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Fornvännen's Autumn Issue On-Line

The full text of Fornvännen's October issue, 2009:3, has come on-line thanks to our excellent cyber cowgirl Gun Larsson. Joakim Goldhahn (the guy heading the project where they found the sun chariot carving last week) shows that one of the carved slabs at Kivik, in Sweden's most famous Bronze Age burial, actually made a temporary reappearance on site in the 19th century before getting lost again. Johnny Karlsson interprets what the 11th/12th century settlement under the modern town of Södertälje was like from the cuts and species of animal bones found there. Anders Huggert discusses…

July Pieces Of My Mind #3

Excavation finished, team scattered. Now for three weeks' vacation! This Walter Jon Williams story has two Andean pan pipe bands and a Californian figure swimming troupe that all operate as secret intelligence agents. Interesting jetsam around the shores of the island today. The flip-flop was pretty good. But the rifled camera bag was exceptional. It contained only a wallet, a little fabric case and a blister pack for hypertension medication, all empty. But the case is branded for a camera dealer in Busan, South Korea. I like cormorants. In fact, I think it's more important that cormorants…

Welcome Sarah Avery and the News & Observer Science and Medicine Blog!

Following on the heels of the ScienceOnline'09 conference, I was delighted to learn this morning that our local fishwrapper has launched its own Science and Medicine blog. Led by N&O science editor, Sarah Avery, the Science and Medicine blog will expand upon the surprisingly sparse coverage of one of the most scientifically dense areas of the United States: The Triangle is home to a wealth of medical and scientific research. While the nature of scientific advancement is incremental, many of these findings help advance our understanding of important diseases, drug therapies and natural…

Drilling down for doubt: The latest Pew suvery on religion

The Pew Forum surveys on what Americans think always churn out fascinating results. The latest one, released Monday, is no exception. My favorite tidbit emerges from the clever decision to drill down past the simple question of whether the recipient believes in god to a more sophisticated understanding. Of particular interest on the Island of Doubt is the question of just how certain are people of faith about what they believe. The answer, which is drawn from 34,000 Americans polled, is that only 71 % are absolutely certain that their god exists. The means the other 29 % harbor some degree of…

At AAAS, a Focus on Framing Science

Yesterday at AAAS, a crowd of 250 attendees overflowed into the hallway, as we gathered for a fascinating panel discussion about media coverage of climate change. The amazingly successful event was organized by Cristine Russell of Harvard University and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Andrew Revkin shared his observations as an agenda-setter in covering the story for the NY Times and more recently in launching the Pulitzer worthy blog Dot.earth. Revkin reports that the blog now has more than 300,000 monthly readers. In my presentation, I discussed how research in the area…

A Darwinian Debt

While finishing up graduate school, I worked for the Irish government on on a project to study fish stocks in the Irish Sea - this involved modelling biological and economic aspects with a view to the long term survival of the stocks. This, therefore, caught my eye: Why does it take so long for fish stocks to recover from over-fishing? This problem has been worrying both scientists and fishery managers who expect stocks to quickly rebound when fishing stops. Now a research team from Stony Brook University [SUNY Stony Brook?] believes they have an answer: continually harvesting the largest and…

Our first year with ScienceBlogs

ScienceBlogs is celebrating its first birthday with a wonderful portrait of the entire ScienceBlogs family. It's not quite a year yet (I think we were officially online on January 11, 2005), but if they're happy to celebrate early, so are we! Greta and I shouldn't be too hard to find in the picture -- but the artwork's a little misleading. Greta looks much better in person, and I look much worse! It's been a fabulous year, and a wonderful group to work with. In addition to the bloggers, Katherine, Tim, Sarah, and the others who work tirelessly behind the scenes to bring you this site deserve…

The DI Rebuttal

Okay, the "rebuttal" (PDF) of my work from the Discovery Institute went online early today. So I have at least gotten to peruse it briefly. I can't allege that I was "surprised" by it, though the timing of its release remains curious. Anyway, you can peruse the document yourself, here, and compare it with my chapter on ID. I've done so, and, well...I'll tell you my opinion later. This is the time for your own reactions. P.S.: Casey Luskin came to my talk last night. I appreciate his openness to hearing the other point of view, and he seems like a perfectly nice guy. However I gave him a…

10 Days To Go... Enter The 1st Annual CRASH THE INTERSECTION Contest

Well, we've gotten some creative entries so far... With two weeks left, Chris and I want to remind everyone about the The 1st Annual CRASH THE INTERSECTION Contest! Design an "Intersection" banner and have your art displayed atop our blog for at least one year where the world can be dazzled by your creativity and wit! That's thousands of views a day all credited to you! We like to mix things up so there are no guidelines as long as it's not rated NC-17. Out-of-the-box ideas encouraged and keep the theme in mind: An Intersection of Science, Policy, and Pop Culture. Maximum size that…

Google Earth and Your Privacy

One of my students mentioned the other day that she was mortified when she found her house in Northeast Minneapolis on Google Earth. Just for fun, she was flying around on Google Earth and decided to stop in and see her own crib. It turns out that the local photograph of her home on Google Earth had been taken in the latter, very messy, phase of a giant yard sale. So her house looks like total trash. "Who cares?" you might ask? Well, anyone who might like to put their home on the market, for instance. Well, it turns out that a Pittsburgh couple is suing Google for "mental suffering" and…

Service Animals on the Radio, a Horse Fetching a Beer, Plus Blog Maintenance Downtime

In a display of stunningly bad timing given all the comments people have been posting here in recent days, the entire ScienceBlogs network will be down from 1pm today until sometime Saturday (or whenever they're done) for a system upgrade. I won't be able to post, and readers won't be able to comment, until the system is back online (alas). If there's some pressing breaking news while this network is down, I'll post it on my old blog here. But I doubt that will happen. Please check back in a day or so to post your comments or, if you simply can't wait, you can email them to me via the…

Joyce Lee Malcolm's article in Reason online

Joyce Lee Malcolm's article in Reason online is here In that article she claims that "And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime [in England] more than doubled." and asserts that this increase was caused by British gun control. It took me less than five minutes to find the official English crime statistics. Going to the section on violent crime I find the following: "Estimates from the BCS reveal large and consistent falls in violent crime overall since 1995." "Longer-term trends in violence overall continue to show significant declines. Comparison of results…

Science and Reason 2011: Future Watch

Atheists Talk, #98, January 2, 2011 As 2010 rolls out, we all hope the future is bright for 2011. Along with hope, there's always hype. Bringing us a reality check from their areas of expertise are these savvy thinkers: Greg Laden, bio anthropologist and bogger for Scienceblogs.com, will give his top ten list of science stories for 2010, with commentary on the new field of paleogenomics Maggie Koerth-Baker, science journalist and writer for BoingBoing.net, will talk about the Future of Energy in the US Steve Borsch, media trend expert at Connecting the Dots, has insights for a year of…

Not dead yet, not really back yet

I don't usually go nine days between posts, but... You can blame ALA Annual 2009 in Chicago for most of that. I (still) travel without technology, so no blogging from ALA--and also no keeping up with blogs, FriendFeed, etc. (but email once or twice in the hidden Internet room in the exhibits). There's also getting ready for Chicago... and catching up from Chicago, which is likely to take another day or two. Particularly since it's mixed in with continued "trying to fix wifi/internet" (which may finally be fixed, by replacing both modem and router)--and dealing with people doing quotes for…

... or Convenient Fiction? News at 11

For those of you in the Bay Area, look for me on TV tonight. I just taped an interview serving as a counterpoint to the AEI and Pacific Research Institute-backed documentary "An Inconvenient Truth ... or Convenient Fiction?" Tonight is its World Premeire in San Francisco. Click here for the official line on the documentary. Barring breaking news, look for the story on San Francisco's KGO-TV ABC 7 at 11 tonight. If it makes the web, I'll be sure to blog it tomorrow. The documentary is presented by Dr. Steven Hayward. By reputation, it does not refute global warming, just humanity's role in…

If the Coral is a Hoppin' Don't Come a Knockin'

It has been one amazing coraliscious week! I'm learning a ton and have enjoyed the guest articles and all the blogger contributions. Maybe you just can't get enough coral, like me?? Well have I got the cure! As Bruce Dickinson might have said had known how fabulous deep sea coral is, "Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more coral!" Michael Barton attempts a remedy by dispersing some Darwin for us. Darwin Online now has an article (open access) by Rosen in 1982, published in BioScience, describing Darwin's earliest work in... you guessed it... coral reefs! Have had…

Bing on the rise, or the diversification of search?

Bing Keeps Gaining Ground: For August, Bing's share of the American search market came in at 9.3 percent, up from 8.9 percent in July and 8.4 percent in June. Perhaps more importantly, Bing's growth didn't come at the expense of Yahoo (YHOO), which held steady at 19.3 percent. For the first time, Bing took market share away from Google, which dropped a tenth of a point to 64.6 percent of the market. (AOL was the big loser here, losing a tenth of a point to fade to a dismal 3 percent share.) I actually stopped using Bing. I liked its UI for many tasks, but Google's breadth and relevance of…

"My America" Meets Healthcare

'Her America' is disappearing. Supposedly, this is a bad thing. (Doug Mills/New York Times) TPM reports the following from a town meeting about healthcare in Arkansas: The attendees' overall theme was that their way of life was being destroyed... "At this point in my life, I have never seen my America turned into what it has turned into, and I want my America back," said one woman, on the verge of tears. "And I don't think the Representatives and Senators are gonna be able to do it. I'm scared!" Her America. Not our America (of course, were she to use "our America", I suspect she wouldn't…

Why Quantitative Easing Is the Worst Possible Response to the Crisis...

...except maybe--and that's a very, very tentative maybe--doing nothing; I'll get to that later. Tyler Durden: ....what will be far more important to end consumers will be the push higher in food and energy costs. The problem, however, is that for the lowest 20% of Americans, as per the BLS, food and energy purchases represent over 50% of their after-tax income (a number which drops to 10% for the wealthiest twenty percentile). In other words should rampant liquidity end up pushing food and energy prices to double (something that is a distinct possibility currently), Ben Bernanke may have…

Here Comes Science!

I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, "We've got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?", and so I nonchalantly type back, "Sure, here's my address," which was really hard to do when you understand that I was dancing jigglety-pigglety in my chair, pumping my fists in the air, and shouting "WOO-HOO!" at the same time. It would have been impossible except for my blogging superpowers. (Oh, yeah…I'm a TMBG fanboi.) I got the album Here Comes Science the other day, and it is fabulous. It's kids' music, so…

The Plant Liberation Front

Gautam Naik covers an interesting development in Switzerland. Scientists there must now justify the ethics of genetic research on plants: Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. He eventually got the green light. The rule, based on a constitutional…

Putting the foxes in charge

Barack Obama's chief economic advisor, the guy we're all going to have to rely on to pull the economy out of the mess it is in, is Larry Summers. We cannot trust Larry Summers. He's in the pocket of the people responsible for our problems. Among the firms that paid Summers large amounts in speaking fees include J.P. Morgan Chase. That bank offered the former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary $67,500 for a February 1, 2008 engagement. It has received $25 billion in government bailout funds. Citigroup, which has received $50 billion in taxpayer help, paid Summers $45,000 for a speech…

Fast Car

Some days, we learn too much about everything that we prostitute so we can have a wee bit of belonging and meaning in our lives. Today has been one of those days for me; Fast Car by Tracy Chapman You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Anyplace is better Starting from zero got nothing to lose Maybe we'll make something But me myself I got nothing to prove You got a fast car And I got a plan to get us out of here I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money We won't have to drive too far…

Autism-Spectrum Skepticism

[More blog entries about skepticism, superstition; skepticism, skepsis, vidskepelse.] I recently found out that some of Sweden's most influential science journalists like to refer, among themselves, to the Swedish Skeptics Society as "The League of Asperger Patients Against Superstition". It ain't pretty, and it ain't surprising. Skeptics need to learn from this. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) begins its list of Asperger Syndrome symptoms thus: Qualitative impairment in social interaction; The presence of restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors…

Weekend Diversion: The Monster Engine

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keeffe There are secret dreams, hopes, and fears that live inside the heads of all of us. And it's one of the highest forms of art to release those internal visions in ways that touch other people. This week, the song I've picked for you is the little-known (and now-defunct) band Groovulous Glove, and their funk masterpiece, Draw the Line.But what I'm most excited to show you is a true brilliancy: The Monster Engine, from artist Dave DeVries. (All images here taken from…

Two Dinosaur Books for the Kiddies

previously reviewed Giant Dinosaurs of the Jurassic is a children's book for kids in third to fifth grade or, in my opinion, a little younger. Certainly this is an excellent choice, because of the cool illustrations, of a book to read aloud to the pre-literate little ones. Author Gregory Wenzel does a good job in few words explaining life in the Jurassic, how bones get to become fossils, and something about how they are found. Most of the riveting several hundred words in this 32 page book are about the real stars of the show, the dinosaurs themselves. Not every single dinosaur in this…

Pop Culture Notes

Miscellaneous pop-culture items from the last couple of weeks: -- I'm apparently a sucker for half-finished music, as I bought Dylan's Witmark Demos album a week or so ago, and Springsteen's The Promise, a collection of stuff recorded between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, last night. The Springsteen stuff is more polished, but I haven't listened to it as much (obviously). -- Also in the recent-purchases shuffle play: Guster, Old 97's, the Thermals, Kings of Leon, and Cee Lo Green. This is, as you might imagine, not the most consistent listening experience. -- I kind of hate…

The Perverse Economics of College Construction

I'm having a little trouble typing, because the temperature in my office at the moment is around 55 F, and my hands are getting really cold. This is because of "deferred maintenance," which means "we're saving money by not maintaining the air-handling systems in our academic buildings (among other things)." The budget has been tight every year since I got here, and this building is fairly old, so things don't work as well as they might. The background noise while I'm typing is the sound of construction on the new Wold Building (webcam link). This is a multi-million-dollar new building…

The "authority" argument

Having torn a thin strip off statician William Briggs recently for what seems to me to be a disingenuous attack on the climatology community, it seems only fair to commend him for a succinct and poignant post, this time on the nonsensical argument over who's allowed to criticize. Briggs, tired of being criticized for criticizing the anthropogenic global warming consensus because he's not a full-time climatologist, points out that ...the public-comment restriction must, by logic, go both ways. If you are not allowed to offer negative commentary because you are not a climatologist, then you are…

One Day to Go: Til the Katrina Anniversary, That Is

Well, the paperback is officially out now (though I haven't yet seen it in an actual store...) Books continue to ship from Amazon and, I assume, from other outlets. Meanwhile, tomorrow is the anniversary of Katrina. I'm going to have some more politically oriented thoughts on this later, but here just a brief personal recap: * My Mom just had her destroyed house in Lakeview bulldozed--finally. This was a huge relief. It took forever to make it happen--just like everything does in New Orleans. * Neither my Dad nor my younger brother sustained much damage to their houses due to the sheer luck…

Milton Friedman Dies at 94

Milton Friedman has passed: Milton Friedman, the grandmaster of conservative economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward lesser government and greater reliance on free markets and individual responsibility, died today. He was 94 years old. A spokesman for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation confirmed his death. Conservative and liberal colleagues alike viewed Mr. Friedman as one of the 20th century's leading economic scholars, on a par with giants like John Maynard Keynes, Joseph A. Schumpeter and Paul Samuelson. Flying the flag of economic…

Two Dinosaur Books for the Kiddies

Giant Dinosaurs of the Jurassic is a children's book for kids in third to fifth grade or, in my opinion, a little younger. Certainly this is an excellent choice, because of the cool illustrations, of a book to read aloud to the pre-literate little ones. Author Gregory Wenzel does a good job in few words explaining life in the Jurassic, how bones get to become fossils, and something about how they are found. Most of the riveting several hundred words in this 32 page book are about the real stars of the show, the dinosaurs themselves. Not every single dinosaur in this book is truly giant,…

Sex, Evolution and Sweden

One last note on the whole Spitzer affair. The reason I think it's dangerous to use the sexual habits of other species (or even other human cultures) as a baseline when discussing prostitution is that the evolutionary argument has very clear policy implications. If, as David Barash argued, sexual infidelity is not only natural but normal and inescapable, then you'd have a strong argument for the legalization of prostitution. (Let's call this the Netherlands model.) After all, why criminalize what can't be helped? However, if you believe that our sexual urges, while powerful, can still be…

Pseudonymity: Five Reasons the New Scienceblogs/NG Policy is Misguided

Recently, Scienceblogs/National Geographic decided it would no longer host pseudonymous science bloggers. As a result, many of my former colleagues have left. I think this decision was wrong. Read on for my reasons. One: simple fairness. Several well-established pseudonymous bloggers had been active here for years. While it's perfectly reasonable to set up a media site from scratch and institute a "no pseudonymous blogging" policy at that time, it's quite another to change the rules and evict members of an established community. It violates my sense of fairness; it's why we usually expect…

Studying "disparities" in access to "complementary and alternative medicine"

When it comes to the use of what is sometimes called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, increasingly, "integrative medicine," there is a certain narrative. It's a narrative promoted by CAM proponents that does its best to convince the public that there is nothing unusual, untoward, or odd about CAM use, even though much of CAM consists of treatments that are based on prescientific concepts of human physiology and pathology, such as traditional Chinese medicine or homeopathy. In other words, it's a narrative designed to "normalize" CAM usage (and therefore CAM practice), making…

Mr. Republican lawmaker, have you purchased private health insurance lately?

Just as Republican lawmakers have been hyping the virtues of purchasing private health insurance----versus the evils of "Obamacare"----my husband Jim and I needed to do just that. I had been writing a check for $659 each month to maintain health insurance coverage under my former employer's plan, as provided by COBRA. After 18 months, it was due to expire. The time had come for us to venture into the Republicans' fantasy land of the free marketplace for health insurance. We took a deep breath and dove in. The first thing we learned is that you don't really purchase health insurance. You…

No FoxNews debate, after all

Following the Edwards lead, Bill Richardson also pulled out of the FoxNews Nevada debate effectively killing it. The current frame in the media and online is that Fox News is not a legitimate news source.

Liberally Skeptical!

Carnival of the Liberals 28: Christmas Edition is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted). Carl Sagan (Pseudo) Memorial / Demon Haunted World (Pseudo) Homage / [50th] Skeptics' Circle is up on Humbug Online.

Denial101x MOOC Full List of Videos...

The recently produced Massive Open Online Course on climate science denial is chock full of great videos that should be at everyone's fingertips. HERE is a list of the videos. Use it well and powerfully.

Skepticality's 100th Show

Skepticality, one of my favourite podcasts, just put its 100th show on-line! Swoopy and Derek have been going strong now for four whole years! Always good for in-depth science-friendly interviews.

Making segments

My latest column for Seed is now available online. It's an abbreviated summary of how vertebrates make segments (so it's illustrated with a fly…), with special emphasis on the global and clocklike mechanism we use.

Lawrence Lessig on Remix and Digital Culture

I had the opportunity to see this live in April. I had never heard of Lawrence Lessig prior to this presentation, but I haven't been able to forget it. I'm so pleased to have found it online.

The next best thing to owning your own copies

Yes! You can now read the complete works of Charles Darwin free, online. Since an original copy of The Origin will set you back roughly $50,000, last I heard, this is a really good deal.

Help Evolution In Florida!

Ed Brayton asks us to sign this online petition "...to keep the pressure on the state Board of Education to adopt the new proposed science standards as they are ..." Please go do it.

Someone's Trying to Play Us

Via Bora, I found a somewhat alarming article. Apparently, it's being claimed, the Lobbying reform law currently in the senate will require bloggers (among other people) to register and file quarterly reports with congress or face possible jail time, "the same as the big K Street lobbyists." Calling it "the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever," the article in question hopes to stir a grassroots swell of oposition to this particular portion of the law. Being a blogger, this naturally caught my interest, so I went and looked at the law. Then at the source of the article. It…

The state of Texas

Steven Schafersman is the president of Texas Citizens for Science, and he sent along a status report for Texas — it's not all bad news, and of course it's always good to see a strong, active organization defending science in the state. I've put the full report below. ICR I talked to many individuals in Austin. I had several good conversations with THECB Commissioner Raymund Paredes. He is really a good guy and we got along well. He understands Austin politics, and is now completely knowledgeable about Creationism in general and ICR in particular, and since we traded several email messages…

Nature Neuroscience: Focus on Glia

Ever since I started to learn about brains, back in the mid 1980s, from some really brainy brain experts like Terry Deacon and Joe Marcus, I always knew that glial cells were important. But I now read in current material in Nature Neuroscience, that "A decade ago, glia were the neglected stepchildren of neuroscience. Although glia outnumber neurons by about ten to 1 in the adult human brain, providing support for neurons has traditionally been viewed as their primary function. Glial biology has come into its own recently, as researchers have shown that glia are critical for the development…

Science Blogging Conference - Blog and Media Coverage

You can follow the conversation about the Conference by checking in, every now and then, the Blog and Media Coverage page on the wiki. The links to date can also be found under the fold... If you want your posts to be easily detected and included in the listing, please use 'scienceblogging.com' as a tag, or as text or link inside your post. Media Coverage Raleigh News & Observer (Dan Barkin): Bloggers to talk science BlueSci, Cambridge UK (Mica Tatalovic), pp.30-31: Science Blogging (pdf) BT Catalyst (NC Biotechnology Center): The BT Catalyst Interview with Christopher R. Brodie M.…

Porn causes tsunamis and earthquakes

Powerful stuff, that porn. The Indonesian Minister of Communication and Information (who must be very smart to have a title like that) has determined that recent natural disasters in his country are a consequence of the ubiquity of pornographic DVDs. His logic is something like this: 1) it is a fact that one can easily buy porn in local markets, and 2) it is a fact that the Padang earthquake killed over a thousand people and that the Aceh tsunami devastated an entire region, therefore 3) it is a fact that the two are causally related. Well, point 3 is a little shaky, but 1 and 2 are so strong…

Great bathroom reading?

I have mixed feelings about this: a first-edition copy of Darwin's Origin of Species has been discovered, which is, of course, great — I do wish I had the pocket change to drop £60,000 to buy it for myself. The weird part is that it was found in the guest bathroom of an old house in Oxford. Apparently, someone thought the Origin was perfect light, occasional reading for visitors attending to certain private physiological functions, which is nice, if a little trivializing. It's a bit odd, though, that they put the book there and no one seems to have bothered to notice it for 150 years. I am…