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Size Matters

Flo is getting organized, finally. Maximum sustained winds are at 70 mph, and minimum central pressure is now 990 mb. By the next advisory this storm may be classified as a hurricane (if it isn't one already). The media, I'm sure, must be getting very excited. Hurricanes run the gamut in size, and Florence happens to be a very large storm in terms of its spatial scale. And that makes a very big difference, as Jeff Masters notes: Florence has a very large swath of tropical storm force winds that have been blowing for many days over a huge stretch of ocean. These factors, when combined with…

Introducing Tropical Cyclone Larry

Yikes. Australia got slammed today, or yesterday--not sure as to the timing, but it was apparently a Category 5 storm, perhaps even up to the time of landfall. Australia's last really big one was Tropical Cyclone Tracy, which devastated the city of Darwin in 1974, and which had the distinction of being very tiny, yet nevertheless very deadly. In fact, if you go the Wikipedia link for Tracy, there's a fascinating image comparing this storm with the biggest typhoon ever recorded, 1979's Super Typhoon Tip. Tip was the size of the entire Western half of the United States. By comparison, Tracy was…

A Question of Leadership

As many bloggers have noticed, with the latest revelations about NASA and other agencies, the Republican war on science continues apace. But what's driving it? Clearly, the acts of scientific censorship that have made so much news lately have been coming from political appointees in press or public affairs offices. This fits the thesis of my book, according to which such political appointees are conditioned and trained to act in such a way as to appease the Republican base: corporate American on the one hand, and the religious right on the other. Allow GOP political appointees to appease the…

The Latest Political Science Issue: Clean Air

I don't know a great deal about particulate pollution. But I am nevertheless not at all surprised that we're now having a political science fight over this subject. After all: 1) it's an environmental issue; 2) it's one where lots of industry dollars hinge upon what regulatory framework the EPA adopts; and 3) that regulatory framework in turn depends in part upon scientific information, much of which is, typically, rife with uncertainty. Add into that mix 4) the Bush administration, and it's pretty easy to predict what you're going to get. Anyway, the details on the latest battle can be…

The Hillary Effect: How Will the Secretary of State Change the Status of Women Worldwide?

On Monday, I'm delighted to be attending a panel discussion in honor of the 2009 International Women's Day celebrations!  This global holiday celebrates the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future. Here in NYC, the World Policy Institute, the Women's Leadership Initiative at Demos, and The American-Scandinavian Foundation have organized: The Hillary Effect: How Will the Secretary of State Change the Status of Women Worldwide? Though Mrs. Clinton is the third female US Secretary of State, some think that her appointment could herald a new chapter…

Senate Stimulus Package Update: Part II

Follow up reposted from ScienceDebate: Several people have emailed asking about the cuts to the proposed increases to DOE/Office of Science, and what about NIH, USGS and other agencies we didn't mention.  Some clarifications are in order. 1. These are NOT agencies' existing budgets - this is about new money in addition to existing funding levels. 2. Science Debate only focused yesterday on the proposed CUTS to the INCREASES proposed in the original SENATE bill.  So we didn't mention NIH funding increases, for example, which the amendment left alone.  Nor did we mention a $330M increase…

Call To Readers: Unsolved C.P. Snow Mystery

It's no coincidence that our forthcoming book, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future is due out at around the fiftieth anniversary of C.P. Snow's famous lecture entitled "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution." As Chris explained last week at Science Progress, Snow's delineation of the broad disconnect between the scientific and humanistic ways of thinking has resonated powerfully across the last half century, and describes a problem that's very much still with us. And with that we reveal a bit more about a theme of our narrative--as we'll continue to…

Get This: Apparently George W. Bush Isn't a Creationist

When our lame outgoing president suggested teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in science classes back in (I think) 2005, I like many was outraged. But Bush's recent comments in one of his outgoing legacy saving interviews put the issue in a somewhat different light: MCFADDEN: Is it literally true, the Bible? BUSH: You know. Probably not ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament, for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is "God sent a son." MCFADDEN: So, you can read the Bible... BUSH: That God…

Why Are Movies So Scientifically Inaccurate?

I really enjoyed Sheril's post last week about scientifically inaccurate movies. As I went to check out the list that she linked to, I found myself nodding constantly. But of course, that's hardly an exhaustive list. Let me tell you a bit more about the kinds of scientific inaccuracies I've noted in Hollywood films--this by way of leading up to an ultimate question. Hurricanes vs Tornadoes. The two meteorological phenomena are pretty dang different. One occurs over ocean, after all, and the other over land. One could fit in the eye of the other. Nevertheless, they're constantly, carelessly…

The Science of Attraction

What is it about that person? You know the one... You can't explain it, but when they're in the room, no one else matters. You light up and feel more alive. Try to think of something clever to say... a joke, a story, anything that might invoke a smile. Attraction. 'They Always Do' is a track about this force of nature. A jazzy melody by singer/songwriter Heath Brandon on his new CD 'Stand Clear of the Closing Doors'. About sixteen years ago, Heath and I played percussion together in the Suffern Jr. High School orchestra. His voice was much squeakier back then and he didn't know it…

Global Warming and the Campaign Trail: A Call for Political Realism

In my latest DeSmogBlog item, I try to explain the gap between what science says we need to do to stabilize the climate system, and what U.S. politics is currently capable of: On the one hand, we've now got people like Bill McKibben and James Hansen talking as if 350 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 was the actual tipping climatic point. Which means we've already passed it, and completely radical changes will be necessary if we're to save the planet. But over in the U.S. Congress, right now we can't even pass Lieberman-Warner, a cap-and-trade bill that would reduce atmospheric carbon…

2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season Post-Mortem

Today is officially the last day of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. Not that we can't have a storm after November 30...but it becomes less and less likely. And how do we summarize the year? Well, less active than expected, especially when it comes to the frequency of the most intense storms. That's two years in a row the forecasts have overshot in this respect. Anyways, over at the Daily Green I now have a more in-depth post-mortem on the season. Some highlights: The relative quietude of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season seems particularly mystifying in light of the fact that we saw…

Made it!

Finally, after a very strange day, I am able to sit down and relax. Last night I had intended to go to bed early to get enough sleep for the drive down to North Carolina but, for a variety of reasons, I did not get as much rest as I wanted to. There wasn't much I could do about this, though, and my wife and I hit the road at 12:30 AM. Except the stops for gas, I drove 9 and 1/2 hours straight. Rather than heading straight for the hotel, though, my wife and I started out day in North Carolina at the NC Zoo, a location that was a lot farther away than I had anticipated. Many animals (polar bear…

Tearing down Darwin Hall

So this is it; the Darwin Year. From blogs to books and lectures, lots of people are going to be talking about Charles Darwin and his scientific legacy. It was the same in 1909. (Alright, they didn't have blogs, but you know what I mean.) Lectures were delivered, books were published, and monuments were erected to commemorate Darwin. You would think that some of these signs of homage would have some permanence, but while we are still talking about Darwin the tributes made to him have largely faded away. Take, for example, the establishment of the 1909 Darwin Celebration at the American…

Book Progress #47

Things have been a little slow here on Laelaps as of late, and for good reason. Between finals and the holidays I haven't had much time to sit down and write, but more importantly, I have been devoting most of my free time to working on the book. I am still working on the chapter and human evolution, and it has become far more complicated than I had anticipated. Every time I think I have everything in order, I am reminded of something else important to the story I'm trying to tell. This is definitely going to be the longest chapter in the book, and even then some substantial cuts will have…

Book Progress #46

This is what I call that "Finals feeling." From Garfield Minus Garfield. Slowly, but surely, I have been editing the human evolution chapter. The difficult part is simply finding the time to do it! Classes come first, then I have to keep the material coming here and on Dinosaur Tracking, and then I work on the book during whatever time I have left. The chaotic semester schedule certainly doesn't make things easy. When I write, I like to sit down and keep going for as long as I can. Stealing 20 minutes to edit a paragraph here and there isn't the way I like to do things, and sometimes it's…

Oh December-meme, December-meme...

All the cool kids were doing it, so I had to join in, too. [For those playing the home game, select the first sentence from the first post of each month and post the lot. I decided to include the first photo of each month, too.] January - "I have a secret" I got some good news last night that I'd love to share, but I think I'm going to keep my lips sealed for until the official announcement is up elsewhere. February - "Got another one!" Apparently Sb has been snapping up quality science bloggers at an extraordinary rate, and the latest member of the collective is Maria of Green Gabbro.…

A Fishy Executive Order

It was with great interest I read last weekend's Executive Order to protect America's striped bass and red drum fish populations, but I'm left wondering whether the President should have the power to make important decisions in fisheries management and conservation? A few excerpts from his speech: The Vice President tells me there's a lot of fine fishing here, and I'm looking forward to going out and trying to catch some. I love to fish. And the good news is there's a lot of good fishing here is because the Secret Service won't let me go hunting with him. (Laughter.) I'm going to sign an…

Dr. President, & More

I'm planning one or more additional Hillary posts today...as, I believe, is Sheril...but first, some updates. As I mentioned yesterday, my Seed cover story, entitled "Dr. President"--or, on the cover, "Can Science Save the American Dream?"--is now up. This is an unapologetically idealistic manifesto about what kind of leadership we should have, what kind of leadership we deserve to have, in this country. As I put it: "Indeed, a new president should embrace the language and values of science not out of idealism, but rather as the highest form of pragmatism. Policies work best when the best…

A Parrot's Eulogy

Before Sheril dissected a sea cucumber, briefed a senator, or picked up a mic, she found me - Sparticus Maximus The Great. She's my human. As the superior of species (hey, did you descend from dinosaurs? I thought not!), I keep her in line when necessary. You can imagine with her unusual preoccupation with books -- which ought to be eaten not read! -- this particular homo sapien can be a handful...err beakful. Of course, I try to be patient, recognizing she's less evolved since humans didn't spring into existence until sometime in the Cenozoic Era. Anyway, when we all learned of Friday…

It's Not All About Science, It's Also About People: Lessons From Jamaica Plain

Imagine a place where community is the central theme. A town where people may not all have advanced degrees, but collectively work toward sustainable living. I'm not talking about the stereotyped hippiedom of the 70's, but action through practical informed decisions. Streets where bikes seem to outnumber cars, community gardens are lush and shared, and citizens figure out ways to limit wasting power and resources. I arrived in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (JP) on my favorite day of the month here: First Thursday. It's part of Boston, though not your typical 'yuppie' branded college…

Will Global Warming Cause More "Medicanes"?

Once in a while, hurricane-like storms (like the one in this image) form in the Mediterranean Sea. These cyclones are often called "medicanes," and one scientist who's done a lot of work on what causes them to form is Storm World main personage Kerry Emanuel of MIT. In a recent study (PDF) published with a number of scientists from Spain, he writes: Tropical-like storms on the Mediterranean Sea are occasionally observed on satellite images, often with a clear eye surrounded by an axysimmetric cloud structure. These storms sometimes attain hurricane intensity and can severely affect coastal…

Catching "Real Science in the Act", and Much More....

Much ink is starting to get spilt about Storm World. Arguably the book's best review yet appears in the LA Times today by Thomas Hayden. Although not without criticism, Hayden ends the review like this: Science is a messy business, more a matter of hard work, blind alleys and lucky guesses than a straight march from question to answer. Above all, science is about uncertainty and the way we stumble through it looking for clarity. Science is not always elegant and not always even particularly effective. But (to paraphrase Winston Churchill on democracy) it's surely better than any of the…

"Well, I'm Back," She Said

posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum ..back in the District that is, for Capitol Hill Oceans Week (CHOW). And the city is just as hot and sticky as ever while folks now bustle about Metro Center around me. I'm sitting in the Cosi on G street, where long ago I discovered that I do indeed enjoy hummus. Though I no longer reside here, DC is still the same surreal town I remember - despite a few new buildings and the ever-expanding boundaries of gentrification in my old NW neighborhood. The soccer and kickball players have returned to the Mall and this week's protesters are already in full force on…

Gonu, Monica, Wilma, Ioke....Hurricane Intensity Records Just Keep Breaking

Wikipedia now has a very informative entry on Cyclone Gonu, which has been by far the most surprising and frightening hurricane of 2007 thus far. Gonu's apparent records include: 1. Strongest storm ever recorded in the Arabian Sea (140 knot winds, making Gonu the first recorded Category 5 storm in this region). 2. Tied for strongest storm in the North Indian basin (Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal). 3. Lowest sea level pressure in the Arabian sea (this is my guess, and it will be estimated from satellite images rather than directly measured; but it stands to reason that Gonu, by far the most…

Cyclone Gonu, a Scary Record-Setter

Cyclone Gonu, in the Arabian Sea, was our first Category 5 storm of the year yesterday. Now, as I write this, it is still a very strong storm and is about to set an ominous record. As Margie Keiper puts it over at the Weather Underground: An unusual event is happening over the next 48 hours, as the first tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds, and major hurricane-force winds at that, is approaching the Gulf of Oman, to strike the eastern coast of Oman, curve northward, and make landfall on the coast of Iran. In the tropical cyclone best tracks and the modern era of weather satellites,…

Framing Science: My Response to PZ

PZ Myers says he likes the concept framing "less and less." He wants to know why we're beating up on scientists, when there's so much wrong with the media and the public in terms of how they approach and use scientific information. I just posted a long reply to his blog, and will reproduce it below the jump: Hi PZ, Just for the record, I think I've done as much as anyone to criticize bad reporting on science, going back several years: http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/6/mooney-science.asp So has my colleague Nisbet; here we are defending evolution in the face of bad reporting: http://www.cjr.…

Selection bias and homosexuality

A couple hours ago I posted a quick poll, in what might be construed as an unbiased fashion. I simply asked respondents for their sexual orientation, offering a wide array of choices ranging from "straight" to "mostly gay" to "gay" to "other." In fact, my poll was biased -- not because the question itself was slanted, but because of the way respondents were recruited: I titled the post "Are you homosexual?" Potential respondents who are homosexual or who don't have traditional sexual preferences are more likely to be interested in the question, and therefore more likely to respond. How do I…

An angry election?

As has been pointed out by many over the past week, the current race to the White House between John McCain and Barack Obama is increasingly being punctuated by angry outbursts from conservative crowds. In the past, Democratic candidates were often mocked at Republican rallies (and vice versa), but there appears to be an increasing amount of anger permeating public appearances by McCain and his VP-pick, Sarah Palin. It seems that many conservatives are upset that McCain hasn't really "let Obama have it," and lots of jeering and booing can be heard at these rallies when anything deemed "left-…

Opioids and Sleep Disorders

A new report on sleep disorders in pain patients reveals a not-very-surprising finding: chronic opioid treatment is associated with very high incidences of both obstructive and central sleep apnea.   href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/81771.php">Higher Risk Of Sleep Apnea When Patients Use Opioid-Based Pain Medications Opioid-based pain medications may cause sleep apnea, according to an article in the September issue of Pain Medicine, the journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "We found that sleep-disordered breathing was common when chronic pain patients…

The Absolute Apex of Appalling Arrogance

Apparently it is now the role of the Chief Executive to tell businesspersons how to run their business. In the context of the pro and con lobbying over the proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, pharmaceutical companies decided to join the pro side.  After all, if more children are insured, more of them will get prescription medication.  But is is not just the drug companies, it is a broad-spectrum coalition: According to the href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09child.html?ex=1341633600&en=f8f5eba22324ed32&ei=5090&partner=…

The PI lacks the experience with the proposed methodology...

I'm in the midst of going through reviews on a rejected proposal. I got the reviews back in the winter and didn't even seriously look at them until this summer, because it's a yearly RFP and I already had a good idea why I didn't get funded. So mostly, I'm pretty mellow about these reviews. They did a good job at finding the weaknesses in the proposal and giving suggestions for improvement. They all said that the proposal was well written, well organized and addressed an important topic. So, yay me! But I'd like to take just one moment to whine about one reviewer comment. Because I can, it's…

Perish the paper

On a day when I am feeling increasingly dismal about the publication prospects of my current project, my mood was not lightened with the arrival of the table of contents for the current issue of a very high impact journal (say, cell/nature/science). One of the papers was right up my research alley and the lead author is someone junior to me. Why is it that the other guy is getting a very high profile paper and I'm struggling to get results that will merit publication at all? I've got some suspicions, and I'm going to attempt to rank them from most charitable to least charitable. He's…

Depictions of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in migraine art

These pictures illustrate macrosomatognosia, the condition in which abnormal activity in the somatosensory regions of the brain causes one to perceive the body, or parts of it, to be abnormally large. Both pictures are representations of partial macrosomatognosia, in which specific parts of the body are affected. They were drawn by artists who experience migraines, and were submitted as entries to the Migraine Art Competition. The picture on the left shows the migraine sufferer lying on a bed, with elongated hand, arms and neck, and an enlarged head that appears to be floating up towards…

An Adiabatic Tale of the Cat and Mouse

Customer X: Hi, D-wave? So, I hear that you have this computer that can be used to solve computationally hard problems. Oh, yes, sorry, should have said a quantum computer, my bad. Well, you know we've got this hard computational problem, [Editor: problem description deleted to protect identity of involved company.] So what do you think, can you solve this problem for me? Great! Let me put you in contact with my technical guy. Yes, I'll wire the money to your account today. Months later. Customer X: Hi D-Wave, thanks for all your help with getting us set up to use your machine to solve…

It gives "transportation security" a whole new meaning. . .

White Plains Hospital Bus Wrap (detail) Nick Veasey Self-labeled "X-Ray Photographer" Nick Veasey created this life-size bus wrap by running a bus through a million-dollar device used to screen vehicles at border checkpoints, then superimposing individual radiographs of a single corpse posed in various attitudes. (If you look closely, you'll see that the passengers are morphologically identical - not as a bus full of men, women, and children of various ages should appear.) Veasey then patched the whole image together in Photoshop. Originally deployed in New York, the bus wrap was withdrawn…

Flew, Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Back

The New York Times has an interesting piece up about Antony Flew, formerly vocal atheist and revered philosopher, who's been co-oped by the Intelligent Design brigade in his dotage. In 1950, Flew published a discourse on atheism "Theology and Falsification" which pointed out something quite astute: that the term "God" is so amorphous as to be impossible to either prove or disprove. Seems like common sense now, but at the time it sent shock waves through an academia only recently comfortable with evolution and secular science. Years later, Flew was forking over his legacy to the creationists,…

Fibonacci Numbers, the Cochlea, and Poetry

The Fibonacci numbers form a sequence defined by this relation (don't be scared!): What this means, in English, is that it is a sequence of numbers whose relationship is this: after the first two numbers, each proceeding number is the sum of the previous two numbers. For example 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233.....and so on. Quite simple, really. Fibonacci numbers have an interesting property. When you divide one number in the sequence by the number preceding it, you are left with a number very close to 1.618. This number is called the "golden ratio," and rectangle whose…

Alzheimer's Vaccine Effective in Preventing Tau Tangles

Before I became interested in hearing research, I thought I was going to spend my career studying Alzheimer's disease (AD), and worked at the Roskamp Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders at USF. AD is a major enigma in medicine due to the many contributing factors: genetic, lifestyle, and environmental; as well as differing times of onset (early and late) and varying symptoms among affected individuals. The end result is clear though: AD is fatal and affects the brain in drastic ways. AD is characterized by a few pathological hallmarks at the neural level. One is the presence of amyloid-…

Why Is the Cochlea A Spiral?

The cochlea is the snail-shaped organ that mammals use to perceive and transduce sound, and is located deep in the inner ear. Hair cells lie on a membrane in the cochlea's interior, and sound waves disperse through the fluid-filled spaces which contact the hair cells (for more on this go here). Many people in the field have wondered over the year why the cochlea is shaped the way it is. Is it to conserve space? To better preserve the integrity of sound waves? Recently it has been discovered that the unique coiled shaped of the cochlea boosts its sensitivity to low frequencies, as reported in…

Get Inside the Body, in Four Dimensions

Surgeons may have a new tool at their disposal to aid in planning surgeries: an interactive "4-dimensional" model of the human body called CAVEman which describes in live-sized detail over 3000 distinct human parts. CAVEman is really just a huge computer image which can be viewed in a booth (giving the image height, width, and depth) and changes over time to reflect age, disease state, etc. This progression of time is the "fourth dimension." CAVEman has the potential to help patients better understand their diagnosis and treatment by having it visually represented to them in layman's terms.…

New Treatment for Scuba Divers' Middle Ear "Squeeze"

I got an email from the head of this study, David F. Colvard, MD, of Raleigh, North Carolina. His team has shown that nasal irrigation can help solve a common problem for scuba divers: middle ear squeeze. This refers to the phenomenon divers experience during ascent and descent in the sea, when external pressure differences cause compression in the middle ear. This can cause damage and hearing impairment, if serious. To combat this, usually divers take a decongestant in either pill or spray form. However, Dr. Colvard's study has shown that nasal irrigation helped divers achieve middle ear…

Baptists May See Justification in De-Gay-ifying Babies

Hard to know what to make of this, or even if what they propose--to prenatally interfere with sexual orientation--is possible. Mr. Mohler [president of a Baptist seminary] said in the article that scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality. That suggestion offended fellow conservatives, Mr. Mohler said. Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality, which they view as sinful, is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling. But Mr. Mohler said he was criticized even…

Friday Grey Matters: The Real Parrots of Telegraph Hill

It is not uncommon for a small population of exotic parrot species to flourish in a new niche in the United States. My old home in Sarasota, Florida had a large population of lories and Amazons which lived wild, making their homes in holes in palm trees in my neighborhood. Legend was that an tourist attraction aviary burned down in the 1960s, and the owner released all the parrots rather than see them killed. They stayed in the area, mated, and their numbers grew. A similar phenomenon happened in San Francisco in the area of Telegraph Hill, a neighborhood close to North Beach. A large…

The Victorian Insect House

Curious Expeditions has a great interview with Jennifer Angus, the artist who recently redecorated the Newark Museum's Victorian Ballentine House with dead insects in an installation called "Insecta Fantasia." Wow! The Museum restored the elegant abode to its original dark wood and horror vaccui (fear of empty space) style. This fear of empty space is often seen in Victorian homes - pictures covering every inch of wall, furniture and carpets covering all available floor space, murals and moulding on the ceilings, objects crowding every surface, elaborate window coverings and stained glass in…

Why has science been neglecting to study sin?

Some Kansas State University geographers have come up with some interesting maps of the US that purport to show the national distribution of the seven deadly sins. Obviously they can't gauge "sinfulness" directly, so they're using proxy data - such as STD infection rate to measure lust (above). It's a fun thought exercise to assess the pros and cons of the various methodologies for measuring each sin. Consider greed, which was (as described in the Las Vegas Sun) calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line. How does that…

You've been scienced! Tomorrow's Armed With Science takes on Web 2.0 and nontraditional science careers

My friend John Ohab is hosting a new DoD webcast called "Armed With Science." Sure, it has an over-the-top logo reminiscent of the Syfy Channel (I like to intone "ARMED WITH SCIENCE" with the same cadence as "PIGS IN SPACE!"), but the show turns out to be really well-done and interesting. Each episode is a half-hour interview with a researchers in a scientific field relevant to the military: sometimes that means SONAR or geopositioning, but they also take on general science topics like Brain Awareness Week at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It's a nice mix of topics, and it's…

Blog-Tasting: A Fall Flight of Five

I was meme-tagged a while ago by Thomas at Medical Museion, and I never got around to responding, because I was incapacited by indecision! The meme (which originated with Arte y Pico) requires that I recommend five inspiring blogs to my readers. That's harder than it sounds - there are so many more than five inspiring blogs (just look at my growing blogroll!) and most of my favorites have a lot of fans already. But since this is a chance to recommend some excellent non-Sb blogs, which may have fewer readers than they deserve, here are my five nominees. If you like my blog, you'll likely…

The Amazingness of a Happy Mouth

I love egregious examples of faux-scientific jargon and weird portrayals of the research process in advertising. I just noticed that Rembrandt, the company that makes tooth whitening systems, has a couple of doozies. From their "Brilliant Science" website: At REMBRANDT®, we believe if you want to make something different, you have to do things a little differently. That's why we like to think outside the lab (which is, in actuality, a giant box). Who knows when a cloud in the sky or guitar playing in the park will lead to the next bit of amazingness. It's this novel, creative approach to…

Cooking is science! Harvard's "Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science"

A couple of days ago, the New York Times reported on an undergraduate class at Harvard that teaches the science of cooking. It's called "Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science," and it's popular: if you're a Harvard undergrad, you have about a 43% chance of winning a seat at the lab bench (still, as one of the instructors points out, better odds than most people have of getting reservations at one of the participating guest chefs' exclusive restaurants). The class also seems to be changing the way some students think about science: For Mr. Jean-Baptiste, a junior…