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Another meaningless online test

I'm sick, my head hurts and I have a fever. That is why I did this, and why I got a lower score than anyone else who may compare themselves to me. Lynch made me do this. It' seems I'm a Modern, Cool Nerd, like that's news... Modern, Cool Nerd 78 % Nerd, 60% Geek, 43% Dork For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored…

Toronto New Years and a Sad Rose Bowl

So, I've been in the North Country for the weekend, and have mixed feelings about Toronto. On the one hand, its the metropolitan city that Detroit could only dream of being (I live in Ann Arbor, MI). Cool underground mall, pretty decent public transport, fun and safe nightlife. On the other, getting a cab or decent service in any bar or restaurant is quite a challenge. Me and a few friends went to a nightclub called Fluid for the countdown to party, and while it was a pretty ok club, I almost lost it at the plethora of Canadian thug wannabes. Hello, I'm more likely to be packing a piece than…

Can you calculate your risk of lung cancer?

Sloan-Kettering's online lung cancer risk calculator tells smokers what their relative risk of cancer would be if they quit. I'm all in favor of getting people to quit smoking, but this kind of risk can really only be calculated for groups, not individuals. Will people using the calculator understand that? Sloan-Kettering recommends the tool for "people who meet all of these conditions: Age: 50 to 75 years old; Smoking History: 10 to 60 cigarettes a day for 25 to 55 years; Current Status: Current smokers, and former smokers who quit 20 years ago or less." My mom is one of those people, but…

Wait, you're saying ignorance *is* a defense?

And you're really a lawyer? The verdict came back in the Los Angeles trial of Lori Drew, the Missouri mother who facilitated cyberbullying of a former friend of her daughter, who subsequently committed suicide. Since cyberbulling isn't an easy crime to prosecute, the trial focused on whether, in setting up a fake MySpace page as a 16-year-old boy (whose online identity was used to befriend and then harass the girl who killed herself), Drew violated MySpace terms of service. So, here's the legal point- counterpoint, as reported by the Associated Press: Among other things, Drew was charged…

Moon jellies.

There are lots of cool things to see at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but my favorite by a fathom is the assortment of jellyfish. And somehow, among all the jellies they have, it's the moon jelly that sticks in my mind as the canonical jelly. As it turns out, probably it shouldn't. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Online Field Guide, the moon jelly (Aurelia labiata) is somewhat unusual in having a fringe of cilia around its bell to sweep in the food. (Other jellies get the job done with dangling tentacles.) Like other wildlife we know and love, the colors of the moon jelly are…

Stay tuned to see Steve Novella on The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday!

UPDATE 4/27/2011: Dr. Novella has written up a detailed description of his experiences on The Dr. Oz Show. Please read it. Also note that the online video for Dr. Novella's appearance is now available: Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 1 Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 2 Controversial Medicine: Alternative Health, Part 3 I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want you all to tune in to The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, April 26. Either that, or DVR it. Why am I asking you to do this? Have I lost my mind? Have I suddenly gone woo? Of course not. The reason is that…

More RIAA stupidity

This time, as part of their campaign of intimidation, they're suing a family that doesn't even own a computer: A Rockmart family is being sued for illegal music file sharing, despite the fact that they don't even own a computer. A federal lawsuit filed this week in Rome by the Recording Industry Association of America alleges that Carma Walls, of 117 Morgan St., Rockmart, has infringed on copyrights for recorded music by sharing files over the Internet. The lawsuit seeks an injunction and requests unspecified monetary damages. The lawsuit states, "Plaintiffs are informed and believe that…

Kicking Off the Book Club, Round Two: Autism's False Prophets

Hello. Thanks for stopping by the ScienceBlogs Book Club. It's my pleasure to introduce our next title, and the panelists who will be discussing it with you. Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, by Dr. Paul Offit, describes how the belief that vaccines might cause autism arose and gained popularity during the early years of this decade. The book discusses the scientists, politicians, and parent groups that helped fuel the fears that vaccines, or a mercury-containing preservative in them, accounted for a sharp rise in autism cases worldwide, and the…

Do You Work on E. Coli?

If so, you should check out EcoliWiki, which you might find a useful resource, and you might even find yourself compelled to contribute some of your knowledge to it. Since I'm already blogging about E. coli today, I thought I would also bring up an interesting project I found out about earlier this week. I'm currently wrapping up a short visit to my alma mater, Texas A&M University, and while there, I've met up with two local science bloggers that I know of: Matt Springer of Built on Facts (a fellow blogger here on ScienceBlogs.com) and Jim Hu of Blogs for Industry. Hu is an associate…

Ideas for development: Playlists on LoveFilm / Netflix

So here's a modest proposal for film rental / streaming companies like LoveFilm and Netflix: why don't you have shareable playlists like Spotify? You see, I was reading Time Out's 100 Best Horror Films and I thought, there must be loads of these lists out there, on all kinds of criteria, for all kinds of audiences. Why isn't there a button at the end labelled "ADD THESE TO MY LOVEFILM"? There are buttons to tweet it, Like it, add it to Reddit, Dig, and a dozen other aggregation sites, but none that actually serves the purpose of the list: getting these films in front of my eyes! I don't…

Science, Faith, and Compromise

Scientific American has an online review of four books: God's Universe by Owen Gingerich, The Language of God by Francis Collins, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan. Here's a choice quote: "In my view," [evolgen's least favorite NIH director, Francis] Collins goes on to say, "DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God." Evolutionary explanations have been proffered…

Minneapolis: Ritmos Unidos Tonight

The World of Emetrece Productions presents: "Ritmos Unidos" 3rd Annual Afro-Latin Tribute to MLK Day Featuring Maria Isa & CubanÃa Sunday, January 20th, 2008 // First Avenue Main Room Doors 8PM // Show 9PM - 2AM // $8 Advance // $10 Door // 18+ In remembrance of King's legacy, "Ritmos Unidos" celebrates the hyphen between Afro & Latin. Advanced tickets available on-line at First Avenue & Ticketmaster In contrast to the American 'One Drop Theory,' of African racial classification, in Latin America there are various names for differing degrees of Blackness such as prieto, negro,…

Arginylation and Cell Migration

In my last post, I forgot to link to these great movies of migrating fibroblasts (available as online supplements to the arginylation paper), that illustrate how beta-actin arginylation can alter cellular behavior. So the assay is simple, grow fibroblasts until they fill up the coverslip as a single layer of cells (or monolayer). At this stage the cells will stop dividing (by a process known as "contact inhibition of cell growth"). Then the researcher can scratch the monolayer thus removing a strip of cells. The surviving cells present at the wound edge will at once migrate into the wound.…

The trouble with NOVA

A clip form the 1993 PBS documentary The Dinosaurs! For everyone who missed it (or wanted to see it again), the NOVA documentary on Microraptor is available for viewing online here. I started watching it, but there were so many little things that irked me that I couldn't keep my trap shut. My primary gripe is that documentaries are still using Deinonychus and large dromeosaurs as the model for the bird ancestor, especially since birds like Confuciusornis were already flying by the time the larger, terrestrial predators were on the scene. Further, while the trees-down/ground-up issue…

Say hello to…PepsiCo??!? WTF?

It's nice when we add another blog to the stable here at Scienceblogs — it means another human face added to the collection, another set of opinions to enjoy or destroy, yet more scientific minds committed to engaging in discussion with the culture. After all, that's what we're all about, putting a human personality to this weird enterprise of science. And as everyone on this blog is particularly aware, we encourage all kinds of diversions and digressions and transgressions, freely stomping on sacred cows and stuffed shirts because we can. Feels good, doesn't it? So what's with the corporate…

Los Angeles Times

A note to readers: For the next few weeks, this blog is going on a book tour. So if you're averse to self-promotion and blatant shows of immodesty (I promise to also link to the negative reviews!), or just aren't interested in Proust Was A Neuroscientist, then I kindly suggest you check back in December, when I'll be back talking about lots of other things beside myself. I promise this book related chatter won't last forever... With that warning out of the way, the LA Times ran a very generous and thoughtful review of the book yesterday: Jonah Lehrer, a science journalist with a neuroscience…

Is it a Falsehood that Humans Evolve from Apes?

This is another falsehood, but a tricky one. Remember the point of falsehoods: They are statements that are typically associated with meanings or implications that are misleading or incorrect, and in some cases downright damaging. "Humans evolved from apes" is an excellent example of a falsehood because it is technically correct, yet the implied meanings that arise from it are potentially wrong. Even more importantly, you can't really analyze the statement "Humans evolved from apes" without getting into an extended analysis and discussion of what an ape is and what a human is. When…

Should You Buy The $50 Kindle Fire Tablet?

This is a review of the Kindle Fire with 7" Display and Special Offers by Amazon. In short, this is a tablet/eReader that a lot of people will want, as long as certain needs are extant and certain expectations understood. I have one, and I'm very happy with it. It would take very little convincing for me to get a second one. One of the main reasons to give serious thought to getting one of these is the fact that it will put you back a mere fifty bucks. Don't expect a brilliant tablet for fifty bucks. You may want a nice full blown Android tablet, or if you prefer, an iPad. That will cost…

A DonorsChoose challenge update, some new proposals, and what those proposals say about our screwed-up national priorities.

I can't begin to thank the people who have donated to the DonorsChoose campaign enough. As of today - four days into the campaign - we've raised $1045. That's more than was contributed during all of last year's 15-day campaign. That's absolutely fantastic. As of now, all four of the projects that I picked have been fully funded, but we haven't hit the goal yet. (Either someone donated to one of the projects through this campaign without receiving credit, or someone donated to one of the projects independently of the campaign.) At this point, we're still about $550 short of my goal for the…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: And now for something completely different...

Ever since I started Your Friday Dose of Woo (YFDoW) back in June, I had always intended that someday I wanted to expand this loving deconstruction of various forms of woo beyond just medical woo and quackery. True, having a little fun with woo that claims to treat disease or restore health is something that I've gotten pretty good at. You may wonder why I would want to move beyond medicine occasionally. After all, there's no shortage of medical woo to deal with every Friday, and I'll almost certainly return to it next week. Sometimes a skeptic needs a change of pace, and this is one of…

Watch as Marvel Takes Over the Galaxy

Like Rocket—a genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced raccoon—Guardians of the Galaxy is a strange beast. Wanting to make a little cash, Rocket and his talking tree-buddy Groot try to collect a bounty on that guy from Parks and Recreation (and Zero Dark Thirty [Chris Pratt]). But the human, who wishes he were known as Star-Lord, not only has a 40,000 unit bounty on his head, but a softball-sized orb of power that every bigwig in the galaxy wants to steal or buy. Gamora, a femme fatale working for her supervillain step-daddy, crashes the party as Rocket and Groot try to bag Star-Lord,…

Fukushima Radiation Issues

From Time/CNN: The ongoing struggle to snuff out the nuclear crisis occurred amid mounting confusion about key elements of risk now in play. At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko, called the radiation levels at one of the plant's units "extremely high." He added that "for a comparable situation in the United States, we would recommend evacuation for a much larger radius than is currently being provided in Japan." And he said his information suggested that there was no water left in the pool containing the spent…

Defeat Zombies with Your Victory Garden

Damn, I wish I'd written this! John Michael Greer takes up the Victory Garden, and puts it in its proper place - economically, politically, socially - and for zombie slaying. What's not to love? And I think he has it pretty much exactly right here - that while growing your own is never the solution to all problems, it often does mediate our potential suffering - which is why as long as there has been modernity it has been a solution to its difficulties. (Before the Victory Garden movement, there was the British cottage garden movement, a direct response to the disruptions of early…

How Does One Defeat Matt Hughes?

UFC 65 was a night of surprises. Who knew that Tim Sylvia had a ground game, almost choking out a guy (who looked like the love child of Danny DeVito, that guy from The Shield, and a neckless Uncle Fester on steroids) to defend the heavyweight title? Who knew James Irvin would do a better job of knocking his own ass down than would Hector Ramirez? Who knew Joe Stevenson's shirt would put up a better fight than his opponent? Who knew Vera would make Frank Mir his bitch? Ok we kinda saw that last one coming. But what about the big event of the night... the Welterweight Title Fight? Unless…

Interview with the gang at EngineerBlogs.org

Welcome to the long-awaited latest instalment in my occasional series of interviews with people in the library, publishing and scitech worlds. This time around the subjects of my first group interview are the gang at EngineerBlogs.org. From my welcome-to-the-blogosphere post, here's a condensed bit about them: Cherish The Scientist (EB) I am an electrical engineer with an interest in various areas of electromagnetics, including antennas and numerical simulation techniques, as well as IC packaging. I have completed a master's degree in electrical engineering and am currently pursuing a…

Actual comps response: Information Retrieval

Now that I'm not scared to look at my responses...  This one doesn't look so bad, so I'm sharing.  Please do keep in mind that this was written in 2 hours, by a tired person, with tired fingers! --- Christina K. Pikas Comps Information Retrieval (Minor) July 20, 2009 Question F2: Design an information retrieval system for scientists that covers full-text peer-reviewed articles as well as blogs and wikis 0. Introduction Today, scientists use more than just the peer-reviewed journal literature in their work, but our information retrieval systems such as our library research databases and…

As 2013 draws to a close in the skeptical world...

As I write this, 2013 is drawing to a close, with only a little more than 12 hours to go before the crowds now gathering at Times Square and elsewhere ring in 2014. For some of you, 2014 has already arrived or will arrive many hours before it does for me. I'm not normally one to do much navel gazing, but 2013 has been a mixed year. As far as this blog goes, for instance, readership is up, with over 3.5 million page views for the year, although that's still a little below the blog's height before the whole "Pepsigate" thing. (It's really hard to believe that was almost three and a half years…

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Genome Sequence

I recently was in a conversation with a collaborator who isn't in the genomics biz, and said collaborator remarked that there was a lot of online criticism of the quality of the genomic data that has been generated for the E. coli O104:H4 outbreak isolates. I've been following it very closely (not surprised by that, are you?), and I'm not sure what the collaborator was referring to. On some blog, in some comment, there probably is criticism, but these are the intertoobz: that sort of thing happens. But then it dawned on me that much of what appears to be 'criticism' is probably just a…

Bird flu: Treating early, treating late, but treating

New scientific information travels in various ways. The internet is the lastest. Sometimes it's the quickest, too, but often the old ways also work. The oldest method of communication between scientists used to be correspondence. Leibniz was famous for his extensive letter writing to other scientists during the scientific revolution of the 18th century. Even before the appearance of scientific journals, there were local or regional meetings, where scientist would gather periodically and exchange ideas and information through presentations, debate and discussion. These meetings are still…

Physical Benefits

Of the four new articles online on our website, three happen, purely by accident, to be on physics research. The three are very different, and yet each is an illustration of the ways that basic physics research changes our world – in small and large, practical and enlightening ways. And each is situated at a different intersection between the technological and the theoretical – a technological breakthrough that resulted from a successful attempt to provide proof for a theoretical construct, new inventions based on elementary physical principles of light, and a theory substantiated through a…

Costs and Benefits of Appalachian Coal

Miningâs environmental costs are high, but many residents of coal-mining communities support continued mining because they rely (directly or indirectly) on mining jobs. Now, reports Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette, two researchers have put price tags on the economic costs and benefits of coal mining in Appalachia, and found that the benefits donât even come close to covering the costs: Writing with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, [West Virginia Universityâs Michael] Hendryx reports that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic…

The so-called Facebook Scandal

[rant]So, if you organize a study-group online instead of in meat-space, the old fogies who still remember dinosaurs go all berserk. A student is threatened by expulsion for organizing a Facebook group for studying chemistry. Moreover, as each student got different questions, nobody did the work for others, they only exchanged tips and strategies. See the responses: The Star: Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation. Yes, they are. Greg: How much of this is a matter of administrative fear of the internet? 100%. Larry: Today, that sense of "…

SciBlings at AAAS10

Four Sciblings (and three ex-Sciblings - Sheril Kirshenbaum, Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer - but once a Scibling always a Scibling rule applies, so we hung together some...) went to the AAAS meeting last week in San Diego. There is a lot of coverage in the MSM (and a little bit on blogs - it's hard to blog when you are not given tools, access and respect and thus AAAS will get much less, and much less positive coverage than they would have otherwise) - but here I just want to link to what my SciBlings have posted so far (I will post some more myself later - just watch the AAAS10 category here…

Bright Blue Tits Make Better Mothers

tags: researchblogging.org, blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, Parus caeruleus, sexual selection, mate choice, ornithology, female coloration, reproduction, maternal quality, evolution, birds, ornithology In many bird species, the females are brightly colored, just as the males are, but the evolutionary reasons for brightly colored females is unclear. According to one hypothesis, because males and females share the same genome, their traits are similar. However, according to another hypothesis, there may also be selective pressures on females, just as there are on males, to develop brightly…

Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth's temperature?

There is a fairly weird paper entitled Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth's temperature by Hammel and Lockwood. Why is it weird? Various reasons, which I'll try to explain here as best I can, but it really needs someone who knows more about it. These are more notes in case anyone out there feels interested to look. First off, none of their correlations are significant, a fact which does rather disappoint them: Although correlations between Neptune's brightness and Earth's temperature anomaly--and between Neptune and two models of solar…

The String Theory Wars

Have a look at this article from the current New Yorker. It focuses on the recent anti-string theory books from Lee Smolin and Peter Woit. The article provides a decent summary of Smolin's and Woit's views, but it is seriously marred by the lack of any contrary views of the matter. The views expressed by Smolin and Woit appear to be in the minority among physicists generally. From reading this article you would have no idea why that is. For example, the article includes paragraphs like this: The usual excuse offered for sticking with what increasingly looks like a failed program is that…

Derbyshire States it Plain

Writing in National Review Online, John Derbyshire provides a nice characterization of what it's like to argue with creationists: I'll also say that I write the following with some reluctance. It's a wearying business, arguing with Creationists. Basically, it is a game of Whack-a-Mole. They make an argument, you whack it down. They make a second, you whack it down. They make a third, you whack it down. So they make the first argument again. This is why most biologists just can't be bothered with Creationism at all, even for the fun of it. It isn't actually any fun. Creationists just chase…

The Advent Calendar of Physics: Torque

Today's advent calendar post was delayed by severe online retail issues last night and child care today, but I didn't want to let the day pass completely without physics, so here's the next equation in our countdown to Newton's birthday: This is the final piece of the story of angular momentum, the undefined symbol from the right-hand side of the angular momentum principle: torque is defined as the cross-product between the radius vector pointing out from the axis of rotation to the point where the force is applied, and the vector force that acts at that point. As with the definition of…

Science Blogger Panel in Duke's "Science in the Media" Class

I had the happy pleasure of visiting on Friday with Sheril Kirshenbaum and Bora Zivkovic for a panel discussion in a course at Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. Directed by Dr Misha Angrist, PubPol 196S "Science in the Media" is described in the course catalog as follows: Those who write about science, health and related policy matters for a general audience face a formidable challenge: to make complex, nuanced ideas understandable to the nonscientist in a limited amount of space and in ways that are engaging and entertaining, even if the topic is far outside the…

DIY Bio will not end the world

People are doing biology in their kitchen now, or in rented labs with cheaper equipment: In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive. Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use…

Jonah Goldberg Likes My Blog. Please Shoot Me Now.

     Goldberg shown here (right) "gangbanging"    with a guy who enjoys making fun of the dead.I must have done something very, very wrong. Jonah Goldberg, that noxious, infected man-tit of a human being, has just praised my work at the National Review. Referring to my series on Deconstructing Social Darwinism Goldberg writes: This is a very comprehensive assault on the prevailing understanding of "social Darwinism." Eric Michael Johnson's essay is a bit too rambling at times, but it is very welcome and good reading nonetheless. Readers of my book might remember that I have nothing but…

Why Terra Sigillata?

If you Google, "Terra Sigillata," you'll get a number of hits for various clay pottery recipes. Very complicated stuff, requiring the use of a deflocculant to separate out large clay particles from the small ones. Terra sig, as it is known among pottery hipsters, is then used to coat finished pieces to produce a very smooth, high luster and waterproof finish. What does this have to do with pharmacology and natural products? Terra Sigillata literally means "sealed earth." In the common potter's vernacular, "seal" probably relates to the waterproof character of the product. But, in ancient…

Holocaust denial and hate

One of the common topics I discuss on this blog is Holocaust denial. Indeed, I've been opposing Holocaust denial on various online forums for ten years now. I've castigated David Irving, mocked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his worldwide Holocaust denial conference, and made frequent comments about how Holocaust denial is inextricably linked with anti-Semitism and racism, often directly due to the white nationalist movement (or, as I like to refer to white supremacists, mighty white power rangers). That's why I was very saddened to learn about what happened at the Holocaust Museum earlier today:…

Responding to a FAQ: What is Tranching?

I've received an amazing number of requests in the short period of time since my last post to explain "Tranching". I mentioned it off-handedly, but a lot of people have heard about its role in the whole sub-prime mess, and wanted to know just what it means. I don't particularly like writing about economics; it's just not my bag. But enough people are asking that I feel like I need to answer the question. But this is it folks - no more of this nonsense after today! There are plenty of other people writing about this, who know more about it, and who are more interested in it, than I am. It's…

When Large Healthcare Deductibles Could Be Costly: A Personal Tale

Let's just say that throwing up between 1am and 5am the week you have to prepare for a scientific conference (ASM) is, well, suboptimal. Anyway, I'm fine (thanks for asking), but Tuesday I had plenty of time to think about this NY Times article about the increase in healthcare deductibles (the amount of money you have to pay out of pocket before your healthcare kicks in): But Dr. King said patients were also being more thoughtful about their needs. Fewer are asking for an MRI as soon as they have a bad headache. "People are realizing that this is my money, even if I'm not writing a check,"…

Moving Overseas, Part 12

Today is far more stressful than it deserves to be. I spent a good part of today either bleeding all over my apartment (one of my lories bit me) or on the telephone, talking with the police department, trying to determine if my "good citizen certificate" is ready to pick up. Even though I saw at least two police officers with desks that had functioning telephones on them while I was there, I was told there are no telephones into that office. WTF? After being bounced a dozen times between operator 2231 and operator 174 (or whatever their names were), my throbbing finger wrapped in half a roll…

My new project launching today: The Quisling Qourner: A group blog on the library/publisher relationship

Reader Beware: Please note the date of publication of this post. It's been really gratifying over the last year to see how my DSCaM scholarly communications empire has grown. From it's small beginnings, Dupuis Science Computing & Medicine has craved out a small but important niche in the discount APC publishing community. And I really appreciate how the scholarly communications community has encouraged my career progression from publisher of a journal at Elsevier to Chief Advisor on Science Libraries for the Government of Canada to last year's huge launch of DSCaM. And the DSCaM empire…

IOM Warns of Worsening Insurance Situation

Yesterday, the Institute of Medicine warned that employment-based health insurance coverage is eroding, and that the safety net (clinics and emergency rooms that provide charity and uncompensated care) wonât be able to handle the demand from the uninsured. IOMâs new report, Americaâs Uninsured Crisis: Consequences for Health and Health Care, notes that the decline in health insurance coverage â with 45.7 million uninsured at last count â is likely to continue. Hereâs how they describe the situation in the accompanying policy brief: A number of ominous signs point to a continuing decline in…

The god mob

Speak the name "Templeton" and the prim, dutiful servants of the foundation will appear. If you look at the recent articles from Coyne, Dawkins, and me, you'll discover the same comment, shown below, from a representative of the Templeton Foundation. I've seen these guys in action before. They are very serious, somber fellows in their nice suits, with the dignitas of boodles of cash behind them, who will calmly state their position with an air of dispassionate certitude. They remind me of Mafia lawyers. A.C. Grayling and Daniel Dennett have refused to talk to a serious journalist (Edwin…

My Job in 10 Years: Are A & I Services in a Death Spiral?

As I mentioned the other day, the most recent issue of ISTL is full of very fine articles. The one that really caught my eye is the Viewpoints article Are A & I Services in a Death Spiral? by Valerie Tucci. It echoes a lot of the themes that I first wrote about way back in December 2006 -- that the traditional A&I services will have a lot of problems competing with services such as Google Scholar which are free to the user. Here's some of what Tucci has to say: Given all the changes what will the future bring for these services and how will it affect libraries, librarians, and users…