Search Content

Displaying results 2401 - 2450 of 87947

Citizen Science and Digital Biology: ScienceOnline 2010

Is there a place for citizen scientists in the world of digital biology? Many of the citizen science projects that I've been reading about have a common structure. There's a University lab at the top, outreach educators in the middle, and a group of citizens out in the field collecting data. After the data are collected, they end up in a database somewhere and the University researchers analyze them and write papers. At least that's my impression so far. It seems to me, that with all kinds of databases out there, on-line, there should be plenty of opportunity for both citizens and student…

Food Storage and Preservation Syllabus

There is still space in my upcoming (starts April 15) Food Storage and Preservation Online class, for those who are interesting. If you've wanted to start preserving or building up a food reserve and have no idea how to start, or perhaps you learned to can once upon a time, but want to explore the full range of food preservation options, or you've joined a CSA and want to know what to do with all that food you are getting, or cut your grocery bills - this is the class for you. Each class includes a couple of practical projects for you to try out each week. The class is offered…

Citizen Science and Digital Biology: ScienceOnline 2010

Is there a place for citizen scientists in the world of digital biology? Many of the citizen science projects that I've been reading about have a common structure. There's a University lab at the top, outreach educators in the middle, and a group of citizens out in the field collecting data. After the data are collected, they end up in a database somewhere and the University researchers analyze them and write papers. At least that's my impression so far. It seems to me, that with all kinds of databases out there, on-line, there should be plenty of opportunity for both citizens and student…

The Friday Fermentable: Some Wines of Virginia, by Erleichda

In late August, our colleague and correspondent Erleichda conducted a winetasting of some offerings from Virginia, picked up on a tour with his beloved Sweetpea. The tasting fell on PharmPreKer's birthday, so we were unable to make it, but here is Erleichda's missive. Two things strike me: first, is a whole new education he is giving us about cheeses, an area of my supreme ignorance. Second, is something many of you have known for years: that lovely wines are being made all over the US outside of California and the Northwest. All I can say is that I have to start plotting out our own tour…

Never Say Goodbye: Gopher Tortoise

tags: Gopher Tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus, Joel Sartore, National Geographic, image of the day Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus). Image: Joel Sartore/National Geographic [larger view]. The photographer writes; Gopher tortoises in the southeastern U.S. often end up as roadkill. Invasive fire ants and armadillos also prey on their eggs and young, while urban expansion, land conversion for pine plantations, and fire mismanagement degrade tortoise habitat, pushing these reptiles closer to the edge. Joel Sartore has shared some of his work on this blog before, so I am thrilled to tell you…

Around the Web: Everyone is angsty in higher ed, not just librarians

Academic library existence at risk? The Myth and the Millennialism of "Disruptive Innovation" Fending off university-attacking zombies The online threat to the American professor Educational Hucksterism: Or, MOOCs are not an Educational Technology Laptop U: Has the future of college moved online? Libraries into career centres, campus residences into senior homes Embrace Moocs or face decline, warns v-c Library holds consultation sessions on proposed closure of the Life Sciences Library (McGill) Editorial: why academic freedom matters to librarians The Librarian Doesn’t Exist Harvard…

Around the Web: Disruption, disruption, disruption and more disruption

Silicon Valley goes to school – notes on Californian capitalism and the ‘disruption’ of public education The End of Higher Education’s Golden Age The Death Of Expertise Closing Time for the Open Internet Tech Workers, Political Speech and Economic Threat Does Ikea Hold The Secret To The Future Of College? Let’s Be Real: Online Harassment Isn’t ‘Virtual’ For Women Can Pearson Solve the Rubric’s Cube? Who Takes MOOCs? For online higher education, the devil is in the data Making It: Pick up a spot welder and join the revolution Higher Education Is Now Ground Zero For Disruption Stupid Simple…

Desperately seeking suggestions: what works best with on-line teaching?

When in doubt, turn to the internet. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to start teaching my first on-line course. So far, I've been preparing by: learning how to use Blackboard getting a subscription to iFinch so we can do bioinformatics in style, and share data and other files getting a microphone and some software for making video podcasts But, since this is brand new and I'm used to seeing students face-to-face, I have a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I do not want to be one of those people who simply puts lecture notes on a web site. So, I'm turning to you for advice dear…

Sheep Dash!

Lack of sleep can affect your reaction times. This is a cute online game that tests how alert you are and also reveals the impact of a cup of tea or coffee on your performance. What was your reaction time? Did it improve after a cup of coffee or tea? I have not tried this after a cup of coffee or tea. Yet. Update 1: okay, after one cup of black tea, my reaction times are improving: 0.2042 seconds and counting (down), although I still rank as a bobbing bobcat. Next experiment: coffee. Update 2: after a decent night's sleep and one vente iced latte, my reaction times have improved. I am now a…

US FDA: 125 Fake Cancer 'Cures' Consumers Should Avoid

This link is just to quickly follow up on yesterday's post, "FDA Warns Individuals and Firms to Stop Selling Fake Cancer 'Cures'." The US FDA has specifically listed those companies and individuals as well as their specific products that were cited in yesterday's action: 125 Fake Cancer "Cures" Consumers Should Avoid And for more information to share with your family, friends, patients, colleagues, etc: Beware of Online Cancer Fraud This latter post is of great general value for the lay public to detect red flags for fraudulent cancer treatment or prevention products as well as some general…

Technopolitical news

Fife Wikileaks Hactivists Arrested in UK Police have arrested five people over their alleged roles in an online campaign to support WikiLeaks. Five males - aged 15, 16, 19, 20 and 26 - were arrested under the Computer Misuse Act in raids across the country at 7am this morning, with the suspects held in local police stations for further questioning. source Sony determines that having autism is "cheating" Jennifer Zdenek, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who lives with autism, is outraged at Microsoft Xbox Live for labeling her son a "cheater" and taking away everything he's earned online.…

Chat chat chatty chat

This easy chat room I tried out a while back is still idling along. It's mostly rather quiet, but now and then conversations get going. Anyway, just as another experiment, I'll be online tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 5pm Central time (that is, right around an hour ago, if you're reading this right around the time I posted it). I wonder if it would be an added attraction if I tried to convince Skatje or my wife Mary to be online at the same time—should I try? Also, I know that IRC would be much better, and that there is a #pharyngula channel on DALnet. That would be better in the long run,…

MedHelp brings eye experts online to answer your questions

I was recently sent this news and thought some readers may be interested. MedHelp, an online health community that connects people with physicians and medical experts, has just added the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) to its repertoire. The website has liaisons with over a dozen medical organizations and one of its main goals is to connect people with medical professionals for expert advice to compliment doctor's visits. So, in addition to the many other specialists available, members and visitors can now have their eye care questions answered by AAO specialists. I briefly…

A year in Open Access advocacy: 2012

While it has not generally been my practice to do year end review posts, artificially trying to tie the various and disparate strands of my blogging habits together into some sort of coherent story, I think for this year it's worth doing. And that's because my blogging year did seem to have a coherent theme -- advocating for a fairer and more just scholarly publishing ecosystem. In particular I spent an awful lot of time advocating for Open Access in one way, shape or form. Not that I haven't always done so, but with all the various events happening in the academic and library worlds this…

Interview: Susan Greenfield on the internet-fed brain

Last May I heaved myself out of bed a little before 5am so I could undertake a mammoth 12 hour round trip to that pantheon of industrial decay, Rotherham. What did the home of Jive Bunny and the Chuckle Brothers have to entice me on such a journey? Why, only Science World 2011, Fisher Scientific's annual trade fair. And their keynote speaker for the day, the Baroness. No, not that Baroness. I'm talking about Professor Susan Greenfield, who has made something of a name for herself with her theories about the effects of the internet on the brain. Namely, that the pervasiveness of digital…

Reading Diary: Five books on the environment

I read these five books over about the last year or so and they all represent something I really look for in books on complex subjects -- for the most part, they concentrate on things individual people can actually do to make a difference. In this case, a difference in the future of the planet. Whether it's where you live, what you eat, what you buy or how you get around, the choice is ours. Each of us, me and you, can make choices that, in the aggregate, can make a difference. Mark Bittman's Food Matters and Betty Fussell's Raising Steaks are at least as much about food and food culture…

Is Linux currently at a fundamental disadvantage owing to how computers are set up?

A gingerbread computer can be complicated. When you, Joe or Mary user, buy a computer at Best Buy or Computer Village or order a computer from Dell or Gateway, you get a computer with a system already installed. Do you think they had any trouble installing that system on that computer? Do you think that if Dell sells Mary a computer with Windows installed and they sell Joe a computer with Linux installed, that Dell had a differentially hard time installing one of those systems compared to the other? Think about it. ~ Repost from one year ago this month ~ Linux and Windows each have…

Is Life Expectancy Going Down?

According to this life expectancy calculator, I should plan on living to 102 years old---a result of quite a lot of factors, including the fact that my family is particularly long-lived and cancer-free. Not sure I buy into these types of calculator (but they are morbid fun), but the general topic of life expectancy has been hot in the news lately. Some sources are claiming that the upward-creeping life expectancy that developed nations have been enjoying for decades might come to a screeching halt, or even worse, begin to decline. The subject of much finger-pointing is, unsurprisingly,…

Hard-pressed

Martin Cothran, Discovery Institute blogger, Focus on the Family stooge, and generally unpleasant person, quotes Patrick Buchanan on Yom HaShoah. Buchanan, in addition to being a failed presidential candidate, is a conspiracy loon and a anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. In any event, Buchanan is on about how President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton didn't create a diplomatic spat when the President of Nicaragua complained about American military involvement with the terrorist Contras.: After Daniel Ortega finished spitting in our face, accusing us of inhumanity toward Fidel Castro's…

It's all connected, if you are smart enough to see it

Al Gore's big issue is the environment. He says he is not running for President. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that the environment is Gore's passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for it. His passion is what drives so many people to push him to run for office again. John Edwards' big issue is poverty. He is likely to run for President again. Maybe he will win, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that eradication of poverty is Edwards' passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for…

What do we know about nanomaterials?

Via a press release from Consumers Union, the July 2007 issue of Consumer Reports will include a call for more testing and regulation of nanotechnology: [T]he risks of nanotechnology have been largely unexplored, and government and industry monitoring has been minimal. Moreover, consumers have been left in the dark, since manufacturers are not required to disclose the presence of nanomaterials in their labeling. Your first question may be, what the heck is nanotechnology? From the press release, Nanotechnology involves creating new materials or reducing the particles in standard materials…

$30 Billion to Lend, and Treasury Can't Figure Out How to Do So

This is another resounding success by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Nearly nine months after its formation, a $30 billion government fund to foster small-business lending has yet to pay out a single dime, even as the nation struggles with traumatic levels of unemployment.... As of this week, 844 institutions have applied for $11.6 billion from the Small Business Lending Fund. In theory, money from the fund would free up capital so that banks could then grant more loans to companies looking to buy new equipment and hire more workers. But vetting the financial soundness of each bank has…

Hannity and Carlson's War on Entomology

Right wing TV bloviators oppose scientific research. And in other news, dog bites man. By way of Bug Girl, I came across this story about Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson opposing the use of $187,632 of stimulus money to buy storage cabinets for Michigan State University's Albert J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection which houses over 1 million insects collected over 143 years: Fox News host Sean Hannity launched a series of "investigative" reports this week, in which he claims he will reveal oodles of wasteful stimulus spending by the Obama administration. In his first report, Hannity and…

National AIG Bailout Protest Tomorrow!

Are you upset about the latest AIG scandal where millions of dollars of the American taxpayers' bailout money were misused to pay special bonuses to their corporate executives -- the very same executives who swindled thousands of their clients and ran the company -- and the world's economy -- into the ground? Of course, at the same time that 73 AIG executives are receiving bonuses of one million dollars or more, tens of millions of American taxpayers are facing unemployment, crushing debt, and loss of their housing, health insurance, and even the ability to buy food! If this makes you angry…

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Join the protest on 19 March 2009 in your city! Are you upset about the latest AIG scandal where millions of dollars of the American taxpayers' bailout money were misused to pay special bonuses to their corporate executives -- the very same executives who swindled thousands of their clients and ran the company -- and the world's economy -- into the ground? Of course, at the same time that 73 AIG executives are receiving bonuses of one million dollars or more, tens of millions of American taxpayers are facing unemployment, crushing debt, and loss of their housing, health insurance, and even…

Knowing which way the weather man blows

The 60s radical group, the Weathermen, took their name from a Bob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues: s' "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Now we have the converse. You don't need to break wind to know this weatherman blows. On his blog, Chris Allen, the TV weatherman from WBKO, Bowling Green, Kentucky, explains to us why he doesn't believe that humans are responsible for climate change. He is quick to say that just because he doesn't have a "Dr." in front of his name is no reason we shouldn't take his arguments seriously. We agree. This is why we shouldn't…

Speculation and World Food Prices

Yesterday was World Food Day, and NPR has a good piece about the role of speculation in food prices: The economists argue that increased trading is a significant part of the reason grocery prices are higher this year. And grocery prices are indeed up this year. For example, in August, the average price of bread in U.S. cities was up 17.4 percent over last year, while milk was up 12.4 percent, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Brandon Kliethermes, an agriculture economist with the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight, agrees that speculators do increase…

1-2-3, the Goosed/Book meme

Oh-oh, it seems it's a meme season again! I'll dutifully do them, one at a time. Today - the good old 123 book meme, which memeticized over time into being called "Goosed meme". I was tagged by Lance Mannion who was hoping that the book closest to me is the OpenLab07. Sorry. It's not. It was until earlier today. Tough luck, Lance, you'll just have to buy it. Anyway, the rules first: ⢠look up page 123 in the nearest book ⢠look for the fifth sentence ⢠then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123. The nearest book is the one which arrived in the mail…

Thanks to all of you ...

I want to thank several people who have recently sent gifts to me during my hospital stay (yes, I am still in the hospital by the way, and probably will remain so for another month). I know that some of my benefactors would like to remain anonymous, so I'll just leave notice of my appreciation on my blog where I know you will find it (you know who you are, and you can reveal yourselves, or not, as you wish). Gifts that I recently received are books (ooo, lots of beautiful books) and a DVD; Books of poetry and prose by one of my two favorite living poets, the amazing and gifted Mary Oliver…

$53.6 billion fine.

Japan to secretly join CERN? Two travelers with $134 billion in US Treasury and Federal Reserve bonds hidden in a suitcase, seized at the Italian-Swiss border. Seriously This is just fascinating: who tipped the Italians off, and why? will the Italians really take their 40% fine for failing to declare if the bonds turn out to be real? How to tell if US Treasuries are real NB: UST bearer securities were discontinued in 1982. sample fake UST $100 million bond. Here is the NY Federal Reserve page on scams, with images of past sample scams They note in particular claims of $500 million…

Misogynist?

The entry about the Fake Advertising Mom provoked a reaction I didn't see coming. I said that pregnancy and nursing changes a woman's body in plainly visible ways and that the fake moms in ads usually show no such signs, in addition to being too young to be realistic mothers of the children they're photographed with. This, to my mind, was a feminist observation. I picked up feminism from my first wife who had been a women's-lib radical on the extreme left during the 70s. In that mode of thinking, feminists accept and celebrate the female body for what it is. Attempting to look like 20 when…

Most Gay Friendly Companies

Pam Spaulding has a post up about the most Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign. As in previous years, the report documents a major increase in efforts by corporations to provide benefits and protections to gay and lesbian employees. 138 major companies received a perfect 100 rating from HRC, as opposed to 101 in 2005. Pam is absolutely right when she says: While our government, which is supposed to represent us, drags its feet on civil equality and fairness, corporate America is the one venue where equality for LGBT citizens has been on a constant, positive trajectory. I…

A very promising inexpensive Android tablet

I'm just passing this information on, I've not handled this device. But the price and performance seem like such a sweet spot that I am compelled to tell you about it. Let me know in the comments if you have experience with this item. The Dragon Touch M8 2016 Edition 8 inch Quad Core Tablet is a competitively priced high quality tablet, with excellent reviews. It costs 80 bucks. A while back, I asked if you should buy a $50 Kindle Fire Tablet. I concluded that maybe you should, because it is cheap and if the main thing you are doing with your tablet is grazing your Amazon Kindle booklist…

Argento on Bonsell's Testimony

Mike Argento has been sort of the HL Mencken of the Dover trial, making pithy comments daily about the trial. And you knew he wasn't going to let Bonsell's testimony go unscathed. This is pretty funny stuff, but it's long so I'll put it below the fold. It was remarkable. Judge John E. Jones III asked for a copy of Bonsell's deposition and started asking him questions about why he felt the need to cover up where the money came from to buy the 60 copies of "Of Pandas and People" that wound up in the Dover high school library. Bonsell didn't explain very well. At one point, he replied to the…

Ten Years Before the Blog: Historical Recap

June 22, 2012 will mark the tenth anniversary of the founding of this blog. While I would like to one day be famous enough to be able to staple together a collection of loosely related blog posts and call it a book, I'm not there yet. This particular arbitrary numerical signifier does, however, seem worth some commemoration. Also, while I have some idea of how the site has evolved over the last ten years, it's been a slow process, so I thought it would be interesting to troll back through the archives and see how things used to be. Next Friday, appropriately enough the 13th, will be exactly…

arXiview: A New iPhone App for the arXiv

Over 9 months ago I decided to apply for teaching tenure track jobs. Then the economy took what can best be described as a massive, ill-aimed, swan dive. Thus creating an incredible amount of stress in my life. So what does a CS/physics research professor do when he's stress? The answer to that question is available on the iTunes app store today: arXiview. What better way to take out stress and at the same time learn objective C and write an iPhone app that at least one person (yourself) will use? What is arXiview? It is yet another arXiv viewer (there are two others available, last I…

Some New Proposals On My Donors Choose Challenge

Thanks to those of you who have donated so far! You've helped get the TSZ challenge to 39% of fulfillment! The way Donors Choose works, more than one person can add a proposal to a challenge, and/or individuals could choose to donate to a proposal separate from a challenge. That's why you will see that some of the proposals on my challenge list have been fully funded even though I have not yet reached my challenge funding goal. So I've added a few new proposals to the list for you to choose from, if you are still considering donating. Here are a few of them: Put Science Back in the…

Same problems with herbal medicines in Australia

This blog was established originally to discuss the promise of natural products in human therapeutics, particularly to identify those herbal medicines that might have some potential for utility as medicines. However, a quick review of my posts reveals a majority of reports of negative outcomes of efficacy or other problems with herbal medicines. Well, as many of my readers and fellow bloggers down under are aware, the situation in the US is not unique. According to this news report out of Australia: Popular folk remedies such as aloe vera and lavender oil may not possess healing properties…

Screwing my courage to the...wait, what?

A few days later, but my story today bears some similarities to Alice's tale of reviewer requested revisions. I too just got back reviews on a paper derived from my dissertation. The reviews ranged from minor revisions to reject with the editors landing in the middle. Mostly it looks like major rewriting and some rethinking of our arguments, but they'd also like to see some more data collection and analysis. Only one problem. My field sites are >2500 miles away and about to be covered by snow for the next 7 months. So I suddenly find myself scrambling to make arrangements with co-authors…

Snail eradication (day 2).

This was another early morning out in the garden picking snails. It was, however, markedly yuckier than yesterday's foray. First, to those who have recommended alternate strategies for dissuading the gastropods, I've done the copper tape before. It seemed to help a little, but it was far from perfect -- some of the snails seemed not to mind getting a charge out of sliding across the copper. I think we may have a bit of copper tape in the garage. Perhaps I'll put it along the perimeter of our raised beds. The drowning-in-beer strategy we have tried. Each time, a few slugs and snails have…

Irene will be weaker than thought, but slow, big and bad enough

Hurricane Irene is probably at its strongest moment at this writing, as a Category Two hurricane, and will become weaker over time as she moves north. However, Irene is very large and will be moving very slowly. So, which is worse? Category Two hurricane winds passing quickly through an area or Tropical Storm force winds hanging around for a day? I suppose it depends of if you are a well built jetty or a fast food sign at a strip mall. In 24 hours from now, by late afternoon on Saturday, Irene will be a Category One storm on the sitting on top of the Outer Banks of North Carolina.…

Good electricity news from Iraq

Surely Baghdad's electricity supply couldn't get worse than shown in the graph on the right? Alas, it seems it can: Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday. Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari said power generation nationally is only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after…

A Taxonomy of Delusion

John Quiggin categorizes those that reject climate science into Tribalists, Ideologists, Hacks and sufferers of Emeritus disease. Speaking of hacks, Bob Burton has discovered some more about Pat Michaels funding: [New Hope Environmental Services], which he wholly owns, describes itself as "an advocacy science consulting firm." These days, New Hope's main activities are publishing the firm's blog, World Climate Report, and helping anonymous clients to publicize "findings on climate change and scientific and social perspectives that may not otherwise appear in the popular literature or media."…

Whipping up hype

It's been an exciting week here at Signout. Now that I am back from my unannounced sabblogtical (yeah, I made that up), I've tended to some much-needed housekeeping. To wit, the blogroll has been pruned of defunct and outdated links. Now you may futz around all up in the sidebar without fear. Futz, I say! Speaking of, and not to nag or anything, I kind of wish you'd give a little more click to the DonorsChoose link I posted last week. Every single visitor to that site can raise up to 10 bucks by voting for each of the 10 video profiles listed. With two minutes and a little back-button savvy,…

We have a shot

I was recently asked by Blog, MD to weigh in on how I'd spend the $456 billion that has so far been spent on the U.S. military effort in Iraq if, by some terrible error, I were made Queen of the World. This is a difficult question for me because the only items of whose cost I am sure these days are grocery store sushi and sturdy shoes. And while it would be kind of awesome to buy enough spicy tuna rolls to last me until I'm too old to chew anything but the wasabi, that wouldn't exactly benefit humanity. So. If it were up to me, I'd spend this wad of cash entirely on education. I'm no expert…

Join me online tonight for the WNCU-FM Spring Fest '09 Fund Drive

Well, it's that time of year for public radio stations in the United States: the biannual fund drive to support operations and programming. Many public radio stations are run by or associated with universities, thereby giving provide course and internship opportunities to students in print and broadcast journalism, graphic design, recording engineering, and music studies. I love my radio station, WNCU-FM 90.7 in Durham, North Carolina - "Your Connection To Something Different." WNCU is a jazz-intensive station run out of North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a HBCU within the…

Better dates for Human/Chimp split

With all the posting about the Dover decision, it is always good to remember that scientific problems are solved by scientists and aired in scientific journals, not in the legal arena. Investigators at Arizona State and Penn State Universities have placed the time of the human/chimp split between 5 and 7 million years ago -- a sharper focus than that given by the previous collection of molecular and fossil studies, which have placed the divergence anywhere from 3 to 13 million years ago. From the press release: The scientists analyzed the largest data set yet of genes that code for proteins…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Dorothea Salo

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked my SciBling Dorothea Salo to answer a few questions. Here are the questions. No rush. Remember that you are free to add, delete, fuse, split or edit the questions: Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more…

Extra, Extra

Here's your weekly round-up of fun and fascinating: To start with, I did a 6-part series on numerical cognition and the development of math skills, here and at Child's Play: 1. The Developmental Origins of Numerical Cognition 2. What is Dyscalculia? How Does It Develop? 3. Developmental Dyscalculia Explained: Strategy, Memory, Attention 4. Numbers on the Brain: Neurobiology of Mathematics For an evolutionary perspective, there were the two companion pieces this week here: 5. What Are The Origins of Large Number Representation? 6. The Origins of Small Number Representation Science From Lucas…

ConvergeSouth05 - Creative Branding on Blogs

What's a bloggercon without a discussion of traffic and how to raise it... Continuing the ongoing coverage of ConvergeSouth.... Saturday afternoon - the last session of the day. Michael Cobb Bowen, aka Cobb, is one cool dude. He runs a conservative blog AND a progressive blog. He is a smart African-American conservative blogger (no knee-jerk Regressive a la Hindrocket or Vox Day - but a serious and respectable thinker) whom I had the honor of meeting (and sharing one interesting car ride with) last week. Now, I can make a lame excuse about being tired at the end of the day and worn-out by…