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Tell Me Your AIP Story

Ok, as you all know from my "Pyr-Buck-Bees-Sheep" post, I need inspiration to get this book cooking again. So I know you've told me before, some of you, but I want to hear about how you are making a lower-energy life where you are, or how you've found a new place to do it. I'm also looking for a couple new people to profile for my book - I've had some dropouts, and would love to add a couple of new participants. I'm particularly looking for people who are trying to AIP in very dry climates and deal with water issues, those adapting in rental housing, anyone adapting as part of a religious…

Librarianship: An alternate career for science grads!

Every once in a while I get an email out of the blue from a science student who's thinking of a career as a librarian and they want to know a bit about the field and it's job prospects. I always respond very positively because I think science librarianship is a great career and that, on balance, the job prospects are pretty good. Christina has a post up today with a little more detail: If you are a scientist, but you want to get out of the lab, want to have a little more variety in your life, like helping people and finding information, but still want to use your science degree and be part…

3D printed Ultrastiff Metamaterials

A research group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has produced ultrastiff ultralowdensity metamaterials by 3D printing of microarchitected microlattices. This is very cool - they do additive 3D printing using microstereolithography with nanocoating and postprocessing and can make self-similar lattices with densities varying by several orders of magnitude in bulk density but near constant stiffness. Construction material can be metal, ceramic or polymer. LLNL engineered microlattices from Zheng et al Science 344 1373 The lattice geometry can be controlled to choose what mechanical…

“There's an underground church that the world has no idea exists”

That's a quote from Lou Engle in this video — and it's actually kind of true. He thinks it will be a wonderful thing when people see this, and there probably are a lot of Americans who think the events portrayed are perfectly ordinary, and even commendable. I see nothing but madness. By picking Sarah Palin for a running mate, John McCain has turned over a rock to expose a festering, primitive insanity in our country. Look on the squirming horror, world, and learn that it does exist! A further indictment: Juan Cole sees Palin through the lens of his expertise on the Islamic world. John…

The Price of Nobelity

Less than a losing football coach, apparently: DaveInTokyo investigates using UC public data "UC Berkeley top 10 earners Jeff Tedford HEAD COACH 5 $2,338,409.39 Michael J. Montgomery HEAD COACH 5 $1,606,588.82 Joanne Boyle HEAD COACH 5 $658,691.22 Teck Hua Ho PROFESSOR-ACAD YR-BUS/ECON/ENG $556,764.38 Anne Saunders Barbour ATHLETICS MANAGER 4 $470,017.06 Robert J. Birgeneau CHANCELLOR $428,712.84 Andrew M Isaacs ADJ PROF-ACAD YR-BUS/ECON/ENG $399,582.00" From above: George Akerlof, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2001. 2007 salary (higher than 2009 so I used that):$266,359 - Salary rank at…

Obviously vice-presidential material…in America

I keep telling people there is a deep dangerous strain of insanity running through this country, and here's a perfect example: Bobby Jindal. We've discovered that in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer. Reading the article leaves…

Labor Secretary to tour WV coal mine

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will tour the Federal No. 2 mine on Tuesday, Aug 4, one of a couple dozen mines operated by Patriot Coal.  DOL's press announcement said she'd be joined by officials from MSHA, the UMWA, WV Governor Joe Manchin and Congressman Alan B. Mollohan.  The event includes the tour, examining a rescue chamber on the surface and meeting: "with miners employed by Federal # 2 for a roundtable discussion." The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward is reporting that journalists will not be allowed on the mine tour and canât attend the meeting with miners, but the Secretary …

MSHA nominee announced

The White House announced today 10 nominations for senior administration positions, including Mr. Joe Main to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health (MSHA).    The biography provided with the announcement notes that he: "... began working in coal mines in 1967 and quickly became an advocate for miners safety as a union safety committeeman as well as serving in various local union positions in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He was employed by the UMWA in 1974 as a Special Assistant to the International President, and joined the UMWA Safety Division…

Alison Bass Speaking Tomorrow at GW

Alison Bass, an award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee, will be here at George Washington University tomorrow to speak about why the system of drug research and development in the United States is seriously flawed and what reforms are needed. Wednesday, March 18, 4:30pm GWU-SPHHS Health Policy Department 2021 K St. NW, Ste. 800, Washington, DC Sponsored by the EOH and Health Policy Departments Bass is the author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial; copies will be available for purchase and signing at the event. The book tells…

Behind the Latest Worker Fatality Figures

Earlier today, NPR's Morning Edition dedicated a segment to the latest figure on workplace deaths: 5,488 workers died from fatal work injuries last year. That's the lowest number since the government started keeping statistics in 1992. Libby Lewis interviewed David Michaels about the drop; he noted that some of the reduction is due to improvements (like tougher penalties for drivers in work zones, which keeps highway workers safer), but that a lot of it's due to a shift in the kind of work being done. Many high-hazard jobs have moved overseas, and the economic slowdown has meant fewer…

...and another thing on OSHA's PPE rule

In my post yesterday "OSHA issues PPE rule: what took'em so long?" I forgot to mention that OSHA is giving employers six months to comply with it.  Recall that this egregiously tardy rule simply clarifies when employers are supposed to pay for personal protective equipment (PPE).  As Asst. Secretary Edwin Foulke repeated in his announcement yesterday, the rule: "only addresses the issue of who pays for PPE, not the types of PPE an employer must provide....the rule does not require employers to provide PPE where none has been required before..." If the rule is only providing clarification…

Pelosi Says CPSC Chair Should Resign

After Consumer Product Safety Commission acting chair Nancy Nord opposed Senate legislation designed to strengthen the agency, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling for Nord's resignation. The Washington Post's Annys Shin has the story: Pelosi said Nord's position on the bill makes her the wrong person to lead the agency. "Any commission chair who, in the face of the facts that are so clear, says we don't need any more authority or any more resources to do our job does not understand the gravity of the situation," Pelosi said. Or maybe Nord does understand the gravity of the situation, but…

On Speech On "Skanks"

My civil libertarian friends are "worried" about the precedent set in the recent Liskula Cohen case. In the case, a formerly anonymous blogger said some nasty things about Cohen. So nasty that Cohen sued to unmask the blogger's identity and was successful in doing so. The blogger is now suing Google alleging that the company owed her a fiduciary duty and should not have revealed her identity. Critics of the Cohen case tend to focus on the fact that the blogger called Cohen a "skank." They argue that the word is mere hyperbole and not an objective fact. But the blogger said and did much…

Harvard Researchers Subpoenaed

This is one to watch. We might all get to learn more about the Harvard-Industrial Complex. The Times reports: Federal prosecutors have issued a subpoena seeking information about the work and statements of three prominent Harvard researchers who have been the focus of a Congressional investigation into conflicts of interest in medicine. The researchers -- Drs. Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy E. Wilens -- are named in the subpoena, which was sent on Wednesday to Fletch Trammel, a lawyer who represents state attorneys general in lawsuits that claim makers of antipsychotic drugs…

Open thread---troll anmesty

The recent uptick in troll traffic here and at Orac's place got me thinking. Many of the trolls have been making unsophisticated attacks on the truth without actually stating a hypothesis. And that got me thinking even more. If they could only state their questions properly, there would be some useful fodder for discussion. There are few stupid questions, but questions can be asked in a fairly useless way. Why not invite people to make interesting assertions, and help them frame the question properly? The object of this thread is to invite folks to ask questions that are sometimes…

The economy, denialism, and perception

How bad is the economy? Really fucking bad. My patients are losing their jobs, the restaurants are empty, businesses are shuttered, houses empty. Really, really fucking bad. What does the government have to say about it? Not so bad. Chill. There are some good reasons for this. As the recent Indymac debacle shows, a statement from a politician can destroy a bank (although, to be fair, the bank was a dead man walking before Schumer's letter came out). So, when our leaders continue to downplay the economic disaster in this country, are they being denialists, or responsible public servants?…

What's in store for Burma?

As the death toll in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis becomes clear, new dangers loom. Complete breakdown in essential services and sanitation will conspire to kill thousands more via disease unless the world moves quickly (and maybe, even if we do). Arthropod-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are likely to flourish as standing water serves as breeding ground for mosquitoes. Malaria kills around a million people a year. Dengue is most often a disabling illness characterized by fever and severe pain, but in endemic areas it can lead to dengue hemorrhagic fever, a…

Today Is a Big Day for Denialism

...because today, the first lobbying disclosure reports are due to be filed with Congress under new rules that flowed from the Jack Abramoff scandal. The new law requires quarterly reports, lowers the dollar amount of activity that triggers reporting requirements, and (my favorite), requires trade associations to identify their members in certain circumstances. Let me expand on this last requirement--trade associations and coalitions (such as the American Chemistry Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the like) now have to identify the actual companies behind lobbying efforts when their…

She's Judy Garland; I'm James Mason

My wife is one of those statistical people who analyzes data for a local college, and she spends much more time poking around figuring out website traffic than I do. I just kind of wing it and follow my urges, she casts a calculating eye on the whole thing. So the other day, she tells me I ought to bring back that old Sex in the MRI article; it will be hot, she says, it'll draw in a lot of new traffic. So specifically at her urging, I did. I'm getting about 20,000 visits per hour right now. It feels a bit eery, being married to a prophetess…although I suppose anyone could tell you that sex is…

Swine flu: Central & South America, Asia, New York update

Stories in Spanish: Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to confirm swine flu ("gripe porcina"). A 21 year old who had traveled to Mexico is in stable condition. An additional 16 cases were examined but were negative. Brazil is also examining 11 travelers; cases are also being examined in Panama, Honduras, Argentina, and Uruguay, and Chile. In Asia, South Korea is examining a possible case, while China's stepped up its efforts to look for cases (and blocked import of pork from the US and Mexico). Most of the cases that are being examined have traveled to Mexico…

McCain: "strong evidence" mercury causes autism

More grants out the door today, but check out ABC correspondent Jake Tapper's post on John McCain's views on thimerosal and autism: At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "there's strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment. McCain was responding to a question from the mother of a boy with autism, who asked about a recent story that the U.S. Court of…

Well, this is a new low...

Well, this is a new low. I ran across this blog post from a few months back, discussing the Imus situation: Anytime a person is negatively labeled because of gender or race, this affronts our shared human dignity. And we should be especially careful here, for this has not always been such an obvious evil. It took the civil rights and women's rights movements to raise our awareness, and the work is not yet finished. Okay, sounds reasonable. So far. However, he continues: There is another assault on human dignity at work in our midst, only this one based on geography. A whole class of…

The week's stories I missed

I have a host of collected links and one-liner posts that I hoped I'd get to this week, but just didn't have the time for. So, rather than let them collect dust any longer, I'll put a number of "greatest hits" in microbiology and public health from the past week or so after the fold: John McCain isn't sure if condoms help to prevent HIV transmission. Mike and Josh take him down. The fight against guinea worm, an excruciatingly painful disease, is in the home stretch--but facing one of its toughest obstacles. The proposed childrens' health study may receive funding after all. A new…

Occupational Health News Roundup

 Among the victims of the tragedy at Virginia Tech were five faculty members: James Bishop Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Kevin Granata Liviu Librescu G.V. Loganathan Librescu was a 76 year-old Holocaust survivor who blocked his classroom doorway from the gunman while his students leapt to freedom. The Roanoke Times has profiles of all the victims here. LA Times: Amvac Chemical Corp. has settled a lawsuit alleging that its pesticide DBCP caused agricultural workers in Nicaragua to become sterile; the company will pay $300,000 to 13 former banana plantation workers. Standard-Examiner: It is…

For the Australian readership

I got a request to try and drum up some Australian research subjects for a student's honors thesis work — don't worry, no knives, exotic drugs, or electrodes are involved, just filling out a short questionnaire. She's looking for Australians who read blogs but don't have blogs of their own, which sounds like a rather limited pool, but let's see how many such beings there are. Do you have a favourite blogger that you want to talk about? I am an Honours student from the University of Queensland, Australia and I am conducting an email-based survey that looks at the experiences that blog readers…

While I'm out...

One of the things that faculty get to do is go to lots and lots and lots of meetings. Today I'm at a 6-hour retreat focused on distance learning, PubMed, and data repositories. (I know, you're all seething with jealousy). I hope to have another post up later this afternoon if I can get to it; in the meanwhile, here are a few notable posts from elsewhere: Revere at Effect Measure has an overview of H5N1 over the last 6 months, and discusses why SARS and West Nile aren't "false alarms." Coturnix brings you a potpourri of science news. He also has a DonorsChoose update--check out how…

The great American divide

No, it's not religion. Or politics. What, then? It's how you refer to your carbonated beverage. Ever wanted some real data on how it breaks down? Curious about the percentage of people in your county who say "pop," "soda," or "coke"? Wonder no more: you can find it all right here. For instance, in Johnson County, IA, from 98 responses, 74 said "pop," 1 said "coke," 20 said "soda" and 3 reported "other." I didn't see anything reported regarding their methodology, but just looking at the distribution, it looks about right: the "soda" folks on the coasts, "cokes" in the south, "pop"…

Interview with Mark Perakh

Ed already highlighted it, but I wanted to draw more attention to this interview with Panda's Thumb contributor and author of the book "Unintelligent Design," Mark Perakh. Mark's life story is simply incredible (Siberian prison camps, teaching in several countries, and much more), but what was the neatest connection for me ('cause it was new to me) was this: From 1973 to 1978, Perakh taught as a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, performing research in photodeposition of semiconductor films and electrodeposition. Why is this interesting? My first actual research position--the…

So many sciencebloggers, so little time

As any scienceblog reader now knows, we all met up in NYC this weekend. I met many of my sciblings for the first time, including Orac, Tara, PZ, Chris Mooney and the lovely Sheril, Grrl, Zuska (we hatched an evil plot muahaha), Mo, Kemibe, Bora, Janet, Shelley, Rob Knop, RPM, Jake and Kara, Jason, Mike Dunford (his goatee is bigger in real life), our seed overlords and many many more. I learned I don't know how to pronounce allochthonous, not even close. Also, Steve Higgins is identifiable from a picture of half his head, and Razib is kind of evil. I wish we had a few more days…

Hey, that's me, there on TV

I suppose it's not every day you get to appear in a TV series called MonsterQuest. I appear in two places in one episode (first screened last week): once for a little while in the section embedded here, and again much later on. The bit with me starts 2 minutes, 20 seconds in (let's not worry about the bit later on). Things to note: the lion skull that previously featured in one of the articles on the Functional Morphology Conference and (right in the background, covering a small cupboard that contains keys) Steve White's drawing of the big cats of Rancho La Brea... And am I really an '…

Where pterosaurs are made

Only time right now for one of those brief Dave Hone-inspired Tet Zoo picture of the day posts (or TZPOTDPs, yeah), and what with all the azhdarchoid news lately (Lü et al. 2008, Witton & Naish 2008) it's only fitting that we have more pterosaurs. Here's a photo I took back in the days of Tet Zoo ver 1 (June 2006): it shows what we might call The Birthplace of Pterosaurs, or God's Workshop or, more prosaically, downstairs at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth... You'll note the tupuxuarid model that you might previously have seen in its blue phase,…

Oh, give it a rest, Bill

Bill Donohue has put me on his mailing list, so I get these 'alerts' from the Catholic League several times a day. Here's the latest (the colors are as sent to me: I guess it was very important!) On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 8:45 am ET, Catholic League President Bill Donohue will appear on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends." He will discuss the recent attack on Jesus on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." "Attack on Jesus". Jebus, what a loon. Well, you know what the only reasonable response to such foolishness is. We must watch the Attack on Jesus, and laugh, even if I didn't think it was…

The sort of stuff I put on facebook

Preparing blog posts for Tet Zoo takes hours, sometimes days or even weeks. It's done in "spare time". Putting crap on facebook takes minutes and can be done during the course of a normal work day. Some of the stuff is soooo hilarious it deserves to be shared... Francisco Gascó (aka Paco) knocked this up, thanks Paco. It was taken in about 1992 1994 (when I was 18 19): note the Battat dinosaurs on the terrarium lid, Greg Paul theropods on the wall, and Luis Rey spiky amargasaur t-shirt. The croc skull is a juvenile C. niloticus. My one and only photo of a British big cat, taken on Dartmoor…

Inside the Collections: Ichthyology at AMNH

tags: Inside the Collections: Ichthyology at AMNH, fishes, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, evolution, variation, biodiversity, Melanie Stiassny, streaming video This video is the first of a new series of behind-the-scenes looks at the collections at the American Museum of Natural History. In this video, Melanie Stiassny, Axelrod Research Curator in the Department of Ichthyology, takes us through the Museum's vast collection of fishes. The Department of Ichthyology, one of the four departments within the Museum's Division of Vertebrate Zoology, houses a collection that comprises more…

TEDTalks: Peter Tyack: The Intriguing Sound of Marine Mammals

tags: The Intriguing Sound of Marine Mammals, sounds, songs, communication, language acquisition, noise pollution, shipping, acoustic environment, vocal imprinting, marine mammals, dolphins, whales, Peter Tyack, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video Bird watchers (especially those who do most of their birding by ear) will particularly enjoy this video: Peter Tyack of Woods Hole talks about a hidden wonder of the sea: underwater sound. Onstage at Mission Blue, he explains the amazing ways whales use sound and song to communicate across hundreds of miles of ocean. TEDTalks is a daily video…

Mystery Bird: White-rumped Kestrel, Falco dickinsoni

tags: Dickinson's Kestrel, White-rumped Kestrel, Falco dickinsoni, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery birds] A pair of Dickinson's Kestrels, also known as White-rumped Kestrels, Falco dickinsoni, photographed in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Dan Logen, 8 January 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D300s, 600 mm VR lens with 1.4 x extender ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/400 sec. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. White-rumped Kestrel's closest relatives are the Grey Kestrel and Banded Kestrel, and the…

Obama Gets Applause at West Point, Fox Erases It?

tags: Obama Gets Applause at West Point, Fox Erases It?, Fox News, right-wing propaganda, news media, politics, President Obama, West Point Academy, graduation speech, streaming video President Obama addressed the graduates at West Point Academy on Saturday, saying, "Adversaries want to divide us, but we are united by our support for you -- soldiers who send a clear message that this country is both the land of the free and the home of the brave." His comments about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the threats of terrorism received applause from the graduates, but Fox News apparently didn…

Monsters, dead birds and dinosaur stuff

Here are assorted relevant things that happened in March: ahh, what a month. First of all, another sea monster. It's the famous fishy-crustaceany monster thing at Plymouth Hoe Barbican... Here's a dead Mute swan Cygnus olor I found among all the rubbish during the Chessel Bay clean-up. I have its head. And here's a dead female Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula a friend gave me. Why do finches so often have those big callouses on their feet? Is this the same thing as the bumblefoot infection that sometimes affects captive birds? Bullfinches are carduelines, most closely related to hawfinches and…

Mystery Bird: Brubru, Nilaus afer

tags: Brubru, Nilaus afer, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Brubru, Nilaus afer, photographed Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Dan Logen, 15 January 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D300, 200-400 VR lens, at 400 mm. ISO 500, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, Exposure compenstation +1. Okay, this lovely little bird's ID will drive you crazy (although it is possible that either Adrian or Carel might be able to figure it out), so I will be most pleased if you manage to correctly identify this bird's taxonomic family. Please name at…

What Happened to the Pride of New York, Funny Cide?

tags: Funny Cide, horse racing, horses, retired racehorses, HorseracingTV, streaming video Funny Cide gave America something to cheer about in 2003 as the first New York bred in history to win the Kentucky Derby. He went on to capture the Preakness Stakes winning easily by ten lengths. However, he lost by four lengths to Empire Maker in the Belmont on a very muddy track (Funny Cide hated mud). As he walked back towards the grandstand, the crowd continued to cheer for Funny Cide, "America's Horse," and boo the winner Empire Maker. Funny Cide's owner Barclay Tagg, after retiring Funny Cide,…

Bockenheimer Turm, 3

tags: Bockenheimer Turm bei Nacht, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, cities, photography Bockenheimer Turm bei Nacht. Bockenheimer Warte, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Image: GrrlScientist, 6 April 2010 [larger view] So why am I in Bockenheim again? I went here because I had an appointment to get a bank account. After complaining mightily about this enormous waste of time (I've never had to make an appointment to set up a bank account before), I was surprised and most pleased to meet a personable banker who visits NYC frequently (he has family there and is returning on 15 May for a…

PLoS ONE: Background, Future Development, and Article-Level Metrics

If you are in any way following the developments in the world of science publishing, you have probably heard about the new effort by PLoS to establish article-level metrics for scientific papers (instead of the dreadful and erronoeus Impact Factor). Today, Peter Binfield, the Managing Editor of PLoS ONE, published a paper entitled "PLoS ONE: Background, Future Development, and Article-Level Metrics" that covers all of that in great detail. The paper is, of course, Open Access, so you can download the PDF for free here and the related PowerPoint slideshow here. Peter says: The paper goes into…

Radio reminder

Sunday's episode of Atheists Talk radio may just annoy me — they're going to be talking about a local joint Bible study between atheists and a Methodist church. There are some atheists who like to dig into the Bible, but I'm not one of them — been there, done that, found it to be worthless drivel. Maybe you'll find it more interesting than I do. The second half is more promising, with an interview with a board member of the UM student group, Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists. Yay students! Also tomorrow, I'm getting rid of my daughter — we have to drive in to the Minneapolis airport…

Amy Harmon answers reader questions

Amy Harmon, a national correspondent covering the impact of science and technology on American life, answered questions from readers Sept. 15-19.: Talk to the Newsroom: Amy Harmon: Ms. Harmon, who won a Pulitzer Prize this year for her series, "The DNA Age,'' is part of a team of national reporters that focus thematically on contemporary social issues. She is interested in all the ways science and technology shape how we live. Her DNA series examines how ordinary people (including herself) are dealing with new genetic technologies that reveal perhaps more than we were ever prepared to learn…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Honest Lovers? Fallow Buck Groans Reveal Their Status And Size During The Rut: It is known that the phonic structure of calls produced by males during the breeding season may signal quality-related characteristics in many different types of animals. Previous research on mammals has mainly focused on the relationship between the acoustic components of vocalizations and one aspect of male quality: body size. Digitizing Archives From The 17th Century: A researcher on a short trip to a foreign country, with little money, but a digital camera in hand has devised a novel approach to digitizing…

ScienceOnline09 - Hey, You Can't Say That!

The registration is closed and the Program is pretty much finalized. Here is another session to consider: Hey, You Can't Say That! This session is moderated by Greg Laden, Rick MacPherson, Karen James, Craig McClain, Mark Powell and PZ Myers: It's tempting to think that what we contribute in our blogs is written with impunity. But what happens when readers react so negatively to your words that it can leverage pressure on you from your boss, peers, colleagues, or administration? What responsibility, if any, do bloggers owe to their "day job" in avoiding controversy (and vice versa)? Is it…

DonorsChoose 2008 Challenge - update 3

My DonorsChoose board includes challenges like this one, for example: Smile....We love science!: I teach special need students in an Inclusion Kindergarten setting in North Carolina. Our school is a Title One campus and we serve many low income families. I would like to increase and enhance my student's knowledge of science. The Simple Science Exploration tubs will include 4 fun, hands on experiments with simple picture direction as the student's work independently. Having these tubs will provide the student's with engaging hands on activities. Currently, I have a limited amount of material…

Clock Quotes

Dullard, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy, have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dulness having blighted the crops. For some centuries, they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually…

Say, Ireland, you might want to pay more attention to this blasphemy law

It looks like trouble, and some ministers are defending the proposed blasphemy law — you people aren't going to let this violation of civil rights pass, are you? We have some more details on the law, too: it authorizes fines up to €100,000, and gives the police the right to seize blasphemous materials from your home. If you're reading Pharyngula right now on your home computer, you may have broken that law, and they can come take your computer away…and then they'll notice all those books by Hitchens and Harris and Dawkins and so forth on your bookshelves, and next thing you know, you're…

DonorsChoose - Classroom Science Around The Clock

As regular readers of Scienceblogs.com already know, October is the month when a bunch of us raises challenges to fund science, math and technology projects in schools. Several of my Sciblings have already set up their challenges and a few more will add theirs soon, I know. There will be a healthy competition with some other blogging networks, of course ;-) You can find my challenges at Classroom Science Around The Clock, look at the projects - all coming from 'High Poverty' schools in North Carolina - and donate whatever you can. If many people pitch in a little bit each, these projects will…