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Zoo Mysteries, Dog Hats and Glorious Shot Glasses

Ann Littlewood is a one-time zoo keeper and now-time murder mystery writer whose stories take place in and around zoos. An awesome combination if you ask me. I'm very much looking forward to reading her upcoming book, Did Not Survive, but in the interim, I will wear my dog as a hat. As you can see in this artfully composed camera phone pic, Ann provided me with a classic shot glass from the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Julia Goolia provided me a Louisville Zoo shot glass, bringing my total collection to... a lot: Adventure Aquarium Aquarium of the Bay Baton Rouge Zoo Birch Aquarium at Scripps…

XXX Hot Necrophiliac Lesbian Bdelloids XXX

Zooillogix is finally living up to the 'x' in our namesake. We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce. Bdelloid rotifers are tiny creatures that live in moss and small pools of water. Every single bdelloid is a female, and they reproduce exculsively by cloning themselves. When their watery habitats dry up, however, so do they, where they remain for days, months, even years in form of dehydrated stasis until the water returns. This is my friend, Shari. She just came over to use the…

You Missed Your Chance to Buy an Oceanographic Institute

Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) will be switching hands. HBOI was found by Seward Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, in the mid 1970's. The campus is located a couple hours north of Ft. Lauderdale. A colleague of mine from Alabama referred to HBOI as the Woods Hole of the south. You probably don't know HBOI but you will definitely recognize their submersibles (above), the Sealink I & II. Yes there is two of them. Unfortunately, I can't tell them apart any better than Mary Kate and Ashley. The subs are unique in that they have 360 degree view through the…

Whale sharks do it deeper

A close encounter with a whale shark is one of the "things to do" on the life list for many scuba divers and snorkelers. Perhaps you have been one of the lucky few to swim with these enormous friendly elasmobranchs off Honduras in Utila (pictured), off Belize at Gladden Spit, or off the coast of south Texas in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. My encounters with whale sharks are limited to breathless descriptions from fellow divers. I left the water too soon, or arrived a day late. I watched the video hoping it will happen some day soon. Rachel Graham and Dan Castellanos of the…

Scientific Careers and Job Security

From Study Finds Science Pipeline Strong, But Losing Top Students, Science 30 October 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5953, p. 654 A new study finds little evidence for leaks in the U.S. pipeline for producing native-born scientists except for a steep drop in the percentage of the highest performing students taking science and engineering jobs. The findings suggest that the United States risks losing its economic competitiveness not because of a work force inadequately trained in science, as conventional wisdom holds, but because of a lack of social and economic incentives to pursue careers in science…

Record-Setting Northernmost Vents Discovered

It was only 3 years ago when the northernmost vents were found in the Arctic Ocean at 71 degrees, just above Iceland. Dr. Rolf Pedersen is a geologist at the Centre for Geobiology at Norway's University of Bergen and led that expedition that discovered extensive vent fields with vibrant animal communities. Just this month, Dr. Pedersen and his team has done it again. Only days before the expedition's end, researchers went speechless in the control room of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) as the first trails of bacterial mats and black 'smoke' wafted across their monitors. In moments, an…

Score one for home schoolers!

Students from the New York City Home Educators Association (NYCHEA) took second place behind Blue Hills Technical High School in the 2008 NE Regional ROV Design Competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) project. Winners advanced to the international competition on June 26 at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, where NYCHEA rallied to take first place! This unique technology based competition challenged students to design and operate a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in a pool-based exercise that simulates a descent to 2500 m depth to survey and sample a…

History of the word coral

Coral is a polyphyletic term for polypoid animals in the cnidarian classes Anthozoa and Hydrozoa that secrete either 1) a black, horn like proteinaceous axis or 2) carbonate skeletal material in the form of either a) continuous skeleton or b) an assemblage of microscopic, individual sclerites (Cairns, 2007). That covers black corals, reef-building corals, solitary corals, and soft corals, respectively. The word "coral" derives from Old French (say it with an accent!), but it appears in the Old Testament twice, so its origin may be Hebrew. The word first referred to the beautiful and precious…

Tag-a-long with this expedition to the Bering Sea

Gaelin Rosewaks was one of a dozen people who changed my ideas about what it means to live an inspired life when I dropped out of the film business after ten years in Hollywood, and enrolled in the summer session at Duke University Marine Lab looking for a way to turn my life around, get back to school, and become involved in things that really mattered. Now, Gaelin's off to the Bering Sea probably for the third or fourth time, she's loving it, and she's blogging about it at Global Ocean Exploration. She's definitely one of my heroes. Everything seemed fascinating simply by virtue of the fact…

Japan Whalers at 55% Capacity This Year

According to CNN.com, the Nisshin Maru, a japanese whaling ship, returned from the "field season" with only half its intended sample size for its scientific whaling. "Japan's top whaling ship returned to port Tuesday, leading a fleet that killed just 55 percent of its season target of 1,000 whales amid violent protests in the Antarctic. The Nisshin Maru made a special stop in Tokyo so the coast guard could inspect it for possible damage sustained during clashes in which animal rights activists tossed containers of rancid acid at the whalers. The fleet killed 551 minke whales this season, far…

Hinckley Reservoir Revisited

In early October I posted a series of pics regarding the low water level at Hinckley Reservoir in upstate NY. The combination of low rainfall and demand had reduced the lake some 35 feet below spill level. I had hoped to post some pics in Spring 2008 to contrast these to normal levels. That won't be necessary. Over the past several weeks we have had considerable rain. Also, the major draw off of the reservoir, the NY state canal corporation, reduced their demand and planned to close the canal early. (At present, the canal is nicely topped off.) The result is that the lake is now just a few…

Friday Flower Porn: Maybe a Doc Should Check Those Spots

The common foxglove Digitalis purpurea is certainly one to affect your heart. Literally. Foxglove is, of course, the source of the cardiac drug digitalin. Ingestion of foxglove can be fatal, so no munching, no matter how much you may be attracted to it. Symptoms may include nausea, hallucinations, and bradycardia (slowing of heart rate). A much less toxic avenue to bradycardia (usually taken as a heart rate less than 60 bpm) is copious application of aeorbic exercise. Accompanying nausea is infrequent except at the end of particularly grueling races and any hallucinations tend to be…

Eureka: The Manhattan Project Meets Twin Peaks?

As an avid fan of pop culture, I do not hesitate to induce neural necrosis by watching all manner of television and film. The SciFi network gets my business, particularly for their goofy SciFi Originals with their bad special effects and has-been actors in lead roles. So, I am quivering with anticipation as the premier of Eureka nears. Here's the premise: Welcome to Eureka! Nestled in the Pacific Northwest, Eureka is a seemingly ordinary town whose residents lead ordinary lives ... at least to the naked eye. Shrouded in secrecy, the picturesque hamlet is actually a community of…

I support philosophy; I criticize philosophy

Can't get enough ripping into the nonsense De Dora and Pigliucci are peddling? Then go read Ophelia Benson (always good advice) and Jerry Coyne. Coyne points out that if De Dora's way of thinking were correct, than Darwin's Origin would be banned from the science classroom. He also brings up this enlightening response to a question by De Dora: Deen: "Are you saying that it's OK to teach people that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, but it's wrong to teach them that the earth isn't 6000 years old?" De Dora: Yes. One imparts scientific knowledge. The other denies a religious idea. One is…

Parsons Sun endorses Runyan

"If there were one elected position that should be non-partisan," explains The Parsons Sun, "it would be for those who serve on the Kansas State Board of Education." They go on: Fortunately for the 9th District there are two concerned and capable people running but, more fortunately, one of them is exemplary. Kent Runyan is not just an educator with a highly desirable and broad background. As the senior professor at Pittsburg State University's Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Runyan personally teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses. Better than that, Runyan has an amazing…

Ryun sticks fingers in ears, says everything is super

In a debate on a local radio show, Jim Ryun reminds us again why it's important to replace him: Asked by a caller what the candidates would do about global warming, Ryun said: “Much of the global warming issue has been overplayed. We need to work with sound science,” he said. Boyda responded: “If you’re going to say global warming is a myth, then everything is going well in Iraq. We need to deal with reality.” Exactly right. Jim Ryun is from the Inhofe school of climate change denialists. In the real world, science is telling us a different story. The Proceedings of the National Academies…

Walking down a slope

The Times gets it wrong in criticizing the torture bill that the House passed yesterday. We aren't Rushing Off a Cliff, we're strolling, carefully and deliberately. Other than that, the editorial is dead on: Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing…

Vitamin D & influenza - randomized trial

Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren: Design: From December 2008 through March 2009, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial comparing vitamin D3 supplements (1200 IU/d) with placebo in schoolchildren. The primary outcome was the incidence of influenza A, diagnosed with influenza antigen testing with a nasopharyngeal swab specimen. Results: Influenza A occurred in 18 of 167 (10.8%) children in the vitamin D3 group compared with 31 of 167 (18.6%) children in the placebo group [relative risk (RR), 0.58; 95% CI…

The Egomania of Richard Dawkins

I know I have been promising it for a while, but tonight I will finally be getting around to liveblogging my reactions to the recently-aired series The Genius of Charles Darwin, hosted by Richard Dawkins. The title of this post should already give you an impression of what I thought of the series, although I was tempted to come up with some sort of title involving "Richard Dawkins and Friends" given the presence of his adaptationist compadres Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett. If you haven't seen the documentary already, most (if not all) of it is freely available on YouTube, and if you have…

What do you think?

Over the course of the past year I've had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many paleontologists and illustrators of prehistoric life, people who have helped me with their comments, criticism, and support. One such person whose work I admire is Matt Celeskey, the artist (and blogger) behind the Hairy Museum of Natural History. A few months ago I asked Matt to come up with a brand new banner for this blog, something unique that would capture the character of Laelaps. Although I gave Matt some initial direction, that I wanted an articulated skeleton Dryptosaurus (previously known as "…

Should we bury the Boneyard?

Last summer I started up the paleontology blog carnival The Boneyard, a bi-weekly gathering of links featuring the best of blogging about fossils. Sadly the carnival has now become defunct, and outside of Will (who has admirably tried to kick me in the butt to get it going again) not many people seem to miss it. Even when the carnival was active there were frequent delays, few actual submissions, and other problems. Many of these complications were my fault as I did not manage it as attentively as I should have, but it was always difficult to gauge just how interested everyone was when hosts…

"I wanna dig dinosaurs when I grow up"

When I was 7 almost every smooth, oval stone was a dinosaur egg. I would spent hours in my grandparent's backyard hacking away at the dirt knowing that there just had to be a Triceratops or a Tyrannosaurus just beneath the surface. (I even got in trouble once for trying to clear out some of the tiny maple seedlings with a hatchet that I found in the shed.) I never found anything, but the hunt for fossils was a helluva lot of fun. My interest in paleontology waned a little as I got older, but I thankfully have rediscovered that interest and aspire to be the "dinosaur hunter" I felt like as I…

What do you listen to while writing?

Brian at Clastic Detritus want to know what you listen to while writing (and ReBecca chimes in, too). My answer, unexciting as it may be, is "The various clicking and whirring of my computer." I occasionally listen to music while writing, but since I don't have much instrumental or classical music, my playlist is usually more distracting than anything else. If I do listen to music I usually put on my headphones to block some other noise out, as it's easier to ignore something familiar than something new and annoying. If I recall correctly, though, even classical music can send me off-track at…

Aisha

The cover of the latest issue of Time is going to shake a few people up. Aisha is a woman who fled the tyranny and abuse of her in-laws, and as a punishment, the Taliban had her husband cut off her ears and nose. Here's where pro-war propaganda steps in: the cover is titled, "What happens if we leave Afghanistan". It's set up as if this kind of horror would be a consequence of our military leaving the country. However, the story undermines that message. This didn't happen 10 years ago, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It happened last year. Now hidden in a secret women's shelter in Kabul…

Australians are learning what it means to have creationists in the classroom

Queensland is allowing fundamentalist Christians to teach religious instruction classes in the public schools — and, as we might have predicted, they are teaching nonsense. Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under a protective spell. Set Free Christian Church's Tim McKenzie said when students questioned him why dinosaur fossils carbon dated as earlier than man, he replied that the great flood must have skewed the data. A parent of a Year 5 student on the Sunshine Coast said his daughter was…

ScienceOnline09 - Thursday

I am still trying to recover from the previous week. It was quite busy for me, as you may have guessed. But I can start slowly posting my own hazy recollections and pictures now, I think, starting with the first day, Thursday. After meeting with Anton at Sigma Xi to unload the swag, I went over to Radisson hotel to see who was already there and found Blake, Pal, Bob, Grrrl and gg in the bar: A couple of hours later we got in the car and went to the Early Bird Dinner to Town Hall Grill - another tradition at our conferences (we ate there both in 2007 and 2008 as well). I was very happy to be…

Photo of the Day #84: Cryolophosaurus

When I was a kid nearly every dinosaur book and documentary had at least one common phrase that was uttered over and over again; "Dinosaurs have been found on every continent, except Antarctica." By 1986, though, this could not longer be stated as the ankylosaur Antarctopelta oliveroi was discovered, with the large theropod Cryolophosaurus ellioti being uncovered in 1991 (subsequently named in 1994). While its phylogenetic position is still undergoing scrutiny (at present it appears to be the oldest known tetanuran theropod), Cryolophosaurus is impressive as it was a very large (about 20-26…

Let's make a date for a debate

America is a strange country indeed; we want to know about what our future leaders are going to do about the economy, terrorism, and various social issues, but we don't ask that they be scientifically literate. In the ever-growing mass of debates held this year, it was even revealed that a number of republican candidates do not accept one of the most fundamental concepts in biology, and while liberal candidates often pay lip service to the threat of global climate change (and potential partial solutions in alternative energy sources), they have not demonstrated a firm grasp on science to date…

If only it were on again this year...

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving growing up was watching some of the natural history programs that would often air during the day, anxiously awaiting the later galliform feast. One such show I remember quite well was a PBS series called The Dinosaurs! (Part 1: "The Monsters Emerge," Part 2: "Flesh on the Bones," Part 3: "The Nature of the Beast," and Part 4: "Death of the Dinosaur"). Unfortunately, the series is only available on VHS today (yet another reason for me to eventually purchase a DVD burner with a VHS deck in it), but someone has been kind enough to upload some of the…

What makes a good post?

First off, I think this is a really good post (not this self-referring post, but the post I am about to link to) Steak Dinner by Alemi at The Virtuosi In short, this post is about cooking steak and the measurements of the temperature of the meat. Why do I think this is a good post? First, it is just some ordinary everyday event (well, it's not everyday you get steak). The awesomeness just comes from saying "hey, maybe I should plot this temperature data". If the post was just about plotting data, it wouldn't be terrible. But it does something else. It tries to fit this data to some sort…

Physics 2 refresher

So, I hear you are starting your second semester of physics. One of the cool things about physics is that the second semester still uses stuff from the first semester. Maybe you forgot some of that stuff, so here are the bare essentials you will need to get by (this is assuming you are in the algebra-based second semester of physics) Vectors Really, just about the entire semester course is about the electric and magnetic field. Both of these are easiest to represent as vectors. So, you pretty much need to know how to deal with vectors. Here are some reviews: How do you represent vectors…

Teaching, Teaching About, and Learning

ZapperZ (at Physics and Physicists) recently had a post about Chad (from Uncertain Principles). It was sort of a review of Chad's book How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. In this post, ZapperZ makes a very Feynman-like distinction between "teaching physics" and "teaching about physics". This is a really good point - that to learn physics you have to do physics. I completely agree. It is just like riding a bike - you have to ride a bike to learn to ride a bike. So here is the question. What do I do here on this blog? I don't know. Do I talk about physics? Yes? I do not teach physics -…

Acceleration of Google's Newton's Apple

This is great. Many people have already reported google's apple-dropping homepage in honor Newton's birthday. In case it disappears, here is a screen shot. So, I got this awesome note from Dale Basler. He said that his class had analyzed this falling apple animation. What a very Dot Physics-y idea (check out his analysis). He said they were questioning the results which might be due screen capture issues. I decided to reproduce this. I captured the motion with Apple's Quicktime X screen recording feature. I then used Tracker Video Analysis - which now has an autotracking feature that…

Professor Splash on Time Warp

Time Warp is this Discovery channel show that makes slow motion videos of stuff. Not too bad of a show (although I already talked about the samurai guy and "waves of energy"). Professor splash is this guy that jumps from really high positions and lands in 1 foot of water (and doesn't die). He was on Time Warp last night. If you are interested in this, I did an explanation of how it works in a previous post. The Physics of Professor Splash's Jump into 1 foot of water I haven't watched the whole show yet - but I did TiVo it. If there is any thing interesting to analyze, I will post that…

Expelled on DVD, straight from Mumbai!

According to a press release datelined from Mumbai, the crapfest Expelled will be distributed on DVD by Vivendi Entertainment, proud home of many classic films. If you want reruns of Swamp Thing or McHale's Navy, you always knew Vivendi Entertainment was the place to go. But did you know they've got such modern classics as: LITTLE JJ'S ALMOST GROWN VARIETY SHOW Almost Grown is a live variety/ sketch show hosted by Lil JJ, the star of Nickelodeon’s hit sitcom, “Just Jordan.” Almost Grown showcases Lil JJ’s comedy, acting, rapping and dancing talents. It also features show stopping…

Baseball and Dopamine

Christopher Vrountas, of Andover, sent in a very astute letter to the Boston Globe in response to my recent article on dopamine and gambling: I read Jonah Lehrer's article "Your brain on gambling" (Ideas, Aug. 19), about how gambling hijacks the brain's pleasure centers. The gambler's brain remembers and desperately seeks a repeat of unexpected and unlikely pleasure events, such as winning a slot machine jackpot. I was struck by how the description of such an addictive obsession fit the brain of the typically hopeless Red Sox fan. We remember the thrill of "Impossible Dream" victories and…

Addiction

Addiction factoid of the Day: Psychiatrist Lee Robins found that almost half of American soldiers used heroin or opium while in Vietnam, but rather fewer were actually addicted, and almost 90 percent of those kicked the habit upon returning to the United States. The reality of addiction is that it's rarely quite as universal or one-dimensional as those frightening government ads would have you believe. One hit of heroin won't turn you into a heroin addict, and one puff of a cigarette won't make you an addicted smoker. Thanks to the pioneering research of Saul Shiffman, science now has a much…

Poor People Learn Faster

Marginal utility can be measured. According to new research out of Wolfram Schultz's lab, poor people are much quicker learners than rich people when playing a Pavlovian paradigm for small amounts of money. (Poor people took about 12 trials to figure out the game, while rich people took about 35 trials.) This behavior was then confirmed with fMRI. Sure enough, rich people demonstrated less dopaminergic midbrain activity than poor people in response to the experimental paradigm. They were bored by the pocket change. Here's the abstract: A basic tenet of microeconomics suggests that the…

Helping Farm Animals

Chris Shays (R-CT) has introduced an important piece of legislation. It's called The Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act, and it would set basic humanitarian standards for any farm trying to sell meat to the federal government. Humane treatment would be defined as: Adequate shelter that allows animals to stand up, lie down and extend their limbs without touching any part of their enclosure. Daily access to food and water sufficient to maintain the animal's health. Adequate veterinary care, including prompt treatment of injuries or euthanasia for a sick or injured animal. These modest…

The Evolution of Lactose-Tolerance

My favorite foods all seem to involve lactose. Whether it's an aged goat cheese from the Loire Valley, or a stinky washed rind cheese, or a scoop of dark chocolate ice cream, I would probably starve if I was lactose intolerant. Now we know how lactose-tolerance evolved. Being able to digest milk is such a beneficial mutation that it appears to have evolved independently three different times: A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples of East Africa. It is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes that occurred as recently…

Brief review: Harris's End of Faith

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris: Harris would benefit from a sense of nuance. Millions of Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Reform and Conservative Jews, Unitarians, Catholics and mainline Protestants adhere to religious teachings something like – and often more carefully considered than – the bizarre sort of of "spirituality" he endorses. The book is an extended version of the fallacy of the excluded middle – he devotes a great deal of ink to justifying the claim that moderate religiosity is basically as bad as the religiosity of suicide bombers, and that…

Kansas Guild of Bloggers

Every week, a secret cabal of bloggers gather, and quietly select the finest blog posts from and about Kansas. emaw has a message for the resident of cube 1B963, "well, er, sorry 'bout that." It isn't his banana. It probably isn't Ed Humes's, though Humes is the author of Monkey Girl. Paul, of The force that through…, sends a review of a talk Humes gave. Red State Rabble was there, too. Blog Meridian's John B is excited that his favorite author will be coming to a television set near him. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is Oprah's next selection for her book club. John also has an…

My ethical style (according to an internet quiz).

Chad thinks it's a good point in the week for internet quizzes. So, since I saw it at Arbitrary Marks, I took a quiz to determine my ethical style. (No, "bossy" isn't one of the possible results.) What the quiz says about me after the jump. Jean-Paul Sartre (100%) Kant (97%) John Stuart Mill (83%) Jeremy Bentham (77%) Stoics (73%) Aquinas (63%) Ayn Rand (59%) Spinoza (55%) Prescriptivism (49%) Nel Noddings (46%) St. Augustine (46%) Plato (40%) Nietzsche (39%) Aristotle (35%) David Hume (34%) Epicureans (34%) Ockham (27%) Cynics (20%) Thomas Hobbes (20…

Sad news to report from the back yard.

The continuing saga of the uninvited nest seems to have come to an end. The hatchlings have died. It's not entirely clear why they perished, althought there is no doubt that they perished -- the nest is crawling with ants. Possibly the noise of the work being done in the yard kept the mother bird away from the nest too long. Possibly the blazing hot, full-on summer weather made the newborn chicks more vulnerable (e.g., to dehydration). My better half opines that mama bird appeared very young herself; is it possible she was not yet capable of providing the necessary care for a nest of…

The consequences of our choice.

The choice in question was whether to try to relocate a nest full of eggs in a tree whose number is almost up. With your help, we decided against relocation. Moreover, we're ready to delay removal of the tree as long as might be necessay until the nest is vacant. Today's developments documented below the fold. Keep in mind that these pictures were taken from higher on the ladder than one is officially supposed to stand, with the needles of the tree digging into my flesh as I held the branches back to get a good shot. (Also, raising hives; my pine allergy strikes again.) So yeah, I know…

Fat People Use More Gasoline

I never would have guessed that a few extra pounds of flesh can have such a strong effect on fuel economy: A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that 938 million more gallons of gasoline go into vehicles annually because drivers and passengers are considerably heavier today than in 1960. "Our nation's hunger for food and our nation's hunger for oil are not independent," said computer science professor Sheldon Jacobson, who co-wrote the study scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of the Engineering Economist. The project, which looked only at noncommercial…

Elephants Gone Wild

Shrinking natural habitats are driving elephants crazy, and it all seems to be due to excess stress. Charles Siebert reports: Since the early 1990's, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behavior, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in "a number of reserves" in the region. In July of last year, officials in Pilanesberg shot three young male elephants who were responsible for the killings of 63 rhinos, as well as attacks on…

Standardized Testing and Education Reform

From The Atlantic: Studies indicate that Asian students achieve some of the highest scores in the world in math and science comparisons. However, owing to excessive focus on memorization, done solely for the purpose of passing tests, these gloomy idiot savants demonstrate surprisingly little practical know-how and often are unable to apply what they've learned. And this is the educational system we mistakenly aspire to, argues Alexandra Robbins, who traces the U.S. overachiever culture back to the President Reagan's 1983 Department of Education report "A Nation At Risk." While I'd still…

Being Socratic is nothing without the hemlock?

Do people routinely assert that the tools and activities of your field are utterly worthless in real life? Do they go so far as to say that what you're doing is worse than nothing, because it distracts from the real tasks that need tackling? Or is it mostly just philosophers who get this kind of reaction? While there are some issues on which some philosophers focus that don't have what I'd describe as wide appeal (problem of universals, anyone?), I'd like to think at least some of what philosophy has to offer is portable to all manner of questions and thus could be useful in real life. But…

Self-Awareness and Obama

From the fanastic series of just-released Newsweek articles on the presidential campaign: Obama was something unusual in a politician: genuinely self-aware. In late May 2007, he had stumbled through a couple of early debates and was feeling uncertain about what he called his "uneven" performance. "Part of it is psychological," he told his aides. "I'm still wrapping my head around doing this in a way that I think the other candidates just aren't. There's a certain ambivalence in my character that I like about myself. It's part of what makes me a good writer, you know? It's not necessarily…