Blogging Traffic

Back in March, I noted that I had inadvertently done an experiment to see what kinds of posts bring the most hits. That week, I posted one peer-reviewed post every day, along with a bunch of other articles, and I looked at the traffic stats to back up my contention that hard-core science blogging is not what racks up the page views. The question came up again at the conference this past week, which reminded me that at the time, some people argued that the science posts weren't a big immediate draw, but would build up more posts over the long term. I thought it would be interesting to go back…

Book Report: Polishing and Waiting

I'm sitting on the couch, watching tv, when the dog comes in. "Hey, dude, what ever happened with that book, anyway?" "What book?" I ask, distractedly. "The one about me. What other book would I be asking about?" "Oh, yeah. I sent the first draft off to my editor and a bunch of other people, and I'm waiting for their comments." "Oh. That must suck, huh?" "What?" "Waiting. I don't like waiting." "I've noticed that." She's good for ten seconds or so, but more than that, and she starts creeping forward. "It's not so bad, though. I've already gotten some comments, which have been very positive…

Mortgage Crisis Question

Brad DeLong gives his stamp of approval to Steven Pearlstein's explanation of the mortgage collapse now in progress. It is, indeed, a very clear explanation of what went wrong: Stick with me now, because this is where it gets interesting. For it is at this point that the banks got the bright idea of buying up a bunch of mezzanine tranches from various pools. Then, using fancy computer models, they convinced themselves and the rating agencies that by repeating the same "tranching" process, they could use these mezzanine-rated assets to create a new set of securities -- some of them junk, some…

The Teammate Desirability Factor

Over at the World's Fair, Dave is asking people for their scientific eponyms, that is, the formula they would like to have named after themselves. These are, of course, entirely made up. Here's my contribution, from the scientific study of pick-up basketball: the Orzel Teammate Desirability Factor (TDF): The Factor ranges between positive and negative infinity and is a quantitative measure of how much I want to have a given player on my team. The components going into this are: P is the average number of points scored per game ρ is the player's career shooting percentage A is the average…

Physics for Everyone (for Some Value of "Everyone")

In today's New York Times Natalie Angier has a nice story about increased interest in physics: Many people wring their hands over the state of science education and point to the appalling performance of America's students in international science and math competitions. Yet some of the direst noises about our nation's scientific prospects may be premature. Far from rejecting challenging science courses, students seem to be embracing them. This year, for example, the American Institute of Physics said that the percentage of high school students taking physics courses was at an all-time high,…

What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Appendix: "No-Laser" Methods

Last week's series of posts on the hardware needed for laser cooling and trapping experiments dealt specifically with laser-cooling type experiments. It's possible, though, to make cold atoms without using laser cooling, using a number of techniques I described in two posts back in January. Those didn't go into the hardware required, though, so what's different about those techniques in terms of the gear? Less than you might think. In fact, most of the labs that do these experiments use exactly the same sorts of equipment that laser coolers do. Including some lasers. It's not all of them, but…

Insults Are Easy, Community Is Hard

Josh Rosenau makes an excellent and important point regarding prayer meetings and the Gulf oil spill: that the point is not so much that God will stop the oil gushing into the Gulf, but that religious groups are a key community organization point for getting people together to work on the problem. He puts this into a larger context toward the end of the post, saying things I've said myself numerous times: Most people attend church for a lot of reasons, and many of those reasons are self-reinforcing. Someone who goes to church with no particular views on theism (pro, con, or agnostic) could…

Extremists Aren't Interesting

Sean Carroll is miffed about a science-and-religion panel at the World Science Festival: The panelists include two scientists who are Templeton Prize winners -- Francisco Ayala and Paul Davies -- as well as two scholars of religion -- Elaine Pagels and Thupten Jinpa. Nothing in principle wrong with any of those people, but there is a somewhat obvious omission of a certain viewpoint: those of us who think that science and religion are not compatible. And there are a lot of us! Also, we're right. A panel like this does a true disservice to people who are curious about these questions and could…

Links for 2010-05-14

Blue laser awesomeness : Dot Physics "Yes, green laser pointers are cool. Especially when you use them to make stuff fluoresce. Ok, what about a blue laser pointer? They are getting surprisingly cheap (Amazon has a 10 mW for pretty cheap). Still not cheap enough for me. But, you know what? Some of the physics majors here at Southeastern Louisiana University purchased a couple of these. Physics major Daniel let me borrow his." (tags: science physics blogs lasers atoms molecules dot-physics pictures video) Physics Buzz: Obama Loves Lasers "Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the laser…

Links for 2010-04-29

Skipping class? NAU high-tech system will know "Students who are thinking about sleeping late and skipping that morning class may have a new incentive to roll out of bed at one Arizona university this fall. Northern Arizona University will install an electronic system that detects when each student with an ID card walks through the door to some large classrooms. The system will produce an attendance report for the instructor." (tags: academia education technology gadgets privacy) The Art of Onfim "One of the most fascinating archeological finds in Russia has been the discovery of hundreds…

Hugo Awards 2006

This year's Hugo Awards (either the Oscars of the Golden Globes of the science fiction/ fantasy field, depending on who you ask) were announced last night at the Worldcon in LA. Pleasant surprises abound: 1) Spin by Robert Charles Wilson won the Best Novel Hugo. As I've said before, I think it was far and away the best book in the field, but I didn't think it would win. They've made a lot of bad calls in recent years, but this one, I like. 2) The Best Professional Editor Hugo goes to David Hartwell. This is nice to see not just because David is a nice guy, and does good work, but because…

John C. Wright, The War of the Dreaming [Library of Babel]

I'm very angry with David G. Hartwell. Hartwell, for those who don't know his name, is a very distinguished editor of science fiction, with a long list of anthologies and scholarly essays to his credit, not to mention fabulous taste in clothes. He's also an editor for Tor Books, where he appears to be the king of splitting long books in two. He's responsible for splitting Scott Westerfeld's The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds and Charlie Stross's The Family Trade and The Hidden Family, and also these two books, The Last Guardian of Everness and Mists of Everness. These are all long…

Comment on unproven models

A recent comment, here, questions the AGW prediction of polar amplification. He cites a paper by Polyakov et al that he claims shows temperatures in the arctic were warmer than they are now earlier in the 20th century. [Update: paper is here[PDF]] I don't have access to the paper or time to research it well, does anyone else have any comments? My initial impression is that it is about ocean temperatures in one region of the north Atlantic, and I do not trust the numbers he quotes which came from CO2 Science, a site that habitually misrepresents the papers it highlights. But that is hardly…

Moran on Ross

Larry Moran takes apart the Marcus Ross case in some detail. Ross is the young earth creationist who recently received his Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island. In this situation we have an example of someone who carefully hid his true belief from the thesis committee, or at least went out of his way to give them an excuse to avoid facing up to the main problem. This is deceptive and antithetical to how science is supposed to operate. It opens a whole other can of worms. While most of us would agree that openly advocating a young Earth in your thesis would be grounds for failure, we…

The Science of Lion Prides

Although the paper addresses Tanzanian lions, this is a photograph of a Namibian lion Starting some years ago, we began to hear about revisions of the standard models of lion behavioral biology coming out of Craig Packer's research in the Serengeti. One of the most startling findings, first shown (if memory serves) as part of a dynamic optimization model and subsequently backed up with a lot of additional information, is the idea that lions do not benefit by living in a group with respect to hunting. They live in groups despite the fact that this sociality decreases hunting…

Walter Cronkite

Sadly, we hear the news that Walter Cronkite is gravely ill. Well, not so sadly really, since he appears to have had a great life and in living that life, managed to get quite old. So good for him. I have one Cronkite story (below the fold) and only one, and I'll tell it to you below. I also just want to mention that my generation grew up with Cronkite as the guy who told us the news, truthfully, and in a straight forward manner. Cronkite told my family (and I only barely remember this) that Jack Kennedy was dead, and (this I remember) Jack's brother, and MLK. He told us about what was…

How diverse were early hominoids?

And hominids. We know the fossil record underestimates diversity at least a little, and we know that forested environments in Africa tend to be underrepresented. Given this, the diversity of Miocene apes may have been rather impressive, because there is a fairly high diversity in what we can assume is a biased record. But I'd like to make the argument from another angle, that of modern ecological analogues. Let us assume that the greater apparent diversity of apes in the middle and late Miocene compared today can be accurately translated as a modern reduction in ape diversity. Not…

Free The Iranian Doctors Arash and Kamiar Alaei

The government of Iran sucks. Doctor Arash Alaei and Doctor Kamiar Alaei are two Iranian physicians who have reportedly been detained in Iran by Iranian authorities. The physicians, who are brothers, were apparently arrested at the end of June, 2008 and their current whereabouts are unknown. Physicians for Human Rights calls on the government of Iran to disclose their whereabouts, provide them access to lawyers and family, and either to charge them with an internationally recognized crime or release them immediately. Doctor Arash Alaei and Doctor Kamiar Alaei have played a role in putting…

Hurricane Paloma is ...

.... About to hit the south coast of Cuba with possibly a 20 foot storm surge. .... Tied for the second strongest hurricane evah in the Atlantic in November. .... Currently a Category Three FOUR! storm. .... Going to fall apart totally after it moves into the Atlantic, having had its way with Cuba Here's the current advisory, in all caps, like they do it at the HPC: ...OUTER RAIN BANDS OF EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PALOMA AFFECTING CUBA... A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE CUBAN PROVINCES OF CIEGO DE AVILA...CAMAGUEY...LAS TUNAS...GRANMA AND HOLGUIN. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND…

The Morning After

Good Morning America! Well, after I went to bed last night, the Minnesota Senate Race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman tightened up. The Associated Press is reporting, I hear, that Coleman has won. They are wrong. The difference between the two candidates is now (at 6:30 AM) just over 1,000 votes. Here in Minnesota, we are pretty sane and strightforward about our election process. Sensible scanning bubble sheets, lots of polling places, short lines, and an automatic recount law (one half percent different requires recount). There will now be a special recount of this race, and that…

Senate Races to Watch on Tuesday: Update

This is a recap of my earlier post of what to watch for in the US Senate Races. We are hoping for a 60 seat Democratic Party presence in the Senate in order to have a filibuster proof majority. Without this, any Republican with a grudge, a bad attitude, a hatred of liberal or progressive idea, or who feels that his/her own career is more important than his/her country (which pretty much describes 99 percent of all Republicans) can get up on the Senate Floor and read Mother Goose Tales forever in order to stop a bill being brought up for a vote. I'm not using an analogy or a metaphor here…

Borderline Freedom

1975, winter, somewhere in the American Southwest. I am driving across a state border and there is a sign that reads "do not transport citrus fruit across state lines." There on the side of the road is a check point with uniformed federal agents, a place to pull off, some garbage cans. I look at the oranges sitting on the floor over on the passenger side and figure ... "better pull off and dump this contraband." But then something surprising happened. I started to pull into the checkpoint, and one of the uniformed federal agents leaned over a bit to see who was in the 10 year old…

Figuring out DNA looping with unbelievably advanced technology

An article just out in PLOS Biology explores one of the most important, but also difficult to observe, phenomena related to DNA regulation. Figure 1 from the paper: "Atomic Force Microscopy of Lac Repressor-DNA Complexes (A) Schematic structures of biotin (bio)- and digoxigenin (dig)-labeled DNA constructs with one (O-539 and O-349) or two (O-153-O and O-158-O) ideal lac operator sequences (white bars)... (B) AFM image of molecules adsorbed to a mica surface ... (C) Scatter plot of the DNA arm contour lengths in repressor-DNA complexes....(D and E) Left: projection images of two…

No matter what happens, it is probably going to rain a lot in Florida

It is raining cats and dogs in Florida, thanks to Tropical Storm Hanna. Ike remains a real threat. Josephine is a giant question mark. Details below the fold. Hanna is a really large tropical storm that is eventually ... by tomorrow AM ... be more or less over land, where it will quickly move north/northeast not straying very far from the coast. It will probably jump over the coast at least once (its current track has its center going over Cape Cod) but that hardly maters as it is so large. When it passes cape cod, if it is still strong enough (which it likely will be) the folks in…

Animal "rights" activists apparently firebomb home, car

The FBI is upping the ante in relation to recent attacks on scientists working in California, in light of two firebombings over the last few days.(See FBI increases reward in firebombings to $50,000) I just wish they would stop calling these people "animal rights activists." They are not. They are just nutjobs. Two University of California, Santa Cruz faculty members and their families were targeted in what local authorities are calling attacks by animal liberationists. The first incident occurred off-campus on Saturday morning when a faculty member and his two small children were forced…

Sex Ratio Bias in India

Sometimes boys are worth more, sometimes girls are worth more. In an evolutionary sense. Or, more correctly, the value of a certain sex ... as an offspring ... can be measured in fitness terms. Fisher noted this and hypothesized this was the explanation for the 50-50 sex ratio we usually see. As one sex becomes more rare, it becomes more valuable, and thus parents (mothers, perhaps, usually) bias towards that sex. Then the disparity goes away and thus the differential value goes away. Of course, the truth is that we don't actually see the 50-50 sex ratio all the time ... many species…

Chess Bondage

I was in Kentucky for most of last week, visiting friends. I ended up in Bowling Green, stopping along the way in Morehead and in Loveland, OH (near Cincinnati). My friends in Bowling Green took me to Mammoth Cave National Park, which is really quite spectacular. All in all, an enjoyable trip. I'll be hitting the road again on Wednesday for a little over a week. Part of that time will be spent visiting the 'rents at my New Jersey office, but I'll be spending several days in New York City as well. A mix of business and pleasure. There's plenty of blog fodder out there. ID backbencher…

Realism vs. Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Science

Massimo Pigliucci has a post up that is partly about the issue of realism vs. anti-realism in the philosophy of science. He describes the issue as follows: To put it very briefly, a realist is someone who thinks that scientific theories aim at describing the world as it is (of course, within the limits of human epistemic access to reality), while an anti-realist is someone who takes scientific theories to aim at empirical adequacy, not truth. So, for instance, for a realist there truly are electrons out there, while for an anti-realist “electrons” are a convenient theoretical construct to…

Can Atheists Enjoy Fiction?

Economist Robin Hanson poses an odd challenge to atheists: A few days ago I asked why not become religious, if it will give you a better life, even if the evidence for religious beliefs is weak? Commenters eagerly declared their love of truth. Today I'll ask: if you give up the benefits of religion, because you love far truth, why not also give up stories, to gain even more far truth? Alas, I expect that few who claim to give up religion because they love truth will also give up stories for the same reason. Why? One obvious explanation: many of you live in subcultures where being religious…

Another Round on Morality

Michael Ruse has written another post about morality. Sadly, he hasn't really clarified much of anything. Throughout this discussion his position has been that there are moral facts that we come to know through non-scientific means. I have been trying to understand how he justifies either part of that, but I'm afraid I still have no idea. He writes: First, the complaint that since I think morality is a product of evolution through natural selection, I must therefore be using science to justify my ethical claims. I too am committing the naturalistic fallacy. Not so. Distinguish between…

Shermer on “In God We Trust”

Your homework for today is to go read Michael Shermer's op-ed in the L. A. Times about the big “In God We Trust” vote. Shermer's take? As risible a reason as this was for knocking out a few bricks in the wall separating state and church, it was at least understandable in the context of the times. But today, what is the point of having this motto? There are no communist threats, and belief in God or a universal spirit among Americans is still holding strong at about 90%, according to a 2011 Gallup Poll. The answer is in the wording of the resolution voted on: “Whereas if religion and…

Viruses and Prostate Cancer

No, Im not talking about XMRV ;) Im talking about using genetically modified viruses to treat prostate cancer :) Broad antigenic coverage induced by vaccination with virus-based cDNA libraries cures established tumors First, just to be clear, I dont know how this works. :-/ I mean, I know how this 'works', but I dont know how its actually working. Firstly, it works nothing like the anti-tumor vaccines I have written about previously. In that case, scientists used HSV-1 as a Kamikaze-- the virus delivers a protein to the cancer cell that attracted immune cells to kill the tumor. Not how this…

New Hepatitis C treatment, maybe!

I was having a virus discussion with a surgeon recently: Me-- People think to do HIV-1 research you have to gown up in those crazy suits and do all this insane safety stuff, really, the only thing I do 'really' different is I wear *two* pairs of gloves, lol! Her-- I always double glove too, but its not the HIV-1 Im most worried about. Its Hepatitis C. HIV-1 researchers, surgeons, people at high risk of accidental exposure to HIV-1-- we always have antiretrovirals within 5 feet of us, just in case. Get stuck with a needle, take the pills NOW, and you can stop the infection from getting a…

Viruses and invasive species: I get sick, but you get sicker, sucker

Invasive species suck. Humans intentionally or unintentionally introduce some organism into a new environment... and shit hits the fan. Whether its zebra mussels in the Great Lakes or rabbits in Australia, invasive species wreak havoc on their 'new homes'. There are lots of reasons for this, but there are only three reasons Im interested in: 1. The organism escapes from a pathogen in its native environment. No more pathogen, more reproduction. 2. The organism introduces a pathogen into its new environment. Organism has coevolved with this pathogen for ages, native organisms cant deal…

HIV-1 CTL Vaccine: OH SHI-

Um, so like, you now how 'HIV-1 doesnt evolve' and stuff? Well, um, apparently its figuring out how to become invisible to an entire branch of our immune system. Adaptation of HIV-1 to human leukocyte antigen class I Oh shi- Okay, there are 'flags' on the surface of every cell of your body-- MHC Class I molecules. On these 'flags' are little bits of protein the cell is making, telling passing by immune cells everything is fine. When a retrovirus infects a cell, its genome/genes are treated exactly like the host genome/genes, so bits of retrovirus proteins get put on these flags. To passing…

My savior: Ketotifen Fumarate

I never had allergies until I moved to Oklahoma. Evidently, when the wind comes sweeping down the plain at +45 mph, its carrying billions and billions of grains of cedar pollen. So even though I grew up in a damn forest, Im now allergic to 'trees'. *bonus* Arnie is allergic to trees AND grass. A dog. Allergic to trees and GRASS. *fume* Well, the past couple springs I just suck it up, take two benadryl every night (give two to Arnie) and just deal with it. But this spring I got a new bit of allergy fun-- Itchy eyes. Im not talking 'aw balls something is in my eyes' itching, I mean 'OMFG DO…

ERVs and Multiple Sclerosis

While Ive mentioned the connection between endogenous retroviruses and Multiple Sclerosis on teh blag before, I realized Ive never written a post on this topic. Fortunately I just read an interesting paper thats provided me with a good opportunity to do just that: Analysis of transcribed human endogenous retrovirus W env loci clarifies the origin of multiple sclerosis-associated retrovirus env sequences In addition to being 'cancer' viruses, it seems like another trick retroviruses are good at is screwing with our central nervous system. For example, HIV-1 infection leads to HIV associated…

Pimped-up Souped-up Bionic Assassin Lethal Weapon Killer T-Cells as a cure for AIDS?

Oh for Petes sake. *sigh* Okay, there are two potential targets for an HIV-1 vaccine: 1-- The envelope protein. Its the only HIV-1 protein that your antibodies can see. Antibodies can prevent the viruses from attaching to your cells. 2-- The structural proteins in gag. These proteins are presented really well in MHC I molecules of infected cells. Thus cytotoxic T-cells will roll along and kill any cell thats infected with HIV-1. Your body will react to HIV-1 in this manner 'naturally', without a vaccine. The problem is, the 'natural' response to HIV infection is reactive-- Its always a…

An Evangelical Crack-Up?

This week's New York Times Magazine has this lengthy article suggesting that the evangelical voters are modertaing their views a bit: So when Fox announced to his flock one Sunday in August last year that it was his final appearance in the pulpit, the news startled evangelical activists from Atlanta to Grand Rapids. Fox told the congregation that he was quitting so he could work full time on "cultural issues." Within days, The Wichita Eagle reported that Fox left under pressure. The board of deacons had told him that his activism was getting in the way of the Gospel. "It just wasn't…

Fatherhood and Academia

Via a whole bunch of people on social media, there's a new study of gender roles in academia, which the Washington Post headlines "Study: Male scientists want to be involved dads, but few are". This is not inaccurate. Some quotes that jumped out at me: “Academic science doesn’t just have a gender problem, but a family problem,” said Sarah Damaske, a sociology professor at Penn State and one of the report’s authors. “We came to see that men or women, if they want to have families, are likely to face significant challenges.” The study, Damaske said, showed there was potential for change, in…

Strong World-Saving Ninja Girl

In the car, on the way from day care to campus to watch a softball game DADDY: So, what did you do at school today? STEELYKID: Daddy, I'm a superhero. They call me Strong Ninja Girl. Strong World-Saving Ninja Girl. DADDY: Because you save the world? STEELYKID: Right. And M____ is World-Saving Rainbow Girl. And O____ is Silly Super Boy. DADDY: Silly Super Boy? STEELYKID: Yeah, because he just goes {Silly voice} "Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah" and distracts the bad guys. Then M___ and I sneak up behind them, and say "Hey! Bad guys! We can turn you into good guys!" And then we do that, and we save the…

Sanchez on Why There is Something Instead of Nothing

Be sure to read this excellent post by Julian Sanchez addressing the old chestnut, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” Sanchez was replying in particular to an appallingly bad essay by Ron Rosenbaum in Slate. How bad? Here's one sample: Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence--the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence. (And some of them can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most…

Sherlock Holmes: Action Star?

My main intellectual activity today was to rotate curves around various axes, and then explain how to find the volumes of the solids that resulted. Doesn't put me in the mood for heavy, thought-provoking blogging. But I did recently come across this interesting bit of movie news. Why am I not optimistic? For more than 100 years, Sherlock Holmes has been the world's foremost detective mind; a profound genius capable of unlocking even the most intricate mysteries. So how would he unravel this minor puzzle: A man known for his brain is about to showcase his brawn? How do we know? Elementary…

Anand Triumphant!

The big chess match is over. Anand is the victor. He won three games to Kramnik's one, with seven draws. The final game saw Anand, playing white, opening with his e-pawn. This is Anand's usual choice, but he had avoided it in this match. This is likely owing to the success Kramnik has had in making easy draws with the Petroff Defense. Given the match situation, however, Anand would have been happy with an easy draw. Since the Petroff is not what you play when you need a win with black, Kramnik tried the Sicilian instead. The always exciting Najdorf variation appeared, though it quickly…

Lunacy From The New Republic

Browsing through the blog of The New Republic I came across this post, entitled “The Not-So-Soft Bigotry of Rachel Maddow's Low Expectations.” I was puzzled by the title (and remain puzzled even after reading the post), but I was fairly certain it was not flattering towards Maddow. Since I am a big Maddow fan, I decided to read on. The post was by James Kirchick, and was a response to this piece about Maddow, which appeared in the NYT Magazine. It was a standard puff piece made up of Maddow's short responses to items like “Worst Part of Job” and “Hobby.” Along the way she was asked about…

Links for 2009-09-15

Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog. ""Giblets is detached," says Giblets. "Where is the warmth of the heart of the fiery fires of the human experience? Giblets demands more feeling!" "And though their love was deep and fierce and right and true it was doomed from the start," says me, "for she was only a lowly scullery maid, and he had been trampled to death by elephants."" (tags: fafblog silly stories blogs) Pricing the Priceless Class « Easily Distracted "I think every academic I know agrees that in the last instance, how much it costs to teach in a particular way or to…

Dehumanizing the Two Cultures

It's probably a good thing that I don't have full-text access to Mark Slouka's article in Harper's, with the title "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school." Just the description in this Columbia Journalism Review piece makes me want to hunt down the author and belt him with a Norton anthology: According to the article itself, the dehumanizing element of the school system (especially universities) is actually its focus on producing businesspeople and "ensuring that the United States does not fall from its privileged perch in the global economy." But "nothing speaks more clearly to…