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Mixed Signals on Mammography

Last month the US government released new guidelines for breast cancer screening mammography, a revision which Orac writes has "shaken my specialty to the core." For most women, the guidelines now recommend beginning biennial screenings at age fifty, instead of annual screenings at age forty. Around the same time, a study came out which "suggested that low dose radiation from mammography may put young women with breast cancer-predisposing BRCA mutations at a higher risk for breast cancer." Get some perspective on Respectful Insolence before breaking out the snake oil. Then visit Andrew…

Now, Never, or Next Year

Listen up, procrastinators—Coturnix reminds us on A Blog Around the Clock that we only have until the stroke of midnight to submit the best blog entries of the year to OpenLab 2009. He writes "we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics" as well as essays. You can see which posts have already been nominated, and order previous years' editions. So start scrounging the archives! And while you're at it, head over to Effect Measure to learn about the inner workings of viruses from Revere. You can compare photomicrographs of the swine flu virus with highly detailed, colorful…

The Buzz: Social Media Revolution

In the past five years, technology has played a major part in influencing the way we functions, even in the least mechanical of human behaviors--like socializing. Today, ScienceBloggers are taking a close look at how the social media explosion is affecting the world. On The Primate Diaries, Eric Michael Johnson reports on anthropologist Stefana Broadbent's surprising theory suggesting that social media is "promoting greater intimacy between people." Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata shares with readers a flattering e-card he received marketing a pharmaceutical, sent only a week before the FDA…

The Buzz: Teacher Suspended Over Seed Article

Last week, Dan Delong, an English teacher at Southwestern High School in Piasa, Illinois was suspended for allowing students to read an article on homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The article in question, "The Gay Animal Kingdom," was written by ScienceBlogger Jonah Lehrer of The Frontal Cortex, and published by Seed magazine in 2006. Mr. Delong faced a school board hearing on Monday and stood to lose his job over the incident. Jonah, along with many other ScienceBloggers, rallied support for Mr. Delong, as well as science education and literacy everywhere. Mike Dunford of the…

Second Skin

What if your clothes grew themselves in response to your body's temperature, becoming thicker in areas that needed more insulation and thinner in areas that were warm enough? Sounds pretty much ideal. No worrying about whether you're going to need a scarf later in the evening or if a down parka was maybe not the right choice. But what if the clothing in question was made up of bacteria? Specifically, the bacteria on your own skin? Austrian designer Sonja Bäumel envisioned this most organic of textiles in "Crocheted Membrane," one in a four-part series of experiments exploring the…

The Buzz: Ghastly Delights on ScienceBlogs

In honor of Halloween this weekend, we scared up some classic spooky ScienceBlogs posts. Brian Switek of Laelaps discusses ghosts, UFOs, psychics, witchcraft and other "paranormal rot" many people use to explain "rather ordinary phenomena." On SciencePunk, Frank Swain contemplates the mathematical improbability of vampires due to sure vampire population explosion. However, Frank also points out "Efthimiou's conjecture doesn't rule out the possibility of vampires--just that the outbreak hasn't happened yet." The not-so-obvious origins of witches flying on broomsticks is covered on Terra…

On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces

Darwin's On the Origin of Species is the book that introduced the theory of evolution by natural selection and launched the field of evolutionary biology. But the text itself evolved, too, from the first edition published in 1859 to the sixth in 1872. Chapters were shortened and lengthened, words added and deleted—though, more were put in than taken out, as the final edition measures in at 40,000 words longer than the original. Ben Fry, director of Seed Visualization and the Phyllotaxis design laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has tracked these changes and put it all together in a…

The Buzz: Is Nuclear Power the Answer?

This weekend, ScienceBloggers discussed the virtues and downfalls of a world run on modern nuclear power. Benjamin Cohen sparked the dialogue on The World's Fair with an interview with author and environmentalist Rebecca Solnit, famous for her opposition to nuclear power. Within just a few hours, Built on Fact's Matt Springer responded, categorically arguing against Solnit's piece and citing events at Chernobyl as an overly hyped specter. "Chernobyl is to modern nuclear power as bloodletting is to penicillin," he says. Ethan Siegel followed in suit on Starts with a Bang, where he offered…

The Buzz: Recent Selection in Human Evolution

A new paper published in Genome Research provides the most comprehensive scan to date of the genetic signatures of natural selection resulting from the last 10-40,000 years of human evolution, with some intriguing results. The results show strikingly different patterns of selection in distantly related human populations, suggesting that different human groups have adapted to their environments in different ways. Many of the regions seen to be most subject to selection contain genes of unknown function—or no genes at all—but regions linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes showed a…

The Buzz: Diversity in Science Carnival

Come one come all! February is Black History Month, and to celebrate the diversity in science professions, DNLee from the blog Urban Science Adventures! has arranged a blog carnival titled 'Diversity in Science.' Many ScienceBloggers and other major contributors in the science blogosphere are enthusiastically supporting this blog carnival and have authored a plethora of posts. "There are a wealth of interesting blog posts, covering a broad swath of both semi-historical figures and current inspirational ass kickers," said ScienceBlogger DrugMonkey, who contributed four posts to the festivities…

Astrology is bunk

If you notice little things going wrong in your everyday life right now, it's because Mercury is in retrograde. At least, that's the excuse astrologers like to give, even though it's entirely nonsensical and the apparent motion of the planets really has no effect on your life, unless you're an astronomer. MSNBC has a fluff piece on gadgets going wrong in astrological crises, and they consulted Phil Plait on the subject. I think he blew a few raspberries through the phone at the reporter. I used to wrassle astrologers for fun and the lulz ages ago, which is why I resurrected the previous old…

Four-way stops must be outlawed in Minnesota

They just don't work. Maybe you've heard of "Minnesota nice", this strange passive-aggressive attitude around here that compels everyone to compete at being the most polite and deferential…and it completely defeats the function of the 4-way stop at an intersection. The rule is simple—whoever first comes to a complete stop gets to be the first to proceed through the intersection—but real Minnesotans can't grasp it. It's nice to let someone go through first, so you'll sometimes run into these situations where two cars are parked at the crossroads, with each driver waving for the other to go…

Virtual Crowding

When does a large crowd become a dangerous mob? Where should architects put emergency exits to best anticipate how people will react under sudden fear? It's hard for scientists to answer these questions, mostly because the environmental situations that incite crowd behaviors can't be simulated in real life. As Arizona State University geographer Paul Torrens explains: "You couldn't stage a realistic rehearsal of an evacuation because people are not going to panic appropriately." One way to get around this is to model the situations in virtual reality. Below are screenshots of scenes produced…

Biologist Enthralls Kids With 'Maggot Art'

This is a bit amazing. Check out the original post here. It's a method of art reminiscent of Jackson Pollack's abstract drip paintings. Just more suited to the less squeamish. Erin Watson uses blow fly larvae -- maggots -- to get kids excited about painting. Judging by her upcoming educational demonstration project on the National Mall, it's working. "Maggot art," the brainchild of Southeastern Louisiana University biologist Watson, works like this. With kids watching her, Watson drops diluted water-based poster paint onto paper. She then places the maggots into the paint drops. Next, the…

Who is your Favorite Engineer or Scientist and Why...

Tell us now and we will turn your answers into a beautiful Word Cloud! Deadline to submit is June 30. See the results in the next newsletter! Over the next few months, we will create multiple "Word Clouds" aka "Wordles" showcasing your answers to questions relating to science & engineering. On October 23, Satellite Event attendees around the nation will participate in a nationwide Wordle: see it change on our website as people enter their answers! Wordle.net is toy to create beautiful word clouds from text. The word clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in…

Plants that make crystals that look like plants

Awhile back Chemical & Engineering News published a fascinating article called "The Secret Life of Plant Crystals" with some wonderful photos of calcium oxalate crystals. Special cells (called "idioblasts") produce these crystals, with shapes that are unique to each type of plant. Even though 75% of flowering plants make these crystals, no one knows why they make them and in fact, their functions may be as diverse as their shapes. Some crystals look sharp and dangerous, like thistles or thorns, suggesting that they function to defend a plant from hungry herbivores. Other crystals are…

Life and Lunar Influence

Posted to the homepage on August 11, 2013. The Moon—like the sun, stars and Earth—is easy for a human being to take for granted.  But the Earth's moon is truly exceptional, and should be appreciated for shaping the exceptional world we live on.  Earth is the only planet with a single moon, and relative to the Earth, Luna is the largest moon in the solar system.  The Moon thus exerts a strong, solitary influence on the planet it was torn from.  Evidence suggests that the Moon was blown into orbit by a massive asteroid impact about 4.5 billion years ago, shortly before the emergence of life on…

Prophylactic vs. Poison

The will of the voters in Portland, Oregon has endured for more than fifty years, for the fourth time rejecting fluoridation of the city's tap water in a ballot referendum.  On Respectful Insolence, Orac writes "public water supplies are a precious commodity. To justify putting something in them requires good evidence of safety and efficacy."  And continues "since 1945 the fluoridation of drinking water has reduced tooth decay by 40-70% in children and tooth loss in adults by 40-60%."  Orac respects Portlanders' right to more cavities, but says "classic antiscience arguments" won the day at…

No Mistaking Astronomical Objects

On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel makes headway on his tour of "110 spectacular deep-sky objects" first cataloged by Charles Messier in 1758.  Before powerful telescopes were developed, the heavens consisted of the sun, moon, stars, a few bright planets, and the rare passing comet.  Comets were actively sought by men like Messier, who one night saw a bright smudge—too ill-defined to be a star—that "neither brightened nor changed position nor altered in appearance over the subsequent nights."  He had spotted the beautiful Crab Nebula, an expanding lacework of stardust blown out by a…

Science for the Future

On the USA Science and Engineering Festival blog, founder Larry Bock addresses the "declining number of young Americans entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)." The Festival expo will take place April 28th and 29th, aiming to "inspire the next generation of science and technology innovators through exciting unforgettable ways." Bock says that waning student interest in STEM subjects is not "a problem for our schools to tackle alone. It will take all of us—from involved parents and teachers to employers, government entities, STEM professionals and…

Feats of Engineering

It seems like every time we turn around, there's another new smartphone or robotic butler pouring coffee in our laps. On Uncertain Principles, the engineering breakthroughs du jour are "technical advances in ion trap quantum computing." Chad Orzel explains, "previous experiments have used optical frequencies to manipulate the states of the ions, using light from very complicated laser systems." Such lasers (though effective) are unwieldy, and researchers are now using simple microwaves to perform the same functions. This promises quantum computers on a chip—eventually. Meanwhile, on the…

Mind the Red Herrings

On Stoat, a new paper says that misinformation causes confusion about otherwise settled climate science, and suggests that the "direct study of misinformation" can potentially "sharpen student critical thinking skills, raise awareness of the processes of science such as peer review, and improve understanding of the basic science." William M. Connolley looks at more papers in another post, exclaiming "Good grief, the world is full of new science all of a sudden." Two of the papers offer explanations as to why atmospheric methane levels have not increased as much as expected: it could be "…

Unseen Oscillations

On Brookhaven Bits & Bytes, Steve Kettell brings us up to speed on a new research project taking place beneath a mountain in southern China. The object of study is the neutrino, which can "pass through the Earth and through much of the universe without interacting with anything." Ethan Siegel explains on Starts With a Bang: "Neutrinos only interact gravitationally and through the weak force. They have no electromagnetic interactions." And because they have no charge, neutrinos are free to pass between the atoms that make up tangible matter. Steve writes that neutrinos from the sun…

Making Waves

On Built on Facts, Matt Springer writes that "there's really no such thing as a purely continuous monochromatic light wave" and "any pulse of light that lasts a finite amount of time will actually contain a range of frequencies." Pass this pulse of light through a medium such as glass, which "can have a different refractive index for each frequency," and some very weird things start to happen. On Life at the SETI Institute, Dr. Lori Fenton explains her study of "aeolian geomorphology - how wind shapes a planetary surface." As it does on Earth, weather makes wave patterns in the dunes of…

Scientists in Utah make transsexual worms

Sexual attraction is all in your brain. At least if you're a nematode.  Ricardipus has a great image if you want to see a nematode picture. I always thought worms were hermaphrodites (both male and female) but the story, as usual, turns out to be a bit more complex. Researchers at the University of Utah have found that worms have definite preferences for one sex or the other. And, if they kill off certain kinds of cells, the preference for one sex or another can change. From the University of Utah: "They look like girls, but act and think like boys," says Jamie White, a postdoctoral…

Do Science in Las Vegas: Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Environmental Microbiology

The University of Nevada in Las Vegas is looking for a few good undergraduates to come do research this summer in environmental microbiology. Environmental microbiology goes way beyond hot springs bacteria and Yellowstone Park. At UNLV, you can do science in the desert. It almost makes me wish I was an undergraduate again. The Microbiology faculty at the UNLV and the Desert Research Institute are looking for inquisitive and eager undergraduates to participate in a 10 week summer research experience in the REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program. Projects involve studying…

Bioinformatics teaching tip #1: Remember Julia Child!

Note to self: doing live BLAST searches during a lecture is not a good idea. Would Julia Child make her viewers watch the food bake? Standing in front of a class and waiting for results to appear, makes me realize how much instructors can learn a lot from watching Julia Child demonstrate cooking. I think if Julia Child taught bioinformatics this is how she would discuss BLAST results with her class: Afer a BLAST search has been submitted to the NCBI, your results are stored there for 24 hours, and you can get them with the request ID. If you do searches ahead of time and save the…

Antibiotics au naturale?

What's the difference between a synthetic drug and an antibiotic? Sometimes there's no difference at all. Let's take a look at chloramphenicol and couple of pencillins. Chloramphenicol kills many different kinds of bacteria by interfering with their ability to make new proteins. Here's a point where language gets tricky. Originally, chloramphenicol was isolated and purified from Streptomyces (a kind of bacteria). But, chloramphenicol is small and chemists are able to synthesize it. So even though we consider antibiotics to be natural products, they don't have to be made in a "natural…

TB joins the Mile High Club

It was only last week we posted about XDR-TB. Yesterday CDC warned passengers on two international flights -- Air France 385, Atlanta to Paris on May 12 and Czech Air 104, Prague to Canada on May 24 -- they may have been infected by another passenger who had Extensively Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB). Reportedly authorities could not reveal which row the male passenger sat in as this would violate medical confidentiality laws (HIPAA). So anyone on the plane could think themselves at risk, although it was probably only those in the same row and several rows front and aft of the passenger who were…

How is it possible to be zapped by a manhole cover?

Here's a serious manhole question for the hivemind. We all "know" that there have been instances of people or dogs being shocked or even electrocuted by stepping on electrified manhole covers. Our oldest didn't believe it was possible. His point: a manhole cover is embedded in the ground. Therefore, almost by definition, it is grounded. So how is it possible to have a voltage between the metal cover and the street in which it is set? I was sure I had read it more than once in the paper. Mrs. R. was so sure she had read about at least a "half dozen" such cases in New York she made a bet with…

I'm Gone Country

Every now and then, especially when the Right Wing comes up with another one of thos silly lists of supposedly conservative rock songs, a lot of people take a look at pop and rock (and hip-hop) songs and do some sociological analysis on them, trying to glean the way society is changing by the way song lyrics have changed. That is fine, but I think that one needs to focus on the lyrics of country songs instead. Especially if one want to unserstand the mindset of rural/exurban/Southern voter, which seems to be a mystique to some coastal big-city liberals. I have done that before and…

A little light of reason shines in Indiana

The Indianapolis Star has been running a pointless little prayer on page A2 of the newspaper for years. Not any more; the editor has decided to discontinue it. It isn't because it has suddenly become a mouthpiece for militant atheism, though: We appreciate that this has been a long tradition in The Star. But we are re-evaluating our mission and all that we do. I believe that prayer is a very personal thing and that offering prayers is something for individuals and their churches. We are a newspaper, not a church. Also, we do live in a society in which there are many, many different beliefs.…

Prophylactics for influenza

From a colleague who knows I am interested in prophylactics for flu: Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all. One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cut-glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom! When she returned with tea and scones, they began…

Election Day

Election Day, November, 1884 by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show, 'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado, Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing, Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor Mississippi's stream: --This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's choosing day, (The heart of it not in the chosen--the…

Happy Monkey!

Perhaps you have been pondering the meaning of the new traditional greeting, Happy Monkey! (important usage note: it is not Merry Monkey, nor is it Happy Monkey Day. It is simply "Happy Monkey", full stop. Trying to change the phrase means you are waging war on the Monkey, and you know how they will respond.) I haven't. I've been bogged down in the end-of-semester grind for the last week, writing tests, giving tests, grading tests, and there has been little room in my brain for deep philosophical thought. But then, just a few minutes ago, I reached an end. The exams and papers were all marked…

Spit happens

The daycare where my daughter's 15 month old is a scholar-in-residence is closed this week so grandma (Mrs. R.) and grandpa (yours truly) have been filling in with the newborn and the older sib. It's been a while and there were a lot of things we'd forgotten about. Like the fact that babies like to "spit up," a euphemism for puking on you. Since I am famous in the family for wearing my dinner on my clothes (absent-minded professor style), my daughter thought I would appreciate the latest in wearable body fluid fashion, T-shirts decorated with realistic looking baby emesis patterns: From the…

Bangladesh's used car

Bangladesh now has its first confirmed human case of avian influenza. That's news. Maybe: Bangladesh announced its first human case of bird flu on Friday in a 16-month-old baby boy, bringing the number of countries which have recorded human infections to 15. Avian Influenza has already spread through 47 of Bangladesh's 64 districts and concerned Indian authorities say when the disease is so widespread in poultry, it is really a matter of time before humans start getting infected. (Times of India) Specimens from the case had been sent to CDC in the US and the diagnosis confirmed by WHO. So why…

ScienceOnline2010 - introducing the participants

As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what. Scott Baker is the Fisheries Specialist at North Carolina Sea Grant. If you are a reader of my blog, you may remember I blogged about his use of texting and twitter to collect data from fishermen about fish-catch. At the conference, Scott will co-moderate the session on Citizen Science and do a demo of Text message based angler reporting method: twitter and fishcatch…

Science Cafe Raleigh: Boom 'n' Doom: Volcanoes, North Carolina and North Carolina Volcanoes

Boom 'n' Doom: Volcanoes, North Carolina and North Carolina Volcanoes November 18th; Acro Café on the fourth floor of the Museum of Natural Sciences 8:30-10:00 am with discussion beginning at 9:00 followed by Q&A Volcanic activity half a world away can affect us in our own state. When Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted over about 4 days in 1815, the resulting debris cloud led to the "Year Without Summer" in 1816, which was marked by massive crop failures from Europe to North…

A proposal for what to call Members of Congress

I'm seeing all sorts of ways to refer to Members of Congress (meaning mostly Representatives, although Senators are also Members of Congress). Congressman and Congresswoman are not gender neutral and are disappearing from the language. Congressperson? Ugh. Liberal blogs will often use "Congresscritters" to register disdain, but I never liked it much. I just saw Congressfolk as an alternative. Pathetic. So here's another suggestion. In the 1960s and 70s there was a particularly noxious Boston pol by the name of Louise Day Hicks. Hicks made her stand on opposing the desegregation of the Boston…

Local science radio and podcast

Radio In Vivo is close enough to me that I can listen to it at home (but not when I am driving places around town ro to Raleigh): Radio In Vivo: Your Link to the Triangle Science Community is a one-hour interview/call-in program, focusing on one scientific topic per week. Typically, but not exclusively, scientific activities and personalities local to the Research Triangle area of North Carolina are featured. Ernie Hood, a freelance science writer based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, produces and hosts Radio In Vivo. Please click the "About Ernie" link to your left to learn more about Ernie…

ConvergeSouth05 - Policing the Media

When you go to bloggercons, you bump into famous bloggers... Continuing ConvergeSouth coverage.... After getting lost on campus, Atrios made his entrance on Saturday morning. It was a great continuation of the previous day's session on journalistic ethics (see my previous ConvergeSouth post). The discussion centered on the perils of he-said-she-said journalism, even in cases in which there is only one side backed by empirical facts, the other side being a wrong-headed opinion manufactured for the express reason of having another side - the best example being evolution vs. intelligent design…

MIA

If you've been wondering where I am today, I'm dyin' here, man. I've been grading freshman essays and quizzes all day long—my eyes are fiery red orbs and my brain is liquefying, but I've only gotten about halfway through the massive pile. This is going to be an agonizing week, I can tell…and it doesn't help that I'm going to have to pack up in the middle and zoom down to Madison to bring my son home for the summer break (maybe I should make him grade some of these papers…). It also doesn't help that I put a trick question on the last quiz, one that was trivial to answer if the students had…

Happy Birthday H.G.Wells

Herbert George Wells was born at Bromley, England on this day in 1866. He was apprenticed as a draper, which inspired several of his novels, then taught school before securing a scholarship to the Normal School of Science at South Kensington. Although his writing covers a broad range, he is now best known for his science fiction work, mostly between 1895 and 1905, starting with The Time Machine and including The War of the Worlds. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. Whilst there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though…

Another Pretty Bird

I have a bunch of plants on my porch, mostly ferns, but also some flowers. One of these has really tiny flowers that I thought would be pollinated by small insects - not bigger than a honeybee. So, I was really surprised to see a hummingbird come and sip nectar out of it. Moreover, it is a huge hummingbird! OK, not as big as a stork, but huge for a hummingbird, bigger than any hummingbird I've seen before. The bird is coming every day. It is noisy like a bumblebee. It looks at me and, as long as I do not move, it goes on and feeds, only 3-4 feet away from my face. My daugher an I…

Mammoths, many mammoths....

An Ancient Bathtub Ring Of Mammoth Fossils: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory geologists have put out a call for teeth tusks, femurs and any and all other parts of extinct mammoths left by massive Ice Age floods in southeastern Washington. The fossils, in some cases whole skeletons of Mammathus columbi, the Columbian mammoth, were deposited in the hillsides of what are now the Yakima, Columbia and Walla Walla valleys in southeastern Washington, where the elephantine corpses came to rest as water receded from the temporary but repeatedly formed ancient Lake Lewis. PNNL geologists are…

BREAKING: Democrats Form New Science Subcommittee

Rep. Brad Miller, familiar to Daily Kos readers from his frequent posting here, will play a critical role in a new subcommittee formed by House Democrats to investigate allegations of GOP science and policy abuse. The new Science Oversight and Investigation (I & O) subcommittee will report to the House Committee on Science and Technology. The parent committee has jurisdiction over non-defense Federal spending. That includes agencies such as NASA, DoE, EPA, NOAA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, just to name a few. Miller, who won reelection in a 2 to 1 landslide…

Blogrolling: M

Smack in the middle of the alphabet! Let me know what's missing from this list... The Magic School Bus (archives) Magnificent Frigatebird The Mahablog Maisie's World Majikthise Making Light Mano Singham's Web Journal Marginal Revolution Marko Grujic Martini Republic Maryannaville Material World Mathemagenic Matthew Yglesias Matt Hill Comer Matt's Academic Blog - Do mice have STD's? MaxSpeak, You Listen! Meanwhile, back at the ranch Media Matters for America Mediblogopathy Medvet's blog MeMo Mendel's Garden Mental Nurse Methagora Michael Bérube MicrobiologyBytes Microblogology Microecos…

Blog Experiment

In the similar vein to this morning's post (and the neccessary link within it) on the speed of meme-spreading, I tried to do this little experiment about a year ago (October 12, 2005) with no success - perhaps because I asked for more than just a link. Now that my audience is much bigger, let's try again: ----------------------------------- There are estimated to be more than 20 55 million blogs in existence. Somebody somewhere knows the answer to my question. If every one of my readers (who also owns a blog) copies and pastes this post on their blogs, it should spread through the entire…

Albert Einstein: birthday greetings

Today is Einstein's birthday. If he were still alive he'd be 131. Those of you who have been reading here for a long time know that Einstein was (and is) one of my "culture heroes." When I was a kid I sent him birthday cards (yes, I'm that old) and when he died made a scrap book filled with news clippings. One of the great loves of my younger life gave me an Einstein bust as a present and it still sits on my desk, more than 40 years later (she reads the blog from across the ocean, so I hope she sees this! Mrs. R. knows and likes her so this isn't a guilty secret). I also have first editions…